It means a prayer for both inner and outer peace, and Beethoven wrote the line to help focus the energy he was looking in the Dona Nobis Pacem that brings the great Missa Solemnis to an end. The work is more than 85 minutes of music and it is built with the complexity of design that often reflects both inner and outer struggle.
In a concert simulcast live in the Digital Concert Hall, guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt brought a classical clarity to this great work as he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
On the very edge of turning 85, Blomstedt is probably best known in this country for his tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1985 to 1995. Blomstedt conducted from memory and without a baton and brought a delicious youthful vitality to the event.
During his prerecorded address to the digital audience aired a half-hour before the event itself, Blomstedt emphasized how all levels of this work are "charged with meaning." He handed us neatly wrapped examples of musical motives which he sang, and also unraveled some specific connections to religious symbolism contained in the work.
Soft-edged balances in the Kyrie set the mood for this performance, and Blomstedt placed the opening choral invocations without diminuendi so that the quiet downbeats were subito. This made the soloists seem to emerge from the resonances in the hall and was quite magical even over the internet. Though there were glorious moments in the celebratory Gloria it was the Apollonian quality that Blomstedt created in the Credo that was most memorable.
Guy Braunstein played the extensive solo violin writing in the Benedictus with liquid phrases shaped in lyricism, and made even more poignant by his recent announcement to step down as concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the end of the 2012-2013 season.
The soloists were effective both in individual phrases and in blended ensembles. Soprano Ruth Ziesak was captivating with colors that could pierce any texture and rhythmic buoyancy that drew us close. Tenor Richard Croft showed how a thinking tenor can phrase and blend and still sound effortlessly brilliant. Bass Georg Zeppenfeld and contralto Gerhild Romberger both contributed magical moments to this quartet of soloists.
At the end of the Benedictus, Blomstedt allowed the final fermata to sustain longer than any others in the work. He froze, then with a sudden gesture he seemed to grab the sound with both hands and pulled it inward as the chord was released into silence. Throughout this performance the music felt cherished.
Showing posts with label Guy Braunstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guy Braunstein. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Guy Braunstein; The Brahms Ensemble Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker
It should be renamed. After hearing Guy Braunstein play the Brahms Violin Concerto on the Digital Concert Hall I want to petition to rename the work the Brahms Ensemble Concerto. Perhaps it could be called the "BEC" for short.
With the advent of the Digital Concert Hall it is possible that more people now know of violinist Braunstein in his role as First Konzertmeister of the Berliner Philharmoniker than know of him as a soloist, but he was trained, and developed his early career as a soloist and not primarily as an orchestral specialist. But it was as a soloist that Braunstein performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker on this occasion, and the fascination of his performance of the Brahms Concerto for Violin was that he played the work with a sound that seemed to come from within the orchestra.
He stood further back within the ensemble than most soloists position themselves, and he leaned in toward the ensemble. He was standing, but he was also part of the sectional violins. During the opening of the development, which is the first place after its entry when the soloist does not play, he instinctively moved away from the front of the stage, nearer to the sound, to join his colleagues and share the power of this moment.
Braunstein played with technical ease and fluidity but he did not seek an untroubled ease in the sound itself. He let the struggle between dance and torment that drives so much of the opening movement find expression in metric and bow-arm frictions.
There is an unexpected moment in the development of the first movement, marked tranquillo, where a new rhythmic figure of one 8th followed by two 16ths is developed obsessively. Braunstein allowed them to carry an almost baroque dance energy, and played tautly but without exploding with the trilled sequence into which this passage dissolves. He played the Joachim cadenza. Joachim was also engaged by this passage from the development and featured it in his cadenza. Braunstein made the connection apparent, then shifted the resonance of his sound to allow Joachim's vision of it to spin into a burning con brio.
The second movement benefited even more from being approached as orchestral music rather than music for soloist with accompaniment. The opening passage was played like harmoniemusik, not as a solo for oboe with wind accompaniment--the solo oboe playing by Albrecht Mayer sparkled with an embedded context.
After intermission we heard Ein Heldenleben, which is a work that celebrates extremes. But this Heldenleben needed more focus and control in order to persuade beyond beautifully played moments. Though I enjoyed Andris Nelsons when he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in September 2011, his presence during this performance was often distracting. He accelerated the burn of many passages too quickly and lost intermediary colors that are possible.
Still, there were brilliant passages, especially during the music often called "reflections on youth," from"Des Helden Friedenswerke," where themes from early works by Strauss were woven together with tenderness and fun. There was also an interesting (and I think new) angle from the production crew that was a close-up shot from just above one of the harps, just before the bassoon solo. The image made us seem to float just before the music itself floated.
I did not like the pairing of the Brahms Violin Concerto and Heldenleben on this program. During the extensive "hero's companion" section, the solo violin texture (and in spite of the fact that it was well played by concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto) did not have the sonic freshness that it would have had with a different companion work. The juxtaposition of the two works produced no significant insight, and so any comparison simply distracted and made it harder to integrate Heldenleben itself.
When the work is released into the archives of the Digital Concert Hall I look forward to the opportunity to hear it again without first hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto.
With the advent of the Digital Concert Hall it is possible that more people now know of violinist Braunstein in his role as First Konzertmeister of the Berliner Philharmoniker than know of him as a soloist, but he was trained, and developed his early career as a soloist and not primarily as an orchestral specialist. But it was as a soloist that Braunstein performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker on this occasion, and the fascination of his performance of the Brahms Concerto for Violin was that he played the work with a sound that seemed to come from within the orchestra.
He stood further back within the ensemble than most soloists position themselves, and he leaned in toward the ensemble. He was standing, but he was also part of the sectional violins. During the opening of the development, which is the first place after its entry when the soloist does not play, he instinctively moved away from the front of the stage, nearer to the sound, to join his colleagues and share the power of this moment.
Braunstein played with technical ease and fluidity but he did not seek an untroubled ease in the sound itself. He let the struggle between dance and torment that drives so much of the opening movement find expression in metric and bow-arm frictions.
There is an unexpected moment in the development of the first movement, marked tranquillo, where a new rhythmic figure of one 8th followed by two 16ths is developed obsessively. Braunstein allowed them to carry an almost baroque dance energy, and played tautly but without exploding with the trilled sequence into which this passage dissolves. He played the Joachim cadenza. Joachim was also engaged by this passage from the development and featured it in his cadenza. Braunstein made the connection apparent, then shifted the resonance of his sound to allow Joachim's vision of it to spin into a burning con brio.
The second movement benefited even more from being approached as orchestral music rather than music for soloist with accompaniment. The opening passage was played like harmoniemusik, not as a solo for oboe with wind accompaniment--the solo oboe playing by Albrecht Mayer sparkled with an embedded context.
After intermission we heard Ein Heldenleben, which is a work that celebrates extremes. But this Heldenleben needed more focus and control in order to persuade beyond beautifully played moments. Though I enjoyed Andris Nelsons when he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in September 2011, his presence during this performance was often distracting. He accelerated the burn of many passages too quickly and lost intermediary colors that are possible.
Still, there were brilliant passages, especially during the music often called "reflections on youth," from"Des Helden Friedenswerke," where themes from early works by Strauss were woven together with tenderness and fun. There was also an interesting (and I think new) angle from the production crew that was a close-up shot from just above one of the harps, just before the bassoon solo. The image made us seem to float just before the music itself floated.
I did not like the pairing of the Brahms Violin Concerto and Heldenleben on this program. During the extensive "hero's companion" section, the solo violin texture (and in spite of the fact that it was well played by concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto) did not have the sonic freshness that it would have had with a different companion work. The juxtaposition of the two works produced no significant insight, and so any comparison simply distracted and made it harder to integrate Heldenleben itself.
When the work is released into the archives of the Digital Concert Hall I look forward to the opportunity to hear it again without first hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto.
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