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| Alexander Zemlinsky |
On paper, a programme
setting Sibelius and Nielsen alongside Ravel and Zemlinsky seemed
unusual, to say the least. Like a good menu, a concert needs to
satisfy different but complementary needs, which is why – when done
with thought – the classic three courses of the
overture–concerto–symphony so often succeed. If one moves away
from musical similarities or relationships then other connections
need to replace them, which in broad terms is what happened here.
Sibelius’s tone poem The Oceanides, Ravel’s Le tombeau
de Couperin and Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony ‘The
Inextinguishable’ were all begun in the fateful year of 1914.
Zemlinsky’s Six Maeterlinck Songs preceded them by a couple
years, but were orchestrated later. In fact it was the Zemlinsky that
drew me to this concert (I had been commissioned to provide the
programme note) – a chance to hear some of this composer’s music
live is rare enough to be welcome in any context.
And at the helm of this
performance was one of the cycle’s leading exponents, Anne Sofie
von Otter, who – in an interview broadcast as part of the BBC live
relay (the whole concert is accessible via the iPlayer until
mid-March) – expressed her particular fascination with
Maeterlinck’s mysterious worlds as expressed through his enigmatic
poems. Zemlinsky’s settings often highlight this ambiguity of
meaning by placing fairly simple-sounding vocal lines within a lush
and harmonically sophisticated orchestral background. Indeed, in this
performance, the background at times threatened to overwhelm von
Otter’s ability to project the musical line and words, but Sakari
Oramo was perhaps enjoying the experience of conducting this music
just a little too much. Despite this, von Otter used the vocal line
to express how the meaning of the words sit on the edge of
comprehension, never sacrificing tonal firmness in an attempt to ride
the orchestral wave.
Waves of a more
pictorial nature colour Sibelius’s Oceanides. This depiction
of mythical sea nymphs was performed not in its familiar form but in
an earlier version that has only been rediscovered in recent years,
the so-called ‘Yale version’. In short, Sibelius was commissioned
to write a piece for a music festival held in Connecticut in 1914,
sent the score off but then set about completely rewriting it and it
was this version of The Oceanides that he then brought with
him to conduct in person. The original score languished in Yale
University Library until restored to circulation by Osmo Vänskä in
2002. There’s more of a sense of musical impressionism in this
first version, with rippling harps to the fore, and Oramo expertly
set out the composer’s intricate musical layering, aided by some
exquisite playing from the BBC Symphony wind. Similar subtleties of
orchestral colour also marked the performance of Ravel’s Le
tombeau de Couperin, which had
just the right balance between delicacy and bite.
Nielsen’s
‘Inextinguishable’ rightly cast aside all sense of propriety as
expressed in the earlier works in the programme with its unstoppable
musical momentum and emotional thrust. Marred only by a rather claggy
acoustic (the ‘serviceable’ Barbican has sounded better than
this, so it must have been down to orchestral positioning), this was
a gripping performance, allowing the composer’s musical imagination
to express the sense of inexorable forward motion without an
exaggerating helping hand. Indeed, Oramo’s control was impressive
and was matched by playing and ensemble that suggest that this
orchestra – which can sometimes sound a bit run-of-the-mill in
conventional repertoire – has found in the Finn a chief conductor
who can inspire it to new heights.
