Vadim Repin and friends: Brahms and Dvořák, 23 June 2019

Mozart-Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna

Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, op.34

Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, op.34

Some might have expected a clash of solo egos with an instrumental line-up such as this. Not a bit of it: the billing ‘Vadim Repin and friends’ seemed very much borne out by what we saw and heard in this Vienna Konzerthaus performance of piano quintets by Brahms and Dvořák.

There are doubtless many ways to sound Brahmsian; we should not be prescriptive. This, from the outset of Brahms’s F minor Quintet, was undoubtedly one of them. Overall line and its ebb and flow were likewise immediately impressive: more often said than done, perhaps particularly in the first two movements. Similarly balance: what, one might have asked, is often held to be the problem? What struck me particularly about the opening ‘Allegro non troppo’ was both the sense of proximity to and distance from the sound and conversational quality of a Classical chamber ensemble, and the character of themes when announced: the latter something for which, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, Schoenberg consistently lauded Mozart, many of whose techniques he also claimed to have learned more consciously via Brahms. ‘I found, Schoenberg once told a pupil, ‘that if he [Mozart] has a scene in which there are several characters or moods, then he would construct a theme in the beginning of this scene which contains at once as many elements as necessary to contain the later coming moods.’ Such was what we heard here. Another distance relished was that of the development from home – until, that is, we were (tonally) home for a recapitulation that proved a true second development.

The opening piano quartet music to the second movement (minus Nikita Boriso-Glebsy’s second violin) left us in no doubt concerning this music’s complexity. Somehow Boriso-Glebsy’s first entry, however brief, seemed to ground music that had threatened already to veer off towards Schoenberg. Perhaps that was a conscious straining towards full ensemble; it certainly felt like that. Not that that precluded further complexity, far from it. The Scherzo was taken swiftly indeed – and it worked. Transformation from ghostly to vehement is key to this music. That was very much how it sounded here. Rhythm was rightly grounded in harmony, as opposed to being some thing-in-itself; it was all the stronger for that. There was, quite rightly, no attempt to beautify the Trio, which made the Scherzo’s reprise all the more different. The finale’s opening, reminiscent of late Beethoven in its rarity, fragility, and humanity, offered fertile ground for a veritable explosion of material. Not that its profusion was arbitrary; again it put me in mind of Schoenberg on Mozart.

Dvořak’s A major Piano Quintet opens very differently. Mellow, duetting lyricism between Alexandre Kniazev on cello Denis Kozhukhin on piano was nonetheless emphatically, unanimously brought to an end by the whole ensemble, setting up a polarity that would run through the performance as a whole. I was especially struck by the limpidity of Kozhukhin’s playing and golden yet variegated playing from Maxim Rysanov on viola; but truth be told, every musician’s playing was outstanding. Perhaps the overall tone was richer than in Brahms: a reflection, I suspect, of the greater, or more overt, lyricism on display. Affinities also made themselves apparent, but the expansiveness on offer seemed to owe little to Brahms and more than a little to Schubert. There was a great deal of art concealing art to the ‘Dumka’ (Andante con moto) that followed, properly grounded in harmony as the force through which this music could truly sing. It was Schubert who again came to mind in the high spirits of the Scherzo/Furiant, poles apart from its Brahmsian counterpart. Kozhukhin’s way of reminding us of that material throughout the Trio proved wonderfully compelling. And there was no doubt that the Finale was indeed a finale, relished and communicated as such. It lent a fine sense of coherence to a work that can sometimes seem to meander. A fitting conclusion to a fine concert.

Performances attended during 2017; or, where were the women?

Rebecca Saunders

For the past few years, I have tried to count up the composers featured in performances I have attended, and wanted to do likewise for 2017: not the best of years in other respects, but with much for me to rejoice about musically. One review I have still to write, La bohème at the Deutsche Oper (29 December), but that should follow soon. Here, then, is the breakdown, for operas, for concerts, and together. As before, one appearance in a programme is counted once, whether it be for a Webern canon (alas not at all this year: not a single Webern performance) or a Wagner drama; so be it. And I have tended towards a more generous definition of opera, including music theatre, and so on, even including the Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s staging of Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust. Wagner’s extraordinary dominance in opera is quite unlike any other year, but there is quite a mix otherwise, including two (I know only two…) women composers, and it is wonderful to see Monteverdi in second place there.

When it comes to concerts: Beethoven-Mozart-Brahms. I am a Viennese classicist, am I not? Boulez’s reappearance, though, is most welcome, with seven concerts: thanks here are due to the opening of the Pierre Boulez Saal, and to the Vienna Konzerthaus’s Boulez festival.

To return, though, to women, and indeed to turn to a subject I should have thought about long ago when making such a list: how is it that, of 96 composers featured, only six are women? (I think I have done my sums correctly; please forgive any slips in that respect, and feel free to tell me!) The problem is certainly not that I have not attended enough contemporary music. Of those 96 composers, 32 are living: one thing, at least, of which I am quite proud. Yet, whilst all six of those women composers are alive, the contemporary scales are still weighted 6:26. Is this partly my fault? Doubtless. I could certainly make more of an effort to attend and to review performances of music by women. (I could also make far more of an effort when it comes to teaching too.) Is it entirely my fault? Clearly not. This is systemic. What, then, are we going to do? We cannot pretend there is no problem here.

Opera/music theatre, etc.

Wagner 15

Monteverdi 4

Strauss 3

Debussy, Mozart 2

Bartók, Benjamin, Berg, Berio, Borodin, Busoni, Cavalli, Humperdinck, Elena Kats-Chernin, Janáček, Ligeti, Menotti, Mussorgsky, Puccini, Ravel, Reimann, Nicola Sani, Rebecca Saunders, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, Schreker, Schumann, Shostakovich, Johann Strauss, Stravinsky, Verdi, Weber, Ryan Wigglesworth 1

Concerts

Beethoven 13

Mozart 10

Brahms 9

Boulez, Schubert 7

Debussy, Schoenberg, Schumann 6

Haydn, Ligeti, Jörg Widmann 5

Berg, Ravel, Stravinsky 4

Bach, Bartók, Dvořák, Mahler 3

CPE Bach, Carter, Chopin, Messiaen, Monteverdi, Rihm, Shostakovich, Strauss, Takemitsu, Tchaikovsky, Isang Yun 2

Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, Julian Anderson, WF Bach, Vykintas Baltakas, Alessandro Baticci, Benjamin, Birtwistle, Johannes Boris Borowski, Bruch, Busoni, Duparc, Britten, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Eisler, Grisey, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Franck, HK Gruber, Lou Harrison, Hindemith, Ibert, Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin, Kodály, Kurtág, Liza Lim, Liszt, Luca Marenzio, Christian Mason, Mendelssohn, Nono, Helmut Oehring, Eva Reiter, Matthias Pintscher, Enno Poppe, Prokofiev, Roussel, Rzewski, Rebecca Saunders, Iris ter Schiphorst, Johannes Schöllhorn, Marco Stroppa, Telemann, Nicola Vicentino, Walton, Weber, Weill, Gerhard E. Winkler, Wolf, John Zorn 1

Concerts and opera combined

Wagner 15

Beethoven 13

Mozart 12

Brahms 9

Debussy 8

Boulez, Schubert, Schumann 7

Ligeti, Monteverdi, Schoenberg 6

Berg, Haydn, Ravel, Stravinsky, Jörg Widmann 5

Bartók, Strauss 4

Bach, Bartók, Dvořák, Mahler, Shostakovich 3

CPE Bach, Benjamin, Busoni, Carter, Chopin, Messiaen, Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Takemitsu, Tchaikovsky, Weber, Isang Yun 2

Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, Julian Anderson, WF Bach, Vykintas Baltakas, Alessandro Baticci, Birtwistle, Borodin, Johannes Boris Borowski, Bruch, Cavalli, Duparc, Britten, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Eisler, Grisey, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Franck, HK Gruber, Lou Harrison, Hindemith, Humperdinck, Ibert, Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin, Janáček, Elena Kats-Chernin, Kodály, Kurtág, Liza Lim, Liszt, Luca Marenzio, Christian Mason, Mendelssohn, Menotti, Mussorgsky, Nono, Puccini, Helmut Oehring, Eva Reiter, Matthias Pintscher, Erno Poppe, Prokofiev, Reimann, Roussel, Rzewski, Nicola Sani, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, Iris ter Schiphorst, Johannes Schöllhorn, Schreker, Johann Strauss, Marco Stroppa, Telemann, Nicola Vicentino, Walton, Weill, Ryan Wigglesworth, Gerhard E. Winkler, Wolf, John Zorn 1

One sign of hope, if hardly of mitigation: the new work that made the strongest impression on me was, I think, Rebecca Saunders’s Yes. New music groups of the world: unite and perform it as soon as you can, please. Audiences of the world: unite and attend.

Klangforum Wien/Brönnimann - Boulez, 19 June 2017

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus

… explosante-fixe… (1971-1993)

Répons (1981-85)

Eva Furrer, Vera Fischer, Thomas Frey (flutes)

Lukas Schiske (xylophone, glockenspiel)

Alex Lipowski (vibraphone)

Virginie Tarrête (harp)

Jan Rokyta (cimbalom)

Joonas Ahonen, Florian Müller (pianos)

Peter Böhm, Florian Bogner, Gilbert Nouno (electronics)

Klangforum Wien

Baldur Brönnimann (conductor)

And so with this unforgettable concert – could there ever be a forgettable concert of this music? – the Vienna Konzerthaus’s Boulez festival came to a close. ...explosante-fixe… and Répons? To quote a little-remembered, sometime Leader of the Labour Party, one Ed Miliband: ‘Hell, yes!’

Enough of such unwelcome recollections. Eva Furrer, whom I had most recently admired playing the contrabass flute in Beat Furrer’s FAMA last year, this time took the central, or perhaps better most central, midi-flute part, ably partnered by Vera Fischer and Thomas Frey, and indeed by Klangforum Wien and Baldur Brönnimann. There is no room for egotism in music such as this; the ensemble is all. For me – it depends, to a certain extent where one sits – the work began with expectant breathing behind me. Eclat upon éclat followed from the dazzling ensemble. Sounds emerged from all around and, so it seemed, even from within my head. It was a little, even before the event, as if Répons were being born here; in a sense, it was. Our three guides through the labyrinth – or are they the three most beguiling flute-minotaurs, sirens even? – offered up a garden of heavenly delights. (I might as well carry on piling up the metaphors now.) There was so much bubbling beneath and indeed on the surface, that I sometimes felt what I was hearing was Boulez’s response to La Mer; perhaps there are worse ways to think of this music. Or Jeux, perhaps, even a serial Symphonie fantastique at trippy times; a sort of ‘precise wooziness’, verging upon the hallucinatory, suggested itself. The hall’s adjustment of lighting added to the atmospheric difference of purely electronic passages, almost as if the visual equivalent of Messiaen’s grand orgue. An aura of mystery followed, suitably enough. Something had changed, had been transformed; of that we could be sure. The close could be heard as the final trace of fluting Catherine wheels.

Any performance of Répons is, by its very nature, an ‘occasion’, at least a much as Stockhausen’s Gruppen, probably more so. I had only heard the one before: strictly two, since, at the 2015 Salzburg Festival, it was given twice, the audience re-seated so as to hear a different work the second time around. One of Boulez’s concerns, not only in this work, but more generally, was to reinstate – and how triumphantly! – performance. That was most certainly done here, the dizzying virtuosity of all concerned transcendent in a very Lisztian sense. Material, familiar from certain other works, proliferated, I might even say developed, quite differently – whether from those works or from other auditions of this. One needed to listen, of course, for that is performance of a sort too. The magic was such that even Stockhausen would surely have been impressed. Sounds rocketed; musical lines were constructed before our eyes and ears: vertically, horizontally, diagonally. Gallic pianism reinvented itself – as much on the vibraphone and harp as on the pianos themselves. Above all, this music, and music more generally, lived. Perhaps I have Schoenberg too much on my mind at the moment, but I even fancied I heard a ghost or two of one of his waltzes; at any rate, what we heard would never have happened in quite the way it did without him, or Webern, or Debussy, or many others. Nor, of course, would we think quite the way we do about those composers had it not been for Boulez. As the hall, which worked wondrously as an ‘instrument’, fell into darkness, and the music, Jakobsleiter-like, made its way into the ether, one knew that this drama was far from over.

Pfefferkorn/PHACE/Pironkoff - Le Marteau sans maître and newly commissioned responses from eight composers, 13 June 2017

Berio-Saal, Konzerthaus

Boulez – Le Marteau sans maître

Interspersed with miniatures in homage to Pierre Boulez, all commissioned by PHACE and the Vienna Konzerthaus, all receiving their world premieres:

Ivan Fedele – Drive

Gerhard E. Winkler – Anamorph VII (Alte Meister): ‘Boulez-Samba’

Alessandro Baticci – L’Artisanat furieux

Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin – Letrei

Helmut Oehring – MARTEAU, miniature for contralto and instrumental ensemble

Iris ter Schiphorst – Make him talk!

Eva Reiter – Masque de fer

Luca Francesconi ­– Sans

Isabel Pfefferkorn (contralto), 

Sylvie Lacroix (flute)

Reinhold Brunner (clarinet)

Mathilde Hoursiangou (piano)

Berndt Thurner (vibraphone, percussion)

Alex Lipowski (xylorimba, percussion)

Harry Demmer (percussion)

Michael Öttl (guitar)

Felix Pöchhacker (electric guitar)

Ivana Pristašová, Rafał Zalech (violas)

Alexandra Dienz (double bass)

Alfred Reiter (sound direction)

Simeon Pironkoff (conductor) 

This was perhaps the most ambitious instalment yet – of those I have heard, of course – in the Vienna Konzerthaus’s tribute to Pierre Boulez: a performance of Le Marteau sans maître, still, perhaps, his most instantly recognisable, celebrated work, interspersed with eight newly commissioned miniatures from eight different composers. The new music ensemble, PHACE, conducted by Simeon Pironokoff, joined by contralto, Isabel Pfefferkorn, did an extraordinary job here, jointly commissioning the new pieces too, with the Konzerthaus. Wisely the viola parts were split: Ivana Pristašová playing the ferociously difficult, verging-on-impossible part from Le Marteau, Rafał Zalech the others.

Perhaps it was partly the studio-like environment of the Konzerthaus’s Berio-Saal, underground like IRCAM, yet not very much like it, but there seemed, at least in the beginning, to be something of the old Boulez ferocity, even semi-pointillism, to the performance. It was certainly – a favourite word of Boulez himself – a less Romantic performance in character than he would have tended to give towards the end of his life. Ivan Fedele’s Drive came first of the new works, its three short sections (I have seen no programme notes, let alone scores, so my solecisms will likely be many!) suggesting to me a branching out, even a proliferation, from one another, the two instruments, vibraphone and piano, shadowing, enveloping, one another, then again accomplishing something quite different. Exploration of the relationship between the two seemed to be the thing. The first ‘commentaire’ on ‘Bourreaux de solitude’, itself of course still to be heard, offered a keen sense of a perhaps surprisingly soft-spoken mechanism getting into gear. Gerhard E. Winkler’s Boulez-Samba (!), perhaps a nod to the composer’s 1950 visit to Brazil, seemed to take off initially from that music, before going its own way, layers overlapping in a colouristic swirl that did not quite, for me, evade questions of easy colonialism, as Le Marteau does. Perhaps, though, I was missing the point; there was a huge amount to take in throughout the evening.

Alto flute, followed by that unforgettable opening vocal melismata – what richness of voice from Pfefferkorn! – in ‘L’Artisanat furieux’ came like a breath of fresh air, that vocal air increasingly warm, yet never humid. Alessandro Baticci’s arresting combination of electric guitar, floor tom, and double bass, made me keen to hear more from a composer entirely new to me. It was not just the combination, but the variety of sonorities, far from all expected, he drew from them. Following the second ‘commentaire’, Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin’s piece brought viola fury of a very different nature from Boulez’s, yet equally impressive. As the ice and fire of Boulez’s inspiration continued to penetrate as only they can, return to his music often offering a sense of ‘back to the real business’, I found some of the other contributions a little hit-or-miss. Perhaps, though, that was down to me. It was nice to hear Boulez’s own voice sampled in Iris ter Schiphorst’s Make him talk! and there was, I think, a real sense of that voice becoming part of the ensemble. Hermut Oehring’s MARTEAU, though, took a while to pass through its hand movement-silence-shouting phases, and Eva Reiter’s Masque de fer, intriguing though some aspects may have been, seemed rather music-theatre gestural in this particular company. It was a relief to near conclusion with Luca Francesconi’s exquisitely finished Sans: winding down, or opening out? Both, probably, those sentiments intensified in the final movement of Le Marteau. Boulez’s music, quite rightly, was still the thing.

Flury/VPO/Thielemann - Brahms and Widmann, 9 June 2017

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus

Brahms – Academic Festival Overture, op.80

Widmann – Flûte en suite

Brahms – Symphony no.4 in E minor, op.98

Dieter Flury (flute)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (director)

This was a fascinating concert. I did not always like, or even agree with, what Christian Thielemann did with the two Brahms works on the programme. It was not only what seemed – although how much is this a matter of knowing things one cannot, alas, un-know? – to be disturbing ideological assumptions underlying the reading, but also a matter of what sometimes came across as self-regard, to be seen as well as heard. On the other hand, the Vienna Philharmonic was very much at its best, clearly relishing the relationship it has with this conductor as much as he does. And, whatever one might think or feel about the results, there is no denying that Thielemann has a point of view, which he is able to communicate, almost playing the orchestra as if it were a keyboard; this stood far away indeed from the blandness of much ‘international music-making’.

The febrile urgency of the orchestral sound (Klang is perhaps better here) at the opening of the Academic Festival Overture was something I had not necessarily expected. Moreover, as Brahms’s invention gathered pace, one heard roots in Beethoven, in German Romantic predecessors such as Mendelssohn and Schumann; tradition seemed to live. At times, indeed, the sound seemed close to what one might have heard from Furtwängler, albeit more often with an edge, even a brutality, perhaps more characteristic of Karajan. Thielemann proved more theatrical than both, however, for this was, if you can imagine such a thing, often a darkly, Wagnerian performance, culminating in the world, so it seemed, of Hans Sachs’s final peroration. There was something daemonic to it, quite unlike anything I had heard before: certainly not bland.

Dieter Flury, principal flautist with the orchestra, was the soloist for Jörg Widmann’s Flûte en suite. (Widmann’s present ubiquity seems quite extraordinary. I do not ask this in a hostile fashion at all, but wonder to what it is owed.) Marked as having been written ‘für Flöte und Orchestergruppen’, that is very much what one hears: movements to a greater or lesser extent inspired by the Baroque Suite present the solo instrument with a particular instrumental/orchestral group. Written for Joshua Smith and the Cleveland Orchestra, during Widmann’s residency with that orchestra, it certainly received a committed performance here from all concerned. Thielemann, when he conducts modernist music, broadly construed, is often at his very best. Indeed, he managed to coax the Vienna Philharmonic into playing as if it were enjoying itself; perhaps it was.

The first movement, an Allemande, opens with a slow solo, seemingly full of promise, uncertain quite where it might lead. Joined by other members of its family – alto, bass, and finally piccolo – its lines perhaps retain something of a Brahms-Schoenberg tendency, not so much in style as in idea. The chamber opening of the Sarabande is more strongly suggestive of the Baroque, likewise its strong sense of dance character; its solo line, in typical Widmann style, seems to play with misremembered – or never-quite-having-existed – Bach. A more pointillistic backdrop, this time from brass, characterised the third movement, ‘Choral I’, the fifth, ‘Choral II’ sounding much more overtly chorale-like. The latter chorale is darker in tone, mysterious, uncannily childish woodwind and percussion (Prokofiev perhaps, or Shostakovich) reacting in some sense against it, the flute mediating, even commentating. In between, a more refracted (Berio?), more referential Courante, with ‘busy’ pizzicato strings offered undeniable contrast. The sixth movement, marked ‘Venezianisches Gondellied (Barcarole)’, perhaps intrigued me the most. As if a response to Henze’s mediation between things German and Italian, rhythm and melody speak of the latter, a darker forest landscape of the former, without the demarcation ever being quite so straightforward. A cadenza, not entirely unaccompanied, followed, Flury’s expressive way with the melodic line as impressive as his technique. I was less sure about the final ‘Badinerie’, which seemed to me to try a bit too hard to be ‘fun’. ‘Contemporary’ – to us – Bach, very fast and ‘light’, with perhaps again a hint of Berio, veers down other allies, moves into other keys, but seems to rely too much upon its basis in that particular Bach Suite. Widmann’s homages are more persuasive, at least to me, when they suggest, when they misremember.

Thielemann’s way with Brahms’s Fourth Symphony once again persistently surprised, the VPO’s excellence of playing a welcome constant throughout. Its Klang was very much that of the Overture, with perhaps a still greater translucency enhancing its ‘traditional’, perhaps more North German than conventionally Viennese, darkness. Thielemann’s insistence on moulding the score will not have been to all tastes; yet, even when exaggerated, as sometimes it was, it never sounded merely arbitrary, as it does, say, in the Brahms of Simon Rattle. Again, it was a Lisztian, Wagnerian sensibility and method that came to mind in the first movement: transformative rather than straightforwardly motivic. I loved the stark sense of difference at the beginning of development; suspense was as palpable as I can recall. What I missed – and one cannot, perhaps, have it all in any one performance – is the sense of where this music would lead, of it being but a stone’s throw from Schoenberg and Webern. The stately processional opening of the second movement emphasised its roots in its counterpart in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Thielemann built it into something sonically overwhelming, but is that quite the point? Whatever the answer to that, there was some exquisite inner voicing, not least from the violas. The scherzo was fast and not a little brutal, yet far from lacking in lighter moments. In the great, concluding passacaglia, I longed for a little more Klemperer-like inevitability. However incandescent the playing, the variations often sounded a little too characterised, a little too unconnected. Was the wood sometimes missed for the trees? At least, however, it made me think.

Zimmermann/VSO/Hrůša - Beethoven and Franck, 6 June 2017

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus

Beethoven – Violin Concerto in D major, op.61

Franck – Symphony in D minor

Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin)

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Jakub Hrůša (director)

What a wonderful surprise! It was not that I had not expected something good; I should hardly have dragged myself to another Beethoven Violin Concerto if not, still less to a performance of a symphony about which I felt decidedly ambivalent (if not nearly so hostile as many seem to). Frank Peter Zimmermann had given, with Bernard Haitink and the LSO, what had been probably the best performance I had ever heard in concert. Moreover, Jakob Hrůša had impressed me last year in Glyndebourne’s Cunning Little Vixen, and I had heard good things about him from others too. Nevertheless, to hear a performance that exceeded my memories of the Haitink, not least on account of a truly astonishing contribution from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and an account of Franck’s D minor Symphony that had me wondering, at least until the finale, whether all my doubts concerning the work had been misplaced, came as significantly more than I might dared have hope.

The first movement of the Beethoven was taken swiftly, but never harried (not unlike, indeed, Zimmermann’s performance with Haitink, so I presume this must be his concept). What struck me immediately was the cultivated sound Hrůša drew from the VSO; I really do not think I am merely lapsing into some sort of ‘national’ stereotype when I say that the sound reminded me of the Czech Philharmonic in its heyday, or indeed one of Rafael Kubelík’s bands. There was something Bohemian, to be sure, about the character of the orchestral playing, at least as I heard it; it was certainly not sweetly Viennese, to resort to another caricature. The other striking, indeed surprising, thing about the opening ritornello was Zimmermann’s playing along for parts of it; I am not quite sure why, but it did not detract from his official entry, since one never heard him individually. When that did come, his playing offered a combination of the best of ‘old school’ tone with a variegation that one does not always, rightly or wrongly, associate with some of those hallowed performances of old. A simple – or not so simple – scale could encompass great musical variety, with the emphasis on ‘musical’; this was not variety, nor was it difference, for the sake of it. And all the time, Hrůša emphasised, subtly yet unquestionably, the dynamic process of Beethoven’s motivic working, its generative quality. Woodland woodwind sounded heartbreakingly beautiful; one could almost see Beethoven on one of his countryside walks, hear what he heard, transmuted into gold. Zimmermann’s cadenza did more or less what one would have expected it to do, if not quite always in the way one would have expected: different again, then, without that difference being for its own sake. A coda as autumnal as Brahms offered one brief, final blaze; as so often, at the close, Beethoven says just enough, no more than that.

The slow movement proved the most tender of songs, with multiple soloists, the VSO wind singing with just as great distinction as Zimmermann, bassoon and horns as ravishingly beautiful as any of those instruments more accustomed to the soloistic limelight. If anything, I think these instrumentalists incited Zimmermann to still greater heights. ‘Rapt’ is doubtless a word overused, not least by me, but it seems apt, as it were, here. A masterly transition to the finale was Zimmermann’s doing, of course, but the broader character of the finale was again as much Hrůša’s and the orchestra’s doing as Zimmermann’s. Impish, exhilarating playing had one’s ears on tenterhooks, in the best way. Once again, Hrůša’s subtle yet sure tracing of Beethoven’s motivic dynamism provided the basis for everything else that ensued.

The opening figure of Franck’s D minor Symphony sounded full of Lisztian promise, with lower string tone simply to die for. The violins’ response proved to be of equal distinction, as indeed soon was that of the entire orchestra. Once again, the playing of the VSO, and Hrůša’s conducting sounded – however lame this might sound on the page – as if it were imbued with the very spirit of music. Even when the first movement were driven hard, as sometimes it was, it grew out of what had gone before; indeed, it made me wonder what Wagner from these forces might sound like (not something I say lightly). Even the frankly vulgar passages in Franck’s score made me smile, even shiver a little, rather than frown. This was certainly a superior performance in every way to the over-praised recordings from Leonard Bernstein (which may have done a great deal to put me off the work). For there was delicacy, even tenderness, to be heard too, in a performance that at the very least seemed to reach for Lisztian heights. I do not think, indeed, that I have heard a performance, whether in the concert hall or even on record, in which the music had so clearly been internalised by conductor and orchestra (well, perhaps, Klemperer, but otherwise…)

The Allegretto was inexorable, yes, but charming too, with a wealth of orchestral colour that had me think several times of Berlioz. I was able by now simply to sit back and enjoy, quite convinced that any previous fault had lain with me, not with the work. If I still did not feel that the finale quite came off, it came closer than I could recall, uniting tendencies, not just material, from both previous movements. It wore its workings on its sleeve, of course, but does not Berg’s music, or Stravinsky’s, for that matter, too? There was much, then, for me to think about after the event, even more for me to relish in the moment. This was, in summary, a quite outstanding concert.

Pahud/ORF SO/Brönnimann - Boulez, Ibert, Pintscher, and Debussy, 1 June 2017

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus

Boulez – Figures-Doubles-Prismes

Boulez – Mémoriale (… explosante-fixe … Originel)

Ibert – Flute Concerto

Pintscher – Osiris

Debussy – La Mer

Emmanuel Pahud (flute)

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Baldur Brönnimann (conductor)

My present visit to Vienna helpfully – and quite unwittingly, at least at the version of initial planning – takes in the second half, roughly speaking, of the 38^th International Musical Festival of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft. A good number of the concerts I shall review here will be part of that festival; and a good number of those will feature music by one of the Konzerthaus’s Honorary Members, the late Pierre Boulez. This concert from Emmanuel Pahud, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Baldur Brönnimann most certainly did, although I was not entirely convinced that the Boulez pieces themselves were the performative highlights. Not, I hasten to add, that they were not good performances. Perhaps that is actually in itself, ironically, an encouraging sign, for the incorporation of Boulez’s music into the core repertoire now seems unstoppable. We hear these works much more often, nowadays; many more musicians perform them; we grow used to finer discrimination between performances, just as we are used to exercising when it comes to Beethoven or Brahms.

At any rate, I do not wish to exaggerate. The opening éclat of Figures-Doubles-Prismes made its proper impression, as did the following orchestral music, de profundis, and the exquisite tapestry of delights that followed that – all in less than a minute. There was a keen sense of non-linear, or not-only-linear, time, of expansion, although I wondered whether there might have been a little more of the latter. (Perhaps it was the acoustic.) A good few seeds of the much later world of the orchestral Notations seemed to be sown here, in a way I do not recall having noticed before, likewise the proliferating tendencies of the later music. Messiaen also seemed to hover in the background, even in the foreground occasionally, as if we were hearing secularised birdsong. The slightly, but only slightly, earthbound impression persisted into Mémoriale, Pahud and the small ensemble offering admirable clarity as figures bounced from soloist to others, almost as if they were a shadow, not quite taking on a life of its own, but nevertheless possessed of autonomy. Pahud’s flute playing was so admirably clear that one might have taken dictation. Both Boulez pieces, bizarrely, were met with outraged booing and shouted obscenities from one member of the audience. Quite what he had been expecting, I have no idea; the woman with him looked mortified, still more so when the rest of the audience turned and laughed at him. Pahud’s gentle mocking when the man simply would not shut up was just the thing: he cupped his ear as if to say ‘I’m sorry; I can’t hear you.’   

It was noteworthy that our fascistic friend did not react similarly to the Ibert Flute Concerto which, somewhat oddly, followed. I should never dream of booing any performance and look very dimly on those who do, but for me, at least, the excellence of the performances notwithstanding, it was a bit of a trial, a slight piece of note-spinning that overstayed its welcome. There was no gainsaying Pahud’s virtuosity, nor indeed that of the rest of the orchestra, the leader included (her slow movement solos ravishingly played). Pahud’s range of articulation and dynamic range proved equally impressive, and he came as close to winning me over to this music as I imagine anyone could. Oh well, no one responds equally well to everything.

Matthias Pintscher’s Osiris, on the other hand, proved something of a revelation. It was premiered by Boulez in Chicago in 2008, but the kinship seemed to run deeper than that: kinship, I stress, certainly no mere imitation. Fantastical arabesques – again, truly exquisite high string writing – seemed to come into contact with, be changed by, and in turn transform, a more Germanic post-expressionist sound world: not so overt as, say, in Wolfgang Rihm or Jörg Widmann, perhaps all the more intriguing for its relative distance and its mediation of competing tendencies. It sounded, with the strong narrative pull of the work, as if this were a somewhat unexpected (that is, to say, not merely neo-Romantic) rapprochement with the tone poem. A Schoenbergian wind, as if from planet Gurrelieder, blew through the score at one point, the message seemingly more metaphysical than material. A trumpet solo, wonderfully played, sang and dazzled as if it represented a ‘character’; perhaps it did. Splendidly stereophonic tuned percussion playing inevitably recalled Boulez. This, I am sure, is music that needs rehearing; I look forward to doing so.

Finally, with La Mer, we heard an undisputed repertoire classic, one not only strongly associated with Boulez, but one performed at the 1958 premiere of Doubles, as it then was. I found Brönnimann’s reading, and the ORF SO’s performance thereof, utterly compelling: fresh, neither hidebound to tradition nor novel for the sake of it. ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’ veritably teemed with life – and, like the sea, the more so the more carefully one looked (or listened). A strong sense of quasi-symphonic line prepared us well for the great climax of midday. The fantastical scherzo of ‘Jeux de vagues’ offered obvious connections with Boulez’s own music, yet spoke very much for itself too. Phrases were finely turned, yet never narcissistically so. It was impossible to ignore, though – and why would one try? – the seductive colours from the strings; silver, gold, all manner of shades in between and beyond. Now, in a reversal of the stakes in Mémoriale, it was wind that offered the shadow; until, of course, Debussy turned the tables time and time again so as to make a nonsense of such pedantry. There was, quite rightly, much that remained ineffable, not to be grasped. The wind that blew in ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ was a stormy one. Balances again shifted before our ears; so much comes to us from Debussy, as Boulez would have been the first to admit. Wagner, too, seemed to hover behind the score – as indeed, with the exception of the Ibert, he had all evening. But he hovered, flickered; all remained fruitfully uncertain, even the final climax. Boulez would surely have nodded in agreement.

Sokolov - Schubert and Chopin, 4 December 2015

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna

Schubert – Sonata in A minor, D 784

Schubert – Six Moments musicaux, D 780
Chopin – Nocturne in B major, op.32 no.1
Chopin – Nocturne in A-flat major, op.32 no.2
Chopin – Piano Sonata no.2 in B minor, op.35

Grigory Sokolov (piano)

It is customary for any British writer on Grigory Sokolov to lament his absence from our shores. How can one not, when faced with such formidable pianism? As a friend in Vienna mentioned, only too well aware of our authorities’ attitude towards the arts – sport, is of course different – the Austrian Culture Minister would see at his job to sort out whatever visa impediment was preventing a major artists from visiting Vienna. I should be astonished if any of our succession of Culture Secretaries had even heard of Sokolov, let alone cared that British audiences could not hear him. That is wrong, both in principle and, as this recital showed, in practice.

 

Sokolov’s stress or, better, leaning upon the D-sharp, the third note of the Schubert A minor Sonata’s opening phrase, was something one noticed, not for itself but for the formal and emotional propulsion it elicited. From that first phrase, there was struck a note of inexorable tragedy, close to that of Mozart’s piano sonata in the same key. Rhythm, melody, harmony: all were part of an indivisible whole. The second group in this first movement rightly sounded both as continuation and contrast. Trills seemed to have an import such as one might expect in late Beethoven, although their particular quality was quite different. The development section sounded as if poised, or rather developing, in a space between Mozart and Liszt: which, when one thinks about it, is pretty much spot on for Schubert. The recapitulation sounded almost numb, looking forward to Winterreise; and yet, it moved. The Andante showed a similar match of fearlessness and tenderness, whilst it was the sheer strangeness of the finale that initially registered: as if a Beethovenian moto perpetuo deepened by Mozartian chromaticism, before exploding with a fury that was entirely Schubert’s own. That in turn developed in collaboration – competition? – with a heartstopping lyricism that would not have shamed a performance of one of the song cycles. The interplay between such tendencies of the material fascinated and enthralled; above all, it moved.

 

The Moments musicaux, D 780, were in a state of continual becoming (the German Romantic Werden). No one really thinks of these as mere salon pieces; at least, I hope not! They certainly did not sound as such here, as Sokolov welded them into an almost continuous whole. Their developmental qualities are different from those in pieces by Beethoven; here, the development sounded as strong. Smiling through tears, as a moment – or several – between Mozart and Brahms should, the music sounded possessed at times of an almost manic intensity and insistency, without exaggeration. Rhythms were nicely sprung, born of harmonic motion rather than standing against it. Contrasts were musical, not sentimental.

Two Chopin Nocturnes followed the interval: the B major, op.31 no.2, and the A-flat major, op.32 no.2. The B major piece was surprisingly forthright, albeit with greater rubato as it proceeded. I cannot say that I cared for the throwaway fioriture; Chopin’s melodies need, for me at least, to count for more than that. However, the Lisztian way in which a melody passed from one hand to another was quite something to hear. The A-flat Nocturne was taken very seriously, perhaps too seriously, remaining somewhat earthbound. There was, however, no doubting the integrity of the performance. It may not be how I hear the piece, but who cares?

Chopin’s B minor Sonata likewise benefited from sovereign command of line and harmony, insofar as the two may be separated. It was, again, Liszt who came to mind, some of the material edging forward into the realm of his sonata in the same key. And then, chords would seemingly divide, voices taking on lines of their own – in an almost Wagnerian or Schoenbergian fashion. The Scherzo, and again I mean no adverse criticism by this, also sounded somewhat Lisztified – en-Liszted? – yet, in a performance clearly born of such conviction, I was utterly gripped. Much the same might be said of the Funeral March. Its Trio’s lyricism and Sokolov’s touch therein would have melted hearts sterner than mine. Time seemed almost to stand still, and one wished it so. The return of the March was straightforwardly overwhelming. Taken attacca, the finale was possessed of a strangeness that took my mind back to the final movement of the Schubert sonata, except of course that its course is unrelieved here. It sounded as if a single line, almost a Berio Sequenza avant la lettre, transcribed for piano.

VSO/Harding - Schumann, Scenes from Goethe's Faust, 22 November 2015

Konzerthaus, Vienna

Szenen aus Goethes Faust, WoO 3

Faust, Pater Seraphicus, Dr Marianus – Christian Gerhaher

Gretchen, Una poenitentum – Christiane Karg
Mephistopheles, Böser Geist – Alastair Miles
Marthe, Sorge, Magna Peccatrix – Christina Landshamer
Mangel, Maria Aegyptica, Mater Gloriosa – Gerhild Romberger
Noth, Mulier Samaritana – Jennifer Johnston
Schuld – Anna Huntley
Ariel, Pater Exstaticus – Andrew Staples
Pater Profundus – Franz-Josef Selig
Eine Büßerin – Elisabeth Erhenfellner
Chorus soloist – Michael Sachsenmaier

 Vienna State Opera Youth Chorus (chorus master: Johannes Mertl)

Wiener Singakademie (chorus master: Heinz Ferlesch)

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor)

 

I have had to wait a long time to hear Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust ‘live’, since, as an undergraduate, buying a second-hand copy of Britten’s recording. Perhaps there has been a London performance since I have become a regular concert-goer; if so, I have not noticed it. Quite why is baffling. It is, by any standards, a fine work, perhaps not so ‘individual’ as the Schumann we know from the piano music and songs, although perhaps that is as much a matter of our conception of ‘individuality’ as anything else. There is certainly ‘originality’ – that most Romantic of constructs, but a construct to which we all, if we are honest and not absurdly modish, remain rightly in thrall – in much of the orchestral writing, which whatever its kinship with the work of other composers, could hardly ever, perhaps could never, have been written by anyone else. Yes, it requires a good few soloists and a chorus, but so do many other works. And if Goethe notoriously told Eckermann that Mozart would have had to compose his Faust, then Goethe was notoriously wrong about all manner of things musical.

Comparisons more odious than usual presented themselves early on, given that I had heard Bernard Haitink and the Chamber of Orchestra just two nights earlier. Nevertheless, if Daniel Harding’s brisk way with the Overture, at least initially, was not how I hear it in my head, it had its own justification, and he showed himself perfectly willing to yield, rather beautifully, for the more ‘feminine’ – forgive the gendered language, but it is surely apt in this of all cases – music. A contrast between Faust and Gretchen was clearly being set up, both in work and in performance, and yet something in common too: in typically nineteenth-century terms, Eve was created from Adam’s rib. I need not labour the point by saying too  much about Robert and Clara. In any case, female voices are far from neglected as the work proceeds, Schumann almost careless in his requirements. And so, after that rather Harnoncourt-like opening, I had no quarrel, or even query, with Harding’s tempi. There was plenty of ebb and flow, and if there might sometimes have been more colour in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s response – not to mention a few too many fluffs in the brass department – there was good playing throughout, excellent in the more vigorous sections and often beguiling in the more ‘poetic’, sensitive passages. Choral singing was excellent throughout, too, both from the Wiener Singakademie, large in numbers yet lithe and lively, and from the young singers from the Opernschule der Wiener Staatsoper, winningly seraphic. The Dies irae passages properly chilled, yet without melodrama; musical values were always to the fore.

The solo singing was for me the highlight. Since he had the lion’s share of it, it is hardly surprising that I should mention Christian Gerhaher first and foremost. The beauty of his vocal delivery was matched to a tee by the acuity of his verbal response. These were clearly words that meant a great deal to him – they do, surely, to any German – but nothing was taken for granted. Gerhaher was not ‘just’ singing Goethe; he was singing Schumann’s Goethe. His shading and phrasing were such as one might have expected in a performance of Dichterliebe. There was, moreover, Faustian defiance, when called for; and drama worthy of the stage – if unstageable – in Faust’s death. Gerhaher’s roles in the Third Part were carefully differentiated; now he was one soloist among many. And those other soloists were an impressive bunch too; there was not a weak link in the cast. Christiane Karg offered a well-judged match of vocal refulgence and drama, again always founded in the text. Andrew Staples sounded every inch a Tamino in his roles, Schumann’s fantastic writing for Ariel benefiting from a meltingly Romantic evocation in vocal and instrumental terms. Alastair Miles proved a stentorian Mephistopheles, and Christina Landshamer a perky, intelligent soprano. Franz-Josef Selig sounded as his usual, beneficent self: always more than welcome. Ensemble writing was always well attended to, balances permitting Schumann’s lines to tell both contrapuntally and harmonically.

 

 

This is a work we need to hear far more often, but this was a good occasion on which to start. Like many, I really have not the slightest idea what Goethe meant by his ‘ewig-Weibliche’ panacea, and probably should rather keep it that way, but Schumann’s unexpectedly – even when one knows it – non-soaring conclusion offers, if not a solution, then, after the splendidly blazingly writing beforehand, a welcome deflection. That, moreover, was how it sounded here.

.

 

Wien Modern (5) - Hodges/Widmann/ORF SO/Cambreling - Mundry, Andre, and Saunders, 19 November 2015

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna

Isabel Mundry – Non-Places, a Piano Concerto (2012, Austrian premiere)

Mark Andre - … hij … 1 (2010, Austrian premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – Still (2011)

Nicolas Hodges (piano)

Carolin Widmann (violin)

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Sylvain Cambreling (conductor)

 

Another Wien Modern concert in which women composers outnumbered men. We are getting there, it seems – I hesitate to say that we are ‘there’, wherever that might be – with respect to New Music, although there is a long way to go in honouring female composers of the past. (Barbara Strozzi is a current cause of mine; I am sure most of you will have others. And there are, of course, real problems in other respects.) Part of the answer, to many problems, is of course to have a far healthier balance between contemporary musical production and outings from the museum. Festivals such as Wien Modern help enormously, and the turn out for this concert was very encouraging; but every orchestra, every hall, every musician, every audience member should think about the bizarrely narrow ‘repertoire’ that suffocates us.

Isabel Mundry’s Non-Places, a Piano Concerto, drew me in, although I really felt that I needed at least another hearing to grasp where it had taken me. (That is a criticism of me, rather than of the work, I hasten to add; I should certainly like to have another opportunity.) Untuned percussion leads us to orchestral chatter – passages, I learned later, from Oswald Egger – and laughter. Such unexpected sounds, alternating, combining, mutually transforming, certainly had me sit up and listen (and watch!) Various orchestral instruments sound amongst the chatter. It is actually quite a while until the piano enters, almost as if we were hearing a conventional opening ritornello. When the piano does enter, it is not in obviously soloistic fashion; indeed, the work progresses more as a chamber or ensemble piece than what we might have learned to expect from a piano concerto. It is clearly a challenging work for all concerned, but Nicolas Hodges, the ORF SO, and Sylvain Cambreling all did an excellent job. The pianist’s despatch of, for instance, repeated notes, a repeated device in different yet clearly related guises, was everything one might hope for. Moods vary, as do textures. I was especially captivated by duetting between plucked piano strings and cimbalom: a visual as well as an aural spectacle. Other instruments, whether percussion or strings, act as the changing orchestra alongside the two apparent soloists. There was in work and performance very much a sense of a varied yet single span.

 

I am afraid I could not make much of Mark Andre’s  … hij … 1. I admit that I am becoming a little impatient with works in which instrumentalists ‘play’ but make no sound; it certainly has an element of theatre to it, and here, at least, sounds occasionally emerge from the silence, but it is a device that has quickly become clichéd. Alas, most of what I heard fell under the heading of cliché. Although doubtless very well performed – there is no doubting the prowess of this orchestra, nor its commitment – ultimately, it sounded a bit like a minimalist attempting to ape Lachenmann (and not getting very far). There are some nice touches, for instance percussion emerging out of what I suppose we must call the ‘extended techniques’ of not playing or barely playing. Likewise, I felt that rhythm emerged from that opening too. I could not discern, though, why the orchestra – or rather piano and wind – suddenly start playing ‘normally’, nor why they stop. Sudden shifts, whether of tempo or instrumentation, do not seem to signify anything in particular. It felt, I am sad to say, interminable.

That could certainly not be said of Rebecca Saunders’s Still, for which the ever-outstanding Carolin Widmann joined the orchestra. (I learned afterwards that the piece is dedicated to her, and that it was premiered by Widmann and Cambreling, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.) Still came as a relief, from the very opening violin solo, which somehow imparted a sense of a work and performance that knew exactly where they were going, even if we did not (yet). In many ways, it sounded more like a traditional concertante piece than Mundry’s work. The orchestra engages with the soloist, and vice versa, such interaction continuing, echoing, contrasting; that held for the performance as well as the work. One aspect of the writing that especially caught my ear was the timbral transformation of particular pitches, inevitably bringing, even so many years hence, Webern to mind. Widmann’s rendition of the solo part had me wondering what it would be to hear her in Bach or Schoenberg; indeed, there is something pre- or (slightly) post-Romantic to a role one might call obbligato. (I thought at times of Schoenberg’s op.47 Phantasy for violin and piano.) There was true emotional as well as intellectual depth here. Despite the increasing value – if indeed in such post-modern times we are permitted to speak of æsthetic worth – awarded performance art, installations, and the like, this seemed triumphantly to underline the ongoing importance of the musical work, whether as concept or, perhaps more importantly, as experience.