Byron and Berlioz weren't so much like minds as twin volcanoes. The coming together of these two manic-depressives ought to have produced a mighty conflagration. But Berlioz's Harold in Italy, loosely based on Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, never lives up to that expectation.
The work is handicapped by Berlioz's decision to give a prominent solo role to the viola. Jokes aside, the viola can be an effective soloist, and there is the occasional passage in Harold in Italy where the viola-writing catches the melancholy, dreamy side of Byron's poetic self-portrait rather well. But it's not the kind of instrument to make one think of larger-than-life romantic heroes.
In most performances it is the orchestral writing that stirs and enchants, while the viola's solo passages sound increasingly like pallid asides. A passionate, extrovert viola-player could perhaps bring it off. But in Kim Kashkashian's capable, solid, mannered rendition, there was barely a spark from start to finish. She played as though she felt things would have been much better if Berlioz and Byron had been caught early enough and sent to a good Sunday school. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra played well, and conductor Sakari Oramo showed his usual strong feeling for the long musical line. But it wasn't enough to lift Harold in Italy as a whole.
The piece was even more of a disappointment after the orchestra's performance of Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture. This wasn't technically perfect - there were a couple of scrappy string entries, for instance - but it was a convincing miniature tone-poem, well-shaped and atmospheric.
In the second half, the Symphony Hall acoustic brought out almost every detail of Ravel's virtuoso orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Again, apart from one or two fuzzy string entries (especially in Gnomus), the CBSO gave a focused and balanced performance. The wild ride of the witch Baba Yaga was a bit on the sedentary side, but the brazen, hymn-like Great Gate of Kiev built impressively. However, only the encore, the prelude to act three of Wagner's Lohengrin, had fire, drive and the ring of complete conviction - qualities that the evening as a whole lacked.
