Dutilleux: Métaboles - Sibelius: Violin Concerto - Prokofiev: Symphony nr. 5

A second live concert in merely three days. And again on invitation by a generous friend. How lucky can you be?! This time we had the Concertgebouw Orchestra on the Bozar stage, led by Valery Gergiev. I was under the impression that we were only going to hear the Sibelius and Prokofiev and so I was surprised when just before the concert the full orchestra was seated with scarcely any room for a soloist. Once Gergiev, with his characteristically fluttering downbeat had put proceedings in motion, I had to guess for a minute or two what composer we were listening to. However, Dutilleux' orchestral palette is so distinctive that it didn't take long to find out that we were hearing his Métaboles. I love this work and Gergiev and the orchestra did it proud with a very precise, lively and atmospheric performance. Bravo! Next was the Sibelius concerto with Leonidas Kavakos as a soloist. I may have one or two recordings of his in my collection but that's pretty much it. So I didn't have a clear picture of what kind of violonist Kavakos is. I was surprised by his rather light, silvery and almost feminine tone. His playing has an appealing purity and unaffectedness and his stage presence radiates a calm that is readily taken up by the orchestra. So we had an almost intimate Sibelius produced by an orchestra-soloist combo that really seemed to listen to one another. No pyrotechnics, no overcooked pathos, but plain music-making at a very high level. One doesn't ask for more. I was pretty elated by this performance. Kavakos offered an interesting, 20th century encore that I couldn't place but I'd love to be able to identify.

After the break we were treated to Prokofiev's magnificent Fifth. Sadly Gergiev's reading did not convince me. Maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise as I disliked his Prokofiev recordings with the London SO so much that I gave them away. I found these readings to sound disjointed, an impression that was reinforced by the highly artificial, collage-like recording. Also tonight the symphony didn't gel. Of course, my immutable reference in this particular work is the truly heartwrenching 1979 recording with Bernstein and the Israel PO. I relistened to it a while ago. As far as I can say, the problem with Gergiev's approach is the choice of tempi, and their interrelationships. In the first movement, exposition and development section were taken at roughly the same tempo with the coda coming in with a slight accelerando. Bernstein takes the exposition (very) slow, but speeds up the development section to tremendous effect. In the coda the tempo slackens again which gives appropriate emotional pause. In addition to the tempo I had the impression that the orchestra was not going full throttle. For me, this introductory Andante has to be cataclysmic and with Bernstein and the Israelis it absolutely is. The performance tonight was rather too straight-laced, the percussion session holding back a lot of their firepower.  

Gergiev's second movement, Allegro marcato, was very well done. Very sprightly, with razor sharp strings. The Adagio then was the real disappointment. Instead of an extatic love song we had a prosaic, rather brisk romp. The finale, then, was ok but by then it was too late to save the performance. All in all sadly not convincing. But, hey, you can't win them all. I was grateful for a very engaging first half of the evening. Thanks to CB for the treat.