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Haydn: Symphony No. 99 in E-flat Major, Hob. I:99

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, O. 125

It is hard to understand that Sir Roger Norrington was once a controversial figure in classical music. It’s as hard to understand that he was ever a controversial figure, but he was. He applied period performance practice to well known music, especially Beethoven, and offended all the people who wanted their future to be the same as their, hopefully, never-changing present, and especially for their music to be a dead thing, served under glass, to be admired but never really felt or enjoyed. His Beethoven Symphony cycle on EMI, with the London Classical Players, was a major undertaking and event. In the years since it’s release there have been similar cycles from Christopher Hogwood, Roy Goodman, John Eliot Gardiner and others, but through the lens of time Norrington’s achievement has worn well and remains unsurpassed. His interpretations may have shocked when they first appeared, but his consistent musicality, expressiveness and lack of didacticism gives the recordings a consistent power and satisfaction. Nor is he simply a specialist; I have seen him lead excellent performances of Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams and Nicholas Maw with modern orchestras. He appeared at Carnegie Hall to lead the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in a concert commemorating Marianne Lockwood’s thirty-five years of her leadership of that ensemble. Sir Roger’s own association with the orchestra goes back twenty years, when he served as Music Director for four seasons. There is clearly a great deal of familiarity, camaraderie and sympathy between him and the musicians, and I cannot think of when I have heard this excellent modern instruments orchestra play at such a high level.

This was immediately clear in the opening moments of the Haydn symphony. The strings, playing senza vibrato throughout the concert, maintained a sound that was both full and clear, even in the quietest moments, and Sir Roger held the adagio introduction at a true pianissimo. This was a graceful, unhurried reading, with precise phrasing and an emphasis on rhythmic accents within and underneath Haydn’s lines. The woodwind ensembles of the second movement were beautifully tuned and blended and Sir Roger, always tending to the minimal amount of gestures yet always one of the most interesting conductors to watch, bobbed to the oom-pah-pah beat of the scherzo. The finale began with a vivacious pianissimo and ended with a dance-like flourish and pointed wrapping up. It was a good prelude to what was to come.

Beethoven’s grandest work opens with the simplest musical structure, an open fifth, and through some particular musical alchemy conductor and orchestra were able to play this interval as laden with the most exciting kind of musical tension, the sensation that something extraordinary was going to happen. Sir Roger’s knee-jerk critics have always held his choice of tempos against him, and they would not have been able to withstand this opening. Beethoven’s expressive mark is “not too fast and a little stately;” this was very fast and very exciting. Speed alone can convey a brittle, neurotic sort of excitement, but this was speed with thought. The stateliness was in the sense of care and importance given to the music, the clarity of the ensemble that allowed every detail to speak. Beethoven uses triplet passages in the violas to convey both weight and velocity, and it is important to hear this, and Sir Roger made sure that this was the motor, the powerful center of the music. This symphony is packed with emotional and intellectual information and a core of ethical and moral grandeur, the stateliness speaks for itself as long as it is given the opportunity. Tempo is important, but concentration on that alone is philistinism. Sir Roger gave beautiful, careful delineation of dynamics within melodic and harmonic phrases throughout the piece and that allowed the music to speak clearly and powerfully. The Symphony No. 9 is still new music in many ways, still avant-garde in the sensation of barely held back chaos, the tension and excitement that things might fall apart throughout the first two movements. Disintegration of line and structure became an important feature of Romantic music because Beethoven pioneered the idea, quite strongly in this symphony, and the best musicians understand this idea and are able to play it with confidence and understanding and not lose track of the overall plan. This is what Sir Roger gave the audience. He plunged into the chaos without fear because he had total control of the order within.

So much of this performance was so fine. Again, belying the idea that he is merely a human metronome, his change of tempo at the first movement coda was so well done that it seemed there was no other proper way to do it. And belying the cliché of his reputation, his scherzo was on the moderate side, slower than Hogwood, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, even Wand, yet the music drove forward with a consistent momentum, with the idea that it was just able to keep one step ahead of fate. Sir Roger’s control of dynamics was simply fantastic; he used them as a major element in expressing the structure within movement and within the overall work. His tempo in the trio sections was just slower still, and the music was lovely and graceful. The Adagio molto e cantabile was more andante throughout but never rushed, relatively more in line with modern performance ideas than period ones, but the sensibility was wistful and gentle, truly singing, with an expression of both comfort and emotional weariness, which strikes as absolutely appropriate for the journey this symphony takes. The legacy of the ideas of period performance practice that was apparent throughout was in the orchestral sound, which was lean, transparent, precise and warm even when the massed forces were sounding. There is a conceptual strength in this in that it emphasizes the music, the composition, over the sound, which in any case was attractive and vibrant. The opening of the finale was sinewy and aggressive, and Sir Roger presented it in a discursive fashion, as an argument within the orchestra, and then the “Ode to joy” melody appeared as quietly, plainly and sweetly as possible. Each entrance following on affirmed a clear vision of how this phrase should be and the excitement prior to Tigges’ entrance was built through sharp accents. The soloists were all fine, not only singing well but singing within the overall clarity of expression Sir Roger commanded; Tigges was impressive with his power and verve, his voice on the lighter side and clear and precise. The Turkish March was, again, slower than expectations, a stately march tempo rather than a spry dance, and his control over tempo in the fugue was deeply impressive; when all natural instincts would push the issue, he choose to emphasize dynamics again, and it was beautiful. He made decisions, stuck to them, argued them fully and never fussed. The Westminster Choir sang with great passion, and the conductor channeled this with as much care to dynamics and phrasing as he had the orchestra. This vision of the Beethoven Ninth is one with less emotional stress but more intellectual power, it emphasizes phenomenology over angst, and while that is a choice that would not appeal to all, Sir Roger expressed it with complete and formidable command.

George Grella