Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra: West Road Concert Hall, Saturday 18 May 2019. Schreker, Shostakovich, Richard Strauss: Martin James Bartlett (Piano)
Two composers who had suffered the brutal restrictions of totalitarian regimes were programmed by Conductor Timothy Redmond and The Cambridge Philharmonic for Saturday night’s concert at West Road; Franz Schreker and Dmitri Shostakovich, victims of the Nazi and Soviet systems respectively.
Franz Schreker, as Tim Redmond pointed out in another of his as-ever illuminating pre-concert talks, had been in his time second only to Richard Strauss as a composer of German opera.
‘Prelude to a Drama’, a concert version of the overture to his own opera ‘Die Gezeichneten’, provided musical illustrations of its narrative, one of love, lust and murder, in some ways analogous to Bizet’s Carmen, ‘but a lot deeper’, as Tim remarked.
The mysterious dream-like opening of the ‘Prelude’ which was succeeded by a sprightly sequence that built to a resonant climax effectively established the pattern of the piece, with quiet melodic passages and their noisy counterparts reflecting the opera’s theme, ‘the contrast between masculine ugliness and feminine beauty’.
Until the 1970s and 80s when an ever-strengthening, and continuing, revival of it got under way, Schreker’s work was more or less lost to sight. His magnificently opulent and luxurious music, admirably illustrated during the talk by Mairi Grewar on the piano, suffered from changing tastes in a newer age, and its being increasingly expensive to produce made an equal contribution to its demise.
But, much more significantly, Schreker was of Jewish ancestry, and the Nazi regime labelling his work ‘degenerate’, branded Schreker ‘a pornographer in music’. His inevitable marginalisation led subsequently to his almost complete oblivion.
Cambridge Philharmonic’s ‘Prelude to a Drama’ was delivered with full-blooded conviction. In some ways it had qualities of the cinema score, reminding one of that other fugitive from the Nazis, Erich Korngold, who went on to produce celebrated Hollywood film music.
Next came Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 2 in F major, premiered in 1957 when the composer, newly freed from the oppressions of the Stalinist Soviet system, was able to write this effervescent composition for his son Maxim’s 19th birthday.
The soloist for the concerto was BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014, Martin James Bartlett, who gave what can only be described as a faultless, virtuosic performance of this challenging piece.
The march-time, military element of the first movement in Bartlett’s hands was a percussive tour de force, followed by an effortless transition into the famous andante, a work of great beauty in its own right.
Those of us who watched Martin’s unforgettable and award-clinching performance of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations 5 years ago remember just what he is capable of. And in this movement once again he worked his magic to cast his spell over the whole concert hall. The performance was unutterably beautiful.
In the final movement with its competing time signature differences for orchestra and piano, and more playful echoes of the first movement’s allusion to the ‘Reveille’ tune, Martin Bartlett’s astounding technique beggared description.
The audience’s shouts for more were rewarded with an encore – the well-known first movement from Schumann’s Kinderszenen, so carefully nuanced that it felt as if one was hearing it for the first time.
After the interval the orchestra performed ‘Ein Heldenleben’ by Richard Strauss, a lovely work whose 6 movements reflect the life of the Romantic hero, the iconic figure traceable from Lord Byron down through the entire Nineteenth Century.
Cambridge Philharmonic did more than justice to its many demands. The wind section perfectly portrayed ‘The Hero’s Adversaries’, described as ‘carpers, ‘insulters’, ‘whiners’ and ‘quibblers’. The Hero’s Companion, Strauss’s wife, Pauline de Ahna in all her moods, was portrayed with impressive sensitivity on solo violin by the orchestra’s new leader, Paula Muldoon, while the orchestra (it really was amazing) almost took the roof off with its ‘Hero at Battle’, before subsiding gently through the ‘Hero’s works of Peace’ to his ‘Retirement’.
Bravo to all involved. It was a memorable evening.
JOHN GILROY
