SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD CONCERT REVIEW
 

Brahms and Strauss: John Lill (piano), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Thomas Sanderling (conductor) Royal Festival Hall London 19.3.2008 (JPr)


Brahms was inspired by Italy. His personal guide on the first trip he made there was Theodore Billroth, a Viennese surgeon and amateur musician (who played piano duets with the composer), and who was apparently a walking Baedeker. During their travels Brahms began making compositional sketches for a new piano concerto in B-flat major which stayed on the shelf for a while until later, in virtually one continuous go,  he completed his most magnificent concerto: never forgetting that he only wrote two. Brahms's letters tell us little about his music: like many composers, he lets the music do his talking.  He introduced the work to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg for instance, as ‘a tiny little piano concerto with a tiny little wisp of a scherzo’, which it most certainly is not. In another letter, Brahms described the concerto as ‘the long terror’, which  it indeed might be to some pianists. Regarding its actual composition, its large scale, or emotional breadth however, Brahms was completely silent. When Billroth asked why he had added an extra movement to the usual three, all extraordinary in their size and scope, Brahms only said that the first movement was so harmless that another movement seemed appropriate before the Andante.

Like the composer's only other piano concerto, the  B-flat major was composed for Brahms to play himself. He played the solo at the Budapest première on 9 November 1881 and in many additional performances during the same season. The opening of the concerto is pure, unadulterated Brahms, the solo call of the horn (a sound Brahms grew to love when he heard his father practicing the instrument) is answered by slowly developing phrases in the piano. There is then an impassioned cadenza followed by strong and technically demanding music with the soloist very much the equal of the orchestra. Brahms now cleverly places something energetic and tempestuous (a scherzo) between that broad first movement and the serene and similarly spacious Andante; or at least there should seem to be but more of that later. There is a beautiful cello solo (here by the Royal Philharmonic’s Tim Gill) as a haunting lamentation to begin the Andante - it is strange Brahms never actually wrote a cello concerto - and the finale has Hungarian antecedents, transparently scored and filled with glittering pianistic effects. Somehow Brahms convinces us that the best thing to follow some sublime slow music is a gypsy dance!

The soloist was the veteran John Lill whose career extends over 50 years from his first piano recital when he was only nine. I experienced a rather percussive piano often at odds with the Romantic warmth of the orchestral accompaniment under the metronomic baton of another veteran, Thomas Sanderling, a late replacement for Daniele Gatti. In the first movement the hints of the later music of Wagner (and even Humperdinck) were matched with some delicate fingering. The second movement seemed a bit leaden-footed and was almost indistinguishable from the opening Allegro. In the Andante, the right hand fingering extends to the extremes of the treble clef before it all slows to a ticking clock-like delicacy and then the solo cello re-enters and takes over apart from a few interpolated trills, so that  this duet  brings the movement to a quiet end. The final movement was undoubtedly more light-hearted, though it this would be difficult to discern this from Mr Lill’s steely gaze and stonewall expression. Someone so illustrious as John Lill should be critic-proof,  certainly from someone like me with few skills for the instrument, but  I found it all rather a bit cold, overly technical and therefore mechanical at times.

In one of the most illogical newspaper articles I have read for a long time, Fiona Maddocks pronounced in the Evening Standard (20.3.08) that ‘The concert craze has only just begun’ based purely on some stunt marketing events like Barenboim’s Beethoven Sonatas, Gergiev’s Mahler and the future Simón Bolívar residency. She also cites ‘one in five to be grey-headed’ in the bar at the Festival Hall during a concert. This is utter nonsense as what the refurbishment of the South Bank has done is to provide trendy eateries and watering-holes which people frequent regardless of whether it is a concert venue. It is still more likely that the ‘one in five’ grey-head is the person actually attending the concert then any of the other four. At the Wigmore Hall nine in ten are grey-headed and when that generation dies out the seats will be mostly empty because they do little to encourage a new (younger) audience.

Why this particular rumination? Well I always notice that the audience for Richard Strauss’s music is predominately elderly as here in a less-than-full Festival Hall. I (as my regular readers will know) have difficulty getting that image of Strauss wearing the Nazi uniform out of my mind. Yet as the years are passing for me too I am perhaps beginning to appreciated this music more. Recently I was gripped by the music (and singing) of Salome at Covent Garden despite some perfunctory conducting and in this concert I thought the accounts of the tone poem Töd und Verklärung, Op.24 and the orchestral rondo Till Eulenspiegels lustige Steiche, Op.28 to be quite marvellous. I have never said that about Strauss before.

Congratulations then, to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for some excellent programme notes that are almost uniquely – for London orchestras – informative for a spectator without a music degree. I was taken aback by the quote from Strauss: ‘There is no such thing as Abstract music; there is good music and bad music. If it is good, it means something; and then there is Programme music.’ Here I am in total agreement with the composer. That ‘Death and Transfiguration’ from a Strauss who was yet to reach his mid-twenties is autobiographical reeks of a great ego at work : the dying man’s recollections of childhood and youth being Strauss’ own. I was swept away by it all as never before. There was incandescent solo violin from Boris Brovtsyn and refined contributions from the woodwinds. The tuba, trombone, tuba and horns blare out phrases that have resurfaced in countless Sci-Fi films down the years and the man rails against impending death to insistent horn calls. He then passes on only to triumph over death with his soul living forever in an ecstatic transfigurative apotheosis which included the first moment of percussion so far in this concert,  when the gong was struck.

‘Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks’ began  with Emer Mcdonough’s flute to the fore as we were introduced to Till, actually a real-life fourteenth-century folk-hero whose exploits, like a real-or-not Robin Hood, have gained mythic status. Cymbals and rattle illustrated the chaos Till causes as he rides into town. Depicted by a headlong glissando from the top to the bottom note of the leader’s solo violin, Till is soon in love. He then questions a group of learned pedagogues and the mock seriousness of this is fittingly portrayed in the lower wind instruments. Till then dances away to a jaunty theme. More chaos ensues until we hear loud rolls in side-drums and timpani as he is taken to court to face the music and is sentenced to hang. Strauss's music graphically illustrates this desperate scene and is very explicit right down to the shriek and string pizzicatos that lead to Till's final broken shudder. Then we are reminded it is all just a tall-tale and Strauss brings back the opening ‘Once upon a time’ theme and the Till’s spirit is resurrected in the final bars bringing a satisfying conclusion to what I now think might be a miniature musical masterpiece.

More congratulations  are due to the wonderfully nuanced and controlled playing throughout the evening from the RPO, possibly London’s least appreciated orchestra. Much praise must also go to the Russian-born Thomas Sanderling for serene control on the podium and thanks are due to  him too for stepping in at very short notice to take over this concert.

Jim Pritchard

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