Hardenberger/MCO/Harding - Haydn, Hummel, and Beethoven, 22 June 2026

Barbican Hall

Haydn: Symphony no.85 in B-flat major, ‘La Reine’
Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, Hob. VIIe/1
Hummel: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, S.49
Beethoven: Symphony no.4 in B-flat major, op.60

Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Harding (conductor)

Images: Mark Allan

This felt like an unseasonal Barbican concert: the weather, the time of year, even perhaps the programme. It was a welcome tonic, though, once one had reached the brutalist musical oasis in the City, and confirmed, among other things, the excellent, indeed outstanding musicianship of both Håkan Hardenberger and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and the wisdom of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its appointment of Daniel Harding as next Music Director. Great music and music-making are, of course, never out of season—or at least should not be. A sadly small audience found itself well rewarded. 

One can tell much – I am tempted to say almost everything – about a musician with respect to the seriousness with which (s)he approaches Haydn. Without him, as much as without Beethoven, there would straightforwardly be no Austro-German symphonic tradition—or it would be so radically different as to constitute a different tradition entirely. The fourth of his Paris Symphonies, ‘La Reine’, opened darkly: perhaps to my taste a little too so, for I should not have reminded something in the way of string vibrato. But there is not one way in such matters. What must surely lie beyond debate is the crucial role of harmonic rhythm: in the first-movement introduction and beyond, indeed throughout the symphony. And that was present. Harding’s way here was often highly rhetorical, phrases ‘speaking’ in quasi-operatic fashion, but not at the cost of coherence. There was always a keen sense of momentum and, beyond that, of building up and releasing tension at just the right points: harmonic rhythm again. A small orchestra (strings 8.7.5.4.3) showed that it could make an almighty sound, scaling down to a whisper when called upon to do so. If anything, I found the latter a bit much, but again tastes differ. Gorgeous woodwind playing graced this and all that was to come. Haydn says Allegretto for the second movement and that is what we heard, even if it came as a slight shock to ears such as mine. So too did the well-nigh Beethovenian outbursts within: no bad thing at all, though perhaps they edged a little close at times to the traffic-calming school. Again, there is more than one way to play such music; ultimately, it progressed well—and consequently. The minuet was rustic rather than stately: perhaps a little de trop for Marie Antoinette, even in Petit Trianon mode. I was more troubled by a repeated agogic accent, whose purpose remained unclear. Harding’s reading certainly had a point of view, though, and conveyed it well. The trio was not entirely without mannerism, but less so. It had plenty of charm, even grace. The finale was beautifully judged: ever inch a Haydn finale, tempo as much a matter of character as mere speed, helter-skelter without losing control. Its sterner, more Beethovenian moments registered strongly but never too strongly. 

We remained with Haydn for his late Trumpet Concerto, surely still the most celebrated of the genre. Hardenberger has played a central role in expansion of the instrument’s repertoire; he nonetheless played this with all the devotion that would rightly be lavished on a new work. Solo playing was beyond compare and the orchestra shifted effortlessly to ‘accompaniment’, not only in terms of its role but of partnership in a conception that was perhaps more the soloist’s than the conductor’s (not necessarily to impute conflict or even contrast). String playing sounded significantly warmer. Above all, from the outset, it was a joy to be reminded what a supremely well judged piece this is. The lyrical slow movement and another inescapably Haydnesque finale were beautifully characterised. 

A different voice registered immediately for Hummel’s concerto. It has attractive moments and passages, but is not really the most coherent of works. Hardenberger, Harding, and the MCO nonetheless made as good a case as you can imagine being made for it and its kinship – let us be generous – with composers from Mozart to Rossini, as well as the odd, intriguing presentiment of Mendelssohn. Hardenberger’s playing was commanding throughout, the finale dazzling. It was quite a surprise and a welcome one, having noticed Mark-Anthony Turnage in the audience, to be treated to an ‘encore’ performance of his Nocturne: in effect, an additional piece on the programme, atmosphere, precision, and fine command of idiom combining to offer a tone poem in its own right. 

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony concluded the programme—and in many ways, brought it to new heights. Again, whilst this may have been a small orchestra for Beethoven, there was nothing scaled down about the performance. The first movement’s introduction was full of potentiality, dark-hued and broad. Harding shaped the movement as a whole well without unduly moulding it. If some way from how I think of it – Furtwängler, Klemperer, Barenboim, and others will always loom large – his was the most compelling symphonic Beethoven I have heard for some time. It may have been abrasive at times, but so is Beethoven. This was fresh music-making in the best sense and refreshingly unmannered. Pretty much the only thing about which I could take issue was a strangely throwaway final chord: a point of view, I suppose, but to my ears an odd one. The slow movement flowed with deceptive lyricism, for as soon as one truly listened, it proved as deep as the North Sea in a striking, captivating, utterly convincing post-Eroica reading. Throughout the symphony, all came together and cohered, granted the right amount of space for detail as for line. A gruff yet tigerish scherzo permitted its trio to relax just enough, yet no more. And then a related yet different type of finale, rooted in Haydn, yet very much Beethoven. It was hard-won yet gracious, boasting perhaps the bubbliest woodwind I have yet heard in this music. Here was music-making that seemed to come as much from the orchestral musicians as from the podium, and was all the better for it.

Salzburg Easter Festival (2): BPO/Harding - Haydn, 5 April 2026

 

Grosses Festspielhaus

The Creation, Hob.XXI:2

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (soprano)

Andrew Staples (tenor)

Konstantin Krimmel (baritone)

Bavarian Radio Chorus (director: Peter Dijkstra)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

Images: Monika Rittershaus

One might, somewhat fancifully, think of Haydn’s two late oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, as the counterparts of their time to Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. That thought briefly entered my mind prior to this Easter Sunday performance of The Creation, if only because the Salzburg Easter Festival had given Mahler’s work two days earlier. A more meaningful comparison would lie with Handel’s oratorios, especially as given a little while after the composer’s death in Handel ‘Commemorations’ at Westminster Abbey from 1784 onwards. Haydn attended the sixth of these, ‘by command and under the patronage of their Majesties’ in 1791, boasting more than a thousand performers (more, then, than the perennially misnamed ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. According to an early, albeit not especially reliable biographer, Giuseppe Carpani, Haydn ‘confessed … that when he heard the music of Hendl [sic] in London, he was struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies … He meditated on every note and drew from these most learned scores the essence of true musical grandeur.’  It is at any rate likely that Haydn then resolved to write a successor work, which he did in collaboration with Gottfried van Swieten back in Vienna in 1797 and 1798. Both oratorios exist in German and English forms. (See here for further discussion.) This Salzburg performance, naturally, was given in German as Die Schöpfung and with musical forces on the smaller side from the premiere, although sizes of chorus and orchestra varied significantly during his lifetime, including performances in which one way or another he participated.

 

The opening ’Representation of Chaos’ sounded duly radical and rigorous in the hands Daniel Harding and the Berlin Philharmonic. It is not entirely without precedent, especially when considers the introductions to Haydn’s London Symphonies, but this is on quite a different scale, of duration and harmonic adventure, as befits the oratorio’s scale and subject—and so it sounded here, darkly mysterious, with teeming anticipations of potential life from the ever-outstanding Berlin woodwind emanating from and sinking back into the terror of the void. I have heard broader, more beautiful introductions, not least in classic recorded form from this orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, but it is an open question whether should Chaos sound beautiful. Raphael’s opening recitative lacked nothing in broadness, imparting a fine sense of suspense. The coming of Light did all that it should, fitting indeed on the day of Resurrection, followed by a ringing ‘Und Gott sah das Licht…’ from Andrew Staples as Uriel. Spring, it seemed, was here—as, at last, it had been outside earlier in the day. Fallen angels had their moment, orchestral as well as choral, in the number to come, strings’ slithering descent especially worthy of note, and Staples’s shading, like that of all soloists, was finely gauged without pedantry, momentary darkness evoked on the word ‘Schatten’. On the second day, Konstantin Krimmel and the orchestra had us feel as well as hear in their opening recitative storms, rain, snow and other consequences of the Almighty’s creative division of the waters. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller’s vibrato in Gabriel’s ensuing ‘Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk‘, taken slower than usual and with an interesting old-Handelian sturdiness, was a little on the broad side, but my ears soon adjusted and that ceased to be an issue after this number.

Our three angels announced in their announcing, we could enjoy the delights to come, Krimmel in particular offering an outstandingly keen sense of narration, at times confidingly so, in fine partnership with the orchestra and Harding. Nothing we heard was ever less than vividly communicative and lyrical. Gear changes such as that towards the end of ‘Rollend in schäumenden Wellen’ might on paper have seemed a little odd, but the transformation in atmosphere effected worked very well in practice, with ample justification in the libretto. Likewise Harding’s tempo shift in the trio ‘In holder Anmut steh’n’ for Raphael’s darting of fish. Ornamentation was stylish from all concerned, orchestral soloists included. Indeed, there was at least much to savour from the Berlin Philharmonic – Wenzel Fuchs’s delectable clarinet in ‘Auf starkem Fittiche’, cellos to die for in ‘Mit Würd und Hoheit angetan’, those three flutes of Eden at the opening of the Third Part led by Emmanuel Pahud, and so on – as from anywhere else. The Bavarian Radio Chorus was irreproachable, irresistible throughout, echoing Handel in ‘Vollendet ist das große Werk’, whilst ravishing woodwind reminded us this was a post-Mozartian world.

 

A sense of wonder in literal awakening was unmistakeably evoked in the Third Part, further awakening to be heard, equally unmistakeable yet without any crude exaggeration, in the duet of Adam (Krimmel) and Eve (Müller). The world created had come truly into its prelapsarian, if precarious own. There were surprises throughout, even here, as for instance in Harding’s slow tempo for the opening of that duet, sustained throughout. There is, more often than not, no ‘right’ answer to such questions; different performances offer different pathways. Here, kinship with The Magic Flute was readily, meaningfully communicated. In the only secco recitative of any length in the entire work – we are in the realm of humans – the luxury of hearing a cellist of the stature of Bruno Delepelaire alongside the also excellent fortepianist Florian Birsak was almost worth the price of admission alone. Ultimately, it was of course Haydn’s invention, its optimism far from naïve but rather that of a good Catholic who had seen and heard it all and knew something still lay beyond the wars ravaging his Europe, that offered the greatest balm. Amidst the carnage of 2026, we must hope that Haydn, his co-creator Swieten, and all those voices, musical, literary, and theological, who helped shape this enduring masterpiece may yet have a point. That we could hope at all suggests that may just be so.

Batiashvili/BPO/Harding - Schubert, Brahms, and Beethoven, 26 April 2024

Philharmonie

Schubert: Die Zauberharfe, D 644: Overture
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major, op.77
Beethoven: Symphony no.5 in C minor, op.67

Lisa Batiashvili (violin)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

Image: Stephan Rabold

The Berlin Philharmonic’s European Concert has since 1991 taken place every year in a different European location ‘of cultural and historical significance’, also marking the anniversary of the orchestra’s foundation on 1 May 1882. This year, the orchestra will travel with Lisa Batiashvili and Daniel Harding, to the amphitheatre at Tsinandali in Georgia, repeating the concert the following day at Tbilisi Opera House. This will be the orchestra’s first tour to Georgia, a candidate member for European Union membership, at which hopeful status we British non-xenophobes can only nod wistfully. Two performances were also scheduled before departure in Berlin, Harding replacing Daniel Barenboim, for whom health problems alas precluded him from conducting.

Schubert’s Zauberharfe Overture, once thought to have been part of his incidental music to Rosamunde, began promisingly, with grand, dramatic opening chords and broad lyricism from characterful wind and cultivated strings (with, unless my ears deceived me, a little portamento). It was a different sound from that which Barenboim would have drawn from the orchestra, a little more ‘period’, even Harnoncourtish, but there is no point in attending a concert wishing it were something else, and I doubt Barenboim would have taken this introduction any slower. For the Allegro vivace, Harding imparted a fine, almost Mendelssohnian sense of release. He drove hard, but it made sense on its own, alternatively Romantic terms, with stylish articulation, the close clearly anticipating the ‘Great’ C major Symphony. Where it fell down for me was in the admittedly difficult transitions, which emerged somewhat stop-start; there was little sense of hearing (and communicating) the piece as a whole. 

The Brahms Violin Concerto immediately offered a more ‘traditional’ sound, depth of the Berlin strings all one could ask for, without forsaking prior virtues. Harding once again showed himself a fine ‘accompanist’, supportive yet doing far more than merely following. He could certainly whip up a storm when required, if occasionally edging into the realm of the rhetorical. Batiashvili’s entry confirmed everything one might have hoped for: dead-centred focus, springing from the orchestra, and asserting her as first among equals. Every note of her part was not only present and correct, but meaningfully so. Harding yielded more than in the Schubert, preparing the way for deepest melancholy in the solo performance. Indeed, the dialectics of Batiashvili’s richly conceived and rewarding reading, arguably Harding’s too, were strongly Beethovenian. Busoni’s cadenza offered a wonderful surprise, beginning with timpani rolls that turned it into a quasi-duet, still more so when strings entered. It was typically fascinating, neither bound by tradition nor out of keeping, more concise than Joachim’s; it made the return of Brahms’s full orchestra all the more poignant, bathed in afterglow. For the slow movement, Berlin woodwind – Albrecht Mayer, Emmanuel Pahud, Wenzel Fuchs – fully lived up to expectations, fruity, post-Mozart Harmoniemusik also offering songful Innigkeit, a slightly backward glance seemingly taken forward by Batiashvili and subsequent interplay. Balance between structure and spontaneity was well judged throughout; there was nothing rhapsodic here, yet in the best, most secure sense it sounded free. Following a smattering of baffling, rather unsettling applause – there had been none following the first movement – initiative was regained in an incisive and joyous account of the finale, lilt and heft emerging naturally as required. It sounded newly minted, having one wonder how Hans von Bülow or anyone else could ever have thought this a ‘concerto against violin’. The inevitable Bach encore, the Andante from the A minor Sonata, BWV 1003, proved anything but superfluous, as calming as it was rigorous. 

Harding’s Beethoven had much to commend it, albeit without scaling the heights of Barenboim’s. The Fifth Symphony is an extraordinarily difficult work to bring off; in my concert-going experience, only Barenboim has truly captured its spirit as well as letter, though Harding was certainly not disadvantaged by other comparisons. Indeed, the first movement came close to exemplary, urgent without mannerism, born of evident trust in the score and ability to bring it off the page. Rhetoric grew out of motivic drive and cohesion, rather than being imposed upon them. I never cease, save in the worst of performances, to be amazed by its concision; this was no exception. Split violins helped too, as they had earlier and would later. The second movement made for a flowing, highly contrasted processional, although just occasionally, at least for me, that fondness for rhetoric got the better of it. Otherwise, it unfolded with commendable inevitability and a keen ear for detail. Playing was throughout magnificent, not least splendidly ‘present’ cellos and double basses, which continued into the scherzo and trio. Here, especially in the scherzo, and even more so in the transition to the finale, I missed a sense of something deeper, or what the music might mean, with due regard to those whose aesthetics insist vainly that it does not. The trio’s counterpoint fairly flew off the strings, and the scherzo’s reprise was ghostly enough. A musicianly account of the finale grew out of what had gone before; it was well paced, balanced, and articulated. There was little doubt in my mind that Harding achieved what he wanted to, yet the sublime exultancy of light vanquishing darkness for me never really registered. Now more than ever, this seems to be a message only Barenboim – and his impossible yet ever-more-necessary West-Eastern Divan – can offer.

Salzburg Festival (5) - VPO/Harding: Ligeti and Strauss, 20 August 2023

Grosses Festspielhaus

Ligeti: Atmosphères
Strauss: Metamorphosen
Ligeti: Lontano
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, op.30

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Daniel Harding (conductor)

Image: © SF/Marco Borrelli

This excellent programme and performance from the Vienna Philharmonic and Daniel Harding, substituting without change of a single piece for Franz Welser-Möst, paired two works by Ligeti, whose centenary we celebrate this year, with two by Richard Strauss, always a Salzburg favourite (and one, of course, of the Festival’s founders). One could doubtless strain to draw comparisons between the two composers. (I once divined some ‘elective affinities’ between them and Debussy for a programme note covering a highly unusual menu of Jeux, Schlagobers, and Melodien.) But whilst such points naturally present themselves in real-time experience, it would be stretching things to say the two had much in common other than fantastic technique. The contrasts worked well, though, in a concert whose only real fault was a strangely lukewarm audience. Perhaps they did not much care for Ligeti, but they seemed almost as undemonstrative for Metamorphosen. My suspicion is it had more to do with Welser-Möst’s withdrawal, yet Harding marked, if anything, an upgrade (at least for me). 

The two Ligeti works, both ‘for large orchestra’, made for interesting complement and contrast in themselves. Atmosphères, from 1961, made for a tremendous opener, presenting a universe or perhaps even universes like no other. Teeming with music, with life, with possibility, like the introduction to a Haydn symphony, it seemed to incorporate sounds that it actually did not: one of those experiences in which one could swear one has heard electronics, only to find one has not. This performance at times seemed almost granitic, as if Otto Klemperer were the guest at the feast, if you can imagine such a thing. It was febrile, yes, but also monumental. 

Lontano (1967) offered the third in a series of four unforgettable orchestral openings—and paths taken. Yet more worlds opened up, some glanced only fleetingly, at least for now, though one fancied one might revisit. Life, again, seemed to be the operative concept. Every sound was somehow both familiar and unfamiliar, in spontaneous yet deeply considered generation. Harding built the performance with selfless skill; there was unquestionable drama here, but Ligeti’s, not his. Oddly, in context, the low bass line seemed to presage the all-too-celebrated opening of Also sprach Zarathustra: difficult to know what to make of that, yet intriguing. 

For that sense of drama also proved a guiding thread. If the first section of Strauss’s symphonic poem sounded a little brash, it was also similarly brimming with potential. It offered generous scope for contrast too, eagerly accepted, not least in the gorgeously sweet string tone of what followed. Nietzsche generally seems a bit of a red herring to me here, save for a general materialism, but there was certainly a sense of positivity, of the need to say ‘yes’ to another new world. Whatever my doubts concerning the opening, doubts that may concern work at least as much as performance, this was an eminently musical account, which, again in context, seemed to speak of and through a rich process of metamorphosis. It danced well, and Harding whipped up a fine head of orchestral steam when called upon. If he lingered a little toward the close, one can hardly blame him. Strauss, after all, does that too. 

That leaves Metamorphosen itself, heard between the two Ligeti pieces. There was no doubt whatsoever here that this was a piece ‘for 23 solo strings’, Harding their genial enabler, with none of, say, Karajan’s autocracy. That does not mean form could not be heard and felt, quite the contrary; it emerged from a sense of collegial chamber performance. The beginning was a little on the slow side, I think, yet it did not drag; rather, it spoke of genuine grief, soon inflected by finely etched chiaroscuro in harmony, texture, and narrative as much as in dynamic contrasts. Inner workings of great complexity were revealed, so as duly to rival Ligeti. Patience was the key to Strauss’s great outpouring, its quiet devastation emerging from within. 

Musikfest Berlin (1): Fleming/Concertgebouw/Harding - Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Debussy, 31 August 2021

Philharmonie

Stravinsky: Agon
Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi
Debussy: La Mer

Renée Fleming (soprano)

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

Image: Astrid Ackermann

Size is not everything, yet to hear—and even to see—my largest orchestra for over eighteen months was certainly not nothing. With a string section extending from sixteen first violins to eight double basses, and plentiful wind, percussion, even a mandolin, this was a treat in itself, a sign, dare we hope, of progress in our return to concert life. That the orchestra in question was the Concertgebouw was a distinct advantage too, as was Daniel Harding’s mouth-watering programme of Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Debussy. 

Harding’s direction of the orchestra in Stravinsky’s Agon was insistent and precise, likewise the Concertgebouw’s response. Manhattan traffic came to Berlin’s Philharmonie for one night only. The three pas-de-quatre, single, double, and triple increased in their menace, even fury, the composer’s wartime Symphony in Three Movements an unusually immanent progenitor. All the while, audible serial processes did their work both mechanical and human. One could well-nigh see their working out in twin homage to Webern and balletic tradition. I was struck by the utter distinctiveness of Stravinsky’s encounter with the French Baroque: so different, say, from that of Richard Strauss, indeed diametrically opposed to it (as in so much else). For all the claims we often hear of the necessity of ‘period’ colour in, say, Rameau, it was striking that use of a modern bassoon could evoke that composer and a whole world without any such requirement. The more shadowy, hieratic passages—a gestures as courtly as they were ghostly—compelled fascination, as did Stravinsky’s inimitable orchestration. And what combinations of instruments one heard: they could only be Stravinsky, however much they played with other expectations and recollections. Harding and the orchestra played with them too, bringing Stravinsky’s games all the more immediately to our attention.

Renée Fleming joined the orchestra for Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi. There was an unusual note of freedom—not licence, but freedom—to the first song, ‘Action des grâces’, Fleming’s approach perhaps surprisingly verse-led, without sacrifice to rhythm, indeed to its enhancement. Indeed, there was something chant-like to her despatch of melismata. The orchestra evoked liturgy too: for Messiaen, all was sacred. Delight in Creation was to be heard in ‘Paysage’, both as work and performance. So, in ‘Epouvante’ and its knowing successor, ‘Le Collier’, was keen awareness of malevolent forces at work, Act II of Parsifal coming strongly to mind. Sweetness of harmonic mysticism followed in both cases, in ‘L’Épouse’ and ‘Prière exaucée’. The latter’s closing ecstasies, bells and all, proved a resurrection, so it seemed, not only of flesh but also of fleshly desires. Above all, there was wonder in these songs: not only to be observed, but to be felt.

A vividly pictorial performance of La Mer followed. It boasted both precision and atmosphere, Harding’s picture painted very much a landscape, no mere snapshot. In the opening ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’, figures proved busily generative. It seemed a brighter, warmer account than is often the case: later in the morning, perhaps. Whatever the horological verdict, conductor and orchestra left plenty in reserve for the movement’s climax. Mystery and a keen sense of play were twin hallmarks of ‘Jeux des vagues’. Clarity of direction, at least in retrospect, heightened both aspects in what emerged as a scherzo taking its place in French orchestral tradition, Dukas included. Darker thoughts, as presaged in the Messiaen songs, haunted ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’; so did further, post-Pelléas ambiguities, up to and including the final blazing of Debussy’s orchestra. Modern symphony orchestras are wonderful things; so is their repertoire.

Musikfest Berlin (8) – BPO/Harding: Berlioz, 13 September 2019

Philharmonie

Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette, op.17

Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano)

Andrew Staples (tenor)

Shenyang (bass-baritone)

Berlin Radio Chorus (chorus master: Gijs Leenaars)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

It is perhaps unavoidable, if nonetheless undesirable, that, on going to Berlioz performances, I still find myself thinking of Sir Colin Davis and how what I am about to hear will likely fail to match up. (I do the same for Mozart too, perhaps with greater reason.) Unavoidable or no, there was no need to worry on this particular occasion, for Daniel Harding’s Roméo et Juliette with the Berlin Philharmonic proved a wonderful, in many respects outstanding, performance from beginning to end. Harding’s understanding and communication of that understanding spoke throughout, without ever drawing attention to itself; so too did his rapport with the Berlin musicians, and their evident delight in this often miraculous score.

The first movement started as it meant to go on, imbued with exhilarating energy, with a nervous physicality to the string playing that had one feel rosin fly from the bows. During the introduction, as indeed the movement and work as wholes, the instruments truly ‘spoke’, as truly as any words, recitativo accompagnato transformed into the symphonic.  The Prologue brought bubbly woodwind and beautifully balanced choral singing to the fore, narrative, verbal or otherwise, as keen as commentary, insofar as the two may be distinguished. Kate Lindsey’s velvety mezzo proved a perfect foil for the small choir (the larger choral complement still waiting in the wings). So too, in the ‘scherzetto’ section, fully reprising yet never merely repeating the energy of the opening, did Andrew Staples’s brief, yet valued, contribution.  This is Berlioz’s doing, of course, yet it still requires performance: the excellent sense of the composer’s metanarrative to Shakespeare came across as clearly and as meaningfully as I can recall. The movement closed with all the neo-Gluckian dignity one could ask for – and then some. ‘Montagus, domptés par les douleurs, se rapprochent enfin pour abjurer la haine, qui fit verser tant de sang et de pleurs.’

The purely orchestral drama of the second movement fared just as well. Its opening yearning, ‘Roméo seul’, fully justified Wagner’s enthusiasm and admission of its influence upon Tristan. Here, as elsewhere, Berlioz’s legacy to his colleague – it was never an easy relationship, which reflects upon both composers – was shown to be far more than the ‘mechanical means’ of which Wagner wrote, somewhat damning with restricted praise, in Oper und Drama. This was poignant, deeply moving. The Capulet ball naturally echoed its counterpart in the Symphonie fantastique, as well as declaring kinship with the soundworld of Benvenuto Cellini, but there was no doubting the particularity of these events, their own character and momentum; nor was there any doubt of the players enjoying themselves, dancing metaphorically. The ‘nuit sereine’ that followed first offered a suggestive instance of spatial drama, the orchestra in the foreground, departing revellers offstage. The celebrated ‘Scène d’amour’ was as ardent as any I have heard, the wonder of young love palpable surely even to the most hardened of cynics. (Not I, Your Honour.) Harding’s control of dramatic pace and reflection was once again noteworthy for never drawing attention to itself, apparently presenting the score ‘as is’. I could not help but think Sir Colin would have admired it.

The Queen Mab scherzo benefited – it almost goes without saying, yet should not – from the greatest technical excellence, a welcome opportunity to revel in Berlioz’s mastery of orchestration; yet its musicodramatic function is just as important, and proved just as impressively communicated. The fifth movement’s processional and commentary were held in fine balance, so too the musical presence of Juliet’s light that (may) have been extinguished. Its successor, ‘Roméo au tombeau des Capulets’, took us through its various stages, ‘Invocation-Réveil de Juliette-Joie délirante, désespoir, dernières angoisses et mort des deux amants’, with the keenest of imagination, almost as if the story and its retelling were new to us. The finale revealed in Shenyang a Friar Laurence of impeccable diction, dark-hued and often thrilling delivery, and great musical sensitivity. His air, ‘Pauvres enfants’ was direct, unfussy, an excellent foil for the orchestra around him. For Harding and the Berlin Philharmonic conveyed the movement’s twists and turns with quicksilver response, the brass as imposing as the bass soloist when required. A magnificent close, the chorus at full strength, set the seal on a delightful evening. Berlioz does not always emerge the better for performers’ struggles with his work; on this occasion, he unquestionably did.

Kavakos/LSO/Harding - Grime, Prokofiev, and Strauss, 18 February 2018

Barbican Hall

Grime: Virga

Prokofiev: Violin Concerto no.2 in G minor, op.63

Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie, op.64

Leonidas Kavakos (violin)

London Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

A wonderful concert. Without being didactic – nothing wrong with that, far from it – in its programming, it permitted connections to be made, if one would, whilst concentrating on performing and interpretative excellence. If I have heard better live performances of either Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto or Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, then I must have forgotten them. That seems unlikely.

First, in a programme that more or less corresponded to the traditional, yet now quite rare, overture-concerto-symphony format – it was actually never quite so ‘traditional’ as some like to claim – came Helen Grime’s Virga. Commissioned by the LSO for its UBS Sound Adventures Scheme and first performed more than ten years ago in 2007, Virga takes its name, to quote John Fallas’s excellent programme note, from ‘precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates before reaching the ground’. I do not know whether you will believe me – I hope so, dear reader – but I thought of raindrops whilst hearing the piece (for the first time), prior to reading the note immediately afterwards. Indeed, I thought, almost saw, droplets falling or travelling not so much in both as in many directions. Immediately, that is, after an opening éclat which must surely have offered particular appeal to one of the piece’s early advocates: no less than Pierre Boulez. The precision both of work and performance under Daniel Harding would surely have appealed to him too; it sounded not un-Gallic, and indeed not without a little Russianness either. (I do not think it was just the coming of Prokofiev that had me think that.) However, there was something intriguingly Germanic, a little Germanic out-of-water perhaps, to an almost Romantic cello melody, still more so its violin (Mahlerian?) successor, heard without accompaniment. Messianesque tuned percussion incited a Boulezian sense of controlled delirium – or, perhaps, rather the sense that such a state might be around the corner. I mention other composers not because I found the music in any sense derivative, quite the contrary. But just to place it, as I indeed placed it for myself, when hearing it for the first time. Harding and the LSO shaped it beautifully, but this was music, ‘poetic’ in a far from un-Romantic sense, which permitted of such shaping. I very much look forward to hearing it again – and indeed to the LSO’s new commission from the composer, to be heard later this year, conducted by Simon Rattle.

The opening solo of the Prokofiev concerto is surprisingly difficult to bring off. It needs to be direct yet inviting, anything but fussy and yet – a frustratingly vague term, I know –  ‘expressive’. Those things it certainly was in Leonidas Kavakos’s performance; it sounded the easiest thing in the world, as deceptive and yet as necessary an impression as if the melody were Mozart’s. Somehow, without my always being quite sure how, the orchestra and conductor seemed always to complement Kavakos’s playing, as that did theirs. This was clearly a meeting of minds and, I think, of souls too. There was an unusual sense of the ‘Allegro’ as well as of the more common ‘moderato’ of the first movement’s tempo marking, greatly to its benefit. It was flexible, yet directed: flexibly directed, one might say. There was darkness too, without exaggeration: a world of fairy-tales, perhaps, yet we know how deep such tales delve into our psyches, individual and collective. Dead-centred, whether in a single line or double-stopping, Kavakos’s tone was surely a joy in itself, yet there was no ‘in itself’ to it. His counterpoint blended perfectly with that of the orchestra’s soloists, every one of them first-rate.

Egyptian cotton, rather than silk, was my first thought concerning the soundworld of the slow movement, often sentimentalised, yet not here. The pulsating ‘accompaniment’ did all that could be asked of it and more; so did the hemiolas it helped create. Kavakos’s vibrato, the length of his bowing, his fingering, all were perfectly chosen and varied; and yet again, it sounded so easy. (It most certainly is not!) I think I even preferred this to Heifetz. Music and performance alike proved soulful, communicative, yet never narcissistic. Form, once again, was vividly, even magically communicated by all. The finale, taken attacca, offered just the right degree of contrast: very much the next and final chapter. It had – something about which I have been thinking quite a bit recently – very much the character and dynamism of a finale. That might sound a truism, but I do not think it is; it certainly did not seem so in a performance of such distinction. And yet, it was very much the particularity of this finale, castanets and all. The side-slipping ‘simplicity’ of the third movement from the Sonata for Two Violins, op.56, collegially given with LSO leader, Roman Simovic, made for the perfect encore.

Richard Strauss’s music and indeed his æsthetic seem to me all the more necessary by the day. His defence, a musical defence, of art and of music in particular are just what a world, descending further daily into abject barbarism, needs. And of course Strauss knew very much about that – not just after 1933, but over the four-year period of writing this symphony, 1911-15. The darkness, here visual as well as aural, in which the symphony’s ‘Nacht’ opens is, or should be something very special: materialist, yes, and with a Nietzschean spirituality born out of anti-Christian materialism. So it was here. Harding’s way with the opening material intrigued me greatly: more flowing than one often hears, Wagnerian with its unendliche Melodie. I liked it very much. What grew out of it was elemental, magnificent, yet never pompous. It breathed the air of Strauss as much as of Garmisch; it spoke not only of ‘Nature’ in the way that some think it does, pictorially. Nor was the music unduly shoehorned into conceptions, often irrelevant, of what a symphony ‘should’ be. It made its own way, more a symphonic poem, perhaps, certainly sui generis: all the better for it. Paths opened up – and closed – before one’s ears; this was a musical ascent, not just a musical recreation of an ascent.

If I say that I found the performance captivated me still more than one from Bernard Haitink with this same orchestra several years ago, that should give an indication of quite how highly I esteemed it. The LSO certainly sounded warmer, or at least the Barbican acoustic did, and I do not think it was just that. For ‘symphonic’ need not, should not, imply a lack of attention to colour, of which there was as much to appreciate here as in the pieces by Grime and Prokofiev. Fragments from Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier – not literally from those works, but ‘as if’… - dissolved before our aural imagination, just as they had in Verga. Indeed, that coupling came to seem all the more inspired in retrospect. Then Die Frau ohne Schatten came into earshot, above all progressions that might well have come from there – even if, again, they did not. To put it another way, this was not just Strauss’s Alpine Symphony; it was most definitely Strauss.

Olivier Stankeiewicz’s oboe solo, exquisitely moving, made me long to hear him in Strauss’s concerto for that instrument. Indeed, at times, the composer’s ‘Indian summer’ did not sound so distant. At other times, though, quite rightly, it seemed a world away; there was a battle to be fought right here, right now. These are very particular Straussian phantasmagoria here; so they sounded, relished yet thoroughly integrated by Harding and his players. In the Epilogue – Karajan used to say that he conducted the work only for this – everything mattered. Above all, Strauss mattered – more than ever. The lamps were going out all over Europe, across the world. I think we all knew or at least felt what Sir Edward Grey (may have) said next. And yet, there was hope of a sort. For this work offers the best of tests. You cannot really believe in Strauss if you do not believe in it. (You cannot even really have listened to it, I should argue.) If you do not believe in Strauss, can you really believe in music? At any rate, if you do not believe in music, especially now, may God help you.

VSO/Harding - Schumann, Scenes from Goethe's Faust, 22 November 2015

Konzerthaus, Vienna

Szenen aus Goethes Faust, WoO 3

Faust, Pater Seraphicus, Dr Marianus – Christian Gerhaher

Gretchen, Una poenitentum – Christiane Karg
Mephistopheles, Böser Geist – Alastair Miles
Marthe, Sorge, Magna Peccatrix – Christina Landshamer
Mangel, Maria Aegyptica, Mater Gloriosa – Gerhild Romberger
Noth, Mulier Samaritana – Jennifer Johnston
Schuld – Anna Huntley
Ariel, Pater Exstaticus – Andrew Staples
Pater Profundus – Franz-Josef Selig
Eine Büßerin – Elisabeth Erhenfellner
Chorus soloist – Michael Sachsenmaier

 Vienna State Opera Youth Chorus (chorus master: Johannes Mertl)

Wiener Singakademie (chorus master: Heinz Ferlesch)

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

 

I have had to wait a long time to hear Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust ‘live’, since, as an undergraduate, buying a second-hand copy of Britten’s recording. Perhaps there has been a London performance since I have become a regular concert-goer; if so, I have not noticed it. Quite why is baffling. It is, by any standards, a fine work, perhaps not so ‘individual’ as the Schumann we know from the piano music and songs, although perhaps that is as much a matter of our conception of ‘individuality’ as anything else. There is certainly ‘originality’ – that most Romantic of constructs, but a construct to which we all, if we are honest and not absurdly modish, remain rightly in thrall – in much of the orchestral writing, which whatever its kinship with the work of other composers, could hardly ever, perhaps could never, have been written by anyone else. Yes, it requires a good few soloists and a chorus, but so do many other works. And if Goethe notoriously told Eckermann that Mozart would have had to compose his Faust, then Goethe was notoriously wrong about all manner of things musical.

Comparisons more odious than usual presented themselves early on, given that I had heard Bernard Haitink and the Chamber of Orchestra just two nights earlier. Nevertheless, if Daniel Harding’s brisk way with the Overture, at least initially, was not how I hear it in my head, it had its own justification, and he showed himself perfectly willing to yield, rather beautifully, for the more ‘feminine’ – forgive the gendered language, but it is surely apt in this of all cases – music. A contrast between Faust and Gretchen was clearly being set up, both in work and in performance, and yet something in common too: in typically nineteenth-century terms, Eve was created from Adam’s rib. I need not labour the point by saying too  much about Robert and Clara. In any case, female voices are far from neglected as the work proceeds, Schumann almost careless in his requirements. And so, after that rather Harnoncourt-like opening, I had no quarrel, or even query, with Harding’s tempi. There was plenty of ebb and flow, and if there might sometimes have been more colour in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s response – not to mention a few too many fluffs in the brass department – there was good playing throughout, excellent in the more vigorous sections and often beguiling in the more ‘poetic’, sensitive passages. Choral singing was excellent throughout, too, both from the Wiener Singakademie, large in numbers yet lithe and lively, and from the young singers from the Opernschule der Wiener Staatsoper, winningly seraphic. The Dies irae passages properly chilled, yet without melodrama; musical values were always to the fore.

The solo singing was for me the highlight. Since he had the lion’s share of it, it is hardly surprising that I should mention Christian Gerhaher first and foremost. The beauty of his vocal delivery was matched to a tee by the acuity of his verbal response. These were clearly words that meant a great deal to him – they do, surely, to any German – but nothing was taken for granted. Gerhaher was not ‘just’ singing Goethe; he was singing Schumann’s Goethe. His shading and phrasing were such as one might have expected in a performance of Dichterliebe. There was, moreover, Faustian defiance, when called for; and drama worthy of the stage – if unstageable – in Faust’s death. Gerhaher’s roles in the Third Part were carefully differentiated; now he was one soloist among many. And those other soloists were an impressive bunch too; there was not a weak link in the cast. Christiane Karg offered a well-judged match of vocal refulgence and drama, again always founded in the text. Andrew Staples sounded every inch a Tamino in his roles, Schumann’s fantastic writing for Ariel benefiting from a meltingly Romantic evocation in vocal and instrumental terms. Alastair Miles proved a stentorian Mephistopheles, and Christina Landshamer a perky, intelligent soprano. Franz-Josef Selig sounded as his usual, beneficent self: always more than welcome. Ensemble writing was always well attended to, balances permitting Schumann’s lines to tell both contrapuntally and harmonically.

 

 

This is a work we need to hear far more often, but this was a good occasion on which to start. Like many, I really have not the slightest idea what Goethe meant by his ‘ewig-Weibliche’ panacea, and probably should rather keep it that way, but Schumann’s unexpectedly – even when one knows it – non-soaring conclusion offers, if not a solution, then, after the splendidly blazingly writing beforehand, a welcome deflection. That, moreover, was how it sounded here.

.

 

Prom 57 - Swedish RSO/Harding: Mahler, 29 August 2014

Royal Albert Hall

Symphony no.2 in C minor

Kate Royal (soprano)

Christianne Stotijn (mezzo-soprano)

Swedish Radio Choir (chorus master: Peter Dijkstra)

Philharmonia Chorus (chorus master: Stefan Bevier)

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

 

This was, all told, an impressive performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony from Daniel Harding, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, their soloists and choruses. Harding’s direction avoided egotism without becoming faceless, plotted Mahler’s narrative with a keen sense of drama that came nowhere near the vulgar theatrics we too often hear in this music, and, no mean feat this in itself, managed soon enough to rise above the Royal Albert Hall’s dreadful acoustics, in a performance that balanced instruments as well as competing dramatic imperatives.

 

The first movement opened with fine attack from the Swedish cellos and double basses. String tone did not always sound so full in general, but that was probably a matter more of the aforementioned acoustic, to which my ears soon adjusted. Harding attended to detail, whether in terms of dynamic contrasts or rubato, without the mannerism of undue micromanagement. Woodwind were nicely pungent, brass splendidly militaristic, but just as important, indeed probably more so, was the sense of awe and unease in those extraordinary Mahlerian liminal zones. This was not a case of rehashing a performance of a work many of us have perhaps heard too often, at least in mediocre performances or worse; it drew us in to listen. Vistas, both physical and metaphysical, opened up, often subtly, but without shying away from grander gestures, well prepared, when necessary. If there were a few occasions when, in abstracto at least, I might have favoured slightly more gradual shifts of tempo, the well-nigh Wagnerian cut and thrust largely compensated; indeed, I thought more than once of Wagner’s semi-serious desire for an ‘invisible theatre’. There was no denying that a musical mind was at work here – and that is more important than whether everyone might have completely agreed with every decision. In the recapitulation, material sounded properly changed in the light of what had gone before. There was nice violin portamento to savour too: not self-regarding, but still a delight. Rarely have I heard the downward scalic harp passages so charged with menace; Boulez’s performances of this work came to mind.

 

What a pity, then, that an ill-mannered section of the audience decided to talk through the silence that should have followed. Surely, aware of Mahler’s intentions or no, the sign that Harding had sat down rather than left the stage, ought to have given a clue. In any case, the second movement proceeded with a winning lilt, rubato again well judged, and warm strings. A flute as pure as a mountain spring intervened and made its point. There was a lovely sense of a serenading band writ large, though actually not so very large, rendering turbulence all the more eruptive when it came. Pizzicato strings evoked suitably spooky marionettes – yet with good nature too: this was no mere house of horrors.

 

Timpani announced the third movement attacca, in spirit as well as in the letter. Artlessness and artfulness, innocence and guile were splendidly balanced in the twisting turns of what many of us now unavoidably think of as this pre-Berio (Sinfonia) river. Sardonic woodwind helped; so did a fine sense of irony that Harding and his players never sought to overplay. The fishes were relished, but so was the preacher: perhaps a shade here of Ecclesiastes as well as St Anthony of Padua? And crucially, good musical values, not least clarity and direction of counterpoint underlay such ideas. The music sounded more Bachian than we often hear – and to good effect. Not that dreams and phantasmagoria were neglected, but they made their point all the more strongly with countervailing tendencies given their due. Thematic connections with music that had gone and music that was yet to come were apparent and meaningful throughout.

 

In ‘Urlicht’, Christianne Stotijn proved straightforward but never simplistic. Words were crystal clear. The brass response to her opening line sounded as if an ambivalent chorale or even equale: was this death or something else that was heralded? As so often with Mahler, either/or misses the point. The Wunderhorn character of the ‘song’ was not forgotten, but rather sublimated in its new context.

 

The finale emerged ‘naturally’, art concealing art, from its predecessor, whilst also audibly sowing thematic seeds for what was to come. There are, of course, many dissimilarities here with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but the similarities registered rather strongly, again being permitted to make their own point instead of being underlined. Once more, drama came to the fore, but without sacrificing the more ‘purely’ musical dynamism of form. (The dichotomy is false, but nevertheless merits an occasional heuristic mention.) The interplay between the (otherworldly?) off-stage band and on-stage musicians was truly disconcerting: death and resurrection are, after all, no easy things. Hesitant steps thereafter did not want for awe, finally preparing the way for the chorus’s entry, for the re-entry of the word – and perhaps even for the entry of the Word? We could not be sure, and that, surely, is Mahler’s point. Kate Royal’s diction was initially poor, sounding more akin to an operatic ‘vocalise’ than to the Lieder-like contribution of Stotijn, but, to Royal’s credit, Stotijn’s return had her improve her game considerably. In any case, the Swedish Radio Choir and Philharmonia Chorus were on fine form; one could have taken dictation from them. If I say that the rest took care of itself, that would of course be an exaggeration, but it flowed so ‘naturally’ – that word again – from what had been prepared that it almost seemed to do so. And that chord on ‘Gott’ sent shivers down the spine, as it must.

What a pity, then, that a loutish minority did its best to ruin things by denying even the briefest of silences, competing instead to issue the first farmyard noise in response. Such selfish exhibitionism has as little place in a Mahler audience as in a Mahler performance.

 

 

Walker/LSO/Harding - Huw Watkins and Mahler, 23 February 2014

Barbican Hall

Huw Watkins – Flute Concerto (world premiere)

Mahler – Symphony no.1 in D major

Adam Walker (flute)

London Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor) 

 

Adam Walker had already premiered one of Huw Watkins’s works, the Capriccio for flute and piano, in 2010. Upon Walker’s award of a Fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, and consequent funding for a commission, both from the Trust and from individual patrons, Walker approached Watkins to write a concerto, whose premiere we were now to hear. According to Schott’s website, the concerto is ‘built around Walker’s playing,’ the composer having noted ‘especially Walker’s “amazing sound and control of his instrument”, which he constantly had in mind during the composition process”.’ Insofar as I could tell from a first hearing and without a score, there seemed to be no doubt not only of Walker’s technical facility but also of his musical commitment, ably supported by the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. Phrasing and variegated tone suggested a repertoire work Walker had been playing for years rather than a first performance. Watkins could hardly have hoped for superior advocacy.

 

Cast in the traditional three movements, Allegro molto, Andante, and Allegro molto, his concerto is also thoroughly traditional in terms of their character: they seem not only to function as recognisable quasi-symphonic first movement, slow movement and rondo finale, but also to possess ‘character’ tallying with their placing. The germination of the first movement’s material from a flickering cell – if a cell may be admitted to flicker! – is clear throughout, Walker’s finely-spun flute line permitting the listener to trace his or her way without difficulty. It is perhaps easy to overlook the technical problems in ensuring an instrument such as the flute makes itself heard against a sizeable orchestra, but this never seemed to be a problem for composer or musicians. There is certainly real craft at work here. The slow movement continues, as indeed does the dance-like finale, to make its way in a recognisably tonal idiom. Sonority and command of the orchestra seemed to have much in common with the music of a composer such as Julian Anderson, though in the context of this particular concert, it was interesting to note, especially during the slow movement, moments at which new vistas appeared to open up, perhaps not so breathtakingly as in Mahler’s case, but offering an interesting correspondence, whether merely fortuitous or no. Doubtless this concerto will prove a valuable addition to the flute repertoire.

 

Mahler’s First Symphony followed the interval, and received for the most part an estimable performance from Harding and the LSO: unquestionably a relief following Valery Gergiev’s dubious dabblings with Mahler’s music. The first movement was perhaps marginally less successful. Whilst Harding’s disinclination to drive the music was greatly appreciated, there were occasions when tension sagged a little, though certainly not in its thrilling conclusion. There was beauty, though, in the sounds of the Nature with which the music comes to initial life, the LSO’s technical ability second to none, string harmonics holding none of the fears they still do for some orchestras. Harding’s orchestral layout, violins split left and right, was much appreciated in this movement and elsewhere for enabling Mahler’s counterpoint fully to register. The second movement was taken relatively ‘straight’, as indeed was the symphony as a whole, but emerged no worse for that: there is nothing worse than underlining every ‘point’, as if Mahler cannot be trusted to speak for himself. Much the same could be said of the funeral march, its eeriness emerging from the material rather than being imposed upon it. Contrasts were undeniable, but never excessive, in a movement whose performance was possessed of considerable cumulative power. The halting journey to redemption, or whatever the apparent triumph of the finale may be, was convincingly traced. If the awkward corners of this and the first movement were not entirely concealed, that is more testament to Mahler’s relative immaturity than to any shortcoming in performance; it takes a Kubelík or a Boulez truly to have one forget the problems, and there is something indeed to be said for a reading that places such trust in what remains a staggeringly original first symphony. Not that Harding was in any sense staid: the final peroration blazed with theatricality, horns and trombones standing to attention. Claudio Abbado, to whose memory this concert was dedicated, would surely have admired the continuing work of his ‘little genius’. Harding’s heartfelt, eloquent tribute in the programme matched that on the podium. A black mark is awarded, though, for the programme’s description of the work as the ‘Titan’, the Jean Paul-inspired epithet inappropriate to the work in its final version as heard here.  

Salzburg Festival (1) - Ariadne auf Naxos, 15 August 2012

Haus für Mozart

Prima Donna/Ariadne – Emily Magee
Zerbinetta – Elena Moşuc
Tenor/Bacchus – Roberto Saccà
Naiad/Shepherdess – Eva Liebau
Dryad/ Shepherd – Marie-Claude Chappuis
Echo/Singer – Eleonora Burato
Harlekin - Gabriel Bermúdez
Scaramuccio – Michael Laurenz
Truffaldin – Tobias Kehrer
Brighella – Martin Mitterrutzner
Major-Domo – Peter Matić
Monsieur Jourdain – Cornelius Obonya
Composer – Thomas Frank
Hofmannsthal – Michael Rotschopf
Ottonie/Dorine – Regina Fritsch
Nikoline – Stefanie Dvorak
Lakai – Johannes Lange

Sven-Erik Bechtolf (director)
Rolf Glittenberg (set designs)
Marianne Glittenberg (costumes)
Heinz Spoerli (choreography)
Jürgen Hoffmann (lighting)
Ronny Dietrich (dramaturgy)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

Images: Salzburg Festival/Ruth Walz
M. Jourdain with dancers

When announced in November, this was trailed as the original version of Ariadne auf Naxos, a rare treat indeed. What materialised was something rather different, which ultimately delivered less than it might have seemed to promise. The Salzburg Festival’s Director of Drama not only directed the stage proceedings, but offered a new version of his own. Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme is itself adapted so as to form the basis of a further level of metatheatricality. Nothing wrong with that in principle; indeed Strauss tends to thrive on such æsthetic play. The problem, however, is that the new level is ultimately banal, an explanation of the enterprise being a Hollywood love-story between Hofmannsthal and Ottonie von Degenfeld-Schonburg. What most interests many of us about Strauss is the fraught relationship, and sometimes serene disconnection dialectically reinforcing itself as inconnection, between life and work. Presentation of a vulgar, sub-Romantic ‘life explains works’ story cheapens rather than intrigues. Otherwise, Bechtolf’s production is unobjectionable. Rolf Glittenberg’s set designs are stylish, likewise Marianne Glittenberg’s costumes, save for an unfathomably dreadful leopard-skin get up for Bacchus. (Zerbinetta likens his stealing forward to that of a panther, but even so...)

Added to this mix prior to the interval are certain parts of the later, 1916 Prologue, albeit spoken. What a waste to reduce the Composer to a spoken part!  Many of Bechtholf's ideas might have sounded good on paper, even in discussion, but would have been better off rejected when it came to practical rehearsal. Yes, we hear the opera music for 1912, but we do not hear it as conceived: a pity, when even this problematical first version is so manifestly greater in sophistication than this 2012 Salzburg ‘version’.At least, however, we have opportunity to hear the incidental music. Then, after the interval, comes the opera proper, albeit with interventions from Hofmannsthal and Ottonie – yes, their love bears fruit at the same time as that of Ariadne and Bacchus – and, more irritatingly, from the dreadful M.Jourdain, objecting, in a fashion doubtless considered ‘witty’, that the music might be beautiful but it lacks a French horn, that Ariadne does nothing but complain, and so on. Hofmannsthal, and more to the point Strauss, surely ought to have known better, but given the liberties taken, Bechtolf might also have performed a little editorial work here. It was of course fascinating to hear the rest of what remained from 1912, but it would have been still more fascinating to have heard it all.

Zerbinetta and her troupe

After an occasionally shaky start, the Vienna Philharmonic was on good form. Daniel Harding shaped the incidental music before the interval with knowledge both of its French Baroque origins and the affectionate almost-but-not-quite neo-classicism in which Strauss clothes it. The Overture in retrospect offered something of an exception, more Stravinskian than what was to come, but not jarringly so. Form was conveyed intelligently and meaningfully throughout the opera, a more than satisfactory balance achieved between ‘numbers’ and the greater whole. The final climax was thrilling, moving as it should, the chamber orchestral forces persuading one, in a moment of echt-Straussian magic, that they are larger than they are, both consequence and deflation of Wagner’s examples. (The earlier Tristan quotations did not fail to delight, nor, of course, to raise a smile.)
 

The (non-singing) Composer and Zerbinetta

Emily Magee was an adequate Ariadne, but rarely more than that. Too often, her voice failed to soar as it should; an edge to it proved a touch unpleasant. Elena Moşuc, by contrast, proved an outstanding Zerbinetta. Her extended aria, up a semitone, was delivered as flawlessly as I can recall any performance of the somewhat easier – that is, of course, relative! – 1916 version. The 1912 aria is even more outsized, even more absurd, in its way even more lovable; at least, that was how it sounded here. Roberto Saccà did a fine job in the thankless role of Bacchus; if he could not quite manage to prevent the strain from showing, and could not quite help one long for Jonas Kaufmann, who performed the role earlier in the run, there was a great deal for which to be grateful and nothing which to object. (Apart, that is, from the costume.) Zerbinetta’s followers were full of character and inviting of tone; it would really be invidious to choose between Gabriel Bermúdez, Michael Laurenz, Tobias Kehrer, and Martin Mitterrutzner. Likewise the other smaller sung roles. If the actors impressed less, it was difficult to know whether that was simply on account of the material. At any rate, I assume the over-acting of Cornelius Obonya’s M. Jourdain was at least in part on directorial instruction.

Will someone now offer us the 1912 version we were promised? And then we can return safely to the unalloyed joys of 1916...