Grosses Festspielhaus
Four Last Songs
Eine Alpensinfonie, op.64
Asmik Grigorian (soprano)
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| Images: SF/Marco Borrelli |
The Vienna Philharmonic playing Strauss: what could go wrong? More than one might imagine; to be more generous, a good deal failed to go quite right. Neither Asmik Grigorian nor Gustavo Dudamel, whatever legions of fans might tell you, was well cast in the Four Last Songs. This is treacherous territory: so many in the audience will have favoured memories of past performances, not to mention recordings. How can anyone be expected to compete with Flagstad and Furtwängler, Janowitz and Karajan, Norman and Masur, or whoever the personal favourites might be? It is entirely unreasonable; yet even so, this was a disappointing performance. Diction is a problem for sopranos in Strauss. The proportion of audible and inaudible words was nonetheless askew. If Grigorian’s voice sounded darker than one might be used to, that was not a problem; there is no single ‘right’ way or voice here. More problematical was her excessively operatic approach. Rarely did one have a sense these were songs rather than arias.
Dudamel, meanwhile, tended to offer decidedly foursquare ‘accompaniments’, ‘September’ an especially notable case until its close, when, to be fair, both singer and conductor, as well as the orchestra, created a magical hush. Prior to that, though, Grigorian’s inability or disinclination to float Strauss’s lines as they demand had made for a decidedly choppy autumnal ride. Spring, in the preceding song (‘Frühling’), had proved merely perfunctory; Hesse is surely offering more than a weather commentary here, as is Strauss. If a slow ‘Beim Schlafengehen’ suggested something better at its opening, Grigorian and Dudamel both struggled to sustain a tempo that also stood out awkwardly with respect to what had gone before. The VPO concertmaster’s solo made amends, as did some glorious orchestral moments, solo birds of gloaming foremost among them, in a vocally chilly ‘Im Abendrot’. Dudamel’s inability in either to set a fundamental tempo underlay a general impression of listlessness.
That, alas, persisted in an Alpine
Symphony that suggested a misunderstanding of its Nietzschean idea as the
‘anti-symphony’ rather than the Antichrist. There was little sense, alas, of
any acquaintance with any underlying conception, philosophical or musical. Night’s
opening at least started a little more promisingly: slow, arguably too slow,
yet in its sepulchral yet velvety tone imparting at least a sense of what it
might be about. Teeming life in the following transition likewise augured well,
yet sunrise proved unfortunately prophetic of most of what was to follow. Strangely
metallic in tone – I should never have guessed the orchestra from it – it soon
grated on the ears. Pierre Monteux once damningly referred to the indifference
of mezzo forte, but I should have quickly exchanged it for Dudamel’s
indifference of fortissimo. Tempi bore little relation to one another; proportions
matter here rather than absolutes, but both were all over the place. There were
tender moments, gratefully received, and the mountain mists were spot on, but such
alas proved to be exceptions. If the ascent was wayward, the descent was taken
at a surprising sprint, though it had greater purpose. Dudamel’s apparent lack
of interest in orchestral balance frustrated and perplexed throughout, resulting
in a crude sound as foreign to what one would expect from the orchestra as to
the work.
