Ravel, Brahms and Shostakovich were the composers featured in Charles Dutoit's second Philharmonia concert, a line-up that was something of a surprise and left one wondering whether he was playing against type. Dutoit is one of the great interpreters of the French repertoire, though he has not always achieved the same distinction in German and Russian music. In many respects, the concert confirmed one's suspicions. His performance of Ravel's Mother Goose Suite was incomparable. Brahms's Violin Concerto and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, however, were lacking.
In the Brahms he was hampered by his soloist, Kyung-Wha Chung. She is hugely popular: the house was packed and the audience enthusiastic. But she is a supremely lyrical player, and this does not make her a natural interpreter of the concerto, and this ideally requires fluidity to be balanced by declamatory weight. The slow movement was gorgeous, with Chung spinning out a silky, sweet thread of sound over a beautifully controlled orchestral texture, while the finale had a Mendelssohnian skittishness that proved bewitching. The first movement, however, lacked the requisite ferocity, and Chung's habit of lingering over the expansive theme that forms the movement's second subject led to wayward speeds and shapelessness.
Dutoit's interpretation of Shostakovich's Fifth, meanwhile, was high on beauty and low on drama. He played it straight, anchoring it in cool neo-classicism and avoiding the much-discussed question of whether the symphony glorifies the Soviet system or constitutes a covert critique of its oppression. The Philharmonia's strings sounded ravishing in the arching melodies of the quieter sections of the opening movement and the flute and harp duets sounded disturbingly as if they had strayed from Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.
Ravel's Mother Goose, however, was a thing of wonder. Dutoit's approach was serenely restrained and not flamboyant (he is the antithesis of that other great Ravelian, André Previn, in this music), leaving us with a slowly unfolding, almost miraculous display of sound and colour that laid bare both the magic and terror of fairy tales to perfection. One simply wished that Dutoit had placed it at the end of the concert rather than the beginning and sent his audience out into the streets on an all-time high.
