Notes from the 2024 Salzburg Festival ( 4 ) Ouverture Spirituelle • Lobgesang • Vienna Philharmonic

Lobgesang • Mendelssohn • Vienna Philharmonic • Blomstedt

Also reviewed for Die Presse: In Salzburg feiert Herbert Blomstedt Geburtstag

ALL PICTURES (DETAILS) COURTESY SALZBURG FESTIVAL, © Marco Borrelli. CLICK FOR THE WHOLE PICTURE.

A Hymn of Praise to Old Age

On July 11th, Herbert Blomstedt turned 97 – ninety-seven (!) – years old. And when you turn 97, you get to celebrate your birthday twice, no problem! First with a Bruckner Ninth and the Bamberg Orchestra (see also “ The Subtle Miracle Herbert Blomstedt And Bamberg's Cathedral Tour Of Bruckner”) and a good fortnight later with Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony – the “Hymn of Praise” – and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival.

Of course, age takes its toll, at this advanced hour of one’s life – and the stiffly moving but self-propelled Blomsted looks a bit like a marionette. His physical conducting is reduced in expressiveness and breadth of motion. But the key to an inspired performance is not forcing one’s will onto 190 musicians (counting the 111 singers of the Vienna Singverein), but to make them want to dance attendance on his every musical wish. And this, Blomstedt manages with ease, thanks to his charisma, earnestness, reputation, quiet enthusiasm, and devout charm, and that’s why his concerts are still such musically miraculous moments.

The Compleat Mendelssohn

Brahms’ Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), op.54, with the disciplined, restrained choir, was a masterclass in matters gentility, sensitively performed by the Philharmonic for Blomstedt. This was the overture to Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony, long considered something of a problem child among Mendelssohn’s symphonies, with three short instrumental movements that are then – supposedly – squashed by the vast Cantata that follows. It’s an unfortunate, perhaps finally waning reputation, given that the work contains everything that makes Mendelssohn. The earnest, imposing music of the oratorios. Some of the fairy-dust music he is best known for. And even some of the tragedy and dissonance we can find in the F minor String Quartet.

The quick pace of the opening was invigorating for not trying to artificially impose more weight on the movement in search of some elusive balance but simply content in praising God – a concrete matter for Blomstedt and not just some abstract concept. The calm pianissimos that Blomstedt got from the orchestra (“Nun danket alle Gott”) were particularly touching.

The quick pace of the opening was invigorating for not trying to artificially impose more weight on the movement in search of some elusive balance but simply content in praising God – a concrete matter for Blomstedt and not just some abstract concept. The calm pianissimos that Blomstedt got from the orchestra (“Nun danket alle Gott”) were particularly touching.

F. Mendelssohn-B The Symphonies C.v.Dohnányi, Vienna Philharmonic Decca, 2010

Save Thyself!

Not everything went as smoothly. Towards the end, the performance lacked the crucial impulse, that would have imbued this “Hymn of Praise” with the needed pulse. Nor were the ‘almost-dissonant’, which can add a welcome bitter-sweet fragrance, particularly tended to. When the chorus nearly threw a fugato passage (“Die Nacht ist vergangen”), there was no help to be gotten from Blomstedt. The Singverein managed to rescue itself splendidly.

The soloists were right in line with the high quality and character of the performance – namely the level-headed, narrative, perfectly singing of tenor Tilman Lichidi (despite a weaker, flat moment later in the duet) and the effective, nicely enunciating Christina Landshamer, with a tastefully increasing but never overly dramatic vibrato on the held notes – and contributed to this wholly untroubled, Lord-praising eleven-AM performance. Grateful ovations when Blomstedt was led off and back on the stage, by concertmaster Rainer Honeck.

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Photo descriptions:

Picture No.1: Wiener Philharmoniker · Blomstedt 2024: Herbert Blomstedt (Dirigent), Wiener Philharmoniker

Picture No.2: Wiener Philharmoniker · Blomstedt 2024: Elsa Benoit (Sopran II), Christina Landshamer (Sopran I), Herbert Blomstedt (Dirigent), Tilman Lichdi (Tenor), Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Singverein

Dip Your Ears, No. 253 (Blomstedt's Terribly-Reasonably-Delightful Mozart)

W.A.Mozart, Symphonies 40 & 41, BRSO / Herbert Blomstedt BR Klassik

The instinct is to love and adore everything that Herbert Blomstedt conducts and records. Naturally. He really is and always has been a marvelous conductor and the fact that Europeans are only realizing this after he turned 90 makes it a heartwarming story, somehow. Certainly, Blomstedt deserves the attention and he is the real deal. (See also: Forbes.com: The Subtle Miracle Herbert Blomstedt And Bamberg's Cathedral Tour Of Bruckner) But he’s not a magician, either. Which is why this Mozart recording of the last two Symphonies, Nos. 40 and 41, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is simply—only—very, very good… but no revelation.

Now it’s rare for big symphony orchestras to play Mozart well and for the uncluttered lines, for the reasonable lightness, for the crisp attacks and the beautiful unimpeded flow, this gets very high marks. Repeat-fetishists (you know you’re out there!) get their full due, too! You could think of this as modernized Krips or updated Fricsay (perhaps the two best in yesteryear Mozart) or as not-quite-there HIPsterdom, failing to reach the ‘see-through textures and flamboyance’ (Robert Levine) of a René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi) or the in-your-face explosiveness of a Matthieu Herzog (naïve) or—though he hasn’t recorded any symphonies yet—Teodor Currentzis. Or you simply think of it as a civilized best-of-both-worlds take that is bound to greatly please most while deftly avoiding all the pitfalls that plague nearly all modern Mozart: Tedious drudge or wilfull exaggeration.

It turns out that that works very well in “40”, which comes across as the vivacious alpine brook it is. It works a smidgen less well in “41”, which sounds the broader stream it also is… but without carrying more water to make up for the increased width of the musical riverbed. A certain kind of stateliness creeps in, that’s more Beethoven Sixth than Bach Christmas Oratorio-meets-Rite of the Spring (as I like to imagine it, with fireworks going off in the finale, and a big brassy punch right into the kisser). That’s where I prefer me some over-the-top excellence (Hello, M.Herzog!), after all. Not that you’d much mind, in the moment, listening to the excellence of Blomstedt (a.k.a. “Günter Wand 2.0”).

Despite five years between the two recordings, the very fine Herkulessaal-sound and acoustics are the same… unless that subtle subdued quality of the “Jupiter” is an outgrowth of a subtly different recording quality, after all.

8/9

Blomstedt on ionarts:

Orchestrated Delight from Leipzig, jfl, 10/19/04

Dip Your Ears, No. 37 (Strauss Indulgence, jfl, 7/7/05)

NSO with Blomstedt, CDT, 2/17/12

Notes from the 2014 Salzburg Festival ( 5 ) - Anton Bruckner Cycle • Bruckner VIII. Quietly Fabulous, jfl, 8/8/14

Blomstedt and Ax return to the NSO, CDT, 2/27/15

Ionarts at Large: Blomstedt and Pires in San Francisco, RRR, 3/1/16

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Briefly Noted: Blomstedt's Mahler 9

G. Mahler, Symphony No. 9, Bamberger Symphoniker, H. Blomstedt (released on June 21, 2019) Accentus Music ACC-30477 | 83'28"

Herbert Blomstedt, who will turn 92 next month, remains not only active but supremely accomplished on the podium. He now serves as Honorary Conductor for a number of ensembles, including the Bamberg Symphony, with whom he led this glowing live performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony in June 2018. (The sound engineering leaves something to be desired, with some awkward joining between sections.) The last symphony Mahler published before his untimely death, it is often seen as the composer's reluctant eyeing of death. In a dark coincidence, for example, it will be the last work Michael Tilson Thomas (at 74, a young whippersnapper) conducts next weekend, before he takes a leave of absence to undergo heart surgery.

The Ländler seems rather genteel in Blomstedt's hands, a little pokey in tempo, perhaps a different way of understanding the "ungainly" and "course" markings that Mahler indicated. The third movement is appropriately brash, but again more polished than rough around the edges. The fourth movement misses the glimpse of the infinite it can afford, as Blomstedt could have drawn out its effusive lines even longer, but the chamber music moments of grouped solos put the Bamberg musicians in beautiful spotlights. Most effective is Blomstedt's first movement, an expansive, elegant rendering of the layers of appoggiaturas leaning on one another in row after row. The reluctant impartial quotations of the "Lebewohl" motif from Beethoven's piano sonata "Les Adieux" pile up beautifully.

Marin Alsop takes another crack at this elegiac work tonight at Strathmore and Sunday afternoon at the Meyerhoff, even as the identity of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as a full-year major orchestra continues to unravel.

Latest on Forbes: Bamberg - Blomstedt - Bruckner

The Bamberg Symphony and Herbert Blomstedt took Bruckner's Fifth Symphony on tour to four different cathedrals in Bavaria and Austria this summer.

…Perhaps I was thinking along those lines – or about the smoked beer from earlier – when I lost track of time and looked at my watch only five minutes before Blomstedt was to lift his baton up in the cathedral. I don’t remember when I last moved as fast. Off I was, running toward four-spired St.Peter & St. George… which of course has to be on top of one of the hills on which Bamberg is built. (When Bambergers go to Rome, they exclaim: “Oh, just like Bamberg!”) A gasping, melting mess I poured myself into the church bench, hoping that my heartbeat would keep quiet…

- > The Subtle Miracle Herbert Blomstedt And Bamberg's Cathedral Tour Of Bruckner

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Notes from the 2014 Salzburg Festival ( 5 ) Anton Bruckner Cycle • Bruckner VIII

Vienna Philharmonic • Herbert Blomstedt

Quietly Fabulous

Picture of Herbert Blomstedt (detail) courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli

The Eighth Symphony of Anton Bruckner’s, the last he finished, his longest (bar the original version of the Third), the only one with harps… does tower above the others in a grand and subtle way. It is his greatest ‘cathedral of sound’ that Bruckner built among his symphonies, even if it need not display any whiff of incense… being in its way as earthly and secular as all his symphonies.

There are many ways of constructing this cathedral to great success—from Pierre Boulez’ (iron fisted, DG) to Günter Wand (autumnal magnificience, RCA), and just as many ways to bring it down. The quietly fabulous Herbert Blomstedt*, filling in for Riccardo Chailly, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the Grosses Festspielhaus on July 26^th, knows how to construct the long lines of Bruckner in his own, unfussy, slightly prosaic way. One expects unhurried, unspectacular glory… even after the shaky performance of the Bruckner Fourth from a few days earlier.

A.Bruckner, Symphony No.8 H.Blomstedt / Gewandhaus O. Leipzig Querstand SACD

(Also: the WPh played the Eighth plenty of times, this season.) After hearing him in Bruckner with the BRSO, I made it a resolution “never [to] judge a Blomstedt (Bruckner) performance before you've heard all four movements.” It helps and that’s exactly what happened. Even if it starts out sounding a little ordinary, in his (seeming lack of) interpretation—and suddenly you look around yourself, metaphorically or actually, to realize that his has been a secretly astounding performance all along.

Perhaps the only deviation from my expectations, built the above maxim, was that here, as Herbert Blomstedt brought that feeling of excellence to the table right from the get-go. Notably the violins and brass were much, much improved from the Bruckner Fourth performance under Barenboim, with the first violins just about being the pride of the performance: broadly shimmering and well-coordinated. The brass, with horns and Wagner tubas, appeared to be on a regal mission of redemption, too. It was, all in all, a good day’s work… no, wait, not work.

Blomstedt, as a Seventh-day Adventist, keeps Sabbath, which means no secular work on Saturday. There are clauses, however, for charitable work and—apparently, perhaps—duty. Concerts are duty or work in the service of culture… and certainly Bruckner might be concocted to be sacred labor… in any case: This first of two performances was a fine, uplifting concert, satisfying, not amazing.


* Blomstedt made his conducting-debut with the WPh only in 2011!

See also: A Survey of Bruckner Cycles

Dip Your Ears, No. 37 (Strauss Indulgence)

R.Strauss, Burleske, Rosenkavalier Waltzes, Capriccio Sextet, J-Y.Thibaudet / H.Blomstedt Decca

If Johann Strauss II is the musical equivalent of whipped cream, Richard Strauss’s waltzes from the Rosenkavalier are whipped cream with a pound of sugar and half a dozen egg yolks. Your doctor might not agree with it as part of your diet, but who is going to keep you from listening to it? Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester certainly invite you to indulge. For this lush music – pleasant as can be with a little tinge here and there – lusciously played and topped off with a rich, resonant, and full sound, it all comes together on this new Decca release.

Because two such servings in a row would be too much, the Sextet from Capriccio comes before the second Rosenkavalier Waltz Sequence. The Sextet is the ideal in-between. It is all of Strauss’s harmonically dense language, all his sophistication and unearthly beauty condensed into some hauntingly light twelve minutes of string sextet performance. (The work is the phenomenal, unexpected overture to Capriccio, one of the finest operas ever conceived.) Well played and in excellent sound, this sextet will make you want to get the entire opera!

Before all that, Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins Blomstedt for the Burleske, a one-movement concerto-fantasy for piano and orchestra that takes a Brahmsian language, adds Rachmaninoff-like pianistic challenges, and sprinkles it with touches of mid-Strauss’s sound world. It may not be an unalloyed masterpiece, but it is not heard often enough given that it offers considerable beauty. The sound here is naturally better than the 1976 Kempe/Frager recording (EMI – part of their landmark set of all of Strauss’s orchestral works) and Glenn Gould’s loving rendition for CBS/Sony.

Three wonderful and different angles of Strauss’s music brought together on one lovely disc with committed playing. Perfect as an introduction and a lovely, if hardly mandatory, indulgence for Strauss veterans.

Orchestrated Delight from Leipzig

Washingtonians—everyone living in the area knows this—are a funny breed: they care enough to pretend to care about good music, but not enough to dress well for it. They douse every performance in standing ovations but at the same time somehow manage to rush off to the parking lot before the last note has even stopped reverberating.

Those grumbles out of the way, it was all giddy anticipation for one of the most promising Washington Performing Arts Society concerts of the year: on October 16, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig came to town under Maestro Herbert Blomstedt, and they brought with them Mikhail Pletnev as the soloist in the Brahms D minor Piano Concerto. Though Pletnev looked glassy, spaced out, uncomfortable, and bloated (at the intermission I heard an audience member joke that he should lay off the cocaine for a while... talk about how rumors get started!), his playing was anything but. In his hands the Brahms concerto became sensuous, sexy even... agile, tender, and lyrical like a fresh and lovely country girl, shy and feisty at the same time, with an earthy intelligence.

The orchestral balance was very good for the most part, though the Gewandhaus came dangerously close to drowning Pletnev out on two or three occasions in the first movement.

The orchestral prelude of the work isn't necessarily my favorite and part of why I find the piece itself fraught with a few problems. Defying audiences' and experts' consensus of some 150 years, I will stick my neck out to say that the D minor is a beautiful, in parts even sublime, but not a great work. For that it lacks the unifying idea, the coherent line that pulls you from the first to the last movement. Instead it seems more like several gorgeous moments attached to each other. Every so often you will become aware of it, and then it recedes from the immediate consciousness again.

J.Brahms, Piano Concertos, E.Gilels / E.Jochum DG

Pletnev (not unlike Emil Gilels on his famous recording) managed to keep it together more than anyone else I've heard this work with. He took it in a manner that suggested that he sat back, had it come his way. It was crystalline and splendid. It probably even deserved the (sadly automatic) standing ovations.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, a much later work, was next in the all-Brahms program. Blomstedt's conducting and the Gewandhaus's playing continued to be unobtrusive, subtle, plenty energetic when and where necessary, calmly flowing otherwise, with a great (but not blaring) horn section that, just as in the concerto, worked like a well-oiled machine.

Blomstedt's silver, light flock of forward combed hair flicked around gaily with every of his many involved movements. Looking like a gentle, if stern, schoolmaster of days past, he led the Gewandhaus to a fine, filigreed sound without having to coax or pull or beat out anything from this surprisingly young but terribly mature orchestral body with the confidence of a 261-year tradition.

The second movement, nowadays the most popular movement of any of Brahms's symphonies, was the only one that the audience in its premiere did not demand a da capo of... but even then critics and friends of Brahms had realized how sublime it truly is. It was, like the rest of the symphony, delivered in a magisterial and very satisfying way. The last chord had not reverberated, ... you know it: standing ovations and car keys. But neither that nor the—as always—dismal program could even dent a most splendid musical afternoon in Washington.