Wednesday 13 February at the Barbican, London:

London Symphony Orchestra
Mstislav Rostropovich - cello
London Voices
Ryusuke Numajiri - conductor

Saint-Saens - Cello Concerto no.1
Tchaikovsky - Rococo Variations
Gubaidulina - The Canticle of the Sun

A very enjoyable concert, and the pleasure heightened by the opportunity
to meet listmember Jim Tobin and his wife Jean for a meal beforehand and at
the interval.  Unfortunately they had to leave promptly to get a train back
to Canterbury followed by an early-morning flight back to the USA, so we
didn't get a chance to compare notes about the Gubaidulina piece.

Numajiri and Rostropovich took the packed audience by surprise, launching
into the Saint-Saens almost as soon as they arrived on the platform.  Jim
and I agreed we'd never experienced a quicker start.  My seat was in the
second row, about three seats left of centre, so I had a superb view of
Rostropovich - unfortunately I know next to nothing about cello playing, so
a good opportunity for a masterclass in the instrument was rather wasted on
me.  I watched his face more than his hands, and I was constantly struck by
the intensity with which he seemed to live every moment of the music - not
just his own part, but all of it.  He knows the orchestra very well as a
conductor, and there was a lot of light-touched and flexible interplay
between them.  Numajiri proved a sensitive and subtle accompanist - despite
frequent eye-contact between soloist and front-desk violinists, there was
no sense that the orchestra were really following Rostropovich rather than
the conductor.  I haven't come across Numajiri before, but I expect I will
again.  Both the first-half pieces were splendidly played and worth the
ticket price by themselves, but I was mainly there for the second half.
The orchestra (or all but three of them) got to go to the pub early, and
the stage was re-set with the 24 members of London Voices in two straight
lines across the back, one percussion soloist on the left (timps, marimba,
other mallet instruments big and small, tam-tam, and a set of water-tuned
wine glasses), another percussionist on the right (more mallet instruments,
suspended rectangular metal sheets, two sets of tubular bells and more wine
glasses).  Next to him, the LSO's keyboard specialist with a celesta and
another set of tubular bells.  And right in front of me, the extraordinary
sight of Rostropovich with not only his cello, but a massive bass drum, a
gong, and a percussionist's tray full of beaters and a flexatone.  This was
obviously going to be quite an experience!

The music turned out to be less hard-edged and "masculine" than I had
expected.  Much of it is very quiet, and Gubaidulina's programme note
describes the choral writing as "very restrained, even secretive".
There is very imaginative and effective writing for bell-like sounds from
percussion, coupled with the sounds from the percussionist's fingers on the
wine glass rims.  At one point we had the unusual sight of the conductor
leaving his podium to page-turn for Rostropovich.  The pivotal section of
the piece requires the cellist gradually to de-tune his lowest string so
that his music descends to the lowest possible pitch, where the instrument
ceases to work properly.  He treats it as an almost unpitched percussion
instrument, using a small hard beater on the strings and bridge, and below
the bridge.  Then he puts the cello down altogether and turns to using a
"friction beater" on the bass drum - the effect is similar to the "thumb
roll" on a tambourine - moving the beater over the drum head produces a
continuous legato but more or less unpitched sound - and Rostropovich
produced extraordinary and fascinating sounds from his drum.  Near the end
of this section, the cellist plays upward glissandi by using a double-bass
bow on a flexatone, and this reintroduces the choir for the final sections
of St.Francis of Assissi's canticle - Glorification of Life, and
Glorification of Death.  In the first of these, the cellist has a long and
very beautiful cantilena passage reminiscent of some of Shostakovich's
writing for cello; in the second he reverses the earlier descent by moving
right to the top of the instrument and very high harmonics as the piece
ends.

It's a quiet, intense piece - dramatic but not showy.  It reminded me of
Russian Orthodox chant, of bits of late Shostakovich, of some of MacMillan,
even of Britten (although an earlier conversation with the Tobins had put
him into my mind).  It shows a composer utterly confident of her voice.  I
couldn't honestly say that I liked every moment of it at first hearing, or
that everyone who doesn't care for late twentieth-century music would find
things to enjoy in it.  But if I had a friend like that and wanted to take
him/her to a concert to show the best side of contemporary music, "The
Canticle of the Sun" wouldn't be a bad choice.  It deserves a recording,
and I hope it gets one soon.

Sofia Gubaidulina was in the audience and came on stage at the end.  She
won a rapturous response from the very happy audience.

Ian Crisp
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