Norrington Tackles Wagner

Way back in the ‘80s, we thought that period-performance specialists were daring when they ventured beyond Mozart. Since then, the boundaries have been stretched to include Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz and Brahms. “Authentic� Mahler and “Sacre du Printemps� as it may have sounded to listeners when it was young are just around the corner.

The prime mover in this forward thrust in scholarly time has been conductor Roger Norrington, who a decade ago performed and recorded with his London Classical Players the nine Beethoven symphonies in what were widely regarded as the ultimate HIP (Historically Informed Performance) editions: lean-textured, terse, propulsive, combining back-to-score scholarship with a good deal of conjecture.

Subsequent interpretations, notably those of John Eliot Gardiner, began where Norrington left off, softening his more radical notions and employing players (including some of Norrington’s) more skilled through greater experience in playing the old instruments.

Norrington now turns his attention to Wagner (EMI 55479) early, middle and late, music written well after Beethoven and previously little explored on the scholarly level. We may not be ready for what he has wrought on this occasion, but we listen: There’s no dismissing such a heady brew of smarts, showmanship and chutzpah. Here, however (as distinct from his Beethoven), he tends to use a mega-caliber shotgun to clear away the cobwebs, when a whisk broom would have sufficed.

The early music works best, for here the conductor seems less to be proving a point about the vagaries of past interpretation than reasserting the value of the music. Thus, the often underappreciated “Rienzi� Overture is brought vibrantly, even majestically to life, with the mellow tones of the period brass particularly attractive and with exceptionally polished string playing. The prelude to Act III of “Lohengrin� is likewise elegantly trim, and a showpiece for the narrow-bore London Classical horns and the orchestra’s woodwind principals.

Elsewhere, Norrington seems to be determined to raise hackles rather than showing us a new interpretive route, away from the traditionally ponderous, mystical Wagner to a reasoned view of the composer in which energy and Weltzschmerz exist in harmonious balance.

The point will never be made by such a rushed, de-sexed “Tristan und Isolde� prelude as presented here, or the “Parsifal� prelude, blandly predicated on clarity and order, or the “Siegfried Idyll,� shorn of both tenderness and its inherently fine detailing by speed and flattened-out dynamics (with an unpleasantly quacking solo oboe to boot). Then again, the sheer beauty of string sound in a fast but still suggestive “Liebestod,� in which soprano Jane Eaglen soars impressively but reveals a shaky middle register, comes close to making the conductor’s point.

If you unquestioningly love Wagner and the way he is traditionally projected, you’re likely to hate what Norrington does. If, like me, you have your moments of doubt, give it a try. Either way, you won’t be bored.

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A related venture is more about the sound of Wagner than about the interpretation of his music. The performers are the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, a London ensemble that plays on instruments and in a style of the early years of this century (“Eye of the Storm 5001,� two CDs).

Here, in addition to performing a Wagner concert covering much of the same territory as Norrington’s, members of the orchestra discuss and demonstrate their instruments, which are so much gentler-toned than their present-day counterparts.

The project might have seemed less didactic with a more gutsy podium presence than that of Barry Wordsworth, who offers neither the imagination to make listeners swallow period performance nor a strongly reasoned, traditionally Romantic alternative. Furthermore, the notion of doing each work twice, to show that there are different ways of interpreting a piece in terms of tempo, articulation and balance (which we knew already) requires more intensity to be even faintly revelatory.

The interpretive spark that brings music to life is provided by conductor Charles Mackerras and another London-based period ensemble, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, in their partnership with Monica Huggett, the doyenne of period violinists.

Their vehicles are the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Mendelssohn’s E-minor Concerto (EMI Eminence 65027). In both, Mackerras’ leadership crackles with vitality while supporting and seconding his soloist’s sweet-toned, rhythmically alert playing. Huggett’s own first-movement cadenza in the Beethoven concerto is at once a model of period style and virtuoso flash.