Pablo Heras-Casado led a concert of extremes in his Digital Concert Hall debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. He positioned extremely familiar works by Mendelssohn (the Hebrides Overture, and the Symphony No. 3) to begin and end the event, and he placed two infrequently heard pieces (Karol Szymanowski's Symphony No. 4, and Berio's Quatre dédicaces) just before and after intermission.
Like a good hard candy, it was the center which was most pleasantly surprising. Pianist Marc-André Hamelin joined the orchestra as soloist in the Szymanowski, which, though it could be mistaken for a piano concerto, is actually numbered among Szymanowski's symphonies, and is nicknamed »Symphonie concertante.«
Hamelin approached the work in a chamber style and blended into the orchestra during many passages. This conception made the most concerto-like elements, like the ringing figuration of the first movement cadenza, or the brief trilled cadenza of the andante molto sostenuto, seem freshly improvised. Hamlin was also soulful in the dancing central passage of the third movement where he was able to create the isolated vortex of someone who dances to both remember and forget.
The Mazurka that he announced from the stage as his encore was actually the Mazurka Op. 50 No. 6 and is recorded on the disc of complete Mazurka's by Szymanowski that Hamelin recorded for Hyperion.
After intermission Heras-Casado treated us to the Quatre dédicaces for orchestra by Luciano Berio. The Berliner Philharmoniker is exploring a series of works by Berio this season, and this performance of these four brief, festive pieces was impressive. Heras-Casado played the four movements in the Boulez ordering.
The Fanfara was given in a stately tempo, with incredible detail in the trumpet playing. Heras-Casado extended the final tone played by the clarinets which gave the movement a dramatic close. I loved the quivering richness of texture in the Entrada, and Festum was played as a celebration of simultaneous ideas. This performance of the final movement, Encore, could easily become required material for the study of virtuoso orchestral balances.
The Mendelssohn was ok. Hebrides had a few memorable moments, and the last three movements of the third symphony were often quite good. Heras-Casado took too much time between the first and second, and the second and third movements, allowing energy to dissipate at those important junctions. The first movement missed the mark. Heras-Casado could not get the orchestra to play quietly. Listen for instance, to the opening of the development, marked sempre pianissimo. It is already quite loud, then during the crescendo it reaches maximum volume well in advance of the fortissimo marking. The only place the orchestra played quietly was the repeat of the exposition, and arguably at the opening of the recap. The result was that the first movement sounded thick and many great subtleties within the movement, like that lovely clarinet line that shadows the opening violin tune one octave lower (at the beginning of the first theme group) was completely covered.
The LA Philharmonic bested this performance in both works by Mendelssohn during their LA Phil Live in HD performance on October 9, that I reviewed on this blog.
The inner and outer portions of the event didn't harmonize well as a program either. Both works by Mendelssohn came across unfairly as a programming afterthought. It might have worked to open with Berio followed by Szymanowski with Mendelssohn on the second half. But the messaging with Mendelssohn first and last seemed all wrong.
Showing posts with label Berio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berio. Show all posts
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Bychkov wins in the Digital Concert Hall
Conductor Semyon Bychkov returned to lead the Berliner Philharmoniker in a tasty program transmitted through the Digital Concert Hall. This is the fourth event that Bychkov has conducted that will enter the permanent archives of the orchestra, making Bychkov and Bernard Haitink the most frequently represented guest conductors in the collection of over 100 concerts.
Bychkov gets a remarkable sound from the orchestra. What is it about the way that Bychkov conducts that makes this sound? Perhaps the combination of practical gestures and transparent sincerity in his visual contact with the orchestra. Whatever it is, he won the day.
The program opened with "Rendering" by Luciano Berio. The work is a meditation on the fragments of a tenth symphony that Schubert left behind at his death. Schubert's ghost couldn't have orchestrated these fragments any better than Berio. And Berio left the fragments as they were without trying to finish them.
During the gaps Berio composed and inserted whimsical music that sounds the whispered celestial distances from our world to Schubert's. It was these passages that made the deepest impression in this performance. Led by Bychkov, the Berliner Philharmoniker explored the riches within these interludes and focused many shifting and intricate streams of sound.
It is common to hear orchestras phase out during these passages and simply present a single quiet tableau of undifferentiated sound. When that happens the differences between the Schubert style and the interlude style sounds inorganic and false.
Too much has been made of any similarity between the opening tune of the second movement in "Rendering" and the distorted music of the third movement of Mahler I. There is more difference than similarity. And oboist Albrecht Mayer played the lyrical tune from Berio/Schubert with a rich and full sounding lyricism that made this distinction clear.
The contrast between the broken fragility of the second movement and the playful joy of the third movement was something that Bychkov was great at communicating. The shift of attitudes was powerful.
Mayer returned to the stage by himself after intermission to perform Berio's Sequenza VII for solo oboe. This performance used a live (instead of recorded) drone on the pitch [B] which was played from the wings above the stage. Normally one only hears this work on chamber concerts and it was refreshing to hear it performed by an orchestral specialist in a huge space. Mayer successfully moved between the fixed and improvisatory sections that are woven into the music fabric of this work and produced richly colored multiphonics. Mayer is so musical he makes you wonder why everyone doesn't choose to play the oboe.
The performance concluded with William Walton's Symphony No. 1. During the interlude Sarah Willis talked with Bychkov about the differences between playing this work with an English orchestra and a German orchestra, many members of which had never played the work. Bychkov said that there were different kinds of challenges with all orchestras.
What he meant by that became more obvious when he started conducting the work. Bychkov has a very distinct sonic conception of this symphony--it does not sound like an unknown symphony by Sibelius in his hands. Bychkov seemed to inspire the musicians to rely on the lyrical qualities in the work, and to allow them to make the same rich but clear textures that won the day in Berio/Schubert. Surprisingly the rhythmic vitality of the work did not need to be compromised, but we often made progress through great spans of music in ways that almost seemed unfamiliar and new. Bychkov certainly knows where all the hallways lead in the haunted mansion that is the Walton first symphony.
I can see why the Berliner Philharmoniker loves Bychkov. Bring him back soon!
Bychkov gets a remarkable sound from the orchestra. What is it about the way that Bychkov conducts that makes this sound? Perhaps the combination of practical gestures and transparent sincerity in his visual contact with the orchestra. Whatever it is, he won the day.
The program opened with "Rendering" by Luciano Berio. The work is a meditation on the fragments of a tenth symphony that Schubert left behind at his death. Schubert's ghost couldn't have orchestrated these fragments any better than Berio. And Berio left the fragments as they were without trying to finish them.
During the gaps Berio composed and inserted whimsical music that sounds the whispered celestial distances from our world to Schubert's. It was these passages that made the deepest impression in this performance. Led by Bychkov, the Berliner Philharmoniker explored the riches within these interludes and focused many shifting and intricate streams of sound.
It is common to hear orchestras phase out during these passages and simply present a single quiet tableau of undifferentiated sound. When that happens the differences between the Schubert style and the interlude style sounds inorganic and false.
Too much has been made of any similarity between the opening tune of the second movement in "Rendering" and the distorted music of the third movement of Mahler I. There is more difference than similarity. And oboist Albrecht Mayer played the lyrical tune from Berio/Schubert with a rich and full sounding lyricism that made this distinction clear.
The contrast between the broken fragility of the second movement and the playful joy of the third movement was something that Bychkov was great at communicating. The shift of attitudes was powerful.
Mayer returned to the stage by himself after intermission to perform Berio's Sequenza VII for solo oboe. This performance used a live (instead of recorded) drone on the pitch [B] which was played from the wings above the stage. Normally one only hears this work on chamber concerts and it was refreshing to hear it performed by an orchestral specialist in a huge space. Mayer successfully moved between the fixed and improvisatory sections that are woven into the music fabric of this work and produced richly colored multiphonics. Mayer is so musical he makes you wonder why everyone doesn't choose to play the oboe.
The performance concluded with William Walton's Symphony No. 1. During the interlude Sarah Willis talked with Bychkov about the differences between playing this work with an English orchestra and a German orchestra, many members of which had never played the work. Bychkov said that there were different kinds of challenges with all orchestras.
What he meant by that became more obvious when he started conducting the work. Bychkov has a very distinct sonic conception of this symphony--it does not sound like an unknown symphony by Sibelius in his hands. Bychkov seemed to inspire the musicians to rely on the lyrical qualities in the work, and to allow them to make the same rich but clear textures that won the day in Berio/Schubert. Surprisingly the rhythmic vitality of the work did not need to be compromised, but we often made progress through great spans of music in ways that almost seemed unfamiliar and new. Bychkov certainly knows where all the hallways lead in the haunted mansion that is the Walton first symphony.
I can see why the Berliner Philharmoniker loves Bychkov. Bring him back soon!
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