United Kingdom Wagner, Korngold, Rachmaninoff: Rosanne Philippens (violin), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Jac van Steen (conductor). Cadogan Hall, London, 23.2.2023. (MBr)
Wagner – Lohengrin, Prelude to Act I
Korngold – Violin Concerto
Rachmaninoff – Symphony No.2
Concerts are deliberate lengthy – typically years – upfront. This one, with the Dutchman Jac van Steen conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, got here with a really heavy dose of Romanticism connected to it. As he identified in a brief speech earlier than the live performance started, Thursday twenty third February 2023 was sooner or later wanting the anniversary – if that’s even actually the fitting phrase in such circumstances – of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His message was a easy one: that music is required in these instances greater than ever. That is true, in fact. But one additionally, I suppose, would possibly need to know the way the message comes throughout. None of the works on the programme had in any sense a political one – and nor did van Steen impose one on them. But you’d have been hard-pressed within the circumstances to have come away from a live performance of those three items having heard them in performances as electrifying as we acquired right here.
How refreshing for starters to get the Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin reasonably than the extra tedious one from Act III. Either I used to be sat too far ahead in my seat at Cadogan Hall (row F), or van Steen pressed the RPO violins a contact too firmly throughout the opening minute or so. It lacked only a little bit of thriller, the crescendo not fairly seeming to develop as magically as this music fairly wants. But it was the one fault. He is actually not a Klemperer or a Horst Stein in the case of conducting this Lohengrin prelude. Their willingness to carry area and richness to the sound isn’t fairly what van Steen sees on this music. Their imaginative and prescient of the Grail comes from deep inside the soul of the orchestra: the majestic cellos and basses, the ravishing tone of the extremely managed brass. For van Steen, it was all reasonably extra emotional, reasonably extra visionary. Brass have been simply barely uncooked across the edge and the decrease strings smouldered in uneven, however fiery, shades. This Grail motif was sacred, too, however got here from a really totally different material: climaxes shook the bottom, and the music pierced like arrows.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s D main Violin Concerto appears to have grow to be the in favour work for gamers in London over the previous six months; this was its third efficiency. Written for Jascha Heifetz – one would possibly want we’d hear one other of ‘his’ concertos extra usually reasonably than the Korngold, the very good Miklós Rózsa for instance – it’s comparatively uncommon to listen to a nasty efficiency of it. The Dutch violinist Rosanne Philippens was the beautiful soloist right here. If there’s a disadvantage – properly there are a couple of – to the Korngold concerto it’s that, if you understand his movie scores, it might probably sound spinoff; with the Rózsa no less than you’re honing in on only one movie, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Korngold’s concerto can even sound a little bit, properly, on one string – is Korngold actually going for that elusive A7, as a result of it typically feels he has forgotten altogether about what he can do on the G. But Korngold was writing a piece which was intentionally the antithesis of the brutal, crudely mechanical concertos of ‘machine workshops’ – Bartók’s particularly. (Yehudi Menuhin would premiere Bartók’s Violin Concerto No.2 in 1947 – two years after Heifetz premiered the Korngold.)
Perhaps it by no means mattered on this efficiency as a result of Philippens merely couldn’t place an unsightly word. The Moderato nobile was a mannequin of purity. Although there’s nothing Viennese about this concerto, her tone and color have been burnished sufficient to recommend that the roots of Korngold’s writing remained decidedly Austrian regardless of the Hollywood populism of cinema which runs by a few of his classical scores. The Romance was fantastically performed, too. Again, it was the richness of her taking part in, however this time the luxurious glow on G. The Allegro assai vivace was vivid – described by van Steen as ‘cowboy and western music’ – however actually taken from Korngold’s scores for The Prince and the Pauper and The Sea Hawk. The latter appeared acceptable though right here it was Philippins’ swashbuckling bow which scythed like a rapier towards the violin’s strings as she lower by Korngold’s thickets of melodies with bravura virtuosity.
Korngold mirrored that this concerto was extra ‘Caruso than Paganini’ – though in Heifetz he thought he had each. It’s to Rosanne Philippens’ credit score that her efficiency wasn’t missing in both the fantastic thing about her tone or the precision of her bow.
The single work after the interval was Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No.2. The music critic and composer Robert Simpson, in his essay on the composer for the Penguin Guide on the symphony in 1967, scathingly described this symphony in phrases near trash – a view that’s actually retro as we speak, and possibly was then. Certainly the in depth cuts in performances to the symphony didn’t assist its fame, and the yr of Simpson’s essay was on the cusp of performances starting to be performed with out the cuts, particularly within the first and third actions.
Jac van Steen gave us the symphony uncut – though with out the primary motion’s exposition repeat (personally, I discover taking part in this repeat warps the construction of the symphony and unbalances the work – others disagree; I as soon as heard Kurt Sanderling take a lugubrious – and torpor numbing – 28-minutes over this motion). The efficiency he acquired from the RPO – lasting just below an hour – was simply fabulous, nevertheless.
A purpose to not the take the exposition repeat is that conductors hardly ever maintain the primary motion collectively for lengthy sufficient in the event that they do; it’s onerous sufficient with out the repeat for a lot of of them. Rachmaninoff wrote a few of his darkest, most annoying music for this symphony and but van Steen by no means actually acquired trapped in its gloomy world. He took neither a meandering nor a relentless view of the Largo; reasonably, the inclination was to carry huge energy to the cellos and basses and allow them to do the onerous work whereas holding the music flowing at a workable tempo. This was a efficiency, the truth is, that rode on its waves – it got here in crests that rolled with a formidable scale. The climax, with its echoes of Francesca da Rimini, appeared to splinter and fragment with devastating drive – music that sounded extra traumatic than typical just because it arrived like a juggernaut. Genuinely spectacular was the ultimate word of the coda on the double basses – so usually unsure, however right here trenchant as if the gamers had iron of their wrists to tug their bows throughout the strings.
The Allegro molto was fluid, rhythmic and simply ideally accented in its Dies Irae chant. It is a pity the clarinet soloist was unnamed within the programme – these 22-bars throughout the Adagio have been a pleasure. One typically hears pure affectation right here, however the RPO clarinettist tended in the direction of a good looking rubato (a easy, single second in sostenuto was particularly notable) with a stunning however even tone. There was no sweetness right here, no less than of the sugary type; it simply sounded proper. The decrease strings have been once more ripe and wealthy of their tone – swelling simply sufficient of their climax to rise above the determine within the violins. Jac van Steen discovered a super steadiness within the Adagio the place the orchestra’s strings sang in unison.
The Allegro vivace was thrilling. It is a motion that conductors can discover troublesome to guage; the tendency for uneven speeds, and sprints between the brief climaxes that fizzle out once they shouldn’t, have challenged one of the best. Jac van Steen held the RPO collectively beautifully, ratcheting up the stress so when the coda lastly arrived the dash to the end line was already firmly in movement. It was full-blooded and attribute of a efficiency which had been alive and vivid from the very first motion.
An distinctive Rachmaninoff Second, in a live performance that was deservedly properly acquired.
Marc Bridle