SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Strauss, Mozart, Ravel and Stravinsky: Jonathan Biss (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Royal Festival Hall, London, 16.1.2009 (BBr)

Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s lustige Streiche, op.28 (1895)
Mozart: Piano Concerto in Eb, K482 (1785)
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloë: Suite No2 (1910/1912)
Stravinsky: The Firebird: Suite (1919)


Marin Alsop is the real thing – a conductor with a brain and the ability to use it in bringing the music she is directing to vibrant life. She is especially aware of what is going on in the middle textures, tonight there was much that I had never been aware of before, and it was thanks to her insight that we were allowed this experience – what a fabulous pair of ears she has for balance. Why isn’t this woman leading one of the London orchestras? Whenever she is in town she appears like a breath of fresh air in our concert going.

This show got off to a cracking start with a bristling performance of Strauss’s Till. This is a real workout for an orchestra no matter where in the programme it appears and as an overture it must fill the orchestra with rather more trepidation than usual, but in Alsop’s safe hands the LPO threw itself into its task and, with bags of élan and aplomb, brought off a performance full of the broadest humour – but never forgetting that the gallows music is deadly serious, Till’s nose thumbing here having a quality of desperation about it. Thomas Watmough’s clarinet and Richard Bissell’s fine horn playing stood out as shining examples of great solo playing from within an ensemble.

K482 is one of Mozart’s grandest Concerto conceptions – a playing time of over 30 minutes and a large orchestra; no oboes, but two clarinets and trumpets and drums. Alsop fully understood that this work, like K466, is a bold, almost operatic, piece, but unlike its predecessor it is more Marriage of Figaro than Don Giovanni and she delivered the opening tutti with strength but never forced the music, as can happen here. Biss entered and played with a cool poise, but his approach lacked the heft required to point the many dramatic felicities offered to him: it was rather bland and uninteresting. His detached approach suited the slow movement well, the seeming tragedy was, at times, quite heartbreaking, but the finale returned to the feeling of the first movement and the end wasn’t the release one wanted, rather “here we are, we’ve got there” and I couldn’t have cared less. Biss is a fine pianist, no doubt about that, but his rather aloof performance was at odds with Alsop’s forthright vision and it simply didn’t suit the music.

After the interval came two great orchestral showpieces. The 2^nd Suite from Daphnis et Chloë is an Alsop party piece – I’ve heard several performances directed by her – and she has always displayed complete control of this somewhat complicated score. As with Till, the band played magnificently, especially welcome were Adam Walker’s solo flute in the Pantomime, Siobhan Grealy’s gorgeously sensuous bass flute, and the up-front timpani of Simon Carrington. It was a pity that, to end, Alsop chose the 1919 version of The Firebird for, with the massed forces necessary for Daphnis available to her, there was no reason why we shouldn’t have been given the 1910 Suite which uses Stravinsky’s original, and very opulent, scoring. OK, it robs us of the Berceuse and Finale, ending, as it does, with the Infernal Dance, but it’s a more elemental experience and Boulez has shown us that it works well as a concert piece. But I shouldn’t complain for Alsop gave us a very exciting and satisfying exposition of the 1919 score. Again, there were significant contributions from the players, I very much enjoyed Catherine Edwards’s playing of the (orchestral) piano part, which can so often be missed, and John Price’s playing of the Berceuse was beauty personified.

Bob Briggs


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