Everyone has their own notion of how each of the great
masterpieces should be given, and it is quite possible that there were
people who came away enthralled after Sunday’s performance, but for
me it was one of the most uninvolving evenings I have ever spent in
the concert hall. This was a mostly genteel, precise reading, infused
with very little of the ardour which I expect from this conductor, and
the playing of the LPO was well below their wonted standard, especially
in the string sections. One could only surmise lack of rehearsal time
with the conductor.
The all- male gathering of the forces of choirs from
King’s College, Cambridge, Christ Church, Oxford and the Trebles and
Altos from Eton College Chapel sounded like an enticing prospect, but
in the event these, too, seemed muted, with ‘Kommt, ihr Töchter’
lacking the required arresting quality and even ‘Befiehl du deine Wege’
failing to move. Things were not much better on the soloist front, with
an inexplicably strident Evangelist (Kurt Azesberger) who fell short
of just about every high note during some recitatives, and neglected
the expected drama at such moments as ‘krähete.’ As for the narrative
about Peter’s betrayal and weeping, it is meant to make us cry, but
not with pain. The other tenor, Werner Güra, was far more successful
in his arias; he has clearly been working on them since I heard him
give a rather lacklustre rendition at the Proms, and although I still
consider all the hype about him to be overdone, he certainly made one
breathe a sigh of relief when he launched into ‘Ich will bei meinem
Jesu wachen,’ managing to inject some sorely needed drama and emotion
into the proceedings, not to mention a degree of technical assurance.
It is the bass who has the most lengthy assignment
of solo singing in this work, and Christopher Maltman’s reading was
certainly individual; he takes almost as many emotional and interpretative
liberties as Thomas Quasthoff, especially in ‘Mache dich, mein Herze,
rein,’ but did not have the intuitive direction of an Andras Schiff
to guide and inspire him sympathetically as Quasthoff did on the last
occasion when I heard him, and he was rather at sea on more than one
occasion. He was not helped by some woefully inept Viola da Gamba playing
during ‘Komm, süsses Kreuz’ and in general this was not one of
his best performances, although I did scribble the word ‘Endlich!’ beside
‘Weil es dem lieben Gott gefällt,’ since here, finally, we had
a line delivered with tenderness and exactitude, something for which
all the other singers conspicuously kept us waiting.
The Christus of Hanno Muller-Brachmann was youthfully
eager and capable of involving his hearers in his recitatives, although
his tone is somewhat dry at present. I found the contralto Anna Larsson
unmoving in her arias, but in this I do admit to a prejudice in favour
of a male alto for such music as ‘Erbarme Dich.’ Inger Dam-Jensen sang
her music tastefully and sweetly, and that was really about the sum
of this whole evening – so many wondrous moments went for nothing that
it was like hearing the work through a sheet of gauze. If I lived in
an obscure corner of the country I might value such performances, but
for a major event in one of the capital’s leading concert halls, I expect
a higher level of performance than this.
Melanie Eskenazi