Philharmonie
Ives, arr. Eberhard Kloke: Seven Songs from the collection ‘114 Songs’ (world premiere)
Kloke: The Answered Question, op.131 (world premiere)
Mahler, arr. Kloke: Seven Early Songs
Dvořák: Symphony no.9 in E minor, op.95, B.178, ‘From the New World’
Anna Prohaska (soprano)
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| Images copyright: Berliner Festspiele / Fabian Schellhorn |
Musikfest Berlin’s focus on the Ives sesquicentenary continued with two commissions from Eberhard Kloke, one an arrangement of seven Ives songs for soprano and chamber orchestra, the other ‘an alternative experimental arrangement’ of Ives’s The Unanswered Question, ‘in which a differently posed question from Ives’s work is answered anew’. Kloke’s compositional activity, long focused on existing music by other composers – as conductor and composer alike, he considers himself above all an ‘interpreter’ – here also took in his arrangements of seven early songs by Mahler, dedicated, like those of Ives, to Anna Prohaska.
In all three cases, ‘originals’ drifted in and out of consciousness: sometimes straightforwardly present, sometimes changed (whether by arrangement or otherwise), sometimes as underlay, and sometimes as a starting-point for other music by either composer. Ives’s own mysterious piano opening to ‘Thoreau’ prefaced, as in the original song, the spoken voice, ultimately leading to our first hearing of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s wind, directed by Antonello Manacorda, melodrama turning into song. Here, as elsewhere, Kloke’s orchestration proved sympathetic for voice and original material, musical and verbal. ‘Élegie’ offered a taste of Ives in French, both composers seemingly responding in kind, Kloke’s use of cello pizzicato almost more harp-like than the also present harp. His chamber writing permitted Prohaska to scale down her voice in singing of great subtlety that could also soar to climax—and did. Sharper-edged sonorities and harmonies in ‘His Exaltation’; a keen sense of the waters in ‘Grantchester’; and a jaunty, unmistakeably Americanism – accent to match, spoken and sung, with and without microphone – in ‘Charlie Rutlage’ were among other highlights, leading us to the closing question, already familiar from the encore to a song recital a few nights earlier: ‘Is life anything like that?’
Other questions, actually posed and might-have-beens, emerged in The Answered Question, partly submerged by a barrage of audience coughs. The MCO’s performance drew one in to listen, as did the spatial arrangement: two trumpets above, winds below, a further group (flute, oboe, clarinet, piano) at the back of the latter, as if in limbo. Questioning was questioned, as indeed was that questioning of question, in what came across as a post-transcendentalist refusal to accept easy answers, and accompanying unease as a result. Manacorda’s balancing and reconciliation of the instrumental parts proceeded with an ease belying the difficulty of his task, patient direction amply rewarded.
For the Sieben frühe Lieder, title
echoing Berg and perhaps Berio too, cowbells appeared: a temptation doubtless
too difficult to resist. Here, Kloke offered quotation, allusion (thematic and
timbral), and perhaps also illusion from Mahler’s Wunderhorn symphonies,
already closely related to his song output, to produce a work I should guess
extended to about twice the length of the songs alone. As the work progressed,
memory, accurate and faulty, increasingly played a role of its own. A ‘Bruder
Martin’ introduction to ‘Nicht wiedersehen!’ albeit with celesta and harp
alongside double bass (first solo then duo) set the scene, the klezmer music of
the First Symphony’s third movement joining later, surfacing in a way not
dissimilar to that of the Mahler material in Berio’s Sinfonia. Saxophone
was but one of the other instruments to be heard, all beautifully, expertly
played by the musicians of the MCO; just as welcome, Prohaska treated the songs
throughout as songs, not as would-be arias. The posthorn solo from the Third
Symphony unsettled ‘Es ritten drei Reiter’. A purely vocal, folksong-like
opening to ‘Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald’, elicited a sly
instrumental response again evoking the First Symphony. Sleighbells from the Fourth
framed ‘Das Mägdlein trat aus dem Fischerhaus’. The idea of resurrection,
capitalised and otherwise, helped shape ‘Selbstgefühl’. It made for an
unexpected, fascinating journey, and a surprisingly apt bridge between Ives and
Dvořák.
Hearing the ‘New World’ Symphony from a
chamber orchestra is different; it would be idle to pretend otherwise. In a
well-conceived performance such as this, hard-driven at times but with
undeniable drama, losses were surprisingly few. There was, moreover,
unquestionable advantage in the Abbado-like sense of an orchestra of soloists
coming together. Contrasts, as in the first movement introduction, were in some
ways greater; nothing was prettified; and there was no doubting the symphonic
integrity of the whole, whether as work or performance, a welcome change from an
incoherent Mahler Sixth two nights earlier. Manacorda’s single-minded determination
made for a concise, not un-Beethovenian experience, the first movement
seemingly over almost before it had begun. In the slow movement, that
solo and others were magically taken: as if heard for the first time, nothing
taken for granted. (An extended cadenza for mobile telephone was less welcome.)
Songful, soulful, yet never sentimental, the music spoke more of Bohemian words
than an imagined ‘America’, and was all the better for it. Bubbly and boisterous,
the scherzo teemed with life and not a little fury. I was less sure about the
solo-string transition to the trio, though whether it was a strangeness too far
is more a matter of taste than anything else. It had me listen, though. The
finale sometimes had me miss a greater complement of strings, but the better
course of action was to value what one did hear here, vehement, direct, and
gripping. There was heart-rending exhilaration to the second group too, born of
the material rather than imposed upon it. The struggle, once more, was unquestionably
symphonic.
