If you chose to believe the publicist’s puff, ‘historically informed’
performances will help to strip away years of stultifying musical
practice leaving works revealed in all their original glory. The claim
on the disc’s cover is that the music is “rendered freshly and vigorously
on period instruments … the masterful oeuvres of Musorgsky — the spelling
is a moveable feast — and Ravel will once again tickle every listener’s
imagination, and are bound to surprise with their scintillating sounds
and visionary qualities.” Just how valid a concept can be is all but
impossible to know for certain. Where we have a recorded legacy by
early or original performers the value is even more debateable.
What is
not in doubt is that the musicians in Anima Eterna
Brugge are brilliant technicians. Quite whether their artistic director
Jos van Immerseel works on a similar level of interpretative brilliance
is much more open to doubt. Strip away the obviously audible differences;
mellower woodwind and less strident brass and in fact these are rather
plain and occasionally under-characterised performances. The Ravel
Mother Goose Suite is considerably more successful overall
than the grander Mussorgsky orchestration. A beautifully sinuous flute
solo or gruff contra-bassoon — the playing of Séverine Longueville
is a characterful delight throughout the disc — bodes well. However,
comparison with any famous version: say Charles Munch in Boston on
RCA or Jean Martinon on EMI with the Paris Opera, reveals with the
former a far greater dreaming freedom and with the latter an
authentic
French orchestral sound. How much of the clarity of texture is the
result of the ensemble and how much good engineering is also open
to debate. I found myself wondering if the percussion instruments
used were modern reconstructions of older instruments – as timpani
and bass drum might well be – or simple good modern versions. The
cymbals and xylophone sound suspiciously modern. Also, the pitch is
very clearly modern – again would this be dictated by the use of ‘fixed’
modern tuned percussion?
Given that the entire disc plays for a ridiculously miserly sub-fifty
minutes I wonder why the more common five movement suite from
Mother
Goose was used and not the slightly extended complete ballet.
Another issue of authenticity raises its head with the famous Ravel
orchestration of Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition and
this is a question of scale. The liner lists the orchestral strength
of Anima Eterna Brugge as having 8 first violins, 8 second violins,
8 violas, 6 cellos and 5 double basses. Ravel made his orchestration
as a commission from Serge Koussevitsky. The first performance was
given in Paris on 3 May 1923 — the commission was in 1922 not 1920
as the liner states — but the first American performance was in November
1924 in Boston. Very interestingly the Boston Symphony archives are
available online including all their programmes. From the extensive
68 page ‘book’ for this important concert we learn that the string
strength of the BSO in the 1924-25 season was 31 violins (no division
between first and second violins is made), 12 violas, 10 cellos and
9 double basses. In other words not far off double the playing strength
on this disc. Regardless of bow types, string construction, vibrato
or fingerings this difference in number of personnel alone will have
a major audible impact and undermine the claims of authenticity for
this new disc. I cannot say for sure that the entire BSO string department
played in this concert but given the flagship nature of the work –
Koussevitsky retained exclusive performing rights for some years –
and its virtuoso nature I cannot imagine anything except the fullest
possible complement.
Performance pitch again is modern. There
are effective touches
in the performance – a lovely saxophone solo in
The Old Castle
including the bluesy bend into the very last note that I’m not sure
I’ve ever heard before – to the point it had me reaching for my score
to check. Solti, Szell, Svetlanov and Slatkin omit it completely.
Likewise the audible difference between the tongued flute figurations
of
The Tuileries contrasting perfectly with the same figures
played slurred by the oboes. The brass group does blend well with
a nicely cohered sound not led, as all too often, by an overly dominant
principal trumpet. For these felicities there are many disappointments.
The opening
Promenade suffers from some oddly short-breathed
phrasing away in the trumpet – the score has no indication to this
effect – it is marked simply
f with tenuto lines over each
note. The main issue is that time and again the music as performed
lacks wit or drama. The
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks or
the
Marketplace in Limoges are singularly earthbound.
The
Gnome is in no way a nightmarish character and
Baba Yaga
fails to thrill in the way it should. Every orchestra struggles to
make
The Great Gate of Kiev the crowningly powerful conclusion
Mussorgsky envisioned. This is basically because even an orchestral
genius such as Ravel could not translate the concept into a practical
orchestration that allows climax to pile on climax. All too often
– as here – one feels the maximum dynamic is reached well before the
final bars and then all the players’ efforts go into maintaining that
level at best. Immerseel wisely picks a fairly flowing tempo to compensate
for this but these are passages where you need every player on deck
and the lack of string weight shows again.
The ripely resonant recording – the Concertgebouw Bruges seems to
have a big resonant overhang noticeable whenever the bass drum in
particular is played - tries to compensate and overall it is technically
very good. The disc follows current fashion by being presented in
an attractively minimalist cardboard gate-fold sleeve with the liner
tucked into a slot on the inside front cover. The liner is in four
languages, French, English, Flemish and German. It is reasonably interesting
in a rather verbose way but has too many errors and inconsistencies
– the spelling of Musorgsky/ Mussorgski is one, in the track-listing
on page 3 giving the date of Ravel’s orchestration as 1942 is another,
saying
Baba Yaga flies through the air on a broomstick instead
of a pestle and mortar is a third. This is symptomatic of a lazy and
careless approach to the writing and proofing that I find unforgivable
in a premium price product. Others have found Immerseel’s approach
to similar repertoire revelatory, I was hoping for much more here
– a desert of disappointment with the occasional oasis of technical
brilliance.
Nick Barnard
Masterwork Index:
Pictures
at an Exhibition
