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SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW
 

Prom 20: Wagner, Lamare transcriptions and original improvisations: Wayne Marshall organist. Royal Albert Hall, London 1.8.2010 (JPr)
 

Prom 21: Berlioz and Wagner- concert performance of Tristan und Isolde Act II: Soloists, Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London 1.8.2010 (JPr)

Introducing the Prom 20 concert from the organ loft at the Royal Albert Hall BBC Radio 3’s Louise Fryer announced that Edwin Lamare was ‘one of the greatest organists of his generation in the early decades of the twentieth century.’ ‘ Wayne Marshall,’ she said, as ‘one of our own most celebrated organists’, would ‘unleash the mighty beast’ of the Willis organ, with its 9,999 pipes, which when first installed in the Royal Albert Hall ‘was the largest organ in the world’.

Marshall began the Overture from The Mastersingers of Nuremberg to shouts from one of the Promenaders of ‘Fountain’ and the tinkling water that could be clearly heard coming from their standing area at the start of this recital suggested that it would have been better had the organist begun with Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. It was clear from this piece that the organ is very good for the bombastic and triumphalist moments of Wagner’s music but what was described in the programme as ‘fluid, highly contrapuntal’ music - as in this opening Mastersingers Overture - loses out to the mechanics of the organist’s hand and feet getting the sound out of the instrument. This generates a certain awkwardness to the flow of the music and the result is clearly effortful. In the hall there was also the strange problem of the dynamics of the sound veering from something that sounded like an amplified accordion to the loudest sounds outstaying their welcome as they reverberated around. I am sure that Wayne Marshall is clearly a virtuoso, but I think an organ recital must be an acquired taste; one that I do not have.

The quieter processional moments of the Tannhäuser Overture sounded good as the organ was just the right instrument for this quasi-religious music, however, for the Bacchanalian moments there are just too many notes to play and once again the music seemed to stutter along. In fact there was so much to play that as Marshall revealed in an interview afterwards that we had in fact heard four hands at the organ with ‘his partner’ playing the Tannhäuser main theme. Marshall also admitted - what was very clear - that these transcriptions, being heard for the first time at the Proms, were ‘very difficult to play’. With apologies to Woody Allen, having heard the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ for the third time in just over a week I was ready, like him, to invade Poland! For many of the reasons indicated above the organ cannot do justice to the attack and swooping dramatic effects of this music. 

In another short piece of his own (on themes from Tristan und Isolde) and his encore (using themes from the ‘Ride’ as well as Tristan again) Wayne Marshall demonstrated his ability to improvise at the organ which seems one of his greatest strengths. To have these pieces created in front of us with the organist in fuller command of what his instrument could produce, he showed its capabilities - and himself - off to full advantage.

In the following Prom21, Berlioz was twinned with more Wagner. Six years after their splendid Das Rhinegold, the unexpected partnership of Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment were back at the Proms with a period ‘take’ on Tristan – albeit just Act II. The German composer gained a lot of knowledge about melody and orchestration from the 1839 dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette and in 1860 acknowledged the fact when he sent Berlioz the full score of Tristan und Isolde inscribing it ‘To the dear and great author of Romeo and Juliet from the grateful author of Tristan and Isolde’. We were played only one part Romeo and Juliet – though this was the ’Love Scene’ that Berlioz considered one of his greatest achievements. Lasting less than twenty minutes, it was then followed by a twenty-five minutes interval. Who thinks these concert programmes up and why does the Prom audience put up with them, I wonder.

How authentic is ‘authentic’? Despite Barry Millington’s interesting discussion on ‘Period-instrument Wagner’ in the concert programme, it is very clear that ‘many a good tune can be played on an old fiddle’ whether or not it has gut strings. It seemed that some vibrato was used and the enhanced orchestra - against a backdrop of nine double basses - produced a sound not far removed from that of a ‘modern’ orchestra despite tuning to A=437. To play the Berlioz, the OAE used, the brighter-sounding woodwind and horns of the period and after the interval, the darker late nineteenth-century equivalents for the Wagner. In the OAE’s playing throughout the concert there was a precision, refinement and mellow balance between all sections - within the overall ensemble - rarely heard from modern orchestras. It is sometimes heard of course – and a Prom in 2002 with Abbado and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester comes to mind here – such that it could be experienced even more often with greater rehearsal and preparation time for concerts. Anyway, the sound seemed ideal for the dreamlike atmosphere and all the other glorious Wagnerian colours of Tristan Act II where the lovers progress from their shared insecurities to being caught ‘in the act’ by King Marke.

The greatest attention was paid throughout to the unity between words and music byRattle, his soloists and the orchestra. This was clear from Isolde’s first extended entry when she sang about the ‘rieselnde Welle’ and ‘nur lacht mir der Quelle’ : we could clearly hear the ‘rippling waves’ and the ‘laughing’ fountain. Violeta Urmana was a revelation as Isolde singing with perfect ease and a wonderful nobility of tone. She was well matched by Sarah Connolly, who is often seen in Handel trouser roles, but who here made a seamless move into heavier German repertoire. Her warning to Tristan and Isolde, sung from high up in the choir seats, was beautifully rendered and had a dreamy effectiveness of its own as it intruded on the reveries of the doomed pair. However, even the wonderful contributions of these two excellent singers was quickly forgotten, as soon as Franz-Josef Selig began the monologue ‘Mir dies?’ Undoubtedly this was most compelling rendition of King Marke’s account of the shame and betrayal he has suffered that I have ever heard. I have never experienced it so warmly, compassionately, and meticulously sung. His dignity in face of the hurt he had suffered was palpable even in this concert performance.

Sadly – because he is a singer I admire – I have to report on the continuing vocal difficulties that Ben Heppner is going through. Surely these must impact soon on his career when his long-standing contracts have been honoured and at the moment I cannot imagine how he will get through Peter Grimes next season at Covent Garden. There seems absolutely no consistency to what the problem is. It seems he can crack on the first note of a phrase or the last, on a word with one syllable or three, or a high note or a softer one. He seemed to relax somewhat after the extended ‘duet’ and I even wonder if he is making the problem worse by anticipating that something will go wrong. For us, the audience, it was clear that he was unable to get through any one passage without at least one mistake but there was never any certainty about the point at which it would come. That he was better than in his recent Covent Garden performances is not saying very much but such was the brilliance of all those around him at this Prom that, unlike there, it didn’t seem to really matter.

Jim Pritchard

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