As the unnamed scribe in Ecclesiastes says: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” So the very final concert which Sir Simon Rattle gave as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra on home territory (a few more foreign performances to follow) was bound to be an emotional event. In the past seven years he has given a number of outstanding performances, and his uniquely personal and imaginative programming has set a high bar for others to follow.
In this, his 78th Prom, Rattle chose to open with Poulenc’s Figure humaine. For the premiere of this a cappella cantata, written for double SMATBB choir with frequent divisi, the composer recommended a large force of 84 with seven singers to a part. The two dozen members of the BBC Singers (their predecessors as the BBC Chorus gave the first performance in 1945) did not always succeed in filling the huge auditory space effectively, and the very reduced dynamics, especially in the first two settings of Paul Éluard’s poems, produced an uncomfortable blurring. There is a lot of text to negotiate and clear enunciation was sometimes found wanting. However, in the eighth and final setting the singers warmed to the mounting intensity, producing a brilliant ffff E major chord on the final syllable of “Liberté”.
In performance, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is occasionally over-burdened with funeral rites. The work is indeed filled, as Bruno Walter once remarked, “with a sanctified feeling of departure”. Rattle chose not to see the Grim Reaper lurking behind every corner, and the entry of the second violins at the start had nothing world-weary about it. Instead, with maximum transparency and textural clarity, he took the many silken threads in the score and wove them majestically together into a glowingly beautiful piece of fabric. In the Finale too there was a satisfying nobility which suffused every bar, the long breaths still allowing individual colouring in the instrumental solos.
The risk in taking such a radiantly life-affirming view of the work is that the darker sides and the contrasts intended by the composer are then underplayed. With few scowls or grimaces to cloud the countenance, any thoughts of anxiety and anguish were at best an accompanying question-mark. The Ländler was at times almost too jovial, Mahler’s marking of “sehr derb” (very rough) yielding to the caressing and cosseting which revealed Rattle’s unquestionable love of the music. No spitting or snarls from the brass in the Rondo-Burleske either, and little sense of heaving passion, though the closing pages were suitably wild and furious. The entire performance was often achingly, painfully pulchritudinous.
Rattle would not be Rattle without a number of individual touches. With him the cymbal crashes are very loud indeed, and at the other end of the dynamic spectrum the playing often dropped almost to the point of inaudibility, as with the bassoon’s first entry in the great Adagio. An imperiously outstretched finger was used to signal yet more intensity, though he now no longer feels the need to micro-manage every bar.
The playing of the LSO was simply glorious and left nothing to be desired. It is testament to Rattle’s ability to fire up his players to give of their absolute best that he leaves this orchestra in a better state than he found it. It would be invidious to single out individual players, so assured was the level of technical excellence, but the horn section, consistently secure and with rich, ripe tone, were a perpetual delight. As Shakespeare says in Romeo and Juliet, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
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