|
Stephen
King, in Danse Macabre, writes that
...to
be successful, the artist in any field has to be in the right place
at the right time. The right time is in the lap of the gods, but
any mother's son or daughter can work his/her way to the right place
and wait.
Such
an adage could be applied to the Chinese wunderkind Lang
Lang, who was, in all senses of the phrase, in the right place at
the right time - not once but twice. In late 1999 he replaced André
Watts at the Ravinia Festival's Gala Concert, and in early 2000,
did the same in recital for Richard Goode. He has since not looked
back.
Then
again, pianistic dynamo aside, one could also tick off, on one's
fingers, any number of reasons to attend this concert: the hall,
the orchestra, the conductor, the all-Rachmaninov programme, the
company of nicely-dressed people, the sheer eclat of holding
a St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra ticket...
But
seriously, the St Petersburg is one of the world's most prolific
touring companies, having given the first ever performance in the
Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS, not to mention the premiere of Rachmaninov's
Second Symphony under the composer himself (on January 26th,
1908). All in all, just on hype factor alone, one of the highlights
in a constellation of stellar performances on the current Dewan
Filharmonik's concert calendar.
 This
was much evident just observing the throng in the lobby: the sharply-dressed
glitterati huddled in social pockets, dropping loud comments for
those in the immediate propinquity about the last visit by an international
orchestra (the Philadelphia Orchestra under Sawallisch), or the
soloist's amazing debut CD, or the difficulty of getting
tickets to tonight's performance. The pre-show crowd was creating
a tangible buzz and anticipation which I have not seen or felt for
a long time.
Inside
the hall, the disquietude of expectation was heightened even further
by the stark tiers of empty orchestral seats, as the audience, like
kids at the circus, waited restlessly for the spectacle to begin.
Applause greeted the musicians when they finally appeared, filing
to their seats briskly and tuning up (under the eye of the concertmaster)
simultaneously in all of, like, three seconds. Mere formalities,
as their attitude bespoke.
And
then Yuri Temirkanov ascended the podium, baton-less, and the music
began. This was the Vocalise, recently popularized
in a luxury car advertisement, here realized in Rachmaninov's own
orchestration, with its central melody beauteous beyond words. The
conductor gesticulated with the simplest of arm and wrist movements,
beckoning and crafting the shape of the music hither and yon. A
look, a gesture, a response. Where Rachmaninov's genius for lyric
melody ended and Temirkanov's pathos for his compatriot's music
began, one could hardly tell - only suffering, perhaps, for relatively
flat dynamic contours.
 What
for many would have been the ne plus ultra of the evening
- Lang Lang (right) versus Rachmaninov Two - came
next. From the affected sepulchral tolling of the eight opening
chords, one was almost immediately aware of the type of approach
which the soloist was going to take. He embarked on the conquest
of R2 with as much visual spectacle as anything: head thrown
back, fingers arched over the keyboard, crashing out volley after
volley of chords, enfiladed in the throes of delirium tremens,
offering a musical sacrifice upon the high altar of Russian romanticism.
Temirkanov,
performing this work with Lang for the fourth time (on the final
leg on their Asian Tour), was always heedful of his younger colleague,
yielding the orchestra to the soloist's tempo and temperment. Lang's
histrionics were absolutely stupefying, storming through the melodic
landscape with the subtlety of a Panzerjäger Jagdpanther.
Still, the Chinese übermensch had the audience (if you'll
excuse the metaphor) was eating out of the palms of his hands about
ten seconds into the work.
The
obligatory wave of nervous coughs swept the hall at the conclusion
of the first movement, the musicians pressed on with the second:
popularized to the point of clichéhood; and Lang very much
still playing with iron fingers in velvet gloves to the Nth degree.
The solo clarinet giving the main theme narrowly missed a squeak
against the recalcitrant piano - more delicacy, one feels, would
have provided a welcome symmetry to Lang's rather one-sided approach
which was granitic as it was reckless.
Nonetheless,
Rachmaninov can survive such a beating, and the sharply Lancome'd
lady beside me - I swear - let off sighs of ecstasy twice
in the Adagio Sostenuto. This was a totally enraptured audience
- nobody could take their eyes off the stage long enough to looking
at the programme notes - and only a cudmurgeonly critic would say
that this was anything but amazing, tremendous, incredible, recherche,
etc. But such reservations are relative and no doubt the audience
got full value for every ringgit's worth.
|
Journey
Out of Hell
|
| The
account of how Glazunov reportedly turned up drunken to conduct
the premiere of Rachmaninov's First Symphony, and thus
contributed in no small part to its abysmal failure, is probably
as well known as the subsequent depression which Rachmaninov
fell into. The composer-critic César Cui penned his (in)famous
verdict of the music thus:
If
there were a conservatory in Hell and if one of the students
were given an assignment to compose a programmatic symphony
on the theme of "The Seven[sic] Plagues of Egypt", and composed
a symphony like Rachmaninov's, he would have fulfilled the
assignment brilliantly and thrilled the inhabitants of Hell.
No
wonder Rachmaninov lost all confidence in his own ability
to compose, and lost all interest in the dissipative musical
society in which he circulated frequently.
This
was Moscow in the year 1897. Not even a proposed trip to London
nor the request for the performance of his piano concerto
there (there was only the one then) was sufficient to rekindle
his self-confidence. Rachmaninov honestly wanted to compose
a new concerto for British audiences but could find no delight
nor inspiration to do it. Even his friends started to worry
about his creative trauma: they tried to revive the Rachmaninov's
spirit - bringing him to visit with the father of Russian
literature, Tolstoy - but even that failed to dispel his apathy.
Finally,
Rachmaninov was referred to a particular Dr Nikolai Dahl,
a hypnotist well known for his psychic cures. (Modern readers
should bear in mind that hypnotism, then, was the cutting
edge of psychiatric medicine.) Every day, as Rachmaninov lay
half-asleep in Dahl's consultation rooms, the docter would
repeat the same hypnotic formula, "You will begin to write
your concerto... You will work with great facility... The
concerto will be of great quality..."
The
psychotherapy worked - albeit it took nearly five months of
daily sessions, from the end of 1899 to the April of 1900,
for Dahl to restore the composer. From the wellspring of a
trip to Italy that year came the Second Piano Concerto
as well as the Second Suite for Two Pianos and the
Cello Sonata.
A
grateful Rachmaninov dedicated the completed Concerto to Dahl.
Interestingly, Dahl was himself an amateur violist in addition
to being a medical practitioner, and later played in the orchestra
at performances of the Concerto.
|
The
last movement saw even more of the same from the first and second:
entire fistfuls of notes smashed out, wrenching the architecture
of the music into quite something else. But yet, like the buildings
of Gaudí or the phantasmagoria of Picasso, strangeness can
be kind of nice, if not thought-provoking. With Temirkanov almost
facing the piano at times, the orchestra was merely six feet of
wood behind the tip of Lang's pianistic spear.
Whether
an act of Romantic iconoclasm or aberrant idiosyncracy, Lang poured
himself into the work with monomanic Kunstlerschaaung which
left everyone (well, nearly everyone) breathless. No surprise, then,
that a third of the audience jumped to their feet in ovation about
half a bar before the planet-shattering finish - and certainly well-deserved
it was.
But
the evening's highlight was for me the second half: the hour-long
Second Symphony, and what a contrast it was from the
foofawfery of the first. From the stark opening notes to the the
exposition of the main theme, this was a splendid foretaste of fine
vintage indeed from the orchestra who, once upon a time, premiered
this work under the baton of the conductor. With spells of diatonic
restlessness interspersed amidst skerries of brooding strings, Temirkanov's
reading was both seasoned and delectable.
The
second movement was jaunty, yet shaded with sombre undertones. The
central fugue was tossed, with relish and much dexterity, like a
fizzling bomb between the strings - from the second violins to the
firsts, then to viola, and then taken up by the entire quartet of
instruments. Yet the tempo was not rushed and kept to a sensible
clip, without sacrificing musical spontaniety and rhythmic incisiveness.
Rachmaninov's
Second Symphony must surely count among the small number of symphonies
with sublime third movements - Beethoven's Ninth, Brahms's Third,
Mendelssohn's Italian - and all the more fashionable for
it here because of Eric Carmen's plagiarism in his song Never
Gonna Fall in Love Again from the movement's first theme. The
danger, of course, is overindulgence that would have made the music
merely schmaltzy, but Temirkanov is far too experienced to do another
heart-on-sleeve Mantovani. Indeed, the clarinet solo, described
in Marc Rochester's programme notes as "unspeakably lovely", was
exquisite beyond words, and the communion between conductor and
orchestra was sublime.
 The
final movement took us back full circle the kaleidoscopic gamut
of emotions that run the length and breadth of the work, but it
was perhaps not as ebullient as it should have been in the climaxes.
The dynamic range of the orchestra could have been broader in the
expansive acoustic of the Dewan Filharmonik. Nonetheless, Temirkanov's
reading was an excellent odyssey of the Rachmaninovian psyche: less
an epistolary revelation than a traversal of the composer's rich
musical landscape.
The
accolades which Temirkanov and the St Petersburgers (featured on
the programme booklet cover on left) received was nowhere near the
mass-hysteria which Lang Lang elicited, although for reasons of
fatigue the maestro did not oblige with an encore (to the surprise,
I'm sure, of the additional bassoonist who crept on-stage). Still,
Temirkanov brought to mind the words of a certain French playwright:
And
under this carnival disguise, the heart of an old youngster who
is still waiting to give his all. But how to be recognized under
this mask ? This is what they call a fine career.
Jean
Anouilh, The Waltz of the Toreadors
BENJAMIN
CHEE really likes the yong tau foo in Ampang.
9xx:
17.11.2001 © Benjamin Chee
All
original texts are copyrighted. Please seek permission from the
Classical Editor
if you wish to reproduce/quote Inkpot material.
|
|
