Andre Previn, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yuri Bashmet, LSO
Barbican Hall, 7.30pm, 19 February 2012
Politically things may have cooled, but in the world of classical music the transatlantic “special relationship” is still alive and flourishing. Following closely on the polished heels and glossy tail-coats of last week’s New York Philharmonic’s residency comes a visit from legendary octogenarian pianist and conductor Andre Previn, rejoining the London Symphony Orchestra for an all-American programme of 20th century music.
Previn may have left the position of Principal Conductor at the LSO some decades ago, but his visits have been so frequent that London audiences have scarcely had cause to mourn. Judging by the conductor’s increasingly frail and effortful journeys to the podium however it’s a collaboration that we should enjoy while we still have the chance – a sentiment clearly shared by the Barbican crowd, warm with enthusiasm for Previn.
The concert’s centrepiece was the European premiere of Previn’s own Concerto for Violin and Viola, which saw the LSO joined by the work’s dedicatees, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter (also for a time Previn’s fifth wife) and violist Yuri Bashmet. Following in the tradition set by Previn’s earlier compositions it’s a polyglot creature, conservative in its harmonic language but borrowing freely from many different tonal traditions.
Previn’s longstanding relationship with film-music prompts inevitable comparisons with Korngold, but there’s an elegiac wistfulness to this particular concerto that speaks more loudly of Walton and Howells (the viola’s opening gambit especially), their English voices in dialogue with jazz-inflected moments of Ravel and pure Americana. It’s a modest concerto – less than 20 minutes of music, treating its two soloists texturally and often in duet.
Last night it was a pairing that worked rather better for Mutter, whose lines were unusually charged with emotion, largely obliterating the under-projected, poorly-tuned and non-committal mutterings of Bashmet. A capricious musician, Bashmet may be unbeatable on form, but his moody inconsistency is making him ever more of a risk as a soloist.
Aaron Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring in its full orchestral arrangement offered an enticing curtain-raiser, but I wonder how Martha Graham and her company of dancers would have coped with Previn’s tempos which charity might call poised, but often dragged the work’s pulsing syncopations almost to a standstill. Previn’s beat – so precise and clear in both his own music and the Harbison symphony – seemed an unreliable guide for the LSO whose floundering ensemble and wrong entries spoke of general uncertainty. There were hints of Copland’s glowing folk warmth in the slower string passages (and leader Roman Simovic’s solos were a highlight) but with the work slipping in and out of focus these were never quite sustained into anything more substantial.
Although well-known in his native America, John Harbison’s works are rarely heard (and still more rarely discussed) in the UK. An academic by inclination as well as by trade, his continuous five-episode Symphony No. 3 is a good sampler of the composer’s technique – rigorous structural architecture underpinning attractive textural effects. With their programmatic titles – “Disconsolate”, “Nostalgic”, “Militant” – the movements lend themselves to evocation, an approach that works particularly well in second episode “Nostalgic”, where disparate memories stir from each orchestral section – a folk tune from the woodwind, grudging remembrances from the brass – before becoming woven together in a colourful fog over sustained pedal points. “Militant” stages a vibrant fist-fight between tuned percussion and orchestra (with the LSO percussion section redeeming themselves after issues in the Copland), before we cruise into the finale and a huge groove from the brass.
Technical issues aside this was a fascinating concert: an evening’s American holiday that educated as much as it entertained. The pulling-power of the mighty Previn is such that a rather abstruse programme drew a full crowd, and I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping that this most determined ambassador for American music continues to return to the London and the LSO for as long as he is able.
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