United Kingdom Prom 6 – Grace-Evangeline Mason, Rachmaninoff, Mahler: Sir Stephen Hough (piano), BBC Philharmonic / Mark Wigglesworth (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 18.7.2023. (MBr)
Grace-Evangeline Mason – ABLAZE THE MOON
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No.1 in F sharp minor
Mahler – Symphony No.1 in D minor
If there was a theme running through this BBC Prom, the sixth of seventy-one in this season, then it would have been youth. The BBC Philharmonic, closely bound to the Royal Northern College of Music which is this year celebrating its 50th anniversary, was joined by several of its students; indeed, it is an orchestra that has many players from the college amongst its ranks. But youthfulness was also in the works that were chosen to be played – these were the first numbered works in their respective cycles, and in the case of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto his very first opus numbered work (Mahler didn’t use opus numbers).
The concert opened, however, with something very new – the world premiere of Grace-Evangeline Mason’s ABLAZE THE MOON. In her programme notes she gives the inspiration as a poem, ‘Tonight’, by the American lyric poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). Although she doesn’t refer to any specific musical influences they sound and feel unmistakable when the work opens – French, impressionistic, even Romantic, and you may well think it is Debussy. That image of the moon, hanging in a dark sky, emerges through music that is played on swirling woodwind. The sky itself, vast, dark, perhaps infinite, comes through deep and sonorous string passages that are rich in tone; timpani, which punctuate the work at intervals, have a fuzziness to them, a vibrating edge, which makes them sound expansive – a hint of the build-up on horns and strings which will bring a kind of blazing luminosity to the sky as they break through the darkness. Ironically, there is nothing particularly youthful in the music – for such a strikingly young composer – but for such a short piece (just over five-minutes) it crystalises enormous textures into something that is entirely persuasive. The BBC Philharmonic sounded lush, downright gorgeous in places – the strings glowed, the brass were fully rounded and golden-toned. If the music didn’t feel young, it felt like the plushest kind of Romanticism in a performance that was sweepingly atmospheric.
I wish I could apply something of those last two words to the performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.1 played by Sir Stephen Hough. There is no denying that he is one of the great piano virtuosos playing today – this was as quicksilver, as precise, and as exciting a performance of the concerto one would wish to hear. But that is rather where it ends – although perhaps I am being a little unfair because the instrument he was playing sometimes sounded like a tin can was being struck.
This is, I think, the least convincing of Rachmaninoff’s four concertos – even given the fact he spent so much time revising it, evidently to the point he remained never entirely satisfied with it (even though the version we hear today appeared after he had composed both the second and third concertos). Hough’s view of the First is that it is sophisticated and has a light-footed elegance – and that it is also less emotionally intense. He was certainly light-footed in the first movement; some of the more elaborate keyboard writing was effortless in its clarity, textures as clear as glass. The cadenza was marvellous – explosive, articulate and with enough impulse and drive to force the coda towards a dramatic climax.
What I found wanting in the Andante was playfulness, a beguiling sense of oration between the piano and the orchestra. Hough can sometimes be a distant player, a little remote at the keyboard; I have often found a Catholicism in his playing of lyrical music where he is reluctant to let go. If there was supposed to be intimacy in this movement – between the piano and French Horn, for example – Hough felt disinclined to join in.
He was wildly energetic from the opening bars of the Allegro vivace, skittish even, and the virtuosity of the writing proved entirely equal to his superb technique. Undeniably impressive as this performance had been, it rarely glowed with lyrical warmth; rather, it felt as if it had been given in a chilly room of a winter palace in Revolutionary Russia.
Performances of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.1 have often left me in despair by the time we have got to the end of its fifty-minute span. This one conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, and a BBC Philharmonic on incandescent form, was outrageously superb. My mind can wander through this symphony – but not in this performance; I found it entirely gripping.
In part, Wigglesworth judged his tempi to perfection. The long first movement can spiral out of control; Mahler marks the tempo ‘dragging’ and some conductors literally do that. Wigglesworth applied enormous tension to the ethereal, meandering opening A – like a coil that tightens until it fractures into an explosive snap. He would do the exact opposite with the transition from the third to the fourth movements where the orchestra elided into the music with ferocious bite and a velocity and drama that had thrilling impact. I have rarely heard this done better. (Stravinsky does something very similar, with equal problems, in the Rite of Spring with the transition into the Danse sacrale.)
Perhaps some might have quibbled with the pace of the first movement, but such was the atmosphere he created, and such was the intensity and concentration of the playing, time seemed to fade very fast. What was also so effectively done was the contrast; fanfares were truly volcanic in stature. The idea that the symphony’s darkness and light should have a positive triumph in the first movement had true clarity in the volume of the playing – the imperceptible growling of the bottom brass, the swaddled drumbeats versus the brutal, wild flourishes.
There was rusticity, earthiness and a certain crudeness to the Scherzo; a sneering derision, personified in cellos and basses which had a mocking dance rhythm. The third movement was a brilliant contrast; scoffing and taunting, the famous children’s song (‘Bruder Martin’) so much lighter-toned than one is used to hearing. The klezmer music – sometimes done in a shrill fashion – was here rather elegant.
The Sturm und Drang of the opening of the final movement had been thrilling, a tumultuous tempest of swirling strings and heroic brass. With horn players standing, the fanfare that ends the symphony was played with terrific panache. A memorable Mahler First, with the BBC Philharmonic and Mark Wigglesworth on exhilarating form.
Marc Bridle