Nikolaj Znaider, London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican 1 May 2014

Strauss: Don Juan

Brahms: Double Concerto

Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Nikolaj Znaider (conductor), Roman Simovic (violin), Tim Hugh (cello), London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican, London, 1 May 2014

If you are one of the greatest violinists of your generation, pursuing a second career as a conductor is always going to involve overcoming prejudices. Nikolaj Znaider has faced that challenge head-on, and has persuaded the kind of people who matter, including Valery Gergiev, who has appointed him Principal Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky Orchestra. His guest appearances on the podiums of the world now match the prestige of his concerto engagements.

And yet the suspicion of moonlighting persists. This evening’s performance seemed very much like the work of a great musician who has yet to fully master the role of conductor. His musicianship is unquestionable, and his many years as a concerto soloist have given him the ability to effortlessly maintain control of the proceedings – an important transferable skill. But conducting demands more, and many aspects of the performance suggested that his skills here are still developing. He isn’t a particularly dynamic presence on the podium. His baton technique is reasonable, but is based on a very limited vocabulary of gestures. And his communication with the orchestra lacks dynamism and spontaneity, especially in these demanding works.

Don Juan is a virtuoso showpiece, as much for the conductor as for the orchestra, so Znaider was playing high stakes by opening his concert with it. He launched the work well, pushing the players to greater heights of energy and lyricism with every phrase. But when the excitement of the opening died down, the quieter music exposed a reluctance to shape or structure the music. Tempos remained stiff throughout. Transitions were awkward, and sudden outbursts seemed to surprise the conductor more than they did the audience. Gradual build-ups worked better, and Znaider has an impressive ability to drive into climaxes. But when the drama subsides, the music becomes frustratingly rigid. A lack of atmosphere is the greatest failing, at least of Znaider’s Strauss, and the quiet ending of Don Juan seemed curiously arbitrary here, as if the conductor had lost interest long before the delicate closing bars.

The Brahms Double Concerto suffered less. Znaider’s methodical approach better suited the formality of Brahms’ traditional structuring. This evening’s soloists, Roman Simovic and Tim Hugh, are leader and principal cello of the orchestra. The clear benefit is innate chemistry between the two, the result of regular duetting in orchestral contexts (and there was some of this from them in Zarathustra later on). The matching of timbre and phrasing between the two soloists was ideal, and the fiendish octave passagework in the first movement was precisely co-ordinated. The disadvantage was a certain lack of bravura from either player, neither of whom held the stage or dominated proceedings the way a true concert soloists might, like, say...Nikolaj Znaider. The interactions between soloists and orchestra also spoke of long collaboration. Generally, the violin and cello stood out from the ensemble as they should, but on the occasions when Brahms requires them to gradually fade into the string section they do so magnificently.

Znaider was on better form with Zarathustra. He clearly knows this work well (both Strauss works were conducted without a score) and the problematic architecture here was presented as both meaningful and logical. The orchestra was on excellent form throughout the concert, but Znaider made some entries difficult with ambiguous cues. Even so, his tempo relationships were all very astute, if, again, the transitions between them were sometimes awkward. Climaxes were thrilling, something both orchestra and conductor should take credit for. But, as with Don Juan, the quieter music was more problematic. The waltzes were all very four-square (OK, three-square), and the ending lacked mystery. Znaider clearly does not share Strauss’ fascination with Nietzsche’s description of the void, and all the discussion of darkness and night in the work’s programme had little bearing on the way he performed it. The results were certainly engaging, but always seemed two-dimensional. Perhaps Znaider is programming Strauss as a challenge to himself, an exercise to fill in the musical requirements of a conductor that he has not developed through violin playing. If so, that’s all very laudable, but the London Symphony Orchestra deserves a more experienced guide through this music, especially as this evening they demonstrated a flair for it that few other orchestras, anywhere in the world, could match.

Mahler 7, LSO, Gatti, Barbican 27 April 2014

Mahler: Symphony No. 7

London Symphony Orchestra, Daniele Gatti (cond).

Barbican, London, 27 April 2014

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony doesn’t conduct itself. It needs leadership from an interpreter with a clear vision for the piece, and with the confidence to sideline many aspects of the music in order to highlight others for the sake of coherency and form. Many conductors, even Mahler specialists, balk at the challenge (most famously Bruno Walter, who only conducted it once), but Daniele Gatti is clearly not intimidated. His reading this evening was a real interpretation: distinctive, focussed, and with clear musical ideas projected through Mahler’s score. At times, it seemed that those ideas where not actually native to the music, and that the work was being manipulated to fit external thoughts, but that is always the price for a successful interpretation of this intractable and often self contradictory score.

Gatti’s grand plan was to treat the five movement arch structure as a more straightforward three movement ternary plan. The outer movements carried the weight of the argument, and both were taken to extremes of drama and intensity. To contrast them, the inner three were conflated to form an extended interlude. So significant pauses were observed between the first and second movements, and between the fourth and fifth, but movements two to four were played virtually attacca. And the scherzo third movement was presented as playful and delicate, so as to bring it in line with the Nachtmusik atmosphere of its neighbours.

Most unusually of all, Gatti took everything very slowly, never labouring the music, but making sure that all of the ideas were given due weight and prominence. One of the biggest problems for conductors approaching this work is to reconcile the overall structure with the huge quantity of often eccentric detail. Gatti managed to square that circle with his slow tempos, which united every passage in the work while also giving him the space to focus on all those tiny orchestral interjections that make this work so unique.

The first movement was the most successful. Gatti structured the movement around the three or four long build-ups to its main climaxes. These were performed with astonishing intensity, especially the one at the very end. But that atmosphere was maintained throughout the movement, even in the quieter sections where he also turned his attentions to all the tiny solos from unexpected corners of the orchestra. The London Symphony played magnificently for him, but his approach really put them to the test. The brass in particular where required to play louder and slower than most conductors would expect of them in this work.

One interesting addition to the brass section was Peter Moore on first trombone. This is his first appearance with the LSO since it was announced, or rather leaked on Twitter, at the weekend that he has been appointed co-principal. Presumably that means he will be sharing the chair with Dudley Bright, who this evening played the tenor tuba solo. Bright had a few problems at the very beginning and was insecure in the top register, although this again could be due to the fact that Gatti wanted this solo slower and louder than usual. But the later interjections, in the middle register, were more successful. The trombone section sounded great under Moore, as did the trumpets under the similarly youthful Philip Cobb (Moore is 18, Cobb only in his mid 20s). With these two young players leading the trumpets and trombones, the chances are we will be seeing a new golden age of brass playing at the LSO – not that the section has been deficient in recent years.

Gatti took a playful approach to the inner movements, still slow, but with plenty of tempo variance as well. Playing down the drama of the scherzo was a gamble, but it paid off. This was the one movement that Gatti conducted at a tempo approaching the norm, still on the slow side, but not as wilfully so as elsewhere. But again, the details were what made this special, all those fleeting orchestral colours, from the percussion, or the bottom end of the woodwinds. But the music was also effectively punctuated with satisfyingly dark bass sounds, particularly from the bottom strings of the harps, an effect that Gatti rightly made a point of bringing out.

The finale was the least successful movement. Again, Gatti’s approach was to take the music slow, make the tuttis imperious, and gradually build up in intensity to the key climactic points. But Mahler has more subtle ideas in mind here. He will often break off midway through a long crescendo, and suddenly take you into an eerily calm pastoral world for a few bars before returning to the fray. Those devices didn’t have a place in Gatti’s conception, and so were effectively ignored. Five movements on, Mahler has taken us on a journey from the soundworld of the first movement, and the finale is in a different place, so Gatti’s efforts to bring us back to where we began put his interpretation at odds with the now transformed character of the music.

Even so, his approach rewards more than it taxes in every movement, including the finale. And whatever differences of trajectory we might feel between the work and the interpretation, the slow tempos and focus on detail throughout always shine new light on this music. Overall, the performance was a success because he based his reading on a minute attention to detail. With a lesser orchestra, that could have been dangerous, but with the LSO, here on fine form, all those details were there, clear and precise, exactly what Gatti required to piece together his bigger picture.  

This concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is avialible to listen on demand until Sunday 4 May 2014 at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041vg02  

 

Gardiner Ibragimova LSO Barbican 23.3.14

Mendelssohn: Overture Ruy Blas

Schumann: Violin Concerto

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 “Italian”

John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Alina Ibragimova, violin

London Symphony Orchestra

Barbican, London, 23.3.14

Everybody was working well outside their comfort zones this evening: John Eliot Gardiner led a modern instrument band, the LSO performed in ‘historically informed’ mode, and Alina Ibragimova tried her hand at the Schumann, hardly core repertoire for any violinist. The sheer professionalism on display ensured that the technical side of the performance was rarely compromised, but there was a noticeable lack of ease or flow from the orchestra, and the resulting tension only occasionally raised the excitement levels.

Gardiner and the LSO are not complete strangers: they have worked together before, so both sides must know by now what to expect. Given the difference in interpretive traditions between this orchestra and his own ensembles, Gardiner was uncompromising in his approach. A set of old-fashioned cavalry timps was the only concession to period instrumentation from the orchestra, but Gardiner reduced the orchestra by about a third, and had the strings stand (they sat for the concerto). Vibrato was kept to a minimum, though not completely prohibited, and the orchestral playing in every work was characterised by hard accents and carefully manicured phrases.

Ruy Blas opened with austere brass fanfares, setting the tone for the whole concert. Despite the small orchestra, Gardiner drew a large forceful sound from the players, deliberate and unambiguous. The overture was well shaped, and built up well to its conclusion. And whatever privations Gardiner subjected his players to, their intonation and balance were never under threat. A strident opener, but conspicuously lacking in Mendelssohnian humour or levity.

Schumann’s Violin Concerto is a controversial work and a rarity on the concert platform. There is some great music here, but the weaknesses are all too clear. The structure manages to be simultaneously conventional to a fault and incoherent. The orchestral writing is often turgid and needlessly opaque. And the solo part is close to impossible, not for its virtuoso acrobatics so much as its indifference to the mechanics of the instrument.

So it needs all the help it can get, and adding into the equation a modern orchestra attempting to emulate period performance practice does it no favours at all. Many of the orchestral textures, particularly in the first movement, are complex to the point of utter obscurity, and sullen and grey in their colouring. Modern configuration string instruments playing without vibrato only exacerbate the problem. That said, the LSO strings can always be relied on to bring clarity and elegance, and the slow second movement, the concerto’s main redeeming feature, certainly had many moments of simple, unadulterated beauty.

Alina Ibragimova is no stranger to period practice herself, but chose, possibly to Gardiner’s chagrin, to perform on a modern configuration violin with plenty of vibrato. Although this concerto isn’t going to be the ideal match for any player, many aspects of her style fit it well. Much of the music is set in the instrument’s lower register, where Ibragimova’s viola-like tone is rich and satisfying. Her projection is also valuable here, especially as she is able to maintain the rich elegance of her tone even at the loudest dynamics. And then there is her technical proficiency; the sheer difficultly of this concerto really sets it apart, but Ibragimova found a convincing and highly musical way through all of its vicissitudes.

The tensions between Gardiner’s approach and the LSO’s sound became even more apparent in the Italian Symphony that made up the second half. Were this Gardiner’s own Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, his heavy accents, emphatically shaped phrases and fast tempos would all make sense. Gut strings and narrow bore winds give less tone, so a more agogic approach with more shaping of phrases is required. But the LSO, even with reduced forces, gives a big, sustained sound, on which many of these details feel like overkill.

In fact, the balance within the orchestra was very well managed, and it was clear that everyone was listening to each other. Although the violins (with seconds on the right) were reduced in number, the low strings remained well-staffed, and the six double basses gave a rich, warm basis to the textures.

Gardiner’s tempos were fast, but they usually are anyway for the outer movements of this symphony. The heavy accents and broad dynamic swells used to articulate the phrases made the opening movement seem all the faster. Some elegant playing from the woodwind soloists brought valuable lightness and elegance to the inner movements. The finale really was fast, by any standards, almost too fast for the LSO woodwind section – which is saying something. They managed to keep it together though, and Gardiner took his foot off the accelerator for the quieter interludes.

A journey of discovery then, particularly for the players. Gardiner is to be congratulated for sticking to his guns on matters of interpretation and for not giving the orchestra an easy time. The sheer versatility of the LSO is amply demonstrated by their ability to do what Gardiner asks, and without any serious compromise to their consistently high technical standards. But what about the audience? A collaboration like this ought to offer the best of both worlds, which it occasionally does, but much of the time it feels like neither one thing nor the other.