Jörg’s Mendelssohn Miscellany
CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★
Jack of all trades master of none, so the proverb tells us. Jörg Widmann proves that’s not always the case: clarinet virtuoso, versatile (if quirky) composer and a conductor whose combination of probing musical intelligence and infectious enthusiasm endears him to both orchestra and audience. He’s also a shrewd concert programmer. In 2023 he conducted a sizzling Beethoven Symphony No.7 together with works, including his own ‘Con Brio’, which explored aspects of the symphony together with an orchestral arrangement of a chamber work for clarinet. He used the same template here but with Mendelssohn as the focus, beginning with his arrangement of the Andante from the composer’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. It’s a work dear to Widmann, who learned to play it as a ten-year-old, and his arrangement with a small group of strings, is tasteful and charming. As well as Widmann’s own mellifluous playing there’s a magical part for celesta and for Jonathan Martindale, leading the CBSO. They combined for a gently sighing motif which sounded uncannily like the song ‘Mona Lisa', made famous by Nat ‘King’ Cole. Martindale excelled in a showpiece solo – which would make an amazing encore – Widmann’s ‘Paraphrase of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March’. It packs a lot into its five minute span beginning with the soloist tapping on the violin body and plucking on the strings, an analogue to an orchestra warming up. The first part is played pizzicato with scraps of the famous march alluded to as if the player were trying to remember the tune, which eventually appears bowed in its familiar shape. Martindale thoroughly deserved his spell in the (red) spotlight. If these two works were exemplars of concision Widmann’s ‘Danse Macabre’ would have been better at half its twenty minute length. There were some nifty bits of orchestration, especially for brass and percussion, and a whipped up climax ending in a theatrical lights-out. Too often though the piece rambled – Saint-Saëns devilish dance remains unchallenged.
The second half was devoted to Mendelssohn’s justly famous ‘Hebrides Overture’ and his seldom performed Symphony No.5 ‘Reformation’ both of which showed Widmann’s qualities as a conductor. The overture’s constant shifting moods ebbing and flowing like the sea were finely delineated and the passage for Oliver Janes’ and Joanna Patton’s clarinets was a beautiful musical balm. No doubt Widmann’s knowledge of the instrument ensured that the pair’s contribution in the symphony’s joyous finale – playing bells-up thus cutting through the heavy brass – was clearly heard. The symphony was composed before the famous ‘Scottish’ and ‘Italian’ symphonies and lacks their brilliance and melodic richness and Mendelssohn didn’t care for it much but it’s outer movements have stature. The opening used the serene ‘Dresden Amen’ theme, immediately transporting the listener to the world of Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’, and in the finale Mendelssohn’s lively counterpoint and astute manipulation of the Lutheran hymn tune, played with great gusto by the CBSO, provided an uplifting finish.
Norman Stinchcombe