ベルナルト・ハイティンク指揮、ロイヤル・コンセルトヘボウ管弦楽団のロンドンツアーのコンサートに行ってきました。ロイヤル・コンセルトヘボウ管弦楽団はオランダ アムステルダムに本拠を置くオーケストラです。2008年にはイギリスの音楽雑誌グラフォモンの世界オーケストラランキングで、ベルリンフィル、ウイーンフィルを抑えて1位を獲得した世界でもトップクラスの楽団です。私にとっては、CDやFM放送でしか聴いたことがないこのコンビのコンサートに行けるとは、前回のウイーンフィルと同様、夢のようなもったいない話で、いろんな意味で感謝、感謝です。
そして、期待通りの演奏を聴かせてくれました。モーツアルトの美しい交響曲第35番、海の風景がそのまま思い浮かぶようなドビュツシーの管弦楽曲「海」、そして圧倒的な音とリズムで聴く者を叩きのめすベートべン交響曲第7番、どれも完成度の高い素晴らしい演奏でした。正直、このクラスになるとランキングの何番とかは、私には全くどうでもよいことであるということがよくわかります。
全体的な印象としては、管と弦のバランスがすばらしいオーケストラだと思いました。ハイティンクの指揮は、奇をてらったものではなく、オーソドックスな王道を行く感じで、オケもその要求に確実に応えているように見受けました。今日は前から3列目の席だったので、管の人たちが殆ど見えないのが残念でしたが、その分、弦の奏でる音の美しさはダイレクトに伝わってきましたし、７番では見えないところからファゴットが見事なメロディを奏でるのも聞こえてきました。
ハイティンクは今年で80歳になるそうですが、棒を振る時のオケ全体に伝わる緊張感や集中力はとてもそうには見えません。ただ、さすがに階段の上り下りがつらいのか、カーテンコール時には舞台の脇まで下がって、そこでUターンして指揮台に戻るという形で聴衆の拍手に応えていました。
私にとって記憶に残る演奏会になりました。 （★★★★★）
※日本人（と思われる）演奏者が5名もいるのには驚きました。写真に写っているビオラの首席演奏者もハキイさんという日本人の方のようです。
14 March 2009 / 19:30
Barbican Hall
Mozart Symphony No 35 in D major 'Haffner'
Debussy La mer
Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A major
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Bernard Haitink conductor
※3月18日追記 タイムズ紙のReivewを転載します
March 18, 2009
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink at the Barbican Hall, London EC2
Geoff Brown
★★★★★
Just turned 80, Bernard Haitink showed his human frailties by taking the platform steps gingerly and looking as though a few days' continuous sleep mightn't be a bad thing. Yet his music-making muscles are as elastic as ever. Haitink, united with the orchestra he served as music director for 27 years, from 1961 to 1988, delivered two weekend concerts at the Barbican that were filled with a level of poetry, power and good sense usually beyond the reach of even the most venerated conductors.
Of course he had a superb instrument in his hands with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. A curmudgeon might pick slight holes in the edge to the sound of the massed strings. But no sand-papering was necessary elsewhere, least of all in the woodwinds and the ensemble's balance - warm, elegant, clear, perfect.
The orchestra topped its own peak on Saturday in Debussy's La Mer. The transparent textures, the dazzlingly subtle colours, the loving but never smothering details: all were superb. The final kiss of genius came with Haitink's tempo control. With unerring instinct he cherished every pivot point in the seascapes' undulations. Compared to his free-flowing interpretation, some other conductors' performances resemble a cattle stampede.
Another triumph followed on Sunday with the Schumann piano concerto. Murray Perahia is a musician after Haitink's heart: no frills, no grandstanding, just penetrating artistry, and the best reflexes around. The odd finger slipped, it's true; of no account, though, next to his caressing phrasing, limpid beauty, and, in the finale, bouncing good spirit. We were transported.
The only performance that approached the routine - the Concertgebouw's routine - was Mozart's Haffner Symphony. You could call it neatly turned. But all around the fires roared. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony pulsated with demon energy, though Haitink still found time to shape sensitively and weight the allegretto so that it seemed a slow movement played fast.
Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, Sunday's climax, was given another revelatory performance. Here we heard Bruckner the modernist, with dissonances gleaming bright, a hammering scherzo, much quaking anguish, and the roaring might of a hydro-electric dam. No wonder Haitink looked so exhausted at the end.
※3月18日追記 ファイナシャル・タイムズのReviewを転載します
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Bernard Haitink, Barbican, London
By Andrew Clark
Published: March 17 2009 19:41 | Last updated: March 17 2009 19:41
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Bernard Haitink
Barbican, London
In a world preoccupied by communication skills, Bernard Haitink must be considered deeply unsexy. He is old, grey and a hopeless speaker. Luckily, classical music is about more than that. It makes positives out of those supposed negatives, because visual and verbal communication is of scant importance next to an ability to interpret the shape, meaning and inner truths of complex musical structures. That’s why Haitink at 80 remains a superlative communicator.
It’s a long time since London heard him conduct the Royal Concertgebouw, of which he was principal conductor from the 1960s to the 1980s. The orchestra’s personnel has changed since then and the relationship went through its sticky patches, but these two concerts – embracing La Mer, the Schumann Piano Concerto and symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner and Mozart – suggested the Dutchman has rediscovered his first love: he and “his” orchestra are manifestly on a wavelength.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the Debussy. The performance was of a stature that defines one’s entire view of a work: if there is a musical nirvana in the afterlife, Haitink and the Concertgebouw will be there playing La Mer. The clues lay in the femininity of the overall sound (conversely a disadvantage in the chorale-like crescendos of Bruckner’s Ninth), the suppleness of the textures, the uniform eloquence of the woodwinds (this orchestra’s pride and glory) and the sheer weightlessness with which they captured the music’s will o’ the wisp precision – a miracle of symphony and seascape, shimmer and silhouette.
The Bruckner lacked nothing in visionary coherence: it was more cogently structured than the Vienna Philharmonic’s reading last month with Zubin Mehta. Haitink kept its expansionary themes on a leash, managing the changes of tempo and direction with an assurance given to only the greatest Brucknerians, so that the climaxes were not so much a succession of peaks imposing for their own sake, as building blocks in a progressive musical experience. As for Murray Perahia’s Schumann, here was a partnership between soloist and orchestra – “brokered” by Haitink’s humane touch – in a way that underscored this concerto’s status as a piece of seamless and supremely elevated conversation.
★★★★★
そして、期待通りの演奏を聴かせてくれました。モーツアルトの美しい交響曲第35番、海の風景がそのまま思い浮かぶようなドビュツシーの管弦楽曲「海」、そして圧倒的な音とリズムで聴く者を叩きのめすベートべン交響曲第7番、どれも完成度の高い素晴らしい演奏でした。正直、このクラスになるとランキングの何番とかは、私には全くどうでもよいことであるということがよくわかります。
全体的な印象としては、管と弦のバランスがすばらしいオーケストラだと思いました。ハイティンクの指揮は、奇をてらったものではなく、オーソドックスな王道を行く感じで、オケもその要求に確実に応えているように見受けました。今日は前から3列目の席だったので、管の人たちが殆ど見えないのが残念でしたが、その分、弦の奏でる音の美しさはダイレクトに伝わってきましたし、７番では見えないところからファゴットが見事なメロディを奏でるのも聞こえてきました。
ハイティンクは今年で80歳になるそうですが、棒を振る時のオケ全体に伝わる緊張感や集中力はとてもそうには見えません。ただ、さすがに階段の上り下りがつらいのか、カーテンコール時には舞台の脇まで下がって、そこでUターンして指揮台に戻るという形で聴衆の拍手に応えていました。
私にとって記憶に残る演奏会になりました。 （★★★★★）
※日本人（と思われる）演奏者が5名もいるのには驚きました。写真に写っているビオラの首席演奏者もハキイさんという日本人の方のようです。
14 March 2009 / 19:30
Barbican Hall
Mozart Symphony No 35 in D major 'Haffner'
Debussy La mer
Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A major
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Bernard Haitink conductor
※3月18日追記 タイムズ紙のReivewを転載します
March 18, 2009
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink at the Barbican Hall, London EC2
Geoff Brown
★★★★★
Just turned 80, Bernard Haitink showed his human frailties by taking the platform steps gingerly and looking as though a few days' continuous sleep mightn't be a bad thing. Yet his music-making muscles are as elastic as ever. Haitink, united with the orchestra he served as music director for 27 years, from 1961 to 1988, delivered two weekend concerts at the Barbican that were filled with a level of poetry, power and good sense usually beyond the reach of even the most venerated conductors.
Of course he had a superb instrument in his hands with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. A curmudgeon might pick slight holes in the edge to the sound of the massed strings. But no sand-papering was necessary elsewhere, least of all in the woodwinds and the ensemble's balance - warm, elegant, clear, perfect.
The orchestra topped its own peak on Saturday in Debussy's La Mer. The transparent textures, the dazzlingly subtle colours, the loving but never smothering details: all were superb. The final kiss of genius came with Haitink's tempo control. With unerring instinct he cherished every pivot point in the seascapes' undulations. Compared to his free-flowing interpretation, some other conductors' performances resemble a cattle stampede.
Another triumph followed on Sunday with the Schumann piano concerto. Murray Perahia is a musician after Haitink's heart: no frills, no grandstanding, just penetrating artistry, and the best reflexes around. The odd finger slipped, it's true; of no account, though, next to his caressing phrasing, limpid beauty, and, in the finale, bouncing good spirit. We were transported.
The only performance that approached the routine - the Concertgebouw's routine - was Mozart's Haffner Symphony. You could call it neatly turned. But all around the fires roared. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony pulsated with demon energy, though Haitink still found time to shape sensitively and weight the allegretto so that it seemed a slow movement played fast.
Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, Sunday's climax, was given another revelatory performance. Here we heard Bruckner the modernist, with dissonances gleaming bright, a hammering scherzo, much quaking anguish, and the roaring might of a hydro-electric dam. No wonder Haitink looked so exhausted at the end.
※3月18日追記 ファイナシャル・タイムズのReviewを転載します
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Bernard Haitink, Barbican, London
By Andrew Clark
Published: March 17 2009 19:41 | Last updated: March 17 2009 19:41
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Bernard Haitink
Barbican, London
In a world preoccupied by communication skills, Bernard Haitink must be considered deeply unsexy. He is old, grey and a hopeless speaker. Luckily, classical music is about more than that. It makes positives out of those supposed negatives, because visual and verbal communication is of scant importance next to an ability to interpret the shape, meaning and inner truths of complex musical structures. That’s why Haitink at 80 remains a superlative communicator.
It’s a long time since London heard him conduct the Royal Concertgebouw, of which he was principal conductor from the 1960s to the 1980s. The orchestra’s personnel has changed since then and the relationship went through its sticky patches, but these two concerts – embracing La Mer, the Schumann Piano Concerto and symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner and Mozart – suggested the Dutchman has rediscovered his first love: he and “his” orchestra are manifestly on a wavelength.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the Debussy. The performance was of a stature that defines one’s entire view of a work: if there is a musical nirvana in the afterlife, Haitink and the Concertgebouw will be there playing La Mer. The clues lay in the femininity of the overall sound (conversely a disadvantage in the chorale-like crescendos of Bruckner’s Ninth), the suppleness of the textures, the uniform eloquence of the woodwinds (this orchestra’s pride and glory) and the sheer weightlessness with which they captured the music’s will o’ the wisp precision – a miracle of symphony and seascape, shimmer and silhouette.
The Bruckner lacked nothing in visionary coherence: it was more cogently structured than the Vienna Philharmonic’s reading last month with Zubin Mehta. Haitink kept its expansionary themes on a leash, managing the changes of tempo and direction with an assurance given to only the greatest Brucknerians, so that the climaxes were not so much a succession of peaks imposing for their own sake, as building blocks in a progressive musical experience. As for Murray Perahia’s Schumann, here was a partnership between soloist and orchestra – “brokered” by Haitink’s humane touch – in a way that underscored this concerto’s status as a piece of seamless and supremely elevated conversation.
★★★★★
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