Mozart, Tchaikovsky, MacMillan:
London
Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (conductor), Mitsuko
Uchida, (piano) 6.03 2007. Barbican Hall, London
(GD)
Tonight’s
concert marked the 25th Birthday of the Barbican
project, and included Royal attendance. After a conductorless
rendition of the national anthem it was announced that
a new work ‘Stomp’, especially composed for the occasion
by James MacMillan, would constitute the first work on
the programme. I was slightly disappointed as I had expected
the advertised MacMillan work; ‘The Confession of Isobel
Gowdie’ to have been the first work…a magnificent orchestral
work indeed. However, ‘Stomp’ (with Fate and Elvira),
a much shorter work, was anything but disappointing. It
lasts for about ten minutes and is initiated by brass
fanfares and various percussive ‘jazzy’ sounding rhythms
which give way to two fascinating interpolations from
the other works being performed tonight, the Mozart K467
(the andante ‘Elvira’ theme, and the ‘fate’ theme on brass
and percussion, from the Tchaikovsky Fourth symphony).
Davis and the orchestra gave what sounded like an excellent
performance of this occasional and brilliant piece of
orchestral parody.
I
recently reviewed another Mozart Piano concerto with Davis
and Uchida (K 415, also in C major) and as with that performance
I was again struck by the tremendous contrast between
Uchida’s stylistic brilliance and Davis’s rather conventional,
grandiose accompaniment. Davis deployed quite a large
string section and placed his first and second violins
on his left side. His pacing and tempo for the brilliant
march-like first movement ‘allegro’ reminded me of an
older kind of performing tradition favoured by some of
the Kapell-meister generation of German conductors; totally
professional but overall a little for-square and dull.
Those martial sounding interjections from trumpets and
timpani did not cut through the orchestral texture as
they should. And there was some flat sounding woodwind
intonation in the magnificent development section. Overall
I missed that sense of buoyancy and delicacy one hears
when a Mackerras is conducting. Uchida provided an astonishing
cadenza with the most apt, and daring, levels of pianistic
improvisation. Notable also was Uchida’s wonderful legato
in the famous ‘andante’. In the final ‘allegro vivace
assai’ again all the music’s staggering wit and diversity
were with Uchida, surely, along with Clara Haskil, one
of the truly outstanding Mozart pianists; I hope she re-records
all the piano concertos with Mackerras, or a conductor
with a similar understanding of Mozart’s uniqueness.
Colin
Davis is not immediately associated with the music of
Tchaikovsky; as far as I know the Fourth symphony is the
only symphony by that composer that Davis has conducted,
and this, by all accounts, is a fairly late addition to
his repertory. After an imposing and direct opening fanfare
on horns (with nicely balanced bassoons) Davis hardly
established an ‘andante sostenuto’, wavering between disparate
tempo registers. The emerging ‘in movimento di Valse’
(only Tchaikovsky could incorporate a waltz with such
mastery into a symphonic form) was not sufficiently contoured
or phrased…just listen to how it can sound with a conductor
like Mravinsky! And the transition into the wonderfully
lilting second subject initiated by the clarinet with
balletic embellishments (what Eric Blom once likened to
‘the recovery of a secret and lost romance’) sounded bland
here. The long lead up to the development section, with
ominous interjections of the opening ‘fate’ theme, lacked
the tremendous rhythmic thrust required. The trombones,
at the end of the movement, re-stating the ‘fate’ theme,
sounded merely strident, with none of that lugubrious
power Mravinsky and the then ‘Leningrad’ orchestra used
to bring to the drama.
The
‘andantino in modo di canzone’ started with some beautifully
phrased oboe playing from Kieron Moore. The quasi-trio,
second theme in F major, abounding in the modulated harmonic
development Tchaikovsky was famous for, lacked a certain
dance-like inflection (it is based on a Russian folk theme!).
And the movements gentle coda with those opulent arabesques
on woodwind, dragged a little, partially saved, however,
by some beautifully co-ordinated wood-wind phrasing.
The
Third movement ‘pizzicato ostinato’ was very disappointing,
with no real lift to those rhythmic/dynamic contrasts;
sounding really more like a run through. And despite some
impressive contributions from wood-wind (especially piccolo)
Tchaikovsky’s ‘tipsy Russian peasant’ in the trio, sounded
far too tame…a bit too drunk perhaps to fully engage in
the movements folk-like, slightly vulgar rhythmic inflections.
In
many ways the ‘Allegro fuoco’ finale was overall quite
impressive, with a genuinely exciting coda. But I did
miss a certain bite in the lower brass, especially when
they intone from the peasant refrain ‘in the fields there
stood a birch’ (from Russian folklore). Also again, as
in the dramatic development of the first movement, I would
have welcomed a more pervasive rhythmic/dynamic thrust
and tonal contrast (wood-winds and strings). So, to conclude;
more an occasionally enjoyable but quite standard concert
performance, rather than a performance that stays in the
memory long-term.
Geoff Diggines
