Schoenberg Pelleas and Melisande; Zemlinsky The Mermaid. BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Ryan Bancroft conductor
This was a concert I was looking forward to – two massive late Romantic pieces with a huge orchestra. The Zemlinsky piece I have a recording of but the Schoenberg work I have only heard once over the radio, I think, and I had little memory or knowledge of it other than that it was one of his pre-atonal compositions. Both works were originally premiered at the same concert in Vienna in 1905, and both have the fin de siecle/Freudian pre-WW1 Viennese obsession with sex and death. Both hover, though Schoenberg more obviously so, on the edge of tonality, with the impending collapse of the old world Austro- Hungarian order in plain sight.
It was great to be back in the Albert Hall even though the audience was sparse (Pappano in his recent book says that having Schoenberg on the programme of a concert – whatever the piece of music – immediately reduces your box office takings by 20%). Still, the Arena was fairly full and had plenty of enthusiasm for this music – much cheering at the end of both halves. And- for the Schoenberg – the orchestra WAS huge -Wagner plus: I counted 10 horns, quadruple woodwind, 2 sets of timpani and so forth, not least a massive collection of percussive instruments. Almost as large, the Zemlinsky orchestra had a mere 7 horns and one set of timpani. The BBC NWO – from what I could hear in the front row of the choir – played superbly (I counted a couple of slightly ragged entries throughout the evening, an impressive achievement given the size of the orchestra and that probably no one in it had ever played these works before). I was also impressed by Ryan Bancroft’s conducting – he doesn’t use a stick but his hands and body movements very clearly sculpt what he wants from the orchestra and he had an impressive sense of control, structure and clarity in this music.
The Schoenberg piece is dense, full of foreboding, at times dissonant, and I need to listen to this performance again on the radio. The various leit- motifs – for Golaud, Melisande, Pelleas – become identifiable after a while (a chap in the loo in the interval was even whistling the Golaud theme as he peed) but I can’t say the familiar story was immediately clear from the massively complex entangled score, though the passionate run up to Golaud’s discovery of the lovers was glorious and obvious. What IS immediately apparent is Schoenberg’s mastery of the orchestra and his uncompromising vision of what he wants to achieve. You just feel a bit exhausted by the end ………..but are also clear this is the work of a great composer.
By comparison, Zemlinsky’s piece is much more crowd- pleasing, and is helped by being in 3 movements. It is perhaps at times derivative (I wonder whether I heard Rimsky-Korsakov or Tchaikovsky on occasion, not to mention Rhinegold at the beginning, and the Straussian overtones common to both works) – the melodies are more identifiable and memorable, the great arcs of sound harmonically more obvious. The piece’s got some wonderful moments, particularly in the first and second movements, some beautiful violin and cello solos, shimmering strings, but somehow I don’t think it’s really a work which, having heard once, I’d actively want to seek out again. The Schoenberg piece by contrast I feel I do want to get to grips with
John's musical journey 