Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847 |
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang'; Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin, Nick Pritchard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Choir of the Enlightenment, Sir Andras Schiff; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 26 April 2024
A near ideal performance of the violin concerto followed by an account of Mendelssohn's great symphony-cantata that never compromised the work's idiosyncrasy yet brought out its rich detail and emotionalism
Sir Andras Schiff and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) have been celebrating Mendelssohn. It is strange that the effort needs making, but we still have a tendency to downgrade the composer's symphonic output. Schiff and the OAE, however, have been putting it top dead centre with three concerts at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall which featured all of the composer's symphonies, two piano concertos with Schiff directing from the keyboard and the Violin Concerto in E Minor with Alina Ibragimova.
We caught the final concert, on Friday 26 April 2024 which featured Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with Alina Ibragimova, and Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang' with the Choir of the Enlightenment and soloists Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin and Nick Pritchard (replacing Nicky Spence).
We began with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, his last major orchestral work. Conceived for the concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the work took Mendelssohn from 1828 to 1845 to write, belying its apparent effortlessness. Schiff used an orchestra based on 33 strings, double woodwind, two horns and two trumpets, quite a large group for a work which can sometimes be given chamber proportions. Alina Ibragimova began with a fine-grained tone, light and fluid playing allied to free phrasing. She never attempted to big-up her tone nor force her way into the spotlight, it all felt somehow effortless and natural, yet compelling and very stylish. In the first movement, there were moments that were daringly intimate, but for all the period manners, there was some very real drama. Schiff encouraged his players to bring out some beautifully vivid colours in the orchestral transition. When the second movement proper, began, it was all singing elegance and fine grained tone. Intimate and delicate, yet with an underlying strength. This delicate approach continued into the last movement, which was delightfully pointed and I loved the sound of Ibragimova's violin with the wind bubbling along beside her, and the excitement continued to the end. What this performance did was discover a work that was both stronger and more delicate than is often the case, and was notably lacking that sense of saccharine that an over-vibrato-laden violin solo can bring.