Wigmore Hall : Monday 27th February

Bernarda Fink & Rodolfo Richter: Academy of Ancient Music

The Italian Baroque:  

Veracini Overture in G minor; Merula Aria: Hor ch’è tempo di dormire; Vivaldi Concerto in E for violin RV271 ‘L’amoroso’, Aria: Sovvente il sole from Andromeda liberate, Concerto in D for violin RV234 ‘L’inquietudine’; Albinoni Concerto in C Op. 9 No. 9; Ferrandini Cantata: Il pianto di Maria. Academy of Ancient Music. Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano. Rodolfo Richter, director, violin.

This year has proved to be some year for Argentina. When Argentinean mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink sang this unusual programme of Italian baroque works with the Academy of Ancient Music (led by violinist Rodolfo Richter) neither she nor we yet knew we would have a new pope from her new world. The performances were a fusion of her new world, Italian and baroque.  Voices – their tone- usually brings an association of words to one’s mind. Fink brings to mine: satin; honey; and golden oloroso.  I really want to start this review at the end of the concert.

Il Pianto di Maria is an eight movement cantata on a text which combines the gospel scenes of Mary at the foot of the cross – notably the accounts of St John and St Luke –  and the medieval prayer-poem Stabat Mater which dramatises, eulogises and celebrates the almost unimaginable agony of a mother at the foot of the cross watching her dying son. Whether or not you believe in Jesus this is a moment of world literature: it explores the profoundest human emotions any of us might imagine to know or experience in our life. It was thought to be by Handel – though hearing it I cannot think why. It is by Giovanni Battisti Ferrandini. Fink offered us her soul in her mouth in what is formidable, compelling, under-recognised masterpiece. It has the theatricality of opera seria contained within the restraints of sacred cantata. Fink’s voice caught every mother’s love for every son from the first pained tortured cry –  “ah ciel!”. We were with her Mary giving soulful sorrowful voice to the tragedy represented by Calvary. The performance was redolent with distress as Fink convincingly explored the rapid changes of emotion: from stoic sobriety to passion; from inconsolable agony to defiance. The final da capo aria had a sober power as Mary reflects for all mankind and for all mothers: “for his death took away, the awareness of his pain.”

The evening had begun in high style on a lighter note with tumbling triplet cascades of Veracini’s Overture. The AAM gave us an immediate notice that this would be a night to remember. The AAA performance was notable for its remarkable instrumental ensemble, its dazzling clarity; its rhythmic agility. Richter’s self-effacing conducting ( I wish there was more of that) ensured ensemble entries were sharp and the tempi precise – seraphic melody to make.

Fink has started with Tarquinio Merula’s idiosyncratic lullaby-chaconne, ‘Hor ch’è tempo di dormire’ which was sung simply and purely…a cradle song with dark undertones which would reflect back later on the closing piece. Fink touchingly enacted Mary’s tender, urgent coaxing, as she tries to lull Jesus to back to sleep. She drew every expressive nuance from the melody. she reserved her deepest register to convey Mary’s anguished premonitions of the sufferings to come – underlined by Elizabeth Kenny’s playing on the theorbo. ‘Sovvente il sole’ from Vivaldi’s serenata Andromeda liberate gave us another melancholy – the lover’s unrequited passion. Vivaldi’s dissonant inflections by the strings allowed which Fink’s pure mezzo tone to rise above. Richter provided a delicate solo violin to intertwined with her long, flowing phrases.

After the interval, the strings were joined by the two oboists for a joyous account of Albinioni’s famous Concerto in C major for two oboes (Op.9 No.9). Arching melodic contours were elegantly shaped by the AAA’s fine wrought musical tracery. It was a performance full of touch, full of grace and we were blessed to share it. Which takes us back to where this review came in – with Mary by the cross her vigil keeping: ‘tremble, man, you too, who are earth!”. It is hard to imagine a more perfect portrayal of a mother’s love, desperate; despairing; determinedly stalwart to the bitter end…than Fink gave us…..

Phaeton – Jean Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully: Phaeton:

Les Talens Lyriques, Namur Chamber Choir, Conductor : Christophe Rousset, Barbican Hall, London

Lully’s score for Phaeton ‘Tragedie en musique’ – it says it all

Lully’s Phaeton is rarely performed. This was to be a great occasion with a great cast. There is a great review in Opera Today with which this reviewer cannot even try to compete largely because despite all its promise I could not last beyond the first half on the concert performance.

Opera from the court of Louis XIV is something of a hybrid: it combines the mask; the ballet and the early operatic baroque form. In its original time it would have been spectacularly staged at court – either in the grande-chambre or in the gardens of Versailles. These were lavish spectacles usually bracketed with firework displays.

To modern tastes, before we start on Lully himself, this style of French court opera is most particular: its libretti are full of self conscious classical allusions; the music is mannered and rarely strays from the well established rhythms faster; then slower dance motifs of court; the subjects are safely classical; the characters declame; their emotions are staid; the action almost inaction it is so static. This is a narcissistic, high-bow, court entertainment taken to the most mannered extreme: simultaneously, elevating and enervating. It is art as hard work and I suspect it was pretty much hard work when first it was composed.

Phaeton: cast – taking a well earned bow at Barbican Hall

Lully was master of the Universe in Louis’s court. He was the king’s favourite and he carefully squeezed others like Charpentier: Rameau and later Lalande out of the limelight. All these composers wrote wonderful occasional orchestral pieces. Charpentier and Lalande composed some truly great music for the royal chapel. Rameau wrote brilliantly for the chamber both larger and smaller forces. Lully was the least talented of them and therefore the most conventional in composition. Can any man or woman honestly sit through the prologue of Phaeton with its extended paen to the Sun King without nodding off to sleep? My companion bolted from the auditorium after Act I. I lasted through to the end of Act II but I could face no more. I did care about the story; the characters and eventually the repetitive structure of the music overwhelms any originality in the composition.

This is lesser art of the pretentious worthy –  conceived of as superior entertainment for the refined tastes of the intellectually superior. It pretends to be significant but in fact it is boringly obsequious. If one judges men by their taste in music then Louis XIV must have been a dull companion. Certainly if Lully’s Phaeton was his favourite opera one can understand how it was the king came to relish the improving company of Madame de Maintenon. Even the long candlelit evenings of prayer with his Catholic mistress would have been light relief by comparison with the longueur of this long opera.