Last October, Ann Murray and Simon Keenlyside performed Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn at the Wigmore Hall in an specially commissioned arrangement for chamber ensemble by James Olsen. Both singers are natural Mahlerians and, from what one could tell, Olsen's arrangement was intelligent and imaginative. But the performance, conducted by Paul Kildea, the Wigmore's new artistic director, was not a success. Even a fine conductor with an established reputation might hesitate before engaging himself in this way, but Kildea clearly has a more robust sensibility about such things. Unfortunately, the result was that the Wigmore failed to do justice to its own commission. If there is any point to such chamber arrangements, it should be that they will allow greater delicacy and flexibility than a normal orchestra performance, but Kildea's heavy-handed approach meant that the singers, already constrained by his unyieldingly four-square rhythmic instincts, were all too often fighting to be heard over the instruments. Under Kildea's busy direction, the work sounded less like chamber music than it does when played by a full orchestra under a conductor with a proper ear for instrumental balance.
It is not just in his willingness to take to his own stage that Kildea has renounced the self-effacing manner of his predecessor, William Lyne (as artistic director of the hall from 1966 until his retirement in 2003, Lyne restored it as one of the great international venues for instrumental, lieder and chamber recitals). Kildea is keen to use the Wigmore's brochure to communicate with his audience, introducing each of three booking seasons and making occasional notes on the concerts. And while his descriptions of the musicians rarely rise above the generic - "Skovhus brings his considerable charisma and musicality to this work," the Trio Wanderer is "really musical" - he is more informative about himself. We find out, for instance, that while he has "long admired" Philip Langridge's artistry, "it was recently conducting him in Britten's Nocturne that I was overwhelmed by… his profound understanding." We learn too that he first heard Susan Bullock because "a friend invited me to a dress rehearsal of Tristan in Leeds," and that he booked the Zehetmair Quartet when "as a member of the 2003 Gramophone awards panel, I listened with amazement and pleasure to the quartet's Schumann recording." On the other hand, the Vienna String Sextet's recital in November goes unremarked, with Kildea not even bothering to note that this was the final concert given by this most illustrious of chamber ensembles.
It is one of Kildea's innovations to have produced a "beautiful brochure" containing the full list of the year's concerts rather than separate booklets for the three seasons. This is a brave move, since revealing his whole first year's programme at one go has made the gaps even more obvious: no recitals, for instance, from Barbara Bonney or Anne Sofie von Otter, Wolfgang Holzmair or Thomas Quasthoff. And Bernarda Fink, whose Schumann recital made such an impact there last year, is down only for a lunchtime concert. Of course, there are many good offerings, but there is a distinct sense that the fare is rather thinner than it has been. Not everyone thinks that this is a problem. One distinguished musician put it to me that Kildea's appointment presents the Queen Elizabeth Hall with an opportunity to build up its own lieder and chamber music programme, and that this is good for London's general musical life. He agreed, though, that this thought was unlikely to be of great comfort to the Wigmore's trustees.
Gardiner's Les Troyens
Some aspects of the work of British musicians are better appreciated in Paris than in London, since the Théâtre du Châtelet has a hall of a kind that London lacks: one that is suitable for operatic productions but without a resident orchestra. So it would come as news to many here that the Philharmonia is a very accomplished opera orchestra, since its acclaimed series of Strauss operas under Dohnányi have all been given at the Châtelet. Similarly, anyone who wanted to hear John Eliot Gardiner conducting opera with his own orchestras would have needed to be in Paris, not London. This is a shame, since of all British conductors, Gardiner probably has the keenest dramatic sense and deepest understanding of the needs of singers. To bring home what we have been missing, BBC/Opus Arte have just released a DVD of the production of Berlioz's Les Troyens that Gardiner conducted at the Châtelet in October 2003. As someone who is steeped in 18th-century French opera, Gardiner is wonderfully aware of both how the work is rooted in the French tradition but also of how modern it is. Both Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cassandra and Susan Graham as Dido give beautifully sung and emotionally devastating performances. Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique has been trained to an extraordinary level of precision, as has the Monteverdi choir, and this permits Gardiner great rhetorical freedom. The tonal colours of the period instruments constantly heighten the expressive effect. The production, by Yannis Kokkos, is unintrusively modern and allows the action of the singers to be more sensitive to the details of the music than is now common in the modern opera house. Not to be missed.
