A little less conversation: Abrahamsen and Sibelius with LSO
let me tell you and Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony
Barbara Hannigan, Simon Rattle and London Symphony Orchestra
Barbican Hall
Circle D46, £5
9 January 2019
Barbican page
As a way presumably of attracting new audiences, the LSO’s idea of an hour-long, no-interval preprandial concert in their ‘half-six fix’ series is I think a sound one. Whether it achieves that goal or not I couldn’t surmise, but selfishly speaking as a regular attendee I could nevertheless enjoy the different programming opportunities offered by the new format, and the opportunity to eat before 11pm.
I’m more sceptical, though, about the other measures taken to change up the norm, which from my perspective detract from the experience and decisively position the initiative as ‘not for people like me’. That’s not too bad if these steps really work for those elusive new audiences – but could they?
LSO has invested in two enormous screens, positioned half-way up the panels on either side of the stage, and some very sweet remote-operated cameras that swizzle daintily. This infrastructure offers a TV-like experience, offering close-ups of the horns when there’s a horny bit, of the violas when there’s a viola-y bit, somewhat ludicrously of the percussion in a percussiony bit. Personally I find it distracting and annoyingly didactic – listen to this bit, now to this bit, when I would prefer to let my own mind choose. For newcomers, does this help or hinder?
The same effect is had by the well-meant but – sorry, Sir Simon – ghastly introductions delivered by the conductor. With 52 minutes of programmed music we had a good 20 minutes of introductory spiel, which is not the right ratio. Had Sir Simon limited himself to factual context delivered in a concise way that might possibly have been acceptable; but instead we had meandering, hesitant, off-the-cuff waffle that largely consisted of instruction in how we should be feeling when the music was playing. What use does this serve? Is it instructive ever to tell people how they should think about art? National treasure or no, someone needs to turn him off.
Well. Finally to the music. Despite being told by Rattle and numerous others that Abahamsen’s let me tell you is a masterpiece, it’s never quite done it for me and this time was no different. That said, there’s no denying that it is extremely pretty, particularly in the bell-like fifth movement and the perpetual descent of the finale. My expectations for Barbara Hannigan, always ridiculously high and made even more so following her stunning performances in Lessons in Love and Violence, were this time obviously too high; she didn’t start notes on the money tonally, often aiming a bit low before warming up, and her diction was almost completely inaudible. Probably I should finally cut her some slack.
Sibelius is another composer who’s never really got me going, again despite desperate deplorations from all sides – but this time I got a glimpse of what I’ve been missing. The dreamlike texture of the Seventh Symphony, thickly dispersed throughout the orchestra, punctured by the trombone melodies like shafts of light had me shivering all over, ditto the morass-like, hall-of-mirrors shifting between tempos. An extraordinary piece, distilled by Rattle and the LSO as a heady Morphian draught. Rattle should stick to his admirable strengths.
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