SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW

Prom 56 - Barber, Shostakovich and Bruckner:  Alisa Weilerstein (cello)  The Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä (conductor) Royal Albert Hall  27.8.2010 (GD)

Samuel Barber; Music for a scene from Shelley
Shostakovich; Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat,  Op. 107
Bruckner: Symphony No 4 in E flat, 'Romantic'


Barber composed his short orchestral piece in 1933, in his mid twenties, after reading Shelley's 'Prometheus Unbound'. For such a youthful work,  he demonstrates amazing assurance both in terms of orchestral technique and economical compositional skill. The work is really a piece of incidental music with Shelley's epic as a source of inspiration. It takes on the  contour of an arch and projects a diversity of themes and a  sense of vast space; incredibally in an actual  time span of just over ten minutes,  An opening 'Adagio ma non troppo' in 9/8 time, develops into a climax with a soaring trumpet solo. This gives way to a central 'pesante fortissimo' climax which gradually descends into a brief, but beautiful coda which recalls the opening theme in a mood of stoical repose. It was good to hear such a well played and sympathetic reading of this rarely heard work. Special praise is due for the trumpet solo part, and for the clarity and precision of the percussion.

On the whole, Miss Weilerstein delivered a good, even virtuoso, performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto. From the opening theme based on the composers monogram D-S-C-H, and closely linked to Eighth String Quartet, I had the impression of the notes being 'played' quite accurately. But I failed to hear any kind of tonal rhythmic inflection pointing towards the rough/sardonic irony being played out here and throughout this first movement. The theme comes from a Georgian folk tune and is alluded to throughout the concerto, but here that link was not really coherently displayed as it is with Russian cellist Natalia Gutman or indeed as it was Rostropovich, with whom Weilerstein studied.

The A minor second movement once again was well played although I still had no great impression of the depth and range of musical and affective tones and moods being realised: this also applied to the third movement's unaccompanied solo cadenza.  The transitional line implied there sagged rather than cohered with the finale and in the finale's opening G minor,  the 2/4 inflection lacked the sense of rhythmic irony found by the cellists already mentioned. The rondo line also lacked the full thematic integration required. This was partly to do with the soloist rushing forward   at times and so  disrupting the synergy between cello line and orchestra. Overall, as would be expected,  Vänskä  and the Minnesota Orchestra delivered sympathetic and accurate accompaniment, although occasionally the horns lapsed slightly in terms of sustained tuning. And, as already implied, the rondo finale lost its sense of integration and line on several occasions.  As an encore Weilerstein gave an elegant, if rather clipped rendition of the 'Gigue' form Bach's Third Cello Suite. 

For reasons best known to himself, Vänskä used the 1888 version of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, recently prepared (2004/6)  for the Bruckner Gesellschaft in Vienna by American Bruckner scholar Benjamin Korstvedt. This turns out to be none other than the  Schalk/Lowe version which was used by conductors like Furtwängler and Knappertsbusch, before alternatives were available, but which has since generally been regarded as unrepresentative of Bruckner's intentions. The fact that Bruckner sanctioned it for performance in his lifetime in no way detracts from this. Bruckner was notoriously equivocal when it came to emended performing versions of his symphonies and shortly before his death, he submitted to the Vienna Imperial Library the 1878/80 version,  later edited for performance by Robert Haas, as his final word on this and his other symphonies. This would seem to confirm the authenticity of that version, which has been performed by conductors as wide ranging and different as Harnoncourt and Klemperer. The 1888 version, as described above, amounts to no less than a wholesale re-orchestration of the 1878/80 version, and the original version of 1874 later  edited by Nowak.   The details of this are far too numerous and depressing to describe in much detail in a review  but they include three  quite un-Brucknerian  cymbal crashes and the use of equally alien sounding shrieking piccolos in the last movement. There is also  a ludicrous diminuendo at the end of each final statement of the scherzo, before and after the trio, with a most unidiomatic timpani decrescendo figure along with the omission of the wonderful pp timpani rolls at the recapitulation of the opening horn theme in the first movement. There are more problems still with this edition:   frequent and quite unconvincing,  conjoining woodwind passages at transitions together with numerous and bombastic sounding timpani interpolations in  various chorale passages -  especially those  in the first movement and finale. 

Tonight's performance would have had more potency if it had been made clear that this was a kind of revival of an alternative edition of Bruckner, and one not generally used today - a kind of historical experiment in odd editions if you will. But it wasn't. In fact I heard a recording of the Prom in which the announcer told us that this was the favoured version of great conductors of the past. Well, that's partially true, in the case of Furtwängler, who had limited access to better editions but  Bruno Walter, Klemperer, Jochum and Bohm favoured it not at all. All these 'great conductors'  chose different  and more representative versions from either Haas or Nowak.

All of this was made even more frustrating by the fact that Vänskä's interpretation seemed to be a fine one, magnificently played, with  well chosen tempi which never dragged;  Bruckner's crucial marking 'Bewegt' (with movement) was splendidly incorporated. We can only hope that Vänskä and the magnificent Minnesota orchstra will give us other performances  (on recordings and in concert)  of this marvellous symphony using the more recent versions mentioned above. They at least respect the authenticity of the composer's final wishes.

Geoff Diggines   

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