Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Internet MusicWeb

Tchaikovsky, Elgar: Dmitri Alexeev (piano), St.Petersburg Philharmonic/ Yan Pascal Tortelier (conductor)St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, 9.10.2008 (GPu)

Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No.1
Elgar, Enigma Variations


This concert was affected by two significant changes of personnel after its original announcement. As first scheduled the conductor was to be Yuri Temirkanov and the piano soloist Elisso Virsaladze. Unfortunately Maestro Temirkanov was suffering from a serious bronchial infection and Elisso Virsaladze was also indisposed. I mean no disrespect to any of the others involved if I say that I was particularly disappointed by the enforced withdrawal of Elisso Virsaladze; she is a very interesting pianist whom I have never heard live and I was looking forward to the opportunity of putting that right.

Still, there was plenty to enjoy in what was on offer. The opening performance of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture had perhaps just a little of the routine about it, at least initially – it was orchestral playing of high accomplishment, in a work with which the members of the orchestra must be thoroughly familiar. Maybe, indeed, over-familiarity accounted for a certain lack of sparkle at times. The opening statement of the quasi-liturgical benedictory theme, alluding to Friar Laurence, had an authoritative and decidedly Russian accent, its phrases shaped, one sensed, by an inherited awareness of the music of the Orthodox church (this Friar Laurence was not very noticeably a Catholic priest from Verona). The early statement of the music generally taken to represent the hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets, on the other hand, was slightly disappointing, its rhythms violently accented, certainly, but the effect rather flashy, seeming to draw attention to the brilliance of the playing and the orchestral sound, as it were, rather than to the emotional substance of the music.

Such partial disappointment as one might have felt at this point was soon forgotten in the beauty and the direct emotional intensity with which the familiar love theme was played, full of yearning tenderness. As the three themes came into conflict – for the music enacts the conflict of emotional attitudes and value systems rather than attempting any kind of ‘narrative’ imitation of Shakespeare’s play – the performance carried more and more conviction. Here, as elsewhere, the playing of the brass was immensely authoritative and the strings were heard to very attractive effect in the increasingly radiant presentations of the love theme until it was presented in movingly distorted form, commented on by the menace of the timpani. By the end of the overture mere routine had certainly disappeared and the music had caught fire.

Intensity was certainly maintained in an impressive performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Dmitri Alexeev was well able to invest the familiar with an air of freshness and vitality, as was Yan Pascal Tortelier in his direction of the orchestra. I confess that the asymmetrical lopsidedness of this concerto – the hugely excessive length of the first movement in relation to the two that follow – has always troubled me, and usually leaves me feeling unsatisfied by performances of the work. I won’t claim that this performance made me forget such unease, but it came closer to doing so than many that I have heard. The conviction and assurance with which the grand introduction was played and Alexeev’s powerful, but intelligent, pianism (all mere showboating avoided) made for a memorable rendition of the first movement. Though the grand sweep of things was well presented, there was much attention to detail too. In the first cadenza, Alexeev’s deployment of the sustaining pedal was a minor (but real) delight in itself.

In what followed – essentially a sonata-allegro handling of two themes (the first described by Tchaikovsky as a folksong sung by “every blind Ukrainian singer”, the second more gently romantic) – Tortelier’s support of the soloist was exemplary (not, of course, that all the orchestral writing is mere ‘accompaniment’) and Alexeev was compelling and persuasively passionate at the piano, the whole an eloquent piece of epic romanticism, characteristically  Tchaikovskian in the hero’s self-consciousness of his own heroism. The second movement’s opening (andantino semplice) is an effective contrast in mood and manner to what has preceded it. The tenderly melodic solo for flute, supported by pizzicato strings, was played very beautifully, and the central section had a pleasantly waltz-like quality. But perhaps this performance didn’t quite discover all the poetry that this music can possess – for all its charm the central prestissimo lacked any real magic. In the final movement, Russian soloist and Russian orchestra (if not Russian conductor!) brought out very persuasively the Russian folk song verve of the early part of the movement and Tchaikovsky’s musical mechanism of tension and release to functioned very convincingly and compellingly. The surging romantic melody which follows – and which is so familiar to most listeners that its beauty can be hard to keep on recognising – was well-shaped and, with its analogies to the opening of the whole work acknowledged, it does something to give a degree of shape to a work whose strongest qualities are not structural.

This was, taken whole, a fine performance, one which went some considerable way, at least, to making one listen again to a work so familiar. Alexeev strikes one as a pianist of real intelligence, never willing to settle for simple display; to say that his use of silence is as effective as his brilliant runs is perhaps another way of saying the same thing. Add to Alexeev an accomplished and experienced conductor such as Tortelier (who has worked quite often with this orchestra in recent years) and a top-class Russian orchestra and, not surprisingly, one has a combination which – on this occasion at least – generated very convincing results in this particular repertoire.

The absence of Yuri Temirkanov meant that we were denied the intriguing prospect of an entirely Russian take on the Enigma Variations. We still had the Russian orchestra but in the excellent Tortelier – conducting baton-less with shrugging shoulders and dancing body – they were being led by a conductor whose ten years with the BBC Philharmonic (let alone his other extensive international experience)  ensured his familiarity with English traditions of Elgarian interpretation. In the largest sense this couldn’t reasonably have been described as an especially ‘Russian’ interpretation of a work so often thought of as quintessentially English.

Yet certain aspects of the playing, certain orchestral traditions, did give it a distinctive quality. The lower strings of the orchestra had a weight and gravity not always to be encountered in English orchestras; the brass section played with a greater fierceness than most of their English equivalents would have brought to some passages; it was perhaps the case that the performance was less rhythmically relaxed than some English readings of the piece. On the whole it was more strikingly persuasive in the more powerful passages, less so in some of the quieter, more reflective variations, where one did miss – though is it only familiarity (a word I find myself using with great frequency in thinking about this concert) that makes one sense it as a loss ? – a distinctively ‘English’ quality. Certainly, heard in this context, some of Elgar’s melodies sounded distinctly Tchaikovskian! Variation 12 (‘BGN’) worked particularly well, the playing of the St. Petersburg cellos especially impressive, both graceful and emotionally direct. Variation 6 (‘Ysobel’) did perhaps make Miss Isabel Fitton sound surprisingly Russian. Essentially, however, this was a performance that was firmly within the parameters of British readings of the work. Well-played and accomplished it offered nothing that was especially revelatory but it attractively rounded off a pleasing concert.

Glyn Pursglove


^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}