This imaginative and intriguing programme, centred
around three very different responses to themes from the Old Testament,
gave an all too rare opportunity to hear Vaughan Williams’s masterful
ballet Job, in the wake of an impressive performance of the same
composer’s Fourth Symphony earlier in the CBSO
season. Coupled with the inclusion of Bernstein’s early First
Symphony this was a programme that also underlines Oramo’s commitment,
following in the illustrious footsteps of Simon Rattle, to stimulating
repertoire for his Symphony Hall audiences.
As it turned out, it was the Bernstein that proved
to be the highlight of the evening, a performance of searing passion
and pathos that seemed to bring out the best in both the strings and
brass particularly. The rich, dark hued sound of the strings in the
opening movement, Prophecy-Largamente, was marvellous (for sheer
depth of tone I can’t think of a British orchestra that can beat them)
and the central fortissimo statement of the main theme, with its echoes
of Roy Harris, foreboding yet truly magisterial. The closing bars of
this movement were captured with a sense of magic that I cannot imagine
being more finely realised. At first the Vivace con brio scherzo,
Profanation, seemed to lack a degree of rhythmic definition but
any such concerns were soon dispelled as Oramo whipped the orchestra
up into a state of hair-raising exhilaration. The Coplandesque, momentum
gathering Latin American rhythms had most of the audience gasping for
breath! The influence of Copland is once again in evidence in the more
expansive phrases of the final Lamentation-Lento, particularly
in the brass writing. Jane Irwin delivered the vocal line with a feeling
of touching simplicity that felt just right for the plaintive sadness
of Bernstein’s touching inspiration. The clear sense of satisfaction
in the hall at the conclusion of the work spoke volumes for this performance.
In the three Handel arias that followed, Jane Irwin
again displayed a wonderfully relaxed, effortless style with a voice
rich in all registers and immaculately clear diction. The delicate and
finely balanced string and continuo accompaniment provided by Oramo
and his players was achieved with aplomb, the vigour of the final aria
from Jephtha coming off particularly well.
I well recall the shattering power and interpretative
strength of Oramo’s performance of Vaughan Williams’s Fourth Symphony
making a major impression on me back in February. As a result my expectations
were high for this long awaited performance of Job, partly because
it was also a first opportunity to hear the new Symphony Hall organ.
The opening set the pastoral scene beautifully, with atmospheric, delicately
balanced sounds from the strings and woodwind and a gentle grace to
the courtly dance of Job’s children. The initial entry of Satan, marked
by pianissimo pizzicato strings and bassoons, had real menace yet later
in Scene Two I could not help but feel that the brass, in their mocking
Gloria as Satan kneels before God’s throne, lacked the necessary feeling
of grotesque scorn. In Scene Three the Minuet of Job’s sons and
daughters-in- law showed a natural shape in the phrasing and the sound
blossomed through VW’s richly expansive orchestration but doubts continued
to surface as the performance failed to invoke the sheer terror of the
subject matter. At last this doubt seemed to dispel in Scene Four where
Job’s visions of plague, pestilence, famine and battle had a maniacal
reality about them that at once impressed and terrified. Capturing the
feeling of weedling hypocrisy in the saxophone solo at the opening of
Scene Six (a real masterstroke of orchestration) often seems to elude
players and whilst nicely played the solo here was just that too nice.
Sadly, the vision of Satan on God’s throne at the end of this scene,
in many ways the shattering climactic fulcrum of the work, also failed
as the result of a tempo that simply did not allow the apocalyptic force
of the music to emerge fully and a strangely anaemic sound from the
organ, probably in itself, the disappointment of the evening. Jacqueline
Hartley’s sublimely melting, rhapsodic violin solo in Scene Seven representing
Elihu’s Dance of Youth and Beauty was played with memorable tenderness
although a surprisingly brisk choice of tempo in the ensuing Pavane
meant that the dance lost its feeling of courtly grace. Fortunately
the Galliard in Scene Eight did not suffer the same fate and
the transition into the concluding scene was finely handled, as was
the closing reprise of the opening material as Job gazes over his cornfields
blessing his wife and daughters.
In conclusion a concert that was possibly as memorable
for the inconsistencies in Job as it was for the fine first half
performance of Bernstein’s "Jeremiah" although it is certainly
to be hoped that Oramo and his orchestra continue to adopt the same
spirit of programming in their forthcoming 2002 season.
Christopher Thomas.
Return to:
Music on the Web