SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT

Schumann, Shostakovich, Beethoven:  Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, François-Xavier Roth (conductor), Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 5.3.2010 (GPu)

Schumann, Overture, Scherzo and Finale
Shostakovich, Cello Concerto No. 1
Beethoven, Symphony No.3


The undoubted highlight of this very enjoyable concert was an electric performance of Shostakovich’s first Cello Concerto, in which Emmanuelle Bertrand was a compelling and passionate soloist and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by a countryman of the soloist, François-Xavier Roth, did full justice to the composer’s astringent ambiguities and exhilarating colours.

Shostakovich’s cello concerto was prefaced by the rarely heard Overture, Scherzo and Finale of Schumann and followed by the Eroica. It has to be said that the performance of the Schumann didn’t do a great deal to persuade one that the work ought to be programmed more frequently. First written in the year following his marriage to Clara Wieck, and revised four years later in 1845, the work seems in the grip of a kind of identity crisis. At one point Schumann claimed the work to be his second symphony – when unsuccessfully seeking its publication by the Leipzig publisher Hofmeister – though somewhat paradoxically pointing out at the same time that the individual movements could be played separately. Before that he had described it as a sinfonietta. Eventually he settled on the present title (the full score was not published until 1853, just three years before Schumann’s death). There are thematic connections between the movements, but they are not prominent, and the work is perhaps best thought of as a suite. There is much in the work that reminds one of Mendelssohn – save that the tunes aren’t so good! Roth’s reading of the work offered crisp rhythms and transparent textures in the Overture and some hard-driven orchestral playing in the opening of the Scherzo as well as some attractively lyrical passages in the trio, while the Finale occasionally felt a little forced and over-emphatic as far as rhythmic accents went, although the secondary theme was played with real grace. Overall, however, it is a piece (set of pieces?) which leaves one oddly unsatisfied. Still, if nothing else it had at least warmed up the orchestra very well for the considerable demands about to be placed on it.

In her recordings Emmanuelle Betrand has displayed a particular affinity for music of the twentieth century and later – her readings of works by Henze, Ligeti and others have been widely praised. She has had works written for by, inter alia, Nicolas Bacri and Janez Maticic and Henri Dutilleux, who is a confirmed admirer of her work. That is a CV that sounds like that of a soloist well suited to the music of Shostakovich and it was clear from the very first bars of the performance that such expectations were wholly justified. This was a performance of compelling intensity and focus; a performance that responded creatively to the demands of one of the masterworks of the cello canon. The allegretto was full of furious energy, the combative dialogue of soloist and orchestra full of momentum and the orchestral playing as committed and passionate as that of the soloist. Bertrand’s expressive work was of a power and emotional intensity that made for demanding and rewarding listening. Bertand’s evident absorption in the music was such that during the orchestral passage that begins the ensuing moderato one felt slightly concerned that she might forget to make her entrance! The central passages of the movement, chamber-music-like in scale, were exquisite, rich in troubled beauty, not least when Bertrand’s arco cello was counterpoised by the pizzicato of the orchestral cellos. The movement was almost hypnotic in its hold on the listener, its balance of pain and poise remarkable. The long cadenza which followed – containing as it does some of Shostakovich’s most haunted and haunting music – was played with an impressive sense of pace and dynamics. Notes emerged from and disappeared into silence in a manner that constituted an object lesson in how integrally expressive silences can function as parts of a coherent musical statement. The final section of the work, marked allegro con moto, was full of vigour, ceaselessly exciting, existing in a dark, sardonic world which yet expressed the dignity of a survivor amidst some hints of despairing laughter. The harshness and abruptness of the close had about it an earned inevitability, the sense of a complex journey completed, at some cost but with independence secured.

After the interval, François-Xavier Roth conducted a hard-driven performance of the Eroica, the tempos rapid and the colours bright; that the orchestra could cope with the technical demands made upon them by Roth’s chosen speeds was evidence of how accomplished an ensemble the BBC National Orchestra of Wales currently is. The first movement abounded in drama and gesture, in dynamic contrast; occasionally some of Beethoven’s longer phrases seemed to have been subjected to rather too much in the way of internal pointing, but there was no doubting the exhilarating quality of the experience, no doubting that Roth communicated very well the extent to which this is music of and about power. Beethoven’s rapid transitions and juxtapositions were nowhere smoothed over, and one had some sense, at least, of how startling this music must have seemed to its original audience. The approach was rather less convincing in the funeral march of the second movement. The basses and the woodwinds section were particularly impressive in an opening of considerable subtlety and a pleasing transparency of texture and this was, taken whole, a measured and intelligent reading which, however, for all its lucidity, was never as emotionally gripping as the movement can be, as the movement, indeed, often was in more old-fashioned interpretations. The convincing intimacy of the closing pages was, though, very satisfying. The ensuing scherzo was delightful in its ebullience. The opening was full of rustling, burgeoning growth, an efflorescence which burst into full life when the strings and woodwind were joined by the rest of the orchestra in a vivacious dance. Not for the first time in the evening, the work of the horn section was particularly impressive, as they made their contribution to a movement full of an energy that was both robust and subtle. The finale, under Roth’s direction was certainly ‘allegro molto’; the orchestral opening was garrulous yet lucid and that lucidity extended to the way in which Roth clarified the complex and original structure of this movement; the slower passage which delays the conclusion had a unforced dignity, delaying but also blessing, as it were, the irrepressibly joyous momentum with which the orchestral introduction returned and prepared the way for a jubilant coda.

Roth’s Beethoven would not perhaps be to every taste; certainly it is very much a Beethoven of our own time. Though I wouldn’t want all my ‘Eroicas’ to be quite like this, I was happy to be excited by the affirmative energy of what was, after all, the work of a still relatively young man. Of the preceding performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto surely no listener with any interest in the work could have been anything other than altogether delighted.

Glyn Pursglove