The flurry of fanfares at the start of Magnus Lindberg’s Al largo (UK premiere) sounded almost Waltonian. Or maybe that was because the prospect of Osmo Vänskä in Walton’s First Symphony was such an enticing one that premonitions of its highly distinctive sound-world were already being suggested in the somewhat predictable pyrotechnics of the Lindberg. Lindberg is a great showman and an accomplished technician, but against Walton’s startling originality (circa 1935) he sounded, well, old hat - like a man rapidly losing his edge.
Al largo (meaning offshore) is, not surprisingly, oceanic in feeling; a brilliant, light-catching surface set against deep and slow-moving undercurrents suggested quite near the start in some vivid writing for cellos, basses and the lower registers of piano and tuba. We skim the surface whilst contemplating the depth of what lies beneath. There’s a moment that sounds suspiciously like a quotation from Ravel’s Mother Goose ballet – an allusion, perhaps (conscious or otherwise), to the sea as some kind of enchanted garden. But as we move further from the shore, as it were, the vastness of our surroundings takes on a highly Sibelian reach and density in the strings. We become lost in the sonority. That’s not surprising – composer and conductor are both Finnish and readily defer to his sonic and emotional pull.
So did Walton in the starkly elemental opening pages of his First Symphony – and how interesting (and this is a point surely not lost on Vänskä) that Walton, too, drives an impulsive first movement over deep, long-held pedal notes. There’s even the coincidence of the curious oboe oration from the Lindberg finding a kinship in the opening solo of the Walton. But there the comparisons end – and if there’s one thing that Vänskä and the London Philharmonic Orchestra demonstrated in this hugely demanding programme it was the unorthodox colour mixes and highly original tinta of Walton’s sound-world. Vänskä was visibly intrigued by them and watching him balance bassoon and violas in the first movement or those hothouse harmonies in the third more than suggested the excitement of a new discovery for him.
It felt fresh – or rather bracing. Temperamentally speaking, this piece always had Vänskä’s name on it. Bringing it to the boil, which he did repeatedly, was sport for him. The whole thing bristled with nervy anticipation, the big climactic saturations of sound spilling over like great exhalations of breath. It was always on the move, even in repose, and the devilish scherzo – all sneering horns and combustible timpani – sounded as much a self-portrait of the conductor as the young firebrand composer.
Occupying the middle ground between these two seismic orchestral edifices was the diminutive figure of London Music Masters Artist 2009-2012, Agata Szymczewska. She gave us a very poised and brilliant account of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto but one which seemed slightly at odds with the size and amplitude of the orchestra Vänskä had assembled before him. These things are so subjective, of course, but at the heart of why this performance ultimately did so little for me seemed to tie in with Szymczewska’s inclination towards the reflective and melancholic – and chaste.
The second theme of the first movement was unquestionably very lovely in a fragile sort of way but so reflective and eventually so slow as to sound less like a departure than a separate movement. The first movement is after all marked molto appassionato and one must surely never lose that underlying pulse of ardour. A more expansive position might be taken in the slow movement but should it sound quite so sad? My preference is for songful, but each to his own. At least the woodland sprites came out to play in the finale and Szymczewska’s finger-work was astonishingly nimble and true.
It was Walton’s night, though. Good to know his First Symphony now has an exciting new advocate abroad. What a fabulous piece it is.
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- Other Osmo Vänska concerts reviewed on theartsdesk
