Cubist Baroque Prom 7 Minkowski Poulenc Stravinsky Fauré

At Prom 7, Marc Minkowski conducted  the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a programme that demonstrated just how insular some British audiences can be. French style is different and needs to be understood on its own terms. Minkowski's punchy, vigorous approach underlines the importance of understanding the roots of idiom. Historically informed performance isn't about quaint instruments, it's about the spirit of music which refreshes itself in creative performance.  Minkowski, like so many conductors of his generation and before, learned from  baroque and early music that all music was once "new" and can still be new, performed with intelligence and with a sense of context.

Gabriel Fauré's Shylock Suite (1889) for example is about as true to Shakespeare as Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet or Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette.   Not "English" but endearing. Urbane and cosmopolitan, this Shylock's a man of the world, not a villain.   Minkowski began with the Entr'acte, with its striking brass fanfare from which emerges a seductive violin melody, introducing the Chanson and then the Madrigal, both lovely songs for tenor Julien Behr. We're in magical night-time Venice where troubadours serenade ladies in the moonlight. Dancing figures evoke starlight, or the play of light on water, and the Finale ends with a bright, cheerful flourish.

Minkowski describes Stravinsky's Pulchinella Suite (1922) as  "Bonsai....a miniature Rite of Spring" emphasizing its modernity. Though the ballet connects to baroque and commedia dell'arte memes, it was absolutely of its time, choreographed by Diaghilev, with designs by Picasso.  In an orchestral suite, dance imperatives aren't quite as central as in the ballet, but the idea of form and precision remains.  Minkowski gets articulate balance from the BBCSO. Fast flurries suggest movement and energy, violins are strummed like guitars, and bowed with angular zing.  "Gentle arrogance" says Minkowski on the BBC rebroadcast.  Listen to the trio where the bassoon blows sassy raspberries - this is Cubist baroque !  Stravinsky's neo-classicism was poised but very individual.  Yet again, the connection between period-inspired performance and modern music.

Minkowski made the point further by following Stravinsy Pulchinella with Francis Poulenc Stabat Mater (1950), inspired, in part by the Black Madonna of Rocamadour. How angular it is, worlds away from Michelangelo's Pietà in its Vatican splendour. It's much closer in spirit to the "primitivism" of the Fauves, Cubists and the avant garde of Poulenc's youth.  Ancient and modern, yet again. There are odd quirks, here, even the suggestion of medieval music  and the harsh terrain of the Languedoc.  As a meditation upon loss, Poulenc's Stabat Mater is unsentimental. Faith proves itself when it is tested, and in this lies its strength as Dialogues des Carmélites demonstrates. The tenderness of the quiet passages, and those in which the soprano (Julie Fuchs) sings. This tenderness offers a degree of solace, but also serves to underline the inevitable fate that lies ahead for all.  In the final moments of the Quando Corpus, though, the soprano's voice blazes upwards, joined by the choir and orchestra, reminding us that for the devout, there is hope.  Personally I'd prefer a craggier performance, which Minkowski could deliver well, but the refinement the BBC Singers and BBCSO produced was very moving.  Please see also my piece on Stravinsky's late works and musings on the nature of Faith.

Minkowski - Hans Rott Mahler Schubert, all aged 20

At the Barbican Hall, London, Marc Minkowski conducted the BBCSO in Schubert Symphony no 4, Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Hans Rott Symphony no 1. All three works were written by composers of the age of 20. It's best not to make too much of the fact that they all died too young, since none of them was aware he wouldn't grow old. It would be wiser to think of the programme as a study of the way different 20 year olds express themselves in their own individual ways.

Minkowski brought a delicious warmth to the Schubert symphony. Like most subtitles, the subtitle of this symphony is misleading. It's not "Tragic" in the grand sense of tragedy, a style which the Romantics could do with great fervour.  What came over best, in Minkowski's approach, was the mature poise of Schubert's structure. The arguments put forward for not quite Sturm und Drang are resolved in gracious repose. Minowski gets a golden Romantic glow from the BBCSO. Modern instruments, placed with period sensibility, can be very beautiful.

Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen is a cry of Romantic anguish. No doubt Mahler was upset by being dumped by his girlfriend, but the songs are not in any way autobiographical. This time, the title is a clue: "Songs of a wandering journeyman". The inspiration almost certainly came from the poems in  Des Knaben Wunderhorn,  several of which Mahler had already set before he wrote LefG, and which would shape his work for many years to come.

But the big reason for listening to this concert was to hear what Minkowski and the BBC SO would make of Hans Rott.  Rott is something of a cult figure with an obsessive following.  Nonetheless, his music hasn't attracted really top-rank conductors, apart from  Paavo Järvi, who launched his recording by repeating the claim that Mahler plagiarized Rott and suppressed his debt to him. It's true that Mahler praised Rott as a genius, but mourning a tragic, dead friend is not in itself a musical judgement.  Rott can only really be evaluated by what he wrote.  Minkowski, thankfully, presents Rott on his own terms as composer, so the music stands on its own terms, without the need for the kind of non-musical special pleading which usually sticks to Rott's reputation and attracts listeners who find image and supposed obscurity more interesting than actual musical context.

Minkowski conducted with even-handed sympathy, obliterating bad memories of Dennis Russell Davies' premiere recording.  Rott's music is pleasant enough, and for all we know he might have evolved into a good composer, but it isn't a good sign when music seems to sound like so many different things. We "hear" Mahler because we're primed to do so because of Rott's reputation, and performances tend to follow what we expect to hear. At a push, one could hear in Rott echoes of Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, as well as of Brahms and Wagner. It's normal human nature to cross-reference with what you know. Rott's symphony sounds good because it sounds so familiar, poses no great demands  and is very much of its time.

Perhaps these days composition students are taught that copying is a good thing,  but surely the sign of a really good composer is originality?  At the same time as Rott was writing his first symphony, Mahler (two years younger) was writing Das klagende Lied. Das klagende Lied is infinitely more adventurous, bridging song and symphony, early German Singspiel traditions and "modern" music drama. And Das klagende Lied is a work inspired directly from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, which Mahler wass setting in song from very early on.   Mahler fans sometimes talk of Mahler's  entire output as "one great symphony", forming a consistent, cohesive arc from beginning to end.  In his Wunderhorn years, Mahler explores the great themes that make him so remarkable. Real ideas in music aren't little things like passages for horn or snatches of bird-song piccolo or spiky bits of percussion. Before the age of 20, in Das klagende Lied, Mahler is already exploring grand ideas like transfiguration and the ultimate triumph of new life over death.  Perhaps it's a good thing that Paavo Järvi doesn't conduct much Mahler since he doesn't get what Mahler is about. Minkowski and the BBCSO do wonders for Rott, but ultimately Rott is no Mahler.  PS, who wrote the  presentation on Radio 3 ?  Is this what BBC Radio 3 standards have fallen to?