BBCSSO: Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
City Halls, Glasgow - 28/09/23
Ilan Volkov, conductor | Charles Curtis, cello
“Escape into Dreams and Passions” – the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s tagline for the second programme of the 2023/24 season, a reference to Berlioz’ hallucinatory 1830 masterpiece, his ‘Symphonie Fantastique’, which was performed under the baton of Principal Guest Conductor, Ilan Volkov, in Glasgow’s City Halls on Thursday 18th September and the following night in Aberdeen’s Music Hall. To “Dreams and Passions”, I would probably add “Obsessions”, and not just for the Berlioz. The first half of the programme featured just one work, Canadian composer Cassandra Miller’s 2015 ‘Duet for Cello and Orchestra’, with American cellist Charles Curtis as soloist, reprising its premiere 8 years ago at the Tectonics Festival with the same orchestra, conductor and soloist (who commissioned it) in the same hall. The concert was broadcast live on Radio 3, with Kate Molleson introducing the programme and interviewing Cassandra on stage before the orchestra tuned.
The Miller piece is a one-movement cello concerto employing a large orchestra. The thematic material is derived from the song ‘Trallallera’ by Sardinian folk singer/songwriter Maria Carta. The work is in three sections. In the first section, the cello obsessively slowly rocks between two notes a fifth apart, joined by a double bass out of sync after a while. A ‘flourish’, first on trumpets, then all the brass, and gradually building up to full orchestra, plays thematic material periodically, with jazz harmonies and a slightly Hispanic rhythm (perhaps Mediterranean would be a better description), never deflecting the hyperfocus of the cello. In the central section, the cello falls silent and the full orchestra develops the ‘flourish’ material, which gradually transforms to rocking obsessively between two chords, sustained for quite a while. At the climax, the piccolo plays a melodic germ that momentarily deflects the obsession. Then the instruments drop out of the sound mix in the reverse order in which they entered, until only the double-bass remains. In the third section, the cello plays a beautiful, haunting, ethereal melody with harmonised harmonics, eventually joined in dialogue with the front desk of the cellos. An upwards swooping glissando ends the piece. Notwithstanding the drama inherent in the structure of the piece, and whilst the beautiful final section makes Stravinsky’s observation, “Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end”, inapplicable, I did consider that the obsessively introspective hyperfocussed elements in the first two sections continued longer than necessary to make their point. Nonetheless, it is an impressive piece and received the utmost advocacy from orchestra and soloist. I can understand why Kate Molleson was captivated by the premiere 8 years ago.
Berlioz’ real-life obsession, his infatuation with Irish actress Harriet Smithson, compounded with hallucinations brought on by substance abuse, provide the programmatic basis of the 5-movement ‘Symphonie Fantastique’, written while he was as yet her unseen stalker. They did eventually meet and marry. The relationship didn’t last; the symphony, though, has lasted and is still as fresh and shocking as it was in 1830. It is astonishing to consider that it was written only three years after the death of Beethoven. The orchestration and unrestrained expressionism feel late 19th-century. With its evocations of aroused passions and then increasingly grotesque imagined scenarios, such as tender admiration of the beloved at a ball, a mostly idyllic trip to the countryside, an inexplicably gung-ho march to the scaffold having been convicted of her murder, then witnessing a Witches’ Sabbath as one of the invoked spirits, all the while tormented by recurring visions of the beloved – I consider it a masterpiece of the ‘BBB’ genre: ‘Bonkers But Brilliant’. The BBC under Volkov gave it everything they had - it deserves no less. The playing was phenomenal from every section, with special mention earned by the 2 to 4 timpanists and the cor anglais player James Horan. Ilan Volkov made perfect sense of the score, particularly notable in the often rather episodic and disjointed first movement and the rambling third movement. The use of offstage church bells instead of tubular bells in the finale added a uniquely satisfying timbre. The Glasgow audience accorded the performance their utmost uproarious approval. Full marks from me.