Musikfest Berlin (8) - Tetzlaff/Konzerthaus Berlin/Eschenbach - Haydn, Jost, and Beethoven, 6 September 2020

Philharmonie

Haydn: Symphony no.21 in A major, Hob. I:21
Christian Jost: Violin Concerto no.2, ‘Concerto Noir Redux’ (world premiere)
Beethoven: Symphony no.8 in F major, op.93

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)

How wonderful to hear Haydn’s Symphony no.21 in the concert hall. I had never done so before, and whilst I should happily be corrected, I doubt many others in the audience had. Christoph Eschenbach led the Konzerthausorchester Berlin in a performance alert to the work’s formal strangeness, albeit with none of the exaggeration and downright grotesquerie that often, regrettably, accompany such exploration. The first movement ‘Adagio’ in particular benefited from simply being permitted to speak, however great the art concealed in that ‘simply’. Gorgeous, warm tone invited us in to contemplate and to experience Haydn’s formal mysteries, mysteries through which certain harmonic progressions and their rhythmic instantiation already seemed to prefigure the Beethoven of the Eighth Symphony, if only one listened (to both). Following the model, though only in the most skeletal sense, of the sonata da chiesa, Haydn follows that movement, which, like much in the Beethoven, makes sense so long as one does not wish to put a name to it, with a fast movement, here marked ‘Presto’. It sounded as an eruption of joy, of harmonic release, sharpened by rhythmic, alert playing. Concision and expression in thematic development again had one think of Haydn’s most celebrated pupil, but it was the teacher’s voice that was unmistakeable. Above all, this was music that made me smile. Eschenbach’s unfussy way with the ‘Menuetto’ again had it tell its own story. Its trio’s curious melancholy, rhythmic signature and all, was relished throughout the orchestra. If there were occasional untidiness here, it did little harm. The finale proved a veritable compendium of syncopated surprises, of invention and a posteriori inevitability—thus emulating the first movement, albeit in very different style, ‘Allegro molto’. The spirit of Haydn as revealed through the recordings of Antal Doráti seemed reborn, albeit warmer and more conciliatory. Delightful!


By contrast, I struggled to make much out of Christian Jost’s Concerto Noir Redux, notwithstanding the excellence of solo (Christian Tetzlaff) and ensemble playing. Opening effortful violin slides, taken up by other strings, eventually unleashed something akin to ‘traditional’ solo virtuosity, which Tetzlaff of course possesses in spades. It was interesting to hear how such techniques could be echoed by the skilled percussion section, here four strong, both tuned and untuned. Was that perhaps a sense of the ‘infectious’, in a nod to current preoccupations? So far, so good. Where the rest of this single movement (in roughly twenty-five minutes) went was, to me at least, more obscure. A new, softer focus section sounded redolent of a generic television score. Different moods and sections summoned up music suggestive more of note-spinning than anything else, with curious nods elsewhere, for instance clarinet lines that might have been offcuts from The Rite of Spring. A frenzied close brought this vaguely neo-Romantic, not unpleasant work to an end, at least ten minutes too late; or perhaps that was just me.


I had long ago given up hope of hearing the symphonic Beethoven this year (save for the wonderful ‘Beethoven-Séance’ given in Cologne, during the dying days of our ‘Freyheit’). Anything other than a catastrophe, then, would have been welcome for the Eighth Symphony, and this was certainly not that. Eschenbach’s way with the first movement was insistent, even through agogic accents which would not have been to all tastes. He made no apologies for old-style heft, and was all the better for it, though progress was at times a touch deliberate. There was splendid contrapuntal interplay, though, a battle of a development underpinned by crashing syncopations. Thereafter, the movement proved as full of surprises as the Haydn heard earlier. Again, this fresh reading made me smile, long before triumphant coda and witty sign-off. I was also reminded quite how difficult a piece this is to bring off—even to begin to understand.


Humour is best delivered straight in the ‘Allegretto scherzando’; to do otherwise in this case, would be entirely to miss the point. Its considerable charm suggested paths to Mendelssohn; it also proved an excellent choice of encore. There is more to it than charm, of course, and motivic development came to the fore once that charm could be (almost) taken for granted. There was charm of a different kind in Beethoven’s neo-Classical reinvention of the eighteenth-century Minuet. It boasted all the complexity such cunning reinvention entails, but also due affection. Eschenbach and his players showed a keen ear for detail and balance, the trio once more exuding a tenderness that brought Mendelssohn to mind. Woodwind were not always entirely together, but I could live with that were once. If the concert had begun with a formal enigma, it closed with another, at least in theory. In practice, of course, this finale is what it is—and must be made to sound as such, which it was. I sometimes had my doubts as to whether Eschenbach was proving over-demonstrative, but there is much to be said for such clarity of purpose and texture. It was unyielding at times, but again that was his conception. The jokes of the coda had me laugh, not only smile; for that, I could forgive anything.

Tetzlaff/Lonquich - Brahms, Enescu, Webern, and Franck, 16 November 2019

Pierre Boulez Saal

Brahms: Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.100

Enescu: Violin Sonata no.2 in F minor, op.6

Webern: Four Pieces for violin and piano, op.7

Franck: Violin Sonata in A major, FWV 8

Christian Teztlaff (violin)

Alexander Lonquich (piano)

What could be more satisfying than a comprehending performance of a Brahms masterwork? Nothing—and this was certainly that. Intimate yet not withdrawn, the opening of the first movement to the A major Violin Sonata—and much else besides—always had much bubbling beneath the surface, sometimes bubbling over, even erupting. Shifting balance between violin (Christian Tetzlaff) and piano (Alexander Lonquich) were managed almost as if this were the work of one player rather than two: a true partnership. Apparently simplicity soon revealed complexity, balance between melody and harmony, horizontal and vertical finely judged, likewise ever shifting. Formal concision and expression were two sides of the same coin. An ‘Andante tranquillo’ whose lyricism again encompassed harmony as much as melody proved the perfect foil for a Vivace section whose shadow games spoke not only of playful melancholy but also the melancholy of play. This second movement’s through-composition was truly felt and expressed, no mere structural ‘feature’. Metrical dislocation in the finale, as elsewhere, told without the slightest exaggeration. Once again, line, tempo, and mood were perfectly judged for music as intense, in its own way, as anything in Schoenberg and as deeply indebted to Beethoven, as revealed here, as anything Brahms wrote. Such things need not be shouted from the rooftops, especially with Brahms.

George Enescu’s 1899 Second—again of three—Violin Sonata was next on the programme, in a similarly absorbing performance. Its first movement, ‘Assez mouvementé’, began to speak from another shadow world with similar command of line, both aspects related to what we had heard in Brahms yet also distinct. Lonquich wore formidable technical demands lightly and without sentimentality, with an elegance one might consider Gallic. Such demands revealed rather than concealed underlying harmonic rhythm. Tetzlaff likewise made light of what he was asked to do, simplicity of utterance, not contrivance, the order of the day. The lyrical trade of the second movement offered something similarly distinctive. ‘Brahms with a French accent’ would sell it quite short, yet as a starting point in this particular recital, it may yet have served a purpose. Here, as elsewhere, contours were expertly, meaningfully shaped. The finale proved as rigorous as it was passionate, the idiom of Enescu’s strange ‘Romanticism’—I think one may just about call it that—judged to a tee. Equally fine in judgement was Teztlaff’s witty sign-off, too consequential merely to be nonchalant, yet momentarily, partially suggestive of that.

If I have heard a superior concert-hall Webern Four Pieces then I must have forgotten—which seems unlikely. Without apparent effort, art concealing art, Teztlaff imparted such meaning to his opening perfect fourth (double-stopped), that by the time Lonquich’s piano chord responded, one might almost have reached the end of a conventional first thematic group. The nine bars of the first piece present an entire drama of their own and were presented as such. Webern’s second piece emerged as a scherzo on acid, each note again the equivalent to a hundred in so much other music. The third announced itself as a drama of pitch and proceeded to be a drama of much else too, almost a Mahlerian world in itself. As in Beethoven, as in Brahms, a Webern finale’s victory needs to be won—and how it was here. All composer and performers asked was that we listen; it is difficult to imagine why, in circumstances so propitious, anyone would have declined.

For the final work on the programme we returned to A major, to César Franck’s Violin Sonata. What struck me most clearly from this sympathetic, refined, often ardent performance was, without disregard to certain affinities, the very different nature of Franck’s formal concerns here. The danger—I am not sure any performance can entirely avoid it—is that the music begins to speak with a certain sameness. Whatever the truth of my suspicion, Teztlaff and Lonquich made a valiant attempt, not through overt effort to be ‘different’, but by attending to different character between movements, by greater yet far from unrelieved intensification in the second and third, and finally by presenting a finale that balanced developmental and cyclical demands. It certainly did not stand still. Nor did the subtle, well-nigh Goethian tragedy—major mode conclusion notwithstanding—of the encore, the final movement from Brahms’s G major Violin Sonata. My only regret was that we had not heard the entire work; next time, perhaps.

Musikfest Berlin (8) - Tetzlaff/RSB/Jurowski - Yun, Schoenberg, Nono, and Beethoven-Mahler, 17 September 2017

Philharmonie

 

Images: Kai Bienert

Isang Yun: Dimensionen, for large orchestra with organ

Schoenberg: Violin Concerto, op.36
Nono: Julius Fučik
Beethoven, retouched by Mahler: Symphony no.5 in C minor, op.67

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)

Max Hopp (speaker: Fučik)

Sven Philipp (speaker: Officer)

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

 

My final – although not quite the final – concert of this year’s Musikfest Berlin fell on the hundred birthday of Isang Yun. Having heard some of his chamber music that afternoon, it was an interesting prospect to hear a work for full, indeed large, orchestra, with organ. (Alas, I was unable to find the name of the organist anywhere in the programme.) Dimensionen, or Dimensions, was commissioned by the city of Nuremberg, as part of the 1971 celebrations for the five-hundredth anniversary of Albrecht Durer. I wish I had been able to respond more than I had, but found myself a little nonplussed; perhaps I needed to give it another hearing or two, or indeed to do a little homework rather than coming to it cold. The idea seemed to encompass three different planes of sound: the organ and high, often very high, strings; deep percussion and brass; and woodwind in between, less static than either. I was certainly struck by the passages in which woodwind really took on the ‘persona’ of highly tremulant organ stops. One section, in which loud organ was offset by vigorous percussion sounded oddly like avant-gardist Poulenc, but I doubt that was the intention! There was a good bit of (considerably earlier) Ligeti- or Xenakis-like violin swarming too. It all, however, seemed to me a great deal of trouble to have gone to for relatively little reward. And then, it stopped.

With Schoenberg, though, I found myself back very much on home territory, and should have no hesitation in saying that this was the finest performance of the Violin Concerto I have heard in the concert hall. Indeed, I am not sure that I have heard a better one on record, either. Opportunities are rare to hear the work; even I have only heard it ‘live’ twice before. The last time had been in 2009, in which Nikolaj Znaider had – sadly, if all too predictably – been let down by a clearly unprepared Valery Gergiev. There was no such question of that being the case here. Vladimir Jurowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSB) were just as much party to the success of this performance as the outstanding Christian Tetzlaff. The first movement very much set the tone for what was to come: precise, yet dancing idiomatically. Textures were almost incredibly clear, so much so as to have one wonder whatever the ‘problem’ might ever have been with this work. More than once, there seemed to be a strong orchestral affinity with the more or less contemporary world of Berg, albeit more Lulu than the Violin Concerto. (Schoenberg was anxious to make clear, in a 1936 letter to Webern, that he had conceived of the idea of his work at the same time as Berg had his.) Tetzlaff’s tone could hardly have been more centred; one might readily have taken dictation, however dazzling the virtuosity. The Andante grazioso brought a winning match of doggedness and sublimity to the long violin line, dance again never far away. Developing variation was here so much more than a mere description; it was something one could hardly fail to experience. The mood of defiance to the finale was brilliantly captured too. Perhaps there was just a little ‘formalism to Jurowski’s conducting, but to be able to hear so much of this wondrous score was more than ample compensation. Mahler seemed almost resurrected in its militarism, and yet to very different purposes. Tetzlaff’s despatch of the cadenza seemed almost calculated to echo Schoenberg’s workds: ‘Yes, yes. That will be fine. The concerto is extremely difficult, just as much for the head as for the hands. I am delighted to add another unplayable work to the repertoire. I want the concerto to be difficult and I want the little finger to become longer. I can wait.’ And the soloist’s choice of Bach’s D minor Sarabande as an encore was perfect. Not only could one read back Bach’s line into Schoenberg’s, and vice versa; the choice of D minor picked up on and responded to Schoenberg’s hints at that key – always a ‘special’ one for him – in the concerto.

 

I had heard Jurowski conduct the British premiere of Nono’s unfinished Julius Fučik in London in 2011. ‘Pointillism’ was what had immediately come to mind in the opening then; so it did now; far more so, say, than in the later Il canto sospeso, heard earlier in this festival. Its melodramatic quality inevitably puts one in mind of Schoenberg: for instance, A Survivor from Warsaw. There was certainly no doubting the violence and the human ‘provocation’, such as Nono said he always needed: ‘an event, an experience, a test in our lives, which provokes my instinct and my consciousness, as man and musician, to bear witness’. In this case, the witness borne is to a Czech communist and literary critic, hanged by the Nazis in 1943. (Fučik’s words would also be used in Intolleranza 1960.) Drums and trumpets again suggested Mahler (and Schoenberg), as the music led us to one of those typical Nono passages of agonising beauty. The German ‘Schönheit’, spoken shortly after, made the point clearly. And then, to hear the phrase ‘ein Motif von Beethoven’ alerted us, with savage irony, to where we were heading.

 

Jurowski had followed that London performance too with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The great difference here was that it was performed with Mahler’s retouchings to the score – and with a much larger orchestra. Interestingly, Jurowski now seemed liberated, no longer hidebound by self-imposed ‘authenticke’ restrictions. It was, of course, a splendid experience in itself to hear Beethoven via Mahler, but it was not just that; we heard more, I think, of Beethoven ‘as Beethoven’ too. Moreover, simply to hear a full-sized orchestra, still more one on such splendid form as the RSB, let loose on this music – sixteen first violins down to eight double basses – is an opportunity all too today too. Doubling of wind made perfect sense in such a hall and on such an occasion too. Yes, of course it is not strictly ‘necessary’, but what is? If we go down that route, we might as well all stay at home and listen to recordings – or indeed to nothing at all. To hear, for instance, the oboe solo in the first movement not as a solo at all was fascinating, especially when played as well as it was here. We doubtless will not hear it like that next time, but we might have the memory in some sense with us, offering a different, reflective standpoint on what we hear. Moreover, the first movement as a whole burst forth with all the radicalism of Beethoven’s almost incredible gift for concision. Perhaps Jurowski might have yielded a little on occasion, but one might say the same about Klemperer.

 

It was glorious to hear the lower strings, so full and rich, so songful and soulful, at the opening of the second movement. Even the slightly static approach Jurowski brought to the music seemed to work, although I could not quite tell you how or why. I was less convinced that this was really a ‘Mahlerian’ approach, but so what? To attempt to imitate, whether something imaginary or otherwise, is an approach for pedants, not for artists. The performance, moreover, benefited from all the clarity we had heard in the Schoenberg. I very much like the stateliness, the strength – I dare not invoke ‘stability’ here! – of the Scherzo, transmuted into something similar yet different in the Trio. The reprise of the scherzo material sounded as ghostly as ever; alas, the transition to the finale remained somewhat foursquare, lacking in mystery. If there were times in that final movement when Jurowski seemed to hold back – rather oddly, and overtly, in forced ritardandi – many earlier virtues remained, showing clarity, strength of purpose, and numbers to be anything but antithetical. (It is extraordinary that one has to make such a point, but given the current fashionable climate, alas one must.) And this time, the surprise would be that the oboe solo was – yes, an oboe solo. Two piccolos, four flutes, four oboes, four clarinets (including bass and E-flat clarinets), four bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones: I have no doubt whatsoever that Beethoven would have been overjoyed to hear his music relished by and through so many. If, ultimately, I was perhaps more impressed than moved by the performance, it gave me much to be impressed by – and to think about.

Andsnes and friends - Brahms Piano Quartets, 28 May 2016

Milton Court Concert Hall

 

Piano Quartets nos 1-3

Leif Ove Andsnes (piano)

Christian Teztlaff (violin)

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Clemens Hagen (cello)

 

I remain sceptical about this sort of programming. Performing, say, Beethoven’s three final piano sonatas in a single recital makes a great deal of sense, although so likewise does performing them separately with other works, attempting to suggest, even to draw, connections. Performing all five of Prokofiev’s piano concertos does not, however much that combination of works might be helpful to collect as a 2-CD set. This concert, part of Leif Ove Andsnes’s LSO Artist Portrait series (albeit without any members of the LSO!), fell somewhere in between. It made for a long evening, especially when programmed in chronological order, with a single interval separating the first and second quartets. On the other hand, we do not hear these works nearly so often as we should – much the same might be said for any piano quartet – and hearing Brahms’s development is always interesting. If I should have preferred two or three concerts, including works by other composers, that was no reason to look a gift-horse in the mouth, for these were excellent performances from beginning to end, much as one might have expected from Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann, and Clemens Hagen.

 

First was the First, in G minor, op.25, as orchestrated, unforgettably, whether you like it or not, by Schoenberg. It was a strength of this performance, the first movement opening straight away with an echt-Brahms sound, that one did forget, and indeed I am now still hearing the original, not Schoenberg’s version, in my head. Strings, and then piano, sounded ‘right’ – which is not to say that there is only one ‘right’, of course, although there are surely many ‘wrongs’. It was not just the sound, though; phrasing and, cumulatively, paragraphs evinced a similar sense of ‘rightness’, all richly Romantic. (The disjuncture between literary and philosophical Romanticism and its musical counterpart, if counterpart it be, means that we cannot really call this ‘late Romanticism’. We probably should, but it would only serve to confuse.) A viola solo from Zimmermann, rich-toned and beautiful in itself, also brought so much more, heralding not only Andsnes’s elaboration, but, so it seemed, the whole of the second group, even the development. The development section itself brought half-lights (yes, this ‘early’ in Brahms’s career) and, of course, vehemence; both propelled the music. So, fundamentally, did the composer’s motivic working, which surely must have been the greatest attraction of all for Schoenberg, here heard meaningfully throughout, quite without pedantry. This was indeed ‘Brahms the Progressive’.

 

Romantic unease (earlier?) from Hagen’s underpinning cello characterised the second movement, permitting of great ambivalence, great ambiguity. Andsnes’s way with rhythm and its relationship, inextricable, to harmony assured motivic integrity, not that that was ever in doubt! Much the same might be said of the Andante, despite its different character. Menacing currents made their point without cheap exaggeration, for they had been prepared and understood harmonically by all concerned; this was true chamber music-making. There was vehemence in those martial rhythms later on, but harmony remained the ultimate mover. They cast their shadow over the return of the opening material, just as they should. There was likewise no doubting the urgency of the finale, taken at quite a lick, nor the astounding virtuosity of the players, but that was not at the expense of chiaroscuro. Contrasting episodes certainly contrasted, but within a greater unity to which they contributed.

The A major Quartet, op.26 followed. If I found this slightly less compelling, that is more a reflection of my response to the work than to the performance, which again was of the highest quality. Andsnes opened the first movement in intriguingly neutral fashion, having us wonder where it might lead. There was certainly a lightness to what immediately followed, underlining the vehemence that followed that, and so on. But ‘difference’ never seemed in retrospect to have been for the sake of it. From Teztlaff’s golden- or silver- or various other- hued violin line – no all-purpose ‘beauty’ here – to the twists, turns, and pedal points of the bass, in whichever part, this performance knew where it was heading. The spirit, and not just the scale, seemed to owe as much to Schubert as to Beethoven, which is surely right in this particular work. The second movement progressed similarly – yet in difference, with more than the occasional hint of Brahms’s Mozartian inheritance (highly welcome!) Nostalgia and distance seemed thereby evoked and dramatized, grief in response all the more heightened. In the third movement, tendencies from both predecessors seemed united, played off against one another: form here was dynamic, never a mere framework. The finale, taken attacca, sounded very much a finale (not always as evident a quality as one might expect). If the ghost of Beethoven had sometimes been placated, here he returned with a vengeance; he had never gone away.

 

The first movement of the Third, op.60 in C minor, registered a very different character from the outset. Internalised anger of an almost Webern-like concision, tension screwed up, at times almost unbearably: this was a performance (as it is a work) still more dialectical in quality. There was nothing appliqué to this terror: it emerged from musical necessity. Rhythm was the progenitor, at least at first, of the different character to the scherzo, as one might expect. Relative rhythmical relaxation was predicated upon what it was relaxing from. The changing relationship between piano and strings, the latter sometimes ‘led’ by Teztlaff, at other times in quite a different formation, proved a crucial element to the drama unfolding. The movement came to a close with such fury that it might almost have been the close of the work; except… The cello sonata-like opening to the Andante thus came as relief (not unlike the Andante to the Second Piano Concerto). Then a piano trio, in perfect balance; then the full quartet, transformed by experience, melancholy heightened. Again, the changing relationship between parts, between ensembles, was very much of the essence. In context, we heard the opening to the finale almost as part of an ‘additional’ violin sonata; in the hands of Andsnes and Teztlaff, how could it not, if only momentarily? So subtle were the entrances of viola and cello, one hardly noticed them. The intensity, emotional and intellectual, of what followed, could not, however, have been missed by anybody.

Tetzlaff Quartet - Haydn, Berg, and Beethoven, 2 March 2013

Wigmore Hall

Haydn – String Quartet in C major, op.20 no.2

Berg – Lyric Suite
Beethoven – String Quartet no.15 in A minor, op.132

Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Kufferath (violins)

Hanna Weinmeister (viola)
Tania Tetzlaff (cello)

 

The second of Haydn’s Sun Quartets opened with a well-nigh perfect marriage of cultivation and bright tone, the Tetzlaff Quartet offering a reading that was properly detailed without the slightest hint of fussiness, the longer line always apparent, always a guiding thread. There was an equally fine sense of cumulative form, though without pressing too hard. This remained, as it must, a Haydn Moderato. The slow movement retained its predecessor’s communication of the extraordinary originality of Haydn’s formal genius. Echoes of the Baroque met with an experimentalism that almost puts Bartók to shame. Nor was the lyricism of that beautiful central melody overlooked. Haydn’s masterstroke of having the minuet steal in, foreshortening the Adagio, was beautifully handled, and the finale’s fugal ‘learning’, whilst worn lightly, was none the less vividly communicated for that. Its coda offered a wonderful sense of release – and again sheer originality.

 

The quartet’s performance of Berg’s Lyric Suite was, if anything, more committed still. Its first movement burst forth with just the right impression of (amorous) life, its sonata form clear, meaningful, without any sense of neo-Classical didacticism. There was admirable flexibility too; indeed, at times the reading – like the work – verged upon the operatic. For all I might wish that the programme had never been revealed, it was difficult not to gain a sense of something musico-dramatic here and later, kinship – melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic – with Wozzeck and Lulu perhaps especially strong in the second movement, whose opening, whilst nostalgically beautiful, I had found perhaps a little pastel in shade. (That is a mild criticism, and really the only one I can muster for this excellent performance.) Scurrying intensity and repressed passion – one almost but not quite forgets that the instruments remain muted – marked the third movement, as dramatically concentrated as one could hope for. The turbulent dynamism of post-Tristan eroticism yet still made space in the fourth movement for the quasi-religious stillness of the Zemlinsky quotation, ‘Du bist mein eigen’. It was wonderfully moving. After that, the pitch-black, savage musica negative of the fifth movement pulled quite a punch, rivalling anything in Lachenmann. The finale emerged as radiant, richly post-Romantic, a properly ambiguous attempt at reconciliation, the Tristan quotation an even more hopeless attempt than usual to turn back the clock, Stefan Georg’s ‘De profundis clamavi’ voiced in everything but its words. Music subsided into nothingness: in equal measure chilling and hopeful.

 

Beethoven’s A minor Quartet followed after the interval. The first movement and much of the rest of the performance possessed an intimacy that drew one in. Here Christian Teztlaff’s solo skill was put to excellent use. The broadening of intimacy into exultancy, Beethoven’s doing of course, was subtly, rewardingly communicated, with a crucial sense of dialectical tension. Closing vehemence sounded like a vain attempt – not unlike that mentioned in the Berg – to turn the clock back, in this case to the world of the Kreutzer Sonata. On occasion, I wondered whether the intimacy of the scherzo shaded into a certain skating over, but the sheer obsessive strangeness, for all its historical rooting, of the trio was unerringly portrayed. The grave dignity of the Heiliger Dankgesang, fragile yet strong, was alas seriously undermined by determined intervention from a crack group of bronchial terrorists. Could they have chosen holier ground to profane? They should have been utterly ashamed of themselves. Nevertheless, there was a proper sense of ‘Neue Kraft füglend’, as if totality itself had been rejuvenated by modal excursion both archaic and modernist. D major sounded as radiant as it might in a world of thoroughgoing mediation. The march with which the finale opens elicited charm and forthrightness in equal measure, the ensuing A minor intervention dramatically to the point. Not of course that it is a mere ‘intervention’; dialectical conflict was played out with gripping intensity.

Teztlaff/LSO/Eötvös - Debussy, Szymanowski, and Scriabin, 29 April 2012

Barbican Hall

Debussy – Nocturnes
Szymanowski – Violin Concerto no.1
Scriabin – The Poem of Ecstasy

Christian Teztlaff (violin)
Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Péter Eötvös (conductor)


It was inevitable that the shadow of Pierre Boulez would fall at least a little over this concert, the first of two from which he had to withdraw owing to ill health. Nevertheless, Péter Eötvös, who has taken over two demanding and highly individual programmes without alteration, made them his own to a remarkable extent; or, to put it another way, so as not to suggest self-aggrandisement, he ensured that the listener’s attention was focused upon the music rather than the performers. One of the many aspects of Boulez’s genius has been that for revealing programming, and so it was here, even in absentia. I should therefore dissent from Kathryn McDowell’s description in the programme booklet of the concert as an ‘eclectic 20th-century programme,’ quite apart from the dating of Debussy’s Nocturnes, completed in 1899.

One would perhaps have to return to the likes of Roger Désormière to find a conductor more strongly associated with the music of Debussy than Boulez, and though Eötvös’s performance had its virtues, it also had its slight disappointments. The direct approach adopted from the opening of ‘Nuages’ intrigued, the LSO woodwind almost Classical in character, but strings added mystery upon their entry, putting me in mind of Pelléas. Impressively, the string sound was recognisably ‘Gallic’; I could not help but think that even Désormière would have recognised it as such. Eötvös contributed a compelling sense of line, which, fused with his ear for detail, imparted an impressive sense of something that approaching (wordless) narrative. At times, I thought of Bartók’s ballet, The Wooden Prince, as well, of course, as Liszt’s Nuages gris, greatly admired by Debussy, and the composer’s own Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. ‘Fêtes’ was lively but often somewhat brash, rather as I imagine it might have done under Sir Georg Solti. (I know that he recorded Images, but I have not heard the results.) However, what the performance lacked in refinement, it partly made up in rhythmic certainty. ‘Sirènes’ was again direct in approach, and again benefited from an impressive sense of continuity. Despite a fine contribution from the ladies of the London Symphony Chorus, there have, however, been performances more seductively conceived.

Christian Tetzlaff joined the orchestra for a triumphant performance of Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto, as much the orchestra’s show as his, as was announced by the opening, teeming with life and exhibiting a veritable kaleidoscope of colour, answered by a sinuous, beguiling, and unquestionably seductive violin entry. The performance as a whole was highly dramatic, Eötvös and Teztlaff alike ensuring that there was never even the slightest hint that Szymanowski’s golden thread might snap. One felt enveloped, and gorgeously so, yet also in sure hands with respect to direction. The contrast with a recent performance of the composer’s Third Symphony from Vladimir Jurowski was in that respect pronounced. Szymanowski’s originality concerning form spoke for and created itself – clearly and evocatively. And what a glorious wash of sound the LSO could produce, contrasting with Teztlaff’s silver and gold, a contrast lying at the heart of a remarkable performance. Not that that should be taken to imply that Teztlaff’s performance lacked spellbinding and impassioned virtuosity, for it did not; however, the work sounded so much more than a ‘late Romantic’ concerto, if indeed, which I doubt, that soubriquet retains much validity at all. Quite why some of the violin concertos appearing with wearying frequency on concert programmes are preferred to this I truly cannot imagine. At any rate, this must surely have garnered both work and composer a new host of converts. Teztlaff treated the audience to an encore: the ‘Melodia’ from Bartok’s solo violin sonata. His command of line and expressive commitment, especially in terms of hushed intimacy, clearly drew in the audience, for, as Gareth Davies (@flutelicious), the LSO’s principal flautist, tweeted to me during the interval, this was a rendition miraculously free of coughing.

Boulez clearly entertains a degree of ambivalence towards Scriabin; frankly, it would be a strange sort of person who did not. He has spoken of a general preference for the more exploratory piano music, yet has also recorded some of the orchestral works, The Poem of Ecstasy twice in fact. The virtues of our absent guest’s programming were revealed as the opening bars’ sonorities suggested a placing of our composer somewhere between Debussy and Szymanowski. Adam Walker’s excellent flute playing should definitely be accorded a mention, ranging ably from the languorous to the sprightly. Wagnerisms, especially Tristanisms, were attended to, whether in terms of highlighting kinship of material, or more importantly, in the expression of the frustration at inability to climax. (Tannhäuser is surely also an influence, or at least a precedent, here. Perhaps Strauss is too.) What unsympathetic listeners – and performances – might suggest to be mere bombast or indeed mere languor, was granted as true a sense of dramatic justification as one might hope for. Decadent it certainly was – how could it not be? – and so it was down to the last arabesque; yet, even if the music is less ‘progressive’ than some of Scriabin’s piano writing, and even if it is too much of a good, or more likely a bad, thing, I was more than happy to indulge. Should one have felt a little dirty at the end? Perhaps, but even Boulez cannot live by Webern alone.

Prom 70: Tetzlaff/BBC SO/Robertson - Bridge, Birtwistle (UK premiere), and Holst, 7 September 2011

Royal Albert Hall

Bridge – Isabella
Birtwistle – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (United Kingdom premiere)
Holst – The Planets

Christian Teztlaff (violin)
Holst Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson (conductor)

More odd programming at the Proms. It is not irrelevant to see Birtwistle in an English context, there being a strong vein of melancholy in his music to trace back at least as far as Dowland; it was nevertheless unclear that Frank Bridge and Gustav Holst were best choices as supporting composers for the British premiere of the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. (The first performance took place in Boston earlier this year.) This is the first piece Birtwistle has explicitly named a concerto, despite forerunners in pieces such as Antiphonies for piano and orchestra. What I shall say is based upon but a single hearing, with all the caveats that must imply, but I was left in no doubt that we heard a masterpiece. The increasing importance of strings to Birtwistle’s tonal palette, as remarked upon in Jonathan Cross’s model programme note, was in evidence from the outset. Cross notes the precedent of Mendelssohn, of whose concerto Birtwistle is fond, in particular its ‘sparkle’ and the way in which the soloist throws the listener straight into the work. I also heard surprisingly strong echoes of Berg, both intervallic and harmonic, and not just at the opening. There also seemed to be reminiscences, whether conscious or otherwise, of Gawain, not least in terms of Birtwistle’s very personal use of metallic percussion. The violin part was throughout performed with outstanding musicality and virtuosity by Christian Tetzlaff; it is in many respects soaringly lyrical, though doubtless it will not have seemed so to tone-deaf reactionaries. For a composer who has long been associated with his native woodwind, it was delightful to realise how gratefully written for the instrument the piece is. Solos spark off orchestral strings and indeed the rest of the orchestra; there is, needless to say, some haunting woodwind writing too. There is an especially exquisite – yes, Birtwistle can be exquisite – not-quite-duet between violin and bassoon, the latter more shadow (Boulezian ombre, albeit in a non-electronic context?) than partner. Rhythm is a predictably strong driving force, but we also hear ravishing oases of reflection: bizarre though this may sound, I was put in mind of the precedent of Szymanowski. At other times, however, the listener is treated to a post-Messiaen world of wind and percussive sonorities, which never, however, sound as harsh as much of the composer’s earlier writing. Above all, as one would expect from the greatest English musical dramatist since Purcell, there is a true sense of the violinist as Faustian protagonist, at least as much so as, arguably still more so than, the soloist in Henze’s Third Violin Concerto (which presents three portraits from Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus). A subsiding, moving, tuba line leads us to the final solo pizzicato, completing a tapestry of unusually gorgeous quality. Teztlaff and David Robertson, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra on excellent form, presented the work as the repertory piece it must become.

It is difficult to begrudge an occasional performance of Bridge’s symphonic poem, Isabella, not least since it was premiered by Sir Henry Wood at the Proms in 1907 and has not been heard in these concerts since. On the other hand, I cannot say that I am surprised by its absence. A quiet opening for violas and kettledrums sounds promising, if a little blatantly modelled upon Liszt’s Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, the final symphonic poem written by the form’s inventor. Influences thereafter come thick and fast: Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Strauss, Debussy. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is clearly a model for much of the brass writing, but Bridge has none of the Russian composer’s melodic genius. The form appears to follow quite closely the example of Keats’s poem, Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. I wished that it had done so rather more quickly.

The Planets received a good performance: at its best the BBC SO sounded very good indeed, though there were moments when it sounded a little lacklustre, if never so much as it tends to under its principal conductor. ‘Mars’, surely the finest movement in the score, was also the finest in performance: seething in its menace, mechanical in its barbarism, a true premonition of war so swiftly to come. The Royal Albert Hall organ, here and elsewhere, made a fine impact. Alas, elements in the audience elected to applaud after this and every other movement – save, of course, ‘Uranus’, though I am not sure that I should have put it past them then too. ‘Venus’ and ‘Mercury’ benefited from a nicely French sound, perhaps more Ravel than Debussy, and an excellent solo from leader, Andrew Haveron; both movements do, though, tend to overstay their welcome. We heard a bright and breezy ‘Jupiter’, bringing jollity as required; if parts of the score sounded a little like a concerto for orchestra, then that is really Holst’s doing. The ‘big tune’ hit home, sounding noble rather than mawkish. Robertson handled the onward tread of ‘Saturn’ well, also pointing up intriguing consonances with Parsifal. ‘Uranus’ mixed jovial magician with sorcerer’s apprentice to good effect. Perhaps, however, after ‘Mars’, the highlight was the expert, imperceptible way in which the off-stage female voices of the Holst Singers stole into the hall: that was really rather beautiful.

Prom 32: Teztlaff/BBC SO/Gardner, 7 August 2011

Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major, op.77
Mahler – Das klagende Lied (original version)

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Melanie Diener (soprano)
Anna Larsson (mezzo-soprano)
Stuart Skelton (tenor)
Christopher Purves (baritone)
Theodore Beeny, Augustus Bell, Timothy Fairbairn, Thomas Featherstonehaugh, Matthew Lloyd-Wilson, Oluwatimilehin Otudeko (trebles)
BBC Singers (chorus master: Stephen Jackson)
Edward Gardner (conductor)

Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied did not seem to be the most obvious bedfellows – there has been some rather peculiar programming at this year’s Proms – and even after further consideration, the only real connection I could muster was that they were written at the same time: the concerto in 1878, the cantata between 1878 and 1880. At any rate, Christian Teztlaff gave a fine account of the former, though he was not always matched by Edward Gardner’s conducting, which was mostly unobjectionable – more than can be said for many examples – but not especially rich in insight. The BBC Symphony Orchestra was generally on good, if not infallible, form, its first movement contribution more lyrical than stentorian. (A mobile telephone provided unwanted interruption during the first exposition.) Teztlaff’s solo performance was intensely committed, fiercely dramatic, and unwavering in intonation, the cadenza (Joachim’s) providing both intimacy and direction. The opening of the ensuing coda proved splendidly autumnal, though its conclusion was arguably rushed by Gardner. Unwelcome applause intervened prior to a slow movement in which Tetzlaff generally acted as first among serenade-like equals, the spirit of Mozart undeniably present. Though the opening woodwind solos, especially Richard Simpson’s oboe, were well taken, there was a sense that they might have sung still more freely had Gardner moulded them less. That is a minor criticism, however, for Tetzlaff’s sweet-toned rendition ensured that the heart strings would be tugged where necessary, without the slightest hint of undue manipulation. Gardner, to his credit, held the audience at bay during the brief pause before the finale. Rhythms were well pointed here, though there were times when the orchestra felt a little driven. Tetzlaff’s musicianship and virtuosity were never in doubt; it would be good to hear him in this concerto with a more experienced Brahmsian, such as Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, or Sir Colin Davis. If anything even better was his poised, thoughtful, richly expressive encore account of the Gavotte en rondeau from Bach’s E major Partita. Not for the first time, the smallest of forces seemed to project better than a typical symphony orchestra in the problematic acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall.

Gardner fashioned a performance of Das klagende Lied that was more ‘operatic’ than benefits the music. Or, to put it another way, it concentrated on highlighting of certain textual ‘incident’ and artificially whipped-up excitement in a stop-and-start way that recalled Sir Georg Solti (though I am not sure whether Solti conducted this particular work). At least, though, we could hear vibrato-laden strings, a relief after the horror tales of Sir Roger Norrington’s recent Ninth Symphony. The orchestral introduction to ‘Waldmärchen’ was somewhat hesitant at first, and then, as if to compensate, was fiercely driven. It eventually settled, but the movement as a whole did not. The second stanza, though well presented vocally and orchestrally, simply dragged, Gardner seemingly finding it impossible to alight upon a just tempo. Uncertain brass slightly marred the brothers’ entry into the forest, though tenor Stuart Skelton gave a good sense of Mahler as balladeer. When, during the final two stanzas, Mahler’s Wagnerian inheritance – Gardner seemed previously to have done his utmost to make the composer sound closer to Verdi! – inevitably came to the fore, whether through harmony, instrumentation, and vocal line, it was almost a sense of too little, too late. Anna Larsson, a late substitution for Ekaterina Gubanova, nevertheless proved a wonderfully rich mezzo soloist.

Intimations of the First and Second Symphonies in the introduction to ‘Der Spielmann’ came across clearly – how could they not? – but, in Gardner’s hands, there was something unnecessarily four-square to the phrasing. Christopher Purves, however, proved plaintive indeed upon the words ‘Dort ist’s so lind und voll von Duft, als ging ein Weinen durch die Luft!’, even though the pacing now had become unduly distended. The first entry of the off-stage band sounded splendid in itself, but Gardner struggled – and failed – to keep it together with the ‘main’ orchestra. There were, happily, no such problems later on. Tempi here and in the concluding ‘Hochzeitsstück’ veered towards the comatose, however, interspersed with ‘compensating’ rushed passages. What should sound wide-eyed in its staggering youthful ambition and accomplishment tended merely to sprawl. (Applause again intervened between the second and third movements.) Choral diction was very good throughout, though it would have done no harm to have had a larger chorus. Treble voices touched in their fragility, helping to prove once again that it is this original version of Das klagende Lied that has the superior claim to performance. I cannot begin to understand David Matthews’s programme note claim that the revised two-part version is ‘incontrovertibly tighter and arguably more effective’. If the effect were somewhat sprawling, that was the fault of Gardner’s performance, not of the work itself, which is a much better piece than this evening’s audience may have been led to believe.

Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, Wigmore Hall, 25 April 2009

Wigmore Hall

Bach – Sonata for violin and piano no.5 in F minor, BWV 1018
Brahms – Sonata for violin and piano no.2 in A major, op.100
Bartók – Sonata for violin and piano no.1, Sz.75

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Lars Vogt (piano)

This was very much a concert of two halves. In Bach and Brahms, Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt provided decent but less than thrilling performances, sometimes veering towards the apparently disengaged, whereas the Wigmore Hall audience was treated to a truly outstanding performance of Bartók’s first violin sonata.

Vogt’s style in Bach was somewhat Gouldian, if without the Canadian pianist’s level of desiccation. I did not notice use of the sustaining pedal even once. Nevertheless, Vogt provided a rock-steady keyboard part, above which Tetzlaff could weave his melodic charm. The violinist’s tone was rich without excessive Romanticism, almost viola-like at times in the first movement, but there was no non- or low-vibrato nonsense; Bach’s music was treated as music. Rhythmic security was absolute throughout. In the second movement, both violin and piano sang a little more freely than they had in the opening Largo, and proved willing to employ powerful dynamic contrasts. Greater light and shade permitted the musicians to maintain tension throughout without sounding unrelenting. Dyed-in-the-wool Handelians might ask of the third movement, ‘Where’s the tune?’ but anyone who knows the C major Prelude from Book One of the Forty-Eight would recognise the stupidity of such a question. Tetzlaff’s double-stopped ‘accompaniment’ was always spot on, whilst Vogt seemed more relaxed, apparently enjoying his instrument’s ringing of the harmonic changes, ‘melody’ arising from what might, on the page, seem ‘mere’ figuration. In the final Vivace, Tetzlaff unleashed the full tone of the violin. Care was taken over imitative entries but what I missed, both here and in the ensuing Brahms sonata, was a real sense of interaction between the players, or at least of the intensity such interaction can sometimes elicit.

The opening Allegro amabile of Brahms’s A major violin sonata was taken at a fastish tempo, the general approach seeming to be to challenge any idea of the ‘autumnal’. Yet after relatively ‘light’ opening bars, there was a variety of ardent Romanticism to be heard. Part-writing was commendably clear and there were many eminently musical virtues; nevertheless, I felt that the players might have dug deeper emotionally, to find that rather more was at stake than suggested here. Moreover, the reading was often somewhat four-square, especially in the piano part; definition of particular phrases was at the expense of a longer line, which need not be the case. Again, the Andante tranquillo sections of the second movement were far from slow but the scherzo-like Vivace passages were not unduly fast; indeed, they exhibited a rather winning lilt. Contrapuntal clarity was again very much to the fore. Teztlaff’s tone was beautiful, his vibrato marvellously expressive. The final movement was brisk, rather too much so, I thought, as if on excessive guard against perceived sentimentality. Nevertheless, there were moments of beauty from violinist and pianist, if more often individually than in combination.

With the opening bar of the Bartók sonata, we were plunged into a different world, not just in terms of the harmonic language but in terms of the palpable electricity in the performance. Vogt opened as if this were expressionist Debussy – which, in a way, it is – unleashing a violent beauty whose presence would not necessarily have harmed Bach or Brahms. Tetzlaff followed up with those all-important Bartókian rhythms. The Schoenbergian quality of Bartók’s piano writing was most apparent, especially in the chordal writing, which stands not so very far from the Austrian composer’s Opp. 11 and 19 Piano Pieces. The early 1920s perhaps mark the high watermark of Second Viennese School influence upon and challenge towards Bartók, for one was also made aware of a kinship in the violin part with Berg’s yet-to-be-written concerto, of which Tetzlaff has proved himself a fine exponent. Mystery, violence, seduction: all were present. Teztlaff’s tone could be silvery, abrasive, warm, but always ‘right’ for the particular demands of the music. It was interesting to note that, for all the radicalism ascribed to Bartók in this piece, the music here is far less percussive – and was performed far less percussively – than much of the writing in his first two piano concertos. Lyrical profusion and proliferation, after Bach but also with a hint or two of Boulez, are the keys to the piano part, and this is what we heard.

The Adagio was performed at an equally high level. Teztlaff’s opening solo reminded us of the gypsy element in Bartók’s violin writing – this despite his preference for supposedly ‘real’ Hungarian folksong over gypsy music. A sense of outdoor extemporisation was present within extremely controlled parameters, the conflict between the two providing the key to so much of Bartók’s music. Violin harmonics sounded duly haunting. Vogt recognised the ‘whiteness’ of his opening piano chords, which looked forward to the third piano concerto. Thereafter, the piano part continued as if we were listening to a somewhat disrupted – and disrupting – neo-Chopin chorale, pointing to the influence of Bach’s music upon both composers, whilst Teztlaff weaved his lyrical magic above, ever faultless in intonation. Piano night music intervened, but was overruled by the violin, revealing a true sense of dramatic conflict and instrumental characterisation. With the opening of the finale, we were reminded by the percussive piano writing – and performance – that this is indeed the composer of the first two piano concertos. Rhythmic exactitude from both players enabled a still further intensified sense of drama and excitement, metrical dislocations handled with an almost diabolical skill. The virtuosity, whether in Teztlaff’s jagged roulades or Vogt’s cascading glissandi, was staggering but was always deployed to musical ends. Controlled mania was the dialectical premise upon which this outstanding performance reached its conclusion.

As encores we were treated first to the final movement of Dvořák's sonatina for violin and piano, and then – ‘because we like it so much,’ as Vogt announced – the preceding slow movement. I wondered whether we should end up with the entire work in reverse movement order, but alas not. Suffice it to say that these were fluid, committed accounts, very much in the spirit of the Bartók performance, albeit more gentle. This made me curious as to whether the Bach and Brahms works, if performed again, would benefit from such ‘warming up’. In any case, the Bartók sonata was the thing. The concert was recorded for subsequent broadcast on Radio 3; this will be well worth seeking out.