Dvořák and Berg: Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin) London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding (conductor)  Barbican Hall, 26. 3.2007 (TJ-H)

Dvořák : The Golden Spinning Wheel, Op. 109;  Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, Op. 95

Berg:  Violin Concerto (1935)

Gifted conducting prodigy – and protégé of Sir Simon Rattle - Daniel Harding, has now achieved the prestigious role of Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.But does the hype surrounding the meteoric rise of this 31-year-old maestro really live up to the reality?

The answer, if Sunday night’s “portrait” concert was anything to go by, would appear to be “not yet”.  To be fair, the tone poem with which he opened – Dvořák’s Erben-inspired fairytale, The Golden Spinning Wheel – is the sort of piece that outstays its welcome even in the best of hands, so Harding cannot really be blamed for the inevitable longueurs that crept into his performance.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine what one could strip away from the same composer’s Ninth Symphony to “tighten it up”: it is as structurally sound a piece as Dvořák ever wrote, and still an exciting journey for those who don’t let a little thing like popularity get in the way of appreciation.  Yet Harding’s account seemed a turgid and lumpy affair that lost momentum every time the dynamic level dropped below mezzo-forte.  It opened uncertainly, with beautiful, velvety playing from the strings being marred by pauses that went on far too long and ruined the flow.  Later, the symphony’s noisier moments sounded vibrant and polished – if there’s one thing Harding does well, it’s balancing out the sections of a large orchestra in full swing – but for every resplendent fortissimo, there was a wan, uninvolving pianissimo; or a phrase that sagged in the middle and tailed off inconclusively; or a big chord that disintegrated too quickly, as though Harding was changing his mind mid-beat.  The famous slow movement was too glossy; the scherzo was well-played but a bit of a non-event. Worst was the finale, which set off at a far too comfortable speed, and plodded from one politely democratic climax to another.

But the bigger let-down was Berg’s Violin Concerto, which was the real draw card for this writer.  Considering Harding has conducted Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House, and considering he was sharing the platform with no less a talent than Frank Peter Zimmermann, one could have been forgiven for expecting something a little more distinctive.  Zimmermann’s performance was in fact very fine, his formidable technique underlying a slow-burning intensity that heightened and clarified many of the work’s otherwise murky passages.  However, the orchestra – rarely so integral to the success of a concerto as they are to this one – played with little in the way of individuality or feeling.  The furious pile-up of notes that opens the second movement was noisy but not especially dramatic; nor was there any great emotional payoff in the weird, alien-sounding Bach chorale which later haunts the same movement.  With so many musical layers from which to draw detail, Harding seemed unable to bring any of them to bear to any great extent.  The overall effect was one of aimlessness, even torpor – something the extremely talented Zimmermann had only limited powers to set right.

 

Tristan Jakob-Hoff