Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Mozart and Elgar: Lise de la Salle (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, Royal Festival Hall, London, 12.2.2009 (GD)

Mozart: Symphony No. 32 in G major, K318 (Overture in the Italian Style)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
Elgar: Symphony No. 1 in A flat, Op 55


It is by no means certain that Mozart intended K318 as a symphony. It is possible that he had composed it as the overture for his incomplete opera ‘Zaide’ K344. Later Köchel catalogued it as No 32 in between No’s 31 K297 (‘Paris’), and No 33 K319. Mackerras characteristically gave a crisp, well delineated reading of this splendid late Salzburg piece, emphasising its ‘bravura’ qualities with ‘period’ trumpets and timpani. For this work, and the following Concerto, Mackerras continued his rather odd practice seating the violins together for the classical works and resuming the correct antiphonal arrangement for the full scale symphony. 
 
In the early spring of 1785 Mozart’s father came to Vienna and heard his son perform this D minor concerto ‘magnificently’. Leopold must have found this work extremely daring with its opening D minor shudder with those uncanny syncopated upbeat triplets in the bass of the orchestra. This masterpiece, which certainly does new and unheard of things to the ‘Sturm und Drang’ style, left a deep impression on Beethoven, who wrote the cadenzas heard tonight. 

Uncharacteristically, Mackerras and the orchestra started a shade tentatively. I had to strain my ears to recognize that opening ‘shudder’; more the semblance of a shudder! But things soon picked up orchestrally with Mackerras delivering one of his typically tasteful, idiomatic, and nuanced concerto performances, but as soon as Lise de la Salle floated her first contrasting D major/minor phrases I started to forget about the orchestra. Of course in reality one can’t, or shouldn’t ever forget about the orchestra in a Mozart concerto, but I say this metaphorically to underline the extraordinarily pianism heard tonight. De la Salle’s playing had elegance, grace, power, flexibility, poise,  poetry and an extraordinary diversity conditioned by a stunning technique which never came over as technique for it own sake. Not since Marcel Meyer (that earlier superb French interpreter of Mozart) and Clara Haskill have I heard such exquisite Mozart playing. I noticed that de la Salle’s hands/fingers were quite small but some of her ornamented arpeggios and elaborated counterpoint, where the left and right hand figurations were always absolutely distinct, sounded as though they were being delivered by a pianist who could span an octave! This was particularly noticeable in the B flat ‘Romanza’ second movement with its abrubtly contrasting G minor middle section where every note in the piano was crystal clear. Here, and throughout the concerto, de la Salle, unlike many pianists much older than she (just 21), mostly delivered this astounding pianistic range through her arms and hands/fingers. In other words she does not come over as a demonstratively ‘somatic’ or gestural pianist. In this sense I had the impression of a tremendous inner concentration, such as one used to hear in pianists like Kempf, and still hear with Pollini. But unlike many classically trained pianists de la Salle’s playing also had an added element of spontaneous improvisation; especially magnificent in the Beethoven cadenzas.  I comment on the extraordinary clarity and resilience of  the piano playing in the context of the still rather dry, recessed acoustic of the Festival Hall which is usually unkind to pianistic clarity. But such was the power of de la Salle’s projection that all such acoustical shortcomings were transcended remarkably.  

After more D minor/G minor ‘Sturm und Drang’ intensity in the ‘Rondo’ finale de la Salle perfectly captured the coda’s surprising, but here so inevitable-sounding, shift to D major with those almost sarcastic  ‘buffo’ figures in the trumpet which tonight needed to be projected with more bite from Mackerras. As with pianists of the order of Pollini, Grimaud and Nelson Freire, de la Salle is a pianist I would go to great trouble and expense to hear in concert. And arguably, from tonight's experience, she  surpasses them all in some ways,  at least in Mozart.

I must confess Elgar to be something of a blind spot for me. Of course I acknowledge the musical quality of works like the symphonic study ‘Falstaff’, the Violin Concerto and the ‘Enigma Variations’ amongst others, but, as with Kipling, I have the perception of very well crafted compositions which basically look backwards; in both cases to the British Empire…a kind of nostaslgia for an idealised image of the British Empire which never quite existed in reality. I don’t often impute a musical work with extra-musical qualities but the music of the composer who wrote the ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ marches and ‘The Spirit of England’ seems to me so rhetorically charged as to be inextricably linked to images/sounds of Empire. And despite numerous attempts in recent years to reveal the ‘radical’ side of Elgar, I can never quite forget Sir Thomas Beecham’s remark that Elgar’s First Symphony is ‘the musical equivalent of St Pancras Station’! (obviously he was referring to the pre Euro-Star International Terminus St Pancras!)

If Sir Charles’s interpretation of the Symphony didn’t quite make me a full Elgar convert,  it cannot be denied that his was the most considered and symphonic reading of the piece I have heard since the days of Sir Adrian Boult. Even the rather (to me) pompous smug sounding tone of the opening march in the tonic of A flat had a structured symphonic contour to it which very much linked its reincarnation (at the first movement’s recapitulation) into C major. Mackerras brought out the juxtapositions between B flat and G minor in the forward thrust of the second movement’s march and the more lyrical second theme to striking effect. The lyrical nobility of the ‘Adagio’ third movement never sounded cloying or sentimental, and the hushed and intimate music of the long coda were played to perfection. From the ominous D minor tremolando at the start of the finale, to the grand statement in the home key tonic of  the syncopated march motto theme of the coda Sir Charles managed to shed the music of most of its bombastic/pompous potential – which Elgar, in his own recording, achieved at an even faster tempo. Apart from a slight timing error from the timpani on one occasion in the finale the Philharmonia responded excellently to Sir Charles’s obvious devotion to the work.  

Geoff Diggines


^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}