The Philharmonia (live streaming), 26/10/2020

Copland : Appalachian Spring - Suite

Florence Price (orch. Still) : Dances in the Canebrakes

Steve Reich : Music for Pieces of Wood

Stravinsky : Dumbarton Oaks

The Philharmonia

Santtu-Matias Rouvali

Technical matters first, which have nothing to do with the artists, nor should they.  I had intended to watch this as I did the LSO concert last month, on my laptop with earbuds in.  I don't need to watch a concert the way I do an opera or ballet, so the picture doesn't have to be TV screen size, but the sound does matter.  The first thing I discovered was that the little clicks I had heard in the previous broadcast were still there, and I would really like to know if that's a problem on my end, or on Idagio's end.  Worse, however, was the distortion audible the moment the brass and timpani came in with any force from the start of the Copland.  Even turning the sound down did not abate that, so, having recently purchased the appropriate cable, I connected the laptop to the TV and let the TV speakers take over.  As expected, the click became inaudible, save for once or twice, and the distortion, while still present, retreated to within tolerable parameters.  That distortion was not something that had plagued the LSO concert, nor is it something that has plagued the couple of orchestral concerts I have watched on YouTube, and I was not at all pleased to hear it.  I hope that it is something Idagio will address effectively for future events.  

Santtu-Matias Rouvali is the Principal Conductor Designate of the Philharmonia, due to take up his post from the next concert season (for whatever form that may take).  I've not heard him much to date, though I recently caught an extract of a Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (of which he is the current Principal Conductor) concert which was very enjoyable, and he's clearly yet another of those 'fabulous Finns' who have come to enliven our podiums.  His enthusiasm is palpable without being overdone.  The Copland had a real spring in its step, it might even have been a bit too fast for actual dancing, but it worked a treat in concert, bracing and invigorating.  In the Simple Gifts variations, there is often a tendency to make it a little portentous and declamatory, but Rouvali avoided this successfully, and kept it light and bright.  Above all, though, that magical coda, the music sinking into a gentle lilac haze of twilight, was as evocative as could be desired.

The fact that it's Black History month certainly helps, but even without that, there has been a significant amount of Florence Price music being broadcast in the last couple of years, and it's a pretty major (re)discovery, on multiple grounds.  These Dances in the Canebrakes are a late work, originally a piano suite, here orchestrated by William Grant Still, a fellow music pupil in Arkansas alongside Price (though some years younger) and another pioneering figure of African-American music.  Of the three dances that make up the suite, the most appealing was the last, the "Silk Hat and Walking Cane" cakewalk, echoes of Debussy very distinct, humorous and elegant at the same time.

Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood is a relatively early piece, written alongside the seminal Drumming and Clapping Music.  Rather than the phase shifts of Clapping Music, each of four players progressively adds, and then subtracts beats, one at a time, to their pattern, so the sound surges and ebbs around the strict simple pulse of the first clave player.  So the Philharmonia percussionists were out to play with this, and it was Rouvali, who trained as a percussionist, who stood in as 1st clave.  As usual with Reich, the effect is mesmerising, and something which would appear to be totally monotonous is instead a fascinating tapestry of effects.

Percussionists of The Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali (centre)
Royal Festival Hall (screenshot)

To conclude, Rouvali returned to the podium to direct fifteen members of the orchestra in what is arguably the finest example of Stravinsky's neo-classical style, the Concerto in E flat, better known as Dumbarton Oaks, named after the estate of the commissioners of the work.  Stravinsky was unabashedly channelling Bach's Brandenburg No. 3 when he wrote this, as the motor rhythms of the outer movements make very clear.  However, the orchestral texture is not really that of the concerto grosso, because here it is more an ensemble of soloists, voices emerging from time to time to lay touches of colour on a supporting structure that had all the crisp delineation of a black-and-white drawing.  

[Next : 29th October]