No matter how cleverly it is concealed, or how artfully it is varied, the old concert structure of an overture, a concerto, and a symphony still keeps its grip on Scotland. The overture may not be called an overture but is simply a short introductory work which, if it happens to be new and potentially unpalatable, can be got out of the way before it causes active offence.
This is one way of attempting to solve the “modern music” problem in concert programmes. If there is a soloist, the chances are that he or she will perform a concerto, which leaves the final slot in the concert to be filled by a symphony or some other large-scale work. The formula is simple and, however often it seems to be going into abeyance, it always returns.
Pierre Boulez, in his New York days, devised concerts with two intervals, which looked like a characteristically radical change but usually turned out to be a way of filling the time-lag required by the arduous reseating of the players necessitated by the kind of works Boulez liked to conduct.
Herbert von Karajan favoured the double-feature programme with one work before the interval and another, preferably louder, after it. Audiences were not fooled by such devices and the tripartite formula has continued to reassert itself, though I always admired Sir Thomas Beecham’s way of ringing the changes by secretly altering the running order and then announcing - as he once memorably did during the Edinburgh Festival - “I shall now conduct the work you imagine you have just heard.”
But Beecham was Beecham, a maverick who sometimes liked to end with an overture, or with Berlioz’s Trojan March (as he did in a marvellous concert I heard him give at the Paris Opera) or Chabrier’s sizzling Marche Joyeuse, or Massenet’s Last Sleep of the Virgin - things he was prone to call lollipops amd which always provided an element of glee or mischief. These days are long gone, and more’s the pity, though Robin Ticciati - admittedly more seriously - can still provide a touch of it in his concerts with the SCO, and so could Stephane Deneve when he was in charge of the RSNO. It seems to go with a flair for French music, which Deneve automatically possessed and which Ticciati likewise has.
It could also be called the Haydn touch, which Beecham certainly commanded and which we used to refer to as swagger. In Ticciati lies our hope, though he’ll soon be off to Glyndebourne. Meanwhile I suspect we’ll find it in his concert with the SCO at the Usher Hall on February 5, which opens with the tingle of Boulez’s Memoriale, continues with Mitsuko Uchida playing Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto, throws in some Faure as an interlude, and ends with Haydn’s Clock Symphony. An event not to be missed, I’d say.
12 September 2014
With much discussion going on about the future of orchestras in general - especially in the USA where the Minnesota Orchestra recently endured a 17-month lock-out (a result of failure of negotiations over a new contract), where the Atlanta Symphony (where Donald Runnicles has been Principal Guest Conductor for some years) was just last week locked-out for the 2nd time in two years, and where the once-mighty Philadelphia Orchestra has recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings - is this not a good time to rethink the entire issue of concerts, how they have evolved, how they are presented, why they generally consist of one short and two longer works, why they tend to last a shade over two hours with interval . . . and so on?
ReplyDelete100 years ago, the all-male orchestra members dressed in white tie and tails, primarily because that is what their audiences wore. Who now wears white tie and tails? Is it time to introduce muted colours, like the attractive Thai silk dresses the SCO ladies wore in the 1990s? Isn't it time to relay the conductor's 'front' on vdo screens? After all, we watch conductors all the time on vdos of concerts! Hasn't the very formality of concert-going become a drawback when it comes to attracting new audiences so vital to orchestras' futures?
100 years ago concerts tended to be longer, with 3 hours being not at all uncommon. At the first London Proms concerts, audiences were even encouraged to eat, drink - even smoke, although striking matches during a vocal item was frowned upon!
Decades ago, Adrian Shepherd's Cantilena gave popular lunchtime concerts in a Glasgow hotel at which audience members could take drinks in to the concert venue. I see that this has been happening at the National Theatre (and perhaps others) for some time. Whilst I personally do not advocate any form of eating or drinking during concerts, I keep asking "Why?" Why are orchestras locked into schedules and a performance pattern presenting mostly standard programme formats in formal 2-hour concerts?
Sadly I only have questions, not answers. I do suggest, though, that managements, the Musicians' Union and the musicians themselves should have a serious on-going dialogue about all the above and more – if only to ensure that 100 years from now audiences will still be able to enjoy the thrill and mystery of an orchestra concert.