An "Infomentary"...and a Revelation: Simon Rattle, Berlin Phil, & You!

My condolences to all who did not see the screening of The Beethoven Project in movie theaters around the country March 19, 2016. It was phenomenal, with great “monster orchestra”-sized playing by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle.

The program started with a documentary about recording the entire Beethoven symphony cycle, then, after an intermission (“interval” in Euro-speak), performances of Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh. This was more of an infomercial for the Berlin Philharmonic than an objective documentary, but did provide some insights into the orchestra and its surprisingly compatible relationship with the wild-haired conductor from Liverpool.

Rattle's reading of the Fourth was bigger and badder than it deserves to be, still first-rate. But the Seventh was appropriately right on the cusp of frenzy. Decades ago, who would have dreamed that the BP would become a league of head-bangers, but I’m not complaining. There was non-stop physical action for the eye and, for the ear, the “apotheosis of the dance,” as Wagner called it, has never been more bacchanalian. I wanted to stand up and cheer, but that’s not the sort of things you do in a movie theater with only 25 other guests present. (I wonder whether video concerts in Europe are similarly under-attended. The theater in question is located just eight miles from Princeton, known for its plethora of  classical music lovers.)

The infomentary, to coin a term for this painlessly edifying marketing tool, contained a few memorable bon mots by the maestro. Early on, the affable Rattle tells the interviewer that one of the great dangers of interpreting Beethoven is making his music too elegant and polished, that it always needs a bit of roughness to let Beethoven speak. He called conducting his music “looking at yourself through an uncomfortable mirror. He asks of you more than you can give,” which is why Rattle said he appreciates the “superhuman energy” of the BP.

Rattle then sat at the keyboard to show how Beethoven was doing things in his own way right from the start with the First Symphony. Rattle stated what the 18th century audience’s expectation would have been at the opening, then proceeded to shatter those expectations no less than seven times in a few minutes. (I may be a little off on the numbers, but you know what I mean.) Beethoven still follows the models of his teachers, Rattle says, but in the last movement, it’s “Haydn and Mozart go to the gym.”
Skipping past the Second, Rattle spends some time explicating the Third. Beethoven not only was the first composer to put politics into a symphony, he said (even if deep down it is really about a personal crisis), but it’s also almost as though he is composing himself out of suicide. (Well put!)

Rattle described the room where the Eroica was first performed in Vienna, not much larger than the BP’s stage. "It must have been like hearing Vesuvius erupt,” he said breathlessly.

Other words of note pertained to the Sixth, the Pastoral, to which he ascribed the theme, Fragility. “That storm…it’s actually terror, psychic terror,” he said, and then the camera cut to a bit of the performance, much more over the top than what we are used to hearing. “It makes the final thanksgiving that much more affecting,” he said. “It is a thanksgiving that all of us have survived.”

There was a very interesting bit of dialogue about an instrumental part of the last movement of the Ninth. One of the scholars following one of the earliest extent copies of the score discovered something truly remarkable and brought it to Rattle's attention.

There is a point where there are a series of F#s repeated up and down in octave, followed by three rising notes in the French horns (B major, then B minor? I’m writing this from memory). This is repeated two more times. It turns out that the original score calls for the French horns notes to be different, not an exact repeat, in fact, to falter in the second and third repeat, before the glorious reentry of the chorus.

The effect is a little like that staggering, stuttering conclusion to the second movement of the Eroica, a sign of helplessness and despair. However, in the Ninth, it is swept away by the most famous chorus in all music.

This production is related to the BP’s Digital Concert Hall https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/ sponsored by Deutsche Bank. If you see any more programs like this in a movie theater near you, seize the moment!

Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand

You have never experienced music like this! Yannick Nezet-Seguin and more than 400 singers and musicians at the top of their game ripped the ceiling off the Kimmel Center and probably damaged a few eardrums this weekend with Mahler’s monumental 8^th Symphony in E flat, the “Symphony of a Thousand.” This Philadelphia Orchestra performance needs to be measured in G-force, an emotional and intellectual roller coaster that teeters on a tightrope between ecstasy and hysteria, but always contained just enough by Mahler’s commanding intelligence to keep from slipping into madness.
 
There is no describing the power, sensitivity, range, and spiritual oomph of this soaring, staggering, whispering, cajoling, and ultimately triumphant symphony. Yannick opted for an intermission between the work’s two very different movements, the first a “Veni creator spiritus,” in Latin, a hymn to the creative spirit of the universe, followed by the closing scene from Goethe’s Faust in which corrupt man is redeemed through the love of woman. One of my religion professors at Drew University once said that there is no force to equal religion mixed with sex. He could have added music to the mix.

The Kimmel Center, that beautiful, magnificent venue, showcasing performers on the stage as the precious jewels they are, was the perfect venue for this massive experience. Against the soaring organ pipes, the text of each movement appeared in translation, offering insight and a tie to safety, like that steel tether that keeps Matt Damon from flying out into space in The Martian.

Because of my last-minute decision to attend, I had the choice of three tickets, and chose one in the middle of Row D. It turned out that Row D for this performance was the first row because the orchestra appropriated Rows A through C plus half the balconies behind the stage for its expanded forces. As a result, I nestled under Yannick’s left elbow, a few feet from the man himself, throughout the 90-minute performance, and had an up-close-and-personal view of Concertmaster David Kim’s impeccable violin technique in several ethereal solos. Sitting virtually in the orchestra has its advantages, though I felt I missed a good visual grasp of the massive forces beyond the conductor, invisible to those of us in “the pit.”  

I have to say, though, that the sheer volume of sound was something I have not experienced since hearing Jon Leifs’ Hekla with the Bose turned way up, some I do not recommend for the faint of hearing. Knowing what to expect, having once sat briefly beside a Kimmel organ pipe, I stopped at the CVS behind the Kimmel Center and bought a pair of Earplanes (plugs) which helped avert an otherwise unavoidable case of tinnitus. 

How can such beauty exist? In between gasps of delight by myself and, yes, others in proximity, I was able to scrawl a few notes for this blog. Mahler’s masterful skill as a composer is evident in tremendous vocal and instrumental writing in this work. For just one example, after the almost painfully loud “Drive the enemy far from us” section, there is a complex instrumental fugue about 25 minutes into the first movement, short but intense. Another note: the slow opening of the second movement, which suggests a mysterious garden, plays pizzicato celli against shimmering violins, soon crowned by a halo of woodwinds, a subtle and beguiling effect much needed given the fireworks to come. 

The text from Goethe is a bit archaic, I’m sorry to say, not only for modern audiences but even for a 20^th century man like Mahler, but anyone used to Goethe-speak and the archetypal language of classic Catholic theology shouldn’t be put off by it.  There’s a great German-English PDF of the second movement text at www.naxos.com which is worth reading through.  But let’s not get bogged down in textual analysis. This is music. It’s about redemption. It is redemption.

The Symphony of a Thousand swells to an inexorably ecstatic conclusion, making many listeners, I am sure, recall the great Resurrection Symphony, Mahler’s Second, an impressive redemption “two-fer” by one of Austria’s greatest Jewish composers. (Interesting letter to the editor on Mahler’s religion: http://tinyurl.com/jcabldn )

I was blown away by Nezet-Seguin’s interpretation and, let’s face it, sheer physical stamina, and the great work of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Choral Arts Society of Washington, American Boychoir, and half dozen top-flight vocal soloists with unerring technique and passion..
 
To twist the words of Dylan Thomas, “Rave, rave, for the shining of the light,” the light of music illuminating the dark dusty corners of our hearts and releasing our souls. Great concert, Philadelphia Orchestra, March 13, 2016.

(Etching of Gustav Mahler by Emil Orlik)

Charismatic Brahms with Hélène Grimaud, Vernal Schumann with Nézet-Séguin

Hélène Grimaud, an artist who generates excitement wherever she goes, brought her unique talent and charisma to Philadelphia March 3 through 4, 2016, in a performance of the towering Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto in B flat with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

There’s no doubt that the French pianist’s mastery is known and appreciated in the Philadelphia area. Every seat in Verizon Hall was taken, and listeners edged forward in their seats as the minutes ticked past the 2 p.m. matinee start time on March 4. Clad in a shiny grey shirt and black pants, shoulder-length brown hair tousled and free, Grimaud strode briskly onto the stage before the conductor, and accepted applause reaching the ovation level before she played a note. Grimaud is also renowned as an environmental and human rights activist and author.

But once seated and eased into the Brahms by some of the best-known horn phrases in classical literature, Grimaud's playing merged with Neget-Seguin’s lively direction. Grimaud has an unusual ability to walk a tightrope between classical purity and romantic emotionalism. It’s as though there’s this tiny pathway between the two that she unerringly navigates. As a result, the Brahms’ Second emerges in a more passionate voice that we may be accustomed to, but always reverent to the majestic architecture of this complex and inexhaustible work.

I say “complex” as we would refer to a gourmet dish that balances subtle, often contrasting flavors and textures in new and refreshing ways. This is opposed to “complicated,” an approach in which the player becomes bogged down in the sheer weight of notes, introduction of new phrases that would shout out, “I’m here now, pay attention to me!” and massive chordal progressions. 

There was no feeling of being trapped in a dense fishnet of musical ideas here, rather it seemed as though Grimaud had liberated the music from its form, allowing it to escape from the artists to the audience. And a gleeful escape it was.

Grimaud’s technique and expressive genius drove this lengthy work in four movements (classical concertos typically have three) without faltering during the work’s 50 minutes. Brahms is one of the pillars of Grimaud’s repertoire, and one can hear the difference it makes when a pianist truly loves the work that he or she is playing. Noteworthy to me was the thoughtfully constricted dynamic range, no extreme softness, no sudden burst of fortissimo as we would expect in Beethoven, but rather a consistent balance between piano and forte in which her sensitive, insightful, and expressive interpretation could unfold. 

Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra kept their part of the musical bargain, supporting, parrying, lobbing phrases back and forth, even erupting in a bit of musical frenzy worthy of Tchaikovsky about halfway through the first movement. Noteworthy moments included some beautiful horn passages throughout and a haunting cello solo in the third movement.

During one of several enthusiastic curtain calls, Yannick cupped his hands around Grimaud’s and lifted them like a chalice or a precious treasure, which they are. 

After intermission, the orchestra performed Schumann’s Symphony No. 1, also in B-flat major, Op. 38, the “Spring.” This was the first major symphonic work by the German master, composed shortly after his marriage to the pianist and composer, Clara Wieck, and was debuted under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn in 1841.

Composed between the great symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms, the four Schumann works may seem like foothills below the Matterhorn, but they have their own charm and inventiveness. The First is noteworthy for its energy, lightness, harmonic originality, and memorable melodies, a work Schumann outlined in a burst of activity over a four-day period in the winter of 1841, perhaps one of the happiest times of his life (Schumann succumbed to mental illness and died at the age of 46).

Nézet-Séguin emphasized the musical variety in this symphony, the effective use of orchestral colors, highlighting its lively themes and drive from the first to final allegros.  Every time I hear the final movement, though, I am transported back to my early teens when I sawed that tune on a cheap fiddle, adding the words, “I hate playing/the vi-o-lin!” Schumann clearly has a message for everyone.

(photo of Grimaud by Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times, below)