SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Prom 55,  Debussy, Peter Eötvos, Vaughan Williams, Ravel:  Philharmonia Orchestra (Susanna Malkki) conductor ( Akiko Suwanai) violin (Sarah Connolly) mezzo-soprano Royal Albert Hall 27. 8.2008  (GD)

Debussy: Prelude a L’apres-midi d’un faune

Peter Eötvos: Seven

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Ravel Shéhérazade: Daphnis et Chloe – Suite No 2


The Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki took over at quite short notice tonight from the advertised conductor Peter Eötvos with whom she has worked. I had heard Eötvos in a marvellous Bartok concert in Budapest a couple of years ago and was disappointed that he had pulled out of this prom due to health reasons. Listening to a recent recording of Eötvos in Stravinsky’s ‘La Sacre’ I have the strong impression that not only is he a major contemporary composer but he is also one of the few contemporary conductors I would pay to see or hear.

Very soon into Debussy’s first orchestral masterpiece I was disabused of any lingering feelings of disappointment. Malkki took the care to adhere to Debussy’s ‘piano’ marking for the opening flute solo; also she allowed enough interpretative space for the soloist to shape and contour the solo without too much conductorial underlining as often is the case. This was characteristic of her whole performance. Watching her very economic and precise gestures one could see how she was providing all the time the basic structural/metrical links and contours of the work; as in the contrasting pentatonic theme harmonised in B major which suggests the sumptuous D flat melody of the mid-section. On the whole the Philharmonia responded to the conductor excellently even if their string section did not quite match the heteroglossic clarity, tone and contrast of a recording I heard recently with Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic. The concluding and delicately luminous and shimmering tones on muted horns and haunting, exotic flute were atmospherically illuminated by the antique cymbals; perfectly timed and tuned.

Eötvos’s ‘Seven’, receiving its UK premiere tonight was composed in 2006 and revised in 2007 and is a memorial for the tragedy of seven astronauts who lost their lives in the Columbia catastrophe of 2003. Eötvos certainly had in mind Berg’s Violin Concerto when composing ‘Seven’ (the Berg also being a kind of Requiem for the death of Manon Gropius). But apart from the obvious emotional links to the Berg,  this work is quite distinct from the classical concerto tradition to which Berg’s work still basically adheres. With this in mind I would hesitate to call ‘Seven’ a violin concerto. The first of the two parts is entitled ‘Cadenza with accompaniment’; an initial inversion of the cadenza as marginal to the primary concerto corpus.

The main solo violin part is not so much in the solo register, as a dialogue  and commentary on the complex orchestral part. This dialogue is accentuated by the way in which Eötvos extends /  expands the violin register in purely textural terms. I have rarely heard the range of violin textural capabilities  recognised as fully as here; diatonic clusters, abrupt contrasts in lyricism and complex rhythmic configurations; amazing glissandos which occasionally take us into very remote tonal registers indeed. In one section just after the opening, the violin descends into what sounds like non-Western harmonies including those from the Far East and some more Arabic intonations. The seven obbligato violins Eötvos deploys representing the seven astronauts  were judiciously placed around the oval space of the hall giving the work an elaborated antiphonal even baroque quality. Eötvos deploys groups of orchestral players (brass, percussion, woodwinds, brass) which all adhere to the number 7 in grouping. The related number 14 is also deployed (in lower strings) as if to extend/punctuate the originals and the opening violin melody has 14 notes. The 7 antiphonal violins echoes are further initiated by the way in which the works groupings unfold in sevenfold rhythms; septuplets, or regular alternations of 3/8 and 4/8 metre.

Here Akiko Suwanai excelled. What technique! And there was nothing pre-packaged or mechanical here as Suwanai (and Malkki) fully registered the latitude Eötvos incorporates in the elliptical and discontinuous contour of the work: a kind of given dialectic between composition and interpreter which gives it the quality of a ‘work in progress’.

The Philharmonia iresponded excellently in all sections; the lower brass producing some superbly etched glissando growls and rasps while never obscuring important string/woodwind accompanying figurations. All attesting to Malkki’s rigour and attention to orchestral balance in rehearsal and performance.

What a contrast we had with Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’! From an avant- garde work in progress by a modern (post-modern?) Hungarian composer to a charmingly folksy idyll by someone resolutely English. Also the two works' themes could not be more contrasted; astronautical catastrophe with the fabled endlessly ruminant English pastoral scene. And despite the many recent rather contrived attempts to sex Vaughan Williams up, he remains for me very much in that English pastoral/cathedral tradition, never really exporting that well despite many attempts to do so. But this is by no means  to imply that his music is of a lesser quality. In its context I believe orchestral works like ‘Job’, the 4th, 6th  <sup>and 9th symphonies to be equal, if not superior to, any British orchestral works of the period. I initially wondered why such a contrasted work was chosen, but then I remembered the 2008 Proms are marking the anniversary of Vaughan Williams along with those of Messiaen and Carter. For me this performance was about as accurately and beautifully played as is possible with Suwanai releasing a range and contrast in the violin (lark) part that I had not previously imagined. Devotees of the composer will no doubt stick to the classic recording with the late Hugh Bean and Boult with the old New Philharmonia, and Bean delivers a far more simple, even folksy, rendition. I could not argue with this preference. This is partly to do with my meetings with Bean when I was working at Morely College where he used to rehearse regularly. A charming and most knowledeable man who would  I think, be the first to commend this very different view of the piece.

The two concluding Ravel works went extremely well. Sarah Connolly, whose training has been largely in the baroque repertoire,  sang the three ‘Poems’ from Shéhérazade most convincingly with very clear French pronunciation. And Malkki brought out all of Ravel’s marvellously subtle and discreetly exotic/erotic orchestral tones and nuances. Occasionally I thought Connolly’s rendition a tad literal, not really ‘operatic’ enough in the sense of distilling the strangely evocative opening ‘Asie’. And similarly a bit bland in the enormously sensuous/ambiguous last poem ‘L’indifferent’. Here I heard nothing of Tristan Klingsor’s evocation of androgeny in ‘Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille” (‘Your eyes are as gentle as a girl's’ though it always sounds better in French.) Just listen to this with Régine Crespin in the famous Ansermet recording; or the several recordings with de Los Angeles.  Here there is a total fascination not just with the ambiguous sultry meaning of the text, but with very sensuous texture the (‘jouissance’) of the vocal sounds and their many allusions. All quite absent in Connolly’s rendition tonight.

This most imaginatively programmed concert ended fittingly with a eminently well considered, beautifully played and exhilarating rendition of the ‘Daphnis et Chloe’ second suit. We are so used to hearing the whole ballet in our completist musical culture that we tend to forget that this suite makes an excellent concert piece in its own right. Especially compelling here was the transition from the ‘Pantomime’ mid-section to the concluding ‘Danse générale’ where Malkki’s gradation of dynamics and rhythm were as convincing as any I have heard in concert or on CD. I hope to hear more of Malkki who on tonight's showing is a major conducting talent. I hope she has the chance to come here more often and make more recordings. There remains the question of the historically inherent sexism which permeates the conducting profession although  recently there are signs that this may be very slightly losing its hold. But this is really the subject of a much more complex and extended essay, or book!.

Geoff Diggines</sup>