Not for Roger Norrington a grand and glitzy farewell in the capital surrounded by the metropolitan elite. Instead – good for him – arguably the most important British conductor of the last half century travelled north to bow out. The 87-year-old’s farewell concert took place in Sage Gateshead, directing the Royal Northern Sinfonia in an all-Haydn concert that effortlessly rolled back the years. It reminded us that this is a man who has changed classical music emphatically for the better.
Everything about the event was quintessential Norrington: the choice of Haydn, whom the conductor has described as the composer he would most like to invite – “Joe’s the guy” – to his farewell party. Then the programme: not just two of Haydn’s London symphonies, Nos 101 and 103, but Haydn English language canzonettas sung by Susan Gritton with Steven Devine at the fortepiano, a wind band march, and one of the greatest of Haydn’s string quartets, Op 76 No 5.
That mixed format deliberately evoked the single-composer immersion weekends – Norrington always dubbed them “experiences” – in which he led audiences through an archipelago of musical discovery in the 1980s. As happened so often in those now-distant weekends, this farewell concert, which topped out at nearly three hours, seemed to generate a special level of enthusiasm among players and audience alike. Back then, it was the English Classical Players, one of the many groups Norrington has founded in his career. Now it was the RNS, eloquently led by Maria Wloszczowska, and with a host of British chamber orchestral players who have grown up in a musical world that Norrington has helped to shape.
Above all, though, this concert epitomised Norrington’s way with the music. When he and other contemporaries such as John Eliot Gardiner first started rearranging their orchestras on the stage – first and second violins placed opposite rather than next to one another, horns and trumpets ditto, wind players standing not sitting, double basses at the back to provide foundational earthiness, strings thinned down to the numbers the composers would have expected, and all playing without vibrato, “that wobbly stuff” as Norrington still mocks it – many were outraged, not least some music critics. Now, though, Norrington’s brisk tempi, historically focused approach and what he calls “pure tone” are the norm and it’s the old ways that today seem weird and wilful. Revolutionaries mostly fail rather than succeed. Norrington is the exception.
He is also a great believer in talking to audiences. There has always been something of the enthusiastic schoolmaster about him and he wasn’t going to hang up his baton without giving us a talk. It was at least ten minutes before the music could get started with the thrilling drum roll at the beginning of the opening work, the symphony No 103. Before that, Norrington delivered one of the benign musical lectures that regularly precede his concerts – telling us about Haydn in London, about 18th-century performance practice and reminding the audience that Haydn was “a cheerful composer”. Norrington is a cheerful conductor too.
For some years now, he has sat down to conduct – though he stood to direct the winds in Haydn’s March for the Prince of Wales at the start of the second part of the concert. Sitting down allows Norrington to swivel round and interact with the audience, encouraging them to applaud at the end of movements, to laugh along with Haydn’s wit, and generally to relax and enjoy the concert. “You are part of the team,” he insisted.
At the end was an encore, literally: a repeat of the final movement of the Clock symphony, No 101. Then cheers and a standing ovation, a bouquet of flowers and a short tribute from the platform by the RNS’s director Thorben Dittes. A wave, a hug, and Norrington walked modestly off along with the rest of the musicians, part of the team to the last.
• Martin reviewed this concert from the live stream; the concert is available on demand to ticket holders (who pre-brought tickets before the concert) until midnight on Saturday 20 November.
