Alban Berg
Saal, Carinthian Music Academy, Ossiach, 11.5.2018 (MB)
Haydn,
arr. Johann Peter Salomon: Symphony
no.104, in D major, ‘London’
Berg:
Lyric
Suite
Brahms:
Piano Quintet in F minor,
op.34
Alban Berg Ensemble Wien (Sylvia Careddu (flute), Alexander Neubauer (clarinet), Ariane Haering (piano), Sebastian Gürtler, Régis Bringolf (violins), Subin Lee (viola), Florian Berner (cello))
Ivan Kitanović (double bass)
We think that we know a broader
range of music than ever before, or at least that we can. Everything is there,
often at the mere click of a mouse. Perhaps we do. Or perhaps not. So many
nineteenth-century households knew Haydn’s, Mozart’s, Beethoven’s symphonies,
and many more works, through playing them in piano duet versions. Other domestic
chamber arrangements existed too, even at the time of first performance. Johann
Peter Salomon’s chamber versions, often highly flexible regarding
instrumentation, are a case in point. And Salomon knew the London Symphonies; he had, after all, commissioned them, and
brought Haydn to London for that purpose. Indeed, those symphonies have
sometimes also been called Haydn’s Salomon
Symphonies. The twelfth and final of that set, and the last one of all, remains,
of course, his singular London
Symphony; it was that which we heard this evening, in Salomon’s arrangement,
here for flute, piano, string quartet, and double bass.
Such arrangements tend to be
more rewarding for players than for listeners, but it remains fascinating to
hear them from time to time, not only as documents of taste, but also, often,
for what they permit us to hear in the musical argument itself – if only
because we are compelled, or at least invited, to listen differently. The first
movement’s introduction proved broad, yet broad as chamber rather than
symphonic music: just right, in many ways. The Allegro I perhaps found less convincing as a whole, although it
grew on me. It seemed that Salomon allocated a little too much to the piano:
fun for the pianist, no doubt, but did it quite work for the listener?
Nevertheless, the players understood and communicated its formal dynamism,
offering a fine sense of arrival at the close of the development. The Andante walked quickly, which made sense
in a chamber version, and was far from inflexible. There was an almost – I stress
‘almost’ – Beethovenian vehemence in the central section, without abandoning
its Baroque roots. The minuet again worked well, taken almost as a scherzo.
However, I found the finale, especially its drone bass – perhaps surprisingly,
given the presence of a double bass – lent itself less well to these particular
forces. There were a few intonational slips too.
Berg’s Lyric Suite is, of course, ‘the real thing’, and what a thing it
proved here, in work and in performance. We began in the thick of it: in medias res, if you prefer.
Unfailingly alert and generative, the first movement set the scene for the
explicit – in more than one sense – drama to come. Its successor seemed to
partake in the erotic worlds of both Wozzeck
and Lulu, whilst remaining quite
rightly itself. What especially struck me was the fine command of what Wagner termed
the melos of the work: its line or
thread. Whispering, scurrying confidences, almost on the cusp of Ligeti,
characterised the third movement, whose closeness also to Tristan und Isolde was never in doubt. The rich, mahogany sound of
the quartet, married to the delirium of Berg’s argument, intensified that sense
of Tristan in the Adagio appassionato. ‘Du bist mein Eigen’
is the celebrated Zemlinsky quotation. Quite. Afterglow lingered, yet not too
long for us to regret its passing, greater tension then reignited, leading us
necessarily into the motive-led vehemence of the fifth movement: at least as
intense, differently so. The final movement sounded just as marked: Largo desolato. Eroticism, Tristan in particular, remained. And
then, it subsided, but into what?
Brahms’s F minor Piano Quintet
followed. There was much to admire here, much to get our teeth into, and again
there was much to be gleaned from the programming, hearing it after both Haydn
and Berg. In the first movement, there seemed to me more than a little of
Schumann’s Florestan and Eusebius too. Was there a little too much? Did the
argument threaten to break down? I was genuinely unsure, and unquestionably
benefited from being compelled to listen: to find out, as it were. Brahms is
difficult, and should never sound otherwise. That difficulty, to the point of
collapse, however manifested itself more clearly, problematically in the
rhythmic contradictions of the second movement. The scherzo, no more a joke than
in Chopin, proved more successful, at least to my ears – and mind’s ears. Its
fury rightly hung over the trio too. The finale offered, again, something of
both worlds. Its introduction seemed to pick up where late Beethoven had left
off, the Allegro non troppo offering
a degree of relief, yet with a keen sense that there remained a long way to go.
I enjoyed the danger, the sense of losing oneself, but did it quite add up?
Should it have done? Ultimately, did Brahms not need something a little more
integrative? I was made to ask such questions, though: no bad thing at all.
