For whoever that might be interested...
THE STRAITS TIMES
SINGAPORE
JUN 5 1999
Beethoven violin gets new tweak
CLASSICAL MUSIC
By LIONEL CHOI
SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Shui Lan, conductor
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday
REACTIONS to renowned German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter's bold account
of Beethoven's magisterial Violin Concerto In D, Op 61 would depend on
how far one accepts her liberal, modern reworking of the early
19th-century warhorse.
Since emerging from those early Karajan days, Mutter has established
a no-nonsense image as a thinking, highly-individual virtuoso with an
unshakeable determination to find her own distinctive voice amid a
large pool of talented but faceless carbon copies.
Again, depending on one's interpretative stance, her gallant risk-taking
and apparent insistence on challenging convention at almost every
imaginable place in the score on Thursday evening could prove to be
either wilful and irksome or infinitely gratifying.
There was never any doubt as to her exceptional technical gifts
throughout her provocative reading: How many violinists can actually
claim to be able to despatch Kreisler's fiendish first-movement cadenza
with as much nerve?
Her tonal palette and dynamic range were enormously wide, swinging
unpredictably from rapt, seductive half-tones to raging fortissimos,
and from exaggeratedly wide vibrato to naked, disquieting leanness.
While less competent violinists tend to snatch phrase-endings, Mutter,
on the other hand, almost always allowed each phrase to linger just a
little past the bar line. Portamentos were applied liberally, gear
shifts incredibly frequent.
Yet, however paradoxical this may sound, this was clearly intriguing
music-making of tremendous power, sensitivity and soulful intensity,
and indeed, only a truly great artist with such flaming conviction
could thrill and stimulate while vexing common expectations at the
same time.
Aided in no small way by fastidiously sympathetic and texturally rich
orchestral accompaniment, the monumental first movement was one of
great spaciousness, majesty and dignity.
Far from sounding like a sweet resting spot, the Larghetto, taken at
a very slow, other-worldly pace, had an unusually grave, almost deathly
pallor.
In particular, Mutter's semi-detached, vibratoless opening entry was
chilling rather than beautiful.
The irresistibly exultant sonata-rondo finale skipped along much faster
than usual. As a result, the contrasting episodes flowed with more
natural ease and flair, and the robust energy kept spirits high and
buoyant and the flow uninterrupted despite Mutter's sporadic lapses
into distracting indulgence.
The final cadenza was rushed through with thrilling exuberance, and
the return of the jolly refrain curiously somnambulistic before rising
to a glorious crescendo finish.
Whatever the controversies, this unremittingly personal performance
was still far more interesting than what Shui Lan had to offer in
the rest of the evening's programme.
Webern's Six Pieces, Op 6 were given comparatively dry, academic
readings, while the schmaltzy treatment of Mahler's textually dubious
Adagio from his unfinished Tenth Symphony made much of the vast and
sugar-coated themes though failing to obscure the fragmentary nature
of the ailing composer's disparate ideas.
Lionel Choi
Singapore
http://www.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/dummies.html
|