United Kingdom John Williams and Bernstein: Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathon Heyward (conductor), Royal Competition Corridor, London, 13.1.2024. (MBr)
John Williams – Superman March, Violin Concerto No.2, The Duel from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn; Good to be Round from Cinderella Liberty; Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter and the Thinker’s Stone
Bernstein – Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront
Anne-Sophie Mutter has lengthy had a particular relationship with modern composers, commissioning a few of the most interesting violin concertos of the final couple of a long time. However lately she has turned to the American movie composer John Williams – and never only for new works such because the Violin Concerto No.2 which was receiving its UK premiere at this London Philharmonic live performance. Williams has been re-working a few of his most well-known movie themes for a violin soloist (Mutter) and the leads to many instances are fairly revelatory.
Williams, who might be 92 subsequent month, reveals no indicators of slowing down – his most up-to-date rating, for James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future was written simply final yr. What’s so very uncommon about Williams as a classical composer, nonetheless, is that his music has nearly little widespread heat and even tone – one thing that can’t at all times be stated of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, for instance. Listening to the violin concerto I discovered it fairly putting how this huge work – written in 4 actions, just like the Brahms B flat-minor Piano Concerto – owed one thing to Alban Berg within the opening ‘Prologue’, a composer Mutter has usually performed, and within the magnificent closing ‘Epilogue’ to Dmitri Shostakovich, a composer whose concertos she has not, to my information, performed. What it does share with the Brahms is that great orchestra – soloist symphonic relationship, even all the way down to Williams’ use of the harp (as Brahms used the cello) to unify the construction of a concerto that typically dissolves in fairly the other way.
Williams writes in his temporary word on the concerto that the inspiration for the work comes instantly from the artist herself – from her power, to her inspirational skill to improvise music. I’ve to say that I discovered the jazz inflections that Williams writes within the first motion reasonably elusive, irrespective of how swaggering he may need composed them. However what’s exceptional is that regardless of the huge assets of the orchestra he makes use of the sheer readability of sound, the pristine brilliance of the notes that come by means of is simply astonishing. By no means as soon as is the violin overshadowed by the orchestra; the harp, very fastidiously positioned on the entrance desk between the cellos and violas, is designed to be heard particularly as each a solo and an orchestral instrument with nearly equal prominence, a lot as Brahms meant in his piano concerto with the cello.
The second motion, ‘Rounds’, reasonably as implied within the title, is round in construction and can also be essentially the most conventionally ‘Williams’ of the 4 actions in that it makes use of what’s so widespread to his movie music, the leitmotif. This can return within the closing motion, however in language that’s completely different to the extra expressionist tone of just about dripping color we get right here. ‘Dactyls’ is the scherzo of the concerto – written in triple metre however taking the triad of the title to the cadenza itself which is for violin, harp and timpani. The cadenza is perhaps on the thorny facet, however its crispness and originality is simple – and Mutter performed it with mesmeric tightness and sensible cleanness.
I feel the ultimate motion, ‘Epilogue’, is the best of the concerto. It’s the strongest of the work, the one the place the violin and the harp appear to drag furthest from one another solely to finish in a form of quiet decision that fades into silence. Williams has often toyed with a bleakness on this work that has manifested itself within the cellos and basses – this begins within the early bars of the primary motion, nevertheless it assumes a lot larger prominence in ‘Epilogue’. In distinction to a few of his movie music that is totally understated however it’s residually darkish as if the therapeutic that’s inevitably coming just isn’t a straightforward one, the renewal not clearly simply gained both.
There may need been one more reason why John Williams composed this concerto for Anne-Sophie Mutter. And that’s for the sheer fantastic thing about the tone she produces. Mutter has at all times had one of the opulent sounds however right here she was actually fairly extraordinary – the bloom, the amount, the color from the violin was usually in a category of its personal. She just isn’t a soloist to play in isolation; she doesn’t inhabit a world that’s totally of her personal making both. She would usually play in direction of the primary and second violin desks and there was a transparent musical chemistry between her and the very good harpist, Sue Blair. The London Philharmonic performed the rating with some panache, performed with ability and thought to his soloists by Jonathon Heyward.
The primary half had opened with Williams’ Superman March, a swaggering efficiency that has all of the hallmarks of Williams in his most epic kind. There’s definitely nothing simple about this music – and reasonably like Mahler’s Fifth, there’s a sure testing problem to ask any brass instrument to open a chunk. Maybe it felt just a bit tempered, however the efficiency was definitely vivid.
Mutter returned for the second half of the live performance for a number of items Williams had organized for her from his movie scores. In a number of feedback from the stage she referred to Williams as ‘The Grasp’ – a maybe becoming description for him. The diversifications originate from an album which they recorded collectively in 2019 referred to as Throughout the Stars and the three themes she performed got here from movies that Williams scored between 1973 and 2011.
There’s, maybe, one thing completely different about these reworkings than their authentic scorings deliver throughout by way of the music’s said goal. Williams has at all times – not like many movie composers – peppered his scores with instrumental solos for a dramatic impact which works on display for some visible goal. Altering a flute, harmonica, horn or celeste solo to 1 written for the violin – and composing it on a a lot bigger scale – doesn’t at all times work. Largely, nonetheless, I feel it has.
The Duel from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn dates from 2011. It’s one among Williams’ extra Korngoldian themes, rapier-like in its vividness. It really works for the violin merely due to that instrument’s skill to present a soloist with the correct amount of capriciousness – and Mutter was greater than able to doing that. Good to be Round from Cinderella Liberty, a 1973 movie, is extra poignant however so clearly jazz inflected too. That, too, labored with a extra relaxed, but free model from Mutter. She has typically been a tense, even inflexible, participant in live performance however Williams’ music has allowed her to play with a freedom and sense of enjoyment I’ve not at all times seen from her.
The place we acquired to true inspiration – even greatness – was in Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter and the Thinker’s Stone from 2001. That is an outright piece of orchestral virtuosity within the first place, not least for the woodwind – and even on this transforming it nonetheless is. Williams has largely left all of that very good writing for the flutes and piccolo intact – it’s notoriously troublesome and easily magical to listen to. However then that is music about magic and there’s nearly none finer than it. However what he has written for Mutter is one thing akin to Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy or Zigeunerweisen with enormous quantities of Paganini thrown in. Nearly all the pieces a violin can do is right here and it has been dazzlingly composed. Her efficiency of it was superlative. It is a piece that might fairly simply grow to be a typical showpiece for violinists.
There have been a number of encores. Throughout the Stars from Stars Wars: Assault of the Clones, Helen’s Theme from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future and a searing, emotionally highly effective efficiency of the opening theme from Schindler’s Listing.
For the ultimate work we turned to Leonard Bernstein and his Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront. I had reasonably forgotten how good this music is for Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie, although Bernstein’s 1955 suite makes use of numerous music which by no means made it into the movie itself. Composed in a single motion it drives a tougher punch than any of his different movie scores.
There are two sides to this music – the darkish music that symbolises brutality and violence and the depressiveness of the New York slums; after which there’s the searing love theme that begins on a flute after which reaches a hovering climax on the horn and strings. Bernstein evokes Nielsen within the war-like battle between the timpani, there are the stomping strokes on the piano keyboard, the blistering whistles on the brass. Between these splashes of crushing violence the melodic stillness of lamentation runs uneasily beneath it. Jonathon Heyward drew a well-drilled efficiency from the LPO with gripping drama.
However as with a lot of the orchestral taking part in on this live performance what we acquired from the orchestra was quite a lot of tonal heat reasonably than depth – strings, specifically, had been overly refined and just a bit too snug in music that asks for one thing a bit riskier. A unique conductor may need dug deeper and turned up the amount a bit extra. If the concerto had certainly been dazzling, then the movie music felt just a bit small display when it ought to have been a bit of extra huge display. However with movie music live shows performed by nice orchestras a little bit of a rarity nowadays this was nonetheless a most fulfilling night.
Marc Bridle
