Musikfest Berlin (2) - Varèse, Haddad, Ravel, Bach-Benjamin, and Schoenberg, 2 September 2023

Kammermusiksaal, Philharmonie

Varèse: Octandre
Saed Haddad: Mirage, Mémoire, Mystère, for string quartet
Ravel: Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
Bach, arr. Benjamin: Canon & Fugue
Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony no.1, op.9

Anna Prohaska (soprano)
Ensemble Modern
George Benjamin (conductor)

Image: © Fabian Schellhorn / Berliner Festspiele

The first of two Musikfest Berlin Proms from Anna Prohaska, Ensemble Modern, and George Benjamin offered music on a small ensemble scale that proved anything but ‘small’ in terms of ambition and intensity, nor of course achievement. A hallmark of all we heard was concentration, for this was highly concentrated, often richly textured music, which also called for – and seemed to receive – a high level of concentration from the audience in Berlin’s Kammermusiksaal, the smaller of the two halls in its Philharmonie.

 

In Varèse’s Octandre, Christian Hommel’s oboe initially appeared to be searching—but searching for what? Ultimately for something piercing, impervious, something that gave the impression of always having been there, however recently discovered. Stravinskian echoes, above all of the Rite, yet also of Symphonies of Wind Instruments, did battle, though they were so familiar, so integrated, they were barely ghosts, more guests. Delphine Roche’s piccolo solo, when it came, suggested something more playful, yet ensemble response was implacable as ever, akin to seeing or rather hearing the same object from another standpoint, both of angle and distance. Yet there was difference in what we heard, for instance the duet between double bass and bassoon, spreading to the ensemble as a whole. Brass rightly took no prisoners. Varèse, not unlike Stravinsky himself, remained. 

Saed Haddad, a Benjamin pupil, was represented by his Mirage, Mémoire, Mystère (2011-12), for string quartet, described as being for violin and string trio. That interests me, since I did not really make that distinction when listening. Perhaps I will next time, for I hope there will be a next time. A richly turbulent opening put me in mind right away of Schoenberg’s developing variation. Indeed, there were a few striking coincidences of pitch and harmony, though I suspect that is more that I was listening with Schoenberg in mind than intent or reference. Certainly, there was an emotional intensity to this single-movement work I can imagine that composer admiring. Its development, or transformation, was rhythmic too, through a kaleidoscope of related moods that, in retrospect, seemed to convey the broad overall progression of the title.

Prohaska joined the Ensemble, and Benjamin returned, for Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, the work in which he most clearly approaches Schoenberg (Pierrot, though not only Pierrot), without ever sounding, nor indeed writing, ‘like’ him: not even in the extraordinary opening string harmonics of ‘Soupir’, here perfectly realised in performance. Ravel, at its most characteristic, seems perhaps more the destination than the starting-point, both instrumentally and vocally, yet a floated languor heard and felt, too precise for Debussy, and indeed quite unlike him in other ways too, could only ever have been Ravel’s. It was as if a Japanese engraving, with apologies for the orientalism, had come to life. ‘Placet futile’ proved, doubtless with similar danger on my part, a garden of delights, at times more animated, more heated even, though cooling beautifully too. Prohaska proved a vividly communicative soloists, really using the French words to shape and colour her line. ‘Surgi de la coupe et du bond’ presented flight and descent, movement and stasis, all art of a journey that chilled in timbre and harmony, yet also invited, whilst holding us at an almost sacral distance. ‘A rien expirer annonçant/Une rose dans les ténèbres.’ Some mysteries are both for us and not.

Benjamin’s 2007 Canon & Fugue arranges the ‘Canon alla Ottava’ and ‘Contrapunctus VII’ from Bach’s Art of Fugue for an unusual ensemble: flute (silent in the first movement), two horns, and string quartet (which can be expanded to smallish string orchestra). This is unquestionably modernist Bach, not necessarily in the line of, though surely with kinship to that of Schoenberg, Webern, Berio, and others. That sense of concentration was again apparent, indeed alive, in both movements, the sustaining power of horns (and other particular qualities) employed to excellent effect in the former. The Fugue was less frenetic and furious, though no less concentrated, early use of stopped horns and string pizzicato not only arresting but also seemingly aiding that transformation of tempo. There were many timbral delights and surprises, not least the way a combination of horn, violin, and viola sounded uncannily like an organ, yet this was always a way of hearing Bach.

So too, albeit at a greater distance, is much of Schoenberg. It was fitting, then, to end with his First Chamber Symphony, although this was the performance about which I had a few doubts. A little more than fifteen years ago, I heard Pierre Boulez conduct this same work in the same hall, with the Scharoun Ensemble of players drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic. That struck me as an ideal performance, but perhaps I was simply more used to the underlying assumptions and aesthetic. Benjamin, I think, took the opening, once past the short introduction, not only faster but at a speed at least to rival the earlier Boulez, of Domaine musical vintage. One expects a bias towards wind in this version (as opposed to Schoenberg’s two arrangements for full orchestra, where strings will tend to dominate) yet, to begin with, that balance seemed somewhat exaggerated, even harsh. The performance settled, yet Benjamin’s approach had the merit of reminding us just what difficult music this can, and arguably should, be. Perhaps we have allowed Schoenberg to mellow a little too much, in post-Siegfried-Idyll-manner. When the music slowed, moreover, it really slowed. The scherzo section was urgent, yet in character, that is not merely fast; character seemed to grow out of Schoenberg’s instrumentation and use of those instruments, almost as much as his harmony. This was Schoenberg on a coiled spring, which could nonetheless relax in the ‘slow movement’. Moreover, the internal and external role played by fourths was certainly to be heard, as if this were a matter of casing and inner mechanism. It was another performance of concentrated riches, then, even if not always the riches I had expected.

Boulez Ensemble/Guggeis - Bach, Hindemith, Haddad, and Stravinsky, 31 January 2020

Pierre Boulez Saal

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.1 in F major, BWV 1046

Hindemith: Kammermusik no.1 for twelve solo instruments, op.24 no.1

Saed Haddad: Sombre, for thirteen musicians (world premiere)

Stravinsky: Concerto in E-flat major for chamber orchestra, ‘Dumbarton Oaks’

Boulez Ensemble

Thomas Guggeis

My final concert as a European citizen; hereafter, to quote the text of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, I shall be ‘ein fremder im fremden Land’. All the more so, of course, when I return, to put it mildly, reluctantly to ein ganz fremdes Land, most likely never to escape it. The twin blows of defeat on 12 December and departure on 31 January have at least cured us of hope, perhaps the cruellest of tortures: coinciding, in typically savage irony, with Beethoven’s anniversary year. To have heard the Ninth Symphony next door, at the Staatsoper, on New Year’s Eve was an experience emotional enough; that, Fidelio, or anything else Beethovenian would probably have been too much. Instead, at the Pierre Boulez Saal, we heard music by the ever-rooted yet aesthetically cosmopolitan Bach and by three other composers who (have) found themselves in fremden Ländern. Hindemith and Stravinsky both spent periods of their lives in exile, while Jordanian-born composer Saed Haddad lives and works in Germany.

This was the first concert I had heard conducted by Thomas Guggeis. He impressed just as greatly as in his work in the opera house. Having the excellent Boulez Ensemble, drawn from members of the Staatskapelle Berlin and West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, did no harm whatsoever, of course, but Guggeis’s preparation, understanding, and communication of that understanding proved equally important for another fine collaboration.

The First Brandenburg Concerto was a case in point, blessedly free of ‘period’ affectation, yet Bach as ensemble music – this is, after all, the Boulez Ensemble – rather than small- or, for that matter, large-scale orchestral music. The first movement offered somewhat odd balances at times, but I think that was in part owed to where I was seated, a little close to the horns. (Perhaps, at last, I had found a minor disadvantage to this performing space ‘in the round’.) At any rate, a bright, energetic, performance benefited from a sensible tempo that sought not to draw attention to itself but rather to permit Bach’s music to come to life – and succeeded. Dignified and well articulated, with a fine sense of chiaroscuro, the Adagio also benefited from Guggeis’s unobtrusive command of the longer line. Dialogue between Jiyoon Lee’s excellent violin piccolo solo and three similarly excellent oboes (Gregor Witt, Charlotte Schleiss, and Katharina Wichate) proved a fine centrepiece around which the immanent qualities of Bach’s score could happily shine through. There was similar yet different joy in counterpoint, harmony, and their combination in the third movement, likewise in the interplay between solo and ripieno writing, any balance problems now resolved. A courtly and characterful procession of dances brought the work to a close, reminding us that Bach’s idea of progression in a multi-movement work is often very different from ours. Sometimes that can cause problems for modern listeners or performers; here the question never arose. Musically directed virtuosity from oboes and horns (Samuel Seidenberg and Sebastian Posch) in ‘their’ Trio proved but one of many delights.

To hear one of Hindemith’s 1920s Kammermusik pieces immediately afterwards was instructive, perhaps above all because it suggested contrast rather than underlying affinity (at least to my ears). The first movement was frenetic and sardonic, knife-edge precision as expressive as it was impressive: quite the introduction. The second movement calmed down somewhat, if only comparatively. That calming permitted one to savour the estimable musical qualities, which are in truth at least as much harmonic as rhythmic and as anti-Bachian as they are Bachian. The opening clarinet-flute duet (Assaf Leibowitz and Silvia Careddu) sounded as if a slowed-down Twenties sequel to The Rite of Spring, the appearance of bassoon (Mor Biron) only rendering it more so. Here was an oasis of neoclassical calm; and yet it moved. It was tonal, yes, yet closer to something non-tonal in function than perhaps one might expect, at least at times. Such ambiguities were fruitfully explored under Guggeis’s wise direction. The unease of that movement seemed to be inherited by a finale of high tension, maintained and if anything increased until finally something had to give. Its dislocations disconcerted, indeed puzzled. Then all was over, siren and all.

Saed Haddad’s Sombre, commissioned by the Daniel Barenboim Stiftung, here received its world premiere. It seemed to me to speak throughout of an incisive grief, a grief that certainly spoke to me. Nimrod Ron’s opening tuba solo, dark yet not without implied hope, endured slings and arrows surrounding it, evolved into an ensemble danse macabre, subsiding, tuba handing over to bassoon, whose role as solo bass instrument would later be assumed by double bass, and so on. In between, harp, bass drum, and other percussion enlarged the reach of a dark ensemble that yet resisted something external, even deathly. At times, I was put in mind of the finale to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, though that may say more about me than the work. A viola lament, joined in duet by arabesquing oboe; bells of hope, sweetest yet cruellest of tortures; patterns of material that seemed ready to repeat yet never quite did; a related sense of having to pick oneself up, only to fail: perhaps it was not fanciful to hear this music as tragic. It was certainly an accomplished work afforded accomplished performances; I should be keen to hear more.

Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks Concerto rounded off the concert in fine fashion. The busy automation of its first movement seemed still more distant from Bach than Hindemith’s response. That discrepancy is surely where the music’s interest lies – and so it proved in performance too. A little more overt aggression might occasionally have been welcome; however, I can see and hear the case for a more Apolline approach, as in the composer’s earlier Octet. Here, the Rake rather than the Rite beckoned, the controlling mastery of Stravinsky as watchmaker, divine or otherwise, apparent and polemically so at that. Likewise in the central Allegretto, whose spareness usefully highlighted the passing of ideas in mid-statement between different instruments. If one wanted to hear where Stravinsky’s later interest in Webern had come from, here was a strongly suggestive possibility. Aggression was, doubtless justly, more overt in a finale which at times seemed to approach the wartime anger of the Symphony in Three Movements, as well as its sonorous delights. There were no easy answers to be gleaned through the mechanical swing. Art is no mere refuge, however fremd our current Länder.