CBSO, Volkov, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - Mahler goes Bauhaus | reviews, news & interviews
CBSO, Volkov, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - Mahler goes Bauhaus
CBSO, Volkov, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - Mahler goes Bauhaus
A Ninth Symphony stripped bare of schmaltz, in a thought provoking programme
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Just over a decade ago it was predicted by those supposedly in the know that Ilan Volkov would succeed Sakari Oramo as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the event, the gig went to Andris Nelsons, and it was probably for the best.
In short, Volkov’s programmes are never less than thought provoking, and in Birmingham we heard his solution to the eternal problem of what to pair with Mahler's Ninth Symphony – namely, to preface that last testament of Viennese romanticism with two central European composers from the generation that should, in a less terrible world, have succeeded Mahler. Gideon Klein and Hans Krása were both murdered in the Holocaust, and Krása’s Overture for Small Orchestra was actually written in the camp at Theresienstadt. No amount of brisk Stravinskian bustle and brightly clattering piano can quite help the music break clear of the horror hanging over it, and it ends on a quiet but devastating open question. Volkov set about it purposefully, relishing its surprisingly bright palette of colours. There are no basses, pairs of clarinets and trumpets are the entire wind complement, and at one point the strings skittered,col legno across the score like a swarm of fireflies.
Klein’s Partita for String Orchestra is a weightier score, and the dominant voice here is Janáček. Volkov made the most of its bristling rhythmic ostinatos, lit by sudden surges of sunlit lyricism. But he seemed strangely detached in the melancholy central movement, a set of variations on a Moravian folk song. The phrasing felt a little constrained: would that have been the case if the piece had been performed by the forces for which Klein originally wrote it – a string trio? This arrangement for string orchestra dates from the Nineties, and while no-one can question the necessity of putting Klein’s music in front of the widest possible audience, I wonder whether the music itself might not be better served in its original form.
As for the Mahler; well, you don’t expect Bernsteinish emotional indulgence from Ilan Volkov, and from the opening bars – clearly placed, crisply articulated – it was very clear that we weren’t going to get it. Volkov assembled the symphony’s textures as if they were by Webern: constructivist rather than expressionist, with little room for the sentimental or the numinous. No languishing sighs or fading heartbeats here. Quaver upbeats were snapped smartly into place and muted horn pedals crisscrossed the first movement’s huge structure like girders. The gains in terms of transparency were striking: flute motifs were audible through surging tuttis and the harps became load-bearing elements of the musical argument, rather than glittering ornaments. Adolf Loos would have approved.
The two inner movements shared the same forceful clarity. Volkov refused to indulge the musical stereotypes – ländler, Habsburg regimental bands, Strauss waltzes – that Mahler so brilliantly appropriates. Instead, the motivic argument continued, occasionally underlined with the brilliant neon marker of the glockenspiel and Joanna Patton’s fearless E flat clarinet, plus blocks of thick black felt-tip from the brass. But the problem with Volkov’s decision to use the orchestra as a source of texture and colour rather than letting emotion have its head (the strings, in particular, played throughout with as much expression as Volkov would allow them) was particularly pronounced in movements that rely so much on a sense of extramusical meaning. More contrast might have been helpful; the music didn’t always sound as if it knew where it was headed.
Which left a lot hanging on the finale, and here, too, Volkov was uncompromising. Not for Volkov the protracted, tearstained death-song; instead, he shaped a massive contrapuntal cortège, coolly but powerfully sustained, making full use of Mahler’s massive silences, and crowned by a final cadence that – hushed as it was – nonetheless sounded like a logical and decisive QED rather than a breathless fade to black. Only a masochist would want to hear every Mahler Nine played this way, but I’m glad to have heard this one. And since shameless milking of the final silence has practically become an Olympic sport for conductors, I’m also glad to have seen what Volkov did after the final note. He simply closed the score and gestured to the orchestra to stand up.
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Comments
I was at this concert and the
I couldn’t agree more. The
I assume that Richard decided
Many thanks for your comments
In short: as far as I'm concerned, the occasional distraction such as happened last night is a price that I am glad to pay in order to live in a decent society. And I would much rather be talking about the music...
Hi Richard,
This is a very tricky issue.
This is a very tricky issue. Whilst I would applaud the inclusiveness in practice, I have no idea how I would have reacted at the end of Mahler 9, which relies on silence between soft sounds perhaps more than any other work. But you seriously weaken your case, Mr Walton, with references to 'liberal minded lefties' and 'wishy washy lefties'. I'd like to think that people would fall into two different camps on this issue, and somewhere in between, without reference to their politics. But I agree that the question needed addressing. Perhaps source for an article in itself, not a review.
I am sorry that you do not accept the CBSO's explanation that their staff did everything to prepare the carer for possible consequences in the second half of the concert and offered an alternative place in the hall. Faced with refusal, they could do no more, in all civility. Other comments on the CBSO's Facebook page throw up some interesting points.
It would be interesting to have Mr Volkov's response after the event. Difficult to know if audience interpretations of his attitude at the end are correct or not.
I live nowhere near
RIchard. One excellent reply
Thank you for your comments,
Thank you for your comments, David, and Derek. Rather against my better judgement, I just wanted to make a couple of further observations.
As regards Volkov's final gesture; yes, that was merely my reading of his intention (it could hardly have been anyone else's), but it seemed to me to fit exactly with the interpretation he'd just delivered. And whatever the motivation, I still found it infinitely more sensitive and satisfying than the silence-milking grandstanding in which so many conductors indulge. A development to be welcomed.
And finally, Tim: I think you've made your position very clear. True, you have attended more concerts than me (I don't think anyone involved in classical music in Birmingham could fail to be aware of your concert-going statistics). But I have duty-managed many more concerts than you, and in that capacity I have had to handle numerous situations like that on Thursday night - dealing with unhappy individuals on both sides of the incident, and attempting to address their concerns fairly and courteously. I have seen at first hand the embarrassment and distress that it has caused, usually through no fault of the individual concerned or their carer(s), and I see no benefit in putting up further barriers to their future enjoyment of live music. Believe me, they find it difficult enough as it is; and no individual concerned is usually more aware of the issues involved than the carer.
The situation was regrettable; it was also unavoidable. That being the case, I can think of 101 purely musical things about the concert that would all have merited discussion ahead of this issue, had the review allowed space. I don't dispute that it was unfortunate and clearly, for many people, frustrating. But when writing on the record it's a matter of professional responsibility, as well as common decency, to bear in mind that one may well be unaware of both sides of the story.
I have to disagree, Richard,
On the front page of the
I was also at the Mahler
And still it rolls on - some
"Don't pay too much attention
"Don't pay too much attention to the sounds, for if you do, you may miss the music" - George Ives (father of Charles).