Rameau : Les Indes galantes - Suite No. 1
John Adams : Absolute Jest (Doric String Quartet)
Rebel : "Le Chaos" from Les élémens
Beethoven : Symphony No. 2
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Markus Stenz
As you will have probably gathered from casting an eye over the composers listed in this blog's Labels, I'm not really a fan of Baroque music. I find a great deal of it -- even by the greatest figures of the period -- bland and repetitive. However, there are always the exceptions, and sometimes you get pieces that possess a vigour that completely bypasses their context. Whoever put tonight's programme together had fortunately picked out two such examples.
If the first two numbers of the Suites from Rameau's Les Indes galantes are standard courtly fare, the "Danse des Sauvages" has a proud, foot-stamping rhythm that is positively infectious, while the closing Chaconne begins sedately, only to explode in jubilatory paeans of glittering trumpet fanfares, beautifully rendered by Hedley Benson and Eric Dunlea with exemplary precision and a wonderful, silver-bright tone.
The centrepiece of the concert was a performance of John Adams's Absolute Jest, which is not, as the title might suggest, some sort of elaborate musical joke, but more an homage to Beethoven, and specifically to his scherzos, almost, one might say, a sublimation of them. The piece is sometimes described as a concerto for string quartet and orchestra; it might be more accurate to view it as a concerto grosso, with the quartet as the concertante group, and they are mildly amplified, to help detach their sound from the body of the orchestra. It's a work in one movement, around twenty-five minutes in length, but with three distinct sections. At the start, the quartet emerges from a soft haze of strings, with a low pulse in the basses and piano, and using what is immediately identifiable as the rhythmic pattern of the Scherzo of Beethoven's 9th.
All through the piece, elements of Beethoven are audible, some obviously so, as at the start, or extensive quotation from the Op. 135 quartet later on, while others are more covert, hints of other symphonies, of the Grosse Fuge, for example. Adams self-quotes too -- the "rocket" from Harmonielehre is very evident at one point. Adams has stated that he wanted the solo group of the quartet because they are capable of playing with greater precision than the full orchestra, and this notion shows up too, in passages where the quartet plays an idea which you then hear in expanded form (that is, slowed down) underneath in the orchestra. It's an interesting piece, high-energy yet often poetic, atmospheric, and well played by soloists and orchestra alike.
Jean-Féry Rebel was some twenty years Rameau's senior, and a one-time pupil of Lully, whose successor he became at Louis XIV's court. What has survived of his music to this day is mostly dance music in one form or another, and Les élémens is one of his last pieces (not to be confused with the opéra-ballet of the same name by his brother-in-law Delalande, which is nearly contemporary). "Le Chaos" is the opening section, representing creation from the void, and the effect on his audiences back in 1737 must have been quite shocking. Even today, the sheer dissonance of the first moments of this movement is startlingly modern. The texture is predominantly for strings, but with piccolo and flute putting an icy frosting on the sound, and the various layers -- pulsing, sustained basses, high winds, flickering violins -- represent the four elements which form the building blocks of creation, as it was viewed at the time. It's imaginative in a way we rarely associate with the music of the period, which can often seem rigid and confined.
Having been teased by hints of Beethoven in the Adams piece, the concert ended with the real thing, the 2nd Symphony. It's one of the less often heard symphonies, yet a very interesting piece. Stylistically, it's Beethoven clearly beginning to look ahead, away from the Classical forms of his predecessors, but not yet quite ready to unveil the ground-breaking innovations of the "Eroica". Emotionally, it's highly positive, which considering that it dates from 1802, when Beethoven was nearly suicidal because of his ever-advancing deafness, is remarkable.
With more familiar music being performed, I finally started noticing Markus Stenz's conducting style which is, to say the least, unusual. No baton to direct the musicians, but fingers, hands, elbows, arms, shoulders.... It's not quite as eccentric as it sounds, but it is distinctly personal. However, the results were positive enough. The first movement was boldly assertive without being bombastic. The second was a bit neutral, but the Scherzo lolloped along playfully like a (very) large, inquisitive puppy. I felt the last movement took off a little too quickly, resulting in slightly uneven tempi at times, but the overall control was good, and it brought an engaging and individual concert to an exuberant conclusion.
[Next : 13th November]
No comments:
Post a Comment