Critic’s Notebook: A Bum Show from the Wiener Concert-Verein

Enthusiasm and good programming are not sufficient as a substitute for good music-making

S.Coleridge-Taylor, Violin Concerto, Ballade, African Suite Chineke! Orchestra Deccca

S.Coleridge-Taylor, Piano & Clarinet Q5ts Nash Ensemble! Hyperion

This concert was a while back – but it refuses to become less memorable for all the distance I’ve put between us. The “Wiener Concert-Verein” is a telephone chamber orchestra of sorts that was founded in 1987 by young members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, presumably to try out interesting repertoire that they were never going to play with the stuffy ol’ big boys and to get their feet wet. They are now neither associated with the VSO anymore, nor young, but to their great credit, especially given that they exist in Vienna (where it is either Brahms or subsidized avantgarde music but rarely anything between), they still keep up the reasonably interesting programming. A concert in January of this year, for example, featured Elgar’s Introduction & Allegro (Elgar being a rare guest on the continent, that’s nice), a work for string orchestra by Oscar Jockel (made slightly less surprising seeing that Oscar Jockel is their current conductor-in-residence, conducting said concert), Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (a.k.a. “Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra”; not that adventurous no matter which way you twist it), and the always welcome Josef Suk with his Serenade for Strings.

On the occasion of my visit in the Brahms Saal of the Musikverein on December 11th, it was a mix of Mozart (“Serenata notturna”), Johanna Doderer with Ritus, DWV 150 (I sure hope that “Doderer Werke Verzeichnis” number she gives her works, instead of working with opus numbers like mere mortals, is tongue-in-cheek and not unironic off-the-charts-pretentiousness), Joseph Bologne’s Symphony op.11/2, an excerpt from Aldemaro Romero’s Suite for Strings, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Novelette for Strings and Percussion, op.52/1. The Mozart and the out-of-tune first violins sounded like cats on an off day. The concertmaster was hopelessly out of his depth and the lack of coordination was probably not helped by the unorthodox ‘conducting’ of Glass Marcano, who seemed be engaged in something that was equal parts Tai chi, a Philippe Herreweghe imitation, and an interpretative dance.

The Doderer, while not excessively together, was less afflicted by these woes and the music itself is lovely enough: Austro-Pärt, none too complex, easy on the ears if not the patience. The slight and charming Colombe Symphony was promising in the first movement but torpedoed by miserable second violins in the next, unable to take back. The Romero piece is the kind of fun work that makes European audiences feel daringly exotic – and they were egged on by the suggestive, flashy gestures of the conductor moving along to the music. The violins still sounded sour in the primo Coleridge-Taylor (not yet recorded, so someone get to it!), but by and large all hands were on deck again, despite the painfully hapless conducting going on in front of them. Unfathomably, there were encores given: Venezuelan music important to the very enthusiastic Glass Marcano, enthusiastically played too, but sold under value.

Photo © Venezuelasinfonica.com

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