Bartok’s Music for Strings,
Percussion and Celesta is one of the seminal string works of the
last century; balancing virtuosity and poetry through a half-hour span
it is invariably a compelling experience in live concert.
During this year's Proms Claudio
Abbado conducted one of the most sublime accounts of the work I have
yet heard. I wrote at the time:
The opening ghostly fugue
was almost skeletal in its beauty, but they [the Gustav Mahler Judenorchester]
and Abbado gave it such sinuous textures it became more and more fleshed
out as the movement developed. With the two string orchestras playing
in perfect unison the polyphony was richly layered. The fast allegro
brought incandescent imagery as each orchestra shadowed the other;
the adagio became a glittering movement of shimmering tremolandos
and naked percussiveness. The finale, with its East European folksiness
so wonderfully characterised, alternated between blistering string
figurations and gaunt, expressive percussion. Played and conducted
with such brilliance it proved a spellbinding experience.
Pierre Boulez’ equally spellbinding
account was largely different in approach. Using smaller forces than
Abbado (eight double basses as opposed to Abbado’s twelve, for example)
Boulez concentrated less on the sinewy textures and more on the work’s
darker ambivalence. If Abbado’s conception was a more symphonic one,
Boulez suggested that approaching the work as chamber music is equally
valid. The distinctive balance of orchestral voices was given greater
subtlety, the counterpoint between the two orchestras a less emotional,
more detached tonality. Indeed, the dark, grainy tone of the LSO’s strings
gave a less edgy anxiety to the ethereal adagio, although this was more
than counterbalanced by some intrinsically harsh percussiveness.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony was given
an electrifying performance, although this conductor’s abrasive, almost
combative, approach to Mahler’s symphonies made it a somewhat brash
experience with brass rarely as subtle as they should be. Boulez’ view
of this score is a world away from that of Simon Rattle, and no more
so than in the opening Funeral March. Whereas Rattle drags the tempi,
and is inclined towards less than perspicacious rubato, Boulez is a
paradigm of the great Mahler interpreter. His pacing is inscrutable
building up the tension of the symphony over its entire span. Hence,
the Funeral March achieves an unparalleled sense of menace and fear
made all the more naked by Boulez’ refusal to give the lamenting second
theme any sense of romantic structure. When the Trio emerges it does
so preternaturally and with uncommon violence.
Boulez continues this approach
into both the allegro and the scherzo. Ostinato double basses at the
opening of the second movement leave an indelible, thunderous impact
and Boulez shapes the brass chorales with a vehemence that underlines
this symphony’s heroic protagonism. The third movement horn obbligato,
quite wonderfully played by the LSO’s principal horn, David Pyatt, is
almost the only moment where Boulez allows a sense of beauty to emerge
from the first two parts of the symphony. With conductor and soloist
giving a spaciousness to the lyricism, and with Pyatt producing pianissimo’s
of breathtaking clarity, the effect is beguiling.
The adagietto was phrased subliminally,
with the LSO strings producing a richness of tone almost at odds with
Boulez’ swift tempo. This very swiftness made the slow opening of the
Rondo more pressing than it often seems and from thereon Boulez rivets
the attention by winding up the power of the finale’s contrapuntalism
with unrivalled skill. When the coda appears it does so with all the
cumulative power one expects, but rarely hears. It was breathtaking.
With the exception of some less
than accurate intonation in the trumpets (notably in the first movement)
this was a magnificently played performance and one in which conductor
and orchestra were at one in their vision of a symphony which should
be as fearful as it is energetic.
Marc Bridle
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