Barenboim nails the Proms: Elgar, Citizen of the World

Two giants of British music - Edward Elgar and Harrison Birtwistle with Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin, Prom 4 Royal Albert Hall.  Barenboim's Elgar credentials go back decades to the early years of his marriage to Jacqueline du Pré, when they made exciting music together with the trendiest young crowd in the business at the time. Over the years Barenboim's approach to Elgar has matured, becoming more magisterial and more elegant.  Though Elgar was thoroughly English, he was not a "Little Englander". Though celebrated by the Establishment., he wasn't born to the Establishment but made his own way. In his day, there was  integration between British and European music. Elgar was a citizen of the world well aware of what was happening around him.  

Thus Barenboim's sophisticated, cosmopolitan Elgar Symphony no 2 in E flat major, where the "Spirit of Delight" flowed with graceful confidence, truly "nobilimente".  each theme suggesting open vistas and expansive horizons.  There are hints of the kind of music one might associate with celebration - holidays at spas, gala occasions, even the Proms of Sir Henry Wood. But the mood changes. Celli and basses introduce a darker mood.  The themes return, but more urgent, descending into haunted quietude. When the expansive tutti return, they seem defiant, rushing towards frantic climax. Speaking like a poet, Elgar said that this was "a sort of malign influence wandering through a summer night in a garden".   The themes in the Larghetto were stretched,just enough to emphasize the idea of fragility, of holding onto something elusive.  "Rarely. rarely comest Thou, O Spirit of Delight" ...... "Wherefore hast thou left me now/ Many a day and night?  Far less funeral march than personal and deeply felt nostalgia for something inevitably slipping away.  

Thus the wildness of the Rondo, swirling cross-currents, cut off mid flow in a short,  sharp climax. .   Elgar wrote, enigmatically, "Venice and Tintagel" , referring possibly to pleasant times he'd enjoyed in the past, both places being popular with turn of the century travellers. There are even hints of tea dance music and jazz.  Think Thomas Mann Death in Venice, though Elgar got there first., completing the symphony before the novella was published. In the circulating themes and sense of constant movement, perhaps we can imagine the idea of throngs of tourists, each on individual voyages, which will inevitably come to an end. The bustle and wild, whipping lines with which the movement ends certainly suggest hurried departure.   Elgar and his peers weren't to know that the era of European expansion was soon to end, but we cannot blank out our awareness of the war and what followed. Nor should we : music isn't just ink on paper.  Art engages the soul.  Thus the final movement, the  Moderato e Maestoso,  seemed to glow, the last chords fading slowly, like dying embers.  Dignified and very moving.  

At Prom 2 the previous evening, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin had performed Elgar Symphony no. 1 in A flat major (1908) together with Sibelius Violin Concerto (1904) with soloist Lisa Bathiashvili. Two works by almost contemporary composers, written within a similar period.  Interesting combination, but not nearly so intriguing as Prom 4 pairing Elgar Symphony no 2 (1910) with Harrison Birtwistle's Deep Time (2017).  Since that's an important new work, it deserves a piece all on its own, which I've written about here.  

But one more observation on Elgar the European.  For their encore on Saturday, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin launched into the famous Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March no 1.  Brilliant wit !  That piece has become hackneyed in the popular mind, having been associated with jingoism, flag waving and Last Night of the Proms silliness.  Which is ironic since pomposity is not a good thing.  "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"  Othello is in agony, having been tricked by Iago into doubting Desdemona.  His past victories and the status he won through war have come to naught. He'll end up losing everything. Because he's listened to a fraudster!   It was wonderful to hear the piece played as serious music and as a proper concert work. Refined and stylish, yet also beaming with good humour. How many in the audience "got it" I wonder ?

Fidelio live from La Scala Milan Barenboim

Eagerly awaiting live broadcast of Beethoven Fidelio from la Scala Milan... My Full REVIEW IS HERE.Klaus Florian Vogt, Anja Kempe, Peter Mattei, Falk Struckmann, Kwangchul Youn and of course Daniel Barenboim

EXCEPTIONAL performance!  Electrtifying, vivid, alert. Fantastic ensemble work, executed with such precision and conviction. Wonderful singing and playing. If this doesn't get onto DVD/CD it would be a loss to civilization. The sound quality on BR klassik was crystal clear, adding hugely to immediacy of the performance. Illegal uploads already on the usual channels but nowhere like the professionalism of BR klassik.

Some people don't like Fidelio, much in the way some do not like Zauberflõte. but Barenboim shows how the First Act of Fidelio connects to other German music theatre traditions of the time and shortly thereafter. Each sequence is neatly defined, building up to a unified whole, as strong in its own way as the action-packed second act.  Klaus Florian Vogt is perfect - nice, warm sounding and "human" which is so important to the meaning of the work. After the pounding, malevolent introduction to Act 2 his voice enters "How dark it is in here".  Simple words, but Vogt's voice expresses wonder and horror so great that you can feel the physical presence of the darkness and the magnitude of Florestan's imprisonment. Then, when he sings "Angel, Leonore, my angel"  you can visualize the apparition rising before him: a miracle has happened.  Anja Kempe's wonderfully wild and athletic; ideal for the part. Leonore is a heroine who defies convention, yet is a real woman not a goddess, nor an ideological reconstruct of a man. Have there been many like her in the arts since Greek times?

A particularly good set of ensemble pieces, where everyone is firing together and interacting. .Florian Hoffmann and Mojca Erdmann turn Jacquino and Marzelline into strong figures. The trio with Kwangchul Youn's Rocco is superb. What a wonderful set of gentlemen (and baddies) with Kwangchul Youn, Falk Struckmann's Don Pizarro, Peter Mattei's Don Fernando,  A trio of Wagnerian proportions, another insight on the part of whoever cast this production. and the choruses, together to a man, drilled to almost military discipline. There's hope when the proletariat sticks together !

And what playing Barenboim gets from the Teatro alla Scala orchestra!  Tension, intensity and ecstatic release racheted up so high that I had to hold my breath or burst, emotionally. The audience must have felt the same way, exploding with bravi! as if their hearts could hold out no more.  So much for the silly notion that instant applause is bad.These bravi were heartfelt and much more genuine than the fake silences after performances that are now in fashion. One of the most horrible perfomances I've ever heard  was followed by a long, pretentious silence, an inept conductor striving for effect. Sincerity is what counts, not what other people think.  This must have been one of the finest moments in Barenboim's conducting career, when everything came together perfectly. His heart must have been bursting too. Applause absolutely deserved.