Proms Mini-Reviews 4

Prom 12: Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial
Schumann, Johann Strauss, Dvorak
BBC Philharmonic
Vassily Sinaisky Conducting

I nearly didn't listen. This was supposed to be conducted by Sir Charles, who until earlier this month was arguably the greatest living conductor and an inspiration to musicians everywhere. Unfortunately Sir Charles died less than a week before the Proms began. So this concert that promised to be a highlight of the season couldn't help but be a low point because of his absence, or so I thought. Not that it could ever be bad: Sir Charles chose the music - there's not a musician in the entire world with better taste - and Vassily Sinaisky is certainly not a bad conductor. But so many wonderful memories are bound up with listening to Sir Charles that you can't help but listen to passages and think of how the orchestra would have played them under his baton. In Schumann's Overture, Scherzo and Finale, I found myself missing things as simple as the extra spring Sir Charles always brought to the dance rhythms, particularly in the Scherzo, which was, to say the least, lead-footed. Even so, the other two movements were much better and Sinaisky didn't fall for the trick of blunting Schumann's rough edges which only succeeds in making the music boring. Then came an account of Schumann's Piano Concerto with the great musician-pianist Christian Zacharias. This was always going to be a highlight, and even if Mackerras is not there Zacharias is. This is Schumann as he should be played: always fresh, no lingering, always flexible but never so much that breaks up the line. I've heard slightly more dramatic accounts of the Schumann Piano Concerto, but never have I heard a rendition that made the piece sound so coherently a whole - the first movement particularly is often played as thought Schumann were delivering a manic-depressive rant with contrasts played up for maximum effect. The second half began with one change to the program: Sir Charles had devoted an entire half of the program to the music of Johann Strauss (try to imagine Claudio Abbado or Bernard Haitink doing that...) but one work was replaced by a Dvorak's E-minor Slavonic Dance as a tribute to Sir Charles - a wonderful and tasteful tribute since it has one of the saddest and most beautiful melodies ever written. I don't think anybody would have ever guessed that Vassily Sinaisky would turn out to be a great conductor of light music, but as it turns out, he is. Indulging in a much freer hand than Sir Charles would have, Sinaisky gave Romantic life to these old Viennese gems. A wonderful, and absolutely surprising, concert.
A-

BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Thierry Fischer Conductor
Cherubini, Schumann, Holt, Richard Strauss

I was beginning to wonder if Thierry Fischer would ever come back to life. Early on in the BBCNOW partnership I remember hearing some wonderful Beethoven and Berlioz, but in these past few years they've seemed to check out, phoning in more dull performances than are worth anybody's time. But all you need to do to hear what this partnership is capable of is to listen to their performance of Cherubini's Medea overture. Cherubini hasn't gotten much good press these past...oh...150 years, and the reason for it is as clear as it ever was. The fault lies almost entirely with Berlioz, the prodigal student of the Paris Conservatoire, who also wrote the most entertaining composer biography in the history of music. The autobiography casts Cherubini, the Conservatoire director, in the role of the sputteringly pathetic conservative villain. It would be nice to believe that the portrait is more memorable than Cherubini's music, but fortunately that's just not true. Cherubini's music seems to combine the best elements of Mendelssohn with Beethoven, and BBCNOW seemed to relish the novelty, tearing into the dramatic piece like a pack of ravenous wolves. Next came a very crisp and nimble performance of Schumann's Spring Symphony. Fischer hued extraordinarily close to the score markings, and the romantic poet who relished getting his hands dirty suddenly sounded like an elegant ultraclassicist. It's not the only way to perform Schumann (many people think the tempo markings come from his wife Clara), but it made for a limpid, virile performance in a piece that makes many supposedly better conductors come unstuck. Then came a performance of a percussion concerto by Simon Holt, called "A Table of Noises....". I've heard a couple pieces by Holt before, and unfortunately this one is no diffferent than any other piece by him in that I can discern no coherent sense of form or structure. It's nothing more than a chaos of noise to which he tags a title, and people are supposed to froth at the mouth at how deep it is. And judging by the reviews, some people do. It got some glowing reviews and I don't doubt this was in no small part due to Colin Currie's percussion performance. But one should pity any performer who has to memorize pieces full of so much complication that it would sound no different than a random improvisation. More's the pity, since the concert ended with a performance of Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel that captured its light heart as few in the world have. Fischer set a daringly fast tempo to which BBCNOW seemed to have no trouble keeping up. This performance had that one special quality that can't be faked: fun. It was relieving to hear these forces play at such a high level after their first concert was at such a low one. Let's hope for more nights like this in the future.
Holt F, Everything Else A

German Chamber Philharmonic of Bremen
Paavo Jarvi Conducting
All Beethoven

Beethoven looks to be having a pretty good year at the Proms. Paul Lewis gave an excellent Beethoven concert last week, and now Paavo Jarvi brings one of the 233453 orchestras of which he's music director for a very good performance of nothing but Beethoven. The Beethoven cycle released by these forces makes clear that Jarvi is one of the world's great Beethoven conductors. Jarvi 'gets' what makes Beethoven tick. There's no tacked-on late-Romantic pathos, this is Beethoven as he should sound: explosive with all the jagged edges in tact. The concert began with a performance of Beethoven's 1st symphony that was simply one of the finest anyone will ever hear. Most conductors slow down the tempo markings in an effort to make it sound like his later music, but Jarvi seemed to know that this is Beethoven when he was still in Haydn's sway. Beethoven 1 is Haydn on steroids, and that's precisely what this wonderful performance sounded like. This was followed by a performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto by my mortal enemy. Now, I should probably specify that Hilary Hahn has in all likelihood never been notified of our mutual enmity (to say nothing of existence). But for any ambitious violin student of a certain age from Baltimore, Hilary Hahn is a name that still strikes terror. The 'little miss perfect' of violin studies continues to be more 'with the program' than the rest of us can ever dream of being. In possession of a golden tone, awesome accuracy of intonation, and a musical intelligence that leaves mere mortals in the shade, everything about her seems so perfect that it doesn't seem quite human. And that's precisely what was missing from this performance - the sense that this is a musician aware that the incredible piece of music she's performing can express any feeling higher than the perfection which she seems to achieve so easily. Everything was so perfectly in its right place that there was no reason to care. Some people love Hilary Hahn because she plays like a goddess, but that's precisely what gets in the way of my appreciating her. I'm always awed by her, but I've never been moved. The concert ended with a rare performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that was too hasty. There have been many great performances of Beethvoen 5 over the years, and many more awful ones. Jarvi's performance was very nearly a great, but not quite. No doubt after years of suffering through turgid, ineffectual performances it's nice to occasionally hear a Beethoven 5 that zips through it with too much blunt force. It can't be denied that Jarvi's tumultuously fast tempos and the orchestra's volcanic dynamics (especially for a chamber group of 40) were awesome. But in order to get the full power of the work's enormous contrasts, there has to be more moments of repose than Jarvi allows for. But this performance got much closer to the reality of Beethoven than many performers ever do.
B+ (Beethoven 1 gets an A+)