BPO and Academy/Rattle - Gruber, Bartók, Ravel, and Berio, 18 March 2017

Philharmonie

HK Gruber – Piano Concerto

Bartók – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz 48
 

Ravel – Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé

Berio – Sequenza III
Berio – Laborintus II

Emanuel Ax (piano)

Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)

Rinat Shaham (mezzo-soprano)

Gábor Bretz (bass)

Ulrich Noethen, Dino Scandariato (narrators)

Members of the Berlin Radio Choir and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart

Paul Jeukendrup (sound direction)

Orchestral Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Simon Rattle (conductor)

In this pair of concerts, the first a ‘standard’ Berlin Philharmonic concert, the second a shorter, ‘late night’ event with members of the orchestra’s academy, both conducted by Simon Rattle, we found our ideas concerning musical drama subtly challenged. The ‘principal’ event featured a somewhat odd pairing of HK Gruber’s Piano Concerto, receiving its first German performances, and Bluebeard’s Castle. Many stronger works would pale alongside Bartók’s opera; Gruber’s new offering certainly did. Its opening showed promise, as if straining to remember the 1920s jazz age, muted trumpet and all, then gradually appreciating that it did not need to remember; it could try something new. Except then it did not, at least to these ears. The piano seemed oddly to be on a different track from the orchestra, whether harmonically or rhythmically. In its part, ably performed, so far as I could tell, by Emanuel Ax, there was perhaps something at least analogous to the potential circularity of early twelve-note writing, but it did not seem to move beyond that circularity, to become generative. Otherwise, there was much post-Berg, post-Weill meandering – just as in any other work by Gruber I have heard. Dance rhythms – yes, waltzes and others – came and went. Perhaps the material might have lent itself better to a shorter piece: ten minutes? Two-and-a-half times that felt much too long.

 

That out of the way, there was a great deal to enjoy in the Bartók performance, Ulrich Noethen’s Prologue (in German) setting the scene nicely, with a fine balance between the theatrical and what a concert can provide much better, the suggestion of theatre. Rattle’s conducting of the Berlin Philharmonic was for much of the time, especially earlier on, unobtrusive, seemingly content (however illusory this impression might have been) to follow the highly dramatic performances, concert garb and setting notwithstanding, of Rinat Shaham and Gábor Bretz. Bretz showed considerable, even irresistible charm, as well as darkness, in a dangerous, silken-smooth performance. Dark violas, piquant woodwind solos accompanied, questioned him, even held him to account, although we knew that we, like Judit, must ultimately submit. His repetitive questioning – ‘Félsz-e?’ – had great cumulative force, as much musical as verbal. Shaham’s wilful yet sensitive portrayal was well matched, equally well contrasted; one followed her decisions, understanding them even as one knew how foolish they were. Her fear was very real, no mere recitation. Their interaction, visual as well as vocal, came across as the key to unlocking the particular secrets of this evening. Without slipping into banal psychological realism, their portrayals treated Bluebeard and Judit as characters, not simply archetypes. Words and, more broadly, drama came first, one felt, but where does the drama lie?

When the orchestra moved, as it were, centre stage, one certainly knew, for instance in the ominous yet never exaggerated ostinato writing following the closing of the iron door behind our unhappy pair. The effect was not entirely un-Wagnerian (Act II of Die Walküre, for instance): not the only time I thought of that particular predecessor in this performance. Each door brought full tragedy a step nearer; one felt that, score and performance telling one so, rather than ‘merely’ knowing it. Golden enchantment would have tempted us all, and doubtless did, all the more so for the fatalism surrounding it. And when that moment, the opening of the fifth door, came, not only did the earth tremble, as it never could on a recording, but the Berlin orchestra glowed – again, as it never could except in the flesh. As the world darkened, the orchestra increasingly took over: not to the detriment of Bluebeard and Judit, but to seal their fate: implacable, irresistible. Here, Rattle’s shaping proved just the thing, alert to the narrative, without imposing upon it. Judit’s pride, as she insisted on opening the final, seventh door, led to quite the orchestral climax, almost Wozzeck-like. Thereafter was the tale, in every sense, of Bluebeard coming home, the evening glow again more redolent of Wagner than of Strauss. The forbidden question of Lohengrin, then, turned dark indeed.

 

It was unlikely, indeed undesirable, that, having attended the earlier concert, one would not approach the ‘late night’ event with Bluebeard in mind. Berio’s works in particular shone in that light, as well as immediately providing their own illumination. First, however, Magdalena Kožená, the Academy musicians, and Rattle offered us a fine performance of Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé. One cannot but hear these songs and fail to appreciate the depth of Ravel’s response to, as well as his distancing from, Schoenberg. Debussy hovers too, of course, with all the (fruitful) problems of that relationship both in general and with particular reference to Mallarmé. Hearing the instrumental lines so soon after Bartók, though, one also felt a kinship in that respect: twin responses rather than ‘influence’ as such, no doubt, but no less interesting for that. The timbral radicalism of the very opening might almost have come from a chamber arrangement of Bluebeard or The Wooden Prince. Ravel’s word-setting, though, sounded as particular as ever, Kožená, like Shaham’s Judit before her, shaping the tonal universe before her, even as the conductor and instrumentalists might actually have been doing it for her. The precision and style of these young musicians left nothing to be desired; they might have been a crack new-music ensemble, and indeed that is precisely what they were.

 

Kožená turned Berio’s Sequenza III very much into a piece, if this is not too much of a paradox, of music theatre for voice. (I do not think it is too much, when one considers what Berio is doing both in his Sequenzas more generally and in this in particular.) Language emerged from music, drama from both, but the relationships were never one-way. She was almost a Mélisande torn between her husband (Rattle sat at the corner of the stage, ready to make a percussion intervention) and a younger man suddenly lit up above. She gestured, shouted, sang. Did she decide? Was she even interested in decision, or indeed in those apparitions? The ‘shadows of meaning’ of which Berio spoke were ever apparent, ever new: such is the essence of performance. Drama lay not only in ‘portrayal’, but in the relationship between the performer and her voice, again just as Berio envisaged – yet doubtless, in another sense, quite different. ‘The voice,’ to quote the composer, ‘carries always an excess of connotations, whatever it is doing.’ So it did here.

 

Laborintus II proved, if anything, more invigorating still. It is, of course, quite an occasion to have opportunity to hear it, to experience it in the flesh. Expectations were not only fulfilled; they were perhaps even exceeded. Members of the Berlin Radio Choir and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart were, just as the soloists in the Bartók and Kožená in her pieces, active participants in shaping, in making the drama: no mere executants. So too were the instrumentalists. Berio is not a composer to erect barriers; this performance proceeded very much, then, in his vein, wisely directed by the collegial Rattle as first among equals. Musical references from Monteverdi onwards took their place in what one might, perhaps misleadingly, think of as a musico-dramatic collage, but which in ‘reality’, whatever that may be, was both ever connecting with anything and everything else, and yet never anything but itself. Memory rules, it seems: but do we remember or misremember those Biblical genealogies, those journeys of Dante, even the passages conventionally written, as it were, by Eduardo Sanguineti himself? Dino Scandariato proved, rightly, both a sure and questioning guide to our humanistic labyrinth. As often with Berio, Italo Calvino came to mind; La vera storia beckoned. If other works had tended towards music theatre, and if in some senses this might even have looked forward towards a reimagining of opera, this was nevertheless the real music theatre thing, however intangible definition and reality might be. My immediate reaction was to wish to hear it again, except differently; or, as Wagner put it, ‘Kinder, macht Neues!’

 

Keenlyside/Ax - Winterreise, 22 October 2014

Wigmore Hall 

Schubert: Winterreise, D 911

Simon Keenlyside (baritone)

Emanuel Ax (piano)

 

I had expected this would be an excellent, thoroughly moving performance, and so it was. Simon Keenlyside is one of our subtlest, most thoughtful, most musical baritones, and so he was here. What took me a little by surprise was the contribution of Emanuel Ax. Perhaps I have been unlucky in my experiences of his playing before, but this impressed me far more than those previous experiences had. Ax brought a strong sense of form to each song, almost as if those forms were musically ‘autonomous’, whilst in no way detracting from, indeed in every way supporting, the ‘poetic’ intent and musico-poetic alchemy. One recognised figures as one might in, say, one of the piano sonatas; one certainly registered the meaning inherent in and, in performance, communicated by every note. There was, in, for instance, ‘Der Lindenbaum’, no ‘mere’ figuration, although the part retained its pictorial element; indeed, the piano playing hinted at the consequences Schubert’s Lieder-writing might hold for the Wagnerian orchestra as Greek chorus.

 

Back to ‘Gute Nacht’. It opened relatively swiftly, with no room for sentimentality. Clean delivery from both artists worked very much to the benefit of the work, not least in Keenlyside’s ever-excellent diction. An occasional catch in his voice made no difference to the greater picture, in a performance of palpable sincerity. Wonderful touches of detail, for instance a diminuendo on ‘Matten’ the second time around, made all the difference. The artists were not hidebound by tradition, though by the same token they made no effort to be ‘new’ for the sake of it. ’Geforne Tränen’ was taken somewhat slower than usual, at least to start with, giving one pause for thought, but gathered pace, and, like a number of the songs, indeed proved admirably flexible in its progress, in this case setting the scene very well for an impassioned ‘Erstarrung’. Agonising dialogue with an unstable self marked the third stanza of ‘Wasserflut’, albeit of a different variety from the outright expressionism of, say, Matthias Goerne. This was perhaps still more of an interior nature. Ax’s bass line, oppressive without being over-emphasised, transformed ‘Auf dem Flusse’ into an ordeal of the soul, culminating in Keenlyside’s furious vocal climax.

‘Frühlingstraum’ again had one listen anew. The first and fourth stanzas were swifter, blither than one usually hears. Again, flexibility was very much to the fore in Keenlyside’s response to the words. Mood-swings, both vocal and pianistic, were perhaps if anything still greater than usual, especially with respect to the narcotic numbing experienced in the third and sixth stanzas. ‘Wann halt’ ich mien Liebchen im Arm?’ The piano was properly, chillingly silvery in ‘Die Krähe’ – even on a Steinway (as opposed to, say, a Bösendorfer). Here again, Ax’s iron-clad communication of form contributed greatly too, in this case to the turn of maddening; so, of course, did Keenlyside’s verbal response. Webern, unsurprisingly, was relished by Ax in ‘Letzte Hoffnung’, leading to the moment when Keenlyside seared the weeping of ‘wein’’ into our consciousness and thereafter our memories. A parallel madness of domesticity was verbally communicated in ‘Im Dorfe’, heightened, indeed in some cases led, by the obsessive nature of the piano figuration.

 

The graceful piano lilt of ‘Täuschung’ seemed born, as it doubtless was, of long immersion in Schubert’s piano music; the Moments musicaux came to mind. But there was no doubt that this was something more menacing, hallucinatory. Again, it was the piano that announced a new depth of sadness in ‘Der Wegweiser,’ showing the way, as it were, for Keenlyside in its final stanza to express, now every inch a Wozzeck, his true anguish. There was no unnecessary ‘extremity’, save for in his suffering. The weariness of ‘Das Wirtshaus’ and the final, deeply moving display of virility in ‘Mut!’ followed on with frightening necessity. For me, the only miscalculation was a too-forthright rendition of ‘Die Nebensonnen’, which seemed out of place with respect to work and performance. ‘Der Leiermann,’ however, mesmerised, its final lines summoning up not only the ghost (to come) of Wozzeck, but also of the most tragic of Papagenos.

 


 

Ax/LSO/Haitink - Mozart and Shostakovich, 15 October 2013

Barbican Hall 

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

Shostakovich – Symphony no.15 in A major, op.141

Emanuel  Ax (piano)

London Symphony Orchestra

Bernard Haitink (conductor)

No prizes for guessing which conductor I immediately associate with the LSO and Mozart.  Sir Colin Davis’s shoes are impossible to fill in so many ways, but I was delighted, almost astonished, to hear the orchestra on as excellent Mozartian form as I can recall. Not, of course, that I doubt Bernard Haitink’s credentials in this repertoire, but even he would cede to Sir Colin in my affections in this case – or at least he would have done before this concert. The orchestra may have been small (ten first violins down to four double basses), but there was nothing underpowered about its performance. The opening of the first movement was crisp, with woodwind more prominent, even adamant, than one might have expected; clearly Haitink was determined that Mozart should not go excessively gentle into that good night. It might be exaggerated to consider his reading revisionist, for if it were, it was with the greatest subtlety, but it was in the best sense refreshing. Moreover, this movement was definitely heard as an Allegro. Mozartian perfection, then? Alas, not quite. This is the most unforgiving of all music; every slight imperfection tells and is magnified, and so it was with Emanuel Ax’s performance. There was much to admire. From the outset, his tone was clean, and his touch impressively variegated. Even early on, though, there was some puzzling, ungainly phrasing – repeated in the recapitulation, so it was no accident. During the development section, it was the orchestra that providing most of the energy, and also most of the sensuous pleasure, the woodwind, and particularly Emmanuel Laville’s oboe, simply ravishing. Returning, as it were, to the recapitulation, Ax badly smudged one run, but there was ample compensation to be had from the loving, yet never indulged second subject from the orchestra, somewhat blithely tossed away, alas, by the pianist. Mozart’s cadenza also had a degree of glibness to it, if only by comparison with what we heard from the LSO. I longed for a pianist such as Daniel Barenboim to probe beneath the surface – as, of course orchestra and conductor did throughout.

 

Ax was much improved in the second movement, though his ornamentation sometimes veered dangerously close to the intrusive – and was actually eminently predictable. The truest musical rewards were once again to be heard from Haitink and the LSO; heartfelt, beautifully sonorous, above all unaffected. The finale was equally well shaped, rhythms delighting rather than hardening, as they might in lesser hands, into rigidity. If the music sounded more ebullient than half-lit, it was none the worse for that. Occasional heavy-handedness from the pianist was again more than compensated for by the subtle, sovereign command of Haitink and the quickening response of the LSO. This was some of the best Mozart playing I have heard – and that includes from the Vienna Philharmonic.

 

Shostakovich’s final symphony opened in at least as sprightly, at least as precise, fashion. Flute and percussion, then strings and bassoon, combined to suggest an almost Prokofiev-like magic (think of the Seventh Symphony); but then, ambivalence, of a different sort from Prokofiev’s, set in, both through the offices of orchestral exactitude, in the best sense, and, of course, enigmatic quotation. What does it mean? Haitink seemed to have just the right, Shostakovich-like attitude of: ‘Don’t ask me! I’m just the humble musician.’ What a relief it was to hear Shostakovich’s music, to my mind at its best here, utterly distanced from Cold War nonsense – however Soviet-tinged the vibrato of the LSO brass might sound, both in this movement and in those strange trombone-and-tuba chords of the next. Strings were rapier-sharp. Tim Hugh’s cello solo in the slow movement was every bit as finely wrought as leader Roman Simovic’s briefer yet equally important solo contributions; indeed, though I suppose I may have missed one, I cannot recall a single solo from any member of the orchestra that was not of the very highest order. Haitink paced the movement as well as one might expect from so distinguished a Brucknerian. The strangeness of sonority and harmony registered with no need for grotesque underlining. Structure was powerfully conveyed in what, despite a well-nigh inevitable bronchial onslaught from members of the audience, was at least as masterly an account as the conductor’s celebrated Decca recording. What too often in the composer’s earlier work sounds as empty devices here and now acquired true ‘meaning’, partly and paradoxically on account of the apparent rejection by score and performance alike of ‘meaning’ as conventionally understood.

 

The scherzo was sardonic, brutally so, ensuring that the material’s dangerous propensity toward banality was never truly realised. Rhythms and balances were equally tight. The LSO’s percussion section, here as elsewhere, was outstanding, preparing the way for the dénouement. Hearing Wagner, if only in quotation at the opening of the final movement, made one long to hear the composer’s music from Haitink once again. Such was the rightness, even in so different a context, that I almost felt as if he were about to launch into Siegfried’s Funeral March, but no... Tone lightened, yet remained unsettled, disconcerting. Haitink’s near-absolute control, musicianly not tyrannical, and the keenness of the LSO’s response conspired together to render inevitable the emergence and course of the passacaglia, frustrated as it was to a certain extent by what at times seemed like a cough or sneeze per bar. The climax, anyway, was powerful indeed. This may be ‘good’ rather than ‘great’ music, but it was far and away the best Shostakovich performance I have heard. And the coda, when it came, proved as chilling as ever – perhaps more so.

Ax/NYPO/Maazel, 3 January 2009

Avery Fisher Hall, New York

Bach - Brandenburg Concerto no.2 in F major, BWV 1047
Szymanowski – Symphony no.4, for piano and orchestra, op.60
Strauss – Burleske in D minor, for piano and orchestra
Mussorgsky, orch. Ravel – Pictures at an exhibition

Emanuel Ax (piano)
Philip Smith (trumpet)
Sheryl Staples (violin)
Robert Langevin (flute)
Liang Wang (oboe)
New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Lorin Maazel (conductor)

This was a curious programme. Part way through Pictures at an exhibition, I wondered whether a connecting theme might have been unusual concerto forms – at least in Classical terms – although I doubt that this could have been the intention. I had better explain why Mussorgsky-Ravel would fall into such a category, so shall start with that, the final work, which had the second half to itself. Pictures at an exhibition is not, of course, a concerto for orchestra but in Lorin Maazel’s performance, it rather sounded like one. Ravel’s transcription has become very much an orchestral showpiece and seeking for a Mussorgskian heart beating beneath the Ravelian glitter may be somewhat to miss the point, but I do think it worth making the attempt. This performance was verily sped through, all sections of the New York Philharmonic on superb technical form, yet I could not help thinking that something was missing. The tone was set with an opening Promenade as brisk as – probably brisker than – any I have ever heard, and almost every movement was considerably quicker than usual. The cart in ‘Bydlo’ is drawn by oxen; here it sounded motorised, almost turbo-charged. By contrast, the ‘Great Gate of Kiev’ seemed to last for an eternity, excessively drawn out even without the irritating inserted pregnant pauses. Much of the audience clearly enjoyed such a virtuosic account – I hesitate to say ‘interpretation’ – but I found this the least interesting of the four performances.

Let us return to the beginning. Bach’s second Brandenburg Concerto is one of the greatest of all concerti grossi and I liked this performance very much. It may not have plumbed the Bachian depths; Maazel is no Klemperer or Richter. But we benefited from elegant style and a praiseworthy refusal to genuflect before the false god of ‘authenticity’. Each of the soloists proved eminently musical and exhibited great beauty of tone. Balances both between concertino and ripieno and between the soloists themselves – often tricky in this work – were perfect. Dynamic contrasts were sometimes terraced, though never aggressively of the ‘sewing-machine’ Baroque school, and sometimes shaded, especially in the beautiful slow movement. It flowed in the best sense, ‘flowing’ here being what it says rather than a euphemism for dogmatically fast. The contrast with the opening of the third movement, characterised by a perky trumpet entry, was musical rather than a perverse shock-tactic. Maazel here adopted a tempo that seemed just right: lively but not frenetic, and with a nice but not vulgar rallentando at the close.

Szymanowski’s Fourth Symphony is not a concerto, but has a concertante piano part, here played by Emanuel Ax. The music and the style are of course Szymanowski’s own, but for the uninitiated, one hears something between Bartók and Zemlinsky. It is a marvellous work and it was gratifying to hear it performed by musicians who are not especially known as advocates of the composer. Maazel drove some of the music, especially in the outer movements, a little hard but the great washes of orchestral sound came over well, with excellent solo work from the leader and timpanist, amongst others. Ax could be rather heavy-handed, playing his part as if this really were a Romantic concerto. However, he was most impressive as the hot-house accompanist of the slow movement’s night-chamber-music. King Roger, the composer’s operatic masterpiece, was palpably close.

Maazel and Ax both seemed better acquainted with Strauss’s Burleske, Ax now playing without a score. It is an endearing if un-Straussian work, generally more redolent of Brahms, sometimes Schumann, and occasionally Liszt; there is perhaps but one progression that puts me in mind of the later Strauss (Rosenkavalier, certainly not Elektra). Not even so good a performance as this was could convince me that Strauss always knows where he is going harmonically, but this movement is in conventional concerto-style and sounded like it. Both pianist and conductor proved more yielding than they had been in the Szymanowski, although some of the brass interventions were unnecessarily brash. Ax’s virtuosic style was more appropriate here. I only wish that the programme had amounted to more than the sum of its parts.