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Mendelssohn, Mozart and Tchaikovsky: Yefim Bronfman (piano), Philarmonia Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, Royal Festival Hall, London, 5 & 8.2.2009 (GD)

Mendelssohn: Overture, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op 21

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K491

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B minor, Pathetique, op 74

Although a most traditional piece of programming, the inclusion of two unique masterpieces in the minor key worked surprisingly well. Mozart’s K491, as an absolute locus classicus of the classical concerto, knows none of the depths of drama, passion and devastation of Tchaikovsky’s final, and greatest, symphony but it contrasts well with the Pathetique in a concert context. Sir Charles opened the concert with a finely contoured and deftly handled Mendelssohn overture. The hint of congestion at the initial E major tutti declaration of the main ceremonial theme may have been, in part, to do with the less than ideal acoustics of the re-furbished Festival Hall. It is characteristic of Sir Charles that the now obsolete ophicleide was employed (as Mendelssohn requests) rather than the usually heard tuba. This rather grand instrument is an ancestor of the saxophone and has a similar fingering scale to the bugle. If I had one criticism of this otherwise fine performance it was Sir Charles’s decision not to use hard timpani sticks in the wonderful gossamer and mercurial ppp central section depicting Shakespeare’s enchanted nocturnal wood with its scurryings of fairies and sprites. Conductors like Herreweghe and Bruggen have demonstrated how magical those light drum taps and rolls can sound here. This was all the more surprising as ‘period’ timpani were deployed in the overture and the Mozart concerto. 
 
Also surprising, and for me slightly irritating, was Sir Charles’s decision to use the incorrect modern, non-antiphonal, seating for the violins for the first two works, where antiphonal arrangement is almost a sine-qua-non, and revert to the correct antiphonal violin disposition for the Tchaikovsky symphony. Sir Charles, in both concerts used a baton, a change from usual batonless preference!

The Russian born pianist Yefim Bronfman, for the most part, played the great K491 in a most elegant and idiomatic manner, never once forgetting that this masterpiece of astounding orchestral and pianistic originality has no place for pianistic egos. Bronfman included some judiciously and economically chosen touches of ornamentation and played his own stylish and focused cadenzas in the outer movements. Sir Charles, as one of todays most accomplished Mozartians, accompanied in a predictably nuanced and idiomatic manner, although, perhaps ‘accompanied’ is the wrong term as Bronfman and Mackerras performed in such complete accord. At times the Philharmonia strings did not achieve quite the stylistic accuracy and finesse as Mackerras’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra, but Sir Charles encouraged some beautifully poised concertante woodwind playing throughout. If there was one quality missing tonight it was the aspect of the ‘sublime’, a term whose meaning  Tovey thought intrinsic to this work; he was no doubt thinking of those passages in the variation form finale which juxtaposes a sombre C minor with the ineffable elegance and grace of A flat. Tovey was here echoing Beethoven who is known to have played, and revered, this work, and who once commented to his disciple, the composer Ries, during a rehearsal of the finale: ‘Oh my dear fellow, we never get an idea like this’. I still hear that sublime note in the old Solomon recording. But perhaps I am expecting too much? In terms of today’s very high standard of Mozart performance this is probably about as good as it gets!

I attended both performances which had identical in programming and there was virtually no difference in the two performances of the Mendelssohn and Mozart works. However there were small, but important, differences in the playing and interpretation of the Tchaikovsky symphony. As far as I know Sir Charles has not previously performed any Tchaikovsky symphonies, although he has given fine performances of the Third Suite for orchestra and the composers most well known opera Eugene Onegin. I find this fact strange for in tonight’s performance of the Pathethique one had the impression of a conductor who has directed the work all his conducting life! I have reviewed at least four Pathetiques in concert over the last couple of years and all of them, in various ways, were disappointing. In contrast Mackerras’s performance was mostly superb.

Sir Charles contoured the symphony as one huge structural arch registering with great perception the interlinking thematic chain which underscores the symphony. The key shifts in the opening between E minor and the tonic B minor were realised most tellingly as the tonal condition for the marvellous transition to the great D major string melody. Another aspect of interpretation which Mackerras, like Toscanini, understands so well is timing. And the thunderclap which initiates the development section was all the more striking for being timed absolutely as instructed. The great tonal shifts and dynamic contrasts of the development sounded all the more convincing by being held together at a steady tempo. In Thursday’s performance the timpanist found himself in a rhythmic cul-de-sac, corrected in the second (Sunday) performance. But in both performances, and particularly in the first movement, the timpanist (and occasionally the brass) played too loudly obliterating important string and woodwind passages. Tchaikovsky marks the crash which initiates the development as an unambiguous ff followed by an abrubt decrescendo, but the timpanist in both performances produced a decibel level more akin to an fffff followed by a long crescendo, as though he were playing the violent timpani entry in the prelude to Die Walkure! Also, at the movement climax, which is indeed marked ffff, the timpanist ignored the instruction to play a crescendo drumroll/decrescendo, and bashed out what sounded like an fffff assault with no previous crescendo. I go into some detail in what might be thought ‘insignificant’ detail, and although overall it didn’t seriously mar the overall excellence of Mackerras’s interpretation, it did leave me thinking how much more dramatically, and musically convincing such details sound when played as instructed. Also, was this Mackerras’s interpretive wish, or was it a timpanist whose zeal should have been better checked?  
 
The second movement waltz was beautifully moulded by Mackerras, bringing out the 5/4 lilt to perfection. In the Sunday performance Mackerras coaxed some particularly fine cello and woodwind playing. 
 
The great third movement march sounded all the more convincing by being sustained at a more or less steady ‘Allegro’ tempo, especially in the big G major full orchestra march statement. As in the greatest performances of this masterpiece one felt an underlying sense of menace in the music’s ostensible tone of triumph.  
 
A note of stoic nobility was achieved in the tragic tone of the great ‘Lamentoso’ finale. Mackerras again scored by maintaing a more or less sustained sense of tempo and drive to the movement’s cataclysmic climax which here never degenerated into dramatic sentimentality or bathos, as it so often does. The ‘ominous’ single gong stroke just before the coda was most subtely placed. sounding ‘there’ but also emanating from the surrounding dark texture. I would have liked to have heard more from the double-basses in the coda’s repeated pulsating funeral tread for they seemed strangely recessed. Here, and there throughout the performance, I noticed interpretive touches similar to those employed in the old Talich recording of the Pathetique with the Czech Philharmonic. Is it possible that the young Mackerras, who studied with Talich in Prague, went through the score of the Pathetique with the great Czech conductor? Whatever the case may be these was a truly memorable performances of a great symphony. I hope we will hear soon some more Tchaikovsky from Sir Charles. 
 
Geoff Diggines


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