Kissin/BPO/Luisi - Martines, Mozart, and Schmidt, 6 October 2023

Philharmonie

Marianna Martines: Sinfonia in C major
Mozart: Piano Concerto no.23 in A major, KV 488
Franz Schmidt: Symphony no.2 in E-flat major

Evgeny Kissin (piano)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Fabio Luisi (conductor)

Image: Martin Walz / Berliner Philharmoniker

This concert from Evgeny Kissin, the Berlin Philharmonic, and Fabio Luisi brought together three very different works from composers working in present-day Austria. (Mozart, of course, came from Salzburg, which only became part of Austria some years after his death, but he had been living and working in Vienna for some time.) Mozart’s A major Piano Concerto, KV 488, is an imperishable masterpiece, even amongst his piano concertos. Haydn pupil Marianna Martines’s C major Sinfonia proved pleasant, even interesting, to hear, if hardly something to which many would frequently return. As for Franz Schmidt’s Second Symphony, I know it has its devotees, and I was keen to give it a second chance, having heard it a few years ago at the Proms, but on this basis I cannot understand what they hear in it. 

Martines’s piece is a Sinfonia in the old-fashioned sense; in three very short movements, it could readily have been a three-part opera overture. Written for strings, two flutes, two oboes, two horns, and timpani, with continuo provided by harpsichordist Arno Schneider, it lay, as one might expect, on the cusp of what we have come to know, not necessarily helpfully, as the Baroque and Rococo, form lying somewhere between the two, melodic and harmonic language closer to the latter.  The first movement, ‘Allegro con spirito’, is put together from very simple material: scales, arpeggios, and so on. The composer shows keen facility, including that for (slight) modulatory surprise, but there are no more fundamental surprises here. Luisi here and elsewhere kept the Berlin Philharmonic on a tight leash, perhaps a little too tight at times, but such is the way nowadays of most conductors with eighteenth-century music. The second movement, ‘Andante ma non troppo’, is more lyrical, again as one would expect. It unfolded largely according to a predictable harmonic plan, save for one moment which sounded more puzzling than adventurous. The third movement, in triple time, comes close to a minuet, though I am not sure I should quite call it that. It is strangely lacking in harmonic motion, though a contrasting central section (a trio, I suppose) brought some tonal variation. No masterpiece, then, but a welcome opportunity to expand our knowledge of Italianate musical culture in Vienna in the early 1770s. 

Luisi retained a smallish string section for the Mozart, but it sounded warmer and fuller. There is, of course, a slightly larger wind section too, oboes exchanged for clarinets, with two bassoons joining the band, albeit without timpani. The orchestra sounded considerably larger, though, reflecting less constraint. Conductor and pianist opted for a steady tempo: welcome in many ways, yet sometimes tending a little to the foursquare. Kissin proved admirable in his clarity, if at times somewhat deliberate. A little more ‘flowing like oil’ would have done no harm. The development section seemed to suit him better, perhaps a consequence of a more (post-)Beethovenian mindset. Luisi largely seemed content to follow; I could not help but wonder what difference the presence of Kissin’s former collaborator, that supreme Mozartian Sir Colin Davis, might have made. 

Again, the slow movement evinced a welcome disinclination to rush, but also at times a certain ponderousness and lack of lyricism. Climactic high notes, which should breathe the air of the opera house, were too often stabbed at. Lightness of touch and gravity of sentiment can readily go together; indeed, in this movement, they surely must. The Berlin wind, as elsewhere, were well-nigh perfect. In the finale, Kissin better combined steadiness with forward motion; it is all too easy to take this music too fast at the beginning and find oneself compelled to skate over its latter course. Not so here. He might have been more yielding at times, but that is not his way. What did it lack? Ultimately, that sense of magic in every bar that the greatest performances bring to Mozart.

Schmidt’s symphony naturally brought a considerably larger orchestra to the stage. I had no reservations concerning the performance; the Berlin Philharmonic clearly relished its task, playing as if this were a repertory piece, and Luisi conducted it as such, with evident belief, leading a fine balance throughout the work’s three lengthy movements of detail and grand sweep. I only wish it were belief in which I could have shared. The first movement was probably the most convincing, with just enough occasional approaches to more adventurous composers (say, Elgar and Strauss) to hold one’s attention. Yet it could never quite take flight; or rather, when it seemed to do so, it was never entirely clear why. However gorgeous the orchestra sounded – and it truly did – the composer sounded in need of some intensive study of Brahms. 

The second movement, a theme and ten variations, was again well paced and phrased. The theme’s Harmoniemusik again sounded a little like early Strauss, albeit without the memorability or the daring. Variations passed pleasantly enough between strings and woodwind, at one point suggesting watered-down Reger, at another something closer to Mendelssohn (though without his lightness of touch). The fourth brought something a little sterner, the sixth a hint of yearning, the eighth something broader, and so on. It was competent, yet hardly inspired. By the time we reached the final variation, the composer seemed to have run out of steam; and yet… it continued for quite some time. At the end, someone shouted ‘Bravo!’ and others applauded. Maybe they thought or hoped the symphony was over.   

The final movement’s opening counterpoint is well put together, yet again it remained stubbornly unmemorable. If you are going to write in such reactionary fashion, at least write a tune. It sounded like the introduction to a Bach transcription that never materialised. Nor, if I am honest, did anything else much. This was note-spinning at length. If that length had been acquired from Bruckner, how to use it to good effect had not. The end, of course, simply had to include a chorale in augmentation. In the future, I shall stick with Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony, which has its moments, not least in its Adagio, more finely wrought than anything here.

Prom 73: VPO/Bychkov - Brahms and Schmidt, 10 September 2015

Royal Albert Hall

Brahms – Symphony no.3 in F major, op.90

Franz Schmidt – Symphony no.2 in E-flat major


Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov (conductor)

 

I should have been fascinated to hear the following evening’s Vienna Philharmonic Prom, with that orchestra performing The Dream of Gerontius under Sir Simon Rattle, not least since I am always interested to hear non-English orchestras in Elgar. One cannot do everything, however, and I was keen to hear Semyon Bychkov with the VPO in Brahms and intrigued to hear an early-twentieth-century for the first time, whether live or recorded.

 

Brahms’s Third Symphony opened in grand fashion, preparing the way – at least in retrospect – for considerable scaling down and subsiding in a serenade-like second group. Bychkov’s tempi were flexible. There was one point at which I wondered whether he were slowing too much, but otherwise I was convinced. The first movement’s development section had a real sense of new departure, and an urgent one at that. Reaffirmation in necessarily transformed circumstances was the hallmark of the recapitulation. On the whole, Bychkov emphasised the often-downplayed turbulence and darkness of this work. The opening material of the second movement sounded nicely ‘late’, even archaic, recalling Brahms’s profound study of early music, but Brahmsian method soon informed us in no uncertain terms who was in charge. And how gorgeous those Viennese violins sounded! I liked Bychkov’s questing way in the third movement. There were no easy answers in what is perhaps the most obviously ‘personal’ movement of all. Alas, as in between every movement, we suffered half-hearted applause from a strange few. Please, stop it! The finale also benefited from a notably dark reading, sounding ambivalent even by Brahms’s standards. (That is surely one of the respects in which he comes closest to Mozart.) The brass sounded wonderfully resigned. Immediate applause clearly frustrated Bychkov’s wishes – and most of the audience’s. If one were actually listening to the music, that is the last thing one would want without a moment of reflection.

 

I am afraid I found myself somewhat nonplussed by Franz Schmidt’s Second Symphony. I certainly do not begrudge it a first Proms performance, and, insofar as I could tell from a first hearing, Bychkov and the VPO gave an excellent account of it. However, for the most part, it seemed to me over-extended for the material, which in itself did not grab me as it clearly did many others. Perhaps the fault was mine; I shall give it another try, especially since many people whose judgement I respect, not least Bychkov, think very highly of it. (He describes it as ‘magnificent’.) I was a little at sea with respect to how the first movement hung together, not least with an odd intrusion from what sounded like the world of Eric Coates. There were some attractive Straussian sounds in the orchestra. Bychkov likened them to Daphne, which, independently, I had thought too; however, Schmidt’s symphony (1911-13) came first. To my ears, the orchestra veered between ravishing and slightly patchy, but I think that might have been an oddity of the acoustic. (It is so difficult to tell in the Albert Hall.) The strange ending: well, perhaps Schmidt fans can explain to me its peremptory nature. The second movement, a theme and variations, offered the VPO woodwind ample opportunity, definitely taken, to excel. It seemed to me more successful, if undeniably conservative, even reactionary. The strings too seemed quite at home in what sounded like often treacherous yet always idiomatic writing. (Schmidt was a cellist.) However, the movement went on – and on. Again, I was not sure that I always understood where the third and final movement was going. Sometimes, as indeed earlier, I was put in mind of a slight caricature of Max Reger. Conductor and orchestra clearly relished what they were playing, though. As I said, the problem may well have been mine and I shall try again.

 

As an encore, which, somehow I guessed, perhaps with the following night’s Prom at the back of my mind, we heard ‘Nimrod’. I am afraid it made me wish we had heard the Enigma Variations or an Elgar Symphony instead. Here the VPO sounded at its most golden; Bychkov directed its progress subtly, allowing the music, as the cliché has it, to ‘speak for itself’, which generally takes a great deal of understanding as well as self-control. Maybe I should have been better off with the Elgar Prom after all.