Pierre Boulez Saal
Schumann:
Myrthen, op.25: ‘Talismane’, ‘Lied der Suleika’
Wolf:
Erschaffung
und Beleben, PhänomenMendelssohn: Suleika, op.34 no.4
Wolf: Hochgeglückt in deiner Liebe
Guillem Palomar: Im Ocean der Sterne (world premiere)
Brahms: String Sextet in B-flat major, op.18
Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)
Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano)
Michael Volle (baritone)
Members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
Ben Goldscheider (horn)
Michael Barenboim, Mohamed
Biber (violins)Miriam Manasherov, Sindy Mohamed (violas)
Astrig Siranossian, Assif Binness (cellos)
Two hundred years since Goethe
published his West-Eastern Divan and twenty years since Daniel Barenboim and
Edward Said, among others, founded the orchestra that bears its name, we heard in
this concert a celebration that, rightly, looked forward as well as back, the
culmination of three days of events at the Barenboim-Said Akademie and Pierre
Boulez Saal. It did not disappoint; indeed, it inspired hopes for the future of
these projects, an anthological ‘New Divan’ from twenty-four poets included,
that they should be anything but a creative culmination. To quote from Homero Aridjis’s
poem for that collection, itself quoted in Mena Mark Hanna’s valuable welcome
note in the programme booklet: ‘And life is re-created every day.’
First, rightly, we looked to
the past and present: to Goethe and his scandalously uncredited (by him, that
is) co-author, Marianne von Willemer; also to Barenboim, a prince among Lieder-pianists, with three regular
musical collaborators: Waltraud Meier, Michael Volle, and Dorothea Röschmann.
Meier and Barenboim opened with two Schumann songs, one a setting of Goethe, the
other of Willemer, both part of the Myrthen
collection written as a wedding gift for Clara Wieck. Meier was declamatory yet
variegated in ‘Talismane’, the ‘Lied der Suleika’ a confiding complement, just
as communicative. Barenboim’s structural understanding proved just as
enlightening as in any work for solo piano, likewise in all songs to come. Volle’s
pair of songs were declamatory in different ways, his way with words—their
sound, their meaning, their possibilities—a veritable master-class. The
metaphysical intimacy of Wolf’s Phänomen
was just the foil for the celebratory Erschaffen
und Beleben. A different compositional as well as performative voice
announced itself in Mendelssohn’s Suleika
from Röschmann (Willemer again, of course). Line and sentiment were beautifully
judged, neither performer remotely condescending to Mendelssohn, who rightly
emerged as a full-blooded Romantic. A supremely vivid Wolf Hochbeglückt in deiner Liebe provided, in the best senses, a
breathless conclusion to this section, Barenboim’s Lisztian exploits a reminder
that his days as pianist may just be beginning.
We moved then to the evening’s premiere, Guillem Palomar’s Divan-setting, Im Ocean der Sterne. This was the first time I had heard music by
Palomar, who studies at the Akademie with Jörg Widmann; I am sure it will not
be the last. This was not only a strikingly accomplished song-cum-scena—why
choose?—but an involving, affecting, and, much in the spirit of the evening as
a whole, enquiring one too. Solo voice first—and in Volle, what a voice!—for
the opening stanza: ‘Wo hast du das genommen? Wie konnt’ es zu dir kommen? Wie
aus dem Lebensplunder erwarbst du diesen Zuner? Der Funken letzte Gluten von
frischen zu ermuten?’ If one wanted a nutshell example of the difference
between Goethe’s humanism and that of Schiller, familiar to musicians from,
yes, that ode, one could do worse
than start here. The music works up to the first line: first ‘wo, wo…’, and so
on, and then up to the whole stanza, working with letter sounds as well as
words, neither obscurely nor even enigmatically, but with a meaningful sense of
joy in exploration. On ‘ermuten’ the instruments enter: first cello and horn,
then piano. Performances from Ben Goldscheider, Astrig Siranossian, and
Barenboim—mostly playing as a chamber musician, but just occasionally signalling
an entry as primus inter pares—were not
only excellent and tonally alluring, but spoke of understanding and the fondest
of advocacy. Palomar’s setting showed as keen an ear for harmony as melody and
word-setting, a surprising, post-Schoenbergian sense of tonality suspended
rather than necessarily vanquished painting, even floating in an ocean of stars:
captivating and enveloping in its instrumental as well as verbal drama. This
was music, aptly enough, that seemed both to speak from a German tradition, not
necessarily reducible to that, yet to look outward from that. Voice, piano,
horn, and cello might not be the most usual of combinations, yet it sounded—however
great the illusion—as the most ‘natural’ thing in the world. The closing horizon
of illusory seas (‘Der Streif erlogner Meere’) edged us forward, so it seemed,
even if we did not know to what. As Nietzsche put it: ‘We philosophers and “free
spirits” feel, when we hear the news that “the old god is dead,” as if a new
dawn shone upon us; … At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even
if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again,
venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is
permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has
never yet been such an “open sea”.’
Following the interval, we were offered the opportunity to
sail once again in that sea, with a repeat performance: a lovely idea, which certainly
furthered our acquaintance. Soloists all then took their seats in the audience,
evincing the collegiality at the heart of this enterprise, for the final work
on the programme. Something old, something new: what could fit that bill better
than Brahms, in this case his B-flat major String Sextet, op.18? Six members of
the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra demonstrated why chamber music should stand at
the heart of any larger ensemble’s life and work. The Sextet’s movements proved
varied yet coherent as a whole, the first flowing in Schubertian fashion,
themes connected and characterised, structure ably yet undemonstratively
delineated. The Hauptstimme, if one
may call it that with hindsight, was especially noteworthy for its threading
through different instrumental voices, Schoenberg meeting Schubert—which, after
all, is not a bad approximation at all for Brahms. The recapitulation was a
case in point: very much a second development, yet with no need to prove itself
as such.
In the second movement, we heard a richer tone, something more
defiant, fiercely compelling. Here were six Romantic voices coming together in
the service of a greater whole, ethical implications abundantly clear for those
who cared to consider them. Arresting sharing of lines alla Webern both harked back to the first movement and ventured
forth to the unknown—in whichever way one cared to conceive of that. A good
humoured scherzo wore neither its simplicity nor its complexity too light or
heavy, even in the trio, which emerged as an heir to the simultaneous dances of
Don Giovanni. For the grace of the
finale, ‘Poco allegretto e grazioso’ after all, seemed to nod as much to Mozart
as to Schubert, yet with an equally unmistakeable sense that those days were past.
There were sterner, more passionate moments too, of course, all unfolding as it
‘should’ in a musical cosmos that encapsulated and unified the many strands not
only of the evening’s concert but of the Divan project as a whole. Long may its voyage continue.
