SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Bartók, Ravel: Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) / Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra / Jukka-Pekka Saraste (conductor). Barbican Hall, London 20.5.09 (ED)


This concert transpired to be more interesting on paper than it was oftentimes in performance. Two works from 1844 - Berlioz’ Le Carnival romain overture and Mendelssohn’s E minor violin concerto - filled the first half, whilst the second half presented two individual angles on twentieth century ballet with Bartók’s The Wooden Prince suite and Ravel’s La Valse.

Saraste was in workmanlike mood as he opened the Berlioz, making not quite enough of the ebullient beginning, though much else was clearly accented with some immediacy of attack from the brass, whilst the orchestra as a whole revelled in the tutti passages without becoming overindulgent.

Greater issues were evident throughout the Mendelssohn though, with Anne-Sophie Mutter turning in a high-octane reading that seemed intent on emphasising muscularity of bowing and forward thrust at the expense of tonal beauty. Piano touches were in evidence during the first movement, but not enough of them. The second movement initially displayed some tenderness on Mutter’s part, but overall her steely tone negated its impact. Still further,  in the third movement phrases were snatched in the over-brisk tempo. There was virtuosity to be sure, but more for its own sake than any other. Orchestrally this was a routine performance, decently co-ordinated, rather than revelatory.

Saraste’s own arrangement of Bartók’s ballet suite saw around a quarter of the music cut from the performance, reducing the work almost to the status of a lengthy tone poem. What Saraste’s conducting did well though was to balance the more brutal elements in the music with the instances of romance to leave a sense of seething passion most palpably in the mind, which is as Bartók would have wanted. After this, one might have expected a fearsome performance of Ravel’s La Valse. What terror there was however was arguably more in the writing than in the playing, with much of the waltz remaining simply too well mannered, despite instrumental heft at times being brought to bear. The final calamitous explosion lacked little in brutality, but seemed divorced from the events that bring it into being to be fully effective.

Evan Dickerson 


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