Many conductors over the years must have felt like sticking out their tongue at audiences. And vice versa. Now Paul McCreesh has actually done it - grimacing in jest in the pauses within his Midsummer Night’s Dream encore, the March of the Elves.
This was an odd prank from the supremo of the Gabrieli Consort and Players, a conductor not overburdened with platform bonhomie. Welcome, though, at a concert short of electric shocks. The Basel Chamber Orchestra, who have no appointed music director, performed with consummate ensemble sense. And their nimble woodwind players are a joy - just as well if Mendelssohn’s on the bill (Berlioz, too). But they suffer a bit from Swiss caution and good taste; and for this rare excursion beyond mainland Europe, couldn’t they have brought a beefier programme?
Magic and midsummer nights were the theme. Weber’s Oberon overture kicked in with three glowing hunting horns, jumping fortissimos and crisply accented rhythms: a solid beginning. Then, admittedly, came a surprise. The mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, instead of the indisposed Angelika Kirchschlager, walked on to the stage. It was not Connolly’s fault that she was programmed to sing something to which her clarion dramatic gifts aren’t ideally suited - the songs of Berlioz’s Les nuits’ d’?t?. During Le spectre de la rose the orchestra purred at their hushed, silky best; Connolly’s ghost of a rose was not terribly ethereal. The mourning mood of Sur les lagunes was a much better match.
After a reviving drink, back to the band and this time Sibelius. The eloquence of the cor anglais solo, and the cello, made the melancholy beauty of The Swan of Tuonela easy to enjoy, though it left us needing muscle and fizz. Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream music did what it could. So did McCreesh’s nimble players. If only their rustics and braying asses weren’t so tidy and well-behaved.
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Leaving the hall, the lurid title of a Mark-Anthony Turnage work popped into my head: Blood on the Floor. That’s what this concert was missing. We needed blood. On the floor.