SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW
 

Charlotte Bray, Mozart and Suk: Pierre-Laurant Aimard (piano), London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding (conductor) Barbican Hall, London 23.5. 2010 (GD)

Charlotte Bray: Beyond a Fallen Tree.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No.21 in C, K 467
Josef Suk: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op 27 'Asrael'

I didn't always have the sense in this concert that French keyboard virtuoso Pierre - Laurant Aimard and conductor Daniel Harding were in complete accord in Mozart’sK 467. Harding emphasised the 'Maestoso' in the C major first movement, but on occasion introduced quite arbitary ritardandos, notably at the beginning of the development section. And one has come to expect more tonal lucidity and rhythmic finesse in Mozart. The punctuation of 'galant' quasi marcato cadences in the woodwind, trumpets and drums in the opening orchestral ritornello need much more bounce and elegance than was heard tonight. In the striding  upward C major figure which leads to the first movement cadenza, the whole orchestra almost fell apart with one or two notes lost in a serious collapse of ensemble. Aimard played his own quite brilliant cadenzas improvised from a wide range of the movement’s themes but the coda’s bravura C major cadences lost their effect with too loud and booming timpani and almost inaudible trumpets.

The F major Andante started well with beautifully veiled  playing on muted strings, but as the movement progressed Harding seemed intent on drawing out every tonal dissonance causing the tempo to drag and virtually losing the tonal contrast of A flat major at the start of the recapitulation. Throughout Aimard played very well, although, as already suggested, I had the impression thathe wanted to move on more than the conductor seemed willing to allow. The gavotte-like rondo finale went quite well with good sense of  'Allegro vivace' but even here there was a certain lack of swagger.  Mozart's exquisitely elegant orchestration was reduced to a certain unidiomatic   tonal heaviness, partly to do with the deployment of a large string section with four double basses. Again though, Aimard's brilliant projection of the movement’s short cadenza was a joy.

Harding delivered big and bold rendition of Suk' s fascinating 'Asrael' symphony with plenty of loud dramatic brass playing and very prominent timpani and percussion all the way through. Although  one commentator has described the symphony (paraphrasing Janaček) as  a 'vast intimate letter for orchestra', the idea of the work, as a kind of Czech requiem for both Suk’s mentor Dvořak and his daughter Otilie, whom Suk married, and who both died by the time Suk was 31, is quite well known. There is certainly much about this work which speaks at both a very intimate level and of wider epic tragedy yet it was in the more lyrical parts of the work, especially the second movement 'Andante' and the 4th movement 'Adagio' where I would have welcomed a more sustained and hushed sense of intimacy. Most of the time, the Andante was too thick textured and lacked lyrical flow. This movement resembles a quasi-funereal march, and actually begins with a quotation from Dvorak's own Requiem, an ethereal, almost spectral, ascending  phrase on first violins. Tonight,  there was a lack of sustained pianissimo tension here, the strings playing too loudly and without the extra subtlety, and mystery, found by many Czech conductors. The third movement 'Scherzo' also lacked the incredible sense of rhythmic diversity and contrast found by the Czechs and the scherzo’s concluding majestic flourish of octaves sounded merely loud and coarse. The 'fourth movement 'Adagio, ' with its deep and resonant bass-line tonalities and filigree of concertante-like flourishes for solo violin, sounded quite superficial tonight; more like a rehearsal run through. The fortissimo timpani fanfare figure which opens the last movement, also sacrificed dramatic incisiveness to mere loudness, and the initial tutti statement of the death motive was unecessarily rushed and scrambled. I didn't have much sense here of the final as being a huge de crescendo, where the death motive’s drama and tragedy transmogrifies into the C major calm  which concludes the work. 

The great first movement 'Andante sostenuto' lacked symphonic 'line', the various E major variations  did not cohere sounding more like separate sectional statements. And when we reached the unleashing of  death motive in all its C minor fury punctuated by the repeated four-note bass drum figure,  Harding did achieve a certain stern relentless tread which was, however, compromised by his quite arbitrary introduction of an accelerando at the climax of the passage. Also, as noted, the playing was often too loud. The four-note bass drum figure was more like an fff than the composer's f marking. Conductors like Kubelik have demonstrated that a single f here, producing a dry but incisive punctuated bass-drum timbre, sounds far more dramatically effective. Such powerfully dramatic moments require much more than mere loudness to make their maximum effect.   And overall, this and other cardinal moments in the score, benefit from  a much keener sense of evolving from the underlying symphonic/motivic structure - coming from within rather than overlaid from without - and ensuring the right degree of overwhelming dramatic/dynamic contrast. All this was mostly lacking in tonight's offering.

The concert opened with a new orchestral work by the British composer Charlotte Bray, commissioned by the LSO and sponsored by UBS, thus gaining the title, along with other such commissions of  'UBS Soundscapes' . Bray’s work was convincing, both in its economy and impressive  compositional technique. As the title suggests, the work (which lasts just over twelve minutes) makes musical allusions found in the poetry of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The imagery here is of a shipwreck, but the metaphor of the 'shipwreck' also takes on a more allegorical meaning suggestive of the themes of loss, abandonment, trauma, mourning, grief and tears, suggested in the opening 'Lacrymosa' tone of the piece. Bray uses quasi-serial episodes of antiphonal,  canonic paragraphs initiated in the strings ( first and second violins crucially divided here to produce the required antiphonal effect) but also dispersed among the brass and woodwind. The piece is in basically in three sections, each punctuated by bi-tonal chorale figures in the brass and woodwind which juxtapose with more melodic material. I was particularly impressed with Bray’s astute sense of economy, not only in the overall terse structure of the piece, but also in the quite austere, but beautiful, orchestration in which there is never anything for  mere effect. Harding and the orchestra gave a sympathetic rendition of the piece but here and there I would have welcomed a more diverse and agile string texture. Even so this sounded, in the absence of a score, a convincing delivery of a most impressive work.  Charlotte Bray came up on stage from the audience to modestly acknowledge the applause. 

Geoff Diggines