Bruckner Mass No. 3 ‘Great’: Royal Northern Sinfonia; Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia; Durham University Choral Society. Thomas Zehetmair conductor. Elizabeth Watts soprano; Hannah Hipp mezzo-soprano; Thomas Atkins tenor; Mark Stone baritone The Big Bruckner Weekend involved not only two concerts but also the Chorus of the Royal Northern Sinfonia singing a selection of Bruckner’s motets on the Concourse at 6.40pm. I have never been to the Glasshouse (ex-Sage) Newcastle so it was interesting to go to two concerts there. I arrived in Newcastle after a tedious journey from Sheffield of about 5 hours (including a three and a half hours’ coach journey). However,,,,the concert hall itself feels warm and resonant – certainly in the same league as the Bridgewater Hall and Symphony Hall in Birmingham. There’s lots of cafe space and great views of the Tyne and city landscapes, though it looks like a project which ran out of money – while the Hall is all there the surroundings are a set of fenced off building sites.
I’ve never heard the Bruckner Mass before live. John Suchet of Classic FM, who seem to be associated with the weekend, described it as being as great a work as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. This is nonsense – there are various points at which Bruckner is treading water and the work is less than consistently inspired, particularly in the Gloria – but the finest bits are very fine indeed. They include the lovely Benedictus and a lot of the Credo, particularly the quite amazing and blazing ‘ Et Resurrexit’, which really IS up there with the equivalents of Beethoven and Bach. It’s not clear whether the Mass was ever heard or performed in its church-context – ie placed at 5 different points in the service. Certainly Bruckner was commissioned “to write a new Mass for the Burgkapelle’ but as I read the documentation on it, it was only ever performed as a concert piece. Whatever the context, one does wonder what modern audiences are experiencing when they hear a ‘great composer’ Mass. The Mozart and Schubert masses are still envisageable in a liturgical context, but this one certainly isn’t. When I hear something like this, I can relate it to my faith, but I wonder what others make of it – particularly in a performance where the programme didn’t carry the words of the Latin Mass. Is there an inherent sense of drama that comes across?
The Northern Sinfonia under Thomas Zehetmair sounded impressive – able to perform the rapid string ostinatos without any smudging and they made a powerful sound at the climaxes. I thought the combined choirs sounded fabulous and they sang tightly, with no tiredness showing in what is a long work (just over an hour), with the choir on their feet nearly all the time. The soloists sounded fine but have a relatively small role to play The Northern Sinfonia part of the choir later before the Bruckner 8 performed 3 Bruckner Motets in the lobby, including the famous Locus Iste (see photo below)
Brahms, Violin Concerto; Shostakovich Symphony No 4. Sir Simon Rattle conductor; Isabelle Faust violin; London Symphony Orchestra
This was a very generously planned concert. It is ages and ages since I sat down and listened intently to the Brahms concerto. My abiding memory from my teenage years of listening to this work is of Ida Haendel playing it for several years in succession at the Proms – although she can only have been in her mid-40’s, she looked very formidable and as though emerging from a different era.
Though tinged with melancholy the Brahms violin concerto is a work of great inner peace which ‘the world’ does not intrude on too much. It’s of its time, of course, as any work of art is, and maybe the assumptions and culture of 19th middle class Germany which underpins it were already setting that culture on its way towards an abyss. But the violin concerto nevertheless stands as one of the great musical creations of that era. The LSO made a glorious warm sound, rich and mellow, with the lower strings being coaxed carefully by Rattle, who scarcely glanced at the first and second violins throughout the whole piece. Tempi seemed just right, with the third movement having just the sort of energy and bounce it needs without turning it into a scramble. The oboe playing at the beginning of the slow movement was exquisite but not mannered. Isabelle Faust is a great violinist – and she has all the energy and dexterity the piece needs in the first and third movements. I felt – but this is a very personal reaction – that sometimes she wasn’t realising the introspective nature of some of the music fully – I could have done with more shading, some more slowing down at points. But others would probably disagree…and I have much less of an ear for outstanding violin playing than i do for outstanding pianists. It was lovely to hear this work again after do many years.
I have heard Shostakovich 4 just once before, performed by the Halle and Mark Elder in 2017 alongside a muti-media presentation of the symphony’s context – of the Great Terror. I have kicked myself repeatedly for not going to a Prom about 10 years ago with Haitink and the Chicago Symphony performing it. But this performance by Rattle and the LSO was about as good as I shall ever hear in the time left to me. The orchestra were magnificent – fantastically disciplined strings, wonderful woodwind playing (bassoons particularly) and powerful brass. Rattle was very good (in a work that is very, very noisy) at grading the climaxes, which helped in shaping the work to the extent it is meant to have shape. Simon Rattle conducted in a way that offered fine detail amidst the raucousness. In the climactic march in the finale maybe Rattle was slightly too fast- as a result the timpani ostinato took a couple of bars to get into the right rhythm. But that is a very minor point. The performance made it very clear that this work’s uncompromising nature would certainly not have come anywhere near satisfying Soviet cultural bureaucrats !
It is extraordinary that the Shostakovich piece was written only 55 years or so after the Brahms. If you were to project 55 years back from the Brahms you’d be in the era of late Beethoven and Schubert. There is a recognisable trajectory from the music of the 1820s to the 1870s but Shostakovich was writing in utterly different ways from Brahms. Here the world outside and the individual artist, the public and the private, are both present and often hostile to each other. There are certainly influences from older composers – Mahler (a direct quote from the 3rd movement of the 2nd symphony in the finale), obviously, and Stravinsky – but also a unique voice that tells you immediately – this is by Shostakovich.
The work is not without form – It has a structure which can seem unbalanced and sprawling. It moves quickly from pomposity to stillness, from dreaming to force; there is a sort of sonata form in the first movement and the by turns trite and sinister music of the middle of the third movement is framed by the two enormous major key marches. But broadly the work is a wonderful example of uninhibited creativity and wild energy, sequences tumbling out one after the other, sudden mood swings, a kaleidoscopic variety of material, and you just have to go with the flow and celebrate the diversity of the material (I am sure there are ways the thematic material is connected but you’d need a score and specialised knowledge to see this). This is the ultra-talented young Shostakovich showing what he can do. But at the same time there is a constantly looming menace in the background over the whole work, breaking out particularly in the military marches of the last movement, with their terrifying power – you can almost see the jack-booted soldiers; oppressive power, and you definitely feel the private response of the glacial terrified ending. I’d forgotten the equally disturbing ticking percussive ending of the 2nd movement, used again in the closing moments of the 15th with sinister effect as Shostakovich faces death.
Director, Tim Albery; Set Designer, Michael Levine; Costume Designer. Constance Hoffman;Lighting Designer, David Finn; Movement, Philippe Giraudeau; Conductor, Henrik Nánási. Cast: The Dutchman, Bryn Terfel; Senta, Elisabet Strid; Daland, Stephen Milling; Erik, Toby Spence; Mary, Kseniia Nikolaieva; Steersman, Miles Mykkanen
I saw this production in 2015, conducted by Andris Nelsons with, as this time, Bryn Terfel as the Dutchman, and Senta sung by Adrianne Pieczonka. I remember it for 2 reasons – one, the sweep and passion, the fire, of Nelsons’ conducting, which was first-rate, and, secondly, for using the version of the score which plays it as one continuous piece without an interval (good) and does without the ‘redemptive’ ending, concluding in sound and fury (in my view at the time, disappointing). Of the singing and production, I have little memory. The current Bayreuth Tcherniakov production is the other one I’ve seen in recent times. The key thing to get across in any production of the Dutchman, it seems to me, is (1) the difference between the Dutchman’s/Senta’s search for ‘redemption’ / ‘eternal life’ and the placid bourgeois world of Daland and the townsfolk; (2) some modern translation of what ‘redemption’ might look like for modern audiences.
It had never really occurred to me before that, even at this relatively early stage of Wagner’s career, the Dutchman as a work focuses on the Schopenhauerian concept of a human being bound to a life of recurrent suffering, a wheel of fire from which the only escape – in Wagner’s take on the issue at this point – is human love/ sexual ecstasy, putting the Dutchman alongside, with some variations, Tristan and Parsifal. And of course Senta too is also bound upon her own wheel of fire, seen as a commodity by her father, and oppressed within a highly patriarchal society. The great merit of this production is that it doesn’t mess with this core theme and lets the text and music speak for themselves quite clearly – unlike the clever but ultimately annoying current Bayreuth production, though the religious references – angels, the Devil – are likely to confuse audiences, as are the Dutchman’s crew of ghostly sailors, and divert them from this message of the relief we must all seek from endless suffering.
The core element of the set was a large ramp, pointing downwards from the back of the stage to the front. With effective lighting this becomes a beach, and Daland’s house. Two or three big hawsers pulled by the chorus or by the Dutchman and chains represent the boats (there’s also a gangway for Senta and the Dutchman to move up and down on in Act 3). Additions are a set of sewing machines and tables which come down from the flies for the spinning chorus, and an opening at the bottom of the ramp to focus the dancing of the ‘townsfolk’ chorus, and the sinister presence of the zombie crew of the Dutchman’s ship in Act 3. The end of the opera has Senta crawling along the ramp now lit to be looking something like a desert, maybe dying or maybe entering again her own eternal wheel of fire. There’s a model of a ship instead of the portrait of the Dutchman (as there are no walls). There’s water at the front of the stage – in 2015 at the dress rehearsal the water spilled over into the pit, apparently, and the performance had to be paused. It gets sploshed in in the final act but all in all I am not sure why it’s there. The dress of the cast is modern, to no particular effect. The lighting creates pools of darkness and all the key singers are quite difficult to see without shadows over their faces = at least from the Amphitheatre, anyway. I think the aspect of the work which the director could have done more with is emphasising the insularity, the complacency, and the narrow-mindedness of the community (to whom of course the Dutchman is Other). The emphasis on bleak open mythic spaces militates against handling this aspect, maybe. Also the extent of Senta’s being a commodity in Daland’s eyes could have been more emphasised. My own idea of how to produce this would be to use video screens to project a burning wheel of fire for the Dutchman’s Die Frist ist um and Senta’s ballad, then have two circles of fire intertwining in the big duet, and then have them separated again at the end. That, and something much like the staging here, would be ideal, I think!!!
The two outstanding performances were by Bryn Terfel and Toby Spence. I had assumed that Terfel might by now be sounding a bit frayed, and maybe in a dress rehearsal might be marking. Not a bit of it…..his voice filled the auditorium and easily rode over the orchestra at climaxes; there was some outstandingly warm sensitive soft singing in ‘Der Frist ist Um’ and the big duet with Senta. His diction was extraordinarily good, his lowering presence utterly believable. I felt it was a privilege to be listening to Bryn Terfel in this performance – he made so much of the words and music. Toby Spence made the best possible case for Erik with strong assertive but also sensitive singing. Normally Erik comes across as a bit of a drippy figure compared to the stronger stage presences of the Dutchman, Senta and Daland but here Spence held his own and had a good stage profile.
About Elisabet Strid as Senta I felt more ambivalent. Possibly she was marking at times. She was never less than good but seemed to lacked that ability the best opera singers have to grab the audience’s attention with her stage presence – her Ballad was not that distinguished and could have done with more wonder, and narrative passion. All in all she didn’t quite project the degree of intensity – even madness – needed for Senta. Her voice didn’t quite have the cut-through quality needed, nor was her phrasing as sensitive as Terfel’s. Stephen Milling was, again, perfectly competent as Daland but not distinctive. On Nanasi and the orchestra I was in two minds, partly because I was high up in the Amphitheatre, where the sound is never great. The orchestra seemed rhythmically precise for the most part (a few glitches aside) but at times a bit plodding and not all the big moments quite caught fire as they should have done. The chorus sounded excellent when in full throttle though there were again a few bits of slipped ensemble (which is understandable for a dress rehearsal). Again I wonder why the ROH cannot employ young British singers in the minor roles such as Mary and the Steersman – certainly the people on stage singing these roles weren’t particularly distinguished.
All in all a good though not great performance but Terfel’s Dutchman will stay in my memory for a long time……
Britten Sinfonia, Guy Johnston cello: Beethoven Grosse Fuge Op.133; Bartók Divertimento for String Orchestra; Tavener The Protecting Veil
This, by contrast to the previous concert, did not seem to be a clear model of coherent programming. Other than the fact that all the works are focused on the use of a string chamber orchestra, I failed to find any clear connections between the pieces, though maybe the point is the difference between the knotty, struggling, ‘difficult’ pieces in the first half and the serenity of the second half. The Britten Sinfonia of course was notoriously savaged by Arts Council cuts in November 2022, despite being the most prominent orchestra in the East of England, so I felt duty-bound to go along to support the Manchester leg of their 2024 tour, despite the slight oddness of the programming.
The Britten Sinfonia sounded a very fine band, but I thought their self-presentation to the audience needed a bit of attention. It’s good that they don’t have all the flummery of conductors to deal with and they made creative use of lighting, particularly in the Tavener piece, but I felt a bit of a spoken introduction would have helped before each work – certainly with the Beethoven and Bartok. Guy Johnston did a great interview in the Guardian about Tavener and I am sure a way might have been found to let him talk about his clear love for the work without destroying the aura the Sinfonia wanted to create at the beginning of The Protecting Veil.
I felt the Beethoven performance lacked something. It may be that the Grosse Fugue just sounds more visceral, has greater instrumental attack, when played by a quartet. Somehow this performance sounded a bit soggy, not quite as sharp as it should have been, and as though it needed a conductor to bring coherence to the relationship between the quieter passages and the frenzied fugal elements.
The Divertimento for String Orchestra is Bartók’s last work composed just before he fled Hungary and emigrated to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. It’s in three movements – an opening allegro with gypsy music influences, a molto adagio, and a finale that’s very quick. It uses the concerto grosso format, as I wrote on this blog when I last heard it in a dynamic performance by the LSO and Tony Pappano in October. The Sinfonia’s Bartok I thought was superb. The slow movement was utterly gripping in its menace, resignation and drama and the finale had all the energy and thrust needed. The first movement was also extremely well played, though as with the Pappano performance I found myself getting lost halfway through this movement. The Sinfonia sounded utterly together and at ease without a formal conductor.
Tavener is an interestingly wayward figure in the UK’s classical music history of the past 70 years. 20 or 30 years ago there would have been one or two first performances a year of large scale orchestral/ choral works by him, with long Greek or latterly Sanskrit titles. Whereas Arvo Part, another key figure in the field of holy minimalism, seems still quite widely played – possibly because his works vary more in nature, instrumentation and length – since Tavener’s death I have come across few instances of his works being performed, outside some choral classics – ‘ The Lamb’, ‘Song for Athene’ and so forth. Maybe there is going to be a massive re-evaluation of his output at some point, or maybe most of it will slide gently into oblivion. The Protecting Veil as a quasi-cello concerto has obvious champions in the various cellists who have put it in their repertoire and perhaps therefore stands more chance than most of his works of surviving. Having said which, there was a pretty full audience for this concert, and I got the sense that it was slightly different to the usual crowd who would turn up to BH concerts – so maybe there is a big Tavener fan club out there waiting for more performances of his works…….
As Tavener himself observed, The Protecting Veil is a sort of lyric ikon and stands as much as an aid to meditation as a structured piece of music in its own right. It has a glorious signature melody and some wonderful orchestration. It is utterly itself and without apology – and that must be a virtue! Maybe it slightly overstays its welcome, but I was impressed listening to it again (though I have never heard it live – I have a CD of it somewhere but haven’t listened to it for years). Guy Johnston played it superbly.
Clemens Schuldt conductor, Siobhan Stagg soprano, Markus Butter baritone. Hallé Choir; Strauss Metamorphosen; Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem
As I may have said somewhere else on this blog, the Brahms Requiem is one of the very few pieces of music I have actually sung in live performance, with St John’s College Music Society at Cambridge before an audience in the College Chapel in late 1971, in a choir where there were a few dozen sopranos and altos, a few more tenors and about 200 basses (I may be exaggerating but it did feel a bit like that – and of course reflects the – now completely bizarre – proportions of men and women at Cambridge in the early 70’s). So, definitely bottom-heavy but also a comfort for me as a performer, allowing me to skip the tricky bits and just mouth the words where necessary. But I can still sing along (in my head) with the bass part when I listen to the work. I have often wondered who was conducting and whether it was anyone who subsequently became well-known….
I am casting my mind back as to whether I have ever heard this live as an audience member – I think I have done more than once, but the only performance I am sure I was at was, bizarrely, Pierre Boulez conducting it at the Proms in 1973, which I checked in the Proms Archives. That must have been an interesting one, but I have zero memory of it …………… I may have heard Rudolf Kempe conducting it at the RFH in the 70’s.
This was a stimulating programming combination – two great composers creating works which are to do with memory, both melancholy in nature, both celebrating the German culture of the past (in the case of the Requiem, Bach, Handel, Luther and the Beethoven of the Missa Solemnis), and both reflecting in their mood the Lutheran Biblical texts used by Brahms reflecting on the transience of human existence– e.g. “For all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man like flowers. The grass withers and the flower falls. Therefore be patient, dear brothers, for the coming of the Lord. (1 Peter and James), and “.Behold, my days are as a handbreadth before Thee, and my life is as nothing before Thee. Alas, as nothing are all men, but so sure the living. They are therefore like a shadow, and go about vainly in disquiet; they collect riches, and do not know who will receive them” (Psalm 39)
Clemens Schuldt is a new name to me but he clearly already has a substantial profile in Europe, East Asia and Canada and works in opera as well as concerts – he is making his debut this season with Opera North, conducting Mozart’s “Così fan tutte”. I wondered about the need for a conductor in Metamorphosen – I have heard this work performed by chamber orchestras without one before. However I think Mr Schuldt’s presence did help to characterise the work effectively – the opening presentation of the key themes of the work sounded almost stunned, behind a veil, as though unable to contemplate the destruction of a culture. Climaxes were carefully graded so that it was clear where the emotional peaks were. I sometimes find listening to this work that it is easy to lose track of what is happening, but this performance kept me focused throughout.
The Brahms is a wonderful work. It is years since I listened to it even at home and it was a huge pleasure to hear again all the glories it offers, particularly the luscious harmonies. The BBC once ran a radio programme where people described how, in all sorts of traumas, stages of grief and sadness, they received consolation from this work. Although there is triumphant Christian acclamation in it, the overall feel is one of a more secular comforting in loss. This is emphasised by the two movements which begin and end the work – ‘Blessed are those who mourn’ and ‘Blessed are the dead’.
This Requiem is a very different beast to Verdi’s or Mozart’s – no hell fire or pleas for mercy here!. It offers several tricky aspects which performers have to handle carefully – it is often slow but mustn’t become turgid; it has a rich dark texture but mustn’t sound muddy; it needs a big choral sound but also often needs rhythmic precision as well as the choral enveloping climaxes. I think this performance steered a very effective path through all these issues.
The chorus for the Brahms was large (I’d guess about ?160) and they made a wonderful sound – rich, no frayed tenors or sopranos, and able to respond to the energy the conductor clearly required . The choral singing at the sudden fortissimo in the second movement of ‘Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit‘ was spine-tingling. The big fugues were also thrillingly done, I thought. Mr Schuldt seemed to me to get all the calls on tempi for the different movements just right – neither feeling too quick at any point or too slow – the Goldilocks effect, in fact. The beautiful 4th movement ‘ Wie lieblich sind deiner Wohnungen’ which can easily sound cloying was taken at a lilting speed which was very attractive. The way Schuldt encouraged both choir and orchestra to adopt a springy punchy approach to rhythm meant that the extended choral passages of movements 2, 3 and 6 never flagged. The two soloists were good – the baritone maybe sounding slightly constricted. The Halle produced a rich bass heavy sound, a velvet cushion, which could, with less judicious tempi, have been a bit stultifying, but which here fitted in with the overall approach
All in all it was wonderful to hear the Requiem live after so many years.
Anton Bruckner Symphony No 9 (Ed Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs); Te Deum (Ed Ernst Herttrich 2015). Performers – London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor; Lucy Crowe soprano; Anna Stéphany mezzo-soprano; Robin Tritschler tenor; Alexander Tsymbalyuk bass
I was hoping to have gone to a very interesting Halle concert before going down to London for this concert– a celebration of Steve Reich with Colin Currie, the percussionist, as conductor, and members of the Halle Orchestra – but sadly local trains were in a state of complete collapse and I was unable to get to it. So it’s almost two weeks since I have been to anything musical.
I have heard some fine performances live of Bruckner 9 by Haitink and Blomstedt. I am very pleased I found, after a lot of searching, a BBC SO orchestra recording of the work with Reggie Goodall conducting, which is a wonderful performance from the late ‘60’s. And I have a fine recording by Furtwangler. But I have often fretted about the issue of the missing 4th movement, and the curious reluctance of conductors and orchestras to play and promote the various scholarly completions of the work. Bruckner finished approximately 17 minutes of the last movement in full score, not just sketches, and there are several more minutes in sketch or piano form. The main problem is that the coda is missing so scholars must work out how this would sound, based upon the codas of, particularly, the 7th and the 8th symphonies – maybe also the 5th as well. Their conclusions are – from the versions I’ve heard – sometimes startlingly different. Nikolaus Harnoncourt once gave a lecture/concert of the Finale fragments that was recorded by RCA/BMG and can also be found on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBJPhKezGc. This is a very interesting 35 mins or so which gives a very real sense of how much there is of a completed finale, and how different this is, for scholars, as a completion exercise, to something like Anthony Payne’s reconstruction of Elgar’s Third Symphony. Harnoncourt also makes the point that there may be pages of the manuscript score still extant, which lie hidden in someone’s attic, having been taken away by friends and enthusiasts after Bruckner died, as mementos….! It seems strange to me – given that there are several completed versions by scholars (none of course accepted by the entirety of the Bruckner scholarly community, as the subject is a wonderful academic playground) – that we don’t hear performances of all four movements (perhaps with a pause before the finale to allow those who want to to leave). There are a range of completed versions – eg the version on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVoNyv5bfac (Sébastien Letocart), as well as the DG Rattle/BPO recording worked on by a group of European scholars and released in 2012, and the version by William Carrigan, of which there is a recording, on the Chandos label, by Yoav Talmi conducting the Oslo Philharmonic, quite different at times to the Rattle version (and with a track of the original sketches as well as the Carrigan version of the 4th movement). There are others. Bruckner’s famous death-bed recommendation that the Te Deum be substituted for the ‘unfinished’ 4th movement of the 9th sounds very like some of the other things he agreed to under duress and doesn’t wholly make sense. The Te Deum dates from 10 years earlier and is a straightforward confident affair, very different from the darkness and angst of the 9th symphony.
Anyway, there we are…….a concert with the completed three movements of the symphony and the Te Deum. Natalie Stultzmann I haven’t heard before conducting live, though I enjoyed listening to a broadcast of her Tannhauser at Bayreuth last year, which was much – praised. I have just got tickets to hear her conduct Tannhauser at Bayreuth this year (along with the newish production of Parsifal and the new Tristan).
Stutzmann had a clear beat and was very much controlling her large forces (9 horns, 4 trumpets and trombones etc) effectively. There were clear distinctions between the different gradations of volume. This was certainly not the murky slow Bruckner of some but clearer and harsher. That’s not to say that where appropriate themes weren’t warmly shaped and phrased -eg the second subjects of the first and third movements or the second theme of the Trio. Nor was Stutzmann on the whole taking things too fast, though I did think that the Scherzo could have been more menacing with a slightly slower tempo. And there was real passion in the opening of the third movement – very Mahlerian…..What this performance gave me, through the clarity, through the very fine LSO playing, was a real sense of Bruckner’s precarious mental health while writing this work. A neighbour, who used to be a horn player in London orchestras in the 60s and 70s, was telling me about what he thought was the most chilling part of the work – the strange high trumpet note that sounds quietly over the reprise of the scherzo – he thought it was one of the most agonising moments in all music (and it was superbly realised in this performance). The sheer oddity, the menace, the strangeness of the harmonies came over very clearly, particularly in the third movement which I thought was very finely shaped – everything led inexorably to that terrible climax. Interestingly the final tender string melody, which is normally shaped in a smoothly consoling way was phrased as a series of stabbing notes. Whether that was something to do with the textual edition used, or vibrato-less playing, I’m not sure, but it was a chillingly resigned end, like a clock ticking – in a sense making the need to hear the proper finale the more pressing. On that particular issue it is interesting how one or two melodies in the first three movements prefigure Bruckner’s wonderful chorale melody in the finale.
Some people have said that the reason the finale was never finished was a failure of Bruckner’s imagination- that he no longer had it in him to write the great hymn of praise he envisaged. I have to say the version Rattle recorded- by the group of scholars which includes the late Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, who also edited the version of the three movements played by Stutzmann – is convincing to my mind even though the coda is perhaps too short.
Whatever the answer, the Te Deum isn’t it. The performance was fine – the beginning and end even thrilling but this is a totally different sound world to the 9th symphony and offers no real resolution to the bleakness of that work.
All in all then I found this to be a fine performance. Using my now familiar three markers for Bruckner, this performance did Schubert and Wagner very well but missed some of the God element. I wonder why – unless I missed it- Stutzmann didn’t give the trumpet section a solo bow at the end – maybe they were a bit underpowered (unusually for the LSO). Or maybe she just forgot.
I’ll look forward to hearing Stutzmann conduct Tannhauser this summer. And onto the Big Bruckner Weekend at the beginning of March in Gateshead.
Haydn String Quartet In G Minor, Op. 20 No. 3; Shostakovich String Quartet No. 7 In F Sharp Minor, Op. 108; Britten 3 Divertimenti For String Quartet; Danish Folk Music (‘Wood works’)
This was an interesting programme, though I am not sure an entire second half of Danish re-imagined folk music quite worked – to my mind it might have made more sense to cut out the Britten, have another Haydn or Shostakovich quartet, and intersperse what was played with the folk music. ANYWAY….it was an enjoyable evening. And with a full house…..I haven’t really come across this quartet before, though to give yourself as the name of the quartet the country you belong to implies some elevated status (or arrogance). They have been around for about 20 years, and were treated like rock stars by the RNCM/Cheetham’s students present (lots of whoops). And they were very good indeed!!
The Haydn was new to me – I don’t have a recording of any of the Op 20 quartets (and must get one). To quote Wikipedia, “the musicologist Cliff Eisen contextualizes the op. 20 quartets as follows: “Haydn’s quartets of the late 1760s and early 1770s [opp. 9, 17 and 20] are high points in the early history of the quartet. Characterized by a wide range of textures, frequent assymetries and theatrical gestures…these quartets established the genre’s four-movement form, its larger dimensions, and …its greater aesthetic pretensions and expressive range””.Here I was particularly struck by the slow movement and its long viola solo. If you shut your eyes and just listened to the music without programme notes, it wouldn’t be, I felt, Haydn that came to mind but the Beethoven of the middle or even late quartets – astonishing music. The Danes played very beautifully throughout the work, but I did feel there was something like a lack of spring, vivacity – energy – in the playing of the Haydn; maybe a bit over-refined?
There were no such qualms with the Shostakovich (the shortest of the fifteen – only 13 minutes or so) – this was a really very good performance indeed, with masses of bite, the strings digging in deeply, and bitterly angry and powerful pizzicato from the strings at points in the first movement. Maybe the first and second violins swapping was something to do with this sudden increase in energy. At the same time the ghostly keening and the menace of the second movement was very well realised by the quartet, as was the violence and melancholy of the final movement.
The Britten dates from the early 1930’s so a very youthful work. Again, there was energy and vigour for what is a not inherently very interesting piece by comparison to the other two preceding it. I doubt if it could be better played.
As I have already indicated, the Wood Works folk music was pleasant enough – indeed some of it was really lovely, but really I would have preferred another quartet or the music presented in a different way!
John Storgårds, conductor; Christian Tetzlaff violin. Prokofiev Cinderella, Suite No. 2, Op. 108, Thomas Adès Violin Concerto, ‘Concentric Paths’; Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 in F minor
This looked in prospect to be a fascinating programme: – a very competent conductor, a famous violinist, a Thomas Ades piece I hadn’t heard before, and a chance to get to grips, with the focus of a live performance, with the Shostakovich piece, which I have never quite got my head around. All this, plus some of the Cinderella music (I had previously heard Gergiev and the LSO performing the complete ballet at the Proms about 12 or 13 years ago)!
And indeed this was a very enjoyable concert of what was for me fairly or completely unknown music. I noticed Simon Webb, head of BBC orchestras in the audience, looking a bit furtive, as well he might given the excoriating and maybe unfair criticism regularly hurled at him by Norman Lebrecht (BBC executive ‘owns mistake’ of killing ensembles – Slippedisc) and others. The hall was quite full, young, and appreciative – lots of University and RNCM / Cheethams students. Perhaps some had come to hear Christian Tetzlaff. The programming was a bit of a mystery – obviously Prokofiev and Shostakovich have connections, but the connection of either’s pieces with Ades was unclear. Perhaps the truth is that these are three works with quite awkward timings which just fitted together as a satisfying programme (which it was).
Cinderella was composed between 1940 and 1944, with Prokofiev breaking off in the middle to write his opera War and Peace. The premiere of Cinderella was in November, 1945, at the Bolshoi Theatre and the suites from the ballet were put together by the composer in 1946. It was very well played by the orchestra, with some particularly taut playing by the strings in the final Galop. Truth to tell, this Suite doesn’t really cover the well-known parts of the work (which presumably are in Suite 1) and while enjoyable I found my mind drifting at times. Also, given that these are excerpts which cover specific parts of the story, albeit in narrative order, there wasn’t really a feeling of progression or an inner musical narrative.
Concentric Paths is the subtitle of Adès’ concerto for violin and chamber orchestra. It was premiered in 2005 and is in three movements, Rings, Paths and Rounds. About 20 minutes long, I found it a gripping piece and must find a recording of it. I wished I’d listened to it beforehand on Youtube. Ades’ music somehow immediately gets to me – there’s always some sense of a narrative, of progression, of emotions which the music embodies. In the case of this work (and here I am following on from Tom Service’s programme notes) there’s perhaps a connection with the much more recent Dante ballet, or maybe the music of the spheres – the first movement does seem to portray an ethereal sort of state, with very high solo violin sounds, while the second is a lot darker, more hellish, with stabbing chords. The third movement seems to offer a resolution of these states of mind. Tetzlaff’s strong, sweet playing was, I thought, remarkable, and he got (see photo below) a standing ovation from at least some members of the audience.
Perhaps because of the uncomfortably slightly short length of the Shostakovich symphony for a complete second half work, the orchestra played before it a short and simple but enjoyable Scherzo composed when the composer was only 17. I was thrilled to be finding the Shostakovich symphony easier to follow than I have found listening to it on disc or on the radio – I have never heard it live before. It is a piece absolutely bursting with ideas, with sudden switches of mood and false starts by a prodigiously gifted young composer who wrote it as his end-of-Conservatoire show piece. Again, I must play my recording of it to understand it more. But I was very much taken with it, and it seems to demonstrate that time, not only of Shostakovich as a young man, but also of Russia’s intellectual ferment and experiment in the early 1920’swhen anything seemed possible, before the Soviet heavy hand got a grip. There are influences here certainly – of early Stravinsky and Prokofiev – but also it shows Shostakovich’s own developed voice coming through strongly.
Throughout the evening I was again impressed by John Storgard’s conducting – he is a very dependable figure on the podium
Tetzlaff leaving the stage with audience members giving standing ovation
This is the first time I have seen Elektra live in almost 50 years. I have not been to a performance of the work since 1977……and I definitely heard Birgit Nilsson sing the role. Quite when I did so is another matter – I might have been to the classic ROHCG performances of Elektra in 1972 with the (originally 1953) production involving Birgit Nilsson in the title role, Chrysothemis sung by Helga Dernesch and Clytemnestra by Regina Resnik, conducted by Georg Solti; I cannot imagine why I wouldn’t have gone to a 1977 run conducted by Carlos Kleiber, no less, with Birgit Nilsson and Gwyneth Jones, and, indeed, this may have been the one I went to – but if so I have zero memory of this. I am pretty sure I didn’t go to both the Solti and Kleiber performances. I am also confident I went to a performance conducted by Colin Davis in 1975, with Elektra sung by Danica Mastilovic, Chrysothemis by Berit Lindholm and Clytemnestra by Kerstin Meyer
This was a new production and was as fine an Elektra as I’ve ever heard, I think, and certainly an improvement on that old 1950s ROH production visually and dramatically. I hadn’t realised that the UK premiere was as early as 1910, with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting at the ROH, along with Strauss, who gave two performances.
The set – as is appropriate with Greek tragedy – adopted the principle of the unity of place: there was only the grey outside wall of a big 19th century house, with large windows and a door at the back of stage left with a large staircase to look at throughout the opera. Lights came off and on in the house, which we saw through the windows, and people moved backwards and forwards in the corridor behind them, looking out at the courtyard in front of the wall where the action takes place. So all this effectively emphasises the inherent inside/outside dichotomy of the piece, and the closed-in feel of Klytemnestra and Aegisth’s life. There’s a sort of cellar entrance which Elektra goes in and out of, in the courtyard, not always with much perceived intention (is this the bath-house where Agamemnon was killed?). The costumes are difficult to place – possibly 1940s/50’s for most of the cast, though Orest looks 21st century (is that an idea of a future destroyer of a decadent group of people?). Really, there seemed to be no obvious reason for the specific placing of the story, but equally it didn’t particularly bother me and wasn’t a distraction. There were in fact no big directorial ideas, more a close focus on the personalities and interactions involved. That spareness too seemed appropriate to a Greek tragedy and it’s good not to be overblowing the grotesqueries inherent in the plot (there was a nervous titter from a few people when Klytemnestra screams as she dies, which reflects the fact that the audience was gripped by the plot, and helped to do this by the understatement of the production).
Elektra wore a black and white parlour maid-type dress, as did all the women on stage apart from Chrysothemis and Klytemnestra while the male minor parts wore dinner jackets or suits – Orest had long hair, a jacket and tie. Chrysothemis had a 1950s flouncy pink dress and Klytemnestra a ball gown, jewellery and wrap. All the main characters on stage played their roles again in a somewhat understated way, which made one understand their predicaments more, and even feel for them – Klytemnestra, gripped by the horror of the past was not a wicked old witch; Chrysothemis’ search for a way out was moving, and all the main characters seemed tortured by a quest for love. All in all a production like this that doesn’t get in the way has solid virtues, the main one being that it gave a high quality cast the space to explore their roles.
In many ways the stars of a distinguished evening were Pappano and the orchestra. Through the various manifestations over the years of the Solti recording (vinyl, CD and MP3), I think I know this work well, but Pappano brought out countless orchestral details I’d never heard before – fluttering flutes, burbling clarinets, sounds of chamber music detail – particularly in the scene between Elektra and Chrysothemis. At the same time this wasn’t beauty for beauty’s sake, leading to a sapping of the work’s energy. Pappano’s reading was rhythmically taut and exciting but also lush (? maybe a little too much so, in the recognition scene which went very slowly after the initial frenzied orchestra – but it is the emotional heart of the work). The acoustics of the ROH do not lend themselves well to this kind of mammoth late-Romantic work, but all the main climaxes were appropriately noisy, with the last few bars truly stunning (and totally together)!
Ausrine Stundyte as Elektra was a last minute substitute for an indisposed Nina Stemme. Her voice is not a heavy Wagnerian one (and it is normally Wagner singers who take on this role). She can hit the high notes but not in a powerful Nilsson-like way. This conveys a sense of fragility. What she has is a voice of warmth and subtlety that, in some of the quieter moments outdid Nilsson in some of the beauty of her phrasing. This perhaps slighter voice goes well with a less than manic view of the role -Elektra here isn’t so demented and fixated, but more a tragic haunted figure – at the verge of total collapse at the end. Her attempts to dance were truly disturbing (though I thought her final collapse came a bit too soon, before the orchestra signifies it.) Sara Jakubiak was very impressive – in some ways a bigger voice than Ausrine Stundyte, and this vocal strength excellently conveyed the essence of the character, her sense of wanting to escape and live a real life. She had probably the best diction of the evening. Karita Mattila as Klytemnestra was also very impressive both in her acting (with no hamming) and in the warm lower register of her voice.
One slightly odd thing I found, listening intently to this work live, is that, 50 years ago, I found it impressively dissonant, abrasive and ‘modern’. Listening to it now, it feels very much like the other top drawer Strauss pieces, and I don’t really now see that there was a ‘path not taken’ in Strauss’ career. The path from Elektra to Rosenkavalier is entirely straightforward once you consider the very different subject matter of these two works……..But I am also impressed anew by the concision of the piece – how many themes have their origin in the three note Agamemnon theme which opens the work. Concision is not something you associate with Strauss in his later works. I guess in that concision does lie some link with the 2nd Viennese School………..
London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conductor; Agneta Eichenholz, Jenůfa; Katarina Karnéus, Kostelnička; Aleš Briscein, Laca; Nicky Spence, Steva; Jan Martiník, Starek, the Foreman/Mayor; Carole Wilson, Grandmother Buryjovka; Claire Barnett-Jones, Barena/Herdswoman; Hanna Hipp, Rychtarka; Erika Baikoff, Jano; Evelin Novak, Karolka
This was a very fine performance which might perhaps have been a great one had Asmik Gregorian been available to take the part of Jenufa, as originally planned – unfortunately she had to cancel, maybe a fortnight before the performance (but I can’t really grumble – I heard her singing live at ROHCG in October 2021, and she was really excellent).
Jenufa is not a work I grew up with and I am still discovering its music. It’s earlier than the other operas and has a more ‘operatic’ feel in some ways…..an identifiable aria (to the Virgin Mary!), a love duet at the end: it’s less quirky than the other Janacek operas. But it has many of the same features – speech-inflected melodies, a driving sense of drama, and some folky music (though composed by Janacek himself from his knowledge of Moravian folk music.)
This was very much a concert performance, with music stands and no coordinated approach to dramatic interaction. Sitting as i was about 4 rows from the front, this was slightly more disconcerting than it would have been were I sitting further back. Some people – particularly Nicky Spence (who has been performing Steva for some years on stage) gave it the full Monty, with lots of movement, and facial expressions. The Mayor’s daughter, Evelin Novak, was also really throwing herself into the role. Katarina Karneus was very good at projecting the gloomy severe demeanour of the Kostelnicka and Erika Baikoff very lively as Jano. Others – notably Agneta Eichenholz as Jenufa – tended to keep their noses in the score – Ms Eichenholz was pretty expressionless throughout and, except at the very end, didn’t really react to anyone else on stage. But, given that acting is not really part of the job description for such an event, I don’t think I can complain too much…..
Rattle and the LSO were superb – letting rip at the dramatic highlights, sustaining the tension in Act 2 and the violent ending of Act 1. There was a splendid bite to the folk music (aided by the excellent LSO Chorus), some excellent solos (e.g. by the leader, and first oboe) and some dramatic timpani thwacking. There was a glorious glow to the strings in the final 5 minutes and the cello section were outstanding throughout, I thought.
The cast was in general extremely good. Katarina Karneus (who sang one of the best Kundry’s I have ever heard 18 months ago with Opera North) was an outstanding Kostelnicka, able to convey through her voice and diction the full bitterness and horror of the role – her Wagnerian power was important in doing this, with some piercing top notes. Both Nicky Spence as Steva and Aleš Briscein as Laca were also strongly sung parts, with clear diction – the latter, a native Czech speaker, was particularly impressive with untiring stentorian energy (it sounds a difficult role to sing). The supporting roles were well taken. About Agneta Eichenholz as Jenufa I had a few questions in my mind – yes, it was well sung, a strong voice with little vibrato, but not really as fully characterised a rendition as it might have been. There wasn’t, I mean, the shading, the variation of tones and colours, that a great singer might have brought to the role. Maybe it was a little under-characterised, but hers was much more than a good-enough performance- she projected the vulnerability, the passivity of Jenufa very well, though very differently from what I remember of the more strident, assertive and energetic Gregorian.
Aleš Briscein and Agneta Eichenholz, with Katarina Karneus and Nicky Spence to the left
John's musical journey 