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John Adams, Samuel Barber and Beethoven: Joshua Bell (violin), Minnesota Orchestra  Osmo Vänskä, Barbican Hall, London 24.2.2009 (GD)

John Adams: Slonimsky’s Earbox
Samuel Barber:  Violin Concerto, op.14
Beethoven:  Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Eroica, op.55
 
 
 Right away, in the opening cluster of complex, off beat, rhythms on woodwind, brass and percussion of the Adams work I was struck but the sheer accuracy of orchestral articulation: everything absolutely in tune and together with an amazing transparency. Adams’s piece from 1995 (which lasts for about 15 minutes) seems made for displaying such orchestral virtuosity. The unorthodox title of the piece refers the Russian music theorist Nicholas Slonimsky who wrote several books on compositional configurations and melodic/harmonic musical patterns: a kind of musical compendium, or ‘Theasaurus’ as Slonimsky terms it. Adams has  acknowledged the part influence of the Russian harmonies/rhythms in his score, particularly of Stravinsky whose ‘Le chant du rossignol’ was a particular inspiration with its ‘bursts, eruptions, of brilliant colours, shapes and sounds’. The piece increases in complexity and energy, punctuated by Adam’s use of differential, and sometimes contrupuntal, patterns of ostinato–like modal scales and harmonies. Vänskä, by use of score and precise gesture, conducted the piece with great empathy both in style and idiom.

Although in some ways Barber’s verdant violin concerto looks back to ‘romantic’ and ‘classical’ traditions it is an extremely satisfying composition in its formal economy and matching, also contrasting, lyricism and rhythmic, rather than dramatic, subtlety. The lyrical glow which permeates the sonata form first movement was beautifully contoured by all concerned and, wisely, Bell did not give way to excessive vibrato. Although his rendition was ‘virtuosic’ it was a virtuosity which always served the music rather than any external or theatrical factor. The rhapsodic ‘Andante’ was a real andante which never cloyed or sagged. Everything in the more rhythmically charged last movement ‘Presto in moto perpetuo’, with its more extensive percussion compliment, was delivered in a way totally in tune with the music’s idiom. Such works deserved to played in concert much more and Vänskä and Bell were in perfect harmony throughout.

To complete the ‘American’ flavour of the first half of this concert Bell played as an encore the ‘Souvenir d’ Amérique’by Henri Vieuxtemps, with its quirky incorporation of a very ‘American’ tune.

The ‘Eroica’ complemented Vänskä’s now complete Beethoven symphony cycle with this orchestra on BIS. These recordings have rightly received virtually unanimous critical acclaim for their direct and fresh approach. Tonights ‘Eroica’ was very much in keeping with the excellence of the recordings. Although Vanska used a large string compliment, with eight double-basses, he managed a very lean ‘period’ tone with an absolute minimum of string vibrato, reedy sounding woodwind, raucous brass, and what looked like ‘period’ timpani with hand tuning, and Vänskä’s correct antiphonal violin layout proved to be most effective in the symphony’s many contrupuntal passages. The first movement. ‘Allegro con brio’. was swift and crisp. The E flat coda, as a peroration of the home tonic. sounded, as it always does, much more trenchant and effective minus blazing trumpets which were added later in the nineteenth century. I did feel a slight lack of  the sustained intensity, which past conductors like Toscanini and Erich Kleiber used to achieve, in the crescendo build up to the coda, with its mounting triplet figure, and in the central long development section I didn’t quite have the sense of Tovey’s ‘collision of shadowy harmonies’ at the development’s climax.

The great C minor ‘Marcia Funebre’ although marked ‘Adagio assai’ was taken, as is customary today, at a tempo more akin to an andante. Of course this totally conforms to Beethovens original metronome markings. Also Beethovens adagio is a march which suggests a certain sense of ‘con moto’. But this having been said I miss that sense of sustained awe Toscanini, and, in a very different interpretive register, Fürtwangler used to bring to this music. In the great double fugue development section Vänskä and the orchestra made every contrupuntal nuance crystal clear, but I had no sense of what Weingartner termed the ‘Aeschylean’ power and nobility unleashed here. But here we run into a whole range of complex arguments about comparative interpretation and the efficacy of  ‘period’ style; perhaps I am being plain old fashioned hankering after the dubious splendours of old maestro grandiosity the passing of which many of today’s well informed listeners see as a jolly good thing. I am glad to report that Vänskä brought out the triplet crescendo timpani figures at the movement’s coda to perfection; also excellently played by the Minnesota timpanist.

The two final movements unfolded excellently with a real sense of brio. Of particular distinction were the full throated horns in the scherzo’s trio section; the sheer charm and lilt Vänskä brought to the initiation of the ‘Prometheus’ theme and variations which form the final; the rugged dance energy achieved in the cross-rhythms of the ‘Hungarian’ dance section; and the blazing energy of the triumphant coda, The orchestra responded throughout with real precision and commitment to Vänskä’s, every demand. In short, an excellent performance of the ‘Eroica’ in today’s preferred manner.

Geoff Diggines


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