Philharmonie
CPE
Bach: Heilig,
Wq 217
Brahms:
Ein
Deutsches Requiem, op.45
Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (soprano)
Wiebke Lehmkuhl (contralto)
Markus Werba (baritone)
Berlin Radio Choir (chorus master: Gijs Leenaars)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
A slightly – well, perhaps more
than slightly – baffling programme this. One might have presumed that the short
CPE Bach cantata (eight minutes according to the programme, but I did not check
my watch), Heilig, were present as a
curtain-raiser for Brahms’s German
Requiem. Brahms, after all, thought highly of Emanuel Bach, editing some of
his music. And perhaps it would also have offered another opportunity for one
of the vocal soloists. But no, the vocal types are different, so we had Wiebke
Lehmkuhl sing a short solo and disappear for the rest of the evening. Perhaps
even odder, the two works required different platform arrangements, so we had
an interval in between them. Might it not have made more sense to have heard a
selection of earlier music – Schütz, perhaps, even JS Bach or Handel? – with a more
overt connection to the specific Brahms we were about to hear?
Anyway, we did not. It was a
welcome opportunity to hear this 1776 cantata, for solo contralto, double
chorus, and double orchestra, its text drawn from Herder, Isaiah, and the Te
Deum. I cannot say that I found anything, save for its forces, especially
individual in the writing: far more conventional than, say, many of CPE Bach’s
orchestral or piano works. It would be difficult to begrudge it its Berlin
Philharmonic premiere, though, and I have no wish to do so. Orchestra and choir
(Berlin Radio Choir) alike offered a glorious sound throughout, antiphonal (Handelian)
contrasts registering – although perhaps not quite so strongly as they might
have done. Lehmkuhl’s performance sounded beautifully sincere, verbally and
musically. It is always enjoyable to hear a little trumpet-led rejoicing too,
and so we did. Yannick Nézet-Séguin ensured, greatly to his credit, that there
was nothing unduly hurried to the performance, encouraging and retaining a note
of necessary grandeur. It was nevertheless soon over, though, and I at least
was left wondering ‘why?’
There was certainly nothing ‘off-the-shelf’
to Nézet-Séguin’s German Requiem
either, conducted from memory. If I cannot say that his conception of the work
was particularly close to mine, that is no reason to disqualify it; indeed, it
was every reason to try to engage with it on its own terms. As sound, it was
difficult to fault the performances of choir and orchestral alike, and again I
have no wish to do so. What a joy – although is joy really what we should feel
here? – it was, for instance, to hear those lower strings at the opening of ‘Selig
sind, die da Leid tragen’. The blend of orchestral sound, moreover, was
irreproachable, whilst offering plenty of opportunity to hear individual
instruments and sections: the three harps, in particular, stood out
beautifully, even celestially. And there was real warmth, even consolation, to
that opening chorus, although I have heard Brahms sound darker, much darker. I
was not at all sure, however, why we heard quite so robust an emphasis on ‘Freuden’;
it came out of nowhere and merely sounded mannered. The great second number, ‘Denn
alles Fleisch’ was a little darker, as surely it must be, but with a strange
touch of ‘glamour’ to it. It was certainly worlds away from Klemperer or
Furtwängler. What the performance did have, in spades, was clarity.
Nézet-Séguin shaped the movement well, preparing transitions, rendering them
convincing, the winding down at the close was handled especially well. What I
missed, I think, was a greater sense of ‘meaning’: not just theological or even
verbal.
Markus Werba proved a relatively
light-toned soloist, which seemed to fit with the general approach. In ‘Herr,
lehre doch mich,’ however, I could not help but think that the orchestral sound
was a bit too close to Strauss; there is no single way that Brahms sound, of
course, but I am not sure, by the same token, that just anything goes either.
It would be churlish, nevertheless, to deny the sonic pleasure of the build-up above
the movement’s pedal-point. Following a duly lieblich ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen,’ Hanna-Elisabeth
Müller got off to a shaky start in ‘Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit’. Brahms’s solo
writing here is exposed, even treacherous, and so it sounded. She settled down
before too long, though.
Nézet-Séguin took the opening
of the following number, ‘Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt,’ very
deliberately: not just pace, but choral enunciation too. It certainly focused
attention on the words, whatever else I thought of it. However, the blazing,
almost ‘operatic’ approach – more Strauss again, even Wagner, than Brahms, I
thought – to the Last Trump seemed somewhat out of place. A cappella writing in the final ‘Selig sind die Toten’ reminded us
that the choir was in itself just as impressive as the orchestra. It flowed nicely,
and sounded consoling. Concerning what, however, did we need to
be consoled?
