Intermezzo

Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Festival Hall

Tristan und Isolde: Philharmonia Orchestra - Royal Festival Hall, 26 September 2010

This semi-staged production arrived in London at the end of a mini-tour that took in the unholy trinity of  Lucerne, Dortmund and Birmingham. No surprise after all that practice to hear unusually disciplined playing from the Philharmonia - barely a note out of place all night. The puffed-up programme note - irritatingly braggadocious as an X Factor contestant - claims it "has the greatest claim of any orchestra to be the UK's national orchestra". Well, on this showing they were certainly the best-rehearsed.

Esa-Pekka's Project is Tristan

The Philharmonia are opening their 2010/11 season with a bang - or rather, a semi-staged performance of Tristan und Isolde.

Gary Lehmann and Christine Brewer head a fabulous cast that also includes Anne Sofie von Otter and John Relyea. Bill Viola provides projections and Peter Sellars is named as "artistic collaborator", so I assume what we'll be getting is a show that has already been seen in the States under the banner of The Tristan Project - a widely praised film and music combination that may enrage a certain section of the audience with its on-screen striptease and gay Tristan. Seat prices go up to £75, but that compares well with New York's $500.

Tickets went on sale today to Southbank members (public booking opens on 22 February) and are going fast already.

The rest of the Philharmonia's season includes a Bartók series, and of course more bleeding Mahler, this time a full symphony cycle from Lorin Maazel. Come 2012, we'll all be able to whistle every tune he ever wrote.

Karita Mattila upstages Sibelius - yes really

LA Philharmonic/Salonen/Karita Mattila - Barbican, 9 November 2007
LA Philharmonic/Salonen/Ben Heppner - Barbican, 10 November 2007

The third of the LA Phil's four-night Barbican Sibelius cycle saw them tackle his first and third Symphonies. In his Symphony no.3, Sibelius is perhaps most distant from the vodka-soaked nordic miserablism that characterises so much of his work. So, after their cheery and energetic run last week in the first of their four nights, I'd expected it to suit the LA Phil (let's draw a veil here over their second night, so grimly drab that I couldn't depress myself by writing about it).

They surprised me by bringing not just vitality, but a much higher degree of finesse to their trimmed-down ensemble. Salonen's keenly rhythmic sense delineated the galloping pulse of the first movement and controlled the multiple motifs of the third, bringing it to its hymn-like conclusion.

The closer, Symphony no.1, is uncharacteristic for another reason -- it's simply less 'Sibelian', more obviously indebted to his influences, principally Tchaikovsky. With stately pacing and daring dynamics, Salonen patiently unfolded its tragedy and grandeur, rather more willing than he had been last week to probe beneath the surface. It was an utterly gripping performance.

Despite the excellence of the Sibelius, the night really belonged to Karita Mattila, with a group of songs in French, Quatre Instants, written for her by Kaija Saariaho. I'd heard these in the original piano version before, but not the extravagantly sensual orchestral arrangement. Mattila more than measured up to it. In a one-shouldered black dress banded with crystals, frozen white bouffant and scarlet fingernails she towered majestically over Salonen, next to her a cowering shrimp in his habitual curry-house waiter uniform.

Her pure clean tone has a worldliness that reminds me more of Sarah Vaughan than of any operatic contemporary. And in these nordic torch songs it cast a potent spell, from the lilting Attente, to the ardent despair of Douleur, the indecent intensity of Parfum de l'Instant (where Mattila locked eyes with Salonen for a breathstopping minute) and the valedictory Résonances.

Her French would convince no one south of Dover, but Mattila was never for one moment less than utterly immersed in the emotional landscape of the music. Her platinum glamour might evoke a long-lost Gabor sister, but in reality she is the most giving and least plastic of performers. There were yawning seconds of total silence when she'd finished, as we reeled stunned in her wake. Somewhere during the massive applause, Kaija Saariaho suddenly popped up on stage for a huge hug from Mattila. And rightly so - this performance convinced not only that Mattila, here at the height of her powers, is in so many ways the greatest soprano around right now, but also that this is possibly the finest song cycle written in my life time, and one that deserves to be performed many more times.

The LA Phil's final performance, the fifth and sixth Symphonies, couldn't hope to measure up to the previous night, but it was by no means a disappointment.

The translucent lyricism of the opening No.6 shone through, even if its spiritual reflectiveness eluded Salonen.

It was followed by a group of seven Sibelius songs, for which Ben Heppner was drafted in. Heppner, it's fair to say, has a big voice, but John Estacio's orchestral arrangements were even bigger. I suspect the people directly in front of Heppner would have heard more, but sitting towards the side (the same position from which I'd heard Mattila loud and clear), I found his voice largely drowned. In the odd moments where the orchestration thinned out, it was clear Heppner was delivering a thoughtfully nuanced performance, but as for the rest I have little idea.

The night was rescued with a titanic performance of Symphony No.5. Salonen pulled all the stops out here. Unafraid to linger in the tiniest of pianissimos in the first movement, spreading the majestic pooling brass in the last, it was a bold and enthralling account. The six final chords, conducted it appeared with eyes closed, provided emphatic closure.

The encore, Sibelius's much earlier Death of Mélisande, seemed a curiously downbeat way to end the evening, but the juxtaposition with the fifth displayed the resonances between the two. 

Here's a video of Salonen conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra a few years ago in the fifth - he took the LA Phil a bit faster than this: 

Salonen's Fish and Finns at the Barbican

Los Angeles Philharmonic/Salonen - Barbican, 1 November 2007

As the centrepiece of London's Sibelius Unbound festival, the Barbican is hosting Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Philharmonic for a complete Sibelius symphony cycle over just four nights -- a programme they've already performed in LA, and are taking to Paris next week.

For the first of these, we got the second symphony (the first comes, confusingly, next week). It was a surprise to see the orchestra all in place a good twenty minutes before the appointed start time. Even more so as the concert eventually started ten minutes late.

Things got off to a roaring start as the LA Phil cast aside their jet lag for a thundering Lemminkäinen's Return, performed with the carefree abandon and sweeping vitality of an encore.

Energy levels stayed high for Esa-Pekka Salonen's own Wing on Wing. As Sibelius so often evokes the firred and frosted landscapes of Finland, so here Salonen brings to life the sun and surf of California in a piece inspired by the LA Phil's home, Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry to resemble a sailboat.

Like monster eels, a contrabass bassoon and a contrabass clarinet grunted from opposite ends of the stage. At the other end of the sonic spectrum was the stratospheric colatura of sopranos Anu Komsi and Cyndia Sieden, who performed from both stage and (a quick sprint later) balcony. In between were shimmering strings, sighing woodwinds, sparkling percussion and - novelty - a taped Plainfin Midshipman (possibly the strangest looking thing in California after the Governator) -- though I wouldn't have noticed the fish and its 'singing E natural' if I hadn't read about it in the programme.  The music swirled and drifted, developing organically through a dazzling array of orchestral colours. The only thing which didn't quite work for me was the taped extracts of Frank Gehry's voice, which seemed superfluous, rather like a faulty tannoy in the background.

It was deservedly well-received in the hall, and a hard act for Sibelius's Second Symphony to follow. Salonen offered a very matter-of-fact reading, big, powerful and earthbound, that seemed ideally tailored to the qualities of this orchestra, ending it with more breezy relief than transcendence. Intensity may have been in short supply, but Salonen provided tail-wagging goodwill and energy in abundance.

The loudly-demanded encore was Valse Triste, tiptoed through with pinpoint dynamic switches and unexpected delicacy. Will the LA Phil be able to maintain these standards for next weekend's concerts, after a week spent sampling the beers delights of Paris? Time will tell....