Alfred Schnittke, Viola Concerto; Anton Bruckner, Symphony No 4 in E flat major ‘Romantic’: Tabea Zimmermann, viola, Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Harding, conductor
While it is true that a broken toe can hurt like hell, and needs time to heal, it’s unclear why Petrenko’s toe permitted him to conduct Mahler 7 but not the originally scheduled Shostakovitch 10, which would have been much more interesting to hear than Harding’s Bruckner, particularly when Rattle had given such a good account of this work at the Barbican last year. I am sure Petrenko’s Shostakovich 10 would have been an amazing performance……….But there we go – you don’t easily give up on the BPO playing Bruckner, whoever is conducting……This was an inevitably rather disparate concert in terms of programming: Shostakovich and Schnittke would have gone well together – Bruckner and Schnittke on the whole don’t.
The Schnittke piece perhaps overstayed its welcome by abut 5 minutes or so – I found it hard to get a grip on the structure and the second movement seemed to me to go on for too long. But it is an interesting and effective piece, which moves from mourning to Shostakovich-style mockery and pastiche to something … I am not quite sure what; some sort of resolution……. The programme notes spoke about the use of a Russian Orthodox chant but I am afraid I failed to spot this. I liked the use of popular music – less strident than Shostakovich – and the gentler quieter spirit this concerto displayed compared to the great Shostakovich cello and violin concertos
The Bruckner symphony was of course very good indeed – that goes without saying. Personally, using my always useful criteria for Bruckner – a really effective Bruckner performance should have elements of Schubert, Wagner and God – this performance had plenty of Schubert – some absolutely stunning playing by horns, woodwind and strings, really emphasising the lyrical elements of this piece – but very little of God (i.e. a sense of the transcendent) and not much Wagner (a sense of overpowering passion). It tended towards the vice of emphasising orchestral beauty for its own sake, completely different from the driving vision Petrenko gave to the same orchestra in Mahler 7, with, in the Bruckner, almost exaggerated pianissimos and woodwind sounds that were on the one hand astonishing (in the scherzo, say) but on the other hand just slightly suggesting ‘look what we can do……’. – self-consciously virtuosic, if you like. On the positive side, there was a very careful gradation of volume, so that the fff passages really were that…………It was odd that the BPO had reduced the number of players for this performance – there seemed to be only 6 double-basses and 4 horns, but, of course, being the BPO, the sound they produced was akin to what most orchestras would need double the number to produce. Daniel Harding seemed on the whole to let the orchestra play without too much interference, and then with a bit of steering where necessary – very different from the intensity and control of Petrenko.
It can’t be said that this was a disappointment – we are talking about a very high level indeed of orchestral execution – but this was not a performance for the ages
John's musical journey 