Full disclosure: ahead of this concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment I marvelled at its audacity in programming a series of lush Romantic works. But then, as it points out on its website, the OAE is all about throwing out the rulebook and refusing to restrict itself to the repertoire of a particular era.
The big test, with the iconoclastic conductor Maxim Emelyanychev in charge, was always going to be the Symphony no. 5 in E flat major by Sibelius. We know from the first recordings made in the early 1930s by Robert Kajanus and Georg Schnéevoigt what kind of sound the composer almost certainly had in his head. It was not the sound of the OAE. However, if Sir Thomas Beecham could seriously inflate the world of Handel’s Messiah, why not descale a big Romantic symphony?
As this Fifth Symphony got under way, I found myself wondering whether Emelyanychev had been unduly influenced by the date of its premiere, the composer’s own 50th birthday, on 8th December 1915, in the middle of what became known as The Great War. This was the most warlike first movement I think I have ever heard, with a restless quality to the playing, the staccato wind emphasising the unease, the principal bassoon producing at one stage an outcry of migraine-induced pain, the strings in the central climax completely obliterated by the full fury of brass and timpani. After that, no sense of repose: demons and malign spirits seemed to be lurking behind every melodic line. This was menacing Sibelius with a vengeance.
A slight hint of impatience characterised the central Andante, the landscape dotted with thorn-bushes, the trombones an ever-growling presence. This kind of overt radicalism precludes majesty: the swan theme in the Finale was hurried along, with no emotional release as the coda drew close. It all made for challenging listening, the excellent playing notwithstanding. But as the OAE points out, it likes to do things differently.
The start of this concert had witnessed a fireball of energy in the Glinka overture, the woodwinds sounding very French in its piquancy, the timpani discharging massive and repeated salvoes.
Rachmaninov’s symphonic poem The Rock is dedicated to Rimsky-Korsakov, and here Emelyanychev made the connections between the two composers abundantly clear. With the six double basses serried along the back of the platform on the highest risers, heavy brooding was present from the outset, the gloom reinforced by muted horns, repeated shivers from the upper strings providing a perfect lead-in for the stormy central passage. Emelyanychev made the climax appear almost Mahlerian, with howling horns, shrieking woodwind and the ever-ominous timpani.
Orchestral colour was the focus of interest in the four extracts that make up Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite no. 1. The opening Morning Mood can sometimes be made to sound preternaturally calm and still. By contrast, Emelyanychev found quite a few ripples on the surface of the lake, with the prospect of capricious capers in the day ahead. He achieved a very soft, chamber-like quality to The Death of Åse, beginning in hushed tones and fading to a whisper. His elegant, always expressive hands communicated the gentle swaying of a maiden in Anitra’s Dance, the antiphonal violins providing a steady underscoring of rhythm. Not surprisingly, he unleashed a tornado of sound at the close of In the Hall of the Mountain King.
Some concerts play it safe, producing a blandness lacking in energy and surprise. I’m not persuaded by the way the OAE chooses to view the Romantic era, but I defend its right to do so.
