A funny excerpt from the printed program: "My dear colleague, why do you write in the atonal style? You have such talent." - Richard Strauss in a letter to a young composer.
A word of warning: This is basically a concert review and is intended for interested musicians, feel free to skip this one if it is not your cup of tea... The next few posts are travelogues....
I've heard the Berlin Philharmonic live at least 20 times, half of the time conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, back in 1980 and 1981, when I was in Berlin after college. I have also heard them live with Abbado, Ozawa, Muti, Tennstedt, Tilson-Thomas and Barenboim, among others. The concert I went to this last Sunday in Salzburg was the fourth time I have seen them with their present director, Sir Simon Rattle. Any time I get to hear them live is an important moment for me; this was no exception.
In spite of my well-known liking for the group, I am never an uncritical listener. I always remain aware and critical, much as I expect to enjoy what I am going to hear. The concert had on it's program a first half of two of my favorite pieces: the overture to Wagner's Parsifal, and the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss. The second half was what one could say was a logical next step; three works by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, all early works from around just before the outbreak of WWI. More on that later.
First, I had never been to the Grossses Festpielhaus in Salzburg. It is a new hall (from the 60's or 70's), commissioned by the Salzburg Festival for big opera performances. It has perhaps the widest stage front in the world (this was demanded by Karajan, who was planning to do his Ring cycle there). The most remarkable aspect of the hall is it's location. It was hewn from the same mountain that the famous Festung Salzburg sits atop, the huge castle at the top. It's facade is flat and directly under the mountain, as if the dwarves of Lord of the Rings were it's builders (My first thought was of the Mines of Moria... Austria loves to build tunnels, so hollowing out a mountain for an opera house was no stretch for them). Salzburg is a very old town, so building something so massive in the city could have been very disruptive. As it is, you can stroll not 50 yards from the entrance of the hall, turn a corner, and it will seen as if you have traveled back in time to Mozart's day.
Inside, the hall is less interesting. Plain, architecturally bland. I found the acoustics excellent, but not remarkable. Certainly it is not the equal of Symphony Hall in Boston, or the Philharmonie in Berlin. But, given that it's true purpose is opera, and not symphony concerts I should be praising it's acoustics, not discounting them. We have all played in multiple purpose halls and know how terrible they can be. All in all, I found nothing to complain about. I guess I had hoped for more "wow".
The audience of the Festival in Salzburg tends to be the wealthy - there to be seen, dressed to the nines - crowd. I have never felt more out of place sitting in a hall. I was here for the music, I wasn't sure anyone else was.
The concert opened with the Wagner. I was surprised, given that it was just the start, that I felt my attention drift right away. The orchestra played beautifully, but I wasn't happy. Rattle is undoubtedly a "great" conductor (he certainly would prove that point in the 2nd half), but the Wagner was disappointing. For me, it lacked an inner tempo, a sense of forward motion. Many conductors lose sight of the long line with Wagner. The overture is a series stops and starts, no question, but making too much of each event can make the piece lose it's way. That's what I felt. I don't get bored listening to Wagner (I know many do, but I don't), yet, there I was, 5 minutes into a concert by my favorite orchestra, starting to get impatient. So that was a bummer. Great Wagner conductors of all stripes make the music seem to move forward, no matter the tempo. It's not a matter of speed actually, but an internal consistency that is required. One can't highlight every beautiful moment and frame it and say, "see, isn't that wonderful?" That's what Rattle did. He tried to show us everything; pausing here, a ritardando here and there. What resulted was the loss all sense of forward motion. Even in a 12 minutes overture, it is deadly.
The Strauss was better. It's a hard piece to pull off live - the soprano part is wicked, soft, sustained, all over the register. The orchestra part is so wonderful one can forget that there is a vocalist. It's one of those pieces that sound so great on a recording, but never quite makes it live. The soprano, Karita Mattila, from Finland, was fine. She did everything well, but I wasn't really moved. Again, this is one of my favorite pieces of music, ever. So maybe I know my favorite recording too well... Again, I think though that Rattle missed out on some of the tempi. One absolute bright spot however, was the playing of solo horn Stefan Dohr. All the famous horn solos in the Strauss were gorgeous. Rattle waited till the third set of bows to ask him to stand, and he received a great ovation, which was well-deserved.
As Simon Rattle walked out to begin the 2nd half of the program, I noticed he was carrying a microphone. I thought, "Oh no, he's gonna talk." I was thinking that he was going to try to "explain" the difficult works that were coming. I said to myself, " oh, come on, these pieces are almost 100 years old. It's not like the audience doesn't know what’s coming." Speaking of the crowd, I was happy to see that no one had left. These guys can be a tough listen, but all the rich folks stayed, and were throughout the concert a lot quieter than New York audiences, and in all, quite respectful of the performers and the music.
Back to Rattle. He spoke, in fairly decent German, that the orchestra was "going to attempt to play the next three pieces (5 Pieces by Schoenberg, 6 Pieces by Webern and 3 Pieces by Berg) as if they were one piece; the '11th Symphony' by Gustav Mahler. Please refrain from applauding until the end of the concert." The idea being, that each one of these pieces owed a stylistic debt to Mahler. Each composer was certainly influenced by him, and acknowledged those debts. Musically, only the Berg strikes one as really following in Mahler's steps. It is the biggest of the 3 pieces, and made sense placed at the end. In fact, you really can't listen to anything after the Berg... it's just too shattering.
Here is where Rattle really owned the music. I admit I don't know the Schoenberg and Webern well. I studied them and brought scores with me here. I do know the Berg. Each piece was nailed, with style and panache. It was riveting. These are some of the hardest pieces of music to pull off in the entire literature, let alone just play together. Richard Strauss once wrote of the Schoenberg that, since he couldn’t even really read the score, he felt no ability to conduct it. At the same time, he recognized its quality and importance. One glance at any of the scores and you see immediately what Strauss meant. Even if you were able to ignore the difficulty of the tonal language (they are atonal and in some cases, 12 tone), they are immensely complicated pieces, demanding the highest skills from everyone in the orchestra and from the conductor as well. I was astonished at the beauty of the music, and at the skills of the performances.
Strauss was right, following the scores, understanding it, is almost impossible without a long period of study. However, this is music to be listened to not dissected. I found it stunning in the orchestral virtuosity each piece required from the players. Again, Stephan Dohr, the solo horn, stood out. Also, solo trumpet Tamas Velenczei, who I have never really warmed to, was in complete control the whole night. The brass were fabulous.
The concert ended with the Berg 3 Pieces. It is a massive work, negative, dark and scary. It reminds many people of Mahler, and where Mahler might have gone as a composer had he not died so (fairly) young. There are remembrances of him in Berg's work. The mysterious opening movement has touches of the 1st mvt. of Mahler's 9th, a piece which had an enormous emotional pull on Berg. The final moments of the Berg are reminiscent of the great, crushing hammerblows from Mahler's 6th. Berg ends with those deathblows, a harrowing march to a violent ending. As I said earlier, once the Berg is done, you are done with music for a while, nothing could follow. I walked out in the Salzburg night.
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