FROM TOKYO WITH LOVE
Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo at Symphony Hall ★★★★
In the autumn of 1993 this orchestra played Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 here. Thirty one years later they did so again, a performance combining passion, melting tenderness and scintillating energy. Their principal conductor Sebastian Weigle had filled the platform with players, a huge string section, five horns, eight basses and percussion so when Rachmaninov demanded power and weight there was plenty on tap and his trademark emphatic ending carried a tremendous wallop. There was delicacy too in the cor anglais’ plaintive solo which leads into the main body of the first movement and the orchestra’s first clarinet played with fluency and notable beauty in the Adagio, that epitome of swooning romanticism. Weigle is a conductor in the German kapellmeister tradition, a minimum of fuss and bother with a maximum of control. This is needed in the symphony’s first movement where a lot of exposition and groundwork – the announcement of the motto theme, the transition into the sonata-form allegro – can sound piecemeal in less capable hands. Here all seemed natural and Rachmaninov’s quick changes of mood, where luscious strings, ample and ripe here, anticipate lush Hollywood movie soundtracks, alternate with biting icy blasts from the steppes. There was menace there and in the ominous undertow of the ‘Dies Irae’ – another Rachmaninov trademark – in the finale. The Adagio is the symphony’s beating heart. Want to know what falling in love feels like? Listen to this.
I was puzzled by the orchestra formation at first with Weigle placing the viola section at the extreme right but it soon became clear with the opening work, the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Japanese composer Akira Ifukube’s 1948 ballet ‘Salome’ based on Oscar Wilde’s play. It’s a colourful work lacking the ferocity and erotic frenzy of Richard Strauss but charming and attractive. It opens beguilingly with flute and an elaborate virtuoso harp flourish then comes the main thematic statement – with the viola section taking the lead. Its exoticism is generalized, Borodin is certainly in the mix, but entertaining.
The violinist Christian Tetzlaff’s performances are always interesting and never routine. His is a questing intelligence, restless, probing and imaginative. In the Beethoven Violin Concerto, which he has now recorded three times each approached freshly, he used a wide range of dynamics, a sensitive whisper here a throaty rasping there, as in the last movement’s brief cadenza. Unlike some fiddlers whose quiet playing lapses into inaudibility Tetzlaff’s sotto voce is, like an actor’s, always well projected. He eschews the dazzling Kreisler first-movement cadenza preferring the one Beethoven composed for his transcription of the violin concerto for piano. It uses timpani, recalling the concerto’s opening and its rougher-hewn character sounds authentic. The Larghetto, perhaps a mite too slow under Weigle, was serenely beautiful and Beethoven’s bucolic finale satisfyingly boisterous.
Norman Stinchcombe