Philadelphia Orchestra
Roger Norrington (conductor)
Friday 1 February 2002
Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing
Arts,
Philadelphia
Bethoven: Symphony No. 2
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
For many years Roger Norrington has paid the price of being first. Year after
year through the 1980s and early 1990s, he was the first to record
period-instrument performances of Berlioz, Schumann and Brahms symphonies. If
not all these recordings have stood the test of time, that may be because they
were made prematurely. Today, Norrington no longer races into the studio or even
records regularly. With his London Classical Players disbanded, Norrington has
made guest appearances with orchestras that, a decade ago, would've scoffed at
the notion of playing shorter phrases with less vibrato— orchestras
such as the Vienna Philharmonic (in a surprisingly traditional performance of
Handel's Messiah) and, far more recently, the band that once stood at the
far end of the authenticity spectrum, the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Norrington's performance with the Philadelphians of Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 and Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique conclusively proved what has often in the past sounded like a rationalization — Norrington's claim that authentic instruments were only the final step of historically-informed performance. Endeavors with conventional orchestras will always lack gut strings and period woodwinds, but Norrington's approximation of their sound delivered a legitimate facsimile of that experience. That's better than nothing (which is what Philadelphia would normally have) — particularly since this performance was played with infinitely more technical security than the London Classical Players had at their best.
Though this orchestra has previously attempted lean textures and dotted rhythms under Simon Rattle, this concert signified not a displacement of the famously fat Philadelphia sound but simply a different version of it, heard with an underlying solidity of texture — and, in the glorious second-movement catharsis of the Beethoven, an expansion of sound that was all the more moving for creating such a contrast with the paler tones that came before.
Norrington has somehow allowed the orchestra to find its own way into this mode of playing, aided by a re-arrangement of the instruments, with the violas and cellos dividing the first and second violins and the double basses fanned out across the back. Norrington's main function as an interpreter was phrasing. The historical-performance crowd has talked for decades of phrasing in Classical and early Romantic repertory as a series of smaller, discrete units rather than the customary long, luxurious, ultimately inappropriate Wagnerian sense of line. Yet few have executed this concept with Norrington's conviction. No doubt that's partly because Norrington doesn't find his way to an interpretation by imposing a certain style upon the music, but rather arrives at a historically informed but ultimately personal understanding that's rendered with even more clarity by historical performance considerations.
Did the Berlioz benefit equally from Norrington's unorthodox arrangement of instruments, which had the symphony's four harps at the lip of the stage, flanking the podium? Even with the oboist playing the third movement's shepherd calls among the audience in the auditorium? The answer is no. That's partly because the lighter articulation of the instruments, aided by less aggressive bowing and more sparing use of vibrato by the strings, meant that the darker shadows of this symphony, shades that we've become attached to in conventional-instrument performances, were far less in evidence. In any event, while Norrington's Beethoven had a highly theatrical subtext, his Berlioz was played more as pure music, the arrangement of instruments allowing the audience to enjoy the piece's seldom-heard inner voices as well as the spatial antiphony.
Norrington was in particularly breezy form for the afternoon performance. He
encouraged applause between movements, saying that it was perfectly permissible
in the 18th century — and that, in fact, there was sometimes applause
during movements. "But that," he said, in mock-schoolmarm tones, "we do
not permit." Applause was irrepressible due to the giddiness one felt in the
company of such fun, buoyant music-making. Also, it's hard to not escape the
sense that as these period-instrument conductors mature, they're falling into
the archetypes of their predecessors. John Eliot Gardiner's headlong tempos
suggest he's our latter-day Arturo Toscanini; Christopher Hogwood's geniality is
comparable to Bruno Walter's; Nikolaus Harnoncourt's rhythmic monumentality
strongly suggests Otto Klemperer — and Norrington, with his swift
tempos, stylish phrasing and sense of humor, is the soul of Sir Thomas
Beecham.
