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Elgar Festival, Program 2 – The Spirit of Delight: Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo-soprano), Sydney Symphony, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Sydney, 7.11.2008 (TP)

Elgar: Serenade in E minor for strings, Op.20
Sea Pictures, Op.37
Symphony No.2 in E flat, Op.63


Vladimir Ashkenazy's role as Principal Conductor of the Sydney Symphony begins next year, but last year's Rachmaninov Festival and this year's Elgar Festival make it seem like he already belongs here.  So does the orchestra's sound when he is on the podium.

The first program in this Elgar Festival, which featured the cello concerto and the first symphony, received positive reviews, so expectations were high for this second program. They were not disappointed.

The concert opened with a delicate performance of the early Serenade for Strings.  The flowing first movement impressed with the sheer warmth of the string tone, rising from the basses up, and the deft response of the small complement of strings to Ashkenazy's gentle handling of dynamics.  The slow movement was almost eerily beautiful.  This was music of ardent rather than wistful sighs, with Ashkenazy broadening the tempo as the violins soared and coaxing his musicians to a close of hushed intensity.  After this, the final allegretto seemed almost anticlimactic, though the musicians admirably caught the subtle shifts of colour and mood in this deceptively simple movement.

The Finnish mezzo, Lilli Paasikivi, impressed in Sea Pictures.  With dictation–quality diction and a bright timbre that lit up even her lower register, her performance was by turns gentle and dramatic.  Elgar's song cycle is often criticised for the uneven quality of the poetry across the five songs, but he set each poem with care and a singer who respects this, as Paasikivi demonstrably does, is able to achieve a sense of unity, delivering the text with integrity so that Elgar's music can draw the songs together.  So it was tonight.  Paasikivi lulled the us in Sea Slumber-Song, communicated In Haven with disarming innocence, and delivered the different dramatic texts of Sabbath Morning at Sea and The Swimmer with a sense of danger and, later, exultation.

Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony were sensitive accompanists.  The ocean's ebb and flow were irresistible in Sea Slumber-Song, with splashes of colour from harp and horns catching the ear.  Elgar's delicate scoring for Where Corals Lie was elucidated at just the right flowing tempo.  The warmth and glistening beauty of the string tone in Sabbath Morning at Sea were glorious, the optional organ part adding heft to the close of The Swimmer.

Neither the limpid beauty of the Serenade nor the care and contrast of Sea Pictures prepared me for the performance of the Second Symphony that followed. The first movement did not take off like a coiled spring, but moved with power, Ashkenazy keeping flexible tempi.  The rich, heavy sound he drew from the orchestra was impressive – almost overwhelming - but there was flexibility here too, as moments of delicacy and an eerie depiction of the malign ghosts of memory surfaced and were swept away.

My critical faculties abandoned me in the second movement.  I was in the audience the last time the Sydney Symphony played Elgar's second, in 2001 under Edo de Waart.  I remember that performance fondly.  De Waart is an excellent Elgarian, and his interpretation was sleek and confident, a joy to hear and an impressive illustration of Elgar's mastery of symphonic form.  Form did not matter a jot to me tonight.  A few bars into the larghetto, I ceased to really be aware of a performance as such.  The emotional experience of this movement was suddenly incredibly vivid, as it never had been for me before.  There was no prospect of maintaining a stiff upper lip and paying attention to detail: my lower lip was trembling and I was swept along by the power of the music.  The rondo that followed offered no respite, bewildering with Puckish flights of notes before terrifying with its ostinato–driven phalanx of sound.  The finale brought relief and consolation, though not without reminders of terrors past; the coda was resplendent, but it was some time before I could join in the rapturous applause.

Ashkenazy's Elgar 2 was unashamedly emotive and emotional, unafraid of pushing climaxes and uninterested in notions of the composer's Englishness. Perhaps these qualities, departing as they do from a century of performance tradition, may have lessened some people's enjoyment of the performance, but “enjoyment” seems like such a facile word as I type this review a few hours after the concert with themes from the symphony still swirling through my mind.  This performance, this visceral experience of great music, played for all it is worth so that it communicates directly to the listener, is why we go to concerts.  It does not happen as often as we would like and the words of Shelley, quoted by Elgar in the published score of his second, suddenly seem remarkably apt:

    Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
    Spirit of Delight!

Tim Perry


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