"Now
at last I have learned to orchestrate",
Strauss remarked after the first rehearsal
of Eine Alpensinfonie, that great paean
to nature in music. An epic work – in every
sense – it can seem, in the very greatest
performances, Strauss’ orchestral masterpiece,
a work of such colour and scope that work’s
with similar ambitions – Tchaikovsky’s Manfred
Symphony, for example – shrink beside
it.
But
it also requires a great conductor or a great
orchestra to bring it off. That the National
Youth Orchestra – never one to shy away from
a challenge – should programme this most technically
demanding of symphonies was not surprising
given their past form in programming some
of the biggest works in the repertoire (an
unforgettable Mahler 8 under Rattle for example).
True, the orchestra may not have scaled the
highest peaks in this performance - too often
Strauss’ writing above the stave for both
brass and woodwind proved to be beyond these
young players – but in terms of sheer passion
and commitment it would be hard to think of
a more thrilling performance. Andrew Litton
drove the orchestra hard – and fast – whipping
his players up the mountain; a certain opulence
may have been lost in the process but the
subtleties of this performance were never
really things to be drawn to the listener’s
attention. If the brass were sonically rather
crude it was Litton’s approach to draw an
unexpected warmth of sonority from the massed
strings (a trademark of all youth orchestras
it seems).
The
concert had not begun well with a brash performance
of Wagner’s overture to The Flying Dutchman.
An imbalance in the brass playing swamped
all before it and horn intonation was weakly
defined. Tempests raged, but little else came
across in a performance that seemed under-rehearsed.
Much better – and with a greatly reduced orchestra
– although still, in my view, with an over-large
one – was Mahler’s Rückert Lieder sung
by the Swedish mezzo Charlotte Hellekant.
Occasionally the voice seemed on the big side
for the intimacy of these songs but with the
orchestra less subtle in its dynamics than
the music needs it is possible she was compensating
for some over zealous playing. Miss Hellekant
achieved some wondrously refined singing in
‘Um Mitternacht’, although in ‘Blicke mir
nicht in die Lieder’ her attention to detail
was very wide of the mark. Inaccuracies in
pronunciation were only part of the problem;
an uncertain vibrato, if giving some suggestion
of the ‘busyness’ of the vocal writing, only
seemed misplaced. Nevertheless, the performance
as a whole was ambitious in its scope – and
Litton and his young players gave full-bodied
support to their soloist.
Marc Bridle
Further
Listening
Richard Strauss, Eine
Alpensinfonie – NDR Symphony Orchestra/Takashi
Asahina, ODE Classics (ODCL 1001 – 1007)
Available HMV
Japan
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