oenm/Kalitzke - Boulez and Carter, 7 June 2017

Mozart-Saal, Konzerthaus

Boulez – Dérive 1 (1984)

Carter – Bariolage (1992)

Boulez – Improvisé – pour le Dr. K. (1969/2005)

Carter – Triple Duo (1983)

Boulez – Dérive 2 (1988-2009)

oenm (österrichsches ensemble für neue musik)

Johannes Kalitzke (conductor)

Pierre Boulez’s relationship to Elliott Carter and to the music of the greatest of all American composers (so far) ran long and deep. I was fortunate enough to attend the centenary concert Boulez gave with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in London on Carter’s actual hundredth birthday – when he was, celebratedly, still composing. As part of the Vienna Konzerthaus’s Boulez festival, then, Carter was an obvious companion composer to Boulez. Whether, in practice, this combination worked as well as I had hoped, I am not sure, but that may actually more be a reflection of my having come entirely fresh to the two Carter pieces on the programme (Triple Duo in particular surely requiring more than a single listening). At any rate, these performances from oenm, Triple Duo and Dérive 2 conducted by Johannes Kalitzke, gave impressive accounts of the music.

Dérive 1 opened the programme, its raw(ish)material by now – given its use in various other pieces – quite familiar to me, yet nevertheless engendering an air of fantasy, of expectation, of play that is ever surprising. Shifting balances caught the ear: not quite Klangfarbenmelodie, but perhaps not quite not either. The exquisite finish of work and performance suggested something aquatic, certainly not marmoreal. Nora Skuta’s excellent pianism reminded me that, when we consider Boulez’s piano writing, we need to think of works such as this too, not just the works for piano(s) alone. I found myself especially intrigued by the similarities between and, still more, the differences from, that and the equally fine vibraphone playing (Arabella Hirner). Even here, let alone in Dérive 2, process was very much fundamental to the experience.

Katharina Teufel’s performance of Carter’s Bariolage, for solo harp, seemed to delight in confounding lazy assumptions – which somehow remain, even when one thinks one has banished them – concerning the instrument: not through extended techniques, not through Lachenmann-style deconstruction, but somehow just by writing and making music that is personal. One could make – and I think I did – connections with its Boulez predecessor concerning fantasy and temporality. Difference manifested itself at least as strongly, though, not least in more overt virtuosity. It felt a little as if one were being taken for a walk in an urban garden: ‘urban’, in the sense of urban modernity, a garden of steel and sky, of glass and sunlight, planned and yet free. Time seemed almost literally to fly: it was over almost before it had begun.

This was the first time I had heard Boulez’s Improvisé – pour le Dr. K. I came to it blind, or perhaps better, deaf, without programme notes or any other information, learning only afterwards, from the Internet, that it had been one of eleven pieces commissioned by Universal Edition for the eightieth birthday of its director, Alfred Kalmus. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my ear fastened on kinship with some of the figures and shapes of Dérive 1, but again, more strikingly, on difference. The prominence of the clarinet (Theodor Burkali) brought to mind Schoenberg’s Pierrot ensemble and its post-war life, before I actually realised what was staring me in the face as well as the ears: this was, of course, the Pierrot ensemble: flute, clarinet, piano, viola, and cello. That out of the way, Boulez’s typical, yet never quite the same, ways with éclat and temporality came to the fore of my listening: renewed and refreshed. I thought occasionally of Birtwistle (clarinet again?) It was a splendid bagatelle, which I look forward to hearing again, ideally alongside some of its companion pieces. Later, I discovered that it had actually been written for the Pierrot Players, so my thought of Birtwistle was perhaps not entirely absurd. (Only part of Boulez’s piece, an extract for solo clarinet, was performed at the premiere, it seems.)

In Triple Duo, the instruments (flue/piccolo, clarinets, percussion, piano, violin, cello) seemed to announce themselves as if they were music-theatre characters, children of The Solider’s Tale. Twists and turns in the ‘plot’ were constantly surprising, even if I did not quite always follow. (As I said, I really need to hear the piece again.) They were hard to reconcile, sometimes, but perhaps that is the point. I was certainly made to think, integrative and disintegrative processes enabling, even compelling, one to do so. I sometimes thought of proliferation, not quite like Boulez’s later work, perhaps in a sense closer to the conjuring tricks of Haydn. Reinvention, rehearing seemed important, at least to my experience – and I think to the work as a whole, which unfolded dramatically, as if in a sequence of scenes. The premiere was given in 1983, by The Fires of London, successors to the Pierrot Players: a nice programming touch to learn of, if only retrospectively.

This was doubtless in part illusion, even delusion; yet, in context, Dérive 2 semeed to perform an integrative and yet centrifugal function with respect to many of the musical tendencies heard in the first half. I also felt in this performance a strange, far from unwelcome, sense of Boulez’s early Artaudian frenzy classicised – which, thinking about it, is probably not so very far from the mark, whatever the detractors of his later music might claim. (‘Culinary’ is one description I have heard.) I picked up, this time, on certain Stravinskian colours (combinations of instruments, even melodic cells), coming to the surface, yet what was especially striking, certain kinship or procedure with Ligeti and Carter notwithstanding, was just how unlike any other music this began to sound. Indeed, I was especially struck by how unlike my recollections of previous performances it sounded too. It was catchy, almost balletic (imagine what Béjart might have done here!), serial processes bobbing above that beguiling surface, swiftly submerged once again. La Mer did not seem so very far away, at times, and Triple Duo seemed, by comparison, just a little dry, even contrived. That transformative tendency in Boulez’s music, with deep roots in the Second Viennese School, even perhaps in Liszt and Wagner, reasserted, refreshed itself – or at least it did for me.

Ashkar - Beethoven, 5 April 2017

Pierre Boulez Saal

Piano Sonata no.7 in D major, op.10 no.3

Piano Sonata no.8 in C minor, op.13, ‘Pathétique’
Piano Sonata no.19 in G minor, op.49 no.1
Piano Sonata no.20 in G major, op.49 no.2
Piano Sonata no.26 in E-flat major, op.81a, ‘Les Adieux’

Saleem Ashkar (piano)

Saleem Ashkar has, over the course of the 2016-17 concert season, been performing all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, each concert at a different venue in Berlin. This, the seventh in the series, took place in the new Pierre Boulez Saal. Ashkar has, according to the programme, been attempting to connect ‘Beethoven’s music, through film clips and conversations, with some of the issues that still concern our global society: the relationship of art, freedom, and power; the meaning of religion; nationality and identity.’ This concert was to be followed by a panel discussion, for which I was unable to stay.

It was preceded by a short film – five minutes or so – concerning the activities of the Berlin-based Al-Farabi Musikakademie, a programme of the Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendstiftung (German Children and Youth Federation), on which Ashkar, seen in the film, puts his time and fingers where his mouth is. Children from twelve years old to twenty, some of them refugees, some not, make music on all manner of instruments: the Western tradition at the heart of their activities, which are yet equally receptive to what they might bring to the organisation too. One nineteen-year-old Pakistani boy spoke, in far more fluent German than I should muster, about how he would have had no such opportunity in Pakistan. There could be little doubt from what we saw and heard that the composer who presented his Missa solemnis, ‘Von Herzen – Möge es wieder – Zu Herzen gehen!’ would have lent his support, as has Daniel Barenboim as patron.

 

Ashkar was here as pianist, though. If I had a few reservations, nothing too great, they concerned the first of the sonatas he played, op.10 no.3 in D major. It is a difficult work to bring off – for the listener as well as the player, so it may have been my fault. I was struck, in any case, by the bright sound of Ashkar’s Bechstein in this splendid acoustic. It may have been equally tempered, but there remained a sense of open strings. Ashkar certainly too the first movement as marked too: Presto, not merely Allegro. The different ‘character’ of the second group was pronounced too, whilst still arising from what had gone before. That and the new lease of life lent by the development – crossing of hands was felt musically as well as seen – testified to a properly dynamic conception of sonata form, likewise the recapitulation as second development. Perhaps the ending felt a little perfunctory, but I do not wish to exaggerate. A flowing account of the slow movement enabled Ashkar to project the longer line. Its almost Boulezian melodic proliferation as the music progressed had one feel that this was definitely piano music, and not only music that happened to be written for the piano. Sadness marked the close, reminding one that the movement as a whole is marked Largo e mesto. The minuet returned to the good nature of the first movement, sounding ‘earlier’ than its predecessor. Its trio proved winningly tiggerish. It was the finale I found more difficult to get along with; it seemed a bit unsmiling and I struggled sometimes to grasp the thread. As I said, though, perhaps that was my fault; in any case, Beethovenian disjunctures will always have something to tell us.

 

The Pathétique Sonata came next. Its first movement Introduction was weighty without being laden down with applied ‘emotion’. Crucially, the exposition proper shot forth like a rocket: not merely fast (although I think it probably was faster than I have often heard, or indeed played!) but dynamic. Whilst there had been much to admire in the performance of op.10 no.2, this immediately sounded to my ears more ‘finished’ as an interpretation. And so it continued, absorbingly. Again, I wondered whether the close to the movement were a little abrupt, whether a little more rhetoric might have been in order, but better that than self-regarding ‘drama’. The other two movements were similar, on their own terms, of course, the slow movement songful, as if in a single breath (easier said than done!), the finale, quite rightly, sounding with more than a hint of post-Mozartian spirit too.

 

The two little op.49 sonatas followed the interval. The first movement of the G minor Sonata offered a disarming noble, Mozartian simplicity, thereby bringing into relief those turns that could only have been imagined by Beethoven. I loved the intensification in the recapitulation: not exaggerated, speaking ‘for itself’. The second movement brought delightful release, with hints of echt-Beethovenian brusqueness. In the first movement of the G major Sonata, the spirit of Mozart was again strong, although again not to the exclusion, perhaps especially during the development, of other tendencies. The second movement was decidedly post-Mozartian: looking back to a world that might be close and yet which had gone forever. Ashkar’s tempo ensured that: slower than if it had been Mozart himself, just as Beethoven feels the need to advise, ‘Tempo di Menuetto’. The owl of Minerva, one felt, had already spread its wings.

 

Les Adieux proved properly generative, the contrasts and even discontinuities of the first movement part and parcel of a complexity that yet permitted of a certain degree of overcoming (Aufhebung, if we are to stick with Hegel), of integration. The performance drew us in to listen, to experience the work, great clarity a definite assistance here, as elsewhere. Dynamism here has to be created before one’s ears – and it was. The rareness of the air in the second movement was immediately felt – not through false piety but (seemingly) simply by breathing it. At times, the music looked forward towards Schumann, without reaching him – for how could it? The obstinacy, though, was Beethoven’s own, as was the pathos. The finale then burst forth out of necessity. Joy could perhaps not be quite so unconfined as in early Beethoven, nor so unmediated. For whether we like it or no, Beethoven’s later music, like our fractured modernity more generally, is and becomes ever more complicated. To endure that modernity, we need his music all the more, as the children of the Al-Farabi Musikakademie will surely soon inform us.

Two piano recitals noted, not reviewed: Katz and Sokolov

These concerts will have to remain simply as diary items, I am afraid. (I flatter myself that someone else might care!) Having been very busy during the past week or so of March, as well as – well, you know that little thing Theresa May did and how it might have affected me, I simply ran out of time to review these two piano recitals. I hasten to add that that should not in any sense be taken as a comment on the performances. Had I had time, I should have greeted more fully excellent pianism from Amir Katz and indeed the wonderful opportunity to hear all twelve of the Transcendental Etudes in concert. (I do not think I have had it before.) I mean no disrespect to a pianist I certainly hope to hear again by saying that the memory of Grigory Sokolov’s performances of KV 545, 475/457 and Beethoven’s final piano sonata (as well as no fewer than seven encores, one of them as substantial as Schumann’s C major Arabeske) will, I hope, remain with me forever. What Sokolov can do with the instrument… But I should stop there, before this turns into an ersatz review.

In the meantime, I have also been taking in more spoken drama (very good, I hope, for my German): which I almost always keep as a treat to myself: something on which I shall not have to write. Normal service will be resumed shortly; this evening, I shall be going to the Komische Oper for the first night of Barrie Kosky’s new production of a Mussorgsky opera. No, unless you know, it is almost certainly not the one you were thinking of: it is The Sorochintsy Fair. More soon…

24 March: Amir Katz (piano), ‘Hommage an Liszt’ (Konzerthaus)

Nocturne in A-flat major, ‘Liebestraum’ no.3, S 541/3

Three Concert Studies, S 144
Two Concert Studies, S 145
Transcendental Studies, S 139

29 March: Grigory Sokolov (piano) (Philharmonie)

Mozart – Sonata in C major, KV 545

Mozart – Fantasia in C minor, KV 475
Mozart – Sonata in C minor, KV 457
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.27 in E minor, op.90
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.32 in C minor, op.111

 

 

 

Staatskapelle Berlin/Mehta - Haydn, The Creation, 14 March 2017

Konzerthaus, Berlin

Die Schöpfung/The Creation, Hob. XXI:2

Julia Kleiter (soprano)

Christian Elsner (tenor)

René Pape (bass)

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Zubin Mehta (conductor)

It is always a joy to return to Karl Friedrich Schninkel’s Konzerthaus in the Gendarmenmarkt, originally the Prussian Royal Theatre, but latterly, once its post-war restoration was finally completed in 1983, transformed into a concert house. The Staatskapelle Berlin tends, diplomatically, to give its subscription concerts twice: once in West Berlin’s Philharmonie, once in the East’s neo-Classical jewel. Its acoustic is glorious, despite or perhaps even on account of, its interior transformation; there is life in the old-fashioned shoebox auditorium yet, as the Musikverein or Concertgebouw would attest. For a refugee Londoner, to have just one concert hall of such quality is an extraordinary blessing. To have this, the Philharmonie, the new Pierre Boulez Saal…

 

Composed only a couple of decades before the construction of the theatre, Haydn’s Creation or Schöpfung seemed very much ‘at home’ here. Indeed, I could not help but consider the strong connections of its librettist, Gottfried van Swieten, to Berlin a little earlier. Joseph II – by then Holy Roman Emperor and co-Regent with Maria Theresa – had intended him to send him as Imperial Ambassador to Rome, but Swieten’s enthusiasm, noted by the Papal Nuncio to Vienna, for ‘moderno filosofismo’ put an end to that. Instead, Swieten was sent to Frederick the Great’s Berlin, where he encountered Handel’s oratorios and other alte Musik, then perhaps surprisingly well cultivated in Berlin circles (certainly when compared with Vienna). Some of the seeds for his collaboration with Haydn were sown here. (In the present climate, moreover, it was impossible not to think that there could hardly be a more European work by a more European composer and librettist. UKIP and the fanatics running the United Kingdom into the ground would doubtless object to a bilingual text: why cannot everyone speak English? Mostly everyone here can, generally very well indeed; how is your German, Mrs May?)

 

Under Zubin Mehta, the assembled forces gave a broad, central performance of Haydn’s imperishable oratorio, The Creation, neither noticeably ‘period’-influenced – one would hardly expect it to have been – nor especially assertive in its ‘traditionalism’. All such terms are at best problematical to the point of meaninglessness, I know; yet, by the same token, the reader will most likely have a good sense of what is intended. Save for the sparing use of the harpsichord during orchestral passages, then – something about which I cannot bring myself to become too excited either way – I cannot imagine that there would have been anything to scare the horses either way, which is not to say that this was dull, or boring. An equally problematical idea is that of permitting the work to speak for it itself, but that again is pretty much the impression one received. There was plenty of air in the orchestral performance, for instance, during the opening section of Uriel’s first aria, but, by the same token, scope for something darker, when, during that same aria, Hell’s Spirits briefly put in their not-entirely-frightening appearance.

 

Likewise, the real depth to the sound of the Staatskapelle Berlin – always a great strength of this orchestra – in Raphael’s ‘Rollend in schäumenden Wellen’ was not at all at the expense of variegation in sound. Much the same, far from incidentally, might be said about René Pape’s account of the solo line, about which more a little later. Orchestral solos and ensemble writing were, without exception, beautifully, even heart-rendingly, presented: take the clarinet in ‘Nun beut die Flur das frische Grün’, or the ravishing three flutes against pizzicato in Uriel’s Third Part opening number, ‘Aus Rosenwolken bricht’. Eden indeed, then, and the horns proved just as beautiful, as noble of utterance. Even the timpani underlay, subtle yet directed, had me think: ‘Have I actually heard it quite like that before?’ Whether I had or no was hardly the point, for I was made, or gently guided, to listen. Pictorial elements sounded as musical as well as illustrative as I can recall. Maybe even Berlioz would have recanted from his view that this was a work that made him want to murder somebody. A particular highlight of the orchestral playing for me was the sound of violas and cellos in Raphael’s accompagnato, ‘Und Gott schuf große Walfische’: the archaism conjuring up a reimagined viol consort, the modernity equally striking.

 

Tempi were generally much as one, or I, might have expected, sometimes a little slower – for instance, in a dignified reading of ‘Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk’ – and sometimes a little faster – for instance, in a very swift reading of the final chorus – but never unreasonably so, and never with the impression that something was being done to the work. There was a Handelian sturdiness to choruses such as ‘Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes’, which enabled quietly spoken majesty to emerge. Perhaps there might on occasion have been a little more sense of theatre, but subtlety and a lack of grandstanding reap their own rewards. Certainly the choral singing was beyond reproach throughout. The clarity of, for example, ‘Stimmt an die Saiten’ such that Haydn’s imitative writing registered as strongly as I can recall, without prejudice to a necessary, or at least desirable, impression of heft too.

 

If Julia Kleiter might have seemed, on paper, somewhat lighter of voice than the rest of the assembled company, such a contrast did not manifest itself in reality. Indeed, if anything, it was the relative lightness of Pape’s voice that surprised: not exactly toned down, but with a keen sense of style, and splendid attention to the words. Their duetting as Adam and Eve proved a joy, rightly breathing the air of the opera house as much as the concert hall, the Konzerthaus’s staged past perhaps coming a little more to the fore of its historical palimpsest. Pape proved suavely seductive – the rolling of his ‘r’ in ‘Der Früchte Saft alone… – and Kleiter sweetly knowing in response (‘Der Blumen Duft’). Her phrasing and overall shaping of lines throughout was both stylistically irreproachable and happily dynamic in dramatic expression. Christian Elsner showed that a Heldentenor – he is, I read, a noted Parsifal, although I think I am yet to hear him in the theatre – need not shy away from Haydn, far from it. Indeed, there was something almost of Siegfried Jerusalem (think of his Seasons with Marriner, or indeed his Magic Flute with Haitink) to the fine balance struck between style, heft, and winning sweetness of tone. If I did not emerge from the performance with any of my ideas concerning the work notably upset or transformed, there is a good deal to be said, especially in such troubled times, for something that reminds us of the civilization, the Europe, the Haydn for which we should all be fighting.

VPO/Barenboim - Mahler, Symphony no.9, 15 November 2015

Konzerthaus, Vienna

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

It was almost too much, given the state of the world; however, it had to be. Mahler saw – and heard – it all; so, I think, did we. First was a concise, intelligent, beautifully delivered speech, already scheduled, by the President of Austria, Heinz Fischer. It is tempting to draw comparisons with other political leaders, especially those one cannot imagine speaking convincingly on the good the United Nations, whose seventieth anniversary is being celebrated, Gustav Mahler, and Daniel Barenboim, whose birthday it turned out to be. I shall leave you to draw them, should you wish. Barenboim was presented with a bouquet and hailed as a great friend of Austria; most importantly, we were reminded of his extraordinary work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

 

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, though, spoke more eloquently than any words; indeed, I suspect that it spoke or sang more eloquently than any of the composer’s symphonies with words might have done. The Second would have been wrong, just wrong, at the moment; so, I suspect, would the Third. The Fourth might have seemed too naïve; not that it is, but that is another story. The Eighth: well, another time. Nor can I imagine having been able to bear the nihilism of the Sixth; the Ninth certainly has nihilism, but it is not, or not entirely, how it ends. As for Kindertotenlieder…

It began in tones perhaps unusually sombre, even for this first movement. It was almost ponderous, by which I mean no adverse criticism. Second violins tried to console; the firsts tried again, harder. Agitation soon won out, and so it went on. There were to be no easy answers – or easy questions. Attempts to have dances assert themselves were hopeless. Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic had intimate, chamber passages – in which Mahler shows himself the truest heir to Wagner – terrified as much as climaxes. And what menace in the harps, from the very opening: they chilled to the bone. So, in a different way, did the heartbreaking tenderness of a Viennese horn. There was nothing appliqué, as there can be in lesser Mahler performances, which some, alas, take for the works themselves; Barenboim clearly meant it. Nor was there anything faked about the horror of what could only today be heard as militarism; this was Mahler the humanist’s horror at inhumanity. It should be ours too. Hollowed out, exhausted, the sound of muted trombones and tuba sounded bitterer than ever, leading once again to a crucial, spotlit intervention from the harp and disquiet from lower strings that recalled the Seventh Symphony and its oars. Ghosts from a supposedly better past (Mahler’s, Vienna’s, humanity’s?) tried to intervene, but only made matters worse; we seemed to be heading the way of the Sixth after all. Violin solos’ sickly sweetness was only partly offset by the deathly purity of the flute. The conclusion: exhaustion, resignation, maybe even a flicker of hope, albeit not of a Beethovenian variety.

Truculent, yet initially good-natured, rustic defiance was the hallmark of the second movement, or rather of its opening. Haydn’s music might no longer be a possible aspiration, but we have to do something in his stead. It was stylised, of course, yet with roots in something akin to a soil. The threat of the abyss was never far away: immanent or remembered? Unclear, save for when it became clear. There was to Barenboim’s reading, quite rightly, not the tiniest glimpse of sentimentality. The whirlwind concatenation of dances had nowhere to go, yet could not stop; this was avowedly not Der Rosenkavalier. Was that cheekiness in the piccolo sign-off? Perhaps that seemed the only option left, except that this was clearly not the end.

The Rondo-Burleske was marked by a ferocity of counterpoint that sounded as if it might aim to obliterate harmony – in every sense – yet could not, must not. Brass hemiolas signalled an unexpected, angry reference to Brahms (the Progressive, as Mahler may never have seen, but Schoenberg would). Charm signalled a typically Viennese change of tack, yet whether urban or more imaginatively rural, it could not work either, the need to try notwithstanding. This was nihilism all right: the Mahler whom Berg lauded as saying ‘no’. The Classical battle between major and minor sounded both as the point and beside it. There was, moreover, no doubt that this was Barenboim’s performance; if, say, the seconds threatened to become too loud, he signalled in no uncertain terms and they responded. Had the harps now changed their role? Time and time again, they acted as heralds for vistas that could not yet be glimpsed. Hearts almost stopped, and almost stopped again. I shall not attempt to describe the brutality of the close; it simply was.

Many conductors take the finale attacca; there is much to be said for that. Here, however, there was a pause for reflection. The opening violin line truly felt as though it might lead anywhere: to Parsifal, to Schoenberg’s op.16 … Yet it had to lead to hymnal warmth. These were, after all, the strings of the Vienna Philharmonic. What we heard was necessary, yet it could not erase what had preceded it. Bassoons (and contrabassoon) called even that degree of consolation into question, and there was vehemence in the strings’ re-assertion of that apparent consolation. Barenboim visibly sought greater vibrato – and, thank goodness, we heard it; for we needed it. There was, indeed, it seemed, mutual incitement between conductor and orchestra. At times, Barenboim’s approach seemed somewhat Brucknerian. (He is far more selective with Mahler than with Bruckner.) And yet, Mahler’s chamber music seemed, on the other side, to herald Webernesque disintegration. (Admittedly, late Bruckner can too, but not quite in the same way.) Harmony, tonal harmony at that, was not to be vanquished yet, however. Proud and defiant, if this were not quite tonality’s last word, then it certainly felt as if it were. However much a bass line might attempt to delay resolution, there came a point at which we felt it could not succeed; there came another point at which we knew it could not. Again, this may not have been the last hurrah for the integrative forces of a symphonic finale, but it felt like it. Questions remained, but some, at least, of the right ones had been asked.

 

 

Wien Modern (3) - Arditti Quartet: Zorn, Lim, Tonia, Parades, and Kessler

Mozart-Saal, Konzerthaus

John Zorn – The Remedy of Fortune (2014, Austrian premiere)

Liza Lim – The Weaver’s Knot (2013, Austrian premiere)
Lina Tonia – Ennea (2015, world premiere)
Hilda Paredes – Hacia una bitácora capilar (2014, Austrian premiere)
Thomas Kessler – String Quartet, for string quartet with live electronics (2012, Austrian premiere)

Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan (violins)

Ralf Ehlers (viola)

Lucas Fels (cello)

 

By default rather than design – although I think it is worth doing more often – I heard all five of these pieces without programme notes, since I had left the Wien Modern programme at my apartment. My experience was often unmediated by anything whatsoever, since I had only heard music by one of the composers, Hilda Paredes, previously, and even then, not this particular piece. Too much can sometimes be made of the virtues of listening with an ‘innocent ear’. An important part of artistic creation and reception is what we bring culturally to the table; we do not need always to reinvent the wheel, or sonata form, or whatever it might be. However, there are real virtues too; I hope that my reactions would not have been different, had I known more about the works and the composers – the performances, needless to say, all seemed excellent – but how can I know?

 

First up was John Zorn’s The Remedy of Fortune. I learned afterwards that it was ‘inspired by Guillaume de Machaut and Béla Bartók’s work’. The title, it seems, is after a poem by Machaut; the work, Zorn’s sixth quartet, unfolds in six tableaux, each of them beginning, in a tribute to Bartók’s Sixth Quartet, mesto. That must, the first time around, have been what I heard as an introduction of sorts: so far, so good. Moreover, the work seemed to unfold in sections as outlined, although I naturally had no idea of the reasoning, nor of the emphasis upon different aspects of ‘romantic love’: hope, pain, ecstasy, and so on. A tonal violin fragment was repeated several times, prior to some quite different material, setting up what seemed like an unpredictable pattern for the rest of the work. Sounds from the past came and went. One pizzicato passage sounded almost balletic, a first violin passage following with shades of Prokofiev, although the music against which it was set certainly had no such shades! At what seemed like the heart was another pizzicato section, certainly seeming to evoke, to imitate, perhaps even to incorporate early music. Involved counterpoint would be followed by simple, diatonic harmony, with much in between too. I am not sure what it all added up to, but, by the same token, could certainly not, on the basis of a single hearing, say that it did not add up.

 

Liza Lim followed, with The Weaver’s Knot, written for the fortieth anniversary of the Arditti Quartet. Her piece was – a welcome thing, this! – shorter than its predecessor. ‘Traditional’ extended techniques, harmonics included (if one can call them extended techniques!), sounded, especially at its opening, surprisingly fresh, even new. There seemed to me far more of a continuous line than in the Zorn piece, however quickly that line might change its quality. Pitches emerged as centres, if only then to be replaced by others. A process of unfolding, not necessarily as one might expect it, seemed to be at the heart; perhaps that was the concept of the ‘knot’ and its untying?

 

Lina Tonia’s Ennea, still shorter, or so it seemed (I am never any good at knowing how long music lasts in seconds, minutes, hours…), emerged as an accomplished work indeed, again from someone with whose music I was entirely unfamiliar. The ‘spiral form’ – as I learned later – had in common with Lim’s work a strong sense of what one might reasonably think of as development and of unexpected, yet far from arbitrary, twists to that development. An arresting opening with high (post-Ligeti?) scurrying immediately instilled the sense of not knowing where the music might lead. Lucas Fels’s cello continued to offer something different: both from the violins and viola, and from its earlier, reinventing self. A long, quite viola note (Ralf Ehlers), perhaps with a reminiscence, at least for me, of Nono, led to reinvigorated, even violent scurrying. I should certainly like to hear more from Tonia.

 

Finally, in the first half: Paredes’s Hacia una bitácora capilar, a shorter version, as again I would learn afterwards, of another 40^th anniversary Arditti work, Bitácora capilar. The players’ performance certainly seemed to speak of knowing the material inside out: performed as a ‘classic’, as other quartets might perform Brahms. There seemed, to my ears, to be a strong sense of harmony and harmonic progression, although the harmonies themselves were rarely over-familiar, or expected. Likewise, the sense of musical narrative, not necessarily to be translated into words or images, though not necessarily not so to be translated, sounded strongly throughout, both in work and performance. Textures were varied, yet always sounded as if they took their leave from a greater whole.

After the interval, came the one work with electronics: Thomas Kessler’s 2013 String Quartet. I have still not consulted the programme note, but shall do so after writing. Ghostly – in the sense of the past and of something akin to the spirit world – opening electronics sounded initially an intriguing idea that a more tonal realm might be that of modern Klangregie, whilst the venerable string quartet sounded more of the present. And yet, that relationship did not remain constant, apparently subjected to all manner of twists and turns: the well-worn metaphor of a journey sprang again to mind. Intervals sounded with stronger tonal implications than I might have suspected they intrinsically had; I was not sure how or why that was accomplished, yet again, it intrigued. Electronic manipulation of ‘old’ harmonies and incessant instrumental ‘interference’ put me in mind of an old radio broadcast. And then, quickly, there was something else entirely; or was it? At any rate, there seemed to be no resting upon laurels, upon easy assumptions. Materials seemed re-examined, re-imagined, almost like Lachenmann, but in a less overtly didactic fashion; indeed, I sensed no didacticism at all. Perhaps there was an irony in that the traditional pattern of what sounded as the ‘weightiest’ – that is not necessarily to say the ‘best’, though equally, it is not to say that it was not, either – work was placed as the culmination of the concert. Much, then, to think about, in another splendidly impressive Arditti Quartet performance. And yes, I should be eager to hear more of Kessler’s music.

 

NDR Chorus/Konzerthausorchester Berlin/Spering - Bach and Schubert, 3 April 2015

Großer Saal, Konzerthaus

Bach – Cantata: ‘Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl’, BWV 198 (Trauerode)

Schubert – Mass in A-flat major, D 678

Marlis Petersen (soprano)

Katrin Wundsam (mezzo-soprano)

Colin Balzer (tenor)

Michael Nagy (bass)
 

NDR Chorus (chorus master: Michael Gläser)

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Andreas Spering (conductor)

 

Mourning for the Saxon Electress, Christiane Eberhardine, ‘die Betsäule Sachsens’ (Saxony’s pillar of prayer), was deeply felt by her husband’s subjects, although neither he, nor their son, attended the funeral. Unlike Augustus the Strong, who had converted to Roman Catholicism to ascend the Polish throne, she had remained faithful to Protestantism. Protestantism thus remained faithful to her, not least in the guise of  Bach’s Trauerode, the text by Johann Christoph Gottsched, first performed in St Paul’s Church, Leipzig, in 1727. One of the touching aspects of the text is the sense of place: references to city, river, residence, and so on. Even in the Prussian capital, with a North German chorus, I could imagine myself back in Leipzig – not least since I tend always to think of that city on Good Friday, even when not attending a Passion or Parsifal.

In performance, Bach was not badly done by, although Christoph Spering might have offered greater ‘heart’ to a somewhat chilly account. The opening chorus, ‘Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl,’ was taken very fast, bur rhythms were well pointed. Here and throughout, the clarity of the NDR Chorus was beyond reproach. ‘An dir, du Fürbild großer Frauen,’ the chorus closing the first of the two parts, proved tumultuous, redolent of one of the turba choruses in the Passions. (Flutes struggled a little there, though.) The final chorus did not entirely dispel the suspicion that Spering had a train to catch, and phrasing might have been less choppy, but again, counterpoint was communicated clearly, even as the weight of harmonic meaning was lessened.

The extraordinary orchestra Bach employs made its mark, as it always does: visually as well as aurally transitional, two gambas (to the fore in ‘Wie starb die Heldin so vergnügt!’) and lutes placed in the centre, the ‘modern’ orchestra surrounding them. (Hermann Scherchen’s recording is a typically provocative exploration.) The alto recitative, ‘Der Glocken bebenes Getön,’ sounded wonderful orchestrally, flutes against pizzicato violins and violas.  Flute and oboe obbligati sounded splendid in the tenor aria with which the second part opens. Once again, I was reminded of Bach’s almost modernistic exploration of instrumentation, a feature of his music to which Boulez has, perhaps unsurprisingly, drawn attention. Marlis Petersen offered a keenly dramatic account of her recitatives and arias, harking back to Bach’s seventeenth-century forebears. Some might have cavilled at the evident difference of approach to vibrato, she largely eschewing it, the strings warmer, but it did not especially bother me. Katrin  Wundsam’s aria (that one with the gambas) exposed the differences in tone between different registers in her voice, but again, that was not unduly distracting, and it is partly a consequence of the particularities of Bach’s vocal writing. Colin Balzer proved the weakest of the soloists, intonation variable, and coloratura less than perfect. (The writing is difficult, but even so.) Michael Nagy navigated with great success the transitions between recitative and arioso, likewise achieving an excellent balance between declamation and the longer line.

Schubert’s choral works are, by contrast, cheerfully South German: nominally Catholic, without any obvious evidence of great belief. (Nor is there any evidence of Beethovenian struggle, despite the similarities with, and perhaps influence of, the Missa solemnis.) As one might have expected, this was not the most ‘symphonic’ of readings, but so long as one could, at least for a few minutes, put Wolfgang Sawallisch from one’s mind, a good enough account was given of the work in, the Berlin Konzerthaus notwithstanding, more church-like fashion. Strangely, given Spering’s lack of what we might call ‘Romanticism’, I was nevertheless put in mind of Bruckner and indeed twentieth-century writing. Perhaps that was in part testament to the long-lasting influence of Caecilianism. Quite why a chamber organ was used I am not entirely sure, but such seems almost to be de rigueur in ‘early music’ performances, even when a perfectly decent instrument is present in the hall.

The opening ‘Kyrie’ set the tone for much of the performance, in its strong contrast between passages for solo voices (whether individually or in ensemble) and those for chorus. The dramatic quality of the imploring ‘Christe’ solos was rather winning. Spering’s way with the ‘Gloria’ I found unduly fast and brutal, rather as if Toscanini were back with us; others will doubtless have felt differently. There were times when a greater body of strings too would have been of benefit. Spering’s conducting of the concluding fugue proved wooden too, leading to loss of much of its dynamism, though matters improved as it progressed. Again, at the opening of the ‘Credo’, although the performers (chorus and orchestra) were excellent, the conducting was four-square. The strings, however, dug in nicely upon the word ‘crucifixus’, especially important on this of all days. The closing ‘Amen’ sounded glorious – from all concerned. A well-shaped ‘Sanctus’ followed: lyrical, yet with a strong sense of underlying power. Phrasing was a bit odd in the ‘Osanna’ section, for no evident reason. The ‘Benedictus’, perhaps predictably, was taken very fast. It flowed nicely enough, but I remained unmoved. The ‘Agnus Dei’, though on the swift side, was imbued with greater feeling than earlier, although the contrast between choral and solo passages was perhaps excessive. Still, there was no doubting the prowess of the excellent chorus.



 

The Rape of Lucretia, Klangforum Wien, 5 April 2008

(concert performance)

Konzerthaus, Vienna

Angelika Kirchschlager – Lucretia
Emma Bell – Female Chorus
Ian Bostridge – Male Chorus
Christopher Maltman – Tarquinius
John Relyea – Collatinus
James Rutherford – Junius
Jean Rigby – Bianca
Malin Christensson – Lucia

Klangforum Wien
Robin Ticciati (conductor)

The idea of Britten in Vienna was appealing. No music benefits from being treated as the property of a particular nation – unless, that is, such particularist ‘tradition’ involves special pleading. Britten anyway seems now to be gaining greater exposure on the Continent than would have been the case until quite recently. Looking at the cast list, however, dispelled the illusion that this might have been a truly international performance. There is, of course, nothing wrong with casting English singers, but it was more of a home from home than one might have initially expected. Angelika Kirchschlager and Malin Christensson were the only exceptions to the Anglophone rule.

That said, there was no uniformity amongst the cast. Ian Bostridge and Emma Bell delivered their roles as Chorus with great skill, although in rather different fashion. With Bostridge, most listeners will know what to expect. The contorted facial expressions were not for the queasy, and there was, needless to say, more than a little vocal mannerism. Britten supplies quite enough of that already for my taste. By the same token, however, Bostridge’s delivery was in general impressively handled, with due attention paid to words, pitch, and modulation. It was only really during the Interlude to Act One, in which the Male Chorus recounts Tarquinius’s furious ride to Rome, that I felt the music and words ran away with him a little. (This may of course not have been by the singer’s own design.) Bell, by contrast, provided a ‘straighter’ reading, for which I stood most grateful. This is not intended to imply dullness or lack of imagination, but it was well focused and free of histrionics, if a little obscure of diction on occasion.

This was not a problem for Christopher Maltman, who to my mind delivered the best performance of the evening. One could sense him itching to be on stage, without this compromising the conditions of concert performance. Every word was made to tell, and the character of Tarquinius – dangerous, powerfully attractive, yet in thrall to his passions and so ultimately weak – was superbly portrayed. I cannot summon up a single caveat regarding this performance. John Relyea was also very fine in the less interesting role of Collatinus. I had most recently heard him in Sir Colin Davis’s LSO concert performance last year of Benvenuto Cellini, and there was no sign of dilution of promise. Relyea has a fine, truly powerful voice, which he knows how to marshal. James Rutherford, by contrast, was a variable Junius. Much of what he sang was respectable, but there was too much imprecision with regard both to pitch – mostly in the lower notes – and to diction.

Perhaps surprisingly, the best female diction came from Malin Christensson, whose silvery soprano was a delight in the role of Lucia. Her interest in Tarquinius, both before and after the deed – unbeknown to her, of course – was genuinely touching. Jean Rigby was in general a characterful Bianca, although not especially alluring. Angelika Kirchschlager varied in the role of Lucretia. Much of her portrayal was impressive: well-acted, within the constraints of a concert performance, and secure of tone. Sometimes, however, the acting got the better of the music, which is more of a problem in a concert performance than on stage. Her words were not always clear either. I have mentioned diction a few times, because it is important in itself, but also since if I, as a native English-speaker could often not discern the words, then I doubt that many of the Viennese could. Printing the words with German translation in the programme doubtless helped, but consulting them should be a last resort.

For the Klangforum Wien I have nothing but praise. The ensemble’s contribution was the clearest example of Britten freed from parochialism; the music clearly benefited. I do not regard all of the score as equally successful; Britten’s musical facility too often led him in the direction of mere note-spinning. However, the passages most obviously ‘constructed’ here gained an almost Schoenbergian instrumental intensity, relating more to inter-war modernism than to Suffolk. The strings were perhaps exceptional in this regard, but that is more a reflection upon the score than upon the performance. Nothing, I am afraid, can repair the dramatic flaw of the Christian ‘interpretation’ – by turns sentimental, incoherent, or both – transplanted onto an inherently powerful plot, but Klangforum Wien reminded us that there was musical interest nevertheless. I was less sure about Robin Ticciati’s direction. There was nothing terribly wrong with it, apart from a few overtly interventionist passages that simply sounded exaggeratedly slow or fast. For the most part, though, it was not clear that he really added anything. Perhaps most of his work had been done during rehearsal, but the ensemble seemed often – very successfully – to be doing its own thing. Eyes were certainly not always upon the conductor, whose beat seemed vague and who certainly did not help by ostentatiously performing the piano part himself. Just because one can does not mean that one should; numerous instances of arising from the piano stool should either have been more unobtrusively handled or, better still, rendered unnecessary by engaging a pianist from the ensemble. Still, the instrumentalists, every one of them, sounded excellent regardless, although even they could not entirely disguise some of Britten’s more threadbare invention.

Fazil Say piano recital, 3 April 2008

Konzerthaus, Vienna

Bach, arr. Fazil Say – Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542
Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.17 in D minor, Op.31 no.2, ‘Tempest’
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an exhibition

Fazil Say (piano)

What a strange concert! First, Bach’s great Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 592, as arranged by Fazil Say, was cancelled, since, it was announced, he had needed to concentrate upon the other works during his preparation. Fair enough, but I soon began to wonder what that rehearsal had entailed. I am not in any sense implying a lack of preparation, but it had led to some highly unusual ideas for performance.

Having missed out on the first of the Bach transcriptions, our first port of call was the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542. If I were to describe the transcription as hyper-Romantic, that would give some sense of its nature, but in another sense might mislead. For whilst there was assuredly nothing of the ‘authentic’ about this, it also stood at some remove from, say, the Bach transcriptions of Liszt and Busoni. It somehow managed less to sound Gothic than to suggest the glorious Technicolour of Stokowski’s orchestral transcriptions whilst remaining on the piano. There were times at which less would have been more, but it was undoubtedly impressive. The performance helped, of course, although there were odd aspects to that in itself. The fantasia opened rather quickly, and took a while to settle down: somewhat at odds with the nature of the transcription, I thought. The fugue, by contrast, suffered from an extremely deliberate speed – and this comes from a writer who admires Klemperer’s Bach to the skies. It was, of course, not simply a matter of speed: the deliberate quality was as much a product of Say’s laying of equal stress upon every note of the fugue’s subject. Both problems lessened as time went on, although light and shade tended to be sectional rather than phrased. There was a great deal of sustaining pedal, as one might expect in such a performance, and some thundering left-hand octaves. Whilst I am about as far from a purist concerning Bach as can be imagined, I am not sure that this Fantasia and Fugue really hit the mark.

If the Bach was ‘interesting’, then I do not know how to categorise the Beethoven ‘Tempest’ sonata. I do not think I have ever heard Beethoven sound less like Beethoven. Much of the Allegro sounded like Chopin in an especially vehement performance. There were, however, some truly exquisite recitative passages, in which the Ninth Symphony (and, intriguingly, late Liszt) loomed large. There were huge variations of tempo and, once again, plenty of thundering left hand passages. As for the Adagio and Allegretto, they often sounded as if they were a later nineteenth-century re-composition, ‘after Beethoven’. I often thought of Saint-Saëns, of all people. And yet… there was clearly conviction to what Say was doing. This was not playing to the gallery, not the feigned musicality of so many a mere virtuoso, and it was certainly more interesting than the interchangeable note-perfect, score-bound non-performances of so many competition winners. The pianist appeared to exhibit a sense of wonder in his music making, which counts for a lot. Say, also a composer, is evidently a highly creative artist, if no Beethoven. If one were to consider this as a performance rather than as Beethoven, one might conclude that it impressed, unlike so many of its kind. We do not need to rail so much against the excesses of pianistic tradition as Sir Donald Tovey did; there is far greater danger nowadays from lack of imagination. I must, however, admit that I was simply at a loss when it came to the throwaway ending.

That said, the Mussorgsky second half was quite a relief. From the outset, this sounded far more idiomatic. The performance was not without liberties, but they were fewer and more in keeping. (Say’s poking inside the piano may have been an exception, although, if it gained little, it equally did little harm, perhaps since it was restricted to a single instance. I assume that the intention was to suggest plucked orchestral strings.) The pianist’s palette sounded more appropriate, with some wonderful pitch black for ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’ and a scintillating ‘Baba Yaga’. ‘The ballet of the unhatched chicks’ was simply mesmerising, and bells truly pealed during ‘The great gate of Kiev’. There was, however, some strange discontinuity during that final movement, overcome at the last, though it remained unclear what its purpose had been. All in all, though, this was a far more consistent performance.

Say performed two encores. The first was based upon Gershwin’s Summertime. Whether it was his own composition, someone else’s, or even improvised, I do not know, although I suspect it to have been his own fantasy. The compendious virtuoso displays deservedly excited the audience, and Say revealed more of a sense of delicacy than had been evident in much of the recital. I can only assume that the second encore was a composition of his own. It involved a great deal of poking inside the piano and a severe paucity of music. Whilst it was doubtless performed impeccably, I could make neither head nor tail of it. Still, it is surely far better to have a genuinely eccentric composer-performer – his demeanour often suggested that he might be attending a séance – than a bland robot-instrumentalist.