Vacuous, trivial, skilfully packaged rhetoric and hot air, lacking all substance. For some people that just about sums up Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. And then there are those who argue that their pieces include some of the most thrilling, virtuosic and emotionally charged music in the entire repertory. As I mused on the audacity of Sir Antonio Pappano in pairing these enfants terribles for his opening concert as Chief Conductor Designate of the London Symphony Orchestra, I wondered which impression at the end of the evening would turn out to be the stronger.
It takes some chutzpah to align your musical writing to a great piece of philosophical discourse, which in turn draws on the teaching of an ancient Persian poet. Yet that is precisely what Strauss does in his tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra. The composition dispenses with traditional aspects of formality and weaves an elaborate tapestry of sound centred on a constant struggle between darkness and light. I had absolutely no complaints about the resplendent playing of the LSO, with many fine instrumental solos and twelve strokes of a real bell sounding midnight (though without a proper organ elsewhere), the opulent strings battling bravely against the constrained and slightly harsh acoustic conditions in the hall.
Nor did Pappano stoop to any vulgarity: if anything, the opening sunrise was shorn of purely virtuosic brilliance and made to sound quite symphonic, the penultimate section Tanzlied conjuring up all the elegance and ambient warmth of a Viennese ballroom. I was struck too by instances where Pappano seemed to be connecting to the world of Wagnerian opera: the deep rumblings of the double basses like something from Das Rheingold and the many quieter lyrical sections echoing Siegfried. Yet even he could not disguise the moments of stasis where the music hangs fire, episodes of shimmering colour and beauty of sound almost becoming an end in themselves. I wanted to be converted but had to turn away unpersuaded from the high priest of this performance.
No complaints either about Alice Sara Ott’s playing in Liszt’s Totentanz, aided by Pappano’s sympathetic accompaniment. It may only take up a quarter of an hour in playing time, but it is full of pianistic and orchestral interest. Unlike Zarathustra, it has a structural coherence through the repetition of the Dies irae theme replete with constant embellishment and ornamentation in well over two dozen variations. But quite apart from Ott’s pounding octaves and the staccato brilliance of her playing, it was the first of the three cadenzas which marked out her sensitivity and refinement. This started slowly and softly in a dream-like reverie, Ott gently brushing the keys and coaxing forth magical sounds, eliding into a wonderfully liquid clarinet at the close. Her exquisitely paced encore, Pärt’s Für Alina, was utterly mesmerising in its simple effects.
Hannah Kendall’s new piece, O Flower of Fire, left little impression. The composer draws on concepts of faith and creation as inspiration, but contrary to expectations there is no statement of affirmation in a blaze of orchestral sound at its conclusion. The work begins and ends softly, with undercurrents of unease rippling through it, a succession of fleeting aural impressions with cells of melodic or rhythmic interest never fully developed, the music inching itself along on the edge of tonality. Strings that sound like swarms of angry bees, with snapping double basses, lots of short and punchy brass chords, rapid and loud harp glissandos, a tambourine smacked quite viciously, growling trombones, and a wah-wah trumpet all produced very little that was floral and nothing that came close to a conflagration.
