Mozart concerti are
very often coupled in concert with the symphonies
of Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich, yet
to my mind this is arbitrary programming since
Mozart’s musical world does not easily synchronise
with any of these composers. This concert
was yet another illustration of this.
As it was, Emanuel Ax
contributed the highlight of the evening,
his playing of Mozart’s K466 differing
from the romantic inflections one often hears
in this score, with Ax avoiding any hint of
soggy sentiment. His handling of the Allegro
was intimate and introvert, yet his clarity
of tone had a wonderfully direct sternness
and strength, producing contradictory sensations.
Ax brilliantly spun an inspired elision of
the Beethovenesque and improvisatory jazz
in the cadenza. The Romance was refreshingly
free from the turgid romanticism which often
mars this movement. Ax played with all the
effervescence of sparkling champagne (Grand
Cru) - bubbling, intoxicating. In the Rondo
Ax sobered up and played in a free-floating
style again making the music more akin to
improvised jazz. Throughout Ax made Mozart’s
score sound uncannily contemporary. What let
this otherwise radically played performance
down was Slatkin’s lightweight, string-orientated
reading, which treated the score as mere token
backing, with timpani and brass being barely
audible.
Slatkin’s conducting
of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony ‘The
Year 1905’ in G minor, Op. 103 (1957)
was slack and
fragmented from beginning to end, with orchestral
balances woefully distorted and congested.
The conductor does not seem to have taken
into account the Barbican Hall’s acoustics,
with the music often sounding too loud but
paradoxically hollow and lacking in real power.
In Palace Square:
Adagio the strings played with an eerie
pianissimo only to be marred by the
accompanying timpani taps, which broke the
sense of stillness and distance required here.
However, the muted trumpet solos were suitably
piercing, conjuring up a sense of poignancy
and alienation. Slatkin’s sluggish tempi,
though, negated a sense of organic growth,
too often shattering any sense of movement
and unfolding.
The Ninth of January:
Allegro lacked bite and attack, with the
timpani and bass-drum having minimal impact,
in stark contrast to Pletnev’s recent RFH
performance with the Russian National Orchestra,
in which they had huge intensity and effect.
Indeed, throughout this movement (and the
rest of the symphony) John Chimes’ timpani
playing could only be described as ineffectual.
In the opening of the
second Adagio Slatkin’s tempi were
again slack with the pizzicato passages
sounding weak and fragmented. The Alarm
Bell: Allegro non troppo opened
with appropriately grainy and muscular string
tones, especially from the cellos’ stabbing,
staccato strokes. Things drastically deteriorated
around nine minutes into the first climax
where brass and percussion sounded grotesquely
distorted.
Mercifully, the following
passages for soft strings were played with
great sensitivity and refinement. Here we
heard by far the finest playing of the evening
which came from Celia Craig’s cor anglais
solo and the spooky solos from the deep-grunting
bassoon and contra-bassoon.
Unfortunately, the closing
passages were mere bombast where exultancy
was sacrificed to decibels - one was deafened
rather than elated. The final few bars were
disastrous: not only were the tolling bells
too loud and clangourous but the concluding
chime came in far too late resulting in an
embarrassing after-echo in which Slatkin had
no option but to keep his arm raised until
the reverberation slowly died away. This error
was an all too apt ending for a lack-lustre
and ragged performance.
Slatkin, an accomplished
conductor of English music, here appeared
to have little instinct for Shostakovich.
Alex Russell
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