CONCERT REVIEW | Beethoven & Berlioz | Philharmonia Orchestra/Blomstedt | Royal Festival Hall, London | "the rapport between Blomstedt and the musicians shone well"
United Kingdom: Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt (Conductor). Reviewed at Royal Festival Hall, London on 11 April 2019.
Beethoven, Symphony no. 6 in F major "Pastoral", Op.68
Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique, Op.14
 |
| Herbert Blomstedt, © Martin UK Lengemann |
Herbert Blomstedt will be turning 92 in July but shows no signs of slowing down, and his conducting on the podium tonight reaffirmed this outward vitality. He has developed a close relationship with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and the rapport between him and the musicians shone well in both the Beethoven and Berlioz symphonies.
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony was premièred at the same concert his Fifth Symphony was premièred. Yet the Pastoral Symphony is radically different in character from its counterpart. In spite of a lack of thundering fortissimo sections and weighty “fate” motives, the piece is replete with virtuosic solo writing and programmatic elements like bird calls and storm sounds. Blomstedt navigated the bucolic soundscape of the symphony expertly, and the woodwind soloists in particular delivered strong, idiomatic performances.
Berlioz’s behemoth of a symphony is famously dedicated to the object of the composer's infatuation, Harriet Smithson, and its programmatic innovations are still vivid nearly two hundred years after its première. Despite only two decades separating the Symphonie Fantastique from the Pastoral, the timbral palettes and styles of the two symphonies are vastly different. The plagal cadences signifying the relative peace at the end of the first movement segued effectively into the second movement’s dance, where the celli in particular shone with their augmentation and diminution of the idée fixe. The shepherd’s call opening the third movement did not feel quite so surreal with the offstage oboist standing barely behind the stage door, but the rest of the movement flowed smoothly, with carefully restrained timpani earmarking the thunder at the end of the movement.
The fourth movement, the March to the Scaffold, features the entry of the low brass after three tacet movements, and the timbre changes significantly as a result of this addition. Balance can be difficult to manage here, especially in spots like the quasi-melismatic bassoon feature at the beginning of the fourth movement, but Blomstedt’s active softening of the pizzicato strings during this moment rendered it very well-balanced indeed. Bass trombonist James Buckle pierced masterfully through the orchestral texture to accentuate the appropriate moments with a distinct lower brass foundation. The cymbal’s nimble and agile crashes punctuated the decapitation of the programmatic hero - effectively Berlioz himself - at the end of the movement.
The finale is a whirlwind of dazzling virtuosic display, and the featured instrumentalists - in particular, the E♭ clarinetist, the two tubists, and the contrabassoonist - delivered impeccably strong performances. Arguably the most difficult part of the symphony comes towards the end of this movement, where a syncopated hemiola of crotchets creates a rhythmic dissonance against the prevailing 6/8 meter, compounded by a quaver hocket between the low brass and the rest of the orchestra. Unfortunately, uniformed articulation was lost temporarily here, but the orchestra quickly regained their footing for an impressive and well-coordinated finish to the piece and to the concert.
Vishnu Bachani