Isabelle
Faust/COE/Bernard Haitink
Barbican Hall
At the risk of being
accused of hyperbole, I have to state from the start that this
concert, in which the 85-year-old Bernard Haitink conducted the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe, was one of the most musically enriching
experiences I have had for years. In a period in which we’ve
recently lost some eminent octogenarian conductors – Charles
Mackerras, Colin Davis and Claudio Abbado – one feels a certain
morbid need to catch the rest of these great figures while we can. And
thankfully, Haitink looks in the rudest of health – happily
standing for 40 minutes uninterrupted for a Beethoven symphony and
only once eschewing the effort of the stage steps before returning
for an ovation. And what an ovation. Before he had even conducted a
note there was a warmth to the applause at his arrival on the
Barbican Hall podium that recognised both the great contribution he
has made to Britain’s musical life over the decades and the regard
in which he is held by concert-goers.
The qualities of
Haitink’s artistry were displayed from the very start: Schumann’s
Manfred Overture had tonal richness, sense of purpose and the
ideal balance between lyricism and rhythmic thrust. The weight of the
string sound – perhaps the section was slightly more numerous in
personnel than most ensembles that call themselves ‘chamber
orchestras’ – was particularly impressive, with the sound seeming
to well up from the fundamental of the four basses. And with the
violins left and right of the conductor there was some nifty
stereophonic interplay between the two sections in the calmer centre
of the overture. Apart from some slightly tremulous trumpet-playing
in the same portion of the work, the wind added refinement and
character to the whole.
Alban Berg is not a
composer normally associated with Haitink and as befits this great
Mahlerian, the conductor took a very late-Romantic approach to the
Violin Concerto, drawing out its engagement with the composer’s
Viennese heritage more than its acerbic, forward-looking aspects. In
this he was in complete agreement with his soloist, Isabelle Faust,
who, while sometimes lacking the last ounce of tonal weight,
touchingly caught all the music’s poignancy and guided its
emotional trajectory with consummate command. There were some telling
details to her playing, too, such as the way at the start where she
mimicked the open-string fifths of her first entry with non-vibrato
articulation of the motif’s repetitions at higher pitches, only
introducing vibrato as the music sunk to its first cadence. However,
where one might have expected a purer approach – her first
exposition of the Bach chorale – her heavy vibrato contrasted a
little too much with the following harmonisation on the organ-like
clarinet choir. It was touching, nonetheless, and with Haitink’s
masterly control of the orchestra the performance as a whole left a
profound effect that lasted well beyond the much-deserved applause.
Haitink’s account of
Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony in the second half was as close
to perfection in this composer’s music as I’m ever likely to
hear. In recent times, we have come to expect lean and fierce
Beethoven from chamber orchestras whether or not the players are
adopting period manners on their modern instruments. Haitink’s way
was neither purely old school, nor over-burdened by ‘authentic’
mannerism and the most obvious aspect one took away from this
performance was the music’s abundance of tonal detail and colour.
As a past master of Debussy and Ravel, Haitink seemed to bring some
of those composers’ colouristic subtlety to Beethoven’s
orchestration, making us aware as never before how carefully the
composer shaded his orchestral palette. It was a performance notable
for its clarity and tonal beauties as much for its symphonic
integrity, and much of this wouldn’t have been possible without the
supreme artistry of the COE’s musicians at Haitink’s disposal,
from the rich blend of the strings to the personable individuality of
the wind soloists. A memorable evening indeed.
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