Manfred Honeck (conductor)
Whilst much of the
Staatskapelle Dresden is in Salzburg for the Easter Festival, those players
staying at home are offering a good deal of Mozart: complementing, for those
able and willing to take the two-hour rail journey, the current Mozart festivities
in Berlin. (Salzburg, ironically, is giving Wagner, Bruckner, and
Shostakovich.) Manfred Honeck and the Dresden orchestra here paired Mozart with
Haydn, culminating in an imaginative presentation of the Requiem—part of it,
anyway—interspersed with plainsong and readings.
It was difficult not to think
of Sir Colin Davis during the Overture to La
clemenza di Tito—or indeed elsewhere, given his long association with the
Dresden orchestra. Odious though comparisons may be, this was a sound he would
have recognised, I think, albeit in a more excitable and, to an extent, more
rhetorical reading. The Staatskapelle sounded fresh and transparent, boasting
fine string agility and sheen. Habsburg counterpoint told as it should. It was
a welcome curtain-raiser that augured well.
Honeck’s view of Haydn was more
severe, worlds away from the ‘genial’ label that characterised the composer,
arguably too much, for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Shocks
and surprises registered forcefully, suggesting consciously or otherwise an attempt
to have one feel something akin to what Haydn’s first, unsuspecting audiences
might have done. Indeed, the snarling first chords had one wonder, even when
one knew, whatever was coming next. A rigorous introduction followed, the
exposition only a little more smiling. One could only marvel at Haydn’s
concision, the repeat upon us in no time at all. Honeck showed a keen ear for
detail and not a little theatricality in the preparation and instantiation of
surprises. Whether one needs the fortissimo
bassoon ‘intervention’ in the second movement to be quite so heavily underlined
is, I suppose, a matter for debate, but it worked as a climax as well as local
colour. Prior sternness had summoned the future spirit of the late Masses; I
could not help but think the joke was played less straight than humourless.
More importantly, an array of invention was on show throughout Haydn’s
variations.
Idiomatic swing
notwithstanding, the Minuet was similarly severe, its Trio’s heightened
contrasts offering nothing in the way of relaxation. This was fiercer Haydn
than I could readily recall, more Napoleonic than Viennese. And indeed, in the
finale, it was the Beethoven of the Fourth Symphony that came to mind, in a
reading replete with contrast and meaning conveyed through articulation. (It is
surely no coincidence that Honeck is a violinist.) Here, though, severity was
not unrelieved, Rafael Sousa’s delightfully ‘sung’ oboe solo a case in point.
Returning to the idea of imaginative recreation of a first hearing for that London
audience—and the slightly smaller Dresden orchestra aside—this would have been
quite the calling card.
And so, to the second part of
the evening’s proceedings. Tubular bells heralded offstage members of the
Kreuzchor, bidding us commence our observance: ‘Requiem aeternam…’. Throughout
the plainsong, and despite not even being onstage, these young singers’ words
were perfectly clear, pitches and phrasing perfectly judged. This and three
further invocations, ‘Domine exaudi orationem meam’, ‘In quacumque de inocavero
te’, ‘and ‘Christus factus est’, joined readings from one of Mozart’s letters
to his father (4
April 1787), the composer at his most Catholic in recognising the comfort
of death as the destination of all life; from two poems by Nelly Sachs, ‘Wer
weiß, wo die Sterne stehn’, ‘Wenn im Vorsommer’; and from two passages in the
Revelation of St John the Divine. Animated, involved, and involving readings by
Ulrich Tukur, culminating in Scriptural death and resurrection, contributed
greatly to the fuller dramatic and intellectual conception. Like musical
themes, certain words, ‘Tod’ unsurprisingly among them, echoed, connected, even
developed.
The Masonic Funeral Music came first among the musical pieces, between
Mozart’s letter and the second instance of Gregorian Chant. One of the crucial
things that letter tells us—and which many ignore—is that Mozart saw no
contradiction between Freemasonry and his Catholic faith, quite the contrary. Once
past an immediate puzzling harshness—I am not quite sure what happened, nor
whether it were deliberate—wind chords were beautifully voiced. Strings brought
tragedy and some degree of consolation. Honeck’s reading proved well paced and
articulated, with a strong sense of liturgical intonation; no one could have
missed the cantus firmus here. The ‘Laudate
dominum’ from the KV 339 Vespers flowed
beautifully, soprano Nikola Hillebrand as warm and stylish as the Dresden strings,
the Dresden Chamber Choir (Dresdner Kammerchor) similarly clear and warm,
holding out what seemed to be real hope of consolation. Honeck shaped the
movement well, without rendering it unduly moulded.
The Requiem ‘Introitus’
followed Sachs’s poems, seemingly rising out of what had precieded it. Again beautifully
voiced and paced, it offered choral singing of equal clarity and impact (characteristic
throughout of these thirty-six singers). Hillebrand returned almost as if a
character, transfigured by what had passed: an angel, perhaps. Honeck moulded
the performance dynamically, again without it becoming mannered. Rhetorical
shifts in tempo made sense, as did the swiftness and momentum of a ‘Kyrie’ that
yet remained unhurried. This meant something, something important. When,
following the first of the Revelation readings, the ‘Dies irae’ burst forth, it
terrified, souls trembling in torment and embodying that torment. Clean, rich
performances from bass Mikhail Timoshenko and trombonist Nicolas Naudot opened
the ‘Tuba mirum’, were answered in vividly human fashion by tenor Sebastian
Kohlhepp, voicing both fear and consolation, and the splendidly contraltoish mezzo
Marie Henriette Reinhold, as well ultimately as our returning angel Hillebrand.
They made a fine quartet too, in excellent balance with the orchestra (and
choir).
The ‘Rex tremendae’ bore down
with all the weight of the Counter Reformation itself in mourning. One could
almost hear the veils of mourning, mediated or rather amplified by the old ‘Spanish’
Habsburg court dress. Mozart transformed it with searing modernity, and yet also
preserved it: tradition aufgehoben.
Did Honeck slow too much for the cries of ‘Salva me, fons pietatis’? Perhaps
for some, even for me in the abstract, but he clearly had his reasons, yielding
far more often in Mozart than Haydn. The ‘Recordare’ made for a fine contrast,
orchestra and soloists wonderfully transparent, movement forward ignited by
counterpoint. Cellos led telling, accompagnato-like rhetorical thrusts. It was
all there in the words, or at least could well be discerned to be. In the ‘Confutatis’,
operatic Furies became real, which for Mozart is to say Christian. And yet,
they were tamed, enabling the noble ‘Lacrimosa’ to conclude its section.
Chant, the Kreuzchor as excellent
as ever, and a final passage from Revelation, telling us of the heavenly
Jerusalem, the Lord making all things new, prepared the way for a lithe, urgent
‘Offertorium’. Some aspects of the orchestration I did not recognise; I assume
this to have been a matter of the edition used, but perhaps I was just hearing
the music differently. The ‘Hostias’, sweetly, even devoutly, imploring, gained
meaning from its liturgical context. Here, one felt, was the point at which
this prayer, shunned by Protestants, could become possible. At any rate,
singing was beautifully sustained, quite different from what had gone before.
Both ‘Quam olim Abrahae’ sections were well directed and meaningfully shaded,
for this was outstanding choral singing as well as orchestral playing. And
then, there came a short pause, followed by a repeat of the ‘Lacrimosa’, only
to stop at the end of the eighth bar, where Mozart’s hand falls away. Had I looked
properly at the programme, I should have known this was coming, but I am rather
pleased I did not, shock to expectations thereby fully registering. Instead of
the rest of the Requiem, however understood, we moved to the heavenly funeral
motet, ‘Ave verum corpus’, sweet in consolation and truthful.
Bells tolled briefly again. And
then, magical silence, only broken some time later by an idiotic ‘Bravo!’ (Can
anyone seriously think that an appropriate response to a setting of a Requiem
Mass, save, perhaps Verdi’s?) With this Requiem, though, there will never be
peace. It was interesting to hear it done like this, all the more so given my
lack of preparation. Yet, as when I have heard similar performances, I
ultimately felt it a pity not to hear what ‘should’ have followed. Do we really
think Mozartians such as Karl Böhm or Sir Colin had no idea what they were
doing? Not that Honeck was making any such claim, of course; he was simply
presenting his own, thoughtful, in many ways brilliantly conceived version for
the evening. Different occasions present different choices, none of which ever
quite adds up: heartbreaking, given the perfection of Mozart’s music. Requiem,
but no peace: what could speak better to our current situation?
