Uchida/Grosz/BPO/Rattle - Mozart, Walton, and Kodály, 6 October 2017

Philharmonie

Mozart: Piano Concerto no.27 in B-flat major, KV 595

Walton: Viola Concerto

Kodály: Suite: Háry János

Mitsuko Uchida (piano)

Amihai Grosz (viola)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Simon Rattle (conductor)

Try as I might, I could not work out the idea behind the programming of this concert. In practice, it brought us the Berlin Philharmonic – and Simon Rattle – at their best after the interval, in works by Walton and Kodály, whereas far and away the best music came before that interval. Not that there was anything wrong with the orchestra’s playing, or indeed with Rattle’s conducting, in Mozart’s final piano concerto, but there was something of a sense of compromise, as if orchestra and conductor – arguably soloist too – were pulling slightly in different directions. There was none, or very little, of the mannerism that has often so disfigured Rattle’s conducting of Classical music; that, after all, is hardly Mitsuko Uchida’s style. But a very small orchestra – only eight first violins – sounded a little plain of string tone, with the true orchestral delights coming from a fabulous woodwind section. The first movement lacked the autumnal quality puritans tell us we – and it – should eschew, but nor was it especially vernal; indeed, even Uchida’s playing, although excellent, had a degree of neutrality to it. That worked rather well in the development section, when her passagework sounded entwined around ravishing oboe and bassoon solos. Indeed, the orchestra had sounded enlivened as soon as she entered. And Uchida’s was a distinguished performance overall, as one would have expected. The slow movement was beautifully shaped, never unduly moulded. It spoke and sang with simplicity, however secondary. Here, Uchida continued to ornament her lines, but far more so than earlier on: ever tasteful, indeed ever delightful. The finale was finely articulated from all concerned, Uchida’s command of line especially noteworthy. There was much to commend, much to enjoy; comparisons can wait until another day, or indefinitely.

The Berlin Philharmonic sounded like a different orchestra after the interval; of course one would not expect Mozart to sound like Walton, or vice versa, but it was more than that. Richly Romantic, there was no denying this sound’s ‘fit’ to the repertoire. (Interestingly, and to my mind highly surprisingly, Karl Böhm had conducted its Berlin Philharmonic premiere in 1958, with William Primrose, whilst the 1961-2 revision, heard here, received its first – and until now, only – performance from the orchestra in 1969 from Giusto Cappone and John Barbirolli). Just two weeks earlier, we had heard Máté Szűcs in the Bartók Viola Concerto; now it was the turn of the orchestra’s other principal viola, Amihai Grosz. If the Bartók is far from my favourite piece by that composer, comparison with Walton’s concerto, in whichever version, does the latter no favours. If, once again, I found myself far from convinced by a work that has a tendency to sound like bits of film music stuck together, then it was not for want of trying from Grosz, the orchestra, or Rattle. The vaguely jazzy sections and those that sound somewhat like Prokofiev are perhaps the most convincing parts of the first movement; they certainly sounded splendid in themselves here. Grosz’s double-stopping, moreover, was to die for. Stravinskian rhythmic precision made its mark in the second movement. All concerned made a great effort to unify the work in its finale. Grosz’s lyricism here – and not just his – made a gorgeous sound indeed. His Reger encore, however – I am not sure offhand from which of the Suites it came – was very much more to my taste. It was lovely to see Rattle sneak in at the back of the stage and sit at the piano to hear it too.

I tried too with Kodály’s Háry Janos Suite. Perhaps trying was the problem, for it is fun enough in its way, if perhaps a little laboured in the fifth movement. The Prelude is in many ways impressive – and certainly proved so in performance, lower strings offering more than a hint of Bluebeard Bartók (in which I had heard them earlier this year). There are worse models, far worse models! The festive quality to the Vienna Musical Clock movement was relished. And violist Naoko Shimizu played her opening to the third movement, the ‘Song’, with a beauty of tone that, in context, hinted at a link, however, strained, with Walton. It is always fun – well, nearly always – to hear the cimbalom too, and we most certainly did on this occasion, if rather less imaginatively (writing, not performance) than I had earlier this week in Jörg Widmann’s Zweites Labyrinth. The Berlin brass’s performance was truly outstanding in ‘The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon’, and so on. It was an enjoyable performance in itself; quite what its connection with Walton or Mozart might have been remained obscure.

Prohaska/Members of the BPO/Rattle: Schubert, Schoenberg, and Mahler, 20 February 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Schubert – Quartettsatz in C minor, D 703
Schoenberg – String Quartet no.2, op.10
Mahler – Piano Quartet in A minor
Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony no.1 in E major, op.9

Anna Prohaska (soprano)
Bishari Harouni (piano)
Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, including string quartet:
Guy Braunstein, Christoph Streuil (violins)
Amihai Grosz (viola)
Ludwig Quandt (violoncello)
Sir Simon Rattle (conductor)


Whatever the fortunes of the remaining three concerts from this joint Berlin Philharmonic residency at the Barbican and the Southbank Centre, the bar was set high with its opening chamber concert. Schubert’s 1820 Quartettsatz arguably opens too many quartet concerts – there are not that many overture equivalents – but there was no sense of the routine on this occasion; indeed, from its febrile opening onwards, this C minor single movement emerged far more substantially than is generally the case. Schubert emerged as a more formidable contrapuntist than is often suspected, not least on account of some especially telling viola interventions from Amihai Grosz (the BPO’s first principal viola and also violist in the Jerusalem Quartet). Tempo was flexible, yet never drew attention to itself, following demands or suggestions in the score rather than imposing itself.

For Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, the players were joined by Anna Prohaska, whose star is unmistakeably in the ascendant. A member of the ensemble at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, she has recently signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and will be singing with Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini, and Pierre Boulez later this year. First, of course, the players must fend for themselves – which they did at least as well as they had in the Schubert. A relatively cool opening phrase was answered with music that rightly sounded like Verklärte Nacht turned expressionist, especially when it came to the two inner parts (Grosz and second violinist, Christoph Streuil). ‘Where are we?’ one might well have asked. The score’s dense complexity suggested Brahms, the performance’s dramatic thrust the Schoenberg of Pelleas und Melisande. Despite the audible – even at this stage – pulling away from tonality, the first movement remained definitely anchored in F-sharp minor and sonata form remained capable of operation, albeit in a more compressed fashion than a naïve listener might expect. Yet operate it can, and did: this is 1908, not 1948. The development section brought some wonderfully rich playing from first violin (Guy Braunstein) and viola, the instruments echoing and inciting, whilst the concluding bars ushered in true, pregnant stillness. It is not easy to bring the scherzo off, but these players did so with aplomb, presenting an almost-but-not-quite-fragmentary movement, the ‘not-quite’ bit proved by a properly unifying Schoenbergian Idea. Violence and melodic profusion were shown to be two sides of the same coin, held in dialectical relationship through various forces, not least by a sharp rhythmic profile. The celebrated ‘Ach, du liebe Augustin’ quotation (not ‘Augustine’, as the booklet note had it!) emerged with a cheeky lilt, which lilt and cheek were intensified on subsequent appearances, likewise the fury of the scherzo material. With Schoenberg, as these players readily understood, there is no mere repetition, but developing variation.

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of presenting the soprano as a soloist in the final two movements; they can and must remain part of a ‘string quartet’, albeit a highly unusual quartet-plus-soprano. The players ensured that the mood of a litany (Litanei) was set even before a note had been sung. It was intriguing to note proximity, despite the soprano voice, to the Nietzsche setting of Mahler’s Third Symphony: the Zarathustrian world is deep indeed. Songful, as opposed to aria-like, Prohaska’s delivery imparted a fine sense of line and faultless diction to both of Stefan George’s poems, dramatic flair too, though never straying beyond what was appropriate. Gradually, we seemed to edge towards the world of Pierrot lunaire, and of course, the air of another planet, though Brahms was never entirely banished – nor should he be – from our frame of reference. The final line, ‘gib mir dein glück!’ permitted a step backward, to wonder verbally, and simultaneously forward, to the music that was to come: perfectly judged from all concerned. Entrückung really did seem to bring that long-awaited air: as bracing, rare, and life-affirming as I can recall hearing. Prohaska floated and intoned the line itself: ‘Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten’. How tame so much twentieth-century music seems by comparison! The musicians seemed to place Schoenberg just as he should be placed, yet often is not: his music as erotic as anything in Berg, yet as Alpine as Webern, arguably in this particular case, meta-Alpine. Schoenberg and the quartet showed triumphantly how loss of tonal moorings does not entail loss or even suspension of harmonic direction: there is a whole new world, indeed universe, out there. Again, we seemed but a stone’s throw from Pierrot, and there were a couple of occasions when Ligeti seemed to beckon. For all that, Schoenberg’s music looks back too: I was especially impressed by the chamber-Wagnerian presentation of the line, ‘Ich löse mich in tönen, kreisend, webend’. Chamber Wagner is, of course, precisely what it is: Tristan suggested in words and tones. Vocal climax, when it came, was ecstatic, never forced, after which the strings sounded transfigured, sending shivers down the spine. Does, however, the consonant ending still work? It could barely have satisfied Schoenberg for long.

Mahler’s early Piano Quartet movement opened the second half. For this, three members of the quartet were joined by the excellent Palestinian pianist, Bishara Harouni. The shading he imparted to Mahler’s opening chords announced a musician of great musical and pianistic gifts. Moreover, blend with the string trio was well-nigh perfect: a far more difficult task than many would assume. The movement’s Brahmsian inheritance proved productive rather than oppressive, its expressive metrical clashes holding no fears for these players. Hushed passages were especially ravishing, Mahler’s prentice work suffering no condescension. I find it difficult to imagine the piece receiving finer advocacy, an impression reinforced by the delicate, heart-rending beauty of the coda in performance.

Sir Simon Rattle and other members of the Berlin Philharmonic ventured onstage for an excellent performance of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony. If the Second String Quartet affirms life more strongly than one might be led to believe, then this sunny masterpiece does so as much as any work by Haydn. I heard Rattle conduct it at the first Prom I ever attended; he has not lost his touch with music of the Second Viennese School. Had I not heard Pierre Boulez lead an expanded Scharoun Ensemble (also drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic) a couple of years ago, I suspect this would rank as the finest performance I have heard. As it was, and belying popular misconceptions of Boulez as a conductor, he managed to elicit just a little more post-Wagnerian warmth from players and score. Nevertheless, Rattle’s remained a fine achievement, flexible without being pulled around, displaying no hint of the mannerisms that have bedevilled some of his more recent music-making. Balance was as faultless as under Boulez: an extraordinary achievement, given Schoenberg’s challenging scoring. The BPO’s woodwind proved as characterful as they had under Karajan (who, I seem to remember, thought the piece well-nigh unperformable), whilst brass sounded both cultivated and vital. Rattle exhibited a sure command of form and character, the foundational status of Schoenberg’s fourth intervals audible for all to hear. The Adagio section sounded both rapt and febrile, not least thanks to some extraordinarily expressive cello playing (Ludwig Quandt). This, then, provided an excellent conclusion to a thoroughly excellent concert.