Grosses Festspielhaus
Strauss:
Don
Juan, op.20
Strauss:
Tod
und Verklärung, op.24Beethoven: Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Petrenko (conductor)
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| © Salzburger Festspiele / Monika Rittershaus |
In my final Salzburg concert this year – I reviewed all performances I heard, bar a thought-provoking Salome and a best-forgotten Magic Flute – I went to hear old friends from my time in Berlin, together with their new friend and music director, Kirill Petrenko. They were to give two programmes, one very much of their traditional repertoire, the second ranging wider. I heard the first: two Strauss poems and a Beethoven symphony.
Don
Juan makes for a
splendid if perilous curtain-raiser: no fear of perils being anything other
than expertly navigated here. There was a brash, confident swagger to the
opening; here is not the place for modesty. Already, though, I noticed a
difference from many of the performances I had heard the orchestra give with
Simon Rattle (if not necessarily always with visiting conductors): here was a
bass line from which the harmony and indeed the entirety of the work’s material
seemed to grow. There was ‘feminine’ opposition – a loaded, dated, even
offensive term, I know, but apposite to the work’s conception and terms of
reference – in the material to come, coming together in a magical Straussian
phantasmagoria of sound. Petrenko’s way with Strauss is less self-conscious
than, say, that of Christian Thielemann, but he is no less adept at ‘playing’
the orchestra as if it were his instrument when required. He was commendably
unafraid to show the work’s hard edges as well as its exquisite tenderness. And
what wind soloists were heard, Albrecht Meyer on oboe first among equals.
Strauss is often at his deepest, of course, when the cracks in the façade are
perceived, however briefly; so too was he, so too was the performance, here.
Moments or split-seconds of irresolution made all the difference. Does the close
offer the greatest of all youthful sunsets? It certainly seemed to do so on
this occasion, followed by the strange materialist gravitas of a Straussian
death.
Tod
und Verklärung took us
back to the moments before death, to the uncertainty of a fading heartbeat. Its
gravitas nevertheless seemed to pick up where Don Juan had left off. Once again, the excellence of soloists
(Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud, Daishin Kashimoto, et
al.) might almost have been taken for granted, yet should not have been.
The struggle was different, of course, and so it sounded. Petrenko has never
been one to offer identikit solutions – he is far too thoughtful and dedicated a
musician for that – and certainly did not do so here. Verklärung, whatever that can mean to a thoroughgoing materialist,
was certainly unthinkable in the world of the previous symphonic poem. There
was to be heard an intangible kinship with Elgar and his Dream of Gerontius; no wonder Strauss admired it so. It is here
that Strauss goes deeper than in any symphonic poem before Metamorphosen, or at least such was the impression gained here,
without any need artificially to apply ‘gravity’ (as Strauss perhaps felt the
need to with John the Baptist). There was honesty here as well as virtuosic
mastery; there was, above all, harmony.
The orchestra returned after
the interval significantly smaller. Strauss calls for instruments that
Beethoven does not, of course, so there was no great surprise there. However, I
wondered slightly about the strings. I had not counted them before, but think
they were reduced; at any rate, they were 12.12.8.8.6 in number. Not so many
strings, then, as sometimes one might (hope to) hear, yet interestingly and
tellingly, a stronger bass line than often one might fear. Petrenko judged the
introduction to the first movement very well; I am tempted to say that it
sounded just as I imagine it in my head, yet I am not sure I could conjure up
quite such expectancy. Beethovenian concision in the movement as a whole was
never in doubt: not, however, through rushing – which actually achieves the
opposite – but through playing as outstanding in its execution as in its design.
The jolt of the development’s onset was real, but again no silly stunt; it was
played, not applied. Rhythm naturally played its part, yet never as something independent
of the rest of the material. The recapitulation continued to develop, the coda
all the better for its lack of exaggeration, a microcosm of the movement as a
whole.
The Allegretto grew out of the first movement and was indeed taken
without a pause. It offered release and
intensification in a processional of great mystery, beauty, and cumulative
power. Petrenko also knew when not to
conduct: again no affectation, but a sign of confidence in his outstanding musicians
and what is already clearly a partnership of strength. Thank goodness there was
none of Rattle’s weird moulding of phrases here, nor the fashionable yet often
perverse ‘rethinking’ of later Claudio Abbado, let alone the manicure of
Herbert von Karajan (at his worst). This had little in common with Wilhelm Furtwängler,
save for its integrity – which is surely what matters. It may not have
overwhelmed, but it was fresh, coherent, and comprehending.
Giving the bronchial brigade a
pause for self-expression was probably a wise move prior to the Scherzo. Its
provisional wing would doubtless have made its presence heard in any case. This
and the finale were similarly taken without a break. I found them less
impressive – yet only less impressive, for there was nothing ‘wrong’ with them.
Perhaps a greater contrast in material would have helped the scherzo as well as
the relationship between scherzo and trio. They were well balanced, though, and
clearly heard as one. The finale was fast indeed, yet never unduly driven. A
little greater flexibility might again have been welcome, but there was no
doubting Petrenko’s understanding. Daniel
Barenboim conducts this music as no one else alive; there is no shame in
coming, at least at present, a little behind our truest heir to Furtwängler and
Klemperer. This, we should recall, is only the beginning; the best is most
likely yet to come.
