Spending a few days in Paris in the second week of April
allowed me to marvel at the wealth and accessibility of the city’s musical
life. On Tuesday April 12 I was able to get a same-day ticket in the afternoon
for Simon Rattle conducting Bruckner’s Eighth and Messiaen’s Couleurs de la Cité Celeste at the
Philharmonie. On Wednesday I could have attended a piano recital by Yundi.
Friday offered a recital by Stephen Kovacevich. Another possibility was an
all-Rachmanimoff program with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Philharmonia
and Boris Berezovsky at the piano. Sadly I had to miss all of these, despite
decent ticket availability (albeit in the higher price brackets) and was only
able to rejoin the fray on Saturday night for Mitsuko Uchida’s recital at the
Théatre des Champs Elyssées. What an extraordinary range of opportunities for a
five-night window! And of course there was much, much else on offer.
Simon Rattle is already developing a strong rapport with the
London Symphony Orchestra, although his contract with the Berlin Philharmonic
does not expire until 2018. Both the Messiaen and the Bruckner were performed
with assurance and precision. The juxtaposition is interesting. The most
obvious resemblance between the two composers is, of course, their deep
religious faith (much more intellectualized in Messiaen’s case than in
Bruckner’s). But from a musical point of view there are more interesting
structural parallels and differences. They both compose in blocks of sound.
Messiaen’s blocks are static, however, whereas Bruckner’s are much more
dynamic. I found that this element of contrast made the start of the Bruckner
symphony particularly effective, as did the contrast between Bruckner’s
prodigious string sections and Messiaen’s scoring exclusively for wind, piano,
and the largest percussion section I’ve seen for a long time.
Messiaen’s Couleurs de
la Cité Celeste requires very precise conducting, to allow the piece’s
articulation and timbres to emerge against its complex rhythms. Rattle and the
LSO were clearly very comfortable with the musical idiom, as of course was
pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (who won the Olivier Messiaen prize in 1973 and
is a dedicated exponent of contemporary music). Orchestra and conductor then
switched styles effortlessly (after a short interval) and delivered a very
memorable performance of Bruckner’s Eighth. Bruckner is not the first composer
that comes to mind where Rattle is concerned and I must admit to having been
underwhelmed by his Ninth (not least because of his insistence on conducting
the reconstructed finale). But here he and the LSO were terrific, combining
chamber-like phrasing with full-on sturm
und drang. The pacing was well-judged, consistent across the four movements
and doing justice both to the depth of the slow movement and the powerful
momentum of the outer movements. My only complaint was an occasional loss of
articulation as elements of the musical fabric were drowned out in some of the
climaxes (most noticeably the principal climax in the slow movement).
At the Théatre des Champs Elyssées a few days later Mitsuko
Uchida offered a program that has seen many outings – the Berg piano sonata,
Schubert’s D899 Impromptus, Mozart’s Rondo K.511, and Schumann’s Piano Sonata
No. 1. Each piece played to a different strength. Her fineness of phrasing and
delicacy were on display in the Berg and the Mozart, particularly effectively
in the Berg where she brought out the subtlety of the harmonies. Uchida is very
closely identified with the Schubert Impromptus and the D899 set were well performed,
albeit without the full expressive range on display in her recordings of the
set. The lyricism of No. 3 emerged very clearly, but there was room for more
drama in No. 1 (although I may be prejudiced from having recently reviewed
Sokolov’s monumental live recording from Warsaw).
