Intermezzo

Proms blessed by Messiaen's Saint Francis of Assisi

Prom 70: Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise - Royal Albert Hall, 7 September 2008

Unquestionably the best Prom of the season - by a mile - in fact the best Prom I've ever been to. Messiaen's operatic meditation on the life of St Francis of Assisi is four and half hours of the most astonishing musical invention, here realised vividly and passionately by the Netherlands Opera.

Why the 'experts' in the pre-performance talk (supposedly playing for team Messiaen) felt the need to join the consensus and apologise for its length and supposed lack of pace I don't know. They seemed embarrassed about the limited enthusiasm they did show. This sort of dispassionate cynicism may constitute a legitimate perspective on the work from an academic viewpoint, but with barely a quarter (if that) of the seats sold, what it really needed instead was some good old-fashioned cheerleading from a point of authority.

There may not be a lot going on in the text, but there's a musical narrative more gripping and eventful than anything I've ever heard, teeming with detail. Messiaen worked on it for many years and the result is a work that despite its length and colossal orchestration is shorn of any excess. Every detail fits as neatly as a leaf on a tree.

Conductor Ingo Metzmacher marshalled his huge orchestral forces heroically. There were ondes Martenot tucked away in the side balconies, and a massive choir too. And despite some the odd late entry or rough patch - nothing less than you'd get from any orchestra over half a day of solid playing - there was never the sense that they were playing with anything less than total commitment.

The strange and beautiful 'Angel's viol' music, exquisitely realised on the ondes Martenot and a cluster of strings and winds was a magical highlight in the middle of the work. St Francis's sermon to the birds, with its streaming concatenation of orchestrally-simulated birdsong, was, despite the 'experts' pre-show warnings, fascinating in its dense complexity. And the mighty, blinding, deafening finale exploded with all the joy and profound faith Messiaen had brought to it.

The marvellous, minimalist staging, just a few benches and crude crosses set in front of the orchestra, was enough to suggest the events occuring. More importantly, it provided a context for the wonderful soloists to create their roles.

The voice of Rod Gilfry, as St Francis, started to give out towards the end of the second act, but this was covered by some sympathetic volume from Metzmacher, and barely detracted from a moving and authoritative performance that derived its intensity from its stillness.

The simple black and white costumes mostly worked, and though Heidi Grant Murphy resembled the Dental Hygienist of the Lord in her all-white ensemble, the sweetness and purity of her voice raised her Angel to the heavens.

It's a shame so few people made the trip to see it, but the few hundred who were there gave it a louder and definitely more heartfelt reception than many full-house concerts. It desperately needs to be staged in this country again - and soon.

 

 

 

 

Berliner Philharmoniker - beautiful isn't always best

Proms 64 and 65: Berliner Philharmoniker / Simon Rattle - Royal Albert Hall, 2 and 3 September 2008

Wagner Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod, Messiaen Turangalîla Symphony

Brahms Symphony No.3, Shostakovich Symphony No.10

If you've ever seen photos of Simon Rattle in action, you might assume he just stands there with his gob gated open all night, like an angler fish on the ocean bed. In reality, he talks non-stop, or at least mouths. I wish I could lip read. I'm pretty sure I caught a couple of "help me"s but the rest is a mystery.

I was able to study the Rattle platform manner at close hand on Tuesday night from my surprisingly pricy (£23) seat in the choir stalls, tucked behind the Berlin Philharmonic's gleaming tubular bells and pleasingly close to the Berlin motor itself, the tigerish growl of the basses.

Of course a lot of water can be lost through an open mouth. That's why marathon runners keep theirs shut, and overheated doggies don't.

No wonder Sir Simon needed a mini-break halfway through the hour-plus Turangalîla Symphony to chug back some water behind the piano, coaxing the obliging violas into a bit of quite unnecessary 'retuning' to cover.

It was a wonderfully lucid account of this lengthy and problematical, inherently episodic work. If talent borrows and genius steals, then Messiaen could be a musical Einstein. Rattle drew out the direct quotations from Wagner's Tristan more clearly than I've ever heard before - and of course it did no harm to hear the wellspring itself, exquisitely presented, at the start of the evening.

Messiaen's anointed, Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the piano and Tristan Murail at the ondes Martenot, brought a special authority. Where the work could have tipped over into Gershwin-pastiche vulgarity, Rattle wisely settled on festive exuberance.  

There was a more honed predictability about the second concert. Despite the near-perfection of the orchestra's playing - or perhaps because of it - Rattle seemed content to lay back and bathe in the immaculately polished sound.  While there's nothing wrong with loveliness for its own sake, I find this orchestra at their best when they're nearer the edges of their comfort zone, as they were with the previous night's Messiaen.

 

  

 

Benjamin's Bolero

Prom 27: BBC Symphony Orchestra / Benjamin - Royal Albert Hall, 6 August 2008

The Proms house band, the BBCSO, have been at it for a couple of weeks now, and the battle fatigue is starting to show. Or is it just me, projecting my increasing weariness of birthday boy Messiaen on to their opener, L'Ascension?  It's too earnest a work to survive such a perfunctory plod. And the string-free first movement cruelly exposed the ragged brass and winds.

I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for Carolin Widmann's accomplished but ultimately timid bash at Stravinsky's Violin Concerto either. The orchestral torpor smothered any attempt she made to break free.

George Benjamin's early Ringed by the Flat Horizon is a dazzlingly precise evocation of a storm erupting over a vast and bare landscape, from ominous rumblings to uncontainable violence. Conducted by the composer himself, it was the highlight of the evening. 

Repeated involuntary subjection has dulled the appeal of Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte and Boléro so much that I considered slipping out before they began. I'm glad I didn't.

Benjamin sped through with an immaculate control that extended beyond the orchestra to the audience. His raised hand at the end of the Pavane was duly observed, allowing an applause-free conjunction, the only sound, almost inevitably, the muffled ring of a mobile phone buried deep within some distant pocket. 

Boléro's timbral transformations sounded remarkably fresh if not quite radical, a proto-minimalism that had more in common with Stockhausen's Stimmung than its own contemporaries. And of course Benjamin managed the Olympic dressage of its sustained, expansive crescendo perfectly. There's a world of difference between listening to music - properly - in a concert hall, and merely being exposed to it, as this performance demonstrated.