Critic’s Notebook: An Orgy of Musicality with Ollikainen, Larcher, Strauss, Widmann

Also published in Die Presse: Unbekanntes von Großen – und Großes von einem lebenden Komponisten

T.Larcher Kenotaph H.Lintu, Finnish RSO (Ondine, 2021) US | UK | DE

R.Strauss Violin Concerto / Aus Italien M.Poschner, R.Kowalski, O.d.Svizzera Italiana (CPO, 2017) US | UK | DE

New Wine in Old Wineskins

The Bruckner Orchestra shone, from filigreed to ferocious, under Eva Ollikainen in Larcher and Strauss

Welcome back! Almost ten years have passed since Thomas Larcher’s Second Symphony, Kenotaph, was premiered in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein to mark the Austrian National Bank’s 200th anniversary. (My Forbes.com review of the premiere.) On Sunday afternoon the Bruckner Orchestra Linz brought it back to the same spot. It’s a grand piece (and not only es regards length); an “extraordinary coup”, as Wilhelm Sinkovicz put it at the time, or (as I put it) "a brilliantly entertaining symphonic tour de force". Larcher pours new wine into old skins – and although it occasionally rattles and strains at the seams, nothing bursts. The classical symphonic shape, unabashedly modern yet consistently consonant and traceable in its musical narrative. And that refers not to the lament over drowned refugees embedded in Kenotaph, but to music written for the listeners rather than against them. Even when the ten-armed percussion squad bangs its way through the punchiest moments with all tentacles flailing, none of the numerous sonic effects feels overused or gratuitous. Kenotaph never turns into a percussion orgy, and no glissando-flood washes over the – at times quite rough, inventive, and varied – music.

A few walkouts after the first movement, and again in the third – somehow fitting, seeing how the movmeent is about refugees – there were anyway. Even in the slow movement, which could be called conciliatory lyrical… although there's also a threatening element to that lyricism, no doubt. The pizzicato-bubbles of the violins that foamed up in the spray of sound were not enough for some. Under Eva Ollikainen, the work sounded swifter, more propulsive, with more energy drawn from motion than from the sheer piling-up of sonorities – than under Bychkov, assuming memory serves. Back then the ensuing Heldenleben that was also on the program became a footnote. This time, thanks to Ollikainen – one of the most heartening podium presences of the year – and Carolin Widmann, neither the accompanying Strauss nor Bruckner became an afterthought – even though both pieces were early works, and are not counted among the finest either composer produced.

Bruckner’s rather Wagnerian "youthful" ouverture, written at 38, came across almost cheekily; it surprised with flashes of playful lightness and the occasional Weberian moment (Carl Maria von, not Anton). The whole thing was played with the kind of cleanliness, color, commitment, and precision one hopes for from an orchestra bearing the composer’s name.

Strauss’ Violin Concerto – likewise a rarity but a welcome guest on any program – is another of those pieces: not a masterpiece, but fascinating, and absolutely dependent on being played outstandingly well if it’s going to make any impression. No problem for these artists. Widmann’s rich, velvety, yet pointed, even sharp-edged tone brought exactly the intensity this post-pubescent work – Strauss was sixteen – needs. Anyone who had filed Widmann (despite a reference recording of the Schumann sonatas) into the “modern music” drawer was, at long last, corrected.




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Critic’s Notebook: Concentus Musicus and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in Seasonal Bach

Also published in Die Presse: Feiern mit dem Concentus: Bach im Musikverein

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio N.Harnoncourt, Concentus, ASC (DHM, 2007) US | UK | DE

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio J.v.Veldhoven, Nederlandse Bachvereniging (Challenge, 2003gg) US | UK | DE

Bach and a Message for Contemplation

Stefan Gottfried is not Nikolaus Harnoncourt, but that's OK

In the winter of 2006/2007, Nikolaus Harnoncourt led and recorded the Christmas Oratorio in the Golden Hall with Concentus Musicus, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, and an incomparable line-up of singers (Christine Schäfer, Bernarda Fink, Werner Güra, Christian Gerhaher, Gerald Finley).

On Saturday evening, in that very same hall, Stefan Gottfried conducted the same forces in the first two of the six cantatas that make up the oratorio. Had Werner Güra not fallen ill, one of those original soloists would even have been back.

Anyone who’s carried either the recording or the memory of it in their inner ear and compared the two would not have failed to notice that the twenty-year-old interpretation sounded fresher, brisker, more spontaneous: colourful, warm, heartfelt, yet crisp.

It would have been a pity to let such an—admittedly unfair—comparison keep one from appreciating the beautiful things offered here. Must everything always be a chase for superlatives, for “events”, for the sensational? Must every concert be earth-shattering? Must we, just because a performance may not eclipse everything previously heard, immediately grumble and go excavating for tiny blemishes to justify our disappointment? “Aha! The continuo organ wasn’t always in rhythm. There—those trumpets squeaked. An oboe was flat. Or the stand-in evangelist sounded heraldic rather than urgent or particularly text-attuned. And the soprano’s mordents and trills were more of a wobbled vibrato.” Can’t something simply be good?

Yes. It can, and it should. Especially in this reflective season, when one might consider not letting the best become the enemy of the good. Why not, then, delight in the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, in sensational shape, singing their choruses and chorales with precision, point, and an impressive dynamic span: “Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light!” — what a radiant line, that alone. Or take Olivia Vermeulen’s tenderly delivered “Schlafe, mein Liebster”. Or, in the Advent cantata of the first half, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”: the delicately sustained recitative “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür”, sung by bass Manuel Walser. Or again the choir, in the instructive chorale “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, und vergiss all Not und Qual” from Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!

And then there was the Concentus itself, playing with commitment and good spirit — even if the exuberant timpanist, alternately whispering and metaphorically (and literally) hitting the big drum, almost stole the show in the first cantata, which proclaims to us the joyful news of Christ’s birth. In short: It was beautiful.

Concentus Musicus Wien

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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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