Six of the group’s
string players under the directorship of violinist Clio Gould began
with a fervent but amply paced account of Verklärte Nacht.
The musicians’ experience of playing in any number of different
configurations led the ensemble to feel more like an orchestral
string section pared down to single players than the usual
quartet-plus or ad-hoc groupings familiar in performances of this
work. Thus there was weight – aided by the full, resonant acoustic
of Kings Place’s Hall One – and a more ‘orchestral’ sense to
the texture that belied the number players involved, especially in
the many instances where Schoenberg has two or more instruments
playing the same music in octaves. Gould herself had a few moments
where intonation went awry, but this was as much as anything to do
with being swept up in the composer’s emotional sound-world. Tim
Gill’s statement of the big, Dvořák-like melody when the music
magically glides into the major mode was warm yet imposing, and the
subsequent music of transfiguration was atmospheric in its ethereal
duetting between cello and violin. However, one misjudgement was the
elevation of Gill’s subordinate theme at the Etwas bewegt before
the piece’s last big climax to the foreground, which stuck out
uncomfortably and masked Gould’s principal line above. It is true
that Schoenberg’s dynamic markings here are not that helpful, but
by the time of his later string-orchestra version he had adopted his
distinctive marking of Haupstimme/Nebenstimme and indeed labels the
violin ‘P’ and the cello ‘S’ (in this American-era
publication standing for principal and secondary). It was one moment
of unease, though, in a performance of integrity and power.
For the concert’s
second half, the strings were joined by wind, brass, piano and
harmonium for Schoenberg’s own chamber-orchestra arrangement of the
‘Song of the Wood Dove’ from Gurrelieder. With the
estimable Sarah Connolly as soloist this was luxury casting indeed,
and the piece came across less as a ‘song’ than as a fully
fledged dramatic scena, so vivid was the mezzo’s projection of the
text and its heartfelt sentiments. Her security and evenness of tone
from passages below middle C to a thrilling top B flat on the crucial
word ‘Tod’ were marks of what makes her such a sought-after and
wide-ranging artist – by no means hemmed in by stereotyping as a
‘Baroque specialist’ and now, of course, an experienced Wagnerian
as well. The concision of Schoenberg’s original, vast orchestra
into such a small instrumental ensemble is a masterpiece in itself,
and Nicholas Collon drew all the colour he could from the 17 players
at his disposal.
The neat dropping of
piano and harmonium from that ensemble left us with the exact
configuration for Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, the final
work in this programme. Collon here drove the music hard, at times
making us wonder if it was ‘Sehr rasch’ or just rash. But the
players of the Sinfonietta seemed up to anything as ever and the
performance celebrated their collective virtuosity as much as the
composer’s fecundity of imagination, contrapuntal ingenuity and
textural flair.
