In 2012 my colleague, Dan Morgan gave a most enthusiastic reception to a
DVD that preserved a 1966 performance of
Le Sacre by the LSO and
Leonard Bernstein (
review). I’ve not seen that performance but if
it’s anything like this present one I can well understand Dan’s reaction.
Unlike that 1966 reading, which was filmed in black and white, this more
recent performance was shot in colour. The production was done by ITV for
its ‘Aquarius’ arts programme, and was produced and directed by Bernstein
biographer, Humphrey Burton, who has written the booklet notes.
This concert took place on the first anniversary of Stravinsky’s death and
the involvement of the English Bach Festival Chorus is worthy of comment. We
learn from Burton’s notes that the concert was put on by the English Bach
Festival, whose inspirational founder, Lina Lalandi, had persuaded
Stravinsky to succeed Albert Schweitzer as president of the Festival in
1966. On Stravinsky’s death she sweet-talked Bernstein into succeeding him
and this was his inaugural concert in that role. Bernstein returned at least
once more to conduct at the Festival: ICA Classics have previously released
on DVD a fine Bach/Stravinsky concert that he gave as part of the 1977
Festival (
review). As far as I know, Bernstein was the last
president of the Festival: no one was appointed to replace him when he died
in 1990.
A few days after this concert Lennie and the LSO made a studio recording
of
Le Sacre in London. Humphrey Burton relates that this was done
using experimental quadrophonic surround-sound techniques. That probably
accounts for the ‘wacky’ perspectives that Jonathan Woolf noted in his
review and which led him to conclude that, as an audio
version, Bernstein’s 1958 New York recording was a safer bet (
review). Happily, there are no ‘wacky’ balances here: I’m
unsure exactly what is meant by the term ‘enhanced mono’ but the sound is
perfectly acceptable.
As we aren’t told otherwise I assume that the concert programme was
presented in the same order as we see and hear it on the DVD. Though, at
first sight, it may seem odd not to end with
Le Sacre I suspect
that Bernstein felt the solemnity of
Symphony of Psalms was more
appropriate to what was, after all, a memorial concert: a note in the
booklet records that he specifically requested no applause at the end of
that work.
The performance of
Le Sacre is superb. The LSO is on top form,
offering razor-sharp response: the woodwinds are supple and agile; the brass
is potent; and the contribution of principal timpanist, Kurt-Hans Goedicke
is imperious and marvellously incisive. As for Bernstein, he controls the
complex score superbly. Under his direction there’s no danger whatsoever
that the performance will lack any animal intensity or excitement. So, for
example, he drives the ‘Danse de la terre’ at the end of Part I thrillingly
and the ‘Danse sacrale’ at the very end is abandoned, brazen and cathartic.
However, what impresses just as much is the fastidious care that he takes
over the quiet passages, balancing every strand with minute attention to
detail. Thus the opening of Part II is pregnant with atmosphere and ‘Le
sage’ is mysterious and sinister. The very opening of the work is an object
lesson in how to direct the complex, intertwining woodwind lines, though
Lennie doesn’t appear to
do very much: clearly, all the work has
been done beforehand in rehearsal. As you’d expect, his conducting can be
very animated and it’s not always conventional – at one point early in Part
I he conducts by shrugging with his whole body in time to the music. Yet one
never feels that his gesticulations represent playing to the gallery;
everything he does seems relevant to the music. This is ‘total immersion’
conducting in which the maestro lives every bar of the score.
The result of all this is a magnetic performance which is full of the
primitive savagery and energy of the music but which also reminds us that
Stravinsky’s score contains a wealth of subtle detail. On this kind of form
I wonder if there has ever been a conductor better equipped to translate
Stravinsky’s vision into aural reality.
After the interval – I presume – the Albert Hall audience heard two works
which, as Burton points out in his notes, were composed in immediate
proximity to each other and which require significantly reduced forces as
compared to
Le Sacre. Michel Béroff, looking very youthful indeed –
he was twenty-one at the time – is an agile and effective soloist in the
quirky Capriccio. Here again one notices the scrupulous way in which
Bernstein balances the accompaniment with its unusual, piquant
orchestration. The first of the three movements is light and fleet-footed
and after the more serious tone of the middle movement the toccata-like
finale is given a spirited and well-pointed reading. This was a shrewd piece
of programme planning. By no means is the work slight yet in this context it
acts almost like a sorbet between the other two pieces on the programme.
Finally Bernstein gives us
Symphony of Psalms. For this the LSO,
again in reduced numbers, is joined by the English Bach Festival Chorus.
This choir is quite large but that was probably the right decision for this
hall and they do a good job. Bernstein invests the austere music of the
first movement, ‘Exaudi orationem meum’ with no little power, building the
tension as the movement unfolds. There’s rather a lot of audience noise in
the extended woodwind introduction to the second movement, which is a pity
for this section gives us another example of Lennie’s careful shaping. The
psalm that’s set here is ‘Expectans expectavi Dominum’ and Bernstein does
indeed invest the music with a real sense of expectancy. Once again the
cumulative power of this movement in his hands is striking. There’s
excellent tension in the slow introduction to ‘Alleluia. Laudate Dominum’.
Once the music speeds up the delivery is very crisp and powerful. Bernstein
brings off the slow, solemn ending very well indeed. At the end he lays down
his baton and departs the stage, quelling the little outbreak of applause
with a gesture of his hand and blowing a kiss of gratitude to his chorus as
he passes.
This concert is a great exhibition of Bernstein at work. He obtains
splendid performances and generates a genuine sense of occasion.
ICA’s presentation is disappointing in some respects. The sound is
perfectly satisfactory. The camera work is good – straightforward and
unobtrusive. Humphrey Burton’s booklet note is interesting. Where the
presentation falls down is the lack of attention to documentary detail. The
track list gives no timings nor does it offer the titles of individual
movements. Furthermore, though
Le Sacre is divided into eight
separate tracks and each of the other works into three tracks, there’s no
reference to that in the booklet. Worst of all is the complete absence of
subtitles or sung texts – the former would be preferable. So not only do
viewers get no idea what the choir is singing – unless they are familiar
with the Latin words – but also there are no indications as to which section
of
Le Sacre is being played. Subtitles may not have been on the
original ITV film but surely they could have been added using modern
technology.
In one respect, however, modern technology has saved the day. A booklet
note explains that in
Symphony of Psalms two visual sequences were
beyond restoration – though apparently, and thankfully, there were no such
issues with the audio track. These two passages have been rectified by
incorporating visual images of Bernstein’s annotated score of
Symphony
of Psalms. This has been done skilfully. I can assure readers that
these passages are brief and in no way do these brief interruptions to the
pictures of the concert impair one’s enjoyment, nor do they distract. In
fact, this is a very elegant solution to the problem.
John Quinn
Masterwork Index:
Le Sacre du
Printemps
