Intermezzo

A double helping of Matthias Goerne

London Sinfonietta / Martyn Brabbins / Matthias Goerne / Thomas Larcher - Queen Elizabeth Hall, 30 September 2008
  and
Matthias Goerne / Alexander Schmalcz - Queen Elizabeth Hall, 2 October 2008

Toru Takemitsu Rain Coming
Thomas Larcher Die Nacht der Verlorenen
Thomas Larcher Antennas...Requiem for H
Toru Takemitsu Tree Line
Thomas Larcher Bose Zellen (Piano Concerto)

Dmitry Shostakovich Suite on poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Op.145
Hugo Wolf 3 Michelangelo Lieder
Johannes Brahms 4 Serious Songs

I can only assume London wallets are feeling the credit squeeze. Perhaps that surefire audience repellent 'new music' had something to do with the small turnout for Matthias Goerne's concert with the London Sinfonietta on Tuesday, but I was shocked to see the Queen Elizabeth Hall barely a quarter full for his lieder recital later in the week. Of course many of the target audience hit Wigmore Hall instead for the crazily-scheduled competing attractions of Christian Gerhaher, but even so.....

The centrepiece of the first concert was the world premiere of a song cycle specially written for Matthias Goerne by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. The perfectly-titled Die Nacht der Verlorenen ("the night of the lost") links fragments of unfinished poetry by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann in a single dark stream of song running through a shifting musical landscape.  Modern if not especially novel textures like high whiny violins, rumbling fundamental brass and damped piano are applied to even older forms.

So its not revolutionary, but Larcher's gift is to hug the text to the music with such extraordinary sensitivity that it is both completion and response. It's so exquisitely crafted to Goerne's dark, melting baritone that it's impossible to imagine anyone else singing it, and he delivered it with utter security and searing commitment.

Larcher is also a pianist. Dressed ninja-style in a long black shirt and pants with little skippy rubber shoes, he performed a couple of his own works, Antennas, a short solo piece, and Bose Zellen (sic) a piano concerto. Both involved poking around in the piano with lumps of metal and stone, something I grew out of at the age of about 7, and still pains me to watch trained and talented musicians doing. Although the results were more melodic and less purely percussive than most work of this type, I'm not in a rush to hear either again. I'd rather have had an immediate repeat of Die Nacht der Verlorenen, a work I fear that despite its quality is not going to get many outings (any info about future performances anywhere in Europe, please let me know).

In the middle of the concert, Fraser Trainer interviewed Thomas Larcher, who came across as rather sweet and humble. He covered much of the same ground in an earlier interview, recorded at Larcher's stunningly beautiful alpine home, below:

Matthias Goerne was on top form again for his recital with Alexander Schmalcz at the piano two days later. His Shostakovich Michelangelo suite was a little effortful - technically secure but lacking that last ounce of connection with the Russian text.

But the second half's Wolf and Brahms saw him on firmer ground. Such was the intensity of the first group of songs that the audience, instead of bursting into applause at the end, sat there transfixed and silent, and the Brahms Serious Songs launched without a break. Gripping and thoroughly inhabited, every bit as 'godless' as Brahms would have wished, and a million miles from the dull piety of most interpretations, it was a performance almost embarrassing in its intensity. What a shame so few people got to hear it.

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.

 

  

 

Venezuelans invade Albert Hall, Prommers surrender

Prom 48: Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Dudamel - Royal Albert Hall, 19 August 2007

Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 in E minor Bernstein West Side Story - Symphonic Dances Latin American works including music by Revueltas and Ginastera

Tonight's concert presents a tough act for the rest of the Proms season to follow. It's hard to see how anyone could top it for musicality, intensity and sheer excitement. Dudamel simply grabbed the audience and held us in his thrall.

Shostakovich's tricky 10th was a brave choice to open with. Its incredibly subtle first movement is simply boring in the wrong hands. But Dudamel made it ebb and flow - verrrry slowly - with sensitivity and immaculate technical control. He allowed in space for reflection, time to appreciate its delicate colours.

In the violent second movement we saw the full extent of the orchestra's powers as they thundered through it. With around 200 members, it was a mighty sound. And it drew out something very special and different about this orchestra. They really feel the music, physically, right down to their toes, as they play. They rocked and swayed like sailors on a stormy sea, from violins to basses, in counterpoint to Dudamel's muppet flailings.

This brief and savage interlude, painted in strong colours and bold lines, was followed by a return to introspection in the third movement, cryptic and fascinating.

It was a mature and complete reading that would have been astonishing from any orchestra, let alone such a young one.

The pace did drop a little with the Bernstein that followed the interval. Although this has its technical challenges, it is at heart banal in comparison with the Shostakovich. What little passion it has is displayed neatly on the surface, with little to unearth by repeated listening. The orchestra's response was efficient rather than intense.

The pace picked up again with the Latin American works which followed. Moncayo's Huapango and Ginastera's Estancia had flair, rhythm and above all, passion. If Dudamel's style can be characterised by extremes, then what he brought here was sheer joy.

The response had to be nothing less than a foot-stamping standing ovation, which produced the first of several storming encores. But first, the orchestra discarded the black jackets they'd arrived in:

in favour of some cunningly secreted and rather more colourful ones:

They managed some well drilled instrument-waving moves from the Tito Puente school while they were playing, and raised their instruments for applause at the end:

Although the audience would have been happy for them to go on all night, they called an end to proceedings by peeling off their jackets and tossing them into the crowd.

One got stuck in the cat's cradle of BBC recording wires:

and one found an unlikely home on a senior prommer:

(A few more photos below)

*Update - some BBC photos here.