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Haydn and Mahler: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiri Belohlavek (conductor), Jean-Gulhen Queyras (cello) Barbican Centre London 23. 5. 2009 (GD)

Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major.
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor.


If anything, this rendition of Haydn's second cello concerto was even more compelling than last week's performance of his first concerto in this form - see review. For one thing Belohlavek seems to have taken my advice and deployed antiphonal violins!  Also, oboes and horns were slightly better balanced and more audible than was the case last week. As with the performance of the C major concerto, Queyras was most  attentive to both the grace and flow of Haydn's writing as well as the work's various chromatic shifts and virtuoso leaps. After a total feeling of dialogue and contrast in the flowing first movement, conductor and soloist managed the shifts from A minor to C major in the beautiful 'Adagio' second movement with consummate taste and empathy. The 6/8 rondo finale (supposedly based on an English folk song) combined to perfection, both the elegance and rustic touch this movement exudes. What diversity and élan Queyras intoned in every new statement of the rondo theme! His is a most modern style of cello playing but one totally in tune with the performance idioms of the Viennese Classical period.

In the solo trumpet fanfares which open the Mahler symphony Belohlavek emphasised a darker, muted tone than is customary. And indeed the whole of the first movement funeral march in its C sharp minor tonic assumed a very sombre and almost veiled/brooding dramatic tone. Even the A minor contrasting string melody did not do much to lighten the mood of doomed stoicism overlayed by a touch of the daemonic illumination, particularly from burnished brass. The stormy second movement ( 'with utmost vehemence') sounded more like an anguished quasi-burlesque version of the opening funeral march than in most performances. Belohlavek kept the many punctuated vertiginous rhythmic patterns on a tight rein producing a sense of grim determination.  At times I would have welcomed a bit more movement, a bit more diversity. It was all dynamically well controlled and balanced but it did feel a tad constricted. Perhaps I was thinking of that classic 1947 New York recording with Bruno Walter; much faster than is the norm now,  but having incredible movement, drive and rhythmic/dynamic diversity and flexibility, perfectly corresponding to Mahler's sense of phantasy and parody for me, both of which  were in short measure tonight. However, Belohlavek  as a conductor who understands thematic structural relations in a way  similar to Klemperer, did manage to contour the D major chorale so that it  reconfigured its significance at the symphony'a frenzied D major coda.

Belohlavek registered the right sense of contrast in the D major of the bucolic scherzo, coming straight from the world of 'Das Knaben Wunderhorn'. And this contrast wasn't just an accentuation of contrasting tone but a much lighter, almost playful sense of rhythm. Although there were some initial tuning problems in the horn section, things became resplendently improved by the time we reached the thrilling transition to the first trio with horn obbligato extensions. The BBC  percussion section was in fine form tonight especially the bass drum whose menacing quadruple rhythm initiating the movements wild dance coda,were unusually ominous and clear. Belohlavek avoided any sense of sentimentality or schmaltz in the often misinterpreted and  misused 'Adagietto'. Again,  I could have done with more flow and movement but overall, this and the adjoining D major Rondo-Finale  were convincingly realised and excellently executed, especially in those quas-contrapuntal string figurations in the last movement's semblance of a development section; the basses and celli here sounding wonderfully grainy and gritty. The  coda developed structurally from the movement's/symphony'spreceding themes and never once sounded grafted on as in more meretricious interpretations. I should mention one odd interpretative point. In Mahler's score the adagietto is linked to the finale by some folk-like fragments on wind and solo horn, before the bassoon quotes from a 'Wunderhorn' song. But tonight Belohlavek  took a lengthy pause between the two movements. This didn't seriously damage the overall performance, but it did rob us of a quite subtle inter-thematic Mahlerian transitional link.

Despite some reservations and some 'odious' comparisons,  this performance seen/heard in its own terms was as convincing, imaginative and musical as anything I have heard in concert. I look forward to more Mahler - and Bruckner though the two are not necessarily musically related - from Belohlavek in the not too distant future.

Geoff Diggines

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