Classical and neoclassical: Hannigan and the LSO in Haydn and Stravinsky

This programme could almost have been devised by the outgoing Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra. Sir Simon Rattle described himself as a “Haydn nut” and the LSO as “one of the best Stravinsky orchestras in the world”. It was, though, the work of LSO Associate Artist and tonight’s conductor Barbara Hannigan, whose first conducting engagement was of Stravinsky’s music. First came an enchanting Pulcinella, the complete ballet score with three solo voices, based on music from Pergolesi and his contemporaries.

Stravinsky treated his 18th-century sources with respect, but not reverence, and the LSO relished playing this music. The orchestration is varied throughout, and often witty (a duet for double bass and trombone – really?). Hannigan often set swift tempi, which did not wrongfoot these players, but which were certainly exhilarating. There were so many accomplished solos it seems invidious to pick anyone out, but leader Ben Gilmore, Principal Oboe Olivier Stankiewicz, and Principal Bassoon Rachel Gough sailed though some tricky assignments in this score. 

Hannigan trusted the players enough actually to stop conducting during the Gavotte, leaving the players to follow each other. The three young vocalists acquitted themselves well, individually and in ensemble. Charles Sy made a vocally cloudy start but soon found the poise and wit in his music. Fleur Barron made the most of her appealing lower register in “Contento forse vivere”, and so did Douglas Williams in the composer’s exaggerated 18th-century word-painting at “dalla profondita”.

Haydn’s Symphony no. 64 in A major brought authentic 18th-century music. "Tempora mutantur" its nickname, is from Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, (Times have changed; and we change with them). The symphony is scored for just two oboes, two horns and strings, so the sort of work left nowadays to authentic instrument smaller groups. But just as opera singers who progress to Romantic roles want to keep their Mozart ones, to retain stylishness, flexibility and tessitura, so major symphony orchestras need to keep in touch with their own musical roots. Without classicism how do you interpret neoclassicism – which virtually begins with Pulcinella?

The LSO were not found wanting in classical style here and neither was their conductor. One might have thought her other main metier was dance rather than song, so balletic was Hannigan's direction, especially in the Minuet and the Presto finale. She even managed to make the unusual Largo sound coherent, despite the hesitations and interruptions to its line. (Musical ‘time’ out of joint – the cause of the Latin nickname, which was Haydn’s own?). Hannigan might have encouraged the horns more in the first movement, since the thrill of their often high-lying parts are such a feature of the texture in this modestly scored piece.

Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements was written in America during World War 2, and has often been linked to those violent times. Hannigan pulled no punches in the arresting opening, and kept the many ostinatos buoyant. The prominent piano (recalling Petrushka) was well balanced within the fast-changing focus on various instrumental groups. The decorous slow movement (recalling Pulcinella), with the harp taking over from the piano, and heavy brass and percussion silenced, was elegiac in feeling. No restraint though in the high horn whoops in the finale’s opening, or hesitations in the complex rhythms, but a growing tension up to the last section, building momentum to the final ‘Hollywood’ chord. Cue some whoops from the audience to match those from the horns.