Critic’s Notebook: Of Bruckner and Scaffolds with the Vienna Symphony

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Gotteslob und Fallbeil: Constantinos Carydis setzt im Konzerthaus auf Kontrast

Great Contrasts and Constantinos Carydis' missing bells of brass

On paper, the program didn’t look all that promising. In one half Anton Bruckner’s tricky Te Deum – too short to be the main ingredient, too large – full orchestra, choir, four soloists, organist – not to be. In the other Berlioz’ “me-me-me”, secular-as-can-be Symphonie fantastique. A smidgen of Arvo Pärt (Psalom) before the former, a soupçon of obscure Bruckner (Perger Präludium) before the latter. It was on Constantinos Carydis and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra to show that this somehow worked in concert. And so he did.

Thunderously bombastic Te Deum

Psalom for strings and chorus, which featured tenacious, sinewy string playing from the first desks and appears to be quietly working to a climax long in the coming (it never comes), led directly into the opening of the Te Deum which hit like a thundercloud. Chorus and timpani hammered away with such fury and pitch-black basses from Vienna’s Singakademie, that many a Verdi Requiem couldn’t have measured up against it. That’s how to work that piece, which doesn’t respond that great to too much nuance. With sheer granitic power, however, it stood there like an unquestionable monolith. Soprano Louise Adler sailed above the Vienna Symphony’s raucous contribution. Alto Sophie Harmsen was almost too elegant in this context, but her part is limited, which is why the Te Deum is one of the best checks for a mezzo per note. The bass rumbled, in its way more suitably, through the music; the tenor sounded strained and uneven – but it didn’t really matter, amid the glorious, sulfuric performance.

For Whom the Bells Toll

Where Psalom is a simplistic piece of haunting charm that worked well as a prelude to the Te Deum, Bruckner’s Perger Präludium, is as short as it is banal, and does little to prepare for Berlioz – but it’s a check mark on your Bruckner-2024 bingo card and the organist was already in the house. Perhaps the C major was meant to pivot nicely into the C minor of “Rêveries, Passions“. The latter, however, was an auspicious, terrific start into the Berlioz, as finely nuanced, elegant, and effervescent as the Bruckner was monumental, while still probing the whole dynamic bandwidth of the orchestra. But there’s also no performance I have ever heard of this work that can fully exorcise the work’s narcissism or the lacunae of the pastoral third movement, after which a cannonade of coughs revealed the fading powers of concentration. The wonderfully terse brass interjections and bone-dry timpani explosions in the “March to the scaffold” dispelled this in no time, though.

The only real disappointment were the bells. Not tubular bells, thankfully, but still, the big bell in G sounded like a glorified dinner gong; more amusing than frightening and decidedly not like something emanating from Saint-Sulpice as heard through the windows of an opium smoker. The bell in C (still too high to sound realistic, even if thought was a real cast bell) was penetrating, loud, and direct, as both were placed on the balcony behind the orchestra. Only the second high bell that was employed, from above and behind the audience, gave a nice spatial dimension to the sound and at least hinted at sounding from an indeterminable location. Maybe for its next birthday, the orchestra could wish for a bigger pair of bells of brass.

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Photo © Vienna Symphony

Ten Recordings to Remember Mariss Jansons By

Photo of Mariss Jansons by Astrid Ackermann

Mariss Jansons died last month, on November 30th. His passing, at 76, comes earlier than we somehow would expect from a great conductor - since we tend to perceive great conductors bathed in a gentle glow of immortality. (And because conductors, despite exceptions, tend to live long and active lives.) But it did not come entirely unexpected, either, after his past and recent health failings and his preternaturally frail appearance. Between my first Mariss Jansons concert with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2006 (ionarts review) until my last review of a Jansons-concert (with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich's Gasteig) almost exactly ten years later (ionarts review here), he had been one of the conductors I had followed the most closely and heard the most often. I cannot say that I was always entirely enamored by the results, but often enough impressed and on some occasions blown away. Much the same goes for his recorded output which isn't very even but which contains much quality, some of which truly stands out. These are ten recordings that I think represent Jansons rather well and include the four bands with which he worked the most (Oslo, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam & Munich) the best. Failing that, they are those recordings I am most

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On ClassicsToday: John Eliot Gardiner’s Revolutionary Berlioz?

Gardiner’s Revolutionary Berlioz? Take The Good With The Ugly

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Berlioz: “An acquired taste, but what a taste worth acquiring!” as David Hurwitz points out in his review of the “Philips 50” release of John Eliot Gardiner’s Messe solennelle. Indeed. And even if you think you’ve acquired the taste, Berlioz can still be unwieldy and brittle to the ears. In a way, this box of Gardiner’s Philips and Decca Berlioz recordings showcases both sides of the Berlioz conundrum: The invigorating side that makes you wonder why he is not played more often—and the elusive one, that makes you wonder why he is so famous... [continue reading] (Insider content)

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Forbes Classical CD of the Month: Les Troyens From Strasbourg With Joyce DiDonato

...It’s a long slog in the opera house and it’s a long slog if you do a dedicated sit-and-listen at home. But a bottle of good wine helps. And this recording, I think, helps, too. I certainly found myself involved by John Nelsons’ dramatic, vivid conducting, by the orchestra’s nuanced performance and by the singers’ interpretation and voices. With a few exceptions, the voices are lighter and more nimble than one is used to from these kinds of operas… and as a result increasingly responsive to a more subtle interpretation of the drama around them. Comic-operatic hyper-drama is out, as are overt, grand gestures (of the vocal type but, as the included DVD shows, also of the physical kind.) That’s refreshing and it does justice to the (thankfully) changing taste in operatic singing which, even in unrealistic, dramatically unconvincing operas, demands a greater amount of realism and restraint and less of the arm-waving and fist-shaking that used to be common – with all the emotion-motoric refinement of an anguished semaphore – on stages throughout the world…

-> Classical CD of the Month January 2018: Les Troyens From Strasbourg With Joyce DiDonato

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Latest on Forbes: Eternal Youth -- Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra At 30

Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna’s Golden Hall as part of its 30^th anniversary European tour with Christian Gerhaher and Daniel Harding in Hector Berlioz’ Les Nuits d'été and Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony.

The best youth orchestras – and this may well not be a secret anymore – are among the most enjoyable orchestras you can listen to: Technically at the top of the game and motivated from ponytail to pinky; ability and willingness in ready harmony at a level and consistency that cannot be expected from all but a handful of top-notch orchestras. The only thing that can possibly derail them is music that works primarily off a arcane emotional response to life – and a conductor who lacks profundity and the natural authority that comes from musical and personal authenticity. In those cases youth orchestras are prone to have a more difficult time. Incidentally Bruckner – to move from the general to the particular – is one of those composers. And the conductor on this occasion, namely the Vienna stop of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra’s 30th Anniversary Easter Tour, was Daniel Harding…

- > Review: Eternal Youth -- Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra At 30

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Dip Your Ears, No. 214 (The Final Abbado Dud)

#morninglistening to #Abbado’s last concert w/@berlinphil in #Mendelssohn & #Berlioz.#cl… https://t.co/y1xkYB2KDm pic.twitter.com/vINpseVXl1

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) September 3, 2016

F.Mendelssohn-B., 'Dream', H.Berlioz, Symphonique fantastique C.Abbado / Berlin Philharmonic et al. Berlin Philharmonic H.Berlioz, Symphonique fantastique (E.Varèse, Ionisation) M.Jansons / BRSO BR Klassik

You wouldn’t buy this luxurious, $62 set – “Claudio Abbado – The Last Concert” – for the music it contains: One disc of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and one of Berlioz’ Symphonique fantastique. So does it make sense to review the performances as if they competed with all the others that are out there? It doesn’t: If just the music were your concern, this set would not competitive because it is a.) very expensive, b.) designed specifically so as not to fit any CD-, book-, or DVD- shelf, and c.) because the performances are, pace Claudio Abbado, middling and very boring. I’m sure the orchestra played their hearts out for him, but it doesn’t amount to any sort of excitement, which is almost shocking, given the repertoire – especially the Berlioz. (Compare this to Mariss Jansons’ recent account with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, for maximum contrast.) The reason to get this might be the enjoyment one gets out its impeccable presentation, the accompanying essays and photos, or the DVD of said concert. But, speaking of the music, you might be tempted to get the $15 mp3 version that Amazon et al. offer. This brings us back to reason C:

The limply conducting Abbado manages the unimaginable and sucks all the life out these two works. They are sapped of energy and zest and fall on the floor like a limp squid; it never sparks any fireworks -- like a damp squib. In the Mendelssohn it’s perhaps less surprising; I’ve always found those London recordings of his – especially the symphonies, however much praised by others – on the boring side (compare those to Dohnanyi/Decca, for example, and Maag/Decca for the ‘Dream’). But even then, not nearly as boring as this. If you want to do yourself and your memory of Abbado a favor, pick any one (or all) of the recordings George Pieler and I assembled in this tribute on Forbes: The 13 Best Recordings of Claudio Abbado: A Remembrance and give this a pass.

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Susan Graham Celebrates Vocal Arts D.C.

Berlioz, Les nuits d’été, S. Graham, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, J. Nelson (1997)

Charles T. Downey, With lissome French and a premier, Susan Graham sings a fine program (Washington Post, September 13)

Gerald Perman founded the Vocal Arts Society in 1990, and it is still going strong under the name Vocal Arts D.C. American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who gave her first Vocal Arts recital in the organization’s first decade, was back Saturday night to celebrate the start of its 25th-anniversary season. Her sold-out recital in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater featured a world premiere, by American composer Jake Heggie, and some of Graham’s signature French repertoire.

A switch of the program put the French half first... [Continue reading]

Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano) and Jake Heggie (piano)
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Ionarts-at-Large: End-of-the-World-Music in Vienna

Within a few days, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Orchestra (the opera’s orchestra) pitched their tents at the Musikverein in Vienna. I caught the second of those two concerts, with the Opera’s orchestra under their music director Kirill Petrenko, because I had to! It featured Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, but that wasn’t the reason. It opened with Ravel’s La Valse (Poème chorégraphique pour Orchestre), but that wasn’t the reason either. But in the middle lured a tremendous work: Gesangsszene to words from “Sodom and Gomorrha” by Jean Giraudoux for Baritone and Orchestra by Karl Amadeus Hartmann. (More Hartmann on ionarts here.) Not only that, but with the best possible baritone in that repertoire, too: namely Christian Gerhaher (More Gerhaher on ionarts here). That’s unmissable in my book – and everything else is mere bonus.

La Valse was a fine such bonus to start with: As the first low notes emerged, the upper strings just barely broke through to the surface, which made the work—buzzing, droning, pulsating—all the more strange than it already is. It was woodwind eeriness, and the harmlessness of the waltz theme was hard to trust. When the strings finally got there, and came to the fore at last, along with the battery of four harps, they didn’t revert to a pastoral naïveté, either: With transparency  and foreshadowing and every timpani burst ever more threatening, the orchestra inexorably waltzed along to the ensuing final, perplexing stage… fooling no one along the way. Typical Kirill Petrenko, one might say, and a nicely disturbing opening.

Hartmann was the student of Anton Webern, an admirer of Arnold Schoenberg, and a liberal quoter from Alban Berg, but he was anything but a mindless disciple of the 12-tone cult: “Those who compose slavishly in acquiescent dependency on tone rows can certainly crank their bits out at a nice clip. But… you cannot just skirt the burden of tradition by replacing old forms with new ones. We have to accept that our path has become more difficult than that of our great idols before us.” Hartmann consequently developed a musical voice that makes him one of great if lamentably unsung composers of the 20th century.

K.A.Hartmann, Gesangsszene et al., K.A.Rickenbacher, Bamberger Symphoniker, S.Nimsgern Koch H.Berlioz et al., Symphonie Fantastique, M.Jansons, BRSO BR Klassik

Hartmann wrote his very last, unfinished work—the deeply pessimistic, apocalyptic Gesangsszene—for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. It was premiered a year after Hartmann died in 1963. It is uncomfortable listening, disturbing and stirring, relentless, but with glimpses even of conventional beauty amid the ruins. Fischer-Dieskau remained loyal to Hartman’s swansong and, between the premiere and 1987, performed it twenty times all over Europe. The premiere performance under Dean Dixon never made it from LP to CD, but recordings with the Bavarian and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestras led by Rafael Kubelik (Wergo) and Lothar Zagrosek (Orfeo) respectively let us eavesdrop on this bitter parting gift of Hartmann’s for which Fischer-Dieskau’s controlled urgency is apt.

If the performance with Petrenko and Gerhaher sounded very, very different from Dieskau’s attempt (especially with Kubelik), it’s because Gerhaher, unlike the albeit poignant Dieskau, opted to sing the work as written, not just an approximation thereof. The review of the concert in Munich promised much. In fact, Egbert Tholl of the Süddeutsche Zeitung was so destroyed afterwards, he had to leave at intermission (and communicated this in the review). The clarinet and flute pre-lament, to get us set up properly. Then one becomes witness to the colorfully illustrated Sprechgesang/singing, always at the edge of what is either just still or already no longer comfortable Sew-saw, sew-saw… as through bone with a surgeons’ saw... followed by impotent exclamation marks. Silence. Gerhaher amidst this like a pale horse. And then the flute again, piping up as if to see if things might not have turned around. They have not. This is End-of-the-World-Music! It even says so. The last words are: “It is the End of the World. The saddest possible of them all!” Indeed. Tholl called Gerhaher’s role in this that of the “Evangelist of Doom”, and it’s right-on. Then Tholl went out into the night, alone. As I might have, even though I was missing a bit of that solemn focus I had expected and hoped for… either a product of my lacking concentration or the less than perfectly concentrated, incomprehensive surroundings in the Goldener Saal.

I stayed. But what can you play, after hearing Hartmann? Nothing, if you take it seriously… if you really took it in, if you made it your own. Anything, of course, if it was just music… more or less impressive, to be listened to, more or less, and then dutifully applauded; a prosecco at intermission, a chat with the Feldhubingers and, oh look, Dr. Waldner is here; we haven’t seen the Gugler’s in weeks, and Hello Herr Professor Doktor Geigerl, Frau Professor Doktor Geigerl. How was the week at Lake Hallstatt? Why, then it’s no problem at all continuing with Berlioz’ self-indulgent tone poem of many ownders… the showy, effective, and not universally loved Symphonie fantastique.

The performance: Amazing details, finely traced and with great dynamic control and dramatic execution thereof and playing that you’d expect from an AAA concert-orchestra on a good day, but not not necessarily from an A opera-orchestra like the Bavarian State Orchestra, Munich’s nominal No.3 (after the obvious No.1 BRSO and the fluctuation our-concerts-are-like-a-box-of-chocolate No.2 Munich Philharmonic). So far, so good. But the performance was also detailed to the point of disconnect and incoherence. Maybe “AAA”, but not my cup of tea. In any case, it was entirely nixed by a squeaking double-bass chair that would not stop adding its gruesome, unwanted sound to the mix. Strange that Petrenko didn’t stop after the first movement, to remedy the ill. But disconnect and squeak aside, the Symphonie fantastique is also a frightfully self-important work (even if Petrenko wanted to downplay exactly that aspect), and the contrast to the earnest humility of the Hartmann reveals this mercilessly. It’s not my favorite work to begin with (although the BRSO recording from last year got me very excited), and once one isn’t in the mood for this Symphony, it gets annoying and tedious really fast, however impressive the circumstances. No matter: No one can take the gloomy delight of Hartmann away from me. 

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Karine Deshayes, At Last

French Romantic Cantatas, K. Deshayes, Opera Fuoco, D. Stern (Zig Zag, 2014)

Charles T. Downey, Mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes at the Kennedy Center
Washington Post, February 5

Pierre Bernac, the singer and authority on the French “mélodie,” summed up this late Romantic song genre as “the art of suggestion,” characterized by its “subtle poetic climate, intellectual refinement, and controlled profundity.” Rarely does one hear this delicate, pastel-hued music performed as authoritatively as on the Washington debut recital by French mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes, presented by Vocal Arts D.C. at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Tuesday evening.

An entire program of languorous French songs, ranging from Hector Berlioz to Henri Duparc, might seem like too much of a good thing. With the fine qualities of Deshayes’s singing... [Continue reading]

Karine Deshayes, mezzo-soprano
Carrie-Ann Matheson, piano
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

NSO Takes Up Rihm

W. Rihm, Dithyrambe (inter alia), Arditti Quartet, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (Kairos, 2009)

All of the coverage of Wolfgang Rihm's music in live performances here at Ionarts has come from our European correspondent. The German composer, born in Karlsruhe in 1952, is celebrated in Europe and much less known here in the U.S. In conservative Washington, the adjective of choice would likely tip over to unknown. So Christoph Eschenbach's co-commissioning of a new piano concerto from Rihm is significant, and this week's American premiere of the work, with the National Symphony Orchestra last night, reunited him with pianist Tzimon Barto, with whom he performed the world premiere at the Salzburg Festival last August.

The piece is a strange concerto by almost any measure of the genre, in two long movements with little overtly showy technical display from the keyboard -- what Rihm has called "virtuoso fodder," as quoted in Thomas May's informative program notes -- indeed few moments, until the end of the work, where the piano is not presented really as part of the orchestra. Although there is a lot of dialogue back and forth between orchestra and soloist in the score, there was never a sense that the piano was leading the piece. That being said, it was a relief to hear not just another concerto but something that had an unmistakable and often alluring individuality right from its soft, smoky opening.

The first movement often felt like a cross between cocktail piano and an austere, Webernesque pointillism, murky clouds of mostly strings for much of the movement that hovered around the piano's murmuring commentary, a tribute to Barto's "exquisite pianissimo," as Rihm put it. The writing is quite lush, with misty harp and little percussion or brass until a climax near the end. The second movement begins with the piano largely up in the treble half of its range, matched by more of the battery that Rihm pulls out of his back pocket. The movement is labeled a rondo, and without having studied the score in detail, a sense of a section of music returning was evident, although in a varied form each time, with a sort of cadenza before the final one, a nod to traditional form. In the end, though, it is the first movement's delicacy that wins out.

Other Articles: Robert Battey, Rihm’s Thorny Concerto Leaves Listener In Lurch (Classical Voice North America, January 20) Anne Midgette, Barto, Eschenbach make case for Rihm’s appealing concerto (Washington Post, January 16) ---, A modernist master’s Mozartean face: Rihm’s new piano concerto at the NSO (Washington Post, January 10) Tom Service, Wolfgang Rihm wins the Grawemeyer (The Guardian, December 2)

The rest of the program was of much less interest, both pieces -- Dvořák's Carnival Overture and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique -- having been performed by the NSO within the last five years. Eschenbach appeared to use the Dvořák as a test piece for his string section, with one of the candidates for the vacant associate concertmaster chair sitting as concertmaster -- Justine Lamb-Budge, concertmaster of the Canton Symphony Orchestra -- and the slapdash tempo of the opening sounded, well, a little slapdash. The candidate had a crack at several solos throughout the evening, all played beautifully, if without much bravura or flash.

Eschenbach's choice of nervous, racing tempi affected the Berlioz as well, giving an appropriately distracted quality to the first movement but also undercutting some of the effects, particularly in the fourth and fifth movements (like the col legno strikes in the Witches' Sabbath). In spite of a lovely duet between English horn and oboe in the Scène aux champs, the slow movement, given an overly indulgent rubato, was a little soporific. One particularly unpleasing detail was the sound of the tubular bells in the finale, which buzzed as if they were making something else resonate, but at a dissonant frequency. Hopefully, the NSO staff can figure out what was going on there and correct it for the subsequent performances.

This program repeats on Saturday evening only.