Book Review: Joy H. Calico, 'Arnold Schoenberg's "A Survivor from Warsaw" in Postwar Europe'

My review for H-Net German may be read by clicking here.


Here are Maximilian Schell, the European Community (as it then was) Youth Orchestra, and Claudio Abbado, along with a score to follow:





And here is a programme note I wrote for the Proms last year.

Prom 26 - EUYO/Petrenko: Berio and Shostakovich, 5 August 2014

Royal Albert Hall

Berio – Sinfonia  

Shostakovich – Symphony no.4 in C minor, op.43

London Voices (chorus master: Ben Parry)

European Union Youth Orchestra

Vasily Petrenko (conductor)

Although far from perfect, the performance of Berio’s Sinfonia in the first half of this concert was certainly its high-point; indeed, I rather wish that I had left at the interval, given the tedium induced by Shostakovich’s interminable Fourth Symphony. Still, such was the programme Semyon Bychkov had been intended to conduct. Alas, illness had forced him to withdraw, to be replaced at short notice by Vasily Petrenko. Petrenko did a reasonable job in Berio; however, I could not help but wonder how often he had conducted the work before. It was certainly a swift, driven reading, but that seemed to reflect a head more than usually stuck in the score (understandable, given the circumstances).

 

The opening of the first movement was promising indeed: aethereal, its harmonies unmistakeably announcing an ‘Italian’ flavour – both Dallapiccola and Nono springing to mind – whatever the undoubted internationalism of Berio’s outlook. It is a great piece for the European Youth Orchestra, not only in terms of that ‘internationalism’ but also because, like Mahler (if only we could have had his music in the second half!) a large orchestra is employed, but sparingly, smaller ensembles drawn therefrom to wonderful, magical effect. It was a pity Petrenko drove so hard, but the movement recognisably remained itself. The second movement came across almost as a ‘traditional’ slow movement, albeit again with sparing, almost soloistic use of the orchestra. An appropriately geological and river-like sense characterised the third movement. Mahler’s Second Symphony was the bedrock, of course, but I was also fascinated by the thoughts of memory and its tricks that the Rosenkavalier references provoked. If anything, Strauss and Hofmannsthal proved the more resonant on this occasion, though whether that was simply a matter of my frame of mind, or was in some sense owed to the performance, I am not sure. At any rate, the combination – and conflict – between the EUYO and London Voices made it seem, especially in the context of Petrenko’s once-again driven tempo, almost as though one were trapped within a human mind, and a witty one at that. Mathieu van Bellen offered an excellent violin solo. The typically varied vocal references included one to ‘Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony’, concluding with a ‘Thank you, Mr Petrenko’. Amplification perhaps seemed a bit heavy in the fourth movement, though perhaps it was more a matter of the acoustic; nevertheless Berio’s imagination continued to shine through. I wondered whether the final movement might have smiled a little more – no such problem with the voices – but all was present and correct, and often rather more than that.

 

As for Shostakovich: well, his apologists hail this symphony as a masterpiece, but an opportunity to hear it had the rest of us wish it had remain ‘withdrawn’, not on account of any dangerous ‘modernism’ – Stalinist ‘socialist realism’ truly was insane! – but because it is such a dull, frankly un-symphonic work. For the most part, Petrenko and the EUYO did all they did to convince, although string playing sometimes went awry.  The first movement opened with Lady Macbeth-style Grand Guignol, perhaps more interesting than anything that followed. Precision and attack were impressive: there was a chilling mechanistic quality to the performance, but alas, the work ensured that returns diminished, Shostakovich’s threadbare invention rendered all too apparent after a while. The second movement is at least shorter, but from the outset, one felt, as so often with this composer, that one had heard it all before, and it still seemed too long. Oft-drawn comparisons with Mahler seemed as incomprehensible as ever. They made a little more sense in the final movement – so long as one bore in mind Boulez’s observation that Shostakovich offers at best a ‘second pressing’ in olive oil terms – but surely nothing justified the lack of variegation and indeed the sheer tedium of this piece. Petrenko and the orchestra rendered the movement’s Largo opening nicely creepy. Various woodwind took the opportunity to shine within the confines of generally unrelieved lugubriousness. There could, however, be no papering over the formal cracks. How I longed for a little invention: Haydn, Webern, Mahler, Berio,  just about anyone! Is it not about time that we abandoned puerile Cold War attitudes and considered whether this music is actually any good, rather than merely sympathising with the autobiography of an alleged ‘dissident’?

Prom 32: Rysanov/EUYO/Bamert - Tchaikovsky, Janáček, and Berlioz, 9 August 2010

Royal Albert Hall

Tchaikovsky – Fantasy Overture: ‘Romeo and Juliet’
Janáček – Taras Bulba
Berlioz – Harold en Italie, op.16

Maxim Rysanov (viola)
European Union Youth Orchestra
Matthias Bamert (conductor)

I have still yet to hear Sir Colin Davis conduct the Symphonie fantastique or Harold in Italy live, though I shall cherish memories of Les troyens for the rest of my life. Tonight was to have been the night for Harold, but Davis had to withdraw on health grounds: all Berlioz-lovers, Mozart-lovers, music-lovers will wish Sir Colin a swift recovery. Berlioz aside, this was perhaps not an obvious Davis programme; however, it does not, on the strength of this concert, seem to have been an obvious Matthias Bamert programme either.

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet fared best: the European Youth Orchestra providing a vivid, heartfelt performance. The slow, sombre introduction proved full of foreboding, whilst Bamert’s flexibility of transition marked that to the urgent, sharply characterised first group and other passages too. There was, for instance, no sense of treading water until the ‘love theme’; the material was instead shown to be motivically, dramatically important. Strings were simply gorgeous, truly Tchaikovskian. The development brought precision, though not of the clinical variety, and urgency in exchanges between Montagues and Capulets – and how, later on, the love theme would soar as it suffered incursions from those families!

Though I am a passionate admirer of Janáček, his Taras Bulba has never struck me as one of his stronger works, even in the hands of a Kubelík or a Mackerras. And so it was here, under a deputising conductor who seemed to have little particular sympathy for the composer. The orchestra once again played very well. There were notable solos, for instance from leader, Sarah Sew in The Death of Andriy, and it was good to hear the Royal Albert Hall organ (Robin Green) in gentler music, properly contrasted with bells and military clangour. Yet the music was often too relaxed or (the second movement) too driven, and lacked the authentic Janáček edge. A sense of the whole, admittedly difficult to impart in this work, remained elusive. There were hints of the Glagolitic Mass at the conclusion, but they did not seem truly to emanate from the heart of the music.

Harold in Italy benefited from an outstanding performance from Maxim Rysanov, but the orchestral direction proceeded in fits and starts. The opening of the first movement was most promising: purposeful to an uncommonly, yet convincingly, Beethovenian degree. The bassoon’s baleful melancholy (Maria García Gallego) heightened expectations, which seemed set to be fulfilled – and they were – by Rysanov’s spellbinding reveries: some wondrous pianissimi here. Bamert imparted a reasonable amount of fantasy – though this of all composers needs more than ‘reasonable’ – but here and elsewhere, he seemed reluctant to draw out Berlioz’s array of orchestral colour. Moreover, his direction lacked the sense of line that Davis would doubtless have contributed. It would always have been difficult for the mystery of the second movement’s opening to have emerged through a concerted barrage of coughing. However, once the audience had (relatively) calmed down, the lack of magic was also to be attributed to Bamert’s hurried tempo and lack of affinity with Berlioz’s orchestration. The EUYO’s strings brought considerable warmth to proceedings, however. Again, there was excellent solo work from Rysanov. His gift for projection, especially when playing softly, is uncommon: the viola’s harmonics were both present and thematically meaningful. Sadly, the conclusion to this movement was not helped by what sounded like a passing aeroplane, soon to be drowned out by inter-movement audience hubbub. There was a nice lilt to the third-movement serenade, and a truly magical placing of the viola’s idée fixe against the orchestra’s contrasting rhythms and solos. The mind’s eye could see Berlioz’s Italian landscape, though it has been painted in less restrained fashion. An almighty cymbal clash announced the final movement – and showed the noisy audience who ultimately was in charge: not before time. The return of the opening material brought a renewed sense of purpose: this would seem to suit Bamert more than much of what goes in between. But that, of course, is only a small part of this movement. Here, the conductor had a tendency to drive too hard, though this is something very difficult to get right. (Sir Colin, by some miracle, always has.) Direction was also, at least at times, charmlessly metronomic. The solo strings played well, though.