Classical Wales

Carl Grainger on the opening concert of BBC NOW’s Cardiff concert season

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales opened its 2011-2012 Cardiff season at St David’s Hall with their new Conductor Designate, Thomas Søndergård , and a programme advertised as a “French Heatwave”.  The concert opened with Ravel ‘s Spanish-inspired  Alborada del Gracioso and Rhapsodie Espagnole.  Crisp rhythms and bright
orchestral colours made the more extrovert sections exciting enough with but the
voluptuous Habanera section did not capture the sultry sexiness of Ravel’s score and the overall effect was more “pleasantly warm” than “heatwave”.

The temperature rose several degrees with the appearance of Steven Isserlis, soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No 1, considered by Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff to be the greatest of all cello concertos.  This is a stormy and powerful work, written while Saint-Saëns was mourning the death of a great aunt to whom he was devoted.  Technically assured even in the most virtuoso sections, Isserlis was a passionate advocate for the concerto, playing with a concentrated intensity that sustained the feeling of grief and sorrow without sentimentalising it.  There was a clear rapport with Thomas Søndergård, especially in the central, minuet-like section where many performers try to lighten the mood. Søndergård and BBC NOW gave a bitter-sweet reading of the orchestral accompaniment, as if remembering happier times, which created a perfect context the continued lament of the cello soloist.

As so often after a string concerto there was an encore of unaccompanied Bach, in this case the Sarabande from the third Cello Suite, delivered with quiet restraint that internalised the mood of sorrow which pervaded the concerto.  Isserlis seemed to be
playing more for himself than his audience and it was easy to imagine ourselves as intruders on some private grief.

Messiaen’s  Les Offrandes Oubliées (Forgotten Offerings) is his first published orchestral piece, the work of a profoundly religious young composer only just out of college.  Its three sections represent the cross, sin and the eucharist. This is not mature Messiaen – the footprints of Debussy’s influence are evident throughout the score – but its contrasts of extremely slow musical meditations with sections of almost uncontrolled force foreshadow
much of Messiaen’s later, highly individual style.  BBC NOW ‘s sweet-toned strings gave a
persuasive account of the outer slow sections, balancing the contradictions between detached calm and religious fervour convincingly.  In the violent central section, about which the composer wrote “forced by madness and the sting of the serpent, in a frenzied, breathless course without release, we descended into sin as into a tomb”, the orchestra captured much of the score’s fierce energy  but did not always have the clarity of texture
needed to realise the full impact of Messiaen’s complex, multi-layered vision.

There were no such reservations about the last work in the concert, Debussy’s three symphonic sketches La Mer. Many composers have tried their hand at representing the sea in music.  Debussy’s score is among the most successful and popular attempts, but it demands both individual and collective virtuosity from the players.  BBC NOW responded with an excellent performance, full of colour and vitality – a sizzling end to their “French Heatwave”.

And what of the future?  Is the imminent arrival of Thomas Søndergård going to revolutionise the sound and stature of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in the way the young Simon Rattle turned the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on its head?  It’s too early to say of course – but he is clearly a conductor capable of drawing precise and controlled playing from his orchestra and he seems to have established a good rapport with the players in a
very short time.  If one had to make a general criticism of last night’s concert it would be that the playing was sometimes a little rigid or too self-consciously precise.  Perhaps Søndergård has yet to find out how much flexibility he can expect from his players. Only time will tell.