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Maybe only a Russian can bring out the soul of Russian music
It’s an old superstition, but it was given more fodder by the Royal Philharmonic’s majestic performance of Rachmaninov and Scriabin
RPO, Royal Festival Hall
★★★★☆
The idea that only a Russian conductor can bring out the soul of Russian music seems reprehensible nowadays. It’s an example of that mystical nationalist essentialism that leads to wars, and which we really should have grown out of by now. But on Friday, after Russian-British conductor Vasily Petrenko led tremendous performances of two Russian pieces at the Royal Festival Hall, I felt that old superstition stirring within me. Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead and Scriabin’s Third Symphony both glowed in their own very different, but equally magnificent, colours.
Having said that, Petrenko’s pacing of Rachmaninov’s piece – inspired by the famous painting by Arnold Böcklin which shows a tiny boat bearing a coffin towards a tree-clad island – did seem excessively slow at first. It made the repetitions in the music seem even more indulgent than usual. But over time, the majestic solemnity of the RPO’s sound, with John Robert’s desperately sad oboe rising from the waves of strings, melted away my scruples.
Scriabin’s Third Symphony is a much tougher nut to crack. The late-Romantic composer wanted to portray the struggles of the human soul to escape from established religion and find the divinity within, a struggle that leads through the natural world (step forward the RPO’s terrific wind section). This culminates with humanity’s soul – or perhaps Scriabin’s outsized ego – winning out, blazing forth in trumpets (step forward the RPO’s, especially Matthew Williams). As philosophy it’s tosh, but as a musical argument, paced shrewdly across almost an hour by Petrenko, it was overwhelming.
Between these two masterworks came something so different it felt like an apparition from some other planet: Concerto for Three Horns by Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi, subtitled “The Border”. Hisaishi is globally famous for the alternately stirring and tender music he has composed for well-known anime films such as My Neighbour Totoro (1988).
But this concerto was miles away from that sound-world. It was rooted in the restless, endlessly repeated patterns of American minimalism, with enlivening, irregular accents fired between percussion, violins and tensely hammered piano. Meanwhile, at the front, the three excellent horn soloists Alexander Edmundson, Ben Hulme and Katy Woolley joined the game with rising, overlapping patterns woven so tightly that they often seemed like one super-horn.
It was ingenious and sometimes exciting, but somewhat cramped musically. Only in the slow movement – much the best of the three – did Hisaishi allow the rich, lyrical side of the horn to shine.
Les Arts Florissants, Wigmore Hall
★★★★☆
Even when it was composed in 1718, Handel’s Acis and Galatea must have seemed a piece of pure escapism. The London sophisticates who were invited to the premiere in the Army Paymaster’s brand-new, swanky house in Middlesex saw a charming tale in the age-old pastoral genre, in which the shepherd Acis and sea-nymph Galatea warbled tunefully and endlessly about the joys of nature and being in love. The guests must have been dying for a break and a glass of madeira, but eventually the arrival of the lustful, one-eyed giant Polyphemus livened things up considerably.
William Christie, director of the French group Les Arts Florissants, which performed Handel’s pastoral in London on Monday, is clearly aware that time can hang heavy in this piece. He made sure the tempos were brisk, the rhythms sharply etched and the colours from the orchestra of 10 squeezed on to the Wigmore stage startlingly bright. In the first number, with its lovely chorus hymning the gentle breezes and soft dews, I actually missed the pastoral dreaminess that most performances bring to the music. But in the long run, the wisdom of Christie’s vigorous approach became clear. It leavened the prettiness with a dash of real erotic energy.
The solo singers threw themselves into the threadbare drama. James Way was ardent as the shepherd, relishing the words as much as Handel’s shapely melodies. Richard Pittsinger was appropriately soft-tongued and insinuating as Damon, the slippery friend who switches sides as soon as Polyphemus turns up. Padraic Rowan played the role of Polyphemus very amusingly, not as a thuggish one-eyed monster but as a sharp-suited, masterful type.
The real joy of this performance was the interplay between the singers and instrumentalists. Each phrase from the singer was echoed by the pair of violins or a plaintive oboe, an effect which Christie magnified by asking the solo instrumentalists to stand as they played. It felt as if each character had two identities, one sung, one played. At the end, after Polyphemus had killed Acis in a jealous rage, Christie switched from harpsichord to organ for a funeral chorus of strikingly sombre solemnity. It was these subtle touches that gave a mysterious depth to a piece that can seem emptily conventional and artificial on the surface.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
