Critic’s Notebook: Bremen Chamber Philharmonic & Janine Jansen Wow in Vienna
Also reviewed for Die Presse: Bremer Stadtmusikanten erobern Wien
Town Musicians of Bremen Delight the Musikverein-Crowd
Precise, colorful, committed, to the point, and darned dramatic — that’s how the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi whipped up Schubert’s Eighth — the “Unfinished” — Symphony at the Musikverein. All hallmarks of this orchestra–conductor partnership, which, even in its 21st year, shows little sign of wear. The pinpoint cues, the evenly shaped crescendos, the clean, secure tone of the strings — especially in quiet passages — practically leapt out at the ear and set this apart from your average ‘pretty good’ concert fare. (It is gratifying, really, how easy the excellent concerts, when they occurr, distinguish themselves from the middle-of-the-road fare!)
The same picture in Schubert’s Fourth Symphony, played in the second half. The only thing that's “Tragic” about this work is really only how boring it tends to sound in the hands of so many, even the most famous, conductors. Not here! With the Paavo–Bremen combo, there's a snap and bang, almost even before the first chord has landed — so lightning-fast comes the entry. And from that moment on, everything is wildly exaggerated: dynamics, phrasing, rhythm, absurdly fast tempi. Wherever something can be ratcheted up, it is. Anything that can be sharpened, is. You'd think the result would be an overwraught, artificial mess — like a hyperrealist painting by Denis Peterson. Nothing of the kind. It all stays tasteful, and the symphony comes alive for a change, becomes electrifying — just as the first big symphonic statement of an 18-year-old should, goshdarnit.
If the orchestra had just a wee bit less focus in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto to offer, Janine Jansen more than made up for it. In a thin black pleated dress with wide sleeves, resembling a musical bat mid-flight, she played with a astonishingly intense piano (verging on pianissimo). To produce that much sound with such ease and airiness must surely also have impressed Marin Alsop and Philippe Jordan, who popped in, because they weren’t about to miss this. Less fitting, after the super-vital Schubert, though heartbreakingly beautiful and so very, very gorgeous, was the Sibelian Andante Festivo as encore.
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