Critic’s Notebook: Víkingur Ólafsson Looks at Opus 109 through his Kaleidoscope

Also published in Die Presse: Beethoven durch den Ólafsson-Filter

W.A.Mozart Mozart & Contemporaries Vikingur Olafsson (DG, 2021) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Opus 109 et al Vikingur Olafsson (DG, 2025) US | UK | DE

Bach / Glass / Rameau Triad (1736) Vikingur Olafsson (3CDs, DG, 2020) US | UK | DE

Beethoven Through the Ólafsson Filter

Víkingur Ólafsson offers an evening in unwavering E major – and minor – at the Konzerthaus.

Víkingur Ólafsson (whom we predicted to have a great career at ionarts as early as 2005!) has built up an enthusiastic following in the cities he visits. Quite rightly so: with his distinctive mix of playfulness amid great seriousness, he is that rare phenomenon whose impact stems from the sheer quality of his playing rather than from interpretive gimmicks, exaggeration, or provocation. On Tuesday night at the Konzerthaus, he showed a different side.

The Bach Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier was still a conventional opening – leisurely, relaxed. Why he chose No. 9 in E major in particular became obvious during the seamless slip into Beethoven’s op.90. When the program noted that “the performance will take place without intermission”, they sure meant it literally: Ólafsson played straight through, leaving no space for applause (or regulated coughing) until after the last movement of the last work. Admirable for its efficiency but slightly taxing after an hour.

Beethoven’s two-movement sonata – a major little gem perhaps underestimated because of its brevity – took on an unusually dreamlike cast under the Icelander’s hands. “mit Empfindung”, indeed. And then, as the tempo tightened in the second movement (“mit Lebhaftigkeit”), he launched into it with such headlong abandon that the notes nearly tripped over their own feet. He let the whole piece unfold with unexpected emphases, freshly minted agogics, artful pauses, and a whispering close. From anyone with a lesser reputation, one would say: wildly distorted.

It was a sign of what was to come. After a progressively introverted reading of Bach’s Partita No. 6 – taken, like everything else, attacca in and out – came early Schubert and his likewise two-movement Sonata D.566, which Ólafsson quite plausibly places in the wake of Beethoven’s op.90. Individual, playful, a touch sugary – and with a stormy dash into the finale: an April-weather Schubert. Onto this, without so much as a breath, the supposed crowning moment was to follow: Beethoven’s antepenultimate sonata, op.109. His hand went to the keys... recoiled several times, visibly annoyed by coughers. But what does the young man expect when, in December no less, he gives no proper coughing-outlet to two thousand throats for nearly ninety minutes?)

There was, to be sure, much to marvel at in this Beethoven: vlafsson's outstanding sensitivity, naturally, and his finely cultivated touch. But there were also exclamation marks underlined twice, while subordinate clauses were stuffed into double parentheses. There were ritardandi that might have left Josef Hofmann blush and would perhaps not even occur to a Lang Lang. Also lots of pedalling, then breathless passages that pushed the Beethoven to the point of sounding like it consisted of clusters. A harried fugato was followed by a sixth variation in super slow-mo. At times it sounded like a departure from the pianist’s usual image – the one built on naturalness and exquisitely differentiated touch. A step from Wilhelm Backhaus toward Khatia Buniatishvili, if you will.

But one man's disappointment is another man's delight - and the four generous encores – Bach, Rameau, and Bartók, who in his Three Hungarian Folk Songs suddenly sounds like Erik Satie – brought the house down.


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Critic’s Notebook: A Requiem for Mozart

Also published in Die Presse: Mozarts Requiem wird unterminiert

W.A.Mozart Requiem N.Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, A.Schoenberg Choir (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

W.A.Mozart Masonic Funeral Music, Symphony in G-mionr KV.550 Stuttgart CO, Dennis-Russell Davies (ECM, 1996) US | UK | DE

G.P.Telemann Ouvertures à 4 ou 6 (1736) L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Carin van Heerden (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

The L’Orfeo Barockorchester celebrates Mozart’s Death

Competent music-making and killing dolphins in the name of humanity

L’Orfeo Barockorchester usually rummages delightfully through the more remote corners of the repertoire – as their recordings of symphonies by Josef Mysliveček, Anton Fils, Leopold Mozart, or – hot off the press – Franz Xaver Richter make plain. Not to mention their superb Telemann: whether overtures or (all!) the violin concertos. At a Jeunesse-organized concert in the Musikverein – fittingly on the 234th anniversary of Mozart’s death – the program was, however, fixed squarely on the birthday boy of the afterlife. Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, as the warm-up overture, had a few wobbly entries but pleased with its even, nobly flowing tempo. The attacca transition into the G minor Symphony K. 550 was presumably meant to be just as fluid, but turned out a touch abrupt. No harm done to the piece, though, last heard in the same spot only a week earlier with the VSO. With robust entries, quicksilver vitality, and no kid gloves in sight, it sounded plenty concining, even with the much smaller forces assembled here. Michi Gaigg might have pushed the inner movements forward rather hard – nearly breathlessly – but the finale regained a gratifying swing.

The main course of this Mozart commemoration was to be the Requiem, in its regular Süssmayr completion. Several things conspired against it. Chief among them: the request to switch on small LED candles – handed out before the concert – during the Lacrimosa, for purposes of introspection and “collective contemplation”. Because, apparently, the music alone does not suffice to do the job. Predictably, it all went to sh...pieces. First, half the lights in the hall were switched off. No dimming, no subtlty. Then: rustling, rummaging, rumbling. Finally, the little LED bitties had been pulled out of bags and pockets – but now what? The hall was still too bright, no one quite knew what to do, and everyone stood around sheepishly, holding their gadget. And the Lacrimosa is not, in fact, a piece that lends itself to waving little lights like lighters during the ballad at a rock concert. What remained was disturbance – and plastic waste for the sake of humanity. A fool’s errand of the highest order.

Not that it disrupted anything particularly exquisit (the music itself excepted, of course), since this Requiem sounded undernorished and pale with the smallish ensemble – and not solely because of our modern listening habits or the historically informed performance. There have been plenty HIP takes of the Requiem that have knocked our socks off. Here, too, the music felt driven, as if fatigue was to be avoided at all costs – thereby causing it. The quartet of soloists was at least respectable: Ekaterina Krasko, once warmed up, with a bright soprano; Tamara Obermay’s alto strikingly even and balanced (a stand-out performance); Virgil Hartinger’s tenor alternately lyrical and croaky; and Daniel Okulitch pleasingly dark and secure in the depths, for a bass-baritone. The Salzburg chorus, fielding four voices per part, sang with clear tone and had no trouble making itself heard in the Golden Hall. Most of the dynamic shaping came from them, to the extent there was any. Intelligibility, however, was not their strong suit, depsite the reduced numbers. At least the natural trumpets, in fine form indeed, cut through the texture as if determined to grab you by the scruff of the neck. But for all the everal fine individual moments, the overall impression was one of dull gray, and essentially had evaporated by the time one stepped out of the Musikverein.


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Critic’s Notebook: Golden Apple Sauce — and a larger-than-life serving of Jakub Orliński

Also published in Die Presse: Hier rockt der Elvis der Alten Musik: Orliński im Konzerthaus

Jakub Józef Orliński Beyond Il Pomo d'Oro (Erato, 2024) US | UK | DE

Jakub Józef Orliński Anima Aeterna Il Pomo d'Oro (Erato, 2021) US | UK | DE

The Elvis of Early Music

In his Konzerthaus show, the Polish countertenor did his thing while the band enabled him.

Ten musicians in black, in a dimmed Great Hall, began to send the haunting sounds of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea into the semi-darkness of Vienna’s Konzerthaus. The sell-out crowd, well younger than average (possibly padded with some incentivized tickets?), perked its ears as the members of Il Pomo d’Oro dug into their historical instruments.

And then Jakub Józef Orliński strode onstage, in a getup that looked halfway like a black garment bag and which I would swear was at least in part self-designed. Under better light one later noticed: the musicians of Il Pomo d’Oro are dressed the same way. It’s all part of the staging (though that might be overstating it)… the dramaturgically woven show titled Beyond, conceived by Orliński and musicologist Yannis François. Aptly timed to go with the newly released album of the same name (Warner; meanwhile vinyl-lovers beware: the LP-version contains considerably less music than the CD).

At first, it wasn’t immediately obvious why there is such hype (and apparently there is) around Orliński. The voice seems rather small, doesn’t carry particularly well in the large hall, and sounds somewhat – if not unpleasantly – mealy. The generously applied “accent vibrato” recalls (late) Dominique Visse. Yet already the lyrical passages – of which there would be many during the uninterrupted ninety-minute arc – have real intensity. That small voice-business dissipated quickly, it turned out: as he warmed up, moving from Caccini via Frescobaldi to Strozzi, Cavalli, and Netti (rare, obscure bits and pieces, almost all of them), Orliński inched toward full form.

Still, things came properly alive only about an hour into the show when lutenist Miguel Rincón whipped out his Renaissance guitar and all but rocked the hall. The singing briefly became secondary, even though Orliński, on vocal break or not, made sure always to be the gravitational center of the room.

That the individual Renaissance rarities had been stitched together into a storyline is something you more or less had to have been told while the pervasive tone of despair in these pieces hardly lends itself to vivid dramaturgy. Good, then, that Orliński eventually spiced things up – strolling through the aisles while singing (which produced some delightful acoustic effects), playing the lovesick old woman in “Quanto più la donna invecchi” with comedy bordering on slapstick, or shaking his hips to wild cadenzas in the encores. The fans adored it; they lapped it up: roaring enthusiasm in a full house. That he also benefited considerably from outstanding musicians – above all cornett, harp, violins, and viola – should not go unmentioned.


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Critic’s Notebook: Heavenly Secular Cantatas from the Vienna Academy Orchestra, Martin Haselböck, and The Supremes

Also published in Die Presse: Musikverein: So himmlisch tönen weltliche Kantaten

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 214 "Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!" et al Sampson, Danz, Padmore, Kooy P.Herreweghe / Collegium Vocale Gent (Harmonia Mundi, 2005) US | UK | DE

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 134a "Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht" et al Danz, Ullmann H.Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (Hänssler Classic, 2000) US | UK | DE

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 206 "Schleicht, Spielende Wellen, Und Murmelt Gelinde" et al Larsson, von Magnus, Prégardien, Mertens T.Koopman / Amsterdam BO&C (Erato/Challenge, 1997, 2004) US | UK | DE

Celebratory Bach to Die For

A slice of Bach-heaven on earth, courtesy of the Orchester Wiener Akademie and their soul-stirred singers.

The Orchester Wiener Akademie is a bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes you bite into a bit of a turd. But on Sunday morning in the Musikverein, the hand that reached in pulled out a truffle of the highest order – everything that makes the OWA glorious when it’s in top form. It began with the program. The sounds that filled the Golden Hall were, at first, familiar: the Christmas Oratorio. Fair enough for the first Sunday of Advent, especially in a world that can’t seem to tell Advent and Christmas apart anymore.

But – thankfully – it wasn’t the Oratorio. It was the secular cantata BWV 214, Tönet ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! – the birthday serenade for Maria Josepha, whose best bits Bach later upcycled into his Christmas cycle. (“Upcycling” is exactly what we’d call that common Baroque practice today – all the more since Bach only ever parodied from worldly works upwards to sacred ones, never the other way round.) Alongside came Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre Macht, BWV 134a, and another grand secular cantata, Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206 – in which four rivers, the Danube included, butter up Elector Friedrich August II. (Its cheerful relief that the Vistula is no longer clogged with body parts offers a vivid glimpse into 17th-century daily reality.)

Magnificent works all, and in magnificent scoring. And what a band! Beyond the aforementioned brilliantly buoyant natural trumpets, the melting flute trio, the ever-superb solo oboe, the cello, and strings playing with real intent, there was an eight-singer team (doubling as chorus) that made the heart leap. To single out individuals feels downright caddish – and yet: the round-toned tenderness Stefan Zenkl that showed ; the way Daniel Johannsen (who can breathe life into any text to make the soul smile) and Reginald Mobley (even with a smaller but lively voice) let the duet “Es streiten, es siegen” flow and dance; how Miriam Feuersinger sang her Bellona with intimate intensity – it was delight, pure and simple.

And so the music streamed along joyfully, steered with blissful sureness by Martin Haselböck, fully in his element.

Photocredit: Amar Mehmedinovic

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Critic’s Notebook: The Vienna Symphony in Mozart and Haydn’s Nelson-Mass w/Andrea Marcon

Also published in Die Presse: Mozart im Musikverein: Wo warst du, Ádám?

Wolfgang A. Mozart Symphony Nos. 32, 38, 40, Josef Krips / Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Philips, 2007) US | UK | DE

Joseph Haydn Nelson Mass John Eliot Gardiner / Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Orchestra (Archiv, 2000) US | UK | DE

Where Were You, Ádám?

A fine evening of great Viennese Classicism from the Vienna Symphony — but a lingering “what if?”

As long as the unmistakable sounds of Mozart’s “Great” G-minor Symphony still stir childhood memories in us, concert halls will never run empty. Whether that is an optimistic or pessimistic outlook is another matter. In any case, the Golden Hall was respectably full on Saturday night when the Vienna Symphony let this work unfold. A wistfully radiant mood emanated from the penultimate of Wolfgang Amadé’s symphonies — a piece that seems like the very quintessence of the Mozartian spirit. The orchestra supplied a good portion of that, playing the first movement with lively, if not exactly “light” but buoyantly supple, verve. On the podium, replacing the indisposed Ádám Fischer, stood Andrea Marcon, who managed to retain some of that spring in the third and fourth movements’ step as well.

At this point, Fischer — who has a great rapport with the orchestra — was not yet sorely missed. But in the ensuing “Nelson Mass” by Haydn, he decidedly was. The Wiener Singverein was not to blame; they sang with heart and commitment. The solo quartet, on the other hand, though each contributed something solid individually, never really blended. Peter Mauro: solid and unobtrusive, which is not the worst you could say about a tenor. Mezzo Yajie Zhang: milky, with generous vibrato, but somewhat vague and indistinct. Florian Bösch: dark-hued, clear, impeccable. And then Katharina Konradi, who in her opening notes sounded like a car alarm going off — piercing, sharp, impossible to ignore — but had found her voice by the Gloria, singing expressively, if several decibels above the rest, as befits a Bayreuth Woglinde.

The Rieger organ sounded like something out of the Addams Family, and the orchestra — ultimately a touch unfocused in the Agnus Dei — seemed to reduce itself to accompaniment. Thank goodness the music is magnificent.


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Critic’s Notebook: RSO & Poschner - The Harmonists Strike Back

Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein

E-S.Tüür, Piano Concerto, Sy.#7, P.Järvi / Frankfurt RSO, NDR Chorus / L.Mikkola ECM

Erkki-Sven Tüür Symphony No.5, Prophecy (Accordion Concerto) Nguyên Lê, Mika Väyrynen Olari Elts, Helsinki PO (Ondine, 2007) US | UK | DE

Moussa and Tüür, Wagner & Strauss: An ear-friendly Vienna RSO Concert of the New and the Old

Ear-friendly modernism and Romantic staples with the RSO under Poschner

Having a premiere is easy; getting three performances in four years (in Vienna alone) is decidedly not. Yet that’s the trick Samy Moussa pulled off with Elysium, now played by the RSO in the Konzerthaus under Markus Poschner after being premiered by the Montréal Symphony Orchestra in ’22 and included on a program of the Vienna Philharmonic under Thielemann last year. From its first catchy chords—with glissandi floating back and forth so thickly, they acted like opulent portamenti—Moussa’s work wants to please. Not a lot actually happens within the dense sonic surface, but that hardly matters—no more than the fact that one often feels reminded of very good film music.

More substance is found in the more demanding Lux Stellarum by Erkki-Sven Tüür, one of the most interesting composers of the last several decades: a genuinely individual voice, ideology-free and fully his own. The flute concerto crackles and rattles; its solo part, played by dedicatee Emmanuel Pahud, shifts between acrobatic whistling and lyrical introspection. Here, too, sound-plates slide over one another, but of a smaller, more varied sort—broken up by rhythms that, time and again, provide little jolts of surprise.

Tüür the symphonist (he’s written ten so far; Nos. Five and Seven are essential listening) never panders. The modernity of his music is never concealed or coyly muffled, yet it remains consistently consonant. That this aspect, in this 14th of now 16 RSO-commission concerts, falls largely to the orchestra may be due to the solo instrument: it doesn’t wander far from the conventional contemporary flute vocabulary, even though Tüür is himself a flutist. (Checking it out for yourself will be possible soon enough: together with his newest concerto, the Oboe Concerto, Lux Stellarum will be released before long with the Tonhalle-Orchester under Paavo Järvi on Alpha.) Both works do the RSO’s mission proud and reflect the orchestra’s heartening tendency not to cede the terrain of ear-friendly modernism to the ivory-tower avant-garde. For that, Poschner is just the right man—there’s so much beautiful music to un- and rediscover that other orchestras rarely, if ever, touch. (Is it too much to hope now, for an RSO Hartmann-Symphony Cycle and a Karl Höller Focus?)

The more conventional second half offered Wagner’s Parsifal Prelude and Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration. The Wagner—apparently the fourth-place finisher when it came to rehearsal time but not much more often played by this orchestra than either new piece —was, despite largely lovely string sound, not quite as polished as aimed-for. But in the seamlessly ensuing Strauss everything snapped back into place. The way early Strauss rises from stillness and quiet into a gloriously Straussian racket, only to come to rest in nostalgic sweetness, was wonderfully shaped and admirably delivered by the orchestra—both as a collective and in its individual contributions.


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