Salzburg Festival (3) - VPO/Muti: Liszt and Berlioz, 17 August 2012

Grosses Festspielhaus

Liszt – Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, S 107

Liszt – Les Préludes, S 97
Berlioz – Messe solennelle, H 20

Julia Kleiter  (soprano)

Saimir Pirgu (tenor)
Ildar Abdrazakov (bass)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Ernst Raffelsberger)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Riccardo Muti (conductor)

This, the third of the Vienna Philharmonic’s concerts, reunited the Salzburg Festival’s pit band with one of its favourite conductors, Riccardo Muti. Muti’s presence on the podium pretty much guarantees at the very least a high degree of execution, and there were no real problems in that respect here, though I have heard the VPO sound more faultless, not least with him. In the right repertoire, and the nature of that repertoire can readily surprise, Muti remains a great conductor. Berlioz proved on this occasion a better fit than Liszt, perhaps not surprisingly, given Muti’s track record: I recall a fine Salzburg performance of the Symphonie fantastique, followed by Lélio.

I have heard far worse in Liszt, a composer who suffers more than most not only from bad performances, but also from the deleterious consequences thereof. Bach’s towering greatness will somehow, quite miraculously, shine through even the worst the ‘authenticke’ brigade can throw at him; Liszt in the wrong hands can readily sound meretricious, and even we fervent advocates have to admit that his œuvre is mixed in quality. The late, indeed outlying, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (‘From the Cradle to the Grave) fared better of the two symphonic poems performed, birth and death in turn faring better than the ‘struggle for existence’ in the middle. The VPO contributed delicate, sensitive performances in those outer sections, violas’ cradle song and woodwind caresses especially ravishing. Les Préludes, on the other hand, suffered from some of the bombast that also infected the middle section of the first work. The most celebrated of Liszt’s symphonic poems – for reasons that remain obscure to me – is extremely difficult to bring off successfully. Muti’s reading did not exhibit the vulgarity of, say, Solti, yet nor did it entirely convincingly convey harmonic motion and richness of texture. There were times when, volume notwithstanding, the work sounded somewhat thin. The audience, however, acted as if it were English in Beecham’s understanding, not much liking the music of Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, reaction quite tepid indeed, but certainly liking the noise that Les Préludes made.

Berlioz’s Messe solennelle was long thought lost, yet it resurfaced in 1991, granted its first modern performance in 1993. This was the first time I had heard this fascinating work in the flesh. Whilst it would be folly to proclaim it a masterpiece, or even something approaching that status, it has much to interest, not least in Berlioz’s recycling of some of the ideas in works that certainly are amongst his greatest. One might expect a degree of kinship between this mass and, say the Requiem – the latter’s celebrated brass interventions reusing material from the Resurrexit’s ‘Et iterum venturus’, but one can hardly fail to be brought up short by the appearance of music one knows so well from the ‘Scène aux champs’ in the Symphonie fantastique, employed both orchestrally and then chorally. Muti’s long experience in the sacred music of Cherubini served him well in this performance, which it is difficult to imagine being bettered. Steely, post-Revolutionary grandeur he does extremely well, form delineated with great clarity, but tender moments were equally well served. Any fears of undue restraint were duly banished by a blazing conclusion to the Kyrie. Choral singing was excellent throughout, as, the occasional blemish aside, were the performances of a large, though not extravagant, VPO. Movements additional to the typical mass – at least, typical to us, if not necessarily to early-nineteenth-century France – provided especial interest: an O salutaris, following Cherubini’s practice, and a celebratory monarchical Domine salvum fac, the latter benefiting greatly from sweet-toned yet ardent tenor, Saimir Pirgu, and the darkly Verdian Ildar Abdrazakov, whose contributions throughout were, following a slightly muddy start, characterful and at time ominous. Only soprano Julia Kleiter was somewhat disappointing, her intonation rendering Berlioz’s pastoral a little sea-sick, before descending into generalised blandness. This was Muti’s performance, though; he set his seal on the work with style and conviction.   

Salzburg Festival (5) - Prokofiev, Ivan the Terrible, 17 August 2010

Grosses Festspielhaus

Prokofiev – Ivan the Terrible, op.116

Gérard Depardieu, Jan Josef Liefers (narrators)
Olga Borodina (mezzo-soprano)
Ildar Adbrazakov (bass)
Salzburg Festival Children’s Choir (chorus master: Wolfgang Götz)
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Riccardo Muti (conductor)

This was Riccardo Muti’s two hundredth performance at the Salzburg Festival: quite a milestone, if some way beyond whatever Herbert von Karajan must have notched up. 2010 also marks the fortieth year of Muti’s association with the festival, dating back to his invitation from Karajan to conduct Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Repertoire has ranged from Bach to Varèse, with a special focus, quite naturally, upon Mozart. Prokofiev has long featured in Muti’s programmes; three years ago I heard a superb Third Symphony from him and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as part of the tour that culminated in his appointment as Music Director, the post he will take up next month. For this celebration, Muti selected – at least I presume the choice was his – Ivan the Terrible.

I cannot help but wish he had not. Performances were in almost every way outstanding, yet if this ramshackle ‘oratorio’ cannot convince in so august a context, I doubt that it can anywhere. It is not the composer’s fault; what he wrote was film music, which was after his death reorganised, quite freely, by Abram Stasevich into the work we hear today. What doubtless works very well as music for Eisenstein’s epic does not necessarily stand up so well in the concert hall. Despite omissions and reordering, or perhaps in some case because of them, one has a lengthy work, somewhat lacking in variety and indeed in purpose.

That said, from the outset, Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic displayed razor-sharp discipline and an equally fine ear for orchestral colour. The Overture presented a Prokofiev recognisably the same as the composer of Lieutenant Kijé, albeit with more than a hint of socialist-realism-cum-new-simplicity, nationalist in a way that many will doubtless find problematical. I find it less problematical than not very good. Massed bells provided plenty of colour for the glorification of the Tsar, the debt to Boris Godunov all too obvious, a bit too much like a second pressing of olive oil, though the VPO’s percussion was certainly glorious. Motor rhythms were forcefully despatched, for instance in the orchestral depiction of ‘The Holy Fool’, virtuoso xylophone-playing worthy of especial mention. Viennese tubas almost convinced one that the longueurs of ‘To Kazan!’ were worth the effort.

The Rimsky-like ‘White Swan’ brought one of a number of fine contributions from the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus. Weight and gradation were impressive in the humming choruses. Neo-Mussorgskian popular suffering was powerfully conveyed in the a cappella singing of ‘Ivan at the Coffin of Anastasia’, with sparing yet telling direction from Muti. The only problem was that Mussorgsky himself achieved his musical ends so much better than Prokofiev here.

The narrators, Gérard Depardieu and Jan Josef Liefers generally did a splendid job too, Liefers perhaps more consistently impressive than Depardieu, whose haranguing rendition could veer towards the hammy. Perhaps that is what is required though. Liefers arguably steered a little close towards camp in the guise of the Holy Fool but, again, what is one supposed to do here? Muti would unobtrusively, yet crucially, hand Depardieu a number of cues. Olga Borodina did not have that much to do, but did it very well; Ildar Adbrazakov had still less to do, and did it extremely well. His sole appearance, in the ‘Song of Fyodor Basmanov and the Oprichniki’ was a highlight of the performance, truly heroic, dangerous even. It was good thereafter to hear a hint of Prokofiev the ballet composer in the ‘Dance of the Oprichniki’. The final blaze of (hollow) glory – ‘On the bones of our enemies, on charred ruins, Russia is being united!’ – imparted as strong a sense of satisfaction as one could imagine it doing. My cavils, as I said above, in no wise relate to the performances, rather to the material itself. It is only just to relate that the audience reaction was ecstatic.