Elder keeps a cool head
MUSIC
BBC SSO
City Halls, Glasgow JJJJ
If anything confirmed Sir Mark Elder’s natural command of music’s most gargantuan Romantic creations it was Thursday’s performance, with a significantly augmented BBC SSO, of Richard Strauss’ seething, fundamentally autobiographical, tone poem Ein Heldenleben.
Even more impressive was the veteran Hallé conductor’s wisdom in tempering its wildest and most thunderous extremes to fit the limited acoustical scale of the City Halls,asiftosendamessageto Strausshimselfthattheworld will tolerate self-indulgence, but only to a critical limit.
Thattooknothingawayfrom the mastery and voluptuousnessofagloriousperformance and Strauss’ unquestionable
masterpiece.atitsmostdizzyingheightselder’svisiblecomposure sent a message of caution to his players, harnessing a focused concentration that intensifiedthequalityofsound and emotional impact.
The sweep of colour and sentiment was exhilarating, coursing through the purposefulgaitoftheopening,the waspishcaricatureof“thecritics”, the ensuing prominence of the solo violin (an enthralling performance by leader Laura Samuel that reflected each vying mood swing), and that swirling battle with its ensuing acceptance and calm. This was a triumph of individual virtuosity and collective vision.
Previously, we had heard two extracts from Wagner’s Parsifal – the opening Prelude and, appropriately for Holy Week, the Good Friday Music from Act III of the opera – and Mozart’s concert ariaah,loprevidi.inthelatter, a fully-absorbed Sophie Bevan(soprano)imbuedmozart’s dramatic setting of Andromeda’s rage and misery with a fiery passion, joined by the weaving eloquence of Stella Mccracken’s solo oboe in the closing Cavatina.
It took time for Elder’s Wagner to ripen and intensify, the wholesome religiosity of the Good Friday Music helpfully redressing an opening Preludeuncommonlyspookedby faulty woodwind intonation.