My Mostly Mozart expe­ri­ences wrapped up the last two nights, with con­certs fea­tur­ing absolutely no Mozart whatsoever!

The draw for me was the local pre­miers of two recent Kaija Saari­aho, her ora­to­rio on Simone Weil, La Pas­sione de Simone, and her cello con­certo Notes on Light, which was paired in con­cert with the Beethoven “Eroica” Sym­phony. Final results were the mix of two extremes, from the dis­ap­point­ing to the delirious.

The ora­to­rio promised a great deal, with a col­lab­o­ra­tive of Amin Maalouf, Peter Sel­l­ars and Dawn Upshaw, not to men­tion Saari­aho her­self. Her style is one based around the explo­ration of sound, and she pro­duces a rich blend of col­ors and tex­tures that is sen­sual, mys­te­ri­ous, evoca­tive and fas­ci­nat­ing. Her approach to drama empha­sizes the devel­op­ment of sound, rather than a Mozart­ian har­monic struc­ture which mir­rors and sup­ports the story. This seems to me an excel­lent way to approach a pas­sion story, one about trans­for­ma­tion, as the com­poser can solve the prob­lem by demon­strat­ing the drama through the trans­for­ma­tion of sounds.

Unfor­tu­nately, there was no drama to sup­port. The cause is a com­bi­na­tion of the spe­cific sub­ject and the text by Maalouf. As far as I can tell, the story nar­rated by the singer is that of Weil find her way to a sense of self-sacrifice that even­tu­ally led her to com­mit slow sui­cide via star­va­tion in what she felt was the shared sol­i­dar­ity of her com­pa­tri­ots in Nazi prison and con­cen­tra­tion camps. Maalouf seems to have used Weil’s Grav­ity and Grace as an impor­tant source, which is prob­lem­atic. It’s a book that was never a book, her note­books for her own per­sonal thoughts, her way of work­ing things out for her­self. While read­ing it one stum­bles on the occa­sional lovely axiom, it’s mainly impen­e­tra­ble, a con­ver­sa­tion in which only one side is heard. The result for La Pas­sione is a very pre­cious and admir­ing view of what was a sin­cere, but also dilet­tan­tish, life, which con­cluded with a morally unten­able choice. The Weil in the drama is unat­trac­tively naive and shal­low, and there is no dis­cernible trans­for­ma­tion. Noth­ing actu­ally hap­pens. There’s also a prob­lem with the dra­matic voice, with hav­ing a nar­ra­tor sing about the main char­ac­ter who is fur­ther referred to in the third per­son. It seems to me mis­guided in that it removes all direct agency.

The music goes it’s own way, dark hued and rich, it’s lovely and even sooth­ing, but since there’s no drama, there’s very lit­tle change in the music. Since the char­ac­ter under­goes no real trans­for­ma­tion, the music fol­lows along, going nowhere. It’s finely crafted and inter­est­ing to lis­ten to, but it seems to lack a cen­ter. In com­plete con­trast was the cello con­certo, which had a superb per­for­mance from Anssi Kart­tunen. This is extra­or­di­nar­ily evoca­tive music, both the cello part and the orches­tral accom­pa­ni­ment. Rather than dis­play the agility of the cel­list, the writ­ing is con­cerned with the types of sounds the instru­ment can pro­duce, mainly ones that are full of tim­bre and over­tones. The orches­tra shades the cel­list through the five move­ment, mainly quiet and slow, and highly con­cen­trated. The har­monies are close, and empha­size the move­ment and ten­sion between half-steps; there’s more than a lit­tle Scelsi in the piece. It has a won­der­ful sound, and was grip­ping throughout.

The accom­pa­ny­ing ensem­ble both nights was the City of Birm­ing­ham Sym­phony Orches­tra, led by Susanna Mälkki with pre­ci­sion, sen­si­tiv­ity and verve. They showed com­plete com­mand of Saariaho’s idiom and topped off the two nights with a tremen­dous per­for­mance of the Beethoven, one of the finest I have ever heard. It was thrilling, mov­ing, full of rage and dig­nity and humor, in other words it was Beethoven. Mälkki’s choice of tem­pos was ideal, and her poise in them was con­stant, espe­cially her exceed­ingly fast ones in the first the third move­ments. She matched the dynam­ics to speed won­der­fully, and kept a focus on clar­ity of sound and rhythm. The moments of pathos, delight and chaos were all pre­sented clearly and force­fully, yet with­out par­tic­u­lar indul­gence. Even at moments that almost beg for extra empha­sis, as in when the music seems to dis­in­te­grate at points in the first move­ment, she kept the for­ward line flow­ing, and the orches­tra played with fire, never seem­ing rushed. Stu­pen­dous. Mozart was not missed Thurs­day night.