Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Robin Ticciati
would open the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s 2011-12 season with
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Berlioz wrote it for
a much bigger size of orchestra than the SCO, after all, and
unsurprisingly they had never played it before. However, Ticciati
is a great fan of Berlioz’s music and, as it turns out, a great
interpreter of it too. I was a little underwhelmed by the concert
itself, but the orchestra took the music into the studio the
following week and the CD that has ensued is thrilling from
start to finish.
Playing the Symphonie Fantastique with an orchestra
of this size forces new revelations on the ear. There are predictable
gains in clarity as inner textures are opened out and laid bare,
but Ticciati’s other interpretative decisions are every bit
as interesting as the size of his orchestra. The strings, for
instance, play without vibrato but on modern instruments. This
can lend a slightly pale quality to the sound, but it is applied
selectively. When it is, however, it is used to outstanding
effect, for example when it accentuates the sense of longing
in Reveries section: those sforzando-like
cries in the introduction sound like stab wounds. Clearly we
are hearing the tale of an artist who suffers at the very extremes
of his artistic and emotional being. The size of the orchestra
combined with this playing style brings fantastic clarity: the
way the horns ring out against the strings at the end of the
1st movement introduction is remarkable, something
I noticed in a way I never had before; then the two ff
chords that launch the idée fixe ring out like clarion
calls to thrilling effect. In fact, the willingness to embrace
the extremes of dynamic is a characteristic of this reading
- and of the excellent recording. Ticciati is unafraid to embrace
the very loud and the very soft and to place them in stark juxtaposition
when required. After all, isn’t this one of the most extreme
symphonies ever composed, by whatever standard? For all their
period style, the strings are still unafraid to embrace the
red-blooded Romanticism of the piece: listen to the relish with
which the cellos and basses plunge through the slur Berlioz
gives them at 11:33 in the first movement before the final,
most frenzied statement of the idée fixe, which then
sounds properly demented, almost as though it’s straining at
the very boundaries of what we expect an orchestra can do -
and wouldn’t Berlioz be pleased with that?
Elsewhere Ticciati continually brings out new things. The waltz
has a bit of an edge to it, the violins playing with some ever-so-slightly
raw attack, coming at the music as though from an angle: this
is no comfortable society ball but a psychological trauma with
a respectable veneer. The Linn sound is wonderful at the start
of Scène aux Champs, the oboe and cor anglais placed
at just the right distance while the strings tremble on the
edge of audibility. When the violins take over, the sound they
make is lovely with, again, a slight edge being lent by the
sound of the flute. There is a knockout clarinet solo around
the 9-minute mark, pouring balm onto the distress unleashed
by the previous climax. There is also a hard edge to the Marche
au supplice, tempered by exciting details such as the pizzicato
string triplet - seldom audible in other recordings - in bar
15. The violins have an emaciated sound as they first enter
with the descending theme, and we are treated to the cheekiest
bassoon solo you’ll hear on disc all year. The brass section
really leans into the march rhythm and at the climactic brass
statement of the main theme you can hear every thrilling note
of the way the violins swirl chaotically around the trumpets.
Percussion is captured in a way that adds colour as well as
excitement and, importantly, the brass are not afraid to make
an ugly sound for the final braying.
The finest playing of the disc is reserved for a thrilling account
of Berlioz’s dazzlingly original finale. The cackle of the woodwinds
is hair-raising at the demonic statement of the idée fixe
theme, the placing of the funeral bells in the stereoscape is
just right, and the orchestral colour is thrillingly varied
for the statements of the Dies Irae theme, complete
with genuine ophicleides. Ticciati’s skill as a craftsman is
most obviously apparent here too, generating a sense of tension
and rising expectation for the start of the fugue theme and
building to a vivid sense of catharsis when the fugue combines
with the Dies Irae. The tidal wave unleashed by the
drums in the final bars will pin you to your seat, as will the
brash horror of the shrieking winds as the symphony finally
hurtles over the cliff edge.
Then, as if to confound all our expectations, the orchestra
give us as spry an account of the Beatrice overture
as you could expect to hear anywhere. It’s gentle, agile, flexible
and transparent, and manages to sound about as different from
the Symphonie Fantastique as it is possible to get.
For me Ticciati’s vision and the playing of his orchestra succeed
on every front. Immerseel and Gardiner play on period instruments
but they both take their eye off the ball in the finale. Ticciati
combines modern instruments with period style and brings out
the best of both worlds. This is a version that will blow off
the cobwebs for someone who knows the work already and wants
to explore something different to the traditional symphony orchestra
approach. In my view, however, this may even be a first choice
for the work altogether. It came as a revelation to me and it’s
this disc I’ll be coming back to when I want to hear the work
again and be reminded of just how ground-breaking it still sounds
nearly 200 years later. David Cairns’ scholarly liner-notes
are excellent, into the bargain.
Simon Thompson
see also review
by Dan Morgan
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati
