Can there be such a thing as too much perfection in an orchestra? The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is a perfect ensemble in so many ways: the timbre of every instrument, the freedom from fluffs, the synchronisation both between instrument groups and within them – you’d be hard put to insert a hair’s breadth between string partners. Conducting them, Andris Nelsons seems in total control, his eyes on every detail. And yet, at the BBC Proms last night, despite all these qualities and despite a highly appealing programme, they failed to convince.
The first bars of the first piece, Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, demonstrated how one can have too much of a good thing. The magic of this music is how it swells from extreme pianissimo and gradually takes over your senses: Nelsons took the pianissimo so extreme that the early notes were virtually inaudible, even from my excellent seat. The music did swell; Pärt’s harmonies did come through with clarity; the off-beat bells did have their impact (although it would have been nice to be able to see the percussionist). But the outpouring of grief at the death of a revered colleague was buried far too much below the surface.
On the recent occasions that I’ve heard Isabelle Faust, she has produced that same level of clarity and refinement, something which has worked better in some repertoire than others. Here, however, in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor, she threw herself into full-hearted Czech romanticism: the colours of an autumn forest rather than the crystalline sunshine of a Nordic landscape. Her phrasing carried you along with the flow of the music, her accenting was deep and telling and she is so technically good that everything lined up perfectly even when she was playing at double the speed of the orchestra, which generated an excitement all of its own in the Furiant-based third movement.
The trouble is, all that brio wasn’t matched by the orchestra, which continued at the same restrained quality. Obviously, a certain level of restraint is required when playing a violin concerto in the Royal Albert Hall – it can be hard for the soloist to make themselves heard over an orchestra which has pulled all the stops out – but the result felt like a considerable disconnection in the interpretation desired by each of the two protagonists.
Throughout, Nelsons was hyper-concentrated, hunched over the podium, flicking his gaze between the score and whichever section of the orchestra he felt needed direction. Surely, I thought, in Sibelius’ Second Symphony, he would loosen it up and give his players their head? After all, whichever of the many ways you want to interpret this symphony – the grandeur of the Finnish landscapes, a hymn to Independence, a struggle with Death in a gothic castle (as described by Sibelius himself), or the driving forward of Beethoven’s symphonic form – the one thing it should certainly contain is passion.
The answer was yes, but really only at the very end of the piece. The opening six note motif was potent, the following dance line contrasted nicely, but there was little development as the movement progressed: the accenting didn’t deepen, the dance rhythm failed to become more urgent. In the second movement, the quality of the pizzicato was awesome; the woodwinds bright and clear, the pairs of instruments fusing into one. But it didn’t stop me losing focus. Finally, Nelsons allowed the trumpets and trombones to let rip. It was too late for me.
This was wonderful music played by wonderful musicians. But it felt like an opportunity missed.
