United Kingdom PROM 27 – Saariaho, Mozart, R. Strauss: Silja Aalto (soprano), Anssi Karttunen (cello), Seong-Jin Cho (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo (conductor), Chris Hopkins (offstage conductor, Alpine Symphony). Royal Albert Corridor, London, 9.8.2024. (CC)
Saariaho – Mirage (2007)
Mozart – Piano Concerto No.9 in E-flat, Okay 271, ‘Jeunehomme’ (1777)
R. Strauss – Eine Alpensinfonie, Op.64 (1911-15)
An interesting programme right here, promising a lot on paper. Half of these expectations had been met: a primary half stuffed with magnificence and refinement.
The story behind Kaja Saariaho’s 2007 Mirage is fascinating: a shamanic channeler from Mexico, Maria Sabina (1894-1985) is the inspiration. Chant is mirrored in the usage of microtones; the 2 soloists are unbiased voices, however they react to one another in a transcendental dialog. The phrases are certainly channelled from Spirit by Sabina: ‘I’m a girl who flies,’ she sings, ‘I’m the sacred eagle lady’; the textual content contains such phrases as ‘… I’m the capturing star lady beneath the water … I’m the sacred clown’ are all related phrases from the textual content.’ The textual content is sung in an English translation by Alvaro Estrada.
It’s the cello that prepares the way in which for the voice, however inside a brief second the cello swoops as much as becoming a member of the vocalist as one. The orchestra acts as a halo across the soloists, garlanding the music with excessive woodwinds and harp. Each soloists are BBC Proms debut artists (I used to be stunned about Anssi Karttunen): Finnish soprano Silja Aalto, skilled at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, has a voice of nice purity (it sounded much more so reside than on the published). Her voice is extremely robust, but heat of tone; she even projected a whisper to the ends of the Royal Albert Corridor. A specific emphasis on the phrase ‘sacred clown’ appeared to be essential to each composer and interpreters. Karttunen was each inch the singer’s equal in his technical command, expressivity and resonance with Saariaho’s soundworld. A mesmerising second of magic: a real Proms spotlight.
Seong-Jin Cho has impressed on quite a few events: an ‘Emperor’ in Basel stands out (assessment right here). This was a efficiency of Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto, the so-called ‘Jeunehomme’ of nice freshness (‘Jeunehomme’ is nothing to do with a younger man and, if trendy scholarship is right, little or no to do with ‘Mademoiselle Jeunehomme’ both: there’s a transfer to right the nickname to ‘Jenamy’)). Cho performs with large readability but additionally terrific invention. The opening change (on this concerto, the soloist enters virtually instantly) was fantastically managed by each orchestra and soloist. As the primary motion progressed, Cho added tasteful ornaments. His articulation is miraculously clear, his creativeness huge: the piano dialogue with itself (a registral dialogue between treble and bass) was brilliantly accomplished; simply the occasional ‘inserting’ of a downbeat sounded mannered. Good to have Mozart’s personal cadenza, right here stuffed with flights of fantasy, the ultimate scale simply so excellent.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra strings had been beautiful and darkish for the central Andantino; they pulsated beneath Cho’s eloquent line later. Whispered piano traces projected completely; this was nice Mozart, voice-leading throughout the soliloquizing completely realised, piano/orchestra imitations spot-on. The third motion is marked Rondo but additionally Presto, and it was a correctly scampering presto we obtained (enabling good distinction for the sluggish minuet held inside this motion); extra registral piano dialogue for the soloist was once more a delight. How Cho and Sakari Oramo managed to keep up a way of favor, or intimacy, of scale, throughout the area of the Albert Corridor I have no idea, however it was a pleasure to expertise.
Which is greater than will be stated for the Alpine Symphony. The BBC SO performed it in 2016 beneath Semyon Bychkov (assessment right here) and that was a memorable efficiency, stuffed with that conductor’s attribute command of construction and of element and an impressive acknowledgement of the grandeur of Richard Strauss’s huge Alpine canvas. Oramo’s was just about the obverse. It started because it meant to go on: not collectively, virtually symbolic of a disengaged collective. When the brass entered with their chords a number of seconds later, it was additionally challenged from an ensemble perspective. A shrillness to the violins, absent beneath Bychkov in the entire live shows I’ve heard from him, returned. Solo string passages labored properly in Oramo’s efficiency; it was the tutti that was problematical.
Results, so very important to Strauss’s gestural panorama, had been hit or miss. The off-stage brass choir, up within the gallery and carried out by Chris Hopkins, was an unmitigated success; however the cowbells within the mountain pasture (Auf der Alm) gave the impression of somebody was beating steel in a automobile restore storage subsequent door. Highs met lows recurrently: an excellent rendition of the large horn melody by Nicholas Korth shortly after the cowbells was met by scratchy strings. Unnecessarily haphazardly diffuse textures later met fantastic pianissimos round an excellent bassoon solo from Julie Worth. Had been we listening to the passages that they had rehearsed, and the implications turning away from others? The thunderstorm solely simply held collectively, the organ its rescuer; strings struggled. In the direction of the top, one other essential brass entrance crumbled. The tip felt emotionally stagnant.
The woodwind’s waterfall (Am Wasserfall) was efficient, however the level is that there appeared little narrative thread in a bit that’s by definition narrative of an Alpine journey, leaving moments resembling that, or, frankly, some impressively loud moments, stranded. Lyrical drive became bombast; Strauss’s story was put by a shredder.
The Bychkov stays a BBC Proms reference for me; sadly I missed Ilan Volkov in 2019 (though my esteemed colleague Alan Sanders discovered a lot to take pleasure in); whereas the very much-missed author Claire Seymour loved Sir Antonio Pappano’s NYO USA efficiency in 2019 (assessment right here). However for this Oramo Promenade, it’s the Saariaho and Mozart that deliver a smile. Sub-par Alpines are uncommon, and it’s unhappy to search out one right here.
Colin Clarke
