Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall
Guest Reviewer, Curtis Rogers
‘Moments remembered’ was the overall theme for the concert – as for the whole of the LPO’s present season. Rather contrasting as is Brahms’s Second Symphony (unusually sunny) with the other two items on the programme, more specifically all three share the fact that they constitute masterpieces of the later Austro-Germanic musical tradition Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen (1945) seems to have been written consciously as a memorial or summation of that.
The London Philharmonic’s account with Edward Gardner was generally reserved and fragile, flowing with a veiled sense of grief or mourning, but not wallowing in tragedy. Indeed, it began with an attractively lyrical strain – perhaps as though a memory of the opening Sextet from Capriccio, Strauss’s recently completed overview of the operatic genre – and it eventually wound down some twenty-five minutes later with its discrete hint of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’. But in between it was decently structured, accumulating urgency until broadening out arrestingly at the two climactic recalls of the principal theme, the second layered with the decisive, despairing overlapping of that descending motif, and aptly realising the metamorphoses of the title, as the subject was transformed from light, even balletic iterations earlier on. It was a considerably different interpretation from the searing account by Karajan recommended as a recording in the programme note, but it had its own persuasive logic.
The memory of musical history is summoned in Berg’s Violin Concerto (1935) with its invocation of Bach’s chorale harmonisation ‘Es ist genug’ (from BWV60) serving as a memorial for Manon Gropius (daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, who died at the age of 18) and retrospectively for Berg himself as he died soon after its composition. This was no deathly, fraught lament, but more an autumnally glowing eulogy to Manon, with Isabelle Faust’s thoughtful and compelling performance embodying her spirit. She drew a warm, resonant line from the instrument but finely integrated with the LPO – for instance in wistful dialogue with the double bass and then clarinet near the beginning. A somewhat sardonic conclusion to the first movement heralded a more furious burst of energy in the infernal dance of the cadenza that opens the second. But Gardner and Faust successfully – heartbreakingly – re-established the radiant mood and seamless texture to the end, the Bach quotation subtly stealing in and worn lightly.
In his Second Symphony (1877) Brahms was on laidback, joyful form, and the gentle lilt of its opening three-note motto in Gardner’s hands exuded relaxation. The first movement had a confident, not portentous, stride, more a play of light and shade than a strenuous symphonic argument. That was maintained with its generally comfortable, consistent tempo which was hardly pulled about except to slow down in the coda and create an atmosphere of resolution and contentment. Greater drama was reserved for the second movement, Adagio non troppo, that qualification duly observed here with its rhythmic pliancy. The delightfully reedy, rustic-sounding oboe ushered in the outdoors levity of Brahms’s earlier Serenades for the third movement, before the Finale restored more formal grandeur with its triumphant mood – clouds sometimes crossing the sky, but the unforced climax in the final bars was achieved naturally, preserving the generally easy-going character of this performance. As the Strauss and Berg were luminous in their sombreness, so this Symphony didn’t need hefty energy to dispel their gloom.
Strauss
Metamorphosen
Berg
Violin Concerto
Brahms
Symphony No.2 in D, Op.73
Isabelle Faust (violin)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner
This review will also appear on www.classicalsource.com