SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

 

 

Mozart: Piano Concerto No: 27, in Bflat, K 595

Ligeti: Musica ricercata: No: 2

George Benjamin: Duet ( First London performance)

Ravel: Valse nobles et sentimentles; Miroirs; Une barque sur I'ocean; La valse.

 

Nott and the BBC Symphony Orchestra articulated the exquisite grace and flow of the opening of Mozart's last piano concerto with just the right combination of movement (as the allegro marking implies) and subtle ambiguity in the frequent hesitations between major and minor. I am not sure that the interjecting chords in the woodwind/horns in the opening, and also later in the movement, should be given quite the emphasis that Nott gave them: they are marked as a single f contrast and no more. Aimard's first entry was as stylish and elegant as we have come to expect from this superb musician but as he started into the second theme everything went awry. This was a staggering loss of concentration in which, for a few moments, everything came apart and it is confirmation of Aimard's professionalism that he managed very quickly to get back on track.  Although the rest of the concerto went well, especially in the allegro finale, with its ambiguity between 6/8 rondo hunting themes and minor key melancholoy, there remained  a slight sense of tension. This tension was exacerbated in the E flat larghetto, with its traces of 'Die Zauberflöte', where soloist and conductor were not always together, Nott favouring a more forward moving larghetto, Aimard seeming to prefer a more expansive tempo.

 

 

The remainder of the first half of the Prom was something of an experiment conjured up between conductor and soloist, who both have close associations with Ligeti’s music. This consisted in fusing Ligeti's solo piano piece 'Musica ricercata' with George Benjamin's recent 'Duet' for piano and orchestra. And, as Benjamin is also known to admire Ligeti, it didn't seem a bad idea. As it happened, it came off quite well. The haunting Ligeti work, which gained a period of fame from being used in Stanley Kubricks 1999 film'Eyes Wide Shut', was superbly delineated by Aimard, who, apart from specialising in Mozart, is also a keen champion of modern composers.. The sparse dotted chords of the Ligeti piece worked well as a prelude (without a break) to the two-part invention for piano which opens the Benjamin work. Some commentators have called ‘Duet’ a kind of compressed piano concerto but I tend to agree with Jonathan Notts's view that it is more a single movement statement with the piano taking a more integrated part of  Benjamin’s unusual soundscape. Although it lasts no longer than ten minutes 'Duet' is a remarkbly diverse and contrasting work, with shades of Bartòk and indeed Ligeti too. But Benjamin's own invention is very much apparent with complex cross-rhythms between the piano and orchestra, and clusters of polytonality, giving the work a distinctly 'unheimlich' quality, particularly towards its end. This spectral tonality is inflected with a percussive sounding harp, pizzicato strings, both clinging to yet also diverging from the piano figuration, and an extensive percussion section ( to which the piano is a very important addition) emphasising the complex rhythmic structure of the work. Aimard and Nott were obviously relishing every off-beat quasi a-tonal aspect of this remarkable, and important new work. I can't imagine it being performed with more conviction! 

 

 

After the interval we were treated a wide range of orchestral colour and contrast with music by Ravel with which there were all kinds of programmatic cconnections. Both Nott and Aimard are devoted to Ravel's music, as is George Benjamin, who also conducts distinctive performances of Ravel's orchestral works. Une Barque sur l'ocean is an orchestration that Ravel himself made from a movement from his piano suite 'Miroirs. When it was first performed in its orchestral form (1907) it was a failure, critics finding it a hollow exercise in 'rippling Lisztian arpeggios' with little content. Ravel withdrew it from publication, but his original remained, and in this concert its sensual evocation of the sea made a lyrical contrast to the two more substantial works, even though some Ravel ‘experts ‘argue, wrongly in my view, that it should not be played.

 

Nott gave a rhythmically sharp, but expressive reading of the Valse nobles et sentimentales and although some of the playing was slightly messy, Nott evinced the exciting, contrasting dance/waltz contours of the work with real conviction. This 'natural' feeling for Ravel's music was carried over into the last piece in the programme, La valse, which many see as his greatest orchestral work. Ravel described La valse as 'sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz' although these days one could say that it is a kind of 'deconstruction' of the waltz, leading on to chaos and 'death' , Ravel's chosen metaphor. . Nott certainly brought out this sense of frenzy and chaos, with some of the most grotesque sounds, particularly from the brass at the works catastrophic close, that I have ever heard. The performance didn't quite have the elegance and structural integrity of a Martinon or a Monteux, or the rhythmic finesse of a Boulez, and again there were occasional rough patches in terms of ensemble as well as a sense of rush at times.  But despite this, Nott won the day, or the moment, by connecting with the sheer, even visceral, excitement of Ravel's inspiration, something possibly only obtainable as a 'live' concert/Prom event.  That thought was echoed by avid long applause from  the Prom audience.

 

 

Geoff Diggines 

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