Turmoil, anguish and triumph were the keynotes of this concert from the LSO. Not a single heart-string was left untugged by the end. But as is the way with great music, the encounter with these emotions left one feeling uplifted and enriched. The first half was filled with those huge collective feelings of unease and tension swirling in the Western world during the war years of the 1940s. In the piece which filled the second half, Tchaikovsky’sPathétique Symphony, the anguish was private, the expression (perhaps) of an iron fate crushing the individual soul.
London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican★★★★☆
It was a brilliant idea to juxtapose these parallel but contrasting worlds of feeling, and for the most part it was brilliantly executed. The beginning of Britten’sSinfonia da Requiemwas like the crack of doom, Nigel Thomas’s double-fisted timpani strokes pounding the rhythm against which the cellos struggled to rise up.
Conductor Antonio Pappano actually followed the composer’s slow tempo marking – something one never hears in this piece – and the change in emotional tone was astonishing. Instead of the usual implacable tension, a sorrowful plangent quality came over the music, as if the tragedy behind this 1940 piece – the Second World War – was already in the past and could now be mourned.
The emotional landscape of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony no 2, subtitled “The Age of Anxiety” after the poem by WH Auden that inspired it, is more complex. Auden’s imaginary four strangers who meet in a New York bar pass through the whole gamut of fear and aspiration before finding comfort in human solidarity, and Bernstein’s symphony-cum-piano concerto follows their journey. The symphony can often feel less than the sum of its bewilderingly varied and sometimes too-clever parts, but this performance was more winning and persuasive than many I’ve heard. Much of the credit for that must go to pianist Denis Kozhukhin. He gave a questing eloquence to even the simplest things like a descending scale, and his performance of the uproarious jazz-like Masque had heart as well as wit.
As for Tchaikovsky’s great symphony, it had all the theatrical passion and brilliance one would expect from this orchestra under this conductor. The explosion of despair in the first movement made my jump out of my skin. But it was always a very extrovert, bright passion, and just occasionally – particularly at the end – I wished for a sound that was more veiled, as if pointing to something beyond this world.
Listen to this concert on BBC Radio 3 on May 18 and BBC Sounds for 30 days
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Francesco Piemontesi, Wigmore Hall★★★☆☆
If an immaculate sound and virtuoso fireworks were all it took to make a wonderful performance, last night’s solo recital from 40-something Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi atWigmore Hallwould have been a triumph. In fact, it was an all-too-vivid reminder of why those things alone are not enough.
Piemontesi certainly doesn’t lack courage. He offered an immense programme, beginning with one ofFranz Schubert’s biggest pieces – the late, greatFantasiesonata. The sheer calm immensity of it can stir those same feelings of transcendence you sense when faced by a mountain or a starry sky, and Piemontesi was determined to make us feel them. The opening was massively spacious, the little strings of bass notes joining the vast chords as weighty as boulders. The modestly beautiful, almost throwaway slow movement unfolded in a feeling of tranced, almost drugged calm.
But where was the warm lyricism? And where was the sense of rustic jollity in the dancing third movement? That is the moment when the music really ought to come down to earth. Schubert’s genius is that he ranges across the whole human condition, flitting from ordinariness to transcendence in a moment. But Piemontesi wanted to project everything onto a timeless plane. As a result, the performance felt strangely detached, despite many luminous moments.
There were more of those inFranz Liszt’s musical record of his journey around Switzerland, in the first of his sets of pieces entitledAnnées de pèlerinage(Years of pilgrimage). That was to be expected, as many of the nine pieces portray a particular scene at a certain moment: the bells of Geneva; the lake of Wallenstadt; William Tell’s Chapel with its memories of heroic deeds.
All were summoned up by Piemontesi with a lovely range of colours and a surpassingly delicate touch. And inOrage(Storm) he ventured to the edge of delirium, while still remaining in total control of the wild scales and surging basses. ButVallée d’Obermann(Obermann’s Valley), the biggest piece of the set, was a touch disappointing. The music’s sense of a lonely, haughty soul in torment was muted in Piemontesi’s over-controlled approach.
The best music-making of the evening actually came in the first of the two encores, Wilhelm Kempff’s arrangement ofBach’s organ preludeWachet auf (Sleepers Awake). Here, Piemontesi finally smiled, and his perfectly balanced, dancing sound seemed to smile too.
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