Salzburg Festival (5) – Bronfman/Pittsburgh SO/Honeck: Rachmaninov and Mahler, 22 August 2024

Grosses Festspielhaus

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto no.3 in D minor, op.30
Mahler: Symphony no.5

Yefim Bronfman (piano)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Manfred Honeck (conductor)

Images: SF/Marco Borrelli

Rachmaninov’s music requires a tight structural command, especially for a work on the scale of the Third Piano Concerto, to dispel suspicions of the rhapsodic, or at least to ensure that rhapsodic qualities contribute to a sense of a greater whole. Yefim Bronfman and Manfred Honeck are very considerable musicians, yet in this performance, the first movement did not quite for me cohere as it might. Its conversational opening, understated yet on the move, compelled, as if ‘recalling’ music whose origin was lost in the mists of time. The performance was swift, perhaps a little too much at times, though that is surely preferable to lapsing into sentimentality; it enabled one to listen to often kaleidoscopic harmonies coming together thematically, especially in the piano part, though the second thematic group already sounded a little distended. The development section was nicely exploratory and the recapitulation had a proper sense of return; only some sense, at times, of quite why we moved from A to B was at times lacking. If the lack of heaviness was welcome, Bronfman bringing out passagework affinities with Prokofiev as well as Liszt, there were times when Honeck kept down the Pittsburgh Symphony a little too much. 

The second and third movements redressed that relative imbalance, rhapsodic elements more properly integrated. Honeck and the orchestra were more willing to take the lead, strings properly allowed their head for the first time.  When the excellent Pittsburgh brass had spells in the limelight, featuring more prominently in a richly protean finale, the temperature rose further. To some extent, I think this was a performance conception, an expression of trajectory; in retrospect, it seemed a pity that the greater urgency – as opposed to mere speed – could not have been read back into the first movement. The audience, though, disagreed, seemingly acclaiming the performance without reservation. 

Mahler conducted the Rachmaninov concerto in New York in 1910, with the composer as soloist. It is difficult to think of any other obvious connection between the two works and also difficult to say the combination worked to Rachmaninov’s advantage. Nevertheless, the performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony experienced one major difficulty of its own, though not one for which the performers were in any way responsible. The opening promised excellent things, the Pittsburgh solo trumpet – as, subsequently, the brass section as a whole – spellbinding in his macabre opening solo. From the outset, this first movement sounded more grounded than its first-half counterpart, Honeck communicating a clearer sense of where it was heading. It felt like a funeral march, or rather set of obsequies, without in any sense being reduced to an implied programme. This was, as Mahler always insisted, music, not a musical rendering of something else. 

A further strength of Honeck’s reading was his strong sense of the symphony’s division of five movements into three ‘parts’, the second movement very much following on from and necessitated by the first. Here, the generative role of rhythm came to the fore. If there were occasions when I wished the strings might dig deeper, there was nothing especially wrong with the playing. In such music, one often, however unfairly, recalls favoured performances or recordings of the past; such recollections can be tinged by unreliable romanticism and perhaps mine were too. Brass nonetheless seized the initiative for a thrilling first rendition of the chorale. A certain harshness at climaxes seemed to be deliberate. What, then, was the problem? A strange noise to be heard above the orchestra, both in pitch and seemingly in location. Although it sounded like a giant mouse, I assumed it must be some sort of electronic interference. I was closer initially; it transpired a bat had come to the party and was voicing its appreciation. 

After a short pause in which the problem was somehow resolved, we heard a properly liminal, transitional Scherzo, its neo-Bachian counterpoint clear and directed. The Adagietto convinced similarly: a little slow by curren, fashionable standards, but there is no one way to perform this music, in which fashion is as unwelcome as in Bach or Mozart. It is perhaps unsurprising, given Honeck’s pedigree as a string player, that we heard chamber music writ large. He handled the transition to the finale with as great skill as the connection between first and second movements, the fifth movement then proceeding with welcome hints of the sardonic. I wondered at times whether it was a little lacking in sheer abandon, but all came together perfectly for the chorale, whose advent and jubilant aftermath imparted sense to much of what had preceded them. I say ‘much’ only because the flying rodent’s disruption to my experience had been severe: a great pity. It was almost made up for, though, in a splendid encore performance of Ochs’s waltz from Der Rosenkavalier, rubato judged in echt Viennese fashion.

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.

Philharmonia/Salonen - Bluebeard's Castle, 3 November 2011

Royal Festival Hall

Debussy – Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Bartók – Piano Concerto no.3
Bartók – Bluebeard’s Castle (semi-staged)

Yefim Bronfman (piano)
Judit – Michelle DeYoung
Bluebeard – Sir John Tomlinson
Juliet Stevenson (narrator)

Nick Hillel (director)
David Edwards (staging)
Adam Wiltshire (set designs)
David Holmes (lighting)

Philharmonia Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor)


Bartók’s only opera, a masterpiece to rank with other sole works in the genre such as Fidelio and Pelléas et Mélisande, was chosen for the climax of the Philharmonia’s year-long series, ‘Infernal Dance: Inside the World of Béla Bartók’. It was the obvious and fitting choice, both as idea and reality. But first came a far from negligible opening to the concert: a visit from Debussy, albeit in still earlier guise than the composer of Pelléas, and the third of Bartók’s three piano concertos, the soloist again Yefim Bronfman.

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is pretty much universally considered to mark the dawn of twentieth-century music. (The programme note by Malcom Gillies presented Debussy’s work as a candidate, but oddly claimed ‘some date it as late as 1913, with Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps.’ No one would gainsay the importance of The Rite of Spring, yet, by the same token, surely no one would date the beginning of twentieth-century music after Schoenberg’s emancipation of the dissonance.) In the hands of Esa-Pekka Salonen – he only picked up a baton later, preferring to mould the music here more freely – Prélude à l’après-midi received a fine performance. Samuel Coles’s opening flute solo was not only not conducted by Salonen; he did not even herald it, leaving Coles to begin in his own time. He did not disappoint; nor did Chris Cowie’s equally fine oboe solo work. Salonen shaped an initially languid reading, soon bathed in the warm glow of the Philharmonia strings. There was certainly a sense of the novelty of form we can all too readily take for granted, but which would point the way not only to later Debussy and to a number of works by Bartók and other composers of his generation, but even to post-war composers such as Boulez, as conductor one of Debussy’s – and Bartók’s – foremost interpreters. Flexibility of tempo proved the key that unlocked malleability of form. Finally came that undefinable, ineffable magic that marks a distinguished performance of this great work.

Such lyricism also informed the opening of the piano concerto, Bronfman presenting it as if in a single breath, foretelling an over-arching melodic approach. The tempo adopted, however, sounded slower than usual; moreover, the general style adopted was more classical, post-Mozartian even, than one often hears. Sometimes I wanted a little more fire from both soloist and orchestra in the first movement: though an interesting reading, it was ultimately a little underwhelming. The cool but not cold dignity with which Bronfman announced his opening statements in the slow movement was striking. Thereafter, the extraordinary night-music – surely the most interesting part of a concerto that does not always show Bartók at his best – was piquant and lively under Salonen. He clearly relished the colours that point back to Ravel but also look forward to Messiaen. A relatively cool classicism paid dividends with the counterpoint of the finale, but elsewhere much sounded a little too relaxed, at times verging on the lethargic. At one point, the pace noticeably picked up, but it seemed more of a correction than an intensification. I have no idea why the lights were dimmed at one point and then turned back up; it was probably a mistake, but it would be nice to think that it was a warning shot to the serried ranks of coughers.

Bluebeard’s Castle was performed in a semi-staged version, directed by Nick Hillel. Bartók’s opera is a strange case, in that in many respects it seems almost made to be performed in concert: its interiority, as heralded by the prologue, may even work better if it compels the listener to direct the work in his head. I am not sure that the production, based upon projections onto a ‘motorised shape’ above the orchestra and a simple enough design around the borders of the stage, added very much, but if it liberated the imagination of some unimaginative souls then it will have done some good and little harm. So far as I could tell, the designs, projections, and lighting all worked as they should.

Woodland film rendered the opening music more than usually Pelléas-like; that seemed to suit Salonen’s strategy too, at this stage characterised by what one might paradoxically call a subdued teeming of orchestral life, rendering contrast of Judit’s viewing the torture chamber all the greater. What we saw here was rather literally representative: some instruments of torture, followed by red for blood – though oddly, the red seemed more redolent of socialist propaganda posters, which, Bartók’s politics notwithstanding, I cannot believe was the intention. Such a colour-based approach might actually have worked better with Schoenberg’s contemporary Die glückliche Hand. On the other hand, visual evocation of diamonds complemented the fantasy so finely painted by the Philharmonia’s harps and celesta. Even then, however, Michelle DeYoung’s facial expressions, let alone her vocalism, had much more to say than any film projection, and still more so in the subsequent case of the flowers. DeYoung offered more than ample compensation for the previously advertised Measha Brueggergosman; hers was a powerfully dramatic and beautifully sung performance, equally alert to the demands of text and melodic line. She was formidable, not in the slightest pathetic; one could readily understand how she had her fateful way. Bluebeard’s defiant pride in the splendours of his kingdom was far better expressed by Sir John Tomlinson’s performance, noble yet wounded, than by turning the lights on and showing a few clouds on the move.

I took a while to be convinced by Salonen’s reading, wondering if the tension was sagging a little in the middle; this was certainly not a razor-sharp Bluebard’s Castle in the manner of Boulez. And yet, matters would become clearer, the greater strategy paying off handsomely, when the cold menace of the increasingly modernist-sounding orchestral palette asserted itself as Judit learned of her predecessors, likewise in the cumulative terror leading up to the final revelation. (DeYoung was superb here too.) The post-Wagnerian orchestral glory of the final climax put me in mind of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, but it was the desolation of Tomlinson thereafter that moved most of all. As with so much of the production, the appearance of Judit as an apparition at the back of stage did no violence to the work, but might better have been discarded.

Bronfman/Philharmonia/Salonen: Bartók, 27 October 2011

Royal Festival Hall, London

Contrasts
Suite: The Wooden Prince
Dance Suite
Piano Concerto no.2

Yefim Bronfman (piano)
Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay (violin)
Mark van de Wiel (clarinet).

The penultimate concert in the Philharmonia’s series, ‘Infernal Dance: Inside the World of Béla Bartók’ maintained, indeed built upon, the high standards heard earlier this year: Esa-Pekka Salonen really seems to be in his element in Bartók’s music, as does the Philharmonia. First off was Contrasts, for which soloist Yefim Bronfman joined the orchestra’s leader, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and principal clarinettist, Mark van de Wiel in a true chamber-music performance. Balance between the players was as finely judged as that between slinkiness – as Malcom Gillies put it in his programme note, ‘creative reinterpretation of [commissioner Benny] Goodman’s musicianship, deliciously filtered through Bartók’s remarkable ethnomusicological ear’ – and echt-modernist Bartókian rhythm. From the first movement onwards, musical kinship with composers such as Prokofiev and Ravel (I thought especially of the latter’s violin sonata) was in evidence, likewise a real sense of the three musicians as dramatic protagonists. The clarinet cadenza was superbly despatched. Mystery was struck from the outset of the second movement, ‘Pihenő’ (‘Relaxation’), its bitter-sweetness properly touching, violin harmonics and subdued piano rumbling – casting a glance backward to the First Piano Concerto – exemplary, the music’s growing intricacies finely charted. Visontay’s violin set the pace for the others in the third movement’s diabolical drama – I was put in mind of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale – though van de Wiel’s clarinet riffs sounded every bit as impressive, likewise the softer, creepier passages, which emerged both menacing of full of delight in the composer’s fabulous musical invention.

The 1932 suite from The Wooden Prince followed, perhaps for me the highlight of the concert. Bartók’s Prelude evoked Nature’s Rheingold-style awakening more evocatively than one had any right to imagine. The music grew with great cumulative power, magnificent orchestral weight, and Ravelian colouristic fantasy in more or less perfect equipoise. Salonen did not lose sight of the ballet; one could certainly picture the music being danced to, though alas it would be unlikely to sound anything like as good as this in a danced performance. The dances were all characterised by sharp rhythmic profile, with some especially splendid brass playing, but the fantastic realm vied equally for attention, a Szymanowski-like magic carpet brought before our ears. Both luxuriant warmth and the more forward-looking elements of the score were equally apparent; even the celesta hinted at the Music for Strings. If only we could have heard the entire ballet from these musicians: maybe another time…

The Dance Suite opened almost as if pure rhythm, gradually melodised, as it were, by Amy Harman’s superb bassoon solo, Bartók’s far-from-easy piano part – I remember playing it in a student performance a few years ago – in the highly capable hands of guest principal, Elizabeth Burley. More wistful moments, in the first movement and elsewhere, displayed Salonen’s astute distinction between sentiment and sentimentality. The third dance, ‘Allegro vivace’, was taken at a considerable pace, yet seemed just right – as Bartók must. (That one need not slavishly follow his metronome markings is illustrated by his own performances, yet the tempo has to sound as though it is the only one possible.) Rhythmic precision and depth of string tone distinguished a fine performance throughout.

Bronfman returned to the stage for the Second Piano Concerto, the first movement’s solo part immediately pounding and implacable, yet equally notable in dialogue with wind – the Philharmonia brass especially – and percussion. Bronfman imparted clarity as well as power, permitting Bartók’s Bachian heritage to shine through. Silent during the first movement, strings at the outset of the second sounded anything but lush, Bartók’s glassy alienation arguably going further than ever Stravinsky dared; the piano could therefore not only respond coolly, but had ample opportunity to grow in intensity. Lively, even helter-skelter episodes were not purchased at the cost of bite, though I occasionally wondered whether it was all a little too unremitting. (One might with justice respond that so the music should be.) The finale united the virtues of both earlier movements, never losing sight of Bartók’s profusion of lyricism. Bronfman’s Romantic manner was arguably not always quite to be identified with Salonen’s more modernistic impulse, but the slight tension proved productive rather than glaring.