I WAS one of a party of hacks visiting Linz, the third city of
Austria, for the opening of a new opera house last April. One
morning, we were taken to the monastery of St Florian near by,
where Anton Bruckner was a choirboy and where he lies buried. He
was organist there, too; and we were shown round by the present
organist, Klaus Sonnleitner, who ended the tour with a short
recital. So it was a particular pleasure to hear Fr Sonnleitner
play Bach on the Royal Albert Hall organ on 6 September, the
penultimate night of the Henry Wood Proms, promoted by the BBC.
The organ is a Victorian beast, on which Bruckner himself gave a
series of recitals in 1871; so we were not going to get an
"authentic" account. Instead, Sonnleitner explored the richness of
the instrument, starting with a magnificent performance of
Alexandre Guilmant's fairground arrangement of the Sinfonia to the
cantata Wir danken dir, Gott. Three chorale preludes
followed, the melody of one of them - Vor deinem Thron,
BWV668 - not really enhanced by the tremulant. The A-minor Prelude
and Fugue, BWV543, was predictably and satisfyingly grand; and
there was an encore, In dir ist Freude, BWV651, with the
delightful bonus of a carillon stop.
After the interval came a symphony by Bruckner, the third such
in eight days. On 29 August, the Philharmonia Orchestra had given
No. 7 under their Principal Conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. This
started well, with a nicely flowing first theme on the lower
strings, and the climax in the slow movement was well managed,
complete with the (mildly) controversial cymbal-clash; but the
ending of the work, taken too fast, lacked grandeur. Five days
later, it was the turn of No. 4, the "Romantic". The exposed horn
solo at the beginning was blessedly trouble-free, and the
Tristanesque hunt of the Scherzo came across well; elsewhere the
brass sounded harsh, overpowering the strings. The violas in the
slow movement were eloquent, but overall this was a mediocre
performance by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under their new
Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko.
Back, then - or, rather, forward - to 6 September, and
Bruckner's Eighth Symphony. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra can
sound as if they are on auto-pilot, but here they were on splendid
form. The brass were everything that the Oslo players were not:
gleaming, rich, incisive, and yet smooth-toned, the Wagner tubas
particularly glorious. The veteran Lorin Maazel, conducting without
a score, turned the Scherzo into rather a stomp, but otherwise
showed an exemplary grasp of the work's tragic and triumphant
moods.
One of what the BBC's publicity called "key musical strands"
marked the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten. Janine
Jansen and another visiting band, the Orchestre de Paris under
Paavo Järvi, gave an outstanding performance of his haunting,
neglected Violin Concerto on 1 September. It was preceded by Arvo
Pärt's tedious Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten and
followed by Berlioz's Overture "Le Corsaire". The main
attraction was Saint-Saëns's "Organ" Symphony, No. 3 in C minor. It
must be impossible to downplay the religiose slow movement; but,
anyway, it's the Finale that everyone is waiting for. Järvi and the
organist Thierry Escaich gave it their all: a preposterous piece,
but enormous fun.
I heard the late-night Prom at home on Radio 3. This began with
another neglected work by Britten, A Boy was Born. This
astonishingly accomplished set of variations, composed when Britten
was 19, comprises a group of mainly medieval verses, Christina
Rossetti and Francis Quarles thrown in for good measure. Conducted
by David Hill, the BBC Singers and the Choristers of the Temple
Church gave a virtuoso performance, with a fear- less treble solo
from Luke McWatters.
George Lloyd, born in the same year as Britten, composed his
Requiem just before his death in 1998. His second opera,
The Serf, was performed at Covent Garden before the war.
To misquote Churchill on Curzon, Lloyd's morning was golden; the
noon-time was lead; and the evening bronze. Completely out of
sympathy with contemporary musical developments, he was ignored for
decades before re-emerging in the 1980s. But I fear that the
Requiem will not enhance his reputation. There is
effective use of plainchant and organum; less happy are the jaunty
"Tuba mirum" and a banal unison tune at "Rex
tremendae". No complaints, though, about the performance. The
BBC Singers were complemented by the counter-tenor Iestyn Davies
and the organist Greg Morris.
Britten would have hated the concert on 17 August, when Schumann
- the Fourth Symphony - was sandwiched by Brahms, his bête
noire. The main work was A German Requiem, performed
by the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted
by Marin Alsop. The opening was graced by the nutty sound of the
OAE's period instruments, violas, and cellos, followed by a
plangent oboe. "Denn alles Fleisch" was just right: a
perfectly judged tempo, a powerful choir, thunderous timpani. The
gentle "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" was too swift
for my taste, but the fugal "Herr, du bist würdig" was
splendidly vigorous. Henk Neven produced heart-stoppingly beautiful
tone in the baritone's "Herr, lehre doch mich".
Two more birthday boys this year are Verdi and Wagner, both born
in 1813. The former didn't get much of a look-in, but the BBC did
Wagner proud: Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, a complete
Ring cycle, and Parsifal. This last was performed
on 25 August in a semi-staging by Justin Way, with the Hallé
Orchestra and Royal Opera Chorus, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Good
use was made of the hall's spatial opportunities, a brass ensemble,
and the Trinity Boys Choir and Hallé Youth Choir (chorus-masters
Michael Holiday and Richard Wilberforce) ringing out from the
gallery in the outer acts. Sir John Tomlinson, replacing the
advertised Robert Holl as Gurnemanz, got through the part by means
of sheer histrionic skill, but he is now past his best. Lars
Cleveman was a dull Parsifal, Katarina Dalayman a stupendous
Kundry. Elder unfolded the long, long score with sensitivity. A
black mark for the grotesque, amplified bells.
"Stupendous" is the word, too, for Britten's Billy Budd
from Glyndebourne two days later. Staged by Ian Rutherford, not
semi-staged: full costume, props including a rope, a hammock, a
table. Like Parsifal, Billy is a redeemer: Jacques Imbrailo was
both touching and fiery, disappointing only in "Billy in the
darbies". Led by Mark Padmore and Brindley Sherratt as Vere and
Claggart, the cast was faultless; so was Sir Andrew Davis's
conducting of the Glyndebourne Chorus (chorus-master Jeremy Bines)
and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This was a deeply moving
account of what is surely Britten's greatest opera.