SYMPHONY CONCERT. 5 September, 2024. At the Cape Town City Hall. CPO conducted by Arjan Tien, soloist Anthony Marwood; Elgar: Violin Concerto in B minor, Op 61; Fagan: Karoo Symphony (1977). DEON IRISH reviews.
This was a somewhat daunting programme for the orchestra, featuring two works making uncompromising demands of them. Confining the concert to just two works was entirely sensible, given the limited available rehearsal time and the demands made by not only the accompaniment of a difficult concerto, but in recreating what was essentially an entirely novel full symphonic score.
My go-to essay on Elgar’s splendid Violin Concerto of 1910 is that of the distinguished author and commentator, Donald Tovey. In 1901, at the age of twenty-six years, he wrote the analytical articles for the programme books for five concerts given by the touring Meiningen Orchestra. They remain classics of their kind.
Rare mastery of style
These early essays were followed by others, published in the years immediately preceding the Second World War and during his time as Professor of Music in the University of Edinburgh. All of these essays display a rare mastery of style, depth of critical penetration and eloquence.
Tovey points out that the Violin Concerto, like the Enigma Variations (and quite probably many of the composer’s other creations) is essentially a character study, as one sees from its dedication (intriguingly, in Spanish) “Aqui está encerrada el alma de … (1910)” (“Here is enshrined the soul of …”)
However curious one might be as to who might be behind this anonymous dedication, it matters not. Tovey asserts that the soul of the music is abundantly portrayed in the music itself, and needs no biographical detail for clarification or validation.
An elusive work
I have heard this concerto performed in this hall on numerous occasions – perhaps none more memorable than that by a young Nigel Kennedy, less than a year before he recorded the work in 1984 in a celebrated reading with Vernon Handley and the LPO. On this occasion, we heard the acclaimed English violinist, Anthony Marwood, who has acquired a degree of local status, having acquired a residence in the Swartland.
Marwood has, of course, every possible credential required on paper for a successful interpreter of this elusive work – down to his MBE and Chair in the Royal Academy of Music. But credentials do not necessarily translate into successful performances, of course.
However, with an accompaniment that was consistently secure if not necessarily as transcendental as one might have liked, Marwood did indeed deliver a superb account of the solo part.
His technical armoury is not merely impressive but seemingly flawless. I do not recall a moment of questionable intonation in the entire performance: the left hand seemingly gliding over the fingerboard with easy fluency, the fingers delivering passage work and multi-stopped chords with unstrained precision; and creating a subtly varied tremolo that brought to mind the Menuhin recording. To those attributes can be added a bowing arm that applies weight and attains dynamic variation without apparent effort.
So much for background qualification and technique. But, for success in this work, there is additionally required and insightful and sensitive musicianship of a type but infrequently encountered – which might explain how relatively few truly satisfying recordings of this work are available.
It is by virtue of this attribute that Marwood joins the relatively small pantheon of violinists who are instinctively attuned to that anonymous spirit, enshrined within the musical fabric of this work.
I have commented before, in reviewing this work, that the architecture of the opening movement – with its six themes announced by the orchestra being then reviewed, discussed, commented on and applied in combination by the soloist in the working out of the movement – is ideally suited to a chamber musician, used to the intimacy and flexibility of realizing just these tasks, albeit within the finely-honed mutual understanding of a small group of co-players. Marwood was, of course, the violinist of the Florestan Trio for some sixteen years.
That approach does, of course, set a particular challenge for the conductor and orchestra – one which, for example, Handley achieved so memorably with the LPO and which, by contrast, disappointed in Rattle’s account with the City of Birmingham. It requires enormous flexibility, superior balancing both between soloist and orchestra and within the orchestra itself and exceptional ensemble.
Heady passages
I think Tien did an extremely good job with ensemble, although I also suspect that Marwood might himself have somewhat curtailed the degree of rhythmic flexibility employed by him, particularly in the opening movement. By way of contrast, the finale romped through its frequently heady passages to the extraordinary cadenza – a sort of concentration of all that has presaged it, both musically and emotionally – with Tien providing a suitably repressed strummed accompaniment. Playing was really exemplary in this movement, as fine an account of it as I can remember.
Internal orchestral balances were not always as finely luminescent as they might have been; the brass at times assuming a little bit too much of the Pomp and Circumstance demeanour, the winds (whilst achieving a lovely cohesiveness in ensemble) not quite excelling in the compelling – particularly for clarinet – solos.
These caveats apart, this was a truly memorable account of a work that is a stern test for any performer, and Marwood can look back on his performance with a great deal of personal satisfaction. Following the Kennedy precedent, perhaps a recording might be in the offing ….
“Karoo Symphony”
The concert concluded with a performance of Gideon Fagan’s “Karoo Symphony”, a work dating from 1977, when the 73-year-old had been some four years retired from his lectureship in composition in the University of Cape Town.
It is a large work in four movements and is full of the influence of his mentor and teacher, Vaughan Williams. In its narrative depiction, it resembles a great deal the symphonic conceptions of Vaughan Williams – although far removed from either the urbane sophistication of the latter’s “London” Symphony or the cow-pat contemplations of the “Pastoral”.
I am not familiar with the work or the score and therefore refrain any critical opinion of the realization of the score. I have no doubt, however, than Tien had given the score his accustomed detailed consideration and that this reading accurately captured the composer’s written requirements.
Taken purely from a listener’s perspective, the symphony proved absorbing and, more particularly given its enthusiastic reception, undoubtedly deserves a more frequent airing. It is unquestionably one of the most significant symphonic creations by a South African composer.
The work is unashamedly depictive, and evocatively so, but with considerable abstract melodic and harmonic interest, too. The orchestration is assured, with some particularly lovely writing for horns and trombones, and vivid depictions of both landscape and weather. On reflection, perhaps there are indeed reflections of his teacher’s “Antarctic” in this composer’s “Karoo”.
What: CPO conducted by Arjan Tien, soloist Anthony Marwood
Reviewer: Deon Irish
WS
