36
The Observer
04.08.19
CriticsClassical
Critics
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
and the BavarianRadio Symphony
Orchestra give
a masterclass infi repower and fi nesse
Up on high, hands thumping in
unison, the tympanist attacked
his kettledrums with a series of
emphatic blows, as if bent on
bursting their very membranes.
The bass drum, at his side, joined
in for the fi nal, pulverising
thuds. A split second, then the
capacity audience erupted in
cheers. So ended Shostakovich’s
Symphony No 5 ( 1937 ), performed
by the Bavarian Radio Symphony
Orchestra in the fi rst of two Proms.
Never has that gaudy, major key
fi nale, supposedly a sop to Soviet
offi cials, seemed more menacing
or subversive: a sonic wrecking ball
to reduce the Stalinist threat, in
the composer’s brave imagination
anyway, to rubble.
You may think high summer is
the time musicians head for the
hills. The week could scarcely have
been busier, or richer in reward
and contrast. This overwhelming
performance, conducted by Yannick
Nézet-Séguin – why use a baton
when you can employ your entire
agile body? – demonstrated more
clearly than ever that Shostakovich,
walking a political tightrope,
pandered to no one. The Fifth
Symphony ambiguous? No way.
His message, a year after Pravda’s
attacks on his opera Lady Macbeth
of Mtsensk, after friends and family
were arrested, shot or disappeared,could hardly be clearer. This Prom
( 15 ) was a change of programme.
We were supposed to hear
Shostakovich’s 10th, conducted by
Mariss Jan sons, absent for health
reasons. That would have been a
season highlight, but so too was this.
The Canadian Nézet-Séguin,
now music director of the
Metropolitan Opera, New York,
clearly has a glorious rapport with
this orchestra, one of the world’s
best. The Shostakovich was a
challenge to stamina, volume, scale
and, especially in the sorrowful,
expansive slow movement, poetic
variety. In Beethoven’s Symphony
No 2 (1801) , the orchestra’s technical
virtuosity, its swift response to
shifts in light and shade, its fi ne-
tuned articulation, its dexterity in
the fastest, busiest passages, all
revealed an ensemble capable of the
highest level of fi nesse and musical
intelligence. Their wistful encore,
Dawn on the Moscow River from
Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina , paid
homage to Shostakovich by using
his own arrangement.
The Munich players’ second
Prom ( 17 ) included Sibelius’s
Symphony No 1, refi ned but
elusive, Prokofi ev’s Violin Concerto
No 2 (with Gil Shaham stepping
in late as able soloist) and music
by their own local hero, Richard
Strauss: the suite from his opera
Der Rosenkavalier (arr. Artur
Rodziński). This delicious waltz
cocktail – sentiment, schmaltz,
salt and heart – drew playing of
unbuttoned pleasure and wit. At the
end the orchestra was clapping as
furiously as the audience. Nézet-
Séguin beamed shyly. Their encore
was Sibelius’s Valse triste, a hushed,
impeccably played choice to send us
softly into the night.
On Sunday, quite hot enough
already, the Albert Hall became the
deserts of Arizona and Utah, sand
storms whipping across the arena
in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s
musical recreation of a landscape
Olivier Messiaen (1908-92) fell in
love with after visiting Bryce Canyon
in 1972 ( Prom 13 ). The result was
Des canyons aux étoiles... (From the
canyons to the stars...), one of four
major orchestral works written in
praise of the New World.
Sakari Oramo conducted three
of the BBCSO’s own principals,
now up front as terrifi c soloists- Martin Owen, horn, David
Hockings, xylorimba, Alex Neal,
from organ and harpsichord
by Leonardo García Alarcón.
Flores’s voice is light but steely
and sensuous, inside the drama
rather than imposing herself on
it. Four laments by Strozzi were
Interspersed with attractive works
by Antonia Bembo (c1640-1720)
and an explosive operatic scena by
Strozzi’s mentor, Cavalli. Her own
Sino alla morte (Until I die), the
bass line falling in piteous tread
to mirror the lover’s desperate,
repeated cry, seduces with tears,
chromaticism and song. These
musicians, conveying the heady
Venetian collision of east and west,
sacred and profane, Renaissance
and baroque encapsulated in such
music, were ideal interpreters.
Two late-season operas deserve
mention. Dorset Opera festival
runs as a hard-working, highly
professional summer camp,
culminating in two operas, this year
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
and Verdi’s Nabucco. It has an
enthusiastic atmosphere, and acan-do attitude, thanks in part
to its artistic director, former
international bass Roderick
Kennedy. With a 70-strong chorus
and an orchestra that negotiated
solo string and woodwind passages
admirably, the company’s Nabucco
reached high musical standards.
If the staging didn’t entirely match
up – recreating the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon against the clock and on
a tight budget is never easy – this
was a welcome chance to hear the
work that launched Verdi’s career.
The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves
may be well known, rousingly
sung here with some well-drilled
pianissimo, yet the work is not so
often staged. The challenging role of
Abigaille was sung with sterling top
notes, dignity and vigour by Claire
Rutter. Mark S Doss (Nabucco),
Carolyn Dobbin (Fenena), Adriano
Graziani (Ismaele) and Andrei
Valentiy (Zaccaria) led an assured
cast, idiomatically conducted by
Jeremy Carnall.
Welsh National Opera had aPleading
the Fifth
‘Glorious rapport’: Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts
the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prom 15.
Photograph by Chris Christodoulou/BBCBBC Proms 13, 15 & 17
Royal Albert Hall, London SW7
Cadogan Hall Prom 2
Cadogan Hall, London SW1
Nabucco
Dorset Opera, Blandford Forum
War and Peace
Royal Opera House, London WC2Fiona
Maddocksglockenspiel – together with the
formidable pianist Nicolas Hodges
and reduced orchestral forces: fewer
strings but plenty of low woodwind,
brass and percussion to conjure
Messiaen’s earthly, unearthly,
avian and celestial sounds. Owen’s
incantatory horn calls, Hodges’s
expansive, rhythmically complex
pianistic fl ourishes, the glistens,
gleams and fl utters of xylorimba
and glockenspiel transported us
to the US through the ears of a
devout Frenchman with a passion
for birds: oriole, American robin,
Steller’s jay and more, each makes
an appearance. This was an instance
when programme notes were
an essential fi eld guide, expertly
provided by Paul Griffi ths. An hour
and a half sped by.
In her 400th anniversary year,
Barbara Strozzi (1619-77), the
Venetian composer, poet and singer
was the focus of a Cadogan Hall
Prom , performed by the Argentinian
soprano Mariana Flores and
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