Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique - SCO & Ticciati - MusicWeb International
20 June 2012
MusicWeb InternationalSimon Thompson
Eyebrows
were raised when it was announced that Robin Ticciati would open the Scottish
Chamber Orchestra's 2011-12 season with Berlioz's
Symphonie Fantastique.
Berlioz wrote it for a much bigger size of orchestra than the SCO, after all,
and unsurprisingly they had never played it before. However, Ticciati is a
great fan of Berlioz's music and, as it turns out, a great interpreter of it
too. I was a little underwhelmed by the concert itself, but the orchestra took
the music into the studio the following week and the CD that has ensued is
thrilling from start to finish.
Playing the
Symphonie Fantastique with an orchestra of this size
forces new revelations on the ear. There are predictable gains in clarity as
inner textures are opened out and laid bare, but Ticciati's other
interpretative decisions are every bit as interesting as the size of his
orchestra. The strings, for instance, play without vibrato but on modern
instruments. This can lend a slightly pale quality to the sound, but it is
applied selectively. When it is, however, it is used to outstanding effect, for
example when it accentuates the sense of longing in
Reveries section:
those
sforzando-like cries in the introduction sound like stab wounds.
Clearly we are hearing the tale of an artist who suffers at the very extremes
of his artistic and emotional being. The size of the orchestra combined with
this playing style brings fantastic clarity: the way the horns ring out against
the strings at the end of the 1
st movement introduction is
remarkable, something I noticed in a way I never had before; then the two
ff
chords that launch the
idée fixe ring out like clarion calls to
thrilling effect. In fact, the willingness to embrace the extremes of dynamic
is a characteristic of this reading - and of the excellent recording. Ticciati
is unafraid to embrace the very loud and the very soft and to place them in
stark juxtaposition when required. After all, isn't this one of the most
extreme symphonies ever composed, by whatever standard? For all their period
style, the strings are still unafraid to embrace the red-blooded Romanticism of
the piece: listen to the relish with which the cellos and basses plunge through
the slur Berlioz gives them at 11:33 in the first movement before the final,
most frenzied statement of the
idée fixe, which then sounds properly
demented, almost as though it's straining at the very boundaries of what we
expect an orchestra can do - and wouldn't Berlioz be pleased with that?
Elsewhere Ticciati continually brings out new things. The waltz has a bit of an
edge to it, the violins playing with some ever-so-slightly raw attack, coming
at the music as though from an angle: this is no comfortable society ball but a
psychological trauma with a respectable veneer. The Linn sound is wonderful at
the start of
Scène aux Champs, the oboe and cor anglais placed at just
the right distance while the strings tremble on the edge of audibility. When
the violins take over, the sound they make is lovely with, again, a slight edge
being lent by the sound of the flute. There is a knockout clarinet solo around
the 9-minute mark, pouring balm onto the distress unleashed by the previous
climax. There is also a hard edge to the
Marche
au supplice, tempered by exciting details such as the pizzicato string
triplet - seldom audible in other recordings - in bar 15. The violins have an
emaciated sound as they first enter with the descending theme, and we are
treated to the cheekiest bassoon solo you'll hear on disc all year. The brass
section really leans into the march rhythm and at the climactic brass statement
of the main theme you can hear every thrilling note of the way the violins
swirl chaotically around the trumpets. Percussion is captured in a way that
adds colour as well as excitement and, importantly, the brass are not afraid to
make an ugly sound for the final braying.
The finest playing of the disc is reserved for a thrilling account of Berlioz's
dazzlingly original finale. The cackle of the woodwinds is hair-raising at the
demonic statement of the
idée fixe theme, the placing of the funeral
bells in the stereoscape is just right, and the orchestral colour is
thrillingly varied for the statements of the
Dies Irae theme, complete
with genuine ophicleides. Ticciati's skill as a craftsman is most obviously
apparent here too, generating a sense of tension and rising expectation for the
start of the fugue theme and building to a vivid sense of catharsis when the fugue
combines with the
Dies Irae. The tidal wave unleashed by the drums in
the final bars will pin you to your seat, as will the brash horror of the
shrieking winds as the symphony finally hurtles over the cliff edge.
Then, as if to confound all our expectations, the orchestra give us as spry an
account of the
Beatrice overture as you could expect to hear anywhere.
It's gentle, agile, flexible and transparent, and manages to sound about as
different from the
Symphonie Fantastique as it is possible to get.
For me Ticciati's vision and the playing of his orchestra succeed on every
front. Immerseel and Gardiner play on period instruments but they both take
their eye off the ball in the finale. Ticciati combines modern instruments with
period style and brings out the best of both worlds. This is a version that
will blow off the cobwebs for someone who knows the work already and wants to
explore something different to the traditional symphony orchestra approach. In
my view, however, this may even be a first choice for the work altogether. It
came as a revelation to me and it's this disc I'll be coming back to when I
want to hear the work again and be reminded of just how ground-breaking it
still sounds nearly 200 years later. David Cairns' scholarly liner-notes are
excellent, into the bargain.
Simon Thompson
It's this disc I'll be coming back to when I want to be reminded of just how
ground-breaking it still sounds.
Related Links
Robin Ticciati
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique