For a split second at the end of Frank Bridge’s five-minute Lament (in memory of Catherine Crompton, one of the youngest casualties of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915), it looked as though Joshua Bell, directing the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, had wanted to emulate what two other conductors had done on preceding evenings. Eliding from one work to the next in an example of musical legerdemain not only helps to make sense of stylistic or thematic connections; it also has the beneficial effect of silencing those who feel compelled to manipulate their hands the moment they espy a break in proceedings. Irritatingly, Bell’s bow hung a touch too long in mid-air and he was unable to give the downbeat for the start of Beethoven’s B flat major symphony before premature applause broke in.
In any case, this intended transition might not have worked. The Bridge miniature for strings finally comes to rest in the major mode in a state of repose, whereas Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony tiptoes its way through shifting aspects of minor tonality. Not so very long ago the Academy had a reputation for suave and civilised string playing. This Beethoven, however, was more of the street-fighting and barricades variety. Hard-edged and brightly lit, with over-emphatic timpani often highlighting martial elements, the muscular strings tended to dominate the many exchanges with the woodwind. Fair enough, you could say, since Beethoven is the revolutionary composer par excellence. But narrowing the focus in this way, and ignoring Schumann’s tag of it being “a slender Greek maiden” (contrasted with “the two Norse giants” that frame it), inevitably produces a somewhat one-sided and monochrome view of a work which offers a great deal of classical elegance (Haydn is never that far away) and, yes, wit too!
After a ruminative rather than mysterious introduction, the Allegro section was swiftly launched, the contributions from the wind sounding like raindrops splashing against window-panes rather than making much of an impression. In the outer movements there was plenty of vigour, but after a while the slightly mechanistic approach began to pall. Given the right amount of air around the textures this symphony can breathe deeply and engender a feeling of quasi-euphoria in the listener. There were glimpses of this in the slow movement where Bell respected the Adagio marking and lightened the textures with judicious dynamic shadings. A shame though that towards the end of the scherzo he wasn’t alive to the delicious shivers of sound the strings are capable of delivering in their dialogue with the wind and their light skipping figurations sounded merely perfunctory.