Philharmonia
Manfred Honeck
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre
There is something richly incisive about Manfred Honeck’s conducting and in this concert, only his second with the orchestra, the platform cohesion – joy even – was palpable.
Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Frieschϋtz overture always makes a pleasing concert starter and Honeck’s very sensitive opening certainly grabbed attention. There was some delightful playing too in the section in which the horn plays over cross string work. Fun, moreover, to see traditional timpani played with hard sticks – lots of attentive leaning in and key twisting – by Antoine Siguré, who later switched to the pedal timps awaiting him at the back for the Dvorak.
Forces were then reduced for Beethoven’s third piano concerto which Pierre-Laurent delivered with measured passion and warm conviction. Familiar as this work is, it sounded fresh in this performance. Honeck, ensured, for example, that we noticed, really noticed, the beautiful wind and lower string work beneath the rippling filigree piano in the first movement and Aimard gave us a flamboyantly romantic take on the cadenza. The largo was as slow as I’ve ever heard it but the concentrated delicacy allowed some carefully pointed musical beauty to shine through. And the third movement was resolutely heroic in tone with terrific cello sound, (born of their being positioned next to first violins) especially in the fugal passage. Then we got an exciting take on the final bars. Finale flourishes seem to be a Honeck trademark.
Dvorak’s “From the New World” symphony is, of course, like the preceding two works, highly popular and very well known. And there’s a reason for that. It’s like landscapes: the best bits tend to attract the most visitors. I have never, however, heard it quite like this. Honeck, conducting without score which makes for immediacy and a different sort of contact with players, exaggerated the tempo and dynamic shifts to such an extent that the performance was packed with much more breath-taking drama than usual. Pulling it about like this wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste but I rather liked it.
He showed again how good he is at delicate slow introductions and here there was less beating time and more gestural conducting. The poignancy of the cor anglais solo in the Largo never fails – it has survived familiarity and “that” TV ad – and Henry Clay played it exquisitely in this performance with movingly expressive work from the rest of the orchestra. The Molto vivace was blissfully precise and very fast and the Allegro con fuoco was definitely fiery: lots of high octane playing, especially from the brass. And, yet again, the extreme dynamic contrasts worked a treat.
I’ve heard the Philharmonia in action many times but rarely in such spectacularly good form as this. I hope there are more concerts programmed with Manfred Honeck?