Photo: Eric Hossinger
What would a Prom season be without a little controversy? Classical concert-goers have become tame since the good old days when they'd trash a hall over the Rite of Spring. Norrington, said the presenter of this Prom, "practically caused a riot here at the Proms six years ago conducting Elgar with no vibrato. . ."
I was around that week, but I don't recall any remnants of torn-up seats thrown from the Circle littering the Arena, or the burnt shells of overturned BBC outside broadcast vans round the side of the Albert Hall, or that lingering sting of tear-gas wafting across Kensington Gardens.
As far as classical music goes, all passion's spent. I mean, audiences these days hardly say 'boo' even to that ridiculous misbegotten charade of a Russalka at Covent Garden, and if anything ever deserved, if not the Floral Hall scattered in shards of glass and the Piazza burning, at least a few handfuls of rotten tomatoes thrown at the director, that did.
It was a shame, I thought at the time, that the vegetable market ever took its ammunition so inaccessibly far across the river to collect during the interval. Otherwise I could have done my imitation of the Portobello stall holder who, when trade was a bit slack, used to yell "Come alive, pawt-o-bellah!" "Come alive, Covent Garden! Get yer rotten tomaters 'ere!"
Photo: Norrington et. al. in rehearsal (Ben Palmer)
Apparently, it's fifteen years since Norrington last visited the St John, which is quite a while to digest an approach. But it exhibited what one might call a trademark, the knack of separating instrumental and vocal textures, examining the essence of them, and re-constituting the whole so that you can follow the process, and the rationale for it, as it were at the back of your mind without it distracting from the whole performance.
And so it was here; pared-down Bach, almost sparse Bach, but with the apple of the music peeled so carefully you could rewind the whole and hardly know the apple had been pared down to the core at all.
I like 'spare Bach', and both Zurich orchestra and chorus were perfect for that purpose and style, suiting what I take to be Norrington's intent perfectly. It is an approach that also—and I think rightly, this being the music of the early 18th century, to which might have had its own angst and uncertainties, but was metaphysical about them, not romantic; half a century before Rousseau made confession public —cool and considered without being in the least cold or unsympathetic. Instrumentally, in particular, this was a very metaphysical reading.
A little less purely so, perhaps, with the soloists, though it would be wrong to attribute too much gratuitous emotion to what was, with all of the soloists, but especially James Gilchrist, splendid articulation and phrasing. Though the countertenor, Clint van der Linde perghaps, early on, betrayed a certain lack of confidence and surety. Then again, the Albert Hall is not a sympathetic venue for counter-tenors.
As to the faster tempi that the audience might have found 'controverisal'? Not as far as I could tell; Norrington seemed to me to be taking it a a perfect pace, exactly suited to the forces playing it in the Albert Hall.
As I wrote briefly, I am not a great fan of the Bach Passions; nor, to be honest, of religious choral works generally. (I can't get on at all with Parsifal, either.) But, should I ever feel an urgent need to hear a St John Passion, my recording of this is probably one I would come back.
What is with this season though? Both tenor and baritone were replacements; at this rate by mid-September, the Proms will have fielded more substitutes than all the penalty shoot-outs in the World Cup.
I listened to the Radio 3 relay at home on R3, and congratulations to the sound engineers for an excellent sound balance. Listening to small ensembles (not to mention a counter-tenor) in the Albert Hall can be tricky depending on where you sit, or stand. For this Prom, it might be that the broadcast listeners had the best of it.
Although, with my windows wide open on Saturday night, I heard the usual complement of sirens dopplering away into the night (perhaps one or two more than usual, but no doubt heading for the Israeli embassy or its environs up the road from the Albert Hall, which has been attracting greater numbers than most Prom concerts recently) as far as I know, there was no riot at the Albert Hall. So I've washed the vinegar out of the hanky I had ready to put over my nose and mouth just in case.
Repeated BBC4 31st July; iPlayer (Part 1); iPlayer (Part 2).
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