Intermezzo

2013-14 seasons for London's big three orchestras revealed

London's biggest orchestras have now all released details of their 2013-14 seasons.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra listing is here.  The remainder of their The Rest is Noise series is unfortunately no more adventurous than the first. But there some worthwhile concerts tucked away in there, the main highlight being Peter Grimes on 28 September with Stuart Skelton in the title role.

The Philharmonia listing is here. The dates announced so far oddly include very few for principal conductor Esa Pekka Salonen. One of his rare appearances will be La damnation de Faust, which kicks off the season on 26 September, with Gerald Finley as Méphistophélès.

The LSO season listing, mentioned in an earlier post, can be downloaded here.

None of the listings mention booking dates, but I suspect only the operas will cause any serious jostling for tickets. As for the rest, based on recent experience it may be worth gambling on discounts appearing later.

Those guys again

How soon will we all be sick of the bi-bicententennial I wonder? Opera is of course a peripheral activity for the LSO, but they're still doing their bit to celebrate Wagner and Verdi's joint 200th birthday.

Their 2013/14 season opens on 15 September with a concert performance of Rigoletto, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. The underrated Dimitri Platanias takes the title role, with Desirée Rancatore as Gilda and Giuseppe Filianoti as the Duke.

On 28 November, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony is paired with the second act of Tristan und Isolde. Daniel Harding conducts Katarina Dalayman, Peter Seiffert and Christianne Stotijn. A major influence on Wagner's work was Roméo et Juliette. which turns up on 6 and 13 November with soloists Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov. Gergiev conducts as part of a Berlioz series running throughout the season.

The LSO's year is otherwise, as you might expect, light on opera, though Mark Elder's extracts from Der Rosenkavalier sung by Anne Schwanewilms, Sarah Connolly and Lucy Crowe should not be missed (8 May 2014).

Full season details to be released later this month.

Le temps de Renee

On Sunday night Renee Fleming joined Valery Gergiev and the LSO for a City Livery Concert in front of the Lord Mayor and more than 750 cordwainers, chandlers, girdlers, curriers and fishmongers, cunningly disguised as middle-aged men in suits. It was left to Renee herself to provide the glamour (gown by Angel Sanchez, jewellery by Ann Ziff, the programme helpfully informed us).

Der Freischutz at the Barbican

Der Freischütz (in concert) - LSO / Davis - Barbican Hall, 19 & 21 April 2012

As a music drama, Der Freischütz is problematical, inherently fractured by the interpolated speech sections. In the theatre, the visual element provides some compensatory continuity - it's this basic structural issue as much as the content of the story that encourages contemporary directors to lard the work in Konzept. But in concert, it's almost inevitable that the talky bits come across as mere chat between numbers. The English language narration commissioned here to replace the original German dialogue only magnified that effect, breaking the spell with unfortunate regularity. And so, despite high musical values, these two performances failed to gather any real dramatic momentum.

the Colin Davis workout

LSO / Colin Davis / Anne-Sophie Mutter - Barbican, 10 October 2010

Riccardo Muti's off sick till who knows when. James Levine looked frailer than a baby at Saturday's Wagnerthon. Sir Colin Davis is senior to both but seems, remarkably, in the rudest of health. He scampered up the stage steps, sprang on to the podium with a kittenish leap and carved his baton through the air like an Italian traffic cop. Asked recently what kept him in shape for conducting, he replied "conducting". I believe him.

Andris Nelsons debuts with LSO

LSO / Andris Nelsons / Viktoria Mullova - Barbican, 30 September 2010

Is there anything Andris Nelsons can't do? The programme wasn't entirely inspiring, there were fallibilities in communication, but even so, his LSO debut wasn't far short of fabulous.

pay to play for the LSO

It seems the LSO are getting tough with job applicants who waste their time by not turning up for auditions. Here's what the application letter for their current orchestral vacancies says:

"If you are invited to do an audition you will need to provide a cheque for £50 as confirmation of your acceptance of an audition date, once this has been offered. If you attend your audition, I will return your cheque to you on the day. The cheque will only be banked by the LSO should you not attend your audition or if you fail to inform LSO orchestra personnel management before the seven day cancellation limit. In cases of illness you will be required to provide a doctor’s note (this is due to a large number of last minute cancellations in the past)."

bargain Britain is cheapest for classical music

It's often assumed that generous public subsidy for the arts in continental Europe must make tickets cheaper. Not necessarily so. I compared prices across the globe for a selection of orchestral concerts next month, taking in the US too for good measure (scroll down for full list).

The first thing to notice is that in London, the LPO charge nearly twice as much (£55) as the LSO (£32)for their top-price tickets. Could that be one of the reasons why their concerts are only half as full?

But to catch the LSO in Paris will cost you more than twice as much (£75) as in London (£32). The Philharmonia, too, is more expensive (£75 and £45). The LPO however charge a comparatively cheap £48 in New York, less than they do in London (£55), and less than the NY Phil (£72) at the same address.

It's cheaper to see the Vienna Philharmonic at the Barbican (£55) than in Vienna (£94), and the heavily-subsidised Orchestre de Paris (£53) and Munich Philharmonic (£51) are both pricier at home than the LSO or Philharmonia, and only marginally cheaper than the LPO.

Looking at the bottom end of the price scale, all three London orchestras offer tickets at £7 to £9 (and plenty of them). The lowest price elsewhere is generally at least twice that, and goes up to £46 for the Berlin Philharmonic and £30 for the LA Philharmonic.

Of course this is only a handful of concerts, but I believe the results are broadly representative. And while the current euro exchange rate is on the weak side, it doesn't make a lot of difference.

The list:

• LSO at the Barbican £7 to £32
• Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall £9 to £45
• LPO at the Royal Festival Hall £9 to £55
• Vienna Philharmonic at the Barbican £12 to £55

• LSO at Salle Pleyel, Paris €10 to €85 (£9 to £75)
• Philharmonia at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris €5 to €85 (£5 to £75)
• LPO at Avery Fisher Hall, New York $22 to $75 (£19 to £48)

• Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel, Paris €10 to €60 (£9 to £53)
• Vienna Philharmonic at Konzerthaus Wien €18.90 to €106.20 (£17 to £94)
• Berlin Philharmonic at Philharmonie Berlin €52 to €112 (£46 to £99)
• Munich Philharmonic at Gasteig, Munich €11.70 to €57.50 (£10 to £51)
• New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, New York $29 to $112 (£19 to £72)
• LA Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, LA $47 to $160 (£30 to £102)

(the conversion rates used were $/£ 1.56 and €/£ 1.14)

Gergiev's Elektra boils dry

Elektra - LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 12 January 2010

 Starting on a high is one thing, sustaining it for two hours quite another. Gergiev's Elektra landed such a sucker punch in its opening bars that there was nowhere left to go. A cauldron of seething hormonal hysteria gushed out in an earsplitting tidal wave. Nothing was held back. If Gergiev had reined in his forces there and then, perhaps the climactic moments later on would have registered with full effect. But the same thrilling but ultimately wearing pace was maintained throughout. Even a rollercoaster's no fun if you spend all your time at the top of the ride. He seemed buried in his gigantic Russian-edition score throughout - was it simply a lack of full preparation? He had the temperature of the work down, no doubt, but a sense of form and shape eluded him.

Tellingly, the most gripping passage was the entrance of Orest. Here the drastically reduced orchestration literally forced a moment of quietude, a written-in contrast to the tumult around it.

But where dramatic light and shade was missing, colour was not. Though he recognised that the densely-carpeted score needs binding together more than transparency, Gergiev drew details out like flowers in a forest, not easy with the full orchestral complement of 112 on stage.

The vocal honours went to some of the briefest appearances. Felicity Palmer, a fabulous and terrifying Clytemnestra, was the only singer to consistently pierce through Gergiev's decibels. Matthias Goerne's velvet baritone created a world-weary, enigmatic Orest, riveting in his subdued recognition scene, less effective when he had to force his voice above the orchestra. 

Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, for all her overbaked writhing, was an unpersuasive Elektra. Serene and lyrical, more concerned with tone than text, the impassivity of her singing contrasted with her constantly flailing body. She sang attractively but without either the power or the vocal expressivity for Elektra's matricidal hysteria to register in all its horror. And she didn't quite have the stamina for this very demanding uncut version of the score, flagging noticeably in the final minutes.

Angela Denoke's Chrysothemis wasn't quite right either. Though she matched her resources intelligently to the demands of the role, ultimately there's too much steel and not enough lyricism in the voice to convey girlish innocence. I don't believe the title role is in Denoke's repertoire yet, but it's the direction her voice is headed. Ian Storey completed a less than perfect cast, singing Aegist efficiently but almost totally without inflection, like a brilliant sight reader who'd just been handed the score. Mariinsky soloists of varying quality were shipped over for the bit parts - no doubt a perk of Gergiev's position, but surely an expensive one?

 

  

 

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Gergiev's French dances

LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 18 December 2009

Valery Gergiev's Dutilleux season is a creditable attempt to air some underexposed music, but this performance of the Symphony no.2 for two orchestras did the composer few favours.  Though the positioning of the smaller second orchestra to the right of rather than in front of the main ensemble may have interfered with the spatial effect Dutilleux was after, the first movement was delicately handled. But the pace sagged fatally in the slow second movement and Gergiev never regained momentum.

The two flanking ballets were much more successful, a cinematically-coloured Debussy Jeux just trumping an effervescent if overfinessed Stravinsky Jeu des cartes.   

Ravel opened and closed the programme. Both works demonstrated the limitations of Gergiev's batonless, air-massaging technique. An uncoordinated first bar entry was the first of several to mar his funereally-paced Pavane pour une infante défunte. And Gergiev's psychic powers alone weren't enough to maintain a flowing upward dynamic in the closing Boléro. Instead the LSO lurched unguided from one volume setting to the next, with overpowering saxophone solos striking an unduly brash note. It was all a bit of an unholy mess by the end, winning out only with the sheer exuberance of the playing.

To be broadcast on Radio 3 at 7pm on Monday 21 December.

 

LSO 2010/11 season revealed

My first reaction to the London Symphony Orchestra's 2010/11 Barbican schedule is disappointment that it includes not one opera (unless you count Candide with Kristjan Järvi in June 2011). The LSO's operas in concert have been a real highlight of recent seasons, and I have to suspect that cost is a barrier.

But there are at least a few choral concerts, with Janáček's Glagolitic Mass from Sir Colin in October, Elgar's The Kingdom from Mark Elder in January 2011, and most intriguingly, a screening of Eisenstein's masterpiece Ivan the Terrible accompanied with Prokofiev's score conducted by Xian Zhang in April 2011.

Sir Colin returns with Mitsuko Uchida for a series combining Beethoven's piano concertos with Nielsen's symphonies; this runs from May to December 2011. There's not much else piano-wise, though Lang Lang's attempt on Liszt's first piano concerto in November with Daniel Harding is likely to be a popular draw.

Violinists are the soloists of choice this season, with Viktoria Mullova, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Nikolaj Znaider, Midori, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and Julia Fischer between them covering all the big violin concertos.

Valery Gergiev focuses on Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Shostakovich and Shchedrin. Carmen Suite (with which Gergiev opens the season) aside, Shchedrin is underexposed in London, so this is a particularly interesting choice, though the Mahler 9 in March 2011 may prove the popular favourite.

Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner's 9th in March 2011, and Bernard Haitink's two visits in June 2011 include Bruckner's 4th. Other visiting conductors include Intermezzo favourite Andris Nelsons, Antonio Pappano, John Eliot Gardiner and Andre Previn.

Kristjan Järvi's name meanwhile crops up a massive five times - that's more than official guest conductor Daniel Harding or emeritus conductor Sir Colin. Is some sort of official announcement imminent? Do they just really, really like him? Or does he, like the LSO themselves, offer a bulk-booking discount?

Full details expected on LSO and Barbican websites in January, with booking open soon afterwards.

Otello stile inglese

Otello - LSO / Davis - Barbican, 3 December 2009

You sneeze, you lose. With Torsten Kerl off sick, the pages of lastminutetenor.com yielded Simon O'Neill. Not the most obvious choice of Otello, even for a concert performance like this one. Indeed you could scour the big Wagnerian's resume and find no mention of Verdi whatsoever. But his bright, hard edged voice proved an excellent fit, and his unfamiliarity with the score was barely noticeable. Now that the role is associated more with darker baritonal tenors like Domingo, the clarity and ease of O'Neill's thrilling top notes hinted at a long-gone golden age. The short-fused Moor's temper flashes perhaps didn't spark quickly enough, but it was impossible not to be moved by Otello's final agonised moments.

The rest of the casting was just as brave, and nearly as successful. The only authentic Italian in the cast was Eufemia Tufano, an understated Emilia. Desdemona's purity and incorruptibility were perfectly evoked in the unearthly silvery soprano of Anne Schwanewilms, even if her delivery was some distance north of Italianate. The London Symphony Chorus trumped her for sheer incomprehensibility though - I didn't catch one single word of their spirited singing all night.

Gerald Finley's intelligently drawn Iago schemed with devious charm. But ultimately he lacks the fundamental heft for this role, as even a golden voice spinning meticulously-crafted phrases cannot conceal. Bantamweight tenors Allan Clayton and Ben Johnson were effective as Cassio and Roderigo, and a trio of magnificent basses - Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Matthew Rose and Lukas Jakobski - rounded off the ensemble. 

Sir Colin Davis, we were informed before the concert, has just been awarded the Queen's Medal for Music. Typically, he was keener to get on with the show than acknowledge the predictable ovation. His hard-driven first act lacked a degree of dramatic nuance - when everything's loud, fast and exciting, perversely, nothing is. But with the excess fuel burned off, a more measured approach proved infinitely more compelling. The second half in particular simmered and glowed, sweeping into blazing climaxes, yet eggshell-delicate beneath Desdemona's beautiful Willow Song. A rapturous intensity revealed so many details I'd never noticed before.

A recording will be stitched together from this performance and the repeat on 6 December. Not a purist's Otello perhaps but a vivid reminder that at 82, Sir Colin Davis is still on top of his game.

 

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Radu Lupu comes out to play

London Symphony Orchestra / Colin Davis / Radu Lupu - Barbican, 1 October 2009

Radu Lupu is one of those rare pianists who can be identified from a mere handful of notes. His distinctive soft-edged sound is like a cat padding across velvet. Even the Barbican's big brash Steinway succumbed to his caressing touch. Leaning back on his sawn-off typing chair, he paws the keyboard from arm's length, as if the exquisite pain of proximity would be just too much to bear. His serene and introspective reading of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 20 was barely grazed by a few uncharacteristic fluffs in the second movement. Even the brilliant cadenzas gave no hint of testing his limits - every note remained considered and duly weighted. Sir Colin Davis proved an empathetic collaborator. Glances and gestures were frequently exchanged, the LSO playing with a rare delicacy.

There was more Mozart to begin the evening, a splendidly full-bodied Symphony No 34. Sir Colin has no truck with period practice or chocolate-box prettiness - this was meat-and-potatoes Mozart, open-hearted and muscular in execution. How different from the anaemic perfection of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and their Jupiter Symphony last week.  

I hadn't quite appreciated the logic of the programming before the concert, but the martial flair of the Mozart complemented the evening's big symphony, Nielsen's brooding, battling Fifth. The LSO played brilliantly all round, relishing in the extremes of mood and dynamics, and Sir Colin sculpted its peculiar episodic structure into compelling narrative.

Amazingly, this was the first time Sir Colin had conducted it - evidence of just how far Nielsen's star is rising right now. It might be going a bit far to proclaim him the next Mahler, as some have, but there has to be more space on the schedules for music with this kind of immediacy and broad appeal. The LSO clearly think so - Sir Colin will be tackling all six symphonies this year, all to be recorded for future release.

  

 

La damnation de Gergiev

La Damnation de Faust - LSO / Gergiev - Barbican 22 September 2009

A curious evening that caught fire intermittently, but never really took off. Gergiev’s preferred preapration method – rehearse the corners, wing the straights - can produce stunning results in slow-burn symphonies. But it’s fundamentally unsuited to the desperately shoehorned ragbag of ideas (“Let's all improvise a fugue!”) that is La damnation de Faust. Faust’s final ride to the abyss truly burnt with the flames of hell, but a few manicured details aside, the first half was largely directionless and often surprisingly (for Gergiev) tentative. All the beauty and delicacy of the woodwind playing couldn’t compensate for a lack of purpose.

The problems could have been compounded when the scheduled Méphistophélès, Thomas Quasthoff, pulled out due to illness on the morning of the show. But Willard White, flown in from Copenhagen, was a magnificent replacement, despite the twinkle in his eye warning his bluster and beguilements shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Joyce DiDonato, in a gorgeous cornflower gown and tumbling curls, sang beautifully but seemed not entirely at home in the Berlioz idiom. Her Marguerite had the radiant purity of youth but not the ardour that Susan Graham can bring to the part.

Florian Boesch almost stole the show as Brander, but Michael Schade’s Faust was a disappointment. He placed notes accurately and words carefully in his none too intelligible French, but his hard nasal tone is too unvarying and too unyielding in this part. What a pity there was so much of it. The London Symphony Chorus too had a long and tricky sing. They managed heroically, if with more gusto than finesse - for which Gergiev’s flutterfingered non-beat was not entirely to blame.

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What's on in London in September

Summer is nearly over, and at last the concert calendar is filling up.

Proms and alternatives
The Proms seem to have gone on forever, but it'll all be over for another year on 12 September.

Remaining highlights include Mariss Jansons with the Concertgebouw, Riccardo Chailly with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta and Franz Welser-Möst (replacing the scheduled Harnoncourt).

On 4 September there's an unmissable double header - first Matthias Goerne and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Mahler, Ligeti, Schoenberg and Strauss, then a late-night George Crumb special.

Incidentally, operatic highlights for the 2010 Proms - you heard it here first - are expected to include Die Meistersinger with Bryn Terfel, Glyndebourne's Don Giovanni, and a substantial chunk of Tristan und Isolde from the Orchestra of the 18th Century with Ben Heppner.

If you want to skip the ghastliness of the last night - something I cannot recommend too highly - alternatives include the Wigmore Hall season opener which is Die schöne Müllerin from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis.

Or there's a FREE screening of the 1929 silent movie Piccadilly on an outside wall (don't blame me if it rains) of the Royal Festival Hall accompanied by a new score from composers Suki Mok and Ruth Chan. Following the screening, the score "will become the lynchpin of a cross-artform work incorporating dance, drama and video against a backdrop of the original silent movie".

Opera
The Royal Opera House season opens on 7 September with two concert performances of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix conducted by Mark Elder and featuring Alessandro Corbelli alongside the hotly-tipped Eglise Gutiérrez and Stephen Costello.

Don Carlo has started rehearsals and promises to turn out even better than first time round. Semyon Bychkov conducts, Jonas Kaufmann is in the title role, and the rest of the cast is much the same as it was first time round, with Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside and Ferruccio Furlanetto reprising his definitive Philip.

Don't expect much on stage except the singers in born-again minimalist Christof Loy's new production of Tristan und Isolde. Tristan is Ben Heppner and Isolde Nina Stemme, with Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch completing the cast. Pappano conducts.

English National Opera's season opens with the much-travelled, highly-praised production of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre by La Fura dels Baus.

The Arcola Theatre's variable but occasionally brilliant (and cheap) Grimeborn opera festival continues until 5 September. Handel, Poulenc and Mozart are included amongst the mostly contemporary works.

There's an opportunity to hear Rossini's rarely-performed Il Signor Bruschino and La Scala di Seta as well as The Rake's Progress from British Youth Opera between 4 and 12 September.

And Valery Gergiev conducts the LSO in a concert performance of La Damnation de Faust on 22 September, with a cast including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Schade, Thomas Quasthoff and Florian Boesch.

Concerts
The LSO's season opener is on 20 September, with Gergiev conducting Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel.

At the Royal Festival Hall, Bernard Haitink conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 23 and 24 September. And on 25 and 26 September Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO tackle Mahler's 2nd Symphony. Anne Sofie von Otter visits on 30 September with songs from her Theresienstadt CD.

At Wigmore Hall, Matthias Goerne continues his Schubert marathon on 18 and 20 September (a different programme on each night).

And on 28 September it's Imogen Cooper's bus-pass birthday concert. She'll be joined by Wolfgang Holzmair, Mark Padmore, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Paul Lewis.

Prom 5: Haitink's Mahler 9

Prom 5: LSO / Haitink - Royal Albert Hall, 20 July 2009

Bernard Haitink balances his baton on his head while keeping his comedy dagger close to hand. No wonder the cellist looks anxious.

This year's Proms line-up doesn't exactly thrill me to the core of my being, the first month especially.

But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hear Mahler's 9th conducted by one of his greatest interpreters, Bernard Haitink, and performed by the mighty LSO. Even though it cost a massive £19 for an unspectacular seat behind the orchestra. Around this time of year newspapers often spout about how cheap and brilliant arena promming is (from the comfort of their freebie best seats in the house). Perhaps they don't realise that for popular concerts like this, especially with an early start time, you're simply not going to get in unless you spend most of the afternoon queuing. (And even then you're going to be standing up for an hour and a half while the odours of sock, sandal and anorak waft beneath your nostrils, but I digress). A costly seat is unfortunately the only option.

The last time I heard this symphony was in Berlin, where Daniel Barenboim, on a rare off-day, flayed it to a bleeding pulp. The ever-refined Haitink, leaning on a stool after his recent back operation and conducting with a considered physical economy, could not have been more different.

A spirit of discovery pervaded the first movement right from the primordial emergence of the first sparing notes. Questions were asked objectively and answered unsentimentally, the LSO (strings especially) demonstrating taut control and unity of purpose. Even the second movement's rustic ländler, marked sehr derb (very coarse) maintained a languid distance. The temperature warmed in the third movement's febrile rondo, its exposed groupings demonstrating the strength in depth of each section of the orchestra. Everything came together in a finale of monumental fragility, a matchstick cathedral of sound that ended not with despair or even resignation, but a feeling of renewal that paralleled the work's opening.

No visceral thrills and no tugged heartstrings - Haitink elevated this already magisterial work to the realm of the spiritual.

Have we heard the Prom of the Season already?

 

 

 

 

almost like xmas

Last night's Lang Lang gig at St Luke's (of which, more later, time permitting) came with an unexpected post-show bonus.  Every audience member got a *free* canvas bag, containing the usual promo leaflet guff, plus a sweetly-themed and hygienically-packaged fortune cookie.

Now I've got the LSO bag to go with my Simón Bolívar YO jacket and cap from last week, all I need is the Radu Lupu beach shorts and the Bernard Haitink fluffy bunny slippers, and I'm all dressed for summer.

Lang Lang, Daniel Harding and a bunch of LSOERS

London Symphony Orchestra / Tan Dun / Daniel Harding / Lang Lang - Barbican, 21 April 2009 

The most famous symphony in the world right now, Tan Dun's five minute Internet Symphony 'Eroica' was more impressive live in the Barbican than on the inevitably tinny YouTube video. But, frantic yet curiously numbing, it still sounds more like a theme tune for a Saturday night footie programme than a groundbreaking work of art.  The LSO, faces like small children confronted with steaming brussels sprouts, despatched it efficiently, though with manifestly less enthusiasm than the conductor/composer himself. The whole YouTube orchestra project of which this is the centrepiece has done a brilliant job of promoting classical music on YouTube. In that respect, it's a massive success. But please can we leave it out of the concert hall now?

The capacity audience seemed to like it. But not half as much as the entrance of the man who for many was the evening's main attraction - Lang Lang - here to give the UK premiere of the piano concerto Tan Dun composed specially for him. It's a more serious work than the Internet Symphony, both in length - thirty minutes - and intent, but again there's much in it that's superficial and derivative.

The piano is very much centre stage throughout, but surprisingly (considering Lang Lang's virtuosity), there's little flashiness in the writing. The key recurring motif is a single note, repeated at rattlesnake speed using alternating fingers. Sounds easy, is hard. Incredibly so when articulated with Lang Lang's clarity and evenness. Stealth flash. But not exactly 'pianistic'. Some attractive moments of Ravelian introspection aside, that's what I felt about a lot of the piano writing in this piece. Tan Dun wasn't so much exploring the instrument's sonorities as wishing it were something else. A drum perhaps, or sometimes a harp. Lang Lang's heart didn't seem to be quite in it, and I couldn't blame him.

Percussion, both tuned and whacked, features as strongly as the piano. It lends a little Chinese flavour but the overall effect is more pot noodle than chow mein. What really killed the work for me though was its rambling, episodic structure (or lack of) - it's a side dish to an invisible movie in the  Crouching Tiger mould. Background music.

Daniel Harding - looking in action ever more like a pocket-sized Rob Brydon - was drafted in to restore normality for the second half with Mahler's First Symphony. A fair few of the audience had scooted off in the interval, their musical appetites sated. They missed a great performance. Harding had the measure of the detail, without resorting to empty, over-emphatic gesture. The opening shiver of strings, immaculately controlled, was just the first indication of his detailed preparation. The first movement's offstage brass were perfectly balanced and wind solos assertive but not overbearing.

The odd positioning of the basses - behind and beneath the first violins - seemed to me his only misjudgement (though for all I know he was following Mahler's instruction). Sitting centre stalls, I simply couldn't hear them very well. It was certainly Mahler's idea (at one point) for the usual solo bass introduction to the third movement to be augmented by the whole section - another change that didn't work for me, losing the sinister directness of the solo alternative. The tragic and grotesque edges of this movement weren't quite sharply focussed, but that may be preferable to Gergiev's idiosyncratic extremes.

An explosive finale pushed the volume limits, but never quite teetered out of control. The recollection of the opening string shimmer and horn call lent a neat symmetry. Once again, Harding followed a composer instruction, this time for the horns to stand up - though I'm not sure this added anything but novelty value on this particular occasion. But overall , a measured and satisfying account.

LSO play Symphony No. 1 "Eroica" - for YouTube, conducted by Tan Dun:

ParsiVal

LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 12 March 2009

If Gergiev isn't truly fired up by what he's conducting, it's painfully obvious. The centrepiece of this LSO concert was the whole third act of Parsifal  - which I would guess on this showing doesn't do it for him. OK, it was efficiently played by the LSO. But a few neatly-crafted peaks aside, it was as tepid as a cup of Barbican tea. And a concert performance really needs drama, in some ways more than a staged version would. Wagner doesn't hand much out on a plate with Parsifal. The themes of suffering and redemption are buried deep beneath the surface. Gergiev fared so much better with the more overt and flamboyant expression of the Russian operas he presented here just a few weeks ago. With Barenboim's magnificent Berlin reading fresh in my memory, Gergiev's Parsifal paled in comparison.

There was one unmistakeable high point, and that was the brief contribution of Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas. He has that wan, shagged-out Russian look - too many late nights, not enough fresh vegetables - and he looks as if he couldn't care less. But when he opened his mouth he was transformed, as if he'd been sitting there quietly simmering for an hour and was ready to boil over. Amfortas's anguish and guilt erupted in Nikitin's intense, yet finely-controlled performance.

Robert Holl, in the unfortunate position of replacing Rene Pape at short notice, gave a creditable account of Gurnemanz, earnest and human, though with a slight touch of the routine about it.

The Parsifal, Sergey Semishkur was a weak link. There's an interesting if not especially beautiful voice there - steel cored and bright - but it's not reined in effectively, and vibrato and dynamics were all over the place.

Some compensation for the disappointments was provided by the first half's Dutilleux cello concerto, Tout un monde lointain. LSO principal cellist Tim Hugh soloed with care and precision, matched by some exquisitely delicate playing from the orchestra. 

 

 

What's on in London in March

Is February over already?

Opera 

At the Royal Opera House, I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca opens on 2 March. Kill for tickets.

Next up is a new double bill of Dido and Aeneas with Acis and Galatea opening 31 March. Choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose work demonstrates little musical sensibility, is the odd choice of director. Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese make their ROH debuts.

On 13 March there's a one-off performance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem . Antonio Pappano conducts Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Sold out, but check for returns towards the date.

At ENO, there's a revival of one of their better recent productions, David Alden's Jenùfa with Amanda Roocroft.

English Touring Opera bring the Magic Flute to Hackney Empire on 12 and 14 March, with Katya Kabanova on 13 March. For authentic 'period' atmosphere (and a bargain), buy the cheapest balcony seats, then stand at the back with your beer (the balcony bar is open throughout the show).

On 2, 4 and 9 March the Royal Academy of Music present Haydn's charming La fedeltà premiata in their bijou but perfectly-formed theatre.

Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBCSO attempt an overdue rehabilitation of Martinů's Julietta in concert at the Barbican on 27 March, with Magdalena Kozena in the title role.

And on 28 March David Parry and the LPO bring Rossini's Ermione to the Royal Festival Hall. 

Not opera

At the Barbican, 7 March is the BBCSO's Xenakis day. On 11 March Thomas Quasthoff presents a Bach and Handel programme. On 12 March it's the turn of Valery Gergiev and the LSO, who perform  Parsifal's Act 3 with the awesome Rene Pape and the remarkably-tattooed Evgeny Nikitin. Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw visit on 14 and 15 March with Beethoven's 7th and Bruckner's 9th.

The Royal Festival Hall hosts Maurizio Pollini on 4 March and the not-so-retired-after-all Alfred Brendel on 7 March (it's a charity concert for Comic Relief and he's credited as 'poet'). On 12 March at 6pm there's a FREE concert of Oliver Knussen's vocal works, conducted by the composer himself, with Claire Booth. A few tickets remain for countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in the Purcell Room on 23 March. On 29 March Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by Anja Harteros in a programme that includes the Eroica Symphony and Strauss's Four Last Songs.

At Wigmore Hall,  Mark Padmore visits on 12 March with a Brahms and Schubert programme. Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk appear on 26 March. Check the website for the inevitable returns.