In the July 2002 issue of International Record Review,
Piers Burton-Page, reflecting on the work of the music critic, wrote as
follows: "No point in telling them how to play: rather, assume that
every tempo, or phrasing, is consciously meant, and ask yourself why the
choice is made." I was immediately struck by these words, and they
are even more in my mind now as I’m called upon to give my opinion on
Sir Colin Davis’s readings of the three Elgar symphonies.
Of course if I actually liked these performances I
think things would be different – provided you stay in your place even
top professionals are happy to accept praise – but unfortunately I don’t.
A listener can certainly spend many profitable hours asking himself
"why the choice is made" in these cases, but whether they
represent even an admirable attempt to present Elgar’s scores in the
best possible light is very much open to question.
I have many Colin Davis interpretations on disc, and
most of them are absolutely marvellous. From Mozart to Tippett, from
Haydn to Stravinsky, he sheds new light on work after work, injecting
the music with life and revealing its structure in ways other conductors
don’t always manage. His recent Berlioz performances on LSO Live have
sometimes surpassed even his own earlier, pioneering efforts. So I was
looking forward enormously to hearing his Elgar symphonies – all the
more so having read several reviews – but the reality, though highly
instructive, has been a disappointment.
We have a forewarning of Davis’s manner at the outset
with the way he pulls up the tempo at the end of the ninth bar of the
first symphony’s opening movement, just before the restatement of the
main theme. This is an important rhetorical gesture a matter of seconds
into the work, especially in music of such textural and thematic simplicity,
but it sets the tone for what follows. I think this must be the slowest
introduction on record, but if not, it seems the slowest; so slow, in
fact, that it feels like a separate thing altogether, when it should
– like the first movement introduction of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique
– be a preparation for what follows. The effect is heavy, even funereal.
Davis is very interventionist in the allegro which follows, making
expressive points in places other than where the composer’s markings
ask for them. And Elgar was no slouch where markings were concerned:
the scores are showered with indications, not always absolutely clear,
sometimes apparently contradictory, but giving the conductor much food
for thought. Davis is not satisfied with this, and he inserts all kinds
of things of his own. Unfortunately, his main expressive device is to
take extra time over certain moments, and this often within the context
of a principal tempo which is already on the slow side. Time and again
the music is held back to underline some small thematic feature, often,
as at the ninth bar of the piece, at the ends of phrases. This gives
a disjointed, stop-go feel to the longer movements, leaving the listener
impatiently asking why he won’t leave things alone and simply get on
with it. Certain moments, unforgivably, even outstay their welcome.
There are times, too, where the point of the music seems to be lacking.
Where is the fantasy in the wonderful passage which begins with the
solo violin around 11’00", again in the first movement, just before
figure 30 in the score? And the passage beginning at figure 44 (around
12’00") gives little sense of the music straining at the limits
(in spite of the conductor’s groans, of which more later). The release
which should be engendered by the return of the main theme which follows
seems muted too. Davis slows the music down very early to announce that
the movement is coming to an end, but before then the tempo has been
pulled about so much that there seems no logical reason for the music
to stop there, the movement lacking in unity of thought or pulse.
The opening of the scherzo seems to go well, but the
orchestral crashes lack power, perhaps a problem with the recording.
The lovely second subject ("Play it like something we hear down
by the river" Elgar famously said) is sadly lacking in the charm
we might hope for when we know that the word amabile appears
at several points in the score in this movement. And then Davis totally
compromises the linking passage between the scherzo and the slow movement
by imposing an unmarked rallentando which begins, in any case,
preposterously early and is carried to extreme lengths where other conductors
are content with far less as a way of easing the way into the adagio.
The slow movement is beautifully played, its inward
atmosphere extremely concentrated, though even here one would think
that every crescendo indication was accompanied by an accelerando.
And then the final section of the movement – surely one of the most
beautiful passages in all Elgar – is treated by Davis is such a way
that the music seems in danger of stopping altogether. It is technically
brilliant, but the concentration of the music is fatally undermined.
True, it is marked molto espressivo e sostenuto (very expressive
and sustained) but there is an excess here which is distasteful. I hear
the conductor stretching it out, relishing his hold on the public, and
it may well have worked as a one-off hearing in the concert hall – though
I have my doubts – but it’s too gruesome for repeated listening. The
final bars of the movement are unbearably drawn out.
The introduction to the finale is very expressive in
what we have by now come to recognise as the conductor’s current style,
but the allegro goes well, at least until figure 129 (6’20")
when he suddenly applies the brakes, announcing a reading of the sublime
passage where the strings and harps play the second subject in augmented
note values in which the pulse is so lovingly moulded and varied that
the music is robbed of its impulsiveness and passion. The final pages
are magnificently played, but I don’t think that even in the heat of
the moment I would have joined in the applause which follows with enormous
enthusiasm. Even the Phantom Bravo Shouter – whoever this philistine
is he goes to lots of concerts these days – seems to be caught slightly
off guard. It’s all very puzzling: I remember a concert performance
in London many years ago conducted by Bryden Thomson where the return
of the second theme of the scherzo virtually had us cheering, so inevitable
and well-placed did it seem, and the propulsion not only of the finale,
but of the symphony as a whole had us out of our seats the instant we
heard that final timpani stroke. Davis’s performance follows so many
byways and looks lovingly into so many nooks and crannies that by the
time we get to the end we’ve forgotten what the beginning was about.
Many of the same comments may be made about the second
symphony. For this listener at least, the beginning is a disaster. Stephen
Johnson, in the accompanying notes, quite rightly says that the first
three notes of the symphony act as a kind of springboard from the which
the first movement leaps in all its vitality. Well, not here it doesn’t.
You wouldn’t even know there were three notes, nor that the second and
third fall on the off-beat. The first note isn’t together, and the conductor
is in full vocal flight before we arrive at the fourth note. (If the
springboard is important to you, listen to Solti!) Throughout this first
movement Davis indulges in extreme changes of tempo, and even more disturbingly
repeatedly pulls back before passing into a new section or even to a
new phrase. Any feeling of overall unity of pulse is lost. The wonderful
passage between figures 23 and 30 (beginning at 6"07’) demonstrates
well both of these points, as does the slow music just before the end.
The last time I heard it as pulled about as this was on Jeffrey Tate’s
recording on EMI, and although it’s a long time since I heard that disc
I have memories of something much more organic and convincing than this.
I could go on. The self conscious phrasing of the main
theme of the slow movement robs it of its simplicity. Indeed, twice
in the movement the composer puts in the marking nobilmente e semplice.
Well, nobilmente, maybe, but semplice it isn’t. The sudden
dramatic pause at 9"57’ is utterly unjustified by any marking in
the score (four bars before figure 81), nor is the equally sudden slowing
down and horrible portamento at figure 130 (7"00’) in the scherzo,
both features as offensive as they are ineffective.
I found a greater directness and simplicity of manner
in the performance of the third symphony, at least at first. The opening
is striking and muscular, and the beautiful second subject, though there
is a characteristic change of tempo, seems better integrated into the
overall structure than at similar points in the other symphonies. Even
if I found the slow movement and finale less convincing than I remembered
from other performances I still found this performance the most successful
of the three. Of course I don’t know this symphony anything like as
well as the other two, and I have never seen the score. Even so, when
I started comparing this performance with the two existing ones I realised
that both Andrew Davis and Paul Daniel maintain greater forward movement
and drive almost throughout, so that even here Sir Colin seems to wallow
by comparison. It’s important to understand here that I’m not talking
about the music from one minute to the next – there are passages in
all three symphonies where Sir Colin conjures up playing of electrifying
intensity – but rather the overview of a movement, the feeling that
the last note is the logical conclusion to the symphonic argument, indeed
the only possible conclusion given what has gone before. I think he
succeeds in the opening movement of the third symphony better than anywhere
else, but Andrew Davis and Paul Daniel are both more successful in the
two final movements at bringing out the structure of the work and revealing
the symphonic logic contained in it.
All three works are superlatively executed by the London
Symphony Orchestra. There is a brilliance, a conviction in this remarkably
unanimous playing which is impossible to resist. The solo playing is
marvellous too. The actual sound of the orchestra is compromised by
the recording, however, which is dry and close, perhaps even more so
in the third symphony than in the others. To what extent this is the
result of problems posed by the hall I don’t feel qualified to say.
It is impossible to discuss these discs properly without
drawing attention to the conductor’s vocal participation. In the first
symphony these noises are a nuisance, in the third symphony rather more
than that, and in the second they are quite intolerable. I challenge
anybody not to wait, at every listening, teeth clenched, for the noise
he makes at 17’48", mere seconds before the end of the first movement
of the second symphony. Now lots of conductors make noises, I know.
Michel Plasson’s encouragements to the orchestra can be distracting
in concert (though he seems to be able to discipline himself in the
studio) and Barbirolli sometimes sounded as though he was choking. And
then I once attended a recital in London given by the great French cellist
Pierre Fournier, during which he constantly tapped his foot, frustratingly
out of time with the music. But never on disc have I heard anything
like this. During many of the quieter passages of the second and third
symphonies he actually seems to be singing. I’d like to be able
to say it doesn’t matter, but it does.
The presentation of the three discs is impressive,
especially at the price. There is an essay on each symphony by Stephen
Johnson, each one a model of its kind, though he repeats points made
by Anthony Payne when talking about the third symphony. The rather lurid
colours chosen do not always make the booklets very easy to read.
At the price, of course, these issues are tempting,
and as a great conductor’s mature view of these works, every lover of
Elgar’s music should hear them. I believe they give an erroneous impression
of the composer’s music, however, and therefore newcomers should avoid
them. There are many excellent versions of these symphonies which will
do very well, most of them at bargain price. Barbirolli (EMI) has been
accused, rightly, of being rather too concerned with incidental moments
of beauty, but his glorious readings, expansive as they are, are models
of self restraint in the present company. Sir Adrian Boult’s readings
(EMI) represent an entire life devoted to and at the service of this
composer and his music. Sir Andrew Davis (Warner) gives straightforward
readings which are totally convincing and totally recommendable. And
then, surprisingly perhaps, there is Solti, who studied the composer’s
own recordings before launching himself into these works. The results,
newly reissued on Decca, are stunning. The first movement of the second
symphony, to give a single example, is a torrent of white-hot genius,
quite unmissable. In a similar vein is a startling performance of the
first symphony recorded in 1990 for IMP Classics by the Hallé
Orchestra and James Judd. There are excellent performances on Naxos
too: George Hurst conducts a convincing if slightly understated No.
1, but Sir Edward Downes’ reading of No. 2 with the BBC Philharmonic
on stunning form is one of the great recorded interpretations. He is
particularly successful in the elusive finale, a movement which can
appear to have no climax and seem therefore inconclusive ("What’s
the matter with them, Billy?" asked Elgar of the first-night audience,
"They sit there like a lot of stuffed pigs.") As to the third
symphony, Sir Andrew Davis (NMC) and Paul Daniel (Naxos) are both to
be recommended.
To return to the question at the beginning of this
review, I find it difficult to understand many of the interpretative
choices made by Sir Colin Davis when confronted by these works. He is
obviously at the height of his considerable technical powers. The orchestra
plays as a single being, following him like a perfectly maintained machine
through these most fluid and convoluted readings of what is already
extremely complex music. In an interview last year in the Gramophone
he spoke about the exhilarating effect of recording music he loves live
in concert, and of his feeling that "I’ll never be able to conduct
as well as I can now". Certain aspects of his readings which strike
me as mannerism or self indulgence, the horrible dramatic pauses, for
example, are obviously the results of long and detailed reflection on
the way he wants the music to go. But as to the incidental slowing,
the protraction at cadence points and phrase endings, I wonder to what
extent he would have maintained these had the recordings taken place
in the studio with the opportunity to listen to playbacks and modify
thereafter.
Elgar’s personality was a complex one. His relationship
with Jaeger and his reaction to his wife’s death demonstrate the extent
to which he needed the love and support of those dearest to him. Professional
setbacks provoked extreme reactions: "…I have allowed my heart
to open once – it is now shut against every religious feeling and every
soft, gentle impulse for ever." There seems little doubt that he
was touchy and thin-skinned; in short, a far from perfect individual.
Yet reading the biographies, in particular Michael Kennedy’s unforgettable
Portrait of Elgar (OUP) we can learn how he poured into his music
not only what he was himself but also the best of what he saw and hoped
for in humankind. Thus we hear in his works, along with the melancholy,
the wistfulness and disappointment, rather than simple, human warmth,
a certain nobility of spirit, justice and generosity. This is not to
mention the humour and high spirits; the muscularity; the febrile energy.
In these symphonies Sir Colin Davis, with his incessant lingering over
detail and his tendency to draw out to intolerable lengths those passages
where the composer’s weaker side is most evident, commutes the spiritual
strength of Elgar’s music into lachrymose self pity.
William Hedley
London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Sir Colin Davis