Arts & Events

On Sunday afternoon, March 20, Simon Rattle led the London Symphony Orchestra in a concert at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. This concert astonished me in several ways. One, it established once and for all in my mind what a great conductor is Simon Rattle. Two, it caused me to reassess works I’d heard before and had not fully appreciated. This latter issue was most illuminating in that it challenged a few strongly held opinions of mine. More on this matter later.  

Opening this concert was Hector Berlioz’s Ouverture Le Corsaire. This romantic overture opens with the cellos offering a deep, gentle introduction. However, the opening quiet mood is soon dispelled as woodwinds and strings heat up the action. Conductor Simon Rattle demonstratively elicited from his orchestra all the changes of mood, now leaning toward his concertmaster to emphasise a surge in the violin section, yet again leaning to the cellos and violas to elicit a more burnished tone. Ultimately, the main theme is announced by a trombone solo, beautifully developed here. Full of bravura passages, this Le Corsaire Overture by Berlioz was indeed a perfect vehicle to demonstrate what Simon Rattle could do with this inspired music.  

Next on the program was a contemporary work, The Spark Catchers, from Hannah Kendall (b. 1984). Based on a poem by Limn Sissay about women workers in a match factory in England in the 19th century, this is a tone poem of remarkable vivacity. An opening movement establishes the mood. Then French horns and the violin section impose their mood on the second movement. In the third movement, a high range of instruments predominates, accompanied by a glockenspiel. A final march of women match workers concludes this energetic work.  

Next on the program was the Seventh Symphony in C Major by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Now approaching 60 years of age, Sibelius found it increasingly difficult to compose. Acute depression and alcoholism added to his difficulties. Yet, somehow, his seventh and last symphony became his crowning glory. It adheres to no conventional pattern. Instead, it flows, “like a river,” insisted Sibelius, going where it needs to go by its own inner necessity. It consists, in fact, of one long, flowing movement that proceeds with varying tempos. Underlying the music is always the major theme introduced by a trombone., a theme that returns in various tempos and moods throughout this work. Conducting without a score, Simon Rattle brought out all the subtle nuances of this Sibelius symphony.  

After intermission, The London Symphony Orchestra returned to perform Bela Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin Suite. This is a work that on previous hearings I have utterly detested. To start with, it is based on a very misogynist libretto that treats women as mere sex objects.  

Moreover, much of the music is brutish. Undoubtedly, this was intentional by Bartók. He wanted to portray the utter depredation of the post World War I situation in Europe. The opening movement of this suite, with its insistent honking of car horns evoking the urban chaos, is indeed utterly brutish. Bartók declared that this opening depicted the depraved world of several hoodluns who used a young woman to entice men into their den where they would be robbed, and, if need be, murdered. In the ensuing moments of this suite, several men are thus ensnared, though because they are penniless they are simply tossed out after falling under the spell of the erotic dances of the young woman. What was new to me in this hearing of The Miraculous Mandarin Suite was the fact that there is quite a it of refined music depicting real feelings, albeit mostly feelings of lust, as each man ensnared by the hoodlums is beguiled by the young woman’ erotic dance. The men may be naïve in their object choice. But their feelings are given their due in refined music. When the third and final man is ensnared, it is a Chinaman, the ‘miraculous mandarin’ of the work’s title. With his exotic appearance, he upsets even the young woman enlisted to ensnare men. When she dances for him, he becomes so passionately insistent that this work concludes with a frenetic chase in which the Mandarin wildly pursues the young woman.  

For the final work on the printed program for this concert, Simon Rattle conducted Maurice Ravel’s La valse. This work, coming late in Ravel’s career, marked a break from his previous impressionism. In its place, this is a waltz with attitude, indeed, with a kind of expressionistic ferocity. La Valse opens with a gentle rumble from cello and violas. Scored for two harps, this piece offers several gentle versions of a waltz theme, sometimes introduced by the cellos. However, any hint of gentleness is dispelled as the clash of cymbals introduces a loud, ferocious version of the waltz theme that ultimately leads to a frenetic conclusion.  

In the way of encores, Simon Rattle remarked that after so much turbulence, maybe the audience wanted some calm. That would be a problem, he quipped, because they’d only prepared lively, loud works. So, he offered as encore the “shortest and fastest” of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances.