Salzburg Festival (4) - Bronfman/VPO/Muti - Brahms and Tchaikovsky, 13 June 2017

Grosses Festspielhaus

Brahms – Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat major, op.83

Tchaikovsky – Symphony no.4 in F minor, op.36

Yefim Bronfman (piano)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

It has never been entirely clear to me why Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto seems to be performed less frequently than his First – other, that is, than on account of the still more extreme technical demands it places upon the pianist. Come to think about it, we probably have our answer there, for it is surely the greater work of the two, or at any rate the one falling more strongly within a tradition of Mozartian perfection. I wonder, though, whether its less overtly tragic demeanour has something to do with it. At any rate, in my experience at least, a performance would appear to be a rarer occasion than one might expect. I therefore greatly looked forward to this concert from Yefim Bronfman, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Riccardo Muti.

 

It is very difficult quite to put my finger on why I felt slightly nonplussed by the performance of the Brahms. There was nothing wrong with it and a great deal to admire. Was I too hung up on great recorded performances of old? Perhaps: I immediately think of Gilels and Jochum here, and many readers will have their own favourites. The horn solo opening was wondrously tender; as usual, the VPO gave of its best for Muti. Bronfman’s response was musicianly, indeed that of a chamber musician. Not that there were not more turbulent passages, but perhaps on balance, the first movement was a little skewed towards the Apollonian. ‘Skewed’ is probably the wrong word, though, for there was certainly some sense of a dialectic here. And there was admirably big-boned pianism to relish too. Ultimately, though, I felt this a movement observed rather than experienced. Perhaps the fault was mine; stranger things have happened…

 

I was intrigued by the sense of Mendelssohn in the shadows of the scherzo, both from the orchestra (Muti’s doing, surely) and to a lesser extent the piano. Elfin rhythms were nicely sprung, but there were darker colours and moods too. Muti imparted a fine sense of grandeur to the trio, conflict in the cross-rhythms and all. The slow movement I found just a little matter-of-fact. It was taken on the swift side, but better that than dragging, and there was a greater sense of emotional involvement than in the first movement. The solo cellist’s tone, however, was a bit of a problem, especially earlier on: rather wiry, although certainly able to project. Bronfman’s way with those magical, half-lit passages was special: prophetic, certainly, of the late piano pieces. There was a degree of Haydnesque playfulness to the finale, likewise a degree of Brahms in ‘Hungarian’ mode; I wondered, though, whether a greater contrast between the two might have been beneficial. At any rate, none of Brahms’s cruel demands held any obvious fear for Bronfman.

 

I heard Muti conduct Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic in May. Memory can play tricks here, even when one reads the earlier review. (I have not yet, although a link may be found above.) However, I suspect that, admirable though that performance was, there was here with the Vienna players a greater sense of urgency. The intimate scenes, redolent of the contrast between public and private in, say, Eugene Onegin, were once again to be heard and, more to the point, to be experienced. And the expressive range was certainly greater than what, for whatever reason, we had heard in the Brahms. A chamber ballet or a song without words? There was no need for Muti to choose in the second movement; nor did he. I was put in mind of Berlioz at times, not least in the way that the emotional complexities of the work were shown potentially to be allied with complexities of genre and structure. The ghostly dances of the scherzo were despatched, with precision, mystery, and fantasy, leading to a finale of considerable nervous energy, rather as if the opening to the final scene of an opera – which, in a sense, this almost is. Petersburg Onegin, perhaps? The argument was symphonic, of course, but Muti and the VPO excelled also in summoning up an aural stage before the eyes of one’s mind.

Salzburg Festival (2) - Aida, 12 August 2017

Grosses Festspielhaus



Images: Salzburger Festspiele / Monika Rittershaus

King – Roberto Tagliavini

Amneris – Ekaterina Semenchuk
Aida – Anna Netrebko
Radamès – Francesco Meli
Ramfis – Dmitry Belosselskiy
Amonasro – Luca Salsi
Messenger – Bror Magnus Tødenes
High Priestess – Benedetta Torre

Shirin Neshat (director)
Christian Schmidt (set designs)
Tatyana van Walsum (costumes)
Reinhrad Traub (lighting)
Martin Gschlacht (photography)
Thomas Wilhelm (choreograpy)
Bettina Auer (dramaturgy)

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

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

It is a good thing to put even one’s most settled judgements to the test from time to time. Seven years had passed since my most recent encounter with Verdi in the opera house: seven years of (relative) good luck since. If the nauseating La traviata remains a nadir in the benighted ‘repertoire’ – better or worse than Donizetti, or about the same? who cares really? – then the mindboggling tedium of Aida anoints it a serious contender for any such reckoning. However fine the performances, and they were generally excellent here, any revival of so unremittingly banal a work will prove, at best, an absurd misallocation of resources. There is infinitely greater interest in any randomly selected note of Webern. As Boulez memorably put it, ‘Verdi is stupid, stupid, stupid!’ Quite why anyone would claim to know better remains a mystery.

Aida apologists seem to like to laud it essentially as a chamber opera, scenes of intimacy at its heart, contrasting with the pomp and ceremonial of grand opera. Fine, but that is hardly enough. It matters whether such scenes are any good, of any interest. All we have here is a ‘bog standard’ – with apologies, for the first and last time in my life, to Alastair Campbell – clash between public and private, generalised in the extreme, with ‘characters’ so thinly drawn, if indeed they be drawn at all, that a non-partisan listener cannot even begin to care. They all sing the same sort of stuff, about the same sort of stuff, at interminable length – it may be a relatively short opera, but it certainly did not feel like it – to a plot whose implausibility is so contrived as not even to amuse. (Maybe onstage elephants would have helped in that respect, if no other.) La clemenza di Tito, Mozart’s or anyone else’s, this is not; indeed, it is difficult to imagine a greater vulgarisation of the classical AMOR/ROMA dilemma. Of all the tragedies of occupation and war, why would the weird self-obsession of a woman who, rather than try to rescue her lover, elects instead to enter a tomb in order that they be buried alive, even register? She deserves no better, but what about poor Radamès? It would be nice to be able to care, but if somehow one manages to do so, it will be on account of a performance, not the work.

Frankly, their sentimental festival of smothering – would they at least not have sex for the first and last time? – cannot come quickly enough, even though it does not. Meyerbeer is more dramatically interesting, certainly more historically important. Perhaps this might work very occasionally as the exhumation of historical curiosity, the recipient of due criticism, but to place such drivel at the heart of the repertoire is too silly even to qualify as ‘edgy’ or critical performance art. If Aida is actually a satire on a well-heeled, self-regarding audience’s willingness to sit through anything, however dull, provided that its abject lack of taste and judgement be flattered, then is it not about time that someone finally explained the joke to that audience?

All that said, there is doubtless something for an interesting director to say; there always will be, even if the work does not deserve it. What one hears about Hans Neuenfels’s Frankfurt Aida sounds fascinating, all the more so for 1981: the slave girl an Ethopian cleaner and a typical Verdi audience screaming blue murder. Likewise Peter Konwitschny for Graz the following decade. Shirin Neshat is certainly not one to join their number; instead, alas, she joins the number of film artists who have nothing much to say about opera, or at least cannot say it. Her production is as dull as the work itself, creditably – I think, but now begin to wonder – shorn of the traditional vulgar trappings, but with nothing to put in their place. There are some half-hearted video (of course) images of refugees, but that is about it, other than a ‘stylish’ look and a vast revolving set which sometimes does not quite revolve as it should. (The second interval seems to have been mightily prolonged on that account.) Could we not at least have had the death-wish slave girl as a suicide bomber or something? Weirdly, she seemed to dress very much as Amneris; perhaps that is what happens when you have Anna Netrebko in the title role. The priests’ slightly strange look initially suggests parody; alas, nothing else does. There is nothing much else to it apart from the designs, at least nothing I could discern.

Aida (Anna Netrebko), Radamès (Francesco Meli), Amneris (Ekaterina Semenchuk)

Netrebko, perhaps needless to say, offered vocalism of a quality that would be spellbinding, were it expended on more interesting material. No degree of vocal shading seemed beyond her, the trademark richness of tone ever present yet variegated; if only the bizarre Orientalist shading of her make-up had shown a sensitivity that came anywhere close... Francesco Meli’s Radamès was every bit as impressive, perhaps still more so, as handsome and noble of tone as of aspect. Ekaterina Semenchuk was every inch the fiery mezzo, again completely in command of her instrument and, insofar as the non-staging permitted, her dramatic performance; I should love to hear (and to see) her as, say, Ortrud. Roberto Tagliavini sounded a bit wooden as the King, but that permitted some degree of contrast with Luca Salsi’s animated Amonasro. Choral singing was excellent throughout, indeed outstanding, as was the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic under Riccardo Muti, its shading every bit as exquisite as Netrebko’s, the sweetness of string tone very much of old. Muti clearly cherishes the score almost beyond price, however incapable I may be of understanding why. His partnership with this orchestra rarely disappoints; here he showed himself once again to play it as if it were a piano under his fingers. If I found the pace rather slow at times, that was doubtless a consequence of my feelings towards the work; enthusiasts, I am sure, would have loved it.

I doubt there can have been many superior performances of the opera throughout its history; I equally doubt that I shall persuade myself to hear another. As for Verdi, see you in another seven years’ time? Perhaps.

BPO/Muti - Schubert and Tchaikovsky, 24 May 2017

Philharmonie

Schubert – Symphony no.4 in C minor, D 417

Tchaikovsky – Symphony no.4 in F minor, op.36

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

Riccardo Muti has long been a fine Schubert conductor; his EMI set of the complete symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic has much to commend it, and certainly not just for the orchestra. Whilst there was much to enjoy in this performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, I could not help but feel, especially in the first movement of the Fourth Symphony, that something was lacking, especially when compared with Daniel Barenboim’s recent performance of the first three symphonies with the Staatskapelle Berlin. The opening certainly sounded splendid, its C minor strongly suggesting a response to Haydn’s ‘Representation of Chaos’, even if the subsequent path taken by the introduction proved more Mozartian. The rest of the movement, especially the exposition proper, proved elegant, if a little earthbound. There was something surprisingly static, even plodding, to Muti’s approach, which suggested repetition over development.

The slow movement, slower than is now fashionable and all the lovelier for it, fared much better. It offered considerable cumulative sweep and a little more flexibility. The Berlin woodwind’s playing proved enchanting indeed. A characterful jolt was offered by the syncopations of the third movement, its trio treading fruitfully a fine balance between the courtly and the unassuming. The finale came off best of all, I think, with tension aplenty, but leggierezza too. (I say ‘but’, yet do not really mean it, for the lightness was very much part of that tension.) Here was all the formal dynamism, too, that I had missed in the first movement. This is not Beethoven, and there is little point in pretending it is; Schubert does go around the houses a bit here. Nevertheless, the seriousness with which Muti and the orchestra pursued what in some ways is a more difficult task spoke of integrity, of something considerably more than the merely amiable.

 

That said, both – perhaps unexpectedly, in Muti’s case, at least – sounded considerably more at home after the interval, in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. There was nothing predictable about Muti’s reading, but nor was there any straining to be different for the sake of it. The music, it seemed, had been thought and re-thought, allowing it in performance to give the impression of speaking ‘for itself’. The first movement’s opening fanfares were appropriately Fatal; thereafter, the music flowed much more freely than it had in the equivalent movement of the Schubert. What particularly struck me was the intimacy of so much, possessed of a true chamber quality such as I have rarely, if ever, heard before. It was rather as if we were passing between public and private, in a performance of Eugene Onegin or The Queen of Spades. For the music danced too, as often it must. Just as important, there was no manufacturing of ‘emotion’, applied to the music; sentiment rather arose from the score ‘itself’.

 

In context, the second movement evinced a certain kinship with its Schubertian counterpart – as well, of course, as obvious difference. Woodwind solos, once again quite delectable, as well as onward tread spoke of the former tendency, whilst balletic and ‘Slavic’ qualities were very much Tchaikovsky’s own. Muti left us in no doubt of the music’s symphonic stature; I was actually reminded of Klemperer at times, not a comparison I had especially expected to draw. The scherzo offered many similar qualities, albeit in music of very different character. If the Berlin strings were mightily impressive in the pizzicato, that impressive quality was as musical as it was technical. The woodwind section both grew out of and contrasted with that opening material, and the combination of the two at the close proved quietly brilliant. There was certainly nothing quiet concerning the brilliance of the finale. If it were at times a little dogged, is that not partly the point? And, in any case, there was much more to it than that; it could be seductive too, in its grace and charm, all the more so again for having nothing in the way of emotional crudity applied to it. Muti’s is not the only way to perform this work – no one’s is – but it proved refreshing in its integrity.

 

Salzburg Festival (7): Mutter/VPO/Muti - Tchaikovsky and Brahms, 15 August 2015

Grosses Festspielhaus

Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto in D major, op.35

Brahms – Symphony no.2 in D major, op.73

Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

This concert, dedicated by Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Riccardo Muti to the memory of Herbert von Karajan took place on the date he traditionally reserved for concerts with that orchestra. (I assume that to have been on account of the Feast of the Assumption, which always catches me unawares in southern Germany and Austria.) Mutter had played this concerto thirty years previously with Karajan and the VPO in the Grosses Festspielhaus. I wonder how many in the audience then were again in the audience this year: quite a few, I suspect. Brahms’s Second Symphony was, of course, premiered by this very same orchestra, and this year’s Festival offered a number of works whose first performance the VPO had given.

Although there was much to enjoy and little to complain about, I could not help but ask whether there was a little too much of the memorial to the concert. There is more, much more, to music-making than excitement, but perhaps this tended a little too much to the ritualistic. Mutter’s technique was quite beyond criticism, but occasionally, I longed for something a little more surprising, whether from her or from the orchestra. That said, I could not help but enjoy the splendidly old-world sound of the opening tutti and Mutter’s response: rich and sweet. Vibrato and portamento were very much part of her palette, but not at the expense of centring the notes. Moreover, she could cut through the orchestra’s sound as if she were Martha Argerich. The opening of the Canzonetta was beautifully hushed, the audience the recipient of whispered confidences. Above all, it sang. And then, the mood was transformed in a musical flash with the coming of the finale. Structure was clear – and if it left a little to be desired, the fault surely lay with the work rather than the performance. Expansive and urgent as required, the movement might nevertheless have benefited from a little more earthiness at times.

Too much D major in a concert? For my ears, I am afraid so. But that was not the only problem with Muti’s Brahms. I am all for slower tempi, but the first movement was off the scale, apparently a slow movement. There is ‘autumnal’ Brahms and then there was this. It was interesting, but I should not want to hear it like that again in a hurry. Counterpoint in the development was unexpectedly forthright: something of a relief. Thereafter, things picked up, although there was a true slow movement still to come. That, the Adagio non troppo, was memorable especially for the VPO cellos at the opening: like liquid chocolate, darkly noble. Again, this was a grandly autumnal reading, but easier to take. The change of mood for the ensuing Allegretto grazioso was welcome. This was no less exquisite, but faster-moving, lighter too. Perhaps the greatest contrast was nevertheless offered by the finale: jubilant, although, quite rightly, not uncontestedly so. Brahms’s tale was told frankly, without fuss, and was all the better for it. A gloriously rich orchestral sound would surely have delighted the concert’s dedicatee.

Salzburg Festival (4) - VPO/Muti: Schubert and Bruckner, 15 August 2014

Grosses Festspielhaus

Schubert – Symphony no.4 in C minor, D.417, ‘Tragic’

Bruckner – Symphony no.6 in A major

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Riccardo Muti (conductor)

 

A disturbing feature of recent years has been the distinctly mixed quality of performances heard from the Vienna Philharmonic; I am therefore delighted to report that, this year at Salzburg, such lapses would appear to have been put behind the orchestra, in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Strauss. The VPO has always, in my experience, played very well for Riccardo Muti, and this concert, dedicated to the memory of Herbert von Karajan, who had died twenty-five years earlier, proved no exception.

Schubert’s Fourth Symphony is not heard so often in concert halls. Although, like other early Schubert symphonies, it sometimes exhibits a certain stiffness of form, it is difficult really to understand why. I should certainly rather hear it than a good number of other Fourth Symphonies, Bruckner’s included. The introduction to the first movement opened with an expectancy seemingly echoing The Creation’s ‘Representation of Chaos’, albeit with woodwind lines that could only be Schubert’s. There was more than a hint of Beethoven too, likewise in the exposition proper, in which Muti finely balanced grace and formal dynamism. String turns of phrase again marked out the composer – and indeed the orchestra – unmistakeably, whatever the undoubted examples of influence from others. The extent to which the VPO has Schubert in its blood was underlined by the number of occasions on which Muti was able to stand back and let it play, intervening only to point a certain phrase or to coax a certain strand of development. The tricky opening to the slow movement was perhaps slightly diffident, but that seemed intentional rather than by default. There were gorgeous woodwind solos to enjoy thereafter – and such warmth from the Viennese strings. Beautifully melancholic, the movement was ideally paced as an Andante; its length was certainly ‘heavenly’. A exuberant reading of the Minuet followed, sounding very much ‘after’ Haydn, though the syncopations and the places they led were equally very much Schubert’s own. The trio was, rightly, more Mozartian in spirit, evoking the air of a Salzburg serenade, and relaxed to just the right degree. There was an excellent sense in the finale of Schubert’s Rossinian side, an influence that yet permits the composer to penetrate far deeper than ever Rossini would have been able – or cared – to do. Mendelssohn also came to mind at times in a fleet yet never superficial reading, lovingly, seemingly effortlessly played. No other orchestra can play quite like this.

 

Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony, despite its Schubertian resonances, is a very different work – and is, frankly, a symphony with which I continue to struggle. I know that many others feel similarly, but am equally well aware that, for others whose judgement I greatly respect, this stands as a masterpiece. The ‘Bruckner problem’ refuses to go away, then, and what I have to say should be taken in the spirit of my personal experience, both of work and experience. (In a sense, that is always the case, but I thought it perhaps worth underlining here.) The first movement I can follow – and, in this performance, did. Again, it opened with great expectancy. The VPO’s tone was different: pellucid, almost as if for late Karajan, or indeed Boulez, in late Bruckner (with which I certainly do not experience such difficulties). The sound, though, developed into something greater for those terrifying unisons. Rhythmic precision was crucial to Muti’s delineation of the composer’s formal processes. This was, perhaps, ‘objective’ Bruckner, certainly not the Bruckner of, say, Eugen Jochum, but was none the worse for it, especially in this movement. Woodwind ‘moment’s evoked Wagner, Siegfried in particular, but the counterpoint was unmistakeably Bruckner’s. The apparent twilight of liminal zones was particularly captivating – and intriguing. The Adagio had a warmer, more rounded tone – yes, sehr feierlich, as Bruckner marks it. It progressed with a serenity that at times tended towards the seraphic, yet which did not long go unsullied by darker undercurrents. However, I could not claim that I really followed where it went and why, Bruckner’s byways remaining a mystery to me. The scherzo was again rather Wagnerian in sonority, if hardly in form. I am afraid that, whatever the excellence of the playing, those repetitions remained – well, repetitions. And the final was much the same. Again, I could relish the Wagner echoes and the fine playing, but formal development often eluded me. I was given no reason to doubt the guide(s); the problem, for me, lay with the obscurity of the path itself.

Gluck: A Musical Dramatist for a Better World

For New Year, I posted some Rameau excerpts for the 250^th anniversary of his death, commenting that, in general, our opera houses seemed quite indifferent to him and to that anniversary. Now there are good arguments about incessant marking of anniversaries; I have certainly tried to voice a few on occasion. Yet the arguments in favour of such acknowledgement become far stronger in terms of unjustly neglected composers. (We all know about the pallid legions of the justly neglected, for instance the Baxes, Bantocks, et al., whom a few sandal-wearing ‘British music’ enthusiasts would foist upon the Proms every year.) There are even some who claim that they would rather celebrate a birth than commemorate a death. We may even wish to restrict ourselves to centenaries, rather than come up against divisions thereof. So if, on the latter two counts, we are not to hear Rameau, whose stature seems almost to increase with every hearing, then what of one of the most significant figures in the history of opera, who was born in Erasbach in the Upper Palatinate on 2 July 1714.

Sometimes it seems as though that entire history of the form has been characterised by a struggle to reform it, to return – whether knowingly or otherwise – to the noble aspirations of the Florentine Camerata and Monteverdi. (That the Camerata’s belief that Greek tragedy was sung may have been misguided is in that sense neither here nor there; fruitful misunderstandings have long been a hallmark of musical and artistic development, as was more recently illustrated by the post-war serialists’ appropriation of Webern.) It is certainly not the case, of course, that composers have had to be operatic reformers to be great composers of opera. Stravinsky’s knowingly provocative comments on The Rake’s Progress – that wonderful instance of a masterwork founded upon the most highly problematical of æsthetics – serve as a warning in that respect:

Having chosen a period-piece subject, I decided – naturally, as it seemed to me – to assume the conventions of the period as well. The Rake’s Progress is a conventional opera, therefore, but with the difference that these particular conventions were considered by respectable circles to be long since dead. My plan of revival did not include updating or modernising, however – which would have been self-contradictory in any case – and it follows that I had no ambitions as a ‘reformer’, at least not in the line of a Gluck, a Wagner, or a Berg. In fact, these great progressives sought to abolish or transform most of the very clichés I have tried to re-establish, and my return to these clichés was not meant as a superseding of their now conventionalised reforms (such as the leitmotif systems of Wagner and Berg).

Gluck’s desire to reform opera continues to speak to us today; indeed in an era in which ‘opera’ often seems to be as much about big business, corporate entertainment, and provision of social standing to uncomprehending and, more to the important, uninterested bourgeois audiences, they seem more necessary than ever. Who could argue in principle against these words from the preface to Alceste, penned by his librettist, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, but nevertheless very much Gluck’s own?

I have striven to restrict music to its true office of serving poetry by means of expression and by following the situations of the story, without interrupting the action or stifling it with a useless superfluity of ornaments; and I believe that it should do this in the same way as telling colours affect a correct and well-ordered drawing, by a well-assorted contrast of light and shade which serves to animate the figures without altering the contours. Thus I did not wish to arrest an actor in the greatest heat of dialogue in order to wait for a tiresome ritornello … nor to wait while the orchestra gives him time to recover his breath for a cadenza. … I have sought to abolish all the abuses against which good sense and reason have long cried out in vain.

Yet they would be in vain were it not for the greatness of the result. As the Preface continues a little later, ‘Furthermore, I believed that my greatest labour should be devoted to seeking a beautiful simplicity.’ That is a perfectly justified aspiration, though in a sense far more open to question; it perhaps holds the key, or at least a key, to the hold that Gluck’s musical drama continues to exert upon us. One can hardly help but think of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Classicism at the same time: his lauding of the Apollo Belvedere, for instance. Winckelmann’s ‘Noble simplicity and calm greatness’, or Gluck-Calzabigi’s ‘beautiful simplicity’, which in whatever form is anything but simplistic, and which enters into an extraordinary alchemy with the drama, serves to create something extending far beyond the sum of the parts: indeed a proper understanding of the Gesamtkunstwerk as something whose meaning lies beyond the merely agglomerative.

Rarely, then, does Gluck’s invention strike one as extraordinary simply as notes on the page; they often appear commonplace. Yet Attic tragedy seems once again to live: not as recreation, but as renewal, just indeed as in Wagner’s still more ambitious project. Iphigénie en Tauride, probably Gluck’s greatest work, stands as perhaps the greatest single opera between Purcell and Mozart; Schiller, no less, owned that he had never been moved by ‘such pure and beautiful music’. The rigour of the æsthetic is not absolute; even here, Gluck ‘borrows’ not only from earlier works of his own, but also from Bach’s Mass in B minor. (Handel’s operas, whatever the wonders of individual arias, are unsatisfactory on the basis of a far more fundamental dramatic flaw than borrowing.) Absolute purity would doubtless be undesirable. Yet it concentrates Gluck’s mind and ours – we might also say Gluck’s emotions and ours, for, once again in Wagnerian style, they become one – upon the drama: not, it must be stressed, to be understood as the libretto, then ‘set’ to music, but rather as a new whole, a new work, which yet again, thinking this time of Hans Sachs, seems also venerable in the best sense.  ‘Es klang so alt und war doch so neu!’

Gluck’s radicalism, as that might suggest, is not merely recreative. Listen, for instance, to the orchestral storm at the opening of the second Iphigénie opera (following the minuet, ‘Le calme’). Both real and representative of the heroine’s inner demons, it almost beckons an age of psychoanalysis. Its orchestration born of a lavish French tradition – above all, Rameau – the tempest climaxes as Iphigénie, joined by her priestesses, implores the gods to aid them. Gluck not only sets the scene for the drama – as, in the Alceste preface, he had said it should – but plunges us right into it. Louis Petit de Bachaumount wrote, in his Mémoires secrets, of the premiere: ‘The opera was much applauded; it is a new genre. It is really a tragedy … in the Greek style.’

Might our opera houses not at least allow us the possibility to judge that success once again for ourselves? I have never spoken to anyone remotely interested in opera who did not regret Gluck’s scandalous absence. Barrie Kosky’s visceral Abu Ghraib production for Berlin’s Komische Oper proved an exemplar in this respect. So too, has Riccardo Muti’s persistent advocacy for the composer. Without Gluck’s example, Mozart would not have written Idomeneo in the way he did; but there, alas, is another work more often honoured in its lack of a hearing. If ever an anniversary celebration were needed, it might be this, for far more is at stake than Gluck’s works in themselves. A house that would stage them would show that it was once again, or even for the first time, taking musical drama seriously.

It was not for nothing that Orfeo ed Euridice featured in the projected first season of Pierre Boulez’s reformed Paris opera (which, of course, never happened). As his would-be collaborator, Jean Vilar, noted, ‘Too often, lyrical art has been limited to the art of singing, or even of simple vocal performance, and has become the victim of its own “literary drowsiness”. Lyrical art must rediscover its true identity as authentic musical theatre.’ The projected opening operatic season – 1970-1, there was also to have been a preliminary, concert seasion, including the mouthwatering idea of Boulez conducting the Monteverdi Vespers – was to have offered Les Troyens, Pelléas, Gluck’s Orfeo, Moses und Aron (its first French performance!), Don Giovanni, and a new work by Berio. The conductors were to have been Boulez, Colin Davis, and Georg Szell. Alas politics, as so often, intervened.

Nor was it for nothing that, just before those plans were tentatively drawn up with Vilar and Maurice Béjart, Boulez had condemned the existing Paris Opéra as being ‘covered in dust and merde,’ and suggested that the Red Guards be brought on scene to let some blood. Gluck might seem an unlikely candidate for such a role – but not to anyone who actually listens to either Iphigénie.

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.   

Wishing Riccardo Muti a Happy 70th Birthday...

... and hoping that he will reconsider his inclination no longer to conduct opera in Salzburg. (With apologies for the bizarre opening to the Handel clip...)

Orpheus Remasked?

Buoyed by the victory, at least so far, of Birtwistle's masterpiece, The Mask of Orpheus in the Fantasy Opera poll (please vote here if you have not yet done so), I tried to find a clip on YouTube. Nothing alas was immediately forthcoming. However, I came across something rather surprising during my search, namely a clip from another great retelling of the Orpheus legend, that by Gluck. So far, so unsurprising. Yet, in the face of the great reformer's Iphigénie en Aulide failing so far to register a single vote, it was heartening to hear his music being presented in so unexpected a fashion:



The Lydians also have an interesting way with Handel's Messiah. This performance might not be the last word in accuracy, but seems to me a hundred times preferable to anaemic authenticism. The visual element helps too...



For anyone wondering about the less-favoured of Gluck's two Iphigénie operas, here are extracts from a Rome performance conducted by the composer's greatest living interpreter, Riccardo Muti:



And finally, here is the greatest (recorded) conductor of them all, performing the overture in properly Wagnerian fashion (audio only, but who needs to see anything when hearing a performance of this intensity?)

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.

Salzburg Festival (1) - Orfeo ed Euridice, 13 August 2010

Grosses Festspielhaus

Images: © Hermann und Clärchen Baus

Orfeo – Elisabeth Kulman
Euridice – Genia Kühmeier
Amore – Christiane Karg

Dieter Dorn (director)
Jürgen Rose (designs)
Tobias Löffler (lighting)
Ramses Sigl (choreography)
Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Riccardo Muti (conductor)


I have occasionally debated with myself which work would open my fantasy new regime at Covent Garden: the one where Donizetti and Verdi are banished for ever more, where the demands for ‘star’ singers are simply ignored, where ‘corporate hospitality’ is banished still further away than L’elisir d’amore, where we have some modern equivalent to the eminently sensible proposals presented by Wagner to the King of Saxony. Busoni’s Doktor Faust perhaps? Still a front runner, not least on account of its continued absence from so many stages, London included. An Orfeo would have to be a serious contender, too, though, not least on account of its foundational myth of the power of music. The question is which – and despite various other fine works (later in the opening season?), it would have to come down to Monteverdi or Gluck. The former’s Orfeo, the first great opera, has as pressing a claim as any, but so does Gluck’s astonishing reform opera: a statement of intent not unlike that with which the new regime would begin. Moreover, Gluck seems barely more popular than Busoni with those who hold the reins of programming power.

Fortunately, Riccardo Muti, following a period of dissatisfaction with Salzburg opera under Gérard Mortier’s regime, is once again a fixture at the Festival, and Muti has long been an ardent advocate of Gluck. His live recording of Iphigénie en Tauride from La Scala is certainly the finest of the work in question and perhaps the finest of any Gluck opera. Muti now conducts his first Gluck opera in Salzburg, the first staged Orfeo ed Euridice since Karajan's more than half a century ago, in 1959. (John Eliot Gardiner conducted concert performances in 1990.) Though Muti’s Gluck remains blissfully, even defiantly, free of modish ‘period’ concerns, there was nothing routine to this reading: quite different from either his Milanese performances or indeed his New Philharmonia recording.

This must be ascribed in part to the presence of the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit. Its golden sweetness is quite unlike that of any other orchestra, especially when playing for a favoured conductor, as here. This was a more Mozartian Gluck than one often hears, or indeed has heard from this particular conductor: tender and seductive, as Orpheus should be. The VPO’s fabled strings were of course crucial in this respect, but likewise its Orphic harp, those melting horns – sterner when necessary – and, not least, its truly magic flutes. The size of the orchestra was neither small nor especially large, but seemed just right for the Grosses Festspielhaus. (Another, especially cretinous, aspect of fundamentalist criticism is furious insistence upon particular sized forces, irrespective of the venue and acoustic.) The harpsichord (Speranda Spaccucci), contrary to reports I had read, was audible throughout. I am unconvinced that this is necessary, but it was interesting to note that some writers must have decided beforehand that they would not be able to hear the continuo, and therefore did not – or so they claimed. Muti’s tempi obeyed no particular pattern, taking their cue instead from the requirements of the drama: on occasion, though only on occasion, daringly slow, especially during heightened sections of recitative, but the music never dragged. The overture had me slightly worried: rather hard-driven, à la Toscanini¸ but that was a single exception.

This performance was fortunate too in its singers. The Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus sang excellently throughout: intelligible, implacable, imploring. Genia Kühmeier was a beautifully toned Euridice and Christiane Karg a winning Amore: not at all irritating, which it is sadly necessary to note. It was, however, quite rightly Elisabeth Kulman’s Orfeo, along with the orchestra, who was the true star here. Kulman’s richly instrumental tone, redolent of the chalumeaux Muti perhaps surprisingly elected to use, acted both as Orpheus’s voice and his lyre. Detailed attention to words heightened rather than detracted from her often heartrending delivery of the vocal line. Che farò senza Euridice?’ sounded not as if it were merely that aria, but as a crucial part of the drama, prepared by recitative; though the voices are very different, the performance that most readily sprang to mind was that of Dame Janet Baker. (Her recording under Raymond Leppard remains the safest first choice, though there is always Furtwängler…)

Dieter Dorn’s production is often attractive, not least when it comes to Jürgen Rose’s costumes and the arresting images of Hades, with which the second act opens. It is difficult, however, to discern any especial view of the work: fine, up to a point, since it is perfectly capable of speaking for itself, but a little disappointing. Where the production really falls down is in the ballet scenes. They present a potential problem, but there is no need for them to fall as flat as the final one in particular does. A ballet would have done fine; one might have considered it the obvious option for ballet music… Instead, we have a tedious working out of what seems to be ‘how the story just told is relevant today’. It is not suggested that the power of music might be at work, but rather that we should all work through our problems and live with each other as best we can. The tedious ‘movement’ resembles the sort of thing one might see in primary schools: a pity.

Muti being Muti, we certainly do not hear the bravura aria that often closes the first act (stage-stopping, but perhaps not even by Gluck at all, and out of keeping with the reformist ethos), nor even the Dance of the Blessed Spirits. It is the Vienna version we hear. I see no problem in principle with performing a wisely assembled composite edition, but there is an integrity to Gluck’s first version that is justification enough. It was a brave and good decision to perform the work without an interval. We did not even hear applause until the end.

Please do not take as written the a priori criticisms of Muti’s Gluck from ‘period’ fanatics; they could have composed – and perhaps did – their fatwas before hearing the performances, as tiresomely predictable as a newspaper column from a Polly Toynbee or a Simon Heffer. These critics will never be satisfied until any semblance of humanity has been extracted from Baroque, Classical, and even much later music. To treat this foundational musical drama as music, and not as an exercise in pseudo-archaeology has become, astonishingly enough, a rare thing indeed. Only a conductor of Muti’s standing would dare do so today. The rewards reaped are rich indeed.

Salzburg Festival 2010: preview

Sadly, I was unable to fly to Salzburg for the press conference announcing the 2010 festival, but the press office kindly sent me press releases on the dot. Surely a better contender than any other for the title of greatest music festival in the world, this year's Salzburg Festival will run from the opening concert (Daniel Barenboim as conductor and soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in works by Beethoven, Boulez, and Bruckner) on 26 July to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's concert with Sir Simon Rattle on 29 August (works by Wagner, Strauss, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, Karita Mattila as soloist in the Four Last Songs). Strictly speaking, the festival finishes and closes a day earlier and later, with performances of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s mystery play Jedermann (‘Everyman’) in the cathedral square. Other spoken drama ranges from Sophocles, via Racine and Stefan Zweig, to the Young Directors’ Project, but I shall concentrate on the musical side of things.

The theme running through a number of the dramatic works, spoken and sung, is ‘Where God and Man Collide, Tragedy Ensues,’ from an essay by Michael Köhlmeier. Elektra, Strauss’s greatest opera, will benefit from the glowing Viennese strings, conducted by Daniele Gatti. A stellar cast – often a cliché, but surely a true one here – includes Waltraud Meier, Iréne Theorin, Eva-Marie Westbroek, and René Pape. Nikolaus Lehnhoff conducts. A new opera by Wolfgang Rihm, Dionysus, inspired, like the broader theme, by Nietzsche, will be conducted by Ingo Metzmacher (Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin) and directed by Pierre Audi. Metzmacher’s account of its intellectual genesis certainly tantalises. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice – was there ever a more important opera? – will be led by, to my mind, the greatest Gluck conductor alive, Riccardo Muti. Joining the VPO will be Elisabeth Kulman and Genia Kühmeier, directed by Dieter Dorn. Patricia Petibon, Despina in 2009’s Così fan tutte, will essay the title role of Lulu, with a cast including Michael Schade, Michael Volle (Covent Garden’s recent Dr Schön too), and Franz Grundheber. Marc Albrecht conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and Vera Nemirova conducts. Mozart has but one opera this year, Don Giovanni, in a revival of Claus Guth’s production, this time with Yannick Nézet-Seguin conducting the VPO; Christopher Maltman and Erwin Schrott head another starry cast. Nézet-Seguin will also conduct the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, with Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala as the star-cross’d lovers. Finally, Edita Gruberová’s many admirers will have the opportunity to hear her in concert in the title role of Norma, with the Camerata Salzburg conducted by Friedrich Haider.

Rihm will also be honoured in a series of concerts, ‘Continent Rihm’. Performers include the Arditti Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble, the Ensemble Modern, Metzmacher and his Deutsches SO Berlin, and the VPO under Christoph Eschenbach (Ernster Gesang, with Tzimon Barto as piano soloist) and Riccardo Chailly (Gesungene Zeit with Anne-Sophie Mutter).

Last year’s Liszt-Szenen give way to Brahms in 2010. Works by Brahms will appear with related works by an extraordinary range of composers: Isaac, Biber, Bach, Reger, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Janáček, Shostakovich, Ligeti, Kurtág, and Jörg Widmann, his Intermezzi being premièred by András Schiff. Other contributors to the series include Valery Afanassiev, the Zehetmair Quartet, the Balthasar Neumann Choir, and Angelika Kirchschlager.

Anniversary composers Schumann and Chopin will also loom large. Philippe Herreweghe will conduct Camerata Salzburg in a cycle of the Schumann symphonies, whilst Ivo Pogorelich will perform both of Chopin’s piano concertos. Evgeny Kissin includes both composers in his pair of recitals. Other pianists, such as Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman (Chopin) and Grigory Sokolov (Schumann) will opt for one or the other. Piano-lovers are clearly in for as much of a treat as opera-lovers.

Other chamber music includes a brace of concerts from Martha Argerich and friends from Lugano, artists such as Frank-Peter Zimmermann, Gidon Kremer, Afanassiev, and a mouth-watering combination of Zimerman and the Hagen Quartet (Schumann and Grażyna Bacewicz). Matthias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach once again perform all three Schubert song cycles (their Wigmore Hall Winterreise is reviewed here). Other song recitals will be given by Anja Harteros/Wolfram Rieger, Rolando Villázon/Hélène Grimaud, Kirchschlager/Ian Bostridge/Julius Drake, Philippe Jaroussky/Jérôme Ducros, and – my own pick – Jonas Kaufmann with Helmut Deutsch, in Schubert, Schumann, and Mahler.

The Vienna Philharmonic, hard at work in the pit in so many of the operas, will give its customary series of symphonic concerts, some of which have already been referred to above. Other conductors at the helm will be Muti (Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible, with Gérard Dépardieu) and Bernard Haitink (Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony). In addition to the Berliners, visiting orchestras will include the World Orchestra for Peace under Valery Gergiev (Mahler’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies), the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons (Bartók, Mussorgsky, and Stravinksy), and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand de Billy (Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, with Fanny Ardant). The Mozarteum Orchestra’s traditional series of Mozart Matinées continues, soloists including Fazil Say and Diana Damrau.

This is but a brief overview. I can only urge you to save your pennies for what promises to be the most memorable festival since the 2006 Mozart anniversary, in which all of the composer’s operas were performed. For further details, click here.