Rome – Parco della Musica -February 19, 2011
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra
Alan Gilbert, Conductor
Nelson Freire, Piano
  • Brahms Concerto n. 2 in B Flat major  for piano and orchestra op. 83
  • Debussy Images,  for orchestra 
    Gigues
    Rondes de Primtemps
    Ibéria

When I read in the Corriere della Sera that Nelson Freire would be playing Brahms’s 2nd piano concerto with the Santa Cecilia Academy Orchestra under Alan Gilbert’s direction, I, of course, ran to my computer to secure tickets. Not a wise thing to do, I discovered, as the ticket selling website for the Roman venues is unfriendly and arbitrary, so one should pay a personal visit to the box-office, a rather anachronistic thing to do these days, but in this case absolutely necessary, as it is the only way to choose one’s seating. So my first dose of this wonderful programme was taken in from the right, always somewhat frustrating when there is a piano involved. Anyway, contrary to children, music is to be heard and not necessarily seen, so I decided not to fuss.

Speaking of a piano being involved, there are actually two in this case, as the Auditorium Parco della Musica is a magnificent work by Renzo Piano, a predestinated name for an architect chosen to build a concert hall. The dramatic ensemble of halls is in the best modern Italian style, very clean, suitingly understated, although the predominating colors are a warm brick tone and a cardinal red.. I started grumbling about the distance one has to walk before reaching the auditorium main doors, across a kind of plaza, but the sight of bleachers above the plaza made me realize that this was a combination of indoor and outdoor settings, a very clever solution, in fact. To the right of the plaza are an excellent bookstore and a very pleasant café, all this justifying the name of the place – a music park indeed. Let us listen to what Renzo Piano himself has to say about his realization, as I find it quite appropriate:

“La più bella avventura, per un architetto, è quella di costruire una sala per concerti. Forse è ancora più bello per un liutaio costruire un violino; ma si tratta (con tutte le differenze di dimensione e di impiego) di attività molto simili. In fondo si tratta sempre di costruire strumenti per fare musica o per ascoltare musica.

E’ il suono che comanda, è la cassa armonica che deve saper vibrare con le sue frequenze e la sua energia.

Io ho avuto l’avventura di costruire spesso per la musica: dall’Istituto per la Ricerca Acustico Musicale di Parigi con Pierre Boulez e Luciano Berio, al Prometeo con Luigi Nono, alla sala di Berlino alla Potsdamer Platz, alla sala del Lingotto di Torino, alla Sala Niccolò Paganini a Parma e ora all’Auditorium di Roma.

In tutti questi progetti la musica è sempre stata al centro dell’attenzione: lavorando con gli acustici, lavorando con i musicisti. Ma l’Auditorium di Roma non è un semplice Auditorium ma una vera e propria Città della Musica: con tre sale, un anfiteatro all’aperto, delle grandi sale di prova e di registrazione.

L’avventura, a Roma, si è quindi arricchita di una importante dimensione urbana: l’Auditorium non è soltanto un impianto musicale; c’è anche una piazza, c’è Santa Cecilia, c’è gente che ci lavora, ci sono dei negozi, bar e ristoranti.

Funzioni tutte che affidano a questo progetto l’importante funzione di rendere urbano questo luogo che ha bisogno di urbanità.

I luoghi della cultura, d’altronde, come quelli della musica, hanno la naturale funzione di fecondare il tessuto urbano, sottrarre la città all’imbarbarimento e restituirle quella qualità straordinaria che ha sempre avuto nella storia. Strumenti musicali, quindi, immersi nel verde di un parco della Musica che scende da Villa Glori, avvolge i grandi liuti dell’Auditorium, i due gioielli dello stadio Flaminio e del Palazzetto dello sport e si spinge fino a viale Tiziano regalando alla città di Roma un grande parco di venti ettari abitato dalla Musica.”

Renzo Piano

“The most beautiful adventure, for an architect, is to build a concert hall. It is probably even more beautiful for a violin-maker to build a violin, but they are (with all the differences in dimensions and use) very similar activities.Basically, the question is, in both cases, to build instruments to make or listen to music. It is the sound which commands, it is the harmonic box which must know how to vibrate with its own frequencies and its own energy. I have often had the adventure of building for music: from the Institute for Musical Acoustics Research of Paris, with Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio, to the Prometheus with Luigi Nono, to the Berlin hall in Potsdamer Platz, to the Lingotto hall in Torino, to the Niccolò Paganini hall in Parma and finally to the Rome Auditorium.

In all these projects, music has always been at the center of my attention, working with accousticians, working with musicians. But the Auditorium in Rome is not simply an auditorium, but rather a true and proper City of Music: with three halls, an open amphitheatre, big rehearsal and recording rooms. The adventure, in Rome, was thus enriched by an important urban dimension: the Auditorium is not only a musical construction, there is also a plaza, there is the Academy of Santa Cecilia, there are people who work, there are stores, bars and restaurants.

These functions give the project the important function of making urban this place which needs urbanity.

Cultural venues, as musical ones, have the natural function to fecundate the urban tissue, to subtract the city from barbarization, and to give it back the extraordinary qualities that it has always had throughout History. Musical instruments, thus, immersed in the greenery of a Music park that rolls down from Villa Glori, envelops the great lutes of the Auditorium, the two jewels of the Flaminio Stadium and the Sports Palace and run to viale Tiziano presenting the city of Rome with with a great 20 hectare park inhabited by Music.”

Bravo, Renzo Piano, you have succeeded in what you set out to do. This is one of the truly great auditoriums in the world, along with Scharoun’s Philharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, the Madrid Auditorium, to name only those I’m most familiar with.

An unsettling surprise when I sat down and started to read my programme: the Brahms was the first piece to be played, just like that, cold turkey, no opera overture or short divertimento for the orchestra to warm up beforehand. I hoped they had the time and place to do so backstage, as the Brahms is definitely not music you want to dive into head first.

I had time to look around and to realize that, although audiences for classical music are very much alike everywhere, there are some differences, mainly in age and attire. Surprisingly (or maybe not?), the average age for this Roman gathering was definitely higher than what one sees in Berlin, for instance. A majority of senior and almost senior citizens, some obvious snobs who had no idea what they were doing there (I overheard someone behind me, and I preferred not to look, saying: “Oh, great!The pianist is Brazilian, he must have a lot of rhythm”…) and very few younger people.

This is the first concert hall I go to which has an army of young ushers who wheel people from their car to their seat, which tells a lot about the age of the patrons.

So, no Don or Flute overture, the orchestra settles down and tunes up – another opportunity for observation, this time to notice that the orchestra, contrary to the public, is quite young and the musicians, male and female, mostly very goodlooking. And then in march Nelson Freire and Alan Gilbert, the Brazilian older, chubbier and shyer looking than I remembered and Gilbert looking very eager indeed, with all the appetite one can have at that age (I believe he is still in his early thirties).

I braced myself for the opening bars which can set the mood for the whole performance – are we in for magnificence or for tedium? To my surprise (yes, I’m always sharpening my tongue), the horn was simply beautiful and I relaxed – this could be a memorable performance. And indeed it was, until the third movement, but I’ll tell you about that later.

So the excellent horn player and the sublime pianist set the tone for the evening, one of elevation and containment, force and poetry, rationality and emotion – everything Brahms planted in his score was read, and very well read. This concerto is definitely not for small fry or shy players. It calls for everything a performer has in him or hasn’t – and then we are all headed for disaster. Luckily, Freire is an extremely seasoned and sensitive pianist, with surprising strength when necessary. One must not be fooled by his masterly sensitivity and subtlety. When the music calls for brute force, it is all there. In that sense, Freire reminds me of Clara Haskil, the frail lady who played both lovely pianissimi and stormy fortissimi as if there was no piano between her and the music. Gilbert and the Academy Orchestra accompanied with perfection, both the mood and the sometimes devilishly difficult syncopations. It seemed as if they had been doing this together for many years – and I understand this was Freire’s debut in Rome! Whether or not he has played with Gilbert before, I forgot to ask when I went backstage to thank him for the 45 minutes of beauty he had offered us. I was so thrilled that I decided to treat myself to seconds, and attended the Tuesday performance as well, which only confirmed my first impressions. This time, I had bought my ticket at the box-office and was suitably seated on the left. So one day to listen and see the pianist’s facial expressions, the other to listen again and see just how he does it – a double dose that I would gladly make a daily dose, if I could.

The Brahms was followed by a very good rendition of Debussy’s Images, the orchestra expertly led by Mr. Gilbert, but the music does not excite me enough to warrant another hearing. So the second time, I left during the intermission.

So, back to Brahms. Both piano concertos are gloriously powerful and sublimely sensitive, more power probably going into the first and more lyricism reserved for the second, although the second movement of the second is just as powerful as the first of the first. Speaking of lyricism, I said that I would comment on the third movement – unfortunately, it is to say that the cellist was absolutely not up to the task and played with a thin tone and occasionally out of tune – unforgivable, especially to us strings, who anxiously await for this rare moment of glory. Well, this guy blew it, but never mind, this was not enough to unsettle Mr. Freire who reigned supreme and unruffled throughout the concerto. And on hearing it for the second time in three days, I realized how much Strauss and Poulenc owe to Brahms. It is impossible to listen to this concert, and especially the last movement, without having the Rosenkavalier, or Poulenc’s concerto for two pianos come to one’s mind.

A last word to say that while I was in ecstasy, my companion Oboe d’Amore looked rather unsatisfied and later confided that he thought Freire’s and Gilbert’s interpretation not romantic enough. Oh no! I had to remind him that romanticism is not schmaltziness, that Brahms certainly did not mean his music to be syrupy, but it is hard to explain that to one who thinks that Lang-Lang is a good pianist…