H K Gruber (credit: Johnny Volcano) |
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When a concert beginning at 10 p.m. is subtitled 'a night of musical
subversion', the audience has every right to recoil in its seats.
Thankfully H K Gruber ensured this was a concept to embrace gladly rather
than struggle with, as he led us through a programme of extraordinary
emotional range.
The centrepiece was his musical calling card, Frankenstein!!. Fully
deserving of the extra exclamation mark, it is subtitled a 'musical
pan-demonium' - not a pretentious description in any sense, as it cannot
properly be described in any other way.
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Gruber was the exuberant soloist, billed as 'baritone chansonnier'. But
in reality that was only half the story, as he employed a vast array of
musical props and hand gestures to tell his tale. His vocal asides were
extremely funny, the incredibly low 'monsterlet dancing round our house' a
comic treat, while the little mouse, the little rat and Frankenstein were
given appropriate shrieks, catty asides and an unexpectedly rich
baritone.
The settings of H.C. Artmann's verse also included endearing,
nonsensical poems about Bond, Batman and Superman, and were dressed in
orchestration that ranged from the exquisite to the downright ridiculous – and hugely enjoyable at that. Rarely has a classical piece been able to
make the audience laugh so much!
Ideal music for children, although even the most hardy would have been
tucked up in bed by the end. Still, there was an appreciative gaggle of
Prommers for the BBC SO's percussionist to throw his exploded paper bags
at, and later to marvel at the talents of several orchestra members
wielding hosepipes above their heads.
By complete contrast, the UK premiere of Gruber's Hidden Agenda
was a far more serious affair, coming just two days after its world
premiere with the same forces in Lucerne. Scored for large orchestra and
conducted by Gruber from what looked like a huge map, the music was richly
Romantic in a manner recalling Berg or early Schoenberg (and ultimately
Mahler). And though distinctive melodic material was hard to grasp the
textures were skilfully manipulated. As in Frankenstein!!, Gruber
seemed overjoyed with the performance - a concert opener of similar
proportions to Webern's Passacaglia, if not quite so structurally
convincing.
The Gruber sandwich framed a brief, altogether darker section of
settings by Bertolt Brecht, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the poet's
death. Death was a primary subject in the chosen settings by Kurt Weill and
Hanns Eisler, with Gruber and the BBC Singers throwing themselves into the
texts with vigour. Eisler's bleak setting of Liturgie vom Hauch was
a stark contrast to Weill's relatively tender setting of Kiddush, which
featured tenor Daniel Norman's impassioned vocal. The warmth with
which the BBC Singers sang the canonic verse was most affecting, though the
inevitable problem of balance reared its head with Norman, the singers and
the sonorous Albert Hall organ.
In a sense it was a shame these more than pertinent texts were
overshadowed by the zany Gruber, but it would be a real killjoy that denied
him centre stage after such a performance. Most people left with a smile or
a laugh - the evening of musical subversion suddenly less daunting than it
first appeared.
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