Bendix-Balgley/Delepelaire/BPO/Sokhiev - Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Berlioz, 27 February 2026

Philharmonie

Mendelssohn: Overture: The Hebrides, op.26
Brahms: Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra in A minor, op.102
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op.14

Noah Bendix-Balgley (violin)

Bruno Delepelaire (cello)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Tugan Sokhiev (conductor)

Images: Stephan Rabold

How I miss hearing the Berlin Philharmonic more weeks than not. Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I have little doubt I should have found this an outstanding concert on matter what. It showed, moreover, how the orchestra, especially under the right conductor, can draw on the best of its great tradition without in any sense being hidebound on it. Mendelssohn’s overture The Hebrides was a case in point. I was surprised to see it had not been performed by the BPO for nearly fifteen years, the last time being in October 2011 under Pablo Heras-Casado. Mendelssohn may be oddly unfashionable, but his music came up as fresh as new in an absorbing performance under Tugan Sokhiev. The opening sounded ‘right’ in every respect: balance; warmth and variegation of orchestral tone; the changing nature of the seas, relatively calm yet with elemental menace in their depth; and tempo, which, whilst slower than usual, worked just as well. Later prominence of bass heightened the drama without overwhelming, though one could say much the same of strings after that. Though were considerable shifts in tempo, they lay within a coherent whole; indeed, they helped form it. First among solo equals was clarinettist Wenzel Fuchs, whose duetting proved just as delectable. It was as fine a Mendelssohn performance as I had heard for some time. 

Noah Bendix-Balgley and Bruno Delepelaire joined their orchestral colleagues for an excellent performance of Brahms’s Double Concerto, showing that surpassing suavity in solo performance need not in any sense preclude depth of response, quite the contrary. Again, an orchestral sound announced itself that, whilst not to be identified directly with that of Karajan (or, in this repertoire, Jochum) suggested tangible relation. Delepelaire’s opening solo statement likewise ‘might’ have been that of a great soloist of the past, save that it was very much of the present, Bendix-Balgley’s response that of an equal. The soloists watched and listened to each other as chamber musicians, making music with each other and their peers, speaking of things, as Mendelssohn put it, that were too definite rather than too vague for words. Drawing-room intimacy both contrasted with and yet grew out of more public statements. Tempi again sounded just right, without being noticeable in themselves. Throughout this first movement, there was plenty of space for the music to unfold, though no loss of urgency, broadening to the moment of recapitulatory return a fine example, unleashing a veritable second development.

A darkly post-Beethovenian reading of the second movement followed: ‘late’, but not too late Brahms. It sang and developed in tandem, very much as chamber music writ large, albeit within a Sophoclean framing of evident kinship with the Fourth Symphony, Nietzsche’s idiotic claim that Brahms’s music spoke with the ‘melancholy of incapacity’ effaced by the melancholy of supreme compositional mastery. The finale ensued with unerring rightness: lighter in one sense, yet anything but carefree. It was more ambiguous and yet also more ‘public’: how is that for ambiguity? The major mode, when it came, moved precisely because it incorporated prior struggles rather than attempting to overcome or even reconcile them. This was not an easy ride, nor should it have been. Too often nowadays, concerto performances are followed by irrelevant encores, serving only to prolong departure from the hall. Bendix-Balgley and Delepelaire judged theirs just right: their own arrangement of a Brahms Hungarian Dance. Alas, I noted down the number incorrectly and am now not sure which one. At any rate, it was spirited, idiomatic, and balanced wienerisch origin with a paprika seasoning of fun. 

It is not only Mendelssohn who seems to be out of fashion; so does Berlioz, doubtless because a number of distinguished champions are no longer with us. Sokhiev and the BPO left us in no doubt what we are missing, with a superlative performance of the Symphonie fantastique, its burning radicalism suggesting even Helmut Lachenmann might yet learn a few tricks from this earlier orchestral master. An augmented orchestra, a larger string section more than matched by considerably more varied as well as larger wind and percussion sections, immediately sounded different, giving the lie to claims that ‘tradition’ somehow makes everything sound the same. It might, but only in the guise of poor playing, which can be old or new. Silkier strings suggested somewhere between opera and ballet, perhaps born of the very different traditions of French theatre music, whilst still honouring the composer’s idiosyncratic yet unmistakeable symphonic ambition. Tension was screwed up in the first movement introduction, exposition release just the thing. Here was form rather than formula, seemingly emerging from the instruments of the orchestra themselves. We never forgot, nor did our guides, that this was Berlioz the Romantic with a capital ‘R’, heir to Byron and Beethoven alike, from double bass growls here to later piccolo shrieking. 

Sokhiev captured to a tee not only the dance of the second movement, but also its subjectivity, islands of unease such as the appearance of the idée fixe included. It and its successors benefited from a beautifully captured sense of scene as a whole and detail within it. Dominik Wollenweber’s cor anglais solo and Albrecht Meyer’s oboe response announced an involving ‘Scène aux champs’, full of musical and dramatic tension, far from always the case in a movement that can readily drag, yet here sounded very much a cousin to the great slow movements of Beethoven. Ghosts of the operatic past – Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven too – imparted great eloquence to the orchestral ‘speech’. Not that programmatic elements were diminished, far from it. This is not a zero-sum game; different aspects should heighten one another and here did. 

That was certainly also the case in the fourth and fifth movements. Timpani, nicely prefigured in the third, rightly took a different turn on this stage of Berlioz’s trip. I was put in mind of the ‘organised delirium’ of which we heard so much with respect to Pierre Boulez last year. Relish of woodwind grotesquerie characterised both movements, but the whole gang was here: bells from above, Dies irae brass, and the most rumbunctious of fugal writing from all concerned, Sokhiev pointing up aspects of character where necessary, yet also knowing when to leave the orchestra alone. It made for a magnificent ending to a magnificent evening.

Mayer/Berliner Barock Solisten/Goltz - JCF Bach, CPE Bach, JS Bach, and Johann Christoph Bach, 11 December 2023

Kammermusiksaal

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach: Sinfonia in D minor, WFV 1/3
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (arr. Albrecht Mayer and Matthias Spindler): Oboe Concerto in G major (after harpsichord concerto, Wq 9)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.3 in G major, BWV 1048 (early version)
Johann Christoph Bach (arr. Spindler): Lamento: Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte
CPE Bach: Symphony in E-flat major for strings, Wq 122/2
JS Bach: Oboe d’amore concerto in A major, BWV 1055R

Albrecht Mayer (oboe, oboe d’amore, English horn)

Berliner Barock Solisten

Gottfried von der Goltz (violin, director)

It is always time for Bach, likewise for the Bach family, but some times seem still more so than others. Advent is surely one of them, and this Advent seems all the more necessary than ever as a source of hope and light when sorely needed. Here, members of the Berlin Philharmonic, in their guise as the Berliner Barock Solisten, led by violinist Gottfried von der Goltz, were joined by their Philharmonic colleague oboist Albrecht Mayer in a programme of music by Johann Sebastian, two of his sons, and his first cousin once removed, Johann Christoph, described in Sebastian’s 1735 genealogy as ‘ein profonder Componist’. 

First, a fine curtain-raiser: a Sinfonia in D minor by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, JS Bach’s fifth son and only three years old when his father (we think) compiled that genealogy. This short three-movement symphony probably stood closest to CPE Bach of Bach’s other sons, though without his radicalism/mannerism (delete according to taste). It nonetheless offered invention and the occasional surprise, in more-or-less Sturm und Drang mode. In the opening ‘Allegro’, the ensemble offered cultivated, dramatic playing which, as elsewhere in the programme, rightly saw no need for mere ‘effects’. Committed, communicative musicianship, which recognised and demonstrated both the importance and joy of listening to one another, was enough. The slow movement, ‘Andante amoroso’ was announced in veiled, somewhat astringent intimacy, taking its leave from the director’s muting of his instrument. Its aria-like unfolding also suggested an organ piece; indeed, Goltz’s violin tone had something of a viola da gamba stop to it. Vigour and dynamism characterised a finale that was conceived and felt as such. 

Emanuel Bach’s G major harpsichord concerto was here arranged for oboe. If there were times when I was not entirely convinced, they were rare, and one can hardly blame an oboist for wanting to expand his instrument’s repertoire. From the outset, contrasts and mood-swings made the composer’s identity clear, though a rare instance of tentative string entry might have had me wonder. Mayer clearly relished the language and the twists and turns of this first movement, as did the ensemble, the physicality of whose playing had one feel in the best sense bows and rosin flying from their bows. This went ‘down’ all the way to the violone/double bass, Ulrich Wolff’s playing as nimble and expressive as that of anyone else. Another aria-like second movement followed, Mayer splendidly long-breathed, strings varying vibrato for expressive rather than dogmatic reasons. I found the harpsichord registration (a lute stop, I think) distracting, even irritating, but could see others in the audience responding more positively. Dramatic string interjections prior to the cadenza would surely have impressed Gluck. Likewise, in the finale, gestures told, whilst always forming part of a larger picture. Bright, incisive, string playing was matched by Mayer’s perky despatch of his part. It was a fine dialogue, enjoyable and nourishing in equal measure. 

The Third Brandenburg Concerto was given by three violins, three violas, two cellos, one double bass, and harpsichord continuo. Polished and lively, the first movement was a model of chamber-scale performance, wondrous transparency ensuring one could feel the import of every contrapuntal line and its direction. Whatever the virtues of his sons’ music – and they are great – Sebastian Bach cannot help but put them in the shade, his music once again proving so satisfying, engrossing, and yes, inspiring. All contributed equally, listening as keenly as they communicated. A rich harpsichord lead-in from Raphael Alpermann to ‘those’ two chords navigated passage to the finale. This I found a little too hard-driven, however impressive the playing, but it met with an enthusiastic reception. As a surprise ‘encore’, we were given the Sinfonia to ‘Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis’, BWV 21. One of Bach’s most extraordinary most memorable, and indeed most extraordinarily memorable cantata movements, it showed Mayer and Goltz in truly harmonious dialogue, violone pizzicato, bowed cellos, and the rest adding not only harmony and texture, but a glimpse of an entire theology. It flowed like tears, fermatas intelligible and meaningful to all, the drama leaping out as if from the aural equivalent of a stained-glass window. 

Johann Christoph Bach’s grave Lamento, arranged by Matthias Spindler, for English horn rather than contralto solo, against strings and continuo, was very much what it ‘said on the tin’, even before Mayer’s entry. Again, the keenness of unfolding dialogue between Mayer and Goltz (later, others too) was touching. Venetian antecedents were apparent, yet so was a more ‘German’ sense of melodic development. I could not help but think the loss of words here withheld from us a key to understanding; without that, the piece felt a little long, though it remained a rare and welcome opportunity to hear it. 

Emanuel Bach’s E-flat String Symphony came next, continuing and developing earlier tendencies of characterful performances which trusted the score without need for weird, ‘early musicke’ fetishisation, whether of instrument, articulation, ‘rhetoric’, or anything else. Alert, clear, directed, the first movement’s nerviness, present without exaggeration, was carried through into the ‘Andante’ minuet: a splendid surprise, all the more so for eschewing current fashions to take such music far too fast. Here, there was plenty of space for neurotic detail, and it was all the better to swing too. The players may have been relatively few in number, but they knew how to fill a hall with music (as much a matter of conception as of tone or mere volume). Catchy and disorienting, the finale proved just the thing both in its concentration and in the fascination of its plot-twists. 

And so, once more to Sebastian Bach, for the final piece, the (reasonably) well-known ‘return’ of the A major Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1055 to a putative oboe d’amore original. Whether an ‘authentic’ version or not – who cares? – the sheer ‘rightness’ of the music ‘itself’ brooked no dissent. Once again, the satisfaction of its construction, vertical and horizontal in perfect, productive balance in a way never surpassed and rarely matched, left one in no doubt as to the identity of the greatest Bach. That was partly, of course, a matter of the performance too: enlightened, surely, from whatever ideological standpoint (or none). Solo phrasing was so excellent one did not notice it. Tempi were just right, as was the sensitivity of dynamic shading, perhaps especially revealing in the ‘Larghetto’. An ebullient, even declamatory finale, as catchy as any Brandenburg Concerto, was taken quickly, without ever feeling rushed. As an encore, we heard Mayer and the ensemble in ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Handel’s Rinaldo: a nice touch, not only permitting Kristin von der Goltz a wonderful cello solo leading us back from the ‘B’ section, but also lightly reminding us that Bach’s path to greatness is not the only one, tempting though it may be to think so when under his spell. Handel may look ‘less’ than Bach, but he can hold his own, and did here.

BPO/Minasi - Mozart, 27 October 2023

Philharmonie

Così fan tutte, KV 588: Overture
Symphony no.35 in D major, KV 385, ‘Haffner’
Concertone in C major for two violins and orchestra, KV 190/186e
Symphony no.40 in G minor, KV 550

Noah Bendix-Balgley, Thomas Timm (violins)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Minasi (conductor)

Images: Stephan Rabold

A wonderful concert, this, in which Riccardo Minasi, making his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, showed himself a musician who would not only listen to and learn from the orchestra, but also to and from every musician within it; and the orchestra and its musicians in turn listened to and learned from the musician in front of them. To say I am particular with Mozart would be something of an understatement. I hope that I, as a listener, learned too; I certainly enjoyed the evening greatly. I might have done things a little differently in my head, but so what? The last thing one wants is for music-making to become a ritual, the same the world over. That would be the death of performance. This was just the tonic for a beastly October evening and indeed the horrors of the world around us. 

The Overture to Così fan tutte set the tone, as it were, for the concert with warm, almost indescribably beautiful playing from the BPO (strings, as throughout, 12.10.8.6.4). Minasi took it fast, yet far from unreasonably so. There was a little woodwind ornamentation, which I did not mind, but some may have found fussy; coming from a woodwind section of this calibre, it is difficult to object. 

The Haffner Symphony followed, timpani prominent, as indeed they had been in the overture, but underpinning the harmony rather than at the expense of others. This was a collegial performance all round. The first movement’s opening would surely have touched even the most reluctant of hearts—and set pulses racing. I could not help but notice the many benefits brought by modern trumpets (as opposed to the ‘period’ versions curiously employed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Andrew Manze a few days earlier, in an otherwise modern set-up). The development section here can all too readily be overlooked; Minasi took it seriously, imparting to it something of its own, albeit related tintà, harmony and counterpoint admirably clear and directed. The recapitulation was upon us before we knew it, yet all had been changed in a performance that married detail and sweep through the most brilliant of orchestral playing. If the Andante was taken swiftly, it worked, and its detail was again unerringly articulated without pedantry. Here, from all contributors, was affectionate understanding. The Minuet was not only one-to-a-bar but a quick one-to-a-bar at that, yet never sounded rush, maintaining both grace and grandeur. Its flowing trio beguiled. Mozart is far less a Presto animal than Haydn, arguably even than Beethoven. In this finale he is, though. Minasi and the BPO showed with ease how one can take it at quite a lick and yet exude grace, humanity, chiaroscuro, and flexibility. Daniel Barenboim, in a rather different way, has shown in his performances of this and other Mozart symphonies exactly the same. The road that will absolutely never lead to Rome is that of dogmatism.

 

The C major Concertone is a true rarity. I had never heard it live previously, and the BPO had performed it just once before, in Brașov in 1938, conducted by Hans von Benda. (Such information is, by the way, a particular joy of the orchestra’s programmes.) Concertone, should anyone quite reasonably be wondering, is an Italian equivalent, used by Mozart here, for the more common French symphonie concertante, essentially a concerto with more than one soloist, and which in this case has as much in common with the older concerto grosso as it does the contemporary, let alone future, symphony. This is very much the Salzburg Mozart, whose music is in many ways as least as difficult to bring off as that of his Viennese successor, but not always in the same ways. What, in the wrong hands, can sound fussy was here a delight. The sheer profusion of melodic ideas was well served here in a lively and gracious performance, never driven hard. Solo playing, not only from the two violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley and Thomas Timm, but from other members of the BPO, but also oboist Albrecht Mayer (who stood with them), and cellist Ludwig Quant (who doubtless would have done, had he not been a cellist!) was beyond reproach, dialogue and conversation flowing in all directions. Tone was rich but never indulgent, like the finest Egyptian cotton The infectious spring in the step – to mix my metaphors – imparted to the first movement was Minasi’s work and helped propel the music with spirit. Not for nothing is it marked ‘Allegro spiritoso’. 

‘Andantino grazioso’, in character as much as speed, was likewise what we heard in the following movement. There was plenty of space for detail to have its full say, in a reading that breathed the air of a Salzburg summer evening. I could imagine myself at the old, dearly lamented Café Glockenspiel, eating a late, post-performance dinner as musicians played below. Similarly, in the minuet finale, I could almost see the ballroom and be dazzled by it, as if Vienna’s Redoutensaal were both already beckoning Mozart and yet also remained some way distant, this the work of his Salzburg imagination and prhaps occasional visit rather than everyday acquaintance. Here, as elsewhere, the two violinists complemented each other, blending well without losing individual character, Bendix-Balgley almost Grumiaux-like (an ideal for me in Mozart), Timm a little more silver of tone. Mayer, needless to say, was his usual excellent self. The whole orchestra excelled, which is just as it should be. 

Last, we heard the ‘great’ G minor Symphony, its first movement neither forsaking emotion for elegance, nor vice versa; they were two sides to the same coin, showing Schumann’s oft-quoted (and derided) imputation of ‘Grecian lightness and grace’ not so far off the mark as it is generally taken to be. Finely, not fussily, shaded, it also possessed a clear sense of line and trajectory. If not so overtly grounded in harmony as, say, with Barenboim, that necessity was still respected. The shockingly Schoenbergian disorientations of the development disoriented as they should; its moments of fragility frightened, if anything, still more. The same should also be said of the coda. In between, the coming of the recapitulation sounded, quite properly, transformed from initial appearances of its material. Form, then, was dynamic, as it must be. The slow movement flowed gracefully, without skating over anything. Breathtaking passages of inwardness contrasted starkly, indeed with great daring from conductor and players alike, with vehement responses that approached yet never quite reached Beethoven. Were it not for its Schubertian heavenly length, both repeats taken, it might have been even more akin to what Schumann and Brahms would have considered an intermezzo, albeit structurally only ever itself. 

Fast and furious, yet still light on its feet, the Minuet’s insistence sounded still closer to Beethoven—because it is. The trio was lovely, yet just a touch unsteady, its tempo stretched before it had been established. That was a very rare misstep, though, and quite a minor one. Playing remained beyond reproach. The finale, naturally, was still faster and at least as furiously insistent, yet that Schumann Grecian quality persisted. The second group led so ravishingly by first clarinet Wenzel Fuchs, had me especially grateful that Minasi had opted for the second version, with clarinets, of the work. The development showed that form and rhetoric, properly understood, are complementary, not antithetical, Beethovenian strength of purpose uniting all, and perfectly preparing the moment of return, tragic in a way few composers before or since have approached let alone matched. The second repeat was taken, as Barenboim now does too. Both conductors have made sense of something that others do not—and about which I remain a little sceptical ‘on paper’. For Minasi’s ‘recapitulation’ did so much more than recapitulate or repeat; second time around, it proved a ghostly, terrifying experience. 

When Sir Colin Davis became chief conductor of the LSO, he said one of the things he intended to do – and he was true to his word – was have them play more Mozart and Haydn, not only as a good in itself but also for what it would do for the orchestra’s string tone in particular. The Berlin Philharmonic hardly needs help in that department, but all orchestras need to maintain, indeed to extend, their capabilities in this and every other regard. I cannot offhand think of a single symphony orchestra that does not at present at least slightly neglect these composers. All would benefit from doing so, not least since the Western symphonic tradition stands on their shoulders; and if, somehow, they find themselves at a loss for someone to lead them in this music, on this basis they could do far worse than engage Riccardo Minasi as a guest conductor.