Brahms, Sibelius : Nicholas Angelich (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Kazushi Ono (conductor), St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, 24.02.07 (GPu)
 

Brahms, Piano Concerto No.2

Sibelius, Symphony No.2

 

The audience in Cardiff was sparser than usual for this attractive concert – perhaps because of the rival attraction of the France versus Wales Rugby International on television. Those of us who set the video for the rugby and came to St. David’s Hall were treated to a concert of two halves (as they say in the sporting world).

The first half performance of Brahms’ second piano concerto was music-making of high (very high) competence and professional experience, but it somehow never quite took wing. The excellent Kazushi Ono had taken over as conductor, at fairly short notice, from an indisposed Emmanuel Krivine – perhaps this was a contributory factor? The Concerto is a difficult work to bring fully to convincing life. It is a work on a very large scale – four longish movements occupying some fifty minutes, but many of its best moments come in passages of small-scale intimacy. Though in many respects the work belongs in the high romantic tradition of the piano concerto there is little or no sense of contest between soloist and orchestra; here is no hero (soloist) raging against the constraints of the world (orchestra). Though there are times of darkness and passion in the writing, the dominant air is of something closer to serenity. That serenity sometimes came dangerously close to mere comfortableness, or even complacency, in this performance.

The opening bars of the initial allegro worked their familiar magic, the call of the horn summoning the pianist into a meditative statement of considerable beauty. And, after a lovely account of this opening, the first movement as a whole had a satisfying dignity, Nicholas Angelich playing with both gentleness and aptly restrained power. The piano writing, especially in this first movement, is technically demanding and Angelich answered all the demands with relative ease.

The second movement, allegro appassionato, was perhaps under characterised, however. Things were somewhat underpowered in terms of emotional energy and intensity – the movement surely should be fuller of nervous energy, of pathos in its second subject, of volatility throughout, than it was on this occasion. The chamber-like music of the third movement andante was, though beautifully played, not well served by the relative lack of emotional storms in what had preceded it. The peace and serenity of this andante seemed, as a result, less obviously earned, perhaps merely a self-indulgence in the pleasant. The cello work of Timothy Walden was exquisitely lyrical and Angelich was at his best in this movement, playing with real innerness and tenderness.

Both soloist and orchestral forces created a sense of stillness without any actual loss of momentum, and the effect was strikingly beautiful. The allegretto grazioso of the finale has a more thoroughly relaxed geniality than anything else in the work, but here, again, relaxation came dangerously close to blandness. Rhythms were not always as close to those of the dance – whether in the ballroom or by the (stylised) gipsy camp-fire – as they might have been; the whole way of proceeding, though it would be unfair to call it ponderous, was certainly less sophisticatedly playful than great performances of this concerto’s finale are. A mixed bag, then; some fine things, some slightly disappointing things, making up a performance which, while one was pleased to have heard it, fell some way short of the possibilities offered by this remarkable concerto.

After half time, there was certainly no shortage of intensity or energy in a dynamic performance of Sibelius’ Second Symphony. Written in 1901, when Sibelius was 36, and premiered in March of the following year, the work has often been interpreted as a work of nationalist affirmation and it isn’t hard to see why, even if the symphony certainly doesn’t need such an extra-musical justification or endorsement. Before becoming over-influenced by the work’s undeniable connections – like all of Sibelius’s music – with matters Finnish – we do well to remember that a good deal of this symphony was first sketched in Italy. Certainly there is something of Italian warmth and light in the first movement, far more ‘Mediterranean’ in feel than one’s presuppositions might lead one to expect from Sibelius. And that was very much the sense conveyed in the fine account of the opening allegretto given by the LPO and Ono. It is a beautifully made movement, in which almost everything ultimately derives from the string figure which begins it, a logic well clarified in this performance but not at the cost of expressiveness and lightness of spirit.

The second movement, in contrast, with its pizzicato introduction, first in the double basses and then in the cellos, was both dramatic and ominous, a compelling, dark-toned utterance both tense and sombre, with moments of real savagery. The woodwind and brass sections of the LPO were particularly impressive here. The third movement, for all its echoes of the symphony’s opening motif also looks forward, its breathless pace – handled superbly by Ono and the orchestra – building up with insistent drive an irresistible momentum which leads to the closing blaze of triumph. Ono’s control of dynamics seemed everywhere sure and purposeful and did much to articulate the proper inevitability – both logical and emotional – of the climax. This was a performance admirable for its sustained sense of the large sweep and design of the symphony – beginning in pastoral mode and concluding in a manner far more epic.

The interpretation of Sibelius’ Second Symphony had a continuous radiance and absoluteness of conviction only intermittently achieved in the Brahms’ concerto. But the whole made for a very worthwhile evening – finally more successful than the Welsh were in Paris.

 

Glyn Pursglove