Great guns
MUSIC EDWARD BOYLE
The current series of concerts by Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony Orchestra is clearly
going to rank among the major musical events of 1968: last Wednesday's concert at the Royal Festival Hall included as its main item one of
the most thrilling performances of a Mahler symphony which London can have heard for a very long while. Mahler's Fifth is not one of his works I know best, and I suspect that, for many of us, appreciation of its true quality has been hindered by memories of excessively ful- some renderings of the adagietto wrenched from its context.
It goes almost without saying that M Boulez's reading, while never in the least superficial, was a model of clarity; despite occasional imper- fections in the orchestral detail, I have never listened to a Mahler performance that revealed more clearly what Tovey called his 'enormous technique,' both as an orchestrator and as a contrapuntist. As for the conflicting emotions within the symphony, M Boulez got the balance exactly right. The opening funeral march was unrelenting, with beautiful rhythmic precision in the contrast between triplet quavers and semi- quavers and lovely brass tone at the end (M Boulez knows exactly how to respond to the marking `Schwer'). The allegro was suitably stfirmisch bewegt, the central scherzo (surely one of Mahler's great symphonic movements) fitfully exultant, but never, so to speak, quite let off the leash. Then, after a beautifully deli- cate aclagietto, the finale received a truly mar- vellous performance. From the moment of the final entry of the chorale (fig. 32) the excitement mounted, while leaving plenty in band for .the subsequent 'allegro molto' and the 'presto' of the last seven bars (brilliantly played). What power of movement this finale has. I long to hear M Boulez conduct Symphonies 6 and 7.
The performance of Berg's Violin Concerto which preceded the symphony was not quite so successful, partly, no doubt, because Yehudi Menuhin and Boulez have not yet played this work sufficiently often together. Mr Menuhin played much of the concerto with a moving restraint, but I was disappointed that he failed to grade his dynamics in the opening bars (pp, then p, then mp, then f) as precisely indicated by the composer—this 'entry into the shrine' can be made to sound so exquisitely beautiful; and in the closing pages of the concerto he was mach too loud at the 'molt° tranquillo' (bar 198) which leads to the repriso of the 'Carin- thian Mueller' theme (in this concerto these things really are important). There were, how- ever, some lovely moments in this performance, notably the wonderfully calculated sound-effect of the first variation on the chorale, with Bach's theme in the bass.
On the following evening, in the same hall, Rudolf Kempe conducted the Royal Philhar- monic Orchestra in a noble performance of Bruckner No 8. showing as he so often does
his real sympathy for German or Austrian music of the later nineteenth century. The out- side movements were especially admirable. As collectors of Bruckner recordings will know, the question of the proper tempo for the opening 'allegro moderato' is controversial. Kempe's tempo was a little slower than Horenstein's but appreciably faster than Karajan's or SoIti's. There was a pulse behind the music but also plenty of time to savour characteristic beauties such as the major-minor alternations on the tubas at the start of the development. Likewise the episodic finale was well held together, from the grand opening to the magnificently affirma- tive final nail.
I was surprised at Kempe's slowing-down for the lyrical middle section of the scherzo (letter xt)—so far as I am aware there is no hint of a 'men° mosso' in any of the editions of this symphony. (The trouble comes at the point when
an unconvincing acceleration has--to be made back to the original tempo.) The tempo for the adagio was very broad indeed, rather too broad for the strings of the RPO whose tone was not sufficiently lustrous; and I thought Kempe's handling of the superb second theme of this movement too soothing and not sufficiently in- tense. But the tremendous climax, when at length it came, made its full impact, as did the horns and the strings (well-balanced) in the long-drawn and moving coda.
It was the great merit of Kempe's reading that one felt the power of this mighty symphony —at long last, I hope, firmly established in the repertory—as an organic whole. Perhaps when a new edition of Grove's Dictionary—Grove VI—comes to be planned for the 1980s, the article on the Symphony, unlike its predecessor in Grove V, may include at least a modest reference to Bruckner No 8.
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