Garrick Ohlsson (credit: Philip Jones Griffiths)
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With Stravinsky's Rite of Spring now accepted as an annual Proms
fixture there comes the danger of an overfamiliarity with the excesses that
caused such an uproar at its infamous Parisian premiere of 1913. Ivan
Fischer made sure these ructions were not forgotten with a performance
that went right to the heart of Stravinsky's vision of pagan Russia.Take the Dance of the Earth, a furious surge of orchestral power,
as exciting visually as it was aurally. The music fair leapt from the page
in the dance sequences, with Fischer himself almost leaving the podium at
times. Contrast this with a relatively broad opening tempo and an expansive
Dances of Spring, helped by the superlative playing of the Hungarian
wind section.
The final, thrilling sacrificial dance capped an earthy performance,
stripped to the roots, and not the orchestral display piece the ballet has
started to become in the wrong hands.
From the overfamiliar to the barely heard. Dohnányi's symphonic
miniatures opened the program as a past favourite of Sir Henry Wood, here
receiving their first Prom performance for sixty-five years. Fischer took
the fast movements at quite a lick, still taking time to broaden the
improvisatory solos for clarinet and cor anglais in the Rapsodia and
bringing a pleasingly urbane quality to the folksy subject of the Theme and
Variations. The final scurrying Rondo flew by under the skilful fingers of
the Budapest violinists.
The orchestra was joined by pianist Garrick Ohlsson for Bartók's
third concerto, a work whose serenity is an obvious contrast to his two
more percussive outings in the form. Ohlsson's delicacy in the
quasi-religious verse and response of the central Adagio was a highlight,
as was his dialogue with the winds in a sublime close to the first
movement. A slight parting of the ways between piano and orchestra was
noticeable at times early on but may well have been due to the venue rather
than the ensemble, which was spot on in the bright and zestful finale.
The relative paucity of the programme was generously filled out by
Fischer, who having conducted the Rite from memory with great vigour
strode out again to offer an encore for request. His forces took on Brahms'
sixth Hungarian Dance with an infectious swagger, before a string trio of
orchestral members got the carnival into full swing with some traditional
Transylvanian music, one of the horn players showing unsuspected prowess on
the viola!
It was all played with obvious enjoyment, and obvious though it seems to
say it, that's something we could do with seeing more often at the
Proms.
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