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Haydn, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Bartok: BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Vilde Frang (violin), Thomas Søndergård (conductor), Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, 4.12.2010 (GPu)

Haydn, Symphony No.92, ‘Oxford’

Sibelius, Violin Concerto

Stravinsky, Symphony in Three Movements

Bartok, Sonata for Solo violin

Have you heard the one about the young soloist who was trapped for two days in the snow in Copenhagen and finally arrived in Cardiff at three in the morning on the day of the concert; who arrived without her luggage which the airlines concerned had helpfully sent to some quite other destination; who had half an hour’s rehearsal with the orchestra; who had to play the concert wearing a borrowed dress and borrowed shoes – and proceeded to give a glorious, almost overwhelming performance of Sibelius’ very difficult Violin Concerto and (in what was advertised as a ‘Post-concert Coda’) negotiated the technical demands of Bartok’s Sonata for unaccompanied violin in a performance that found the emotional core of the piece in remarkable and memorable fashion? Well, you have now.

The Norwegian Vilde Frang is in her mid-twenties and, already a remarkable musician, surely still has some of her best musical days ahead of her. She made light of the difficulties she had had; in a strange way they may even have contributed to the nature of her performance. She has already recorded (in what is her debut CD) the Sibelius concerto with this very same conductor – and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln (EMI CLASSICS 6 844132); so she had the advantage, presumably, of knowing the tempi, etc., that Thomas Søndergård was likely to prefer. But the lack of thorough rehearsal with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was surely part cause of the extraordinary feeling of spontaneity that characterised her interpretation; rarely have I felt so absolutely the sense that what the soloist was playing was somehow being ‘invented’ in the very moment of playing, not performed according to a printed score (which isn’t meant to suggest that she was in any way unfaithful to Sibelius’ score). The passionate intensity of Frang’s performance was astonishing (as was the technical discipline of her playing).

I can honestly say that this concerto has never moved me so much, live or recorded. Originally written at a troubled time in the composer’s life (though later revised) the solo part is full of technical difficulties; one was simply not conscious of them or the surmounting of them on this particular occasion, being too engrossed in the sense of the music’s sheer necessity, of its inevitability and, paradoxically, of its power to surprise. From the extraordinary delicacy of her opening notes, snow seen through lace, to the fiery, intense drive of what followed in the first movement, she compelled attention, not to herself, but to the music. This was music fierce with the wisdom of pain. In the adagio the subtle colours of Frang’s playing constructed the sense of an interior world in which all hints of the merely lush (the besetting sin of some performances of this concerto) were avoided; having negotiated with ease the passages of two-part counterpoint, the movement’s closing bars carried absolute conviction. In the closing allegro utter technical certainty was perfectly complemented by passion of attack; there was an unforced grandeur and an irresistible momentum to this playing. Frang may perhaps find a little more in the adagio in later years, but otherwise it is hard to imagine ‘improvements’ to this reading. Frang’s obvious confidence in Thomas Søndergård’s direction of the orchestra no doubt helped, and the playing of the BBC National Orchestra – in whose ranks one sensed a real respect for both conductor and soloist – was of the highest order, especially in the strings and the woodwinds.

The performance of Haydn’s Oxford Symphony which had opened the programme was characterised by the rhythmic alertness and precision of Søndergård’s conducting, not least in the unorthodox minuet, as well as in the lithe muscularity of the opening allegro, where accents were hit on the button without any loss of fluency. The quasi-hymnal first melody of the adagio was nicely articulated and later passages had a profound poise and sublimity. The inventive playfulness and contrapuntal panache of the closing presto, full of fleet work by the violins, was exhilarating, and this was a performance which responded equally to the strength and humour, the tenderness and the energy of this remarkable symphony.

There was much to admire, too, in the performance of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements which closed the ‘official’ part of the programme. A work so full of fiercely accented rhythms seemed particularly suited to some of Søndergård’s most striking strength’s as a conductor. There was a pleasing clarity to Søndergård’s presentation of the music, both in the ferocity of the opening movement and in the contemplative repose of the second. Pianist Catherine Roe Williams and harpist Valerie Aldrich-Smith acquitted themselves very well indeed in their concertante roles, making significant contributions to the overall success of this reading of the work – a reading which almost persuaded me that it has more coherence than I suspect it really has!

The orchestra and conductor left the stage – after well-deserved acclamation – and a short wait was rewarded by the reappearance of Vilde Frang (surely exhausted!) to negotiate the little matter of Bartok’s fiendishly difficult Sonata for Solo Violin – and played it with intelligent expressiveness and well-nigh faultless technique. The formal intricacy of the opening movement – Tempo di ciaccona – was a model of structural clarity; the four-part fugue of the second movement emerged with more than usual lucidity and the (relative) simplicities of the third movement (Melodia) were an occasion for playing both ethereal and richly human. The closing Presto was by turns mysterious and beguilingly dancing.

A splendid concert – the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at its (nowadays considerable) best; a conductor who is surely going places and, in Vilde Frang perhaps the best young violinist to come my way since I first heard Alina Ibragimova.

Glyn Pursglove
 

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