Stream: RSNO - Beethoven Seven
This digital concert, filmed in the RSNO Studio in Glasgow, was a delight from start to finish. Firstly, they played the overture to Mozart’s opera ‘Die Entfűhrung aus dem Serail’, a Singspiel written in German with spoken dialogue in place of the recitatives of Italian opera. It received its premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1782, conducted by the composer. The plot alludes to the contemporary fascination with the Orient, which had become a source of wonder to the citizens and courts of Central Europe. The Turkish threat had only quite recently dissipated (Vienna had been under siege from the Ottoman Empire as recently as 1699), and many parts of the Balkans were still under Ottoman control in Mozart’s lifetime. The libretto of the opera was full of standard Western misconceptions of the East, and indeed it is difficult to stage it nowadays. The one crumb of comfort is that at the end Pasha Selim, the non-singing ruler of the plot, proves to be a fine man, full of magnanimity and generosity.
However, none of this need detain us here, as the orchestra gave a lively account of the overture, which is brimming with ‘Turkish’ music, based loosely on the tradition of the Janissary Military Band. Cymbals, drums, triangle, tambourine, piccolo and trumpet play their part, and the German conductor, Cornelius Meister, looked to encourage his troops to enjoy themselves. His infectious smile and enthusiastic conducting added a lot to my pleasure as a viewer.
The next piece on the programme was Mozart’s 5th Violin Concerto, played and directed by the Italian/American violinist, Francesca Dego. She spoke well about the concerto before playing and, with her long hair and glamorous outfit against the background of the sombre black of the orchestral players, she lent the performance a bit of the glitz of a live show. She can certainly play the violin, apparently a 1697 Ruggeri made in Cremona! Readers of my memoirs, ‘A Singer’s Life’, a few months ago, might remember that I wrote about my experience of singing Bach’s Mass In B Minor in Cremona, and the extraordinary history of that small Italian town in the making of the best violins in the world. Ms Dego produced some exquisite sounds from her Ruggeri in this concert, and it must have been good too for the orchestra to watch her directly, unlike in a live performance, where she would have been facing out front, away from them.
First performed in Salzburg in 1775, this was the last of Mozart’s concerti for violin to be written, and it is sublime. I always marvel at how well composers can write for different instruments, somehow having a feel for how they can sound and knowing how much to give the soloist in the way of technical difficulty and interpretive possibilities. Mozart’s father was a fine violinist and taught his son well, and it is clear the young composer was fully aware of the possibilities of the instrument.
We are nowadays fortunate indeed that so many of the soloists we hear and see are supremely talented, with unbelievable technique and deep musicality. Of course, with instant travel and almost universal educational opportunities, there is a larger pool of potential than ever before, but it is nonetheless exciting to encounter more and more wonderful musicians. We can only hope that, when we emerge from this pandemic, the young musicians of Scotland will be stimulated to copy these splendid examples offered by our orchestras and will be moved to become professional musicians themselves. It is a slight worry that none of the orchestral players interviewed in this digital season have Scottish accents. I assume there is a core of Scots in the rank and file, but perhaps we could encourage more to come forward and speak to us. I know that, as a young singer in the 70s and 80s, it was enormously important for me to see and hear Scottish singers on stage and in the media, and this spurred me on to greater things. I am not alone, as a Scottish singer with an international career, in having never sung with either the RSNO or the SCO.
The 5th Concerto is unusual in that, after the orchestral introduction, marked allegro aperto, the soloist enters adagio, with a gentle slow melody. Ms Dego was in complete control of proceedings, and the orchestra seemed to respond well to her promptings, and the movement developed interestingly with dialogue between soloist and orchestra.
The slow movement revealed another of Mozart’s sublime melodies and was played beautifully, and finally we reached the Rondo finale with its famous weird central section in A Minor, redolent of the same Turkish music we had heard in the overture to ‘Die Entfűhrung’ earlier. This has given the concerto the nickname ‘The Turkish’, but I can’t find any clear explanation of why Mozart inserted this strange section into the concerto, other than to give his fans a dash of the Oriental colour which was so fashionable at the time. In addition to the change of key, he instructed the cellos and basses to play most of this section with the wood of their bows, creating a sort of percussive sound.
The rondo form returns with variations on the minuet and the concerto ends quite quietly and serenely, with the orchestra applauding the young virtuoso violinist, and smiles all round.
Interestingly, one of the very first reviews Hugh Kerr asked me to write for the ‘Edinburgh Music Review’, back last Mach, was a concert of Beethoven’s music given by the SCO in the Usher Hall, conducted by their young Russian maestro, Maxim Emelyanychev, featuring both the 6th and 7th Symphonies. Apart from the obvious luxury of a live performance (remember them?), the two concerts were quite different. I remarked at the time that Emelyanychev was spell-binding to watch, with his luscious hair and romantic hero appearance, but Cornelius Meister was exceptionally good to watch in this digital relay, and the fact that we could see his every look and gesture from the perspective of the orchestra added to the occasion. He conducted the whole symphony from memory and, while this is not a unique feat on his part, given the amount of times in a career a conductor must conduct Beethoven symphonies, it did allow him to concentrate entirely upon giving the orchestra the benefit of his interpretation and his inspiration.
The use of a full symphony orchestra, rather than the augmented Scottish Chamber Orchestra of last year, gave a fuller and bigger sound to this most wonderful of Beethoven’s symphonies, but, for me, it was the contrasts of light and shade that made this performance stand out. Particularly in the second movement, marked allegretto, the miraculous pianissimi that Meister conjured out of the RSNO were magical. Obviously, in a studio space like this, it is possible to play softer than might be thought wise in a big concert hall like the Usher Hall, but one has to admire the subtlety of his interpretation at this and other points. With the use of natural trumpets and skin timps with wooden drumsticks, the performance gave more than a nod to contemporary authentic style.
Much has been written about this glorious symphony, with its utter joie de vivre in a time of war and strife (the Napoleonic Wars were raging across Europe – indeed, the first performance of this symphony in 1813 was in a charity concert for soldiers wounded at the Battle of Hanau, two months earlier). Wagner’s quote: ‘The Apotheosis of the Dance’ is well-known and apposite, and the thrusting momentum of the whole piece is exhilarating in the extreme. I must say that it is perhaps my favourite of all the Beethoven symphonies, perhaps of all symphonies, full stop! Mr Meister was a fine guide through the intricacies of the work, and it appeared that the orchestra responded very well to his encouragement. Beethoven is credited with being the first composer to really highlight the woodwind in a symphony orchestra, and here the RSNO rose magnificently to the challenge. The principal oboe had spoken earlier of the fact that Beethoven uses the woodwind in a completely new way in his symphonies, with virtuosic solo lines overlapping and complementing each other, and huge congratulations are due to all the players. Similarly, the sweet tone of the strings was crucial to the success of this concert, and, especially in the second movement with its double variation form, the string tone was very beautiful.
My one caveat to this performance was that I felt the last movement, marked allegro con brio, was too allegro and there was slightly too much brio! This is one of the miracles of music, and if you take it too fast, you lose some of its magic in the whirlwind that is let loose. I see that I noticed that this movement was too fast last year in the Usher Hall as well, and I suppose it is natural for yonngish conductors to emphasise the momentum rather than the detail. It was certainly exciting, and you could see the players hanging on for dear life, but if you start too fast, there is nowhere to escape to, and the majesty of the final coda is, to some extent, lost in the rush.
It has been fascinating recently to watch, on Channel 4, the so-called “lost tapes” of Daniel Barenboim, in which the then 27 year old Wunderkind talked so eruditely and wisely about Beethoven, illustrated by his piano playing and his conducting of the New Philharmonia Orchestra. What was very noticeable were the tempi he took in the symphonic excerpts. Fifty years ago, before the early music wave, even the young superstar chose speeds which we would nowadays call stately. There was no lack of verve or elan in his conducting, but no one imagined that you could play Beethoven so fast then. It was interesting when Barenboim passed the baton to the, by this time, quite elderly Sir Adrian Boult, when he played Beethoven piano concerti, the elder statesman was not noticeably slower than the new kid on the block. Incidentally, I cannot recommend too highly this programme about Beethoven by Barenboim, filmed in 1970. It is still available to watch on Channel 4 Play Again, and I would say it is compulsory watching for readers of this website. Barenboim graced the Edinburgh Festival in the early 70s, and I remember particularly his Brahms Requiem and his ‘Winterreise’ with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as seminal performances in my development as a singer and a listener.
The point of this diversion was to point out that excess speed is not necessarily a good thing in Beethoven symphonies, and that Mr Meister and the RSNO might have been wise to remember that. Nonetheless, this was a stunning concert, and I am grateful to the RSNO for making it available.
