Philharmonia Grimaud Lintu RFH 10 Oct 2013

 Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 1. Hélène Grimaud (pn), Hannu Lintu (cond.), Philharmonia, Royal Festival Hall, London, 10.10.13 

Andris Nelsons called in sick for this evening’s concert, which was a shame, but it did give London audiences a rare chance to sample the talents of one of Finland’s rising stars, Hannu Lintu. He’s a different kind of conductor, and lacks that sense of continuous flowing energy that makes Nelsons’ performances so coherent and intense. Lintu is a tall, wiry figure who communicates to his players through sudden, jerky movements. To illicit a hard accent or punch chord, he’ll throw a crazy shape, all bowed legs and outstretched arms, just ahead of the beat, then freeze until the music catches up. Those individual events come out great, but it hardly helps the music to flow.

Hélène Grimaud is the exact opposite. Her playing is all about continuity, with seamless legato and flowing lines. The Brahms First Piano Concerto that opened the concert worked best when a constructive tension was achieved between conductor and pianist, Lintu picking out the dramatic moments, Grimaud weaving them together through her long, lyrical lines at the piano. Sadly, these were the exception rather than the rule, and the tensions that characterised this reading were mostly unbalanced and unresolved. Brahms is partly to blame: his symphonic aspirations distort many aspects of this concerto, and it is up to the players to find a way to rein the often overblown music into the work’s formal parameters. This is where Grimaud’s approach pays dividends. She always seems sceptical of Brahms’ more extrovert gestures, the huge block chords or the Beethovenian oppositions between soloist and orchestra in the first movement. Her solution is to round off the edges, to play even the most grandiose music with an even legato and a warm tone. Lintu, by contrast, goes for broke with the grand symphonic gestures. In the first movement the orchestra struggled to give him what he was looking for; there were a number of ensemble problems in the strings in the louder passages and some distinctly inelegant playing from the winds. The slow movement worked better, mainly because it could rely more on Grimaud’s lyrical playing. And the finale worked better still, as Grimaud took a completely different approach to the music. From the very opening, she played with a more focussed and more staccato touch – that opening flourish was like a breath of fresh air. This, and every later statement of the rondo theme, was played with precision and clarity, really bringing out the counterpoint between the hands. In the lyrical interludes, she returned to her trademark legato, but as a contrast to the more incisive style of the main theme this worked well. The orchestra also made more sense out of the finale, giving a performance that was as dramatic as that of the first movement, but now with a real sense of direction and purpose.

After the interval came Brahms’ First Symphony, which turned out to be a similarly mixed bag. Lintu seemed more comfortable with this work, and better able to marshal the orchestral forces when needed. But it still lacked focus and there was rarely any sense of adventure. New themes and ideas were presented with the correct tempos and dynamic relationships, but without any sense of surprise or that something new was happening. There was some elegant playing from the orchestra in the inner movements, especially from the leader and from the woodwind soloists, but up until the end of the third movement, this didn’t seem like a particularly inspired reading. But, just as in the concerto, the music really took off in the finale. Perhaps Brahms had a hand in this, saving his most inspired ideas until the end of the work. Perhaps you just can’t go wrong with the finale of this symphony. Whatever the reason, there was some great playing here. The trombones totally nailed their chorale toward the start of the movement. The horns had sounded quite course earlier on, but suddenly their interjections lifted the music. And the string section, which had only had a reasonable evening up until this point, suddenly found the coherency of tone they were looking for and were able to focus the sound of the whole orchestra, even in the loudest climaxes towards the end.

A serviceable evening of Brahms, then, from Grimaud, Lintu and the Philharmonia forces, but not an exceptional one. It was engaging at the time, but chances are all memory of it will evaporate in a week or two, when Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus roll into town to give us their versions of these great works.

2001: A Space Odyssey Live Philharmonia Wallfisch

2001: A Space Odyssey Live: Philharmonia Orchestra and Voices, Benjamin Wallfisch (cond), Royal Festival Hall, London, 7.10.13

A ‘concert performance’ of a film is much like a concert performance of an opera, in that the music is extracted from its position within the drama and thrust into the limelight to fend for itself. 2001 is a great candidate for this treatment though, not least for the sheer quality of the music it employs. Having a live orchestra and choir perform with (I hesitate to say accompany) the film highlights some curious anomalies, one of which is how little music there actually is in it. The ‘Saturn Expedition’ segment, which takes up approximately the middle half (well over an hour) contains no music at all, a fact driven home by the presence of a mute orchestra and choir. But Kubrick’s use of silence only increases the power of the music, when he does use it, and for those set pieces, particularly the Stargate Sequence, live performers certainly add something unique.

The Festival Hall makes a great cinema. A huge screen hung behind the stage, wider even than the organ behind it. The Philharmonia Voices were positioned on the two angled wings of the choir stalls, ladies to the left, gentleman to the right. This gave an interesting antiphonal dimension to Ligeti’s Requiem, although the presence of cloistered choristers to the sides of the screen also gave an awkward liturgical feel to the proceedings. The wooden panelling behind the orchestra was blacked out, which dulled the acoustic a little, but focussed the eye. And all the performers had stand lights, minimising light pollution, although some inevitably bled onto the lower part of the screen.

A similar live presentation of 2001 is taking place in New York this season, so I’m guessing that somebody (Warner?) has developed a package to enable such performances. The film itself is looking immaculate. A soundtrack sans music has been mixed, and in surround too, and the orchestra and choir parts have all been prepared, with all the cues exactly as they appear in the film.

The Philharmonia was brave to take on this project; they’ve got form when it comes to Ligeti. In the early 90s, the orchestra gave a performance of the Requiem in the composer’s presence. The idea was that the same forces would then go into the studio and record the work for the Complete Ligeti Edition, then on the Teldec label. I was at the concert, sitting directly behind Ligeti and craning my ear to hear his comments about the performance. I remember him being (unusually) polite but non-committal in the vague compliments he paid the performers. It turned out, though, that he was disappointed and went on to veto the recording. He was right to, as when the money was found to have another go, it was with the Berlin Philharmonic and Jonathan Nott, now unquestionably the definitive version and a significant improvement on that early 90s performance. That said the main problem then was the singing of the Philharmonia Chorus. This isn’t really a piece for an amateur choir. Fortunatley, the Philharmonia has since availed itself of a professional, albeit smaller chorus, the Philharmonia Voices. They excelled this evening, giving performances of the Kyrie from the Requiem and of Lux Aeterna that were close to ideal.

The recordings on the film’s soundtrack are another issue with a project like this. Kubrick not only had an excellent ear for repertoire choices but also for recordings, and any conductor and orchestra faced with the challenge of replacing Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic playing The Blue Danube  are up against stiff competition. The Philharmonia played well enough, but didn’t approach the finesse we hear on the original soundtrack in the music of either Strausses. I say the Philharmonia, about half the orchestra seemed to be deps. Principal flute/piccolo was played by Katherine Bryan - some dep! (Is she up for this chair? That would be a coup for the orchestra.)

Conductor Benjamin Wallfisch did an excellent job of keeping the music sounding musical while always synchronising it exactly to the visuals. Heaven knows how he managed that in the Ligeti, but it all worked. The Blue Danube sounded very constrained in the space station docking sequence; the synchronisation preventing him from giving the music the freedom and elasticity it needs. Fortunately the music appears twice, the second time in the exit music after the credits. This time there are no visuals, so he could really perform the music. It sounded like a completely different piece.

With all due deference to this evening’s performers, the real stars of this show were the audience. The house was full and the atmosphere was vibrant. Amazingly, many there seemed not to know the film. So there were big laughs for the few comedy moments – the protracted instructions for the zero gravity toilet, HAL’s transparent and delusion pleading as he’s shut down – and gasps at the (admittedly few) visual surprises. I felt a pang of envy for those who came to 2001 for the first time this evening. What an introduction to the film, and so much better than just watching it on the box.

Dausgaard, Fray, Philharmonia play Beethoven and Bruckner

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3

Bruckner: Symphony No. 3

Thomas Dausgaard, conductor

David Fray, piano

Philharmonia Orchestra,

Royal Festival Hall, London, 11.4.13

Every cloud has a silver lining, and concert-goers disappointed that Kurt Masur had pulled out of this evening’s concert due to ill health will have found a large measure of consolation in the fact that his replacement was the wonderful Thomas Dausgaard. Even so, from an interpretive point of view, this entailed a shift to the far end of the spectrum. Where Masur embodies the old-school values of robust and weighty orchestral warhorses, Dausgaard is an advocate of the more modern slick, no-nonsense approach. But they both excel in the same repertoire, so it was only the orchestra that had to make a major adjustment. The audience was in for an equally memorable evening, albeit one that finished a full quarter of an hour earlier than advertised.

Dausgaard only really came into his own in the second half, and in the first he diligently followed pianist David Fray in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Given the minimal communication that Fray offered, and the erratic tempo changes he often employed, this did mean that the conductor had to stay on his toes. Fortunately, Dausgaard’s professionalism shined through, and against the odds, the orchestra followed every idiosyncrasy that Fray threw at the piece.

An array of contradictions surround David Fray and his piano playing. From his publicity photos, you’d imagine him to be a tall, well-built man, when in fact he is a short and slight twenty-something. His posture at the piano is very Glenn Gould: he sits at a small stool hunched over the keys in a serious manner. Yet his playing is surprising louche, with slow trills, throwaway phrase endings and some erratic, even arbitrary sounding, rubato. His attack is quite definite, with each note picked out with precision and focus, yet his phrasing is almost always based on a smooth, even legato. It’s an approach that suits Beethoven’s Third, for the most part, imparting heroic qualities to the first movement, valuable structure to the second, and a sense of surprise to each of the contrasting episodes in the finale. He lacks subtlety though, rarely varying his articulation and only adjusting dynamics through emphatic crescendos or sudden shifts. There was some delicacy in the slow movement, but precious little poetry. The finale was the best part of this performance, and here Fray demonstrated how he could vary attacks within a single phrase to bring out structurally significant notes. But this was a proficient performance more than it was an imaginative one, and for the most part was lacking in interpretive insights.

Which made Dausgaard’s Bruckner 3 all the more revelatory. It is fashionable these days to take Bruckner fast, to not linger on the climaxes or the caesuras, and to avoid sentimentality at all costs. Dausgaard approaches the music in a similar manner, but there are big differences and they are all for the better. Dausgaard brings a chamber music sensibility to Bruckner. So clarity of line is paramount, and he has little interest in expansive climaxes and codas. But, unlike many latter-day Brucknerians, he’s interested in the poetry and strives to bring out the beauty in every phrase. So, at the opening for example, the music grows out of nothing and the trumpet solo has a wonderful atmospheric distant quality. True, he does then go on to bulldoze a couple of the grander tuttis but the elegance that he brings to the rest of the movement more than compensates. As ever, the Philharmonia strings really excelled in their unity and tonal beauty, which allowed Dausgaard to take the second movement fast, while retaining its slightly dispassionate elegance. The scherzo was the real highlight of this performance. Dausgaard went to extraordinary lengths to shape every phrase, freeing up the meter to allow each of the dance episodes its own, often rustic and always highly characteristic, identity. The finale too was fast, and perhaps a little too fast. But again, the precise shaping of each phrase, the carefully graded crescendos and the always clear orchestral textures allowed the music’s structure and its poetry to come through with clarity and elegance. Some may view Dausgarrd’s Bruckner as controversial or antithetical to the composer’s wishes (I suspect Kurt Masur would be of this view) but the coherency of his approach cannot be questioned. Nor indeed can the intensity and the dramatic power that he draws from the symphony, even when working in what is essentially a chamber music idiom.

Norrington conducts VW Elgar Holst

Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Holst: Gautier Capuçon, Philharmonia, Philharmonia Voices, Roger Norrington, Royal Festival Hall, London, 14.12.2010 (Gdn)

Vaughan Williams: Overture, The Wasps

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85

Holst: The Planets Op.32

In these days of precocious 30-something conductors, Roger Norrington seems like a bastion of old school virtues. Where his younger Eastern European colleagues often seem willing to sacrifice almost any musical virtue in the cause of excitement and energy, Norrington takes a broader view. He's not averse to excitement – just listen to him getting carried away in the Mars movement of The Planets – but he is also a connoisseur of instrumental colour, of unusual balance (especially Holst's many bottom-heavy textures) and of smouldering, slow burning passion.

Then there is the vibrato issue. Norrington is famously of the opinion that any orchestral music before Gurrelieder should be played without string vibrato. All three of the British composers represented in this programme were active when Schoenberg was slowly crafting his early masterpiece, so they are all borderline cases. And while this was not a vibrato-free performance, there was much less of it from the strings than you'd usually expect. In my personal opinion, Norrington is quite right about the issue of vibrato, not that it should be banned at all costs, but rather that it has become a crutch for orchestral string sections, a means of projecting the sound while hiding any minor tuning issues. Norrington leads by example, and as this concert showed, you can find plenty of colour and excitement in an orchestral string sound without habitual vibrato. There was some vibrato in the solo lines, although even here it was usually kept to a minimum.

The concert opened with Vaughan Williams' The Wasps. Its not a very exciting overture, although the introduction is quite distinctive. Norrington started as he meant to go on, with tight control of the orchestra by means of a clearly stated beat throughout. The result was regimented but with plenty of poetry and great playing from the woodwind. The coda was a bit ragged but otherwise a fine opener.

Gautier Capuçon and Roger Norrington are very different musicians, and the tensions between them were evident throughout the Elgar. Capuçon plays with full-blooded Latin passion. His rubato is pronounced but usually tasteful, while his dynamics seem to be always exaggerated and not very tasteful at all. The notes are all there, apart from a few slips in the high runs in the first movement that seem to catch most cellists out, so any complaints I might have probably just come down to matters of taste.

Then there is his vibrato. There was hardly a single note that was spared this slow, pronounced wobble that seemed to stretch to about a quarter tone. My first thought was that he was doing it to annoy Norrington. Even if he wasn't, I can't imagine the conductor was pleased, especially considering the disciplined tone he was managing to draw from the orchestra. The string section of the orchestra had been cut right down for the Elgar, which given the sheer weight (vibrato-assisted of course) of the soloist's tone seemed extreme, and there were many occasions when the soloist completely drowned out the ensemble, a rare occurrence in any concerto. But it turned out that Capuçon's excesses were largely confined to the first movement. He played the semiquavers of the scherzo straight, put his cantabile style to good use in the largo and put some real drive into the finale. I got the impression that Norrington wanted to take the finale slower, so there was tension here as well between the soloist and the orchestra, but they seemed to have reached some kind of agreement by the end. Then Capuçon wholly redeemed himself with a stunning encore, Saint-Saëns' Swan with harp accompaniment – delicate, tasteful...perfect.

Along with his vibrato intervention, Norrington also gave a nod to early 20^th century British performance practise by placing the 2^nd violins on the right. He also put the basses along the back behind the horns, which is an American rather than British idea I understand. They certainly gave some punch from up there, especially with the help of what remains of the RFH organ. In The Planets, Mars and Jupiter were played at a volume I don't think I have ever heard from the Philharmonia before. But Norrington got the balance just right between energy and order. The Philharmonia strings proved throughout that they have no problems with tuning, even without the help of vibrato. But the real stars of the show were the woodwind. Karen Geoghegan made an unexpected appearance as guest principal bassoon, and while she didn't have many solos to speak of, she certainly led a tight section. It was great to hear the bass oboe too (I see Jane Evans is listed as guest principal bass oboe – how remiss of the Philharmonia not to have a regular bass oboist!).

Just once or twice I felt that Norrington's mature, balanced approach lacked passion, and it was usually in the quieter movements of the Holst. Venus was good (excellent horn solo) but was let down by some poor ensemble in the central section. Saturn was too fast, at least for my taste, although the finely judged relationships between the internal tempos helped it to stay together. And Neptune was, well it just wasn't mystical enough, just a bit too precise and calculated. A slight let down then, at the end of a concert that was otherwise a revelation in the renewing powers of performance styles of days gone by.

Gavin Dixon

Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven, Haydn, Gruber and Strauss

Beethoven, Haydn, Gruber, R. Strauss: Håken Hardenberger (trumpet), Philharmonia Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 7.12.10 (GDn)

Beethoven: Overture, Leonore No.3, Op.72a

Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E flat, Hob. Vlle: 1

Gruber: Three Mob Pieces

R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben Op.40

An impressive reputation precedes Andris Nelsons. His two seasons in Birmingham have met with near universal acclaim, and he now seems to be in demand in almost every corner of Europe. On the strength of this evening's performance, he is clearly a conductor who can find excitement in almost any repertoire. His ability to tap into the dramatic potential of the music is uncanny, and is no doubt a result of his many years experience in the opera pit.

Beethoven's Leonore 3 is the ideal vehicle for Nelsons operatic powers. He whips the piece up into a whirlwind, with glistening strings and strident wind solos. But the reading lacked clarity, partly perhaps due to the sheer size of the orchestra, but also because of almost continuous problems of coordination. Ensemble was an issue in all three works in this concert, but nowhere more so than here. Nelsons seemed unable to synchronise the winds and the strings. His cues to the soloists may not have been clear enough, or perhaps he was so concerned to get drama out of the strings that the wind entries passed him by.

Håken Hardenberger and Nelsons are polar opposites in many respects. Nelsons is a relative newcomer to the concert platform and often looks awkward and out of place in the limelight. Hardenberger, by contrast, relishes the attention and swaggers around like he owns the stage. Curiously, though, he is musically much more grounded than Nelsons. And details really matter. Every note he plays is cleanly articulated. In fact, he plays every note of the Haydn with a very hard tongue, which makes for maximum clarity but isn't really necessary. Nelsons remained on form with the Haydn, finding impressive drama in a score that is hardly known for excitement in its orchestral parts.

The Haydn concerto isn't much of a vehicle for Hardenberger's diverse skills, so he appended it with an encore that was about the same length; 'Three Mob Pieces' by H.K. Gruber. They are three jazzy character pieces, conservative in style and not particularly exiting on their own merits. Still, it was good to hear another side to Hardenberger's art, and the nonchalant, throwaway character of the pieces accorded well with his stage presence.

Despite his tender age, Nelsons must have gotten through a large chunk of the standard orchestral repertoire with orchestras around Europe. Even so, he is clearly most at home with the late Romantic Germans, and the Heldenleben that concluded the concert showed just what he is capable of. As with the first half, drama outweighed detail, but in Strauss' tone poems that isn't necessarily a problem. The sheer breadth of the opulent opening section promised impressive things ahead. And while there were again some issues of ensemble, the orchestra generally rose to the challenges. The brass and percussion sections delivered everything Nelsons needed in terms of power and attack. The quieter music was less impressive, or rather less passionate. The lush string melodies didn't quite swell and swoon as they might, and there was certainly room for a bit more rubato. Mrs Strauss (ie the solo violin) was on feisty form, again not an overly passionate reading, and one that made more of the acerbic episodes than the tender ones.

Some excellent Strauss then, but in a programme that never quite found its focus. Accusations of poor ensemble must seem strange to anybody who has heard Nelsons perform with the CBSO, or indeed the recording of his Lohengrin at Bayreuth this year. And the orchestra has no track record of such problems with other conductors. Perhaps a lack of rehearsal time is to blame, or maybe orchestra and conductor need a little more time to get to know each other. He is clearly a distinctive voice on the today's orchestral scene, but a little more familiarity between himself and his players is obviously necessary if he is to produce great things.

Gavin Dixon