Critic’s Notebook: David Robertson and the Australian Youth Orchestra in Vienna

P.Sculthorpe Earth Cry, Piano Cto. W.Barton, T.A.Cislowska NZSO, James Judd Naxos (2004) US | UK | DE

Rimsky-Korsakov* (*of sorts) Sheherazade LSO, Stokowski Decca Japan US | UK | DE

Youthful Goodness from Down Under

The Australian Youth Orchestra under David Robertson stops by the Musikverein

If you are a young serious musician, there are two concert halls at the top of your list that you would want to get to play in, once in your life. If one of them is Carnegie Hall, the musicians of the Australian Youth Orchestra got to tick the other one off their bucket list, last Sunday morning at the Musikverein.

Sure, their concert took place a bit outside the season, but with lots of help from the Australian Embassy, handing tickets to anyone on their cultural rolodex, the place was very nicely filled with enthusiastic supporters. Who knows, with nothing else going on in Vienna (except touristy nonsense, as all the music festivals have started their season, maybe the AYO even got a small discount on the rental of the Golden Hall.

Be that as it may, the concert looked enticing enough. Good youth orchestras are well worth hearing in general, and especially so on tour, because they play the heck out of their music in ways that cannot be expected from professional orchestras with more experience but also more routine. Moreover, the AYO came with another asset in tow: Conductor David Robertson. Much underrated, even in the U.S. – where he has been a known quantity for decades – and even more so in Europe – despite having given his (unplanned) debut with the Berlin Philharmonic earlier this year – it’s always been a bit of a surprise to me, that he hadn’t been named to lead one of the big US orchestras. (Instead, he had a long and fruitful 13 seasons with the St. Louis Symphony and eight with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.)

Incidentally, he didn’t conduct the opening piece of the matinee. Instead, he gave the podium to the young Australian assistant conductor of the AYO, who had helped Robertson prepare the orchestra, letting Carlo Antonioli make his debut at the Musikverein, conducting the Peter Sculthorpe “classic” (almost) Earth Cry, the composer’s de-facto didgeridoo concerto, with soloist William Barton. A little feather in Antonioli’s cap and a nice gesture from Robertson. Gurgling a drone, as one does on said instrument, Barton wandered onto stage as if preparing the ground for the other musicians to do their bit. It’s a bit on the nose, as an “Australia” signifier, but so is taking a picture with a koala when visiting, yet both are still a lot of fun and effective to get the message across.

Just as a recently purchased vehicle invariably will have “new car smell”, so young conductors have “new conductor look”: A certain way of moving. Deliberate, sincere… a bit as if teacher was watching. Some never seem to shake the habit but usually it just goes away on its own. It certainly didn’t inhibit a very clean performance of Earth Cry, in any case.

More youngsters at work: For the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, the AYO brought the very young (17, for another two months) Australian violinist Christian Li with them, touted to be the youngest (junior category) winner of the Menuhin Competition for Young Violinists. (An honor he shares with Julia Fischer, 1995, and Daishin Kashimoto, 1993, which isn’t bad company.) And bloody hell, the lad can play! Clean as a whistle, for starters, a bit proper, certainly ticking all the boxes: tone, sound, gradations, a varied vibrato... After a worryingly sweet beginning that briefly threatened treacle, that was shed, too, and what was left was tenacity and determined beauty. His young music-making compatriots did they their share too, with spirited support, lovely pianissimos, and lively spurts.

The second half was given over to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade, a perfect vehicle for showboating an orchestra. And that’s exactly what happened. The sonorous opening, with depth and grip, was impressive right out of the gate. The strings: terrific throughout. But guided with patience and exactitude by Robertson, every section and plenty first chairs got to exhibit their considerable talents, with the bassoon, oboe, and cello being particularly impressive. The woodwinds, as a group, had moments in all-too-dense fortissimos, that were shrill with excitement, adding a briefly painful sharp edge.

Even so, the performance could not quite mask the episodic nature of the piece – perhaps a consequence of a touch too much diligent highlighting of individual performances. Not that it dampened the enthusiasm of the supporters, friends, and regular listeners in the hall. “I know lunch is waiting”, Robertson addressed the crowd in German, “but…” he served them an appetizer of his own making, all the same: “Joyful Noise”, an encore he wrote for the orchestra of minimally Stravinskyan, broad, charming, sometime chorale-like work with a mildly repetitive string part that sounds as if the orchestra could not get out of one of its shoes, despite its best attempts, followed by fleeting spherical moments and dabs of… maybe Reger? Fair enough cap to an impressive concert.

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Remembering Sir Roger Norrington: An Appreciation

This Friday, July 18th, Sir Roger Norrington, a pioneer, a crackling wit in the classical music scene, a researcher, a gentleman-rebel, and a wonderful musician, has passed away at the ripe age of 91. Few people are afforded to touch as many lives as positively; to strike as many chords, to resonate so considerably with so many people as did Norrington – and all of that, senza vibrato!

Norrington (OBE, CBE, Knight), born on 16 March 1934 in Oxford, to a very Oxfordian family, was a towering figure in the English and international Historically Informed Performance scene. In 1962 he founded the Schütz Choir, with which he made his first Proms appearance in 1966. In this, coming from the choral tradition (his father was in the Oxford Bach Choir, of which Norrington became the President), he followed a trajectory that was typical for HIP conductors. But (although there was a good amount of, obviously, Schütz and Monteverdi – but also Berlioz, already) he was also one of the first conductors in said scene to focus very soon on the classical and romantic periods. He did so, primarily with the London Classical Players which he founded in 1978. Before (and for six more years after) that, he spent formative years with the Kent Opera, from 1969 to 1984. (The Kent Opera was eventually nixed by the Arts Council in 1989, because, hey, why not!)

The London Classical Players eventually became a major force in HIP performance and recording, a cornerstone of the British period-instrument movement, and stacked with the many period instrumentalists that were loitering about London at the time and who also filled the seats of many of the other early music bands that would follow suit. In 1986, EMI, on its (largely forgotten) early music imprint Reflexe, had him start on the Beethoven Symphonies, which upended ears around the classically interested globe, shocking, delighting and, in a few cases, horrifying Beethoven lovers everywhere. (“Norrington’s atrocious complete symphony cycle”, D.Hurwitz) How do they hold up, almost half a century later? Well, the playing is admittedly rough, which, with some charitability, you could call: exciting. The tempi are fast but no longer that fast, in comparison. (Then again, HvK was already pretty fast, for his time) The performances definitely have a pioneer-spirit about them and reek of gasoline. But I wouldn't say they're unattractive. In some ways, they are among the most audacious Beethoven performances of the time, and a good deal of that is still transmitted.

I don’t mind if a performance is unhistorical; I do mind if it isn’t fun.

L.v.Beethoven Symphonies London Classical Players EMI/Virgin (1986-88) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphonies Stuttgart RSO Hässler (live, 2002) US | UK | DE

J.Haydn Symphonies 99-104 London Classical Players EMI/Virgin (1992/93) US | UK | DE

H.Berlioz Symphonie fantastique London Classical Players EMI/Virgin (1989) US | UK | DE

A.Bruckner Symphonies 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 Stuttgart RSO Hässler (2006) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Stuttgart RSO Hässler (2007?) US | UK | DE

Also early-on came some recordings of Haydn, which were probably my introduction to Norrington, back when I eagerly collected and listened to, whatever I could get my ears on, between the BMG Record Club and Tower Records. Hailed for their “erratic brilliance”, they still had to fight against longstanding favorites from stalwarts like Jochum and Davis, in the reviewers’ estimation. But Haydn may have been something like the godfather of Norrington’s musical adventures. The wit, humor, quirk, Puck united them, and it is not a coincidence that Norrington ended his performing career on November 18, 2021, leading the Royal Northern Sinfonia in an evening of a wildly diverse program of all-Haydn at Sage Gateshead.

While Norrington certainly researched each work and each composer painstakingly, before tackling the music, and while he held firm – even dogmatic – beliefs (especially about the absence of vibrato – here’s an op-ed of his in The Guardian: ”Bad vibrations” and one in the NYT, titled ”Time to Rid the Orchestras of the Shakes”), which opened him up to a few broadsides), his ultimate goal was always to have fun with the music; to make it entertaining. “The reason to do so is not because pure tone is ‘authentic’,” he concludes that op-ed, “but because it is beautiful, expressive and exciting.”

It is true, his ideas and his approach did not work equally well for all the music or on all the occasions he performed. Norrington, once dubbed “as stubborn and dogmatic and controversial a musician as one is likely to encounter these days” (Sudip Bose, in an article for The American Scholar, where he makes a beautiful case for Norrington), was accused of being a charlatan by some, and “just a man with a bizarre fixation ruining the music he conducts.” (This from a review in The Times from Stephen Pollard).

This kind of hyperbole always struck me as a curious mix of impotence and bluster. Things can not to be one’s liking, of course. One may, indeed, deem someone’s ideas about certain music poppycock. But clearly someone like Norrington was not out to wilfully desecrate music or ruin our enjoyment of it, whether his theories where right or wrong or the execution of it lacking. I’ve indulged in my share of hyperbole, even of that sort, but Norrington playing an Elgar Symphony or Pomp and Circumstance, is not akin to “burning torches at the gates of Buckingham Palace.” It’s just a bloody Elgar, or Beethoven, or Mahler, or (as it were) Bruckner Symphony played not to one’s liking. Switch the CD, go to another concert, you’ll hear it more to your liking. Vive la difference.

Incidentally, it was a Bruckner performance, that I first heard Roger Norrington in concert with. He was guest conducting the National Symphony Orchestra, not the most natural Bruckner Orchestra, and (reviewing it for ionarts) I approached it with some caution:

Sir Roger Norrington conducting is always an event, but when he takes on Bruckner, the Brucknerian must fear for the worst. The “worst” in this case being a playing style that conforms (or allegedly conforms) to the way these symphonies were performed during Bruckner’s time. Or, to be more precise: how this particular symphony would have been performed, had it been performed at all, since Norrington opted for the ‘original original’ version of Bruckner’s 4th – the 1874 Nowak edition that did not receive an outing in that form until 1975 with the Munich Philharmonic.

It was not a great success and I felt “rather conflicted” about it. Part of the problem with Norrington’s approach was, that it depended on the absolute will and ability of his orchestras to go along with this non-vibrato approach. Even with all the will in the world, not a given with any professional orchestra, a few rehearsals cannot suffice to master this approach in a way that the music will achieve the desired effect and lift-off.

Much of this was very interesting, like seeing a favorite building from a different angle for the first time. But it was also a building where the parts didn’t quite seem to fit together, as though they were glued together just a bit off, or puzzle pieces forced to fit when they don’t quite.

The London Classical Players, even if they could be a bit scrawny, in the 80s, had the will and drilling. So did the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the second major continental orchestra with which he held a position, next to the Camerata Salzburg (1997 to 2006). These willing Stuttgarters he led for 13 years and they became a vehicle for him to prove his point. He may never have fully convinced the majority of scholars – but his performance became increasingly convincing. For me, the musical triumph of this approach, came in unlikely recording success, fairly late in his Stuttgart tenure, when he put out interpretations of Bruckner’s Sixth and Mahler’s Ninth symphonies that knocked my socks off, when I heard them. (ClassicsToday’s David Hurwitz*, never a fan and vocal in trying to debunk Norrington’s vibrato-theories, called his “Stupid Mahler Ninth”.)

Norrington gives the great diffuser and comfort-smudger that permanent vibrato admittedly is, the boot, and has his modern instrument violinists, violists, cellists, and double basses hit the notes and play them clean without—literally—the wiggle room that vibrato provides, intonation-wise. Since his orchestra knows how to do that now, the sound isn’t off; instead, it’s more direct, seeming a little more strident at first, a little sharper, but certainly also more detailed and clearer… Loving this performance [doesn’t mean] being sold on his theory to the exclusion of the various other current ways of performing Mahler, but I, well… I love it. There is a zany bite and yet a plain simplicity to the music that is very refreshing, gripping, and exciting…

His Bruckner Sixth is, if anything, even better (see the ionarts “Best Recordings of 2010 – ‘Almost List’”). The Stuttgarters’ sharp attacks, crisp tempi, and lean textures work much better in Bruckner’s Sixth than you’d ever guess. It’s a perfect spoil to Celibdiache’s Sixth with the Munich Philharmonic or Haitink’s stupendous Dresden performance. Norrington and the orchestra make the music sound feisty where it should, and gleam along where it may. Both recordings make Norrington’s point not by dint of ideology but his true mantra for which the HIP elements were merely the means: Music needs to sound good. Concertgoers, listeners, even those he may have infuriated on occasion, will certainly cherish his memory, his life, his enormous contribution to music, and his wonderful, smiling legacy.

* In defense of Dave: When he liked something by Norrington, even in unlikely repertoire, he would say so, although not usually without some barbs to make his general point.
P.S. A tribute from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenement.


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Critic’s Notebook: Manfred Honeck Scintillating with the VSO; Kavakos brooding in Korngold

Also published in Die Presse: Dirigent Manfred Honeck ließ im Musikverein die Funken sprühen

E.W.Korngold (& Barber) Violin Concerto(s) Gil Shaham / A.Previn / LSO DG (1994) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphonies 5 & 7 M.Honeck / Pittsburg SO Reference SACD (2015) US | UK | DE

Exuberance and Musical Joy with Manfred Honeck

The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, inspired-sounding, under the West-Austrian maestro from Pittsburgh

There aren’t many conductors who make you think: No matter what, where, or with whom – I need to be there and hear them. Manfred Honeck – who, over the past 17 years, has turned the fine Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra into one of the world’s most interesting ensembles – is one of them. Saturday night’s concert with the Vienna Symphony at the Musikverein offered ample reasons why.

Perhaps not quite yet in the Austrian premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Frozen Dreams, a joint commission by Pittsburgh, the Vienna Symphony, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (alias dictus Musikverein) – where one’s ears were primarily busy just taking in the new music. Soundscapes (a bowed gong, singing glasses, eventually the string sections) gently crept forward, pushing against the rustling restlessness of the hall. A wry smile, recalling Alfred Schnittke, underlies the piece when Auerbach lets familiar-sounding tunes dart through the abstract tectonics of her musical landscape – or when she just brusquely wipes away those friendly gestures with a broad orchestral swipe.

Perhaps also still not quite in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto: Not here, simply because the soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, was squarely at the center of it all. It’s pretty safe to say that this concerto has arrived in the repertoire: this was already the fourth time it’s been heard in Vienna this season, and thrice with major performers. In February with the Tonkünstler and Simone Lamsma and in May with the VSO (!) and Renaud Capuçon.

Kavakos, by nature not a grandstanding, overwrought kind of soloist, is perfectly suited to this music that straddles the concert hall and Hollywood. Full-bodied and penetrating, charged with inner tension, and – despite a surprisingly broad and heavy vibrato – never soupy, he set the tone for the performance. That even an intonation-animal like him brushes up against the limits of ambiguity in the tricky Andante shows that Korngold offers his performers beauty, but not ease. (Capuçon and Lamsma were cleaner, more distict here, though neither brought anything like his expressiveness to the work.) The finale buzzed and hummed with energy. After that, his encore – the Bach "Loure" from Partita No.3 in E major, abstract and played right at the edge – felt like a glass of ice water.

Finally, in the Beethoven, Honeck’s influence came into focus. There was so much to discover and enjoy in this Seventh Symphony, for all its familiarity. It started with the fundamentals: articulation, phrasing. The crescendos were organic. Even at breakneck speed, there was never haste; never panic over bungled notes. Never lost in minutiae, he kept the momentum flowing just right. Sparks flew with intensity.

P.S.: This merits a little rant: The VSO is bloody lucky to have Honeck return to them regularly (he will be back in October with Anne-Sofie Mutter!); the Vienna Phil insane for not trying to tie him to the orchestra of which he was a violist-member for ten years. Is it, because his brother Rainer is their concert-master? Something is decidedly amiss when the Vienna Phil evidently avoids a conductor who, on paper, would be a perfect fit, one who is among the best regarded, most exciting maestros of our time, and who has such ample feeling for the 'Viennese style'. He should have been conducting the bloody New Year's concert oodles of times by now, instead the orchestras he has conducted at the Musikverein include the Pittsburgh and Munich Philharmonics, the Vienna Symphony, the Webern SO, a bloody student orchestra, the Jeunesse Youth Orchestra, the Swedish RSO, the MDRSO, and the ORF-RSO... but not the Vienna Phil. Anyone suggesting that anything but politicking and shady Viennese machinations are the reson for this, does not know this snake-put of a town well enough, methinks.
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Critic’s Notebook: The VSO, Petr Popelka, Renaud Capuçon in LvB, Strauss/Strauß & Korngold

Also published in Die Presse: Konzerthaus: Die Symphoniker wissen, wie Schlagobers klingen muss

E.W.Korngold (& LvB) Violin Concerto(s) R. Capuçon / Y.Nézet-Séguin / Rotterdam PO Virgin/Erato (2009) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Rosenkavalier-Suite et al. H.Blomstedt / J.Y.Thibaudet / Gewandhaus Decca (2005) US | UK | DE

Viennese Double Cream, Manifest in Music

The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, under their chief conductor, show their spirited side again.

Hearing Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture live is a rare pleasure: late, brisk, and genial Beethoven, in a nutshell — sparkling and, especially under chief conductor Petr Popelka, played with the requisite vitality by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening. What a difference a conductor makes, compared to the previous outing of flat-out-boredom!

That refined opening was followed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto — a work that, after a few decades of raised eyebrows, has now rightly claimed its spot in the standard repertoire. Its mix of luscious sweep and taut structure places it not far behind the most beloved examples of the genre. But both soloist and orchestra are called upon to respect those boundaries in either direction — lest the piece lose form, focus, or character.

Renaud Capuçon, a fundamentally solid and sound violinist, seemed unsure of which interpretive path to take and wrestled with the first two movements more than expected. The orchestra, by contrast, was in fine form — clear, nuanced, with that seasoned self-possession one hopes for. By the time the more assured third movement came around, Capuçon had managed to pull things together. His encore, Massenet’s Méditation (with harpist Volker Kempf), was a direct hit in the crowd-pleaser department, sappy, served on a bed of cold calcuation.

The kinship between Josef Strauss’s Dynamiden Waltz and Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier Waltzes may be obvious on paper, but by the time the latter shows up — so much other music has gone by, you’ve nearly forgotten the Josef. Overflowing, teetering on Salome-esque wildness, Popelka led it like a freshly stretched rubber band. Go figure: it can be done!

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Critic’s Notebook: The Tonkünstler, Fabien Gabel, and Simone Lamsma in a Viennese-as-it-gets Evening

Also published in Die Presse: Romantik ohne Kitsch: Ein perfekter Wiener Abend im Musikverein

R.Strauss Compl.Schlagobers-Suite N.Järvi/Detroit SO Chandos (2015) US | UK | DE

E.W.Korngold (& Barber) Violin Concerto(s) Gil Shaham / A.Previn / LSO DG (1994) US | UK | DE

A Perfectly Viennese Evening

February 15^th, 2025: The Tonkünstler Orchestra offered a night as Viennese — and sugary — as they come.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Tales of Strauss, a piano fantasy turned orchestral suite, is a delectable stroll through the Strauss family’s waltz garden. Played here by the Tonkünstler Orchestra at the Musikverein, it came in a lush orchestration — not by the composer himself, but with his approval. There were knowing smiles and gently nodding heads in the audience whenever a particularly familiar motif peeked through. If that doesn’t make your soul smile and chase away the day’s worries, you're in trouble.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto is no less Viennese at heart — even if the surface sheen might conjure Hollywood.After all: John Williams and his ilk all studied at the feet of the master (when they did not outright plagiarize him). Simone Lamsma played it in fine style, full-bodied and just a touch bristly: none too sweet — just enough to savor the heady tone without drowning in kitsch. The orchestra, under Fabien Gabel, surrounded her with lush romanticism — supportive but never smothering. That the audience responded with enthusiasm is no surprise: Op. 35 is one of the great underappreciated violin concertos of the 20th century — alongside, arguably, Samuel Barber’s and Wolf-Ferrari’s.

Finally, the bit the other Strauss — Richard — came up with, when he reached into the Viennese pastry box: His rarely performed but utterly charming Schlagobers Suite. The politely winking exoticism of the Coffee Dance leads to a nested romance for violin and orchestra, which concertmaster Lieke te Winkel navigated beautifully: Two Dutch soloists in one night! Echoes of the Rosenkavalier glimmer along the edges of this otherwise heavy, calorie-rich whipped-cream waltz. That the orchestra made it through the entire sugar-drenched program in such strong form — and without indigestion — is heartening, since Gabel is the Tonkünstler’s chief-conductor-designate.

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Critic’s Notebook: Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 4

Also published in Die Presse: Konzerthaus: Chor Hui, Horn Pfui – Sängerische Götterfunken zum Beethoven-Abschluss

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-5 J.Savall, Le Concert des Nations Alia Vox SACDs

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-5 J.Savall, Le Concert des Nations Alia Vox SACDs

Choir Yay, Horn Nay – Divine Sparks to End the Beethoven Cycle

A grand – and long! – finale to the Beethoven cycle of Le Concert des Nations under Jordi Savall with Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9.

Historic, indeed, this first historically informed Beethoven cycle on period instruments at the Konzerthaus, which came to its fire-drunken conclusion on Thursday evening with Symphonies No. 8 and 9.

Rough and energetic was the entrance into Op. 93; one could almost glimpse the Flying Dutchman in the first movement, or premonitions of the Ninth. And yet it’s just the – ever-so-sprightly – little Eighth, languishing in its neglected place between the Seventh, “Apotheosis of the Dance”, and the über-Symphony, "The Ninth", that overshadows all.

Beauty of sound and orchestral color were not this ensemble’s priorities, on this occasion. Rather rhythmic urgency and raw energy are its strengths – at least in this Beethoven cycle. That a certain nervous tension creeps in from time to time is understandable.

Accordingly thunderous was the dramatic opening of the Ninth; the second movement hurried along more with speed than tension.

The Concert des Nations' Beethoven Symphony Cycle reviewed: Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 1: A Squawking First Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 2: A Tale of two Halfs Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 3: Nearly Ideal Beethoven

Before the third movement, the latecomers – chorus, soloists, piccolo, creaky contrabassoon – entered the stage, and with them the black day of the horn player, whose downward spiral had already begun in the Eighth. A reminder, should one be needed, that even 75 years into the period performance movement, success on that instrument is never guaranteed.

Sensibly, the soloists were positioned at the front of the stage. Full-bodied and dramatic: bass Manuel Walser; the rest – unremarkable, which in the Ninth, especially with the ladies, is usually a good sign. Outshining them all was the chorus.

Just 36 voices, and yet they filled the Grosser Saal with an ease and volume, a physically palpable joy, enthusiasm, and energy that one had been hoping for from the orchestra for eight and a half symphonies. That was the foundation of the audience’s roaring enthusiasm. Ask ChatGPT
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