The National Arts Center Orchestra (NAC) and Alexander Shelley opened their season Wednesday in Ottawa by welcoming Emanuel Ax in the 1st Concerto by Brahms. Much more than a concert, the evening launched a two-week mini-festival which takes up the theme developed in recent years around the musical core formed by Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. This first meeting highlighted the fruits of Alexander Shelley’s work with the orchestra.
In a preamble begun largely in very careful French, Alexander Shelley recounted in a concise but captivating manner the interrelations between “Clara, Robert and Johannes” on this day of the birth anniversary of Clara, a gifted pianist who put her career as a composer.
Schumannian momentum
By juxtaposing the 1st Symphony of Schumann and the 1st Concerto by Brahms, Shelley, who had chosen to open the evening with three Clara Lieder presented with aplomb by mezzo Alex Hetherington, juxtaposed the first symphonic essays of the two composers.
In Schumann, we notice from the start the richness of the polyphonic fabric. The lines of the violas, for example, very distinctly nourish the speech and the orchestra masters the work with admirable cohesion. The woodwinds and horns advance a music nourished by the momentum of the strings (we can count on the spectacular solo violin Yōsuke Kawasaki for this) where all the instruments respond to each other.
The distinctive element of Shelley’s interpretation is the approach of the two Scherzo trios, especially the second, at a moderate tempo, very mocking, almost post-Haydn. The conductor and the orchestra admirably succeed in the codas (ends of movements I and IV), the exaltation of which is so important in Schumann. The dry rhythmic punctuation of the cellos in that of the 1st movement is very effective.
The essential
For several decades, Emanuel Ax has been the “reference” interpreter, almost essential, of the 1st of Brahms in North America. Ironically, if the Amsterdam Concertgebouw had not published a concert with Bernard Haitink on its “RCO Live” label, its vision of the work would only be documented by a 40-year-old RCA recording!
At 74 years old, Emanuel Ax still has the work in his fingers (a small slip in the first movement does not count). The magical moment of the evening was the 2nd movement, taken in a rather lively and very singing tempo. In a brief post-concert conference the soloist admitted to following the conductor’s choice in this matter. We realize that the 2011 Prom’s concert with Haitink, documented on YouTube, benefits more or less from the same pulse.
What is a little stranger considering this prerequisite of soloist following the conductor (generally in a concerto the tradition is that the conductor respects the wishes of the soloist), is to see Alexander Shelley adopt a difference of atmospheres and tempo so deepened in the 1st movement, he who is adept (cf. Symphonies No. 1 And 4 — the latter, impressive, to be released shortly on CD) from a Brahms without frills and who goes straight. For the curious who want to know what this musical posture gives, which we hear so rarely in the 1st Concertolistening to the interpretation of Gary Graffman and Charles Munch is more essential than ever.
The “Focus” Festival continues until September 21 with soloists as admirable as Emanuel Ax: the cellist Nicolas Alsteadt and the violinist James Ehnes. The September 20 concert with the “Rhineland” Symphony of Schumann and the Violin Concerto by Brahms risks being the highlight of the fortnight, during which the last part of the complete Symphonies by Schumann and Brahms augmented by chamber works by Clara. The four double albums will also be collected in an 8-CD box set.
Christophe Huss was the guest of the National Arts Center.