Grosser Saal, Mozarteum
Symphony no.39 in E-flat major,
KV 543
Symphony no.40 in G minor, KV
550
Symphony no.41 in C major, KV
551, ‘Jupiter’
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
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Image: © Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli
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Not only the highpoint of my
visit to the Salzburg Festival, this will surely prove a shoo-in for any list I
might make of Performances of the Year. A couple of years ago, I heard Daniel Barenboim conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in Mozart’s final three symphonies;
they were excellent performances, although just occasionally, I missed a little
more of a smile. I do not exaggerate when I say that I found these performances
with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra superior in almost every respect, very
occasional instances of raggedness only serving to remind that the players were
human. Not that we really needed any such reminder, of course, for, imbued with
the truest Mozartian spirit, each performance was brimming with humanity, with
drama, with integrity, with the greatest of civilisation. These were, perhaps,
the greatest ‘live’ performances of each of these three symphonies I have heard.
The only rival coming readily to mind would have been a very, very different 39th from Thomas Zehetmair and the Northern Sinfonia. Moreover, without evident
exertion to frame them as such, let alone sophistry, Barenboim presented a
powerful case, without resorting to the idiocy of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s suddenly
discovered conception of them as a more-than-metaphorical wordless oratorio (!),
for musico-dramatic understanding of them as a triptych. Our greatest living
conductor of Wagner and Beethoven is almost certainly our greatest living
conductor of Mozart too. And what players he had here at his disposal, both
individually and corporately!
First, then, came the E-flat
Symphony. The introduction to the first movement exuded warmth and grandeur,
very much in the tradition of those greatest of Mozartians, Karl Böhm and Colin
Davis. Barenboim and his players also shared those conductors’ understanding
and communication of ease and tension. It was as fateful as any overture, even
that to Don Giovanni. And how the
richness of the orchestra, not least its post-Prague Symphony woodwind, matched, even enhanced the richness of
Mozart’s harmonies. Dissonances pointed long into the future, even to
Schoenberg, but here of course they were resolved, and how! Barenboim, who has
now thoroughly internalised the influence of Furtwängler, slowed for the
transition to the exposition proper, just as if he were outlining the dramatic
necessity of an on-stage operatic manœuvre. The first subject came forth at a
measured tempo, properly emerging from the nature and demands of the material, sounding
as if it could not be otherwise. (Of course, it could have been, but that is
not the point; necessity wears more than one face.) The second subject likewise
emerged with what sounded like absolute necessity, necessity in all its
dazzling, ever-developing variety. As in Berlin, Barenboim did not take the
repeat here, though he would in the first movements of the other two
symphonies. The development section, however, continued to develop at such a
rate that one barely missed what we had ‘lost’; there was such conflict and
also such civilisation – the two are closer than many would like to admit – in what
we heard that such ‘loss’ in any case barely registered. The recapitulation was
upon us in the twinkling of an eye, yet all had changed in the meantime; few
conductors alive understand the dynamism of sonata form so well as Barenboim,
still less communicate it so well. The late beauty of the West-Eastern Divan’s Harmoniemusik, as transition to the second
group, brought Così-like tears, and
for not entirely dissimilar reasons, to my eyes. It was, however, the Klemperer-like
strength underpinning the movement and the symphony as whole that proved most
important of all, the final climax the most thrilling I have ever heard,
timpani rolls and all.
The slow movement flowed
unhurriedly, yet with dramatic, well-nigh operatic tension; there was something
of Schubert too, to its tread. Until the minor-key episode, that is, when we
experienced the ‘purest’ – yes, I know that word needs deconstructing –
Mozartian tragedy. Everything was at stake, so it seemed; yet, with
Shakespearean genius, all manner of alternative standpoints seemed both
possible and necessary. The profusion of melodic and harmonic possibilities was
quite wondrous, agonising even. Klemperer again sprang to mind, but with Böhm’s,
or Bruno Walter’s, warmth. The minuet proved both aristocratic and boisterous, possessed of a longer
line and characterful within that
Wagnerian melos. It was, moreover,
imbued with the most winning of old-world charm. (Sorry, puritan
fundamentalists of ‘authenticity’!) The trio likewise combined the aristocratic
and the rustic to generative effect,
the WEDO woodwind section (and not just the woodwind) silky and fruity. Horns were simply to die
for. Opera buffa and seria combined in the finale, its
performance as integrative as anything in Barenboim’s Beethoven, yet retaining
all of Mozart’s particularity. We heard, felt a better world; we heard, felt
its distance from us. This was light-footed jubilation, yes, yet at the same
time it was hard-won drama.
Tragedy, Mozartian tragedy:
such was the note struck from the very opening of the G minor Symphony. Once
again, there was no need for anything to be underlined – let us recoil in
horror from the freak-show tactics of the René Jacobs brigade – for everything
grew out of the material and its possibilities. ‘Could your Beethoven have done
that?’ I felt like asking. No, of course he could not, as he himself would have
recognised, just as there were many things only Beethoven could have done. This
was a reading closer on the surface to Böhm or to Klemperer than to Furtwängler,
but line and – perhaps – meaning took one closer toward the greatest hero of
all from Barenboim’s pantheon. The repeat seemed to be upon us almost before we
had begun; such is Mozart’s concision and such was the tightness of this
performance. The clarinets (in the second group) sounded as if they were played
by angels. The jolt of development registered with all its might, which is to
say again without exaggeration. Schoenbergian dissonance and the equally
Schoenbergian task of reconstruction were accomplished with Webern-like
concision. (We need to hear more Webern from Barenboim!) Woodwind led us,
during the recapitulation, into still darker, deeper tragedy. Counterpoint –
those who disclaim Bach’s influence here are surely in denial – wrought its
horrendous magic. The turn to the tonic minor in the second group and coda
brooked no alternative. Riveting, terrifying, and yes, edifying.
Like its counterpart in the E-flat
Symphony, the slow movement was not taken slowly, yet it was never harried in
the now fashionable manner. Harmony and motivic development were permitted
instead to do their work, free of interference from podium showboating. The variety
of instrumental articulation was quite something in itself; more to the point,
it was meaningful. The ghost of Bach once again seemed present: every note
counted. The opening out, horizontal and vertical, of harmony brought the
Wagner of Tristan and, again,
Schoenberg, to mind. The Minuet was ferocious and yielding; every note seemed to have its own tone-quality, as if
Barenboim were playing the piano rather than conducting an orchestra. It was at
the beginning of the Trio that we heard a rare instance of string fallibility,
but who cares? The rest was grace personified, or rather musicalised, and what
balm we felt from the woodwind! It was developmental too, keenly so. The finale
brought out Barenboim at his most overtly Furtwänglerian. Again, there was no
routine note, let alone phrase. How tragically, even in the major mode, the
second subject was shaped! The development was announced as a clear echo of its
announcement in the first movement, the struggle but a stone’s throw from
Beethoven. Dynamism and transformation were twin partners in the working out of
the recapitulation.
There was nothing pompous to
the opening of the Jupiter Symphony:
it was, rather vivid, dynamic, endless variegated, although again never for the
mere sake of variegation. In C major it nevertheless emphatically rejoiced; we
heard the world of earlier symphonies, piano concertos, masses evoked,
transformed; shivers were duly sent down the spine. The first movement
development had the purpose of Haydn, but the temperament of Mozartian opera buffa. Rarely can the
recapitulation have sounded so inevitable. Barenboim’s pause before turning to
the minor was perfectly judged, Goldilocks-like. One felt, as well as knew, the
truth of Charles Rosen’s observation of oscillation between major and minor as
one of the keys to understanding the ‘Classical style’. Perhaps the second
group here might have smiled a little more, Walter-like, but I am simply being
ungrateful.
The slow movement felt physically
different as well as sounding different, on account of muted first violins; I
am not quite sure what it was about the WEDO violins’ playing here, but the
sensation has rarely, if ever, registered so strongly with me, sounding both ‘old’
and ‘new’. It was, more important still, heard and played as if in a single
breath, possessing all the emotional weight of a great aria, or indeed the slow
movement of a piano concerto. Its gravity was that of Idomeneo or La clemenza di
Tito – works which, sadly, Barenboim has never conducted. (There is time
yet!) Yet the guiding musical thread proclaimed Mozart as one of the greatest
of all symphonists. Again, there was not the slightest trace of pomposity to
the Minuet. It had all the dash, all the grace of a Platonic form of Vienna’s
Redoutensaal, all the conversational quality of a string quartet, all the
chorus-like quality of the opera orchestra. In its all-encompassing quality, it
seemed, somehow, like a ball-scene from Tolstoy. Balance and teeming development took us on our way to a duly courtly
response in the Trio, followed by vehemence, and again something more demure.
The opening phrase and response
to the finale were playful and severe
– and not only in turn. And so, the great agon
was set in motion. There could be no doubt of this movement’s status as
crowning glory, but there was a struggle to come: both close to and sublimely
unconcerned with Beethoven. What swagger there was in the learning, what
humanity in the tendresse! This was
music of the spheres, music of Heaven and
Hell; this was species counterpoint that could produce music of the
elegance and depth of all three Da Ponte operas. We not only knew that, though;
we heard it, experienced it. The recapitulation rejoiced as the greatest Roman
Catholic mass setting before Beethoven, the Coda, prepared with the utmost,
almost sacramental, mystery offered the greatest ecumenism, Bach reintegrated
into our thoughts and experienced. One’s heart leapt, with Haydn’s, for joy. Mozart’s
miracle of quintuple invertible counterpoint remained both ours and
untouchable, without peer.
