SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Mendelssohn and Brahms :  Roberto Prosseda (piano); Elizabeth Watts (soprano); Stéphane Degout (baritone); London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Royal Festival Hall, London, 4.4.2009 (CC)


Roberto Prosseda’s recordings of Mendelssohn reveal a sensitive, searching musical persona. His musicological activities regarding the same composer, in locating manuscripts and arranging for completions to be made where appropriate, are entirely laudable – few, indeed, are the musicians who display this measure of dedication, scholarship and performance expertise. Prosseda is seemingly alone in making a habit out of giving Mendelssohn premieres. His Decca discs, Mendelssohn Discoveries (476 3038) and Mendelssohn Rarities (476 5277), are eminently worth searching out (distribution in the UK seems limited), as is his complete Lieder ohne Worte (billed as “First Complete Recording” and coupled with 4 Fugues) on 476 6796. The piece we heard in this concert, Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto completed by Marcello Bufalini, has also been recorded for Decca, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, a release I await with some anticipation.

The E minor concerto, heard on this occasion, was left incomplete. Mendelssohn was planning the work by 1843 and by 1844 had fully sketched the opening and sketched the remainder of the first movement and the slow movement. Only the third movement was left in fragments. Composition was interrupted due to Mendelssohn’s wife falling ill and the composer was not able to resume the work prior to his death. The MS is held at Oxford’s Bodleian library.

The work’s dramatic opening (slightly lightened by the conductor, as if to nod towards historically informed performance) leads very shortly to the entrance of the soloist. Prosseda is no regular visitor to the Festival Hall, but he played as if he was. The glistening, scintillating passagework was ideally projected. He is, too, ideally equipped for the fleet fingered technique Mendelssohn so vitally requires. One passage only made me question the “Mendelssohn-ness” of it all, a piano sequence of block chords, but certainly in the development section there were gestures and scorings that sounded like pure Mendelssohn.

There was no break between the Allegro molto vivace first movement and the central Andante. Here there really was some lovely scoring – initially heard on a pair of lilting oboes, the theme’s return on two clarinets was significantly enhanced by Prosseda’s gentle accompanying figuration before finally being shared between flutes and clarinets against pizzicato strings and  piano in octaves. The jolly finale included much play (and excellent articulation from Prosseda). If there is one criticism of the completion, it is that the coda sounded a little tacked-on, but it was scintillating none the less. A beautifully coloured and contoured Lied ohne Worte in F sharp minor was the encore.

I have dwelt long on the Mendelssohn, for the simple reason that it constituted a major event in both scholarly and performance terms. The same could not really be said for the Brahms German Requiem that followed. Both soloists had cancelled, leaving soprano Elizabeth Watts to deputise for Barbara Bonney, and baritone Stéphane Degout for Teddy Tahu Rhodes.

The young French Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Musical Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 2008 - see interview here. Ed)  who had accompanied the Mendelssohn so well, was perhaps less impressive when faced with Brahms’ great edifice. Much individual detail was excellent, from the well-shaped initial string phrases to the transparently-rendered scoring. Yet the long-range structural thought this piece so demands was largely absent. Only when the chorus entered in the second movement could one get even an inkling of the huge crescendo that Brahms is actioning. The inherent tension of the movement’s opening was absent. A sequence of point-making gestures throughout the interpretation seemed painted on to the score, interrupting its smooth progress. The best movement was the fourth, “Wie lieblich sind die Wohnungen”, which flowed uninterruptedly and had an apt lightness about it, but interpretatively this was a weak German Requiem.

The choir was superb, though, always well balanced and uniformly strong in all registers. Perhaps one could isolate the sopranos for special praise for their beautiful tone and unanimity in the final movement.

One felt for the soloists, of course, but still it needs to be recorded that Degout’s voice was generally fine but lacked depth and he did not have the measure of the acoustic (one wonders how much notice was given, and how much rehearsal they enjoyed), while Watts exhibited a quick (but not too distracting) vibrato for “Ich habt nun Traurigkeit”.

Colin Clarke


^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}