Munich Opera Festival (3) - Mozart and the Munich Hofkapelle, 19 July 2023

Cuvilliés-Theater

Johann Christian Cannabich: Quintet for two flutes, violin, viola, and cello in F major, op.7 no.1
Mozart: Quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, in F major, KV 370/368b
Mozart, arr. Rafaela Seywald: Concert Arias: ‘Ma, che vi fece … Sperai vicino il lido,’ KV 368; ‘Misera, dove son … Ah, non son’ io che parlo,’ KV 369
Mozart: String Quartet no.14 in G major, KV 387

Jasmin Delfs, Talia Or (sopranos)
Vera Becker-Öttl, Edoardo Silvi (flutes)
Heike Steinbrecher (oboe)
Pascal Deuber, Stefan Böhning (horns)
Matjaž Bogataj, Immanuel Drißner (violins)
Adrian Mustea (viola)
Benedikt Don Strohmeier (cello)

To the Munich Residenz’s Rococo Cuvilliés-Theater, once simply the Residenztheater, for a fascinating concert entitled ‘Mozart and the Munich Hofkapelle’. It was here, on 29 January 1781, that Idomeneo received its first performance; this programme encircled without including that wonder of the operatic world. 

First, we heard a quintet for two flutes, violin, from Johann Christian Cannabich, since 1774 leader of the celebrated Mannheim orchestra, and who had moved to Munich in 1778 shortly after his prince, the Elector Palatine Charles Theodore, succeeded as Elector and Duke of Bavaria. Violinist, composer, and Kapellmeister, Cannabich conducted that Idomeneo premiere. His quintet, given a warm, cultivated, even Mozartian performance by members of the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Hofkapelle’s post-Wittelsbach incarnation, proved to be a typically pleasant galant work, if a little short-breathed and regular at times for those of us with ears accustomed to Mozart and Haydn. The first two movements proceeded as one would expect and never outstayed their welcome; the third, one of those strangely lengthy minuet final movements, might, again at least for modern ears, have benefited from an editor. But then, Cannabich was not writing for twenty-first-century ears and would never have imagined his chamber music being performed for an audience in such a setting the best part of 250 years on. The scoring inevitably had one hear the two flutes as soloists, with the violin, Cannabich’s own instrument, and viola as inner voices, often interestingly and always gratefully conceived. Benedikt Don Strohmeier provided here, as throughout, exemplary playing for the cello bass line. 

Another work for Munich, Mozart’s own Oboe Quartet, followed. Flautists Vera Becker-Öttl and Edoardo Silvi were replaced with the equally mellifluous Heike Steinbrecher, today’s incarnation of Friedrich Ramm, whose playing so impressed Mozart and inspired him to stretch the instrument’s (newly acquired) range to its near limits.  This is a work of greater magnitude in every sense, treasured by oboists, string players, and of course audiences the world over. Here the oboist is at best first among equals, a chamber musician like the rest. Interest is dispersed throughout each part and, above all, in their harmonic and contrapuntal combination; that, moreover, was how it sounded here, in a performance that seemed to delight in the liberation afforded. It probably does not last much longer than Cannabich’s piece, yet seems to take in so much more, whilst also sounding over far too soon. All movements emphasised the proximity, indeed mutual fertilisation, of Mozart’s instrumental and operatic writing, the Adagio here a grave central aria, flanked by ensembles as full of character in every sense as their counterparts not only in Idomeneo but the operas to come. 

The parts of Ilia and Elettra were first taken by Dorothea and Elisabeth Wendling respectively, sisters-in-law and two out of four Idomeneo participants from the Wendling family, also from Mannheim and whom the Mozarts had known there first. (Johann Baptist Wendling, Dorothea’s husband, was a flautist in the orchestra—and may therefore have played Cannabich’s quintet. He certainly played in Idomeneo.) Introduced by Cannabich to Elisabeth, ‘Lisl’, née Sarselli, Mozart seems to have been equally taken by her looks and her artistry. At any rate, he wrote the concert aria, : ‘Ma, che vi fece … Sperai vicino il lido,’ for her, here performed in one of two arrangements for instrumental ensemble by Rafaela Seywald, with soprano Jasmin Delfs the exemplary soprano soloist. Brilliantly supported by Munich musicians from a different vintage, Delfs showed herself fully in control of the technical and expressive requirements, turning them to thrilling ends. Listeners, as well as composers, would doubtless have had personal favourites then as now. If I found myself favouring Delfs’s cleanness of gleaming line over the more generous vibrato of Talia Or in Dorothea’s concert aria, ‘Misera, dove son … Ah, non son’ io che parlo’, hers was also an excellent performance of a nicely complementary piece, heading in different, sometimes surprising directions, and similarly conceived and nurtured in the Metastasian text and Mozart’s response. 

For the final item on the programme, we looked to the following year, when Mozart had moved to Vienna and was learning if not quite a new craft, then one in which Haydn was so far unquestionably his superior. With the G major Quartet, KV 387, Mozart opened his celebrated set of six dedicated to Haydn—and over which he struggled, if not quite in Beethovenian style, then more so than was his custom (Romantic semi-myths of divine ease notwithstanding). Again, we heard cultivated playing, and there was much to admire and note, not least in the seriousness with which Mozart approached and eventually crowned his task. I did not always feel, though, that the players were inside the music as they had been earlier. There were a few cases of tentative openings and I struggled to discern the line in the finale. Perhaps that was my fault; it was a very hot evening and had naturally become more so as time in the theatre had progressed. This is also incredibly unsparing music, regularly performed by the world’s leading permanent quartets and perhaps lending itself to odious comparisons. I nonetheless wondered whether programming something else from 1780-1 might have proved more persuasive: an arrangement or two from Idomeneo, perhaps. No matter: there was more than enough to enjoy and by which to be enlightened for one evening.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Munich Piano Trio: Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Brahms, 7 July 2017

Cuvilliés-Theater

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, op.70 no.1, ‘Ghost’

Shostakovich: Piano Trio in E minor, op.67

Brahms: Piano Trio in B major, op.8 (revised version, 1889)

Michael Arlt (violin)

Gerhard Zank (cello)

Donald Sulzen (piano) 

Each year, the Munich Opera Festival offers a number of chamber concerts, as well as symphonic concerts and song recitals, in addition to its staple fare of at least one opera, sometimes more than that, per evening. Since I was in town, I thought I should go to hear the Munich Piano Trio, not least since it would be my first opportunity to attend a concert in the extraordinary, ultra-Rococo Cuvilliés-Theater. I once happened on a string quartet rehearsal there many years and resolved to return. One day, I hope, Idomeneo, which received its first performance there, will return when I am somewhere in the vicinity. (It did in 2008, so there is hope.) In the meantime, it was a pleasure to hear three contrasted piano trio works, performed with a welcome lack of affectation.

Beethoven’s Ghost Trio – like all the performances, I think – received a performance somewhat on the Apollonian side. This was not a Beethoven to storm the heavens, but perhaps not every performance need be. In the first movement, taken at a tempo that seemed spot on for Allegro vivace e con brio – perhaps faster than my inclination, but who cares? – scalic passages proved properly generative. Derivations therefrom and breaking up into small motifs was the business of the development: no need for Romantic metaphor, which might have seemed somewhat out of place. And yet, this was not ‘easy’ listening; one simply needed to listen to hear the difficulty, at times not so far from late Beethoven, in the music. The lyricism of the second group, especially during the recapitulation, was especially welcome. Not that the movement was over then; the coda offered surprises aplenty, again, so long as the listener kept to his or her side of the bargain – and listened. Concision was, rightly, striking. There was an air of mystery, its roots in Mozart, to the slow movement, which unfolded simply, inevitably. Again, the twin features of simplicity of basic material and developmental inspiration shone through. There was radiance, to be sure, but it was hard won and never permanent. The finale proved playful in its disjunctures, disjoint even in its play: often, at least. String intonation was occasionally somewhat awry, but not so as to trouble unduly. In a sense, such fallibility reminded one that this was a performance, with all that entails.

In a very different way, simplicity and extremity characterised the Shostakovich E minor Trio. The poor cellist at the opening! There was, again, a different sort of inevitability to the first movement, but it was undeniably present in the main, Moderato section. Its simple harmonies might have been made to feel connected to Beethoven’s tonic-dominant oscillations, but did not; context was all. The enigmatic quality to the transformations of the second movement was well handled; there were no answers, but questions were certainly asked. If the Largo is possessed of a bleakness that for me comes perilously close to mere emptiness, the players had the measure of its contours in a well shaped reading, preparing the way for an equally accomplished performance of the insistently straightforward finale. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you would have liked.

Brahms is much more my sort of thing. The second half therefore brought the pleasure of a return to home territory, albeit with a twist: the revised version of the B major Trio. Recently, the original seems to have been more popular. There are arguments for both, but I think I should opt for this, if I had to choose. The Trio has played both and thus made the decision in full knowledge and understanding. It was a splendid work for cellist, Gerhard Zank to have to start saying his farewells to the Bavarian State Orchestra, with which he has played for thirty-nine years. An interesting programme interview offered reminiscences of work with conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlos Kleiber, and yes, Kirill Petrenko. Motivic integrity and development came to the fore from the outset. The players drew upon a varied palette that yet never quite partook of expressive extremities. Such matters are largely a matter of taste; this was, again, relatively Apollonian Brahms. Occasionally, I found Donald Sulzen’s piano a little recessed in tone, but perhaps that was the acoustic. There was certainly no doubting his collegiality; he was not a pianist, as many are, to overwhelm his string colleagues. Rhythms were nicely sprung in the scherzo, Brahms’s Beethovenian inheritance clear. The trio spoke more of Schubert. Such, after all, one might say, is Brahms’s tendency more generally. The stark simplicity of Michael Arlt’s violin and Zank’s cello at the opening of the slow movement seemed to recall late Beethoven, although the lyricism that ensued proved quite different, and rightly so, in quality. The movement never lost its apparent roots in (imagined) song, whilst never pretending simply to ‘be’ its roots. I have heard bigger boned performances of the finale, in particular, but the refusal to exaggerate, to play to the gallery, however dazzling in this theatre, offered its own rewards. So too did the Piazzolla encore.