François-Xavier Roth & Les Siècles, a different listening in the era of mobile phones

The anecdote occurred at the beginning of the minuet trio, the third movement of the Symphony no. 41 “Jupiter”, by Mozart, last Thursday, April 18, at the National Auditorium. A mobile phone broke in and altered its repetition, so the director François-Xavier Roth turned his gaze to the audience without stopping at the musicians of Les Siècles. It seemed like he was looking for the person responsible, but his unmistakable gesture encouraged her to pay attention to what was coming now. And we hear, in the violins, a phrase in long notes, underlined in forte and slightly occluded by the woodwind, with a determining role in the final movement. We were able to verify it shortly after. The violins opened the very happy which closes the symphony with that phrase of four long notes, now in a crystalline C major. And one of the most sublime pages in the entire history of music was unleashed. A fascinating whirlpool where Mozart uses that theme as a melody with accompaniment and, at the same time, as an imitative motif. A perfect alloy between classic style and baroque counterpoint. Roth made it the climax of the evening and also the best of the presentation in the Ibermúsica cycles of Les Siècles, his excellent French ensemble with 41 period instruments tuned to 430 Hz.

In that final movement, the Neuilly-sur-Seine conductor assumed the lightest tempo of the entire symphony, although without sacrificing transparency. He linked with precise gestures and without a baton the infinite connections and contrasts of these staves. He did not give up any of the repetitions, but added a rhetorical pause that provided the necessary momentum to face the end of the work: an outburst where Mozart weaves a fugue with the five themes of the movement. This contrapuntal achievement was unprecedented in a symphony. And the work was known in Vienna, after its posthumous premiere, as “the symphony with the fugue at the end”; the nickname of Jupiter he received it in London, at the beginning of the 19th century, in allusion to the place the work occupies in the highest step of the musical Parnassus.

This Mozart symphony was the second part of a very traditional program and without the usual experiments with contemporary music of this French ensemble. In fact, last summer, at the BBC Proms in London, it was the culmination of a concert that tried to connect the music of Mozart with György Ligeti. The work began in Madrid with a decidedly operatic first movement. Roth theatrically lengthened the pauses to prepare for each musical event. It happened, for example, in the middle of the exposition of the second theme, when Mozart leaves us in suspense, and suspended over a C major dominant seventh chord, to resume the music with a terrifying C minor in an explosive gesture typical of the Storm and stress.

He andante It ran with exquisite fluidity. Roth intensified his dialogue full of rhythmic and rhetorical surprises. And he embodied elegance in the minuet, but with the aroma of the period instruments that were played standing up except for the cellos. That silky tone of the gut string, led admirably by the violinist Amaryllis Billet, and riveted by the natural metals, along with the acidic aftertaste of the vintage woods and the ringing of the leather timpani. The first part focused on the Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, by Beethoven, an ideal companion for Mozart’s last symphony. And not because they were contemporaries, since eighteen years separate them, but because the posthumous premiere and establishment of the Jupiter in the Viennese concerts it coincided with the presentation of Beethoven’s first symphonies and concertos. Specifically, this concert premiered, at the end of 1806, within a musical academy organized for the benefit of the violinist Franz Clement, which the composer celebrated in his autograph with one of his usual puns: “Concerto par clemenza pour Clement primo violino e direttore del theater of Vienna.

Clement did not have much to do with the sonic power of the prevailing violin models of Rode and Viotti. The Austrian was an instrumentalist who stood out for “an indescribable delicacy, neatness and elegance, united with an extremely delightful tenderness and purity”, as portrayed by the General musical newspaper, in 1805. Therefore, the sound of the French violinist Chouchane Siranossian was ideal, as she sought an appropriate approach for the work from the fluidity and lightness of an eighteenth-century violin, with the vibrato becoming more of an ornament than a color.

We verified it, in the development of the cheerful but not too much, when the prompt appears expressive and the music moves to the dark G minor. Siranossian maintained the tension without sacrificing lightness and elegance, and was admirably supported by Roth and his musicians. The recapitulation was, on the contrary, less successful and with some incidents between the intricate scales, groupets, arpeggios and bariolages. But the French violinist made the best possible decision for the cadenza and reworked with her instrument the one written by Beethoven for the piano arrangement of the work (op. 61a). A solution similar to that adopted in the past by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Christian Tetzlaff or Patricia Kopatchinskaja. An extensive solo passage with a marcia seasoned with the interventions of the timpanist, here an exceptional Sylvain Bertrand.

He wide It was the best of the work. Roth achieved an atmosphere of stillness with ideal nuances so that Siranossian could exhibit his mastery of the art of variation, with exquisite timbral details that contrasted the same pitch as a harmonic and as a stepped note. He highlighted the oasis before the fourth variation as a true lyrical parenthesis. And, to connect with the rondo Finally, we heard again a passage taken from the composer’s cadence.

A very interesting aspect of the final movement, where Beethoven recovers lightness and adds loquacity, were the decorations that Siranossian added in each of the fermatas. To these additions were also added the oboist Hélène Mourot and the timpani by Bertrand. In fact, Roth gave that ending a somewhat harsher timbre and with a greater presence of the metals. And the violinist once again adapted Beethoven’s cadenza, before the festive closing of the work.

Siranossian chose to crown his performance with an extensive and atypical tip. It was the most difficult whim final, subtitled intonation testfrom Sonata from camera op. 6 no. 12, by Pietro Antonio Locatelli. He started it with determination and with some incidents that he overcame with his technical power. Admirable bow strokes, arpeggios and double strings that tipped the balance of a brilliant performance that added, at the end, the accompaniment of cellist Robin Michael in the cadenza included in the work. Ibermúsica dedicated this concert to the unforgettable British conductor Neville Marriner (1924-2016), who would have turned one hundred years old on April 15. A program that he directed many times, although never with the different listening in the era of mobile phones that period instruments demand.