United Kingdom Beethoven, Ligeti, Schumann: Anthony Marwood (violin), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Ryan Bancroft. Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Millennium Centre, 9.12.2022. (PCG)
Beethoven – Coriolan Overture, Op.62
Ligeti – Violin Concerto (revised 1992 model)
Schumann – Symphony No.4 in D minor (authentic 1841 model)
What may at first sight appear as if a reversion to the time-honoured live performance programme of overture, concerto and symphony proved on this occasion to be something however typical. In the primary place, the model of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony espoused by Ryan Bancroft (and earlier than him by at least Johannes Brahms) has an actual rarity standing, though it has lengthy led a life on the periphery of the repertoire as a part of full boxed units of the symphonies. I confess that, regardless of my admiration for the acquainted 1851 revision – my favorite among the many Schumann cycle – I had by no means beforehand encountered the unique. In that earlier model, Schumann adopted within the footsteps of Beethoven and Mendelssohn: he had sought to mix collectively the varied actions of his symphony by thematic cross-references and passages designed to weld the person sections right into a unified complete. This produced startling outcomes. For instance, in the beginning of the second motion, the fabric of the opening was all of a sudden and arrestingly interrupted by a international chord to launch the Romanza. And the elevated readability of the scoring, earlier than Schumann strengthened it, additionally proved that Schumann’s much-criticised orchestral sonorities are nothing like as ‘heavy’ as fame would have us imagine.
One attention-grabbing characteristic of the efficiency got here with the repeated passages the place Schumann passes phrases from one part of the strings to the subsequent. There is a transparent expectation that the sound will cross the stage in a stereophonic sweep from proper to left. This, nevertheless, straight militates towards the usual nineteenth-century structure of the orchestra, with the second violins remoted on the best of the stage. The symphony is subsequently an instance of an unorthodox association of the gamers which Schumann clearly designed to acquire the impact he wished. I’ve beforehand complained concerning the tendency of conductors to undertake fashionable string layouts on the stage, with all of the violins bunched on the left, as sacrificing the intentions of nineteenth-century composers; and it’s attention-grabbing to notice that the arguments will not be subsequently all essentially a method or one other. Here the surprising outcomes of the usual fashionable association have been instantly obvious.
In the ultimate part of the rating, with its thrillingly overwhelming dramatic transition from scherzo to finale, I’ve to say I discovered that Schumann’s revisions of the orchestral textures did bear fruit. In explicit, the Brucknerian chorale within the brass provides a extra portentous impression, and the extraordinary passages the place harmonies pile onto harmonies have an much more excessive impact. Perhaps a case may be made for conflating the 2 variations: the unique model of the primary two actions and the revised conclusion. Be that as it might, Ryan Bancroft actually made an excellent case for his choice for the composer’s authentic ideas. His refined inflection of the ends of phrases helped to maintain the sometimes somewhat rambling construction clear. He additionally gave us a compellingly impulsive rendition of the Coriolan overture, most likely the work the place Beethoven got here closest to setting up the prototype of a symphonic poem with its dramatic construction paramount over the formal calls for of an overture. The frequent silent pauses, the place the composer momentarily halts as if to attract contemporary breath, weren’t allowed to turn out to be metrically exact however added to the affect of the onward drive of the music.
Between these two performances, each revelatory of their other ways, Anthony Marwood joined the orchestra for a efficiency of Ligeti’s late Violin Concerto. I need to instantly admit that I discovered virtually nothing on this work to take pleasure in. It is under no circumstances that I dislike Ligeti’s music. His early atmospheric clouds of sound are all the time fascinating, and his dramatic works just like the Requiem or the opera Le Grand Macabre each have passages of sheer dramatic panache and a willingness to permit the comedian outcomes of orchestral avant garde results to make their mark. The violin concerto reveals the same creativeness, however with out the main focus of a programmatic background the consequences sound unmotivated, and their objective is left dangerously unclear.
The concerto initially had three actions; the addition two years later of an additional two appears to don’t have any evident motive. We have a distinction of scurrying movement from the soloist, and percussion provides highlights to particular person notes within the line (not all the time as nicely co-ordinated as they could have been). This results in an prolonged rhapsodic sluggish motion, with a folk-like theme drawn from considered one of Ligeti’s early (1953) Bagatelles. There a gradual, somewhat desultory improvement with the theme transferred to 4 ocarinas (right here assigned to the orchestral clarinettists) the place the composer himself indicated that the imprecise intonation was supposed to have a ‘dirty sound’. The impact was not humorous in the way in which that I think about Ligeti envisioned, merely uncomfortable. The elevated incidence of sharp percussive assaults within the later actions appeared to be merely empty interruptions of a cadenza (which Ligeti requested the soloist to improvise), and the finale with presumably ironic echoes of virtuosity from earlier eras failed to offer any construction. I’ve to say that a lot of the viewers, presumably much less conversant in the frequent coin of avant garde methods, appeared to completely benefit from the novelty of the sounds. Anthony Marwood coped nicely with the sustained strains of the ceaselessly stratospheric register of his half, and the decreased orchestra responded alertly to Bancroft’s lead. Despite the sterling and certainly coruscating efforts of the performers, I’m very a lot afraid the end result left me chilly, which is likely my fault. Recordings of the work have been enthusiastically obtained on this website by different reviewers.
The viewers within the Hoddinott Hall was very practically full for what may hardly be described as a well-liked programme – at a time when Cardiff Council are threatening to curtail the actions of classical music in Wales’s capital metropolis by promoting off its foremost live performance corridor and citing the decreased demand for concert events. Moreover, on the identical night time the Welsh National Opera refrain and orchestra have been giving a efficiency of Handel’s Messiah within the threatened St David’s Hall, to what I’m instructed was near a capability home.
I can solely repeat what I stated in my final overview from Cardiff, the place I wrote about different elements. Online petitions have been set as much as register complaints not solely with Cardiff Council however with the Welsh Assembly. I might urgently counsel that every one these involved concerning the proposals signal the petitions – HERE – earlier than plans turn out to be too far superior. The council are resulting from meet to debate the proposals on 15 December, in what Private Eye has fairly appropriately described as a transparent try and stampede a choice. In an ominous transfer, they’ve already voted to dam proposals for a public session. Readers are inspired to take motion quickly, earlier than it is just too late.
The live performance was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s In live performance collection on 18 January 2023, and shall be out there on BBC Sounds for a full month thereafter. There shall be those that want to make the additional acquaintance of the Ligeti concerto, or certainly the opposite items.
Paul Corfield Godfrey