Critic’s Notebook: Markus Poschner's Prayer for a Meermaid
Pictures © Amar Mehmedinovic
Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein
A thrilling concert of little-known late Romanticism — as only the RSO can deliver
Lili Boulanger, with just two dozen works and 24 years to her name, remains one of the most promising composers of the 20th century – a kind of Schubert-in-extremis of Post-Romanticism. Her talent was blindingly evident to colleagues and audiences alike by force of sheer quality. As a result, even though she only lingers at the outer margins of the repertoire, she has never truly been forgotten. And anyone who finds her name on a program and enjoys music somewhere between Debussy and Mahler – or indeed Zemlinsky – needn’t fear that here, some quota has put some mediocrity on stage to appease the zeitgeist. Instead, they can look forward to the very best that symbolist late Romanticism has to offer.
That was confirmed, impressively, by the RSO Vienna and Markus Poschner on Saturday night, when they chose for the first half of their Musikverein concert two of her works: Vieille prière bouddhique (“Old Buddhist Prayer”) and the 130th Psalm (Du fond de l’abîme / “Out of the Depths”). Both were written while the First World War was raging and are, fittingly, incandescent invocations of peace among men. One might, if not paying attention to the text, take the first for a hymn to the sea – so completely did one get swept away in great waves of sound by the orchestra, the chorus (a passionately committed Singverein), and tenor Paul Schweinester from the organ loft.
The way Boulanger handles the colors of these musical forces – in the Psalm further joined by organ and alto solo – the subtlety, the suggestion of power (suggesting it, rather than throwing it about) – is deeply impressive. Boulanger does not indulge, despite the wealth of means at her disposal; she deploys them discriminatingly, if lavishly. Anyone who hasn’t heard her music might imagine a blend of the orgiastic fervor of Mahler’s Eighth and the refinement of Debussy’s La Mer. Were religiosity always this sensual, the churches would be full. As it is, it was satisfying enough that the Golden Hall was nicely filled. A highlight within the highlight: Claudia Mahnke, whose darkly glinting voice and controlled, wide vibrato suited this kind of Romanticism superbly.
It speaks for Zemlinsky’s rightly popular Seejungfrau that she did not sink after such a first half. It’s equally noteworthy, that Zemlinsky got to the nominal main draw of the concert. Despite being a perfectly conventional romantic concert by content, there is on other major orchestra in Vienna that should have dared to program two relatively unknowns like this, no matter how glorious the music. That’s something, however, the RSO can do, and which is why it is so important for the musical landscape in Vienna. If it goes at the expense of playing ungainly contemporary music for the sake of playing it, all the better.
Poschner – who loves the Mermaid and recorded it with the RSO in the course of these performances (for Capriccio) – let the mermaid bubble merrily, the waves crash high, and the orchestra surge passionately forward. That it got very loud in the front rows was, in the Musikverein (where the work premiered in 1905), hardly avoidable. At times, one could imagine how a dolphin might feel swimming past an offshore wind farm. One wished, in those moments, for the Konzerthaus, where the work’s wonderful details would have stood a better chance of survival – and where the work was re-premiered in 1985, upon rediscovery. Still, it capped an overwhelming evening.
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