This superb concert was notable
on many levels, not least for an incandescent performance of Tchaikovsky’s
First Piano Concerto by the Manchurian pianist, Lang
Lang, which dazzled as much as
it infuriated. It started, however, with the UK première of Kaija
Saariaho’s
Nymphea Reflection.
She describes this string
work as ‘an image of the symmetrical structure of the lily, bending
and taking new shape in the rocking motion of the waves’. This is an
apt description for a work which opens up the sonorities and textures
of the string sound like a chrysalis. It is a fastidiously written work
in which every dynamic, every shade of colour is bequeathed a unique
individual beauty, whether it be in the complex harmony or in the proliferation
of tempo changes which gives the piece its subtle yet eclectic magnetism.
Throughout its 20-minute plus time span this is a work which induces
a sense of becalm, even at those moments when tone changes to unpitched
‘noise’. At times it has a fragmentary beauty like late Debussy, at
others an almost palpable sense of threnody, like early Penderecki,
yet it retains its own individual voice throughout. This ‘voice’ becomes
real in the final movement when the orchestra whisper the words of a
Tarkovsky poem, a moment as profound as it is moving. Both Christoph
Eschenbach and the London Philharmonic
gave this work the first performance it deserved, the orchestra playing
with a unanimity of concentration that was commendable.
They were similarly concentrated
during their accompaniment to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto which
in many ways must be one of the most technically miraculous performances
to be heard in the Royal Festival Hall. Rarely can this concerto have
been given such a bravura performance by a pianist still under twenty,
and rarely can this much played work have been given a performance as
searching as it was here. Lang Lang’s finger work was simply fabulous,
as octaves sprung like uncoiled springs. Indeed, at moments he just
held his fists quivering over the keyboard before launching into yet
more dazzling trills. The first movement was a tour de force
and understandably what remained seemed underpowered – the third movement
particularly lacking electricity until the closing bars when Lang Lang
summoned up the reserves to complete the concerto like a possessed devil.
There was, however, much
more to this performance than a volatile virtuosity. This pianist’s
sense of touch and poetry is remarkably refined for one so young – the
second movement had real and bathetic beauties. What troubled me was
his excessively deliberate rubato – most marked in the cadenzas and
the reflective middle movement. He was often in danger of bringing the
music to complete stasis yet remarkably kept the attention gripped against
all the odds. Both the delicacy of his finger work and his sublime pedalling
produced unusually rounded sonorities for this concerto. Blistering
it might have been, but at times it was just genuinely beautiful to
hear. Eschenbach was a dramatic accompanist drawing spellbinding playing
from the orchestra.
Brahms’ First Symphony
closed this concert – and what a superb performance the LPO gave of
it. There were insecurities in the brass playing (although not where
you would have expected them – the horn solo in the final movement was
majestically played, for example) and occasionally the woodwind were
louder than one would have wished but the strings had considerable beauty
of tone throughout, notably in the basses and cellos. Eschenbach himself
remains, as ever, the most selfless of conductors – this was a performance
pretty much ‘as written’. Moments of difficulty for conductors, such
as the opening timpani strokes, were here perfectly judged and timed,
the balance in the final movement’s woodwind and horn lines were transparent
and the coda of the symphony had a dramatic intensity, which it rarely
does. This was a fine interpretation by an increasingly important conductor.
This superb concert is
broadcast on Radio 3 on 23rd May.
Marc Bridle
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