~ Author: Scoresby
Monday October 15 2018 – Hearing period instrument orchestras live can be some of the most exciting concerts around. They are a window into how a piece may have been intended to sound, even if a performance will never be exactly how a composer thought about the music. Thus, I was excited when I saw that Sir John Eliot Gardiner would be performing two all Berlioz concerts in Carnegie Hall with his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique – a period orchestra devoted specifically to early romantic repertoire. While there have been many strides towards reviving Baroque performance, this is one of the few ensembles reviving romantic era instruments (the other being the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment). Tonight’s performance was the second of these evenings. To read the review of the first night of the performance, see Ben Weaver’s take here.
Above: Sir John Eliot Gardiner on Sunday Night in Carnegie Hall; Photo Credit: Stephanie Berger
The first half of the program was dedicated to Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14. This was no ordinary performance of this work – Sir Gardiner brought out a completely different side to this piece than I’ve heard before. Part of this was due to the completely different colors from the gut strings and period instruments. The woodwinds (particularly oboes) had a sour, almost sharp tone to them in the lyrical opening. The gut-strings provided a softer, rounder sound to the sweeping introduction. All of the textures were thinner than that of a modern orchestra, emphasizing the brass and winds more. Sir Gardiner’s rendition perhaps eschewed some of the more lyrical passages and instead focused on the frenetic, obsessive energy imbued in the piece. Each outburst of the Idée Fixe Sir Gardiner seemed to make the orchestra sound more manic – the basses and cellos dug in the climactic sequence near the end of the movement.
During the second movement, the harps came onstage and surrounded the conductor’s podium – a unique staging that both created better balance for them on gut strings and had a flair of theatricality to it. Through the waltz, the strings slurred and slid between notes evoking a more grand romantic era. At times the harps seemed to become swallowed in orchestra despite the staging – at least here they could just not get quite loud enough. At the first Idée Fixe that interuprts the waltz, the strings in the background seemed to simmer with energy while the woodwinds played the näive theme. Sir Gardiner played up this contrast and the sour notes of the woodwinds made them seem more forlorn than this theme usually sounds.
The third movement is typically a beautiful pastoral with interchange between an English Horn and offstage Oboe. The period English Horn is so much sadder of an instrument – its bitter sound is nothing like the sweet English Horns of today; it has a bowed shape too. English Horn player Michael Niesemann and offstage oboist Rachel Chaplin did a fabulous job passing melody back and forth in a call and response that seemed to be the perfect blend of sweetness and longing to create nostalgia. Even here though, Sir Gardiner seemed to emphasize the obsessive elements in other lines, the strings primed with tension and never sounding quite at ease. At the end of the movement, the rolling military drums (that foreshadow the next movement’s gallows) had a roaring quality to them. The English Horn particularly dark sounding, Berlioz showing his radical orchestration.
Sir Gardiner, the orchestra, and the period instruments were their best of the night in the 4th and 5th movements. While always exciting, this had to be the most radical interpretation of them I’ve heard. Sir Gardiner continued his taught line of energized conducting. The percussion in this orchestra with a smaller sound really is more visible giving a sinister atmosphere. The cornets, Ophicleides (proto-Tuba with a lot more buzzy of a sound), Trombones, and Trumpets all had a dirtier, less accurate sound. Combined with a booming percussion this really did sound like a march to the gallows.
The Witch’s Sabbath has always been a techicolor sort of work showing of the best of Berlioz’s orchestration. With the original instruments this becomes even more true. The strings in the incisive opening were shivering, the percussive outbursts louder, the sour woodwinds sharper, the bassoons sounding woodier, etc… All of these timbral differences show how radical/on edge the piece really is, particularly with Sir Gardiner’s manic, driving conducting. It is the first time I’ve heard this work live and thought of Berlioz as he is: a truly revolutionary who with this setup sounds edgy even now. Who would have thought the best way to breathe life into an old work would be to perform it with an older style?
After intermission was the far more obscure work titled Lélio, or the Return the Life, Op. 14b, which is a sequel to Symphonie Fantastique. This rarity is almost never played, but Berlioz composed with the idea of pairing the two pieces together as was done this evening. It is an odd piece even for today’s standards for: narrator, orchestra, chorus, tenor, bass-baritone and comprising of a mix of genres including theatre, opera, orchestral music, and lieder. Originally, the narrator was to be staged by himself with the orchestra behind a curtain. To achieve this in Carnegie, artistic director Christopher Bell put a spotlight on the narrator (the incomparable Simon Callow) and dimmed the rest of the hall lights when the narrator was speaking. As needed for the orchestra, the lights onstage would be lifted before being dropped again.
Structurally, Lélio has the narrator giving a monologue (translated to English here) about his life, his views on music, composing, critiquing the orchestra, etc… Each of these monologues leads into the next section of music (though sometimes he continues to speak as the music starts) with as Boulez put it “bottom drawer pieces”. This seemed to be incredibly personal work for Berlioz as the narrator pontificates about the horror of being a radical artist in a traditional environment. While musically less engaging than Symphonie Fantastique, Lélio with this cast was intellectually enjoyable and certainly entertaining. Mr. Callow made the most of all of his lines, making sure that he was an artist bursting with passions and ideas. His manic energy mimicked the Idée Fixe that weaves through both pieces of music. I only wish that Carnegie provided subtitles for Mr. Callow as he was difficult to hear at times.
The entire cast taking a bow after Lélio including: Simon Callow, Gwyneth Wentick, Michael Spyres, Ashley Riches, Christopher Bell, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Nathalie Steinberg taken from a friend's phone
After the narrator sets the scene after waking up from the grisly dream he had (the gallows and the witch’s sabbath at the end of Symphonie Fantastique), he leads into a lieder sung by Tenor Michael Spyers with a fortepiano accompaniment. I had never heard Mr. Spyers before, but his silken voice was perfect for this soft song about a fisherman being lured by a Nymph. His light quality on the top of the voice with incredibly soft dynamics was some of the most interesting singing I’ve heard and was one of the best performances of the evening. After an extended interjection by Mr. Callow about Hamlet, the music leads in the Chorus of the Shades. The orchestra had a dusky sound here and the National Choir of Scotland gave a deathly scary performance of the movement with the percussion’s heartbeat always present. Sir Gardiner built all of the small climaxes into a Verdi like climax before the introspective ending that reminded me of Ives’s 4th Symphony. They managed to take on a completely different tone in Song of the Brigands, sounding as raunchy and earthy as possible all while acting as if in a pack of drunk men. Bass-Baritone Ashley Riches brought a hefty voice, but seemed pitchy at times. It was surprising to see acting like that in a concert setting, but it was a nice touch to liven up the theatricality of the evening.
Another wonderful movement passed with principal harp Gwyneth Wentink in a duet with Mr. Spyers in a song of happiness. This harps almost sound like contemporary mandolins, and Ms. Wentink blended well with the woodwinds creating a sweet atmosphere. Mr. Spyers’s tranquil voice sounded intimate singing lines like “Rest in my arms, rest your sweet head” while capturing the manic energy in others like “The intoxication of love burns too fiercely for us”.
The last two movements were as engaging as the rest: in the Fantasy on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, the orchestration of high woodwinds, harp, and piano gave an ethereal quality to the music while the strings played with mutes that made them shimmer. This evocative orchestration of Ariel’s personality was fun to hear. The Chorus’s lyrics finally let go of the obsessive quality of the music here, “Farewell! Mirdanda, Farewell”. After the climactic ending, the work isn’t quite over just yet. The narrator commends the orchestra on the fact that they are “Coming along marvelously and almost there” in learning the piece before giving one last monologue that leads to the opening of the Symphonie Fantastique – the artist resolving his struggle to write wholly new music. It was a magnificent evening all around, showcasing Berlioz’s own struggle and original thinking with two grandiloquent pieces at the height of Romanticism with an orchestra with unmatched timbre.
- Scoresby