São Paulo Symphony, Alsop, Swingle Singers, RFH 25 October 2013

Camargo Guarnieri: Symphony No. 4 “Brasilia”

Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Berio: Sinfonia

São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Swingle Singers

This evening’s concert began with a protest, and very musical and well organised it was too. About five minutes before the start of the show, the audience sitting in the right wing of the choir stalls all stood up and began singing. Eventually a banner was unfurled, making clear that the protest was against Shell, who were sponsoring the event. The protesters sang well, they even included a verse in Portuguese (it might have been Spanish) for the benefit of our guests, and in the last verse they all filed out of the hall, creating a live fadeout effect as one by one they left. A twitter barrage after the event made clear that the singers were part of a campaign called “Shell out sounds”, campaigning against Shell’s sponsorship of the arts, “No sponsorship by oil companies in a time of climate change”. Does corporate sponsorship for a concert exacerbate climate change? I’d have thought flying a symphony orchestra from the other side of the world to perform would have a greater impact. However, there are plenty of peripheral issues involved, as the campaigners’ blog post on the event spells out: http://shelloutsounds.org/

Unfortunately for the partisans, the sheer quality of what followed soon consigned their protest to a dim and insignificant memory. The São Paulo Symphony was on top form, and presented a well-structured programme with all the jest and passion we’ve come to expect from touring South American ensembles, but also with musical standards that could match those of any of the world’s top orchestras. The programme covered three bases: Leonard Bernstein, whose leading advocate was conducting; Brazil, this is, after all, the country’s flagship orchestra; and the 1960s, the decade that The Rest is Noise festival is currently celebrating. More often than not, such competing demands result in a programme that looks like it was designed by committee, one that didn’t include any musicians. But the three works presented this evening, diverse as they were, did everything required of them, and each was given a spectacular reading.

Camargo Guarnieri’s Fourth Symphony is subtitled “Brasília”, after the country’s capital, inaugurated in 1960, just three years before the work’s composition. And its dedicated to Lenny: so there’s Brazil, the 1960s and Bernstein right there. The symphony is a big-boned lively piece, with plenty of syncopation in its well-proportioned themes. There is an endearing directness about the musical discourse: the orchestration, while skilful, is fairly two dimensional, with the families rarely divided up and all the colours kept separate. There isn’t much counterpoint to speak of, apart from in a short fugato section in the finale. More often the lower strings or brass will play an accompaniment on the beat while the violins or woodwind play a more syncopated melody. As a symphony, it could be accused of lacking substance, but it’s short and doesn’t outstay its welcome, making it an ideal concert opener.

Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story brought out the best in everybody, not least Marin Alsop, who was in her element. But her São Paulo players were keen to emphasise the sheer quantity of Latin American music here, especially the Cha-cha and Mambo movements, which were performed with a passion too rarely heard on the London concert stage. The performance was characterised by heady passion combined with excellent control of tonal colour and balance. The Mambo in particular shone, not only for the blaring mariachi trumpets, but also for the fact that the whole orchestra was clearly audible beneath them, and not a single detail of the instrumentation was lost. In an all-round excellent concert, the Bernstein performance stood out – performance wise – as the highlight of the evening.

Composition wise, the crown goes to Berio, whose Sinfonia represents the 60s spirit distilled into symphonic form. As such, it was the ideal work to programme in the 1960s segment of The Rest is Noise festival. The fact that neither the work, nor even its composer even get a mention in the book is one of its many unforgivable omissions, and not the only one that the Southbank Centre has made amends for in this year’s programming.

The Swingle Singers were in fine form, and all there vocal tricks were well projected by the amplification. Listening to the work on CD it is easy to overlook just how taxing this piece is for the vocalists, and while they all did well, none of them made it look easy. The orchestra was challenged too in places, and their pointillistic interjections it the “O King” movement weren’t quite up the precision that defined the first half. But the tuttis were all excellent, especially in the complex third movement and in the oppressive finale. Alsop did well to hold the third movement together, but she didn’t manage to give the vocalists the same amount of space as Boulez and Eötvös manage in their respective recordings. As a result, tenor Oliver Griffiths had often had to speak his lines faster than he seemed comfortable with, and spit out the accents to make sure they synchronised. So a little lacking in poise at its most taxing moments, but otherwise a fine performance.

The short running time of the programme suggested an encore was planned, and as it turned out, we were in for a real treat. The orchestra performed a lavish arrangement of James P. Johnson’s Victory Stride, complete with extended piano break, Dixieland clarinet solo and some great effects from the brass. But best of all, the Swingle Singers returned to the stage and scatted along in their own inimitable way. They were worked into the arrangement, so that there were question and answer effects between the violins (often standing) and the singers. The individual members also took a few solos, most memorably one of the basses, who did an improvised “trombone” solo, complete with actions. A fitting end to a fine concert, one that is likely to prove a highlight of The Rest is Noise festival, and indeed the entire season.

Marin Alsop conducts Dvořák, Milhaud, Varèse, LPO RFH 20 Feb 2013

Dvořák, Milhaud, Varèse: Marin Alsop (cond), Ken Burton (cond), London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Adventist Chorale, Royal Festival Hall, London.

Three Spirituals

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9

Milhaud: La creation du Monde

Varèse: Amériques

The programme for this evening’s concert was a mess, and I blame Alex Ross. Its role in the Rest is Noise season is clear enough, but the Europeans-in-America theme was curated with a heavy hand. From a historical perspective, the choices of composers and works were obvious, but they sit well together. On top of that, the idea of beginning with real spirituals and then moving straight into Dvořák Nine meant that the whole programme had to be reversed, with the symphony in the first half and the curiosities in the second.

I’ve never subscribed to the view that African-American spirituals form the melodic and/or spiritual basis of the New World Symphony, so perhaps the first half of this concert was aimed at listeners like me. A gospel choir, the London Adventist Chorale, opened the concert, and their performance segued directly into the opening of the Dvořák. The congruence between the spirituals and the symphony was blatantly engineered by the inclusion of Going Home a setting of the cor anglais solo from Dvořák’s second movement in the form of a spiritual. But even that failed to make the case.

The choir was on top form, and their short performance was a highlight of the concert. With only twenty singers, they struggled to fill the hall with sound, but the sheer beauty of their tone ensured that everybody listened intently. They performed a simple, homophonic setting of Deep River, a jazzy Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and a setting of Going Home that even followed Dvořák’s harmonies and textures.

As the choir ended the orchestra began, but there was little continuity here. In fact the commitment of the singers, the precision of their ensemble and the elegance of their tone, were in stark contrast to the messy, incoherent orchestral playing that followed. Given the challenges of the second half, the majority of the rehearsal time was presumably given over to the Varèse. But did they even run the Dvořák? Considering the consistently high standards the London Philharmonic usually maintains, this was an amazingly sloppy performance. Alsop clearly has a vision for the symphony. She’s keen to drive the outer movements like it’s Beethoven Five, and both of the inner movements are about steady, insistent tempos. But she wholly failed to communicate any of this to the orchestra, and the result was leaden, incoherent playing, poor balance within the orchestra and a distinct lack of poise at almost every turn.

The second half opened with Milhaud’s La creation du Monde, a piece that requires a programme of this sort to justify its presence in an orchestral concert, but that acts as effective palate cleanser between the more substantial works. Milhaud seems to be taunting the orchestral players with all the jazzy licks he expects them to struggle with, but this time the joke was on him, as all the pseudo-jazz came off beautifully. Special mention should go to Andrew Barclay, whose nonchalant kit drumming succinctly set the tone.

The concert ended with a bang, or several rather, in the form of Varèses’s Amériques. As soon as it began it was clear where all the rehearsal time had gone. The London Philharmonic fielded about the largest band you’ll ever see in the Festival Hall, including an unprecedented 12 percussionists (that’s apart from the two timpanists) vying for elbow room at the back of the stage. This time, Alsop set the pace more carefully and paid much greater attention to the many details of the score. Balance within the ensemble was impressive, with those crucial woodwind textures shining through, even against the large brass section. Some of the quieter passages sagged, but the composer should take as much blame for this as the conductor. And the ending was fabulous, with Alsop managing to increase the volume and density of sound, even over the repeated extremes that make up most of the piece, to give the final page that extra impact. An impressive end, then, to a variable concert, one which struggled to make sense on its own terms, despite its pedantically themed programme. Let’s hope that later offerings in The Rest is Noise are more consistently inspired and make a better case for every work, not just the ones with the loudest bells and whistles.