Grosses
Festspielhaus
Das
Märchen von der schönen Melusine:
op.32: Overture
42nd Psalm: ‘Wie der
Hirsch schreit’, op.42Symphony no.3 in A minor, ‘Scottish’, op.56
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| Conductor and soprano receive applause Image: Salzburg Mozartwoche |
Nikolaus Harnoncourt was to
have conducted this concert. The recently-retired conductor has many admirers,
indeed clearly inspires great affection and loyalty, but, although it would not
have done me any harm to have heard him once ‘in the flesh’, I, being not so
close to him æsthetically, was probably less distraught than many to be
deprived of that particular opportunity. I looked forward, however, to hearing
another conductor for the first time ‘live’, and was not disappointed. Pablo
Heras-Casado, who has recently been recording Mendelssohn on period instruments
– you see, I am not quite so narrow-minded as I might sometimes like to pretend
– here performed the composer’s music with a very different beast, the Vienna
Philharmonic, also of course an orchestra with long-standing affection for
Harnoncourt.
The Overture to Die schöne Melusine opened with
delightfully bubbly woodwind, responded to by featherlight – yet grounded! –
strings. Then came full orchestral vehemence, with a quite wondrous precision,
not always the VPO’s stock in trade, and so on, quicksilver changes of mood
beautifully handled. This was the most alert playing from an orchestra which,
especially recently, has not been without its slapdash moments. That, I think,
must indicate that what can be a somewhat recalcitrant beast likes
Heras-Casado, who certainly seemed to have the measure of this score.
Whether I should have liked
Harnoncourt’s way with Mendelssohn’s setting of the forty-second Psalm, who
knows? I certainly like – very much – his having programmed it. We almost never
hear Mendelssohn’s shorter choral works; indeed, although Elijah has the reputation of being a warhorse, I have only heard it
once in the concert hall, under
Kurt Masur. This was a performance in general as beautifully crafted as the
work itself. (If you do not know it, please give it a try! Likewise the
extraordinary Die erste Walpurgisnacht
and a very fine Kyrie setting, both
on a highly recommendable disc from Michel Corboz. For Harnoncourt fans amongst
you, I feel bound to remark that he also recorded the former, although I have
not heard that recording.) The opening chorus was often amiable – have I used
up my store of Mendelssohn clichés yet? – without that being a term of mild
abuse; its sterner moments told too. It sounded midway between Mozart and
Brahms, which is probably just about where Mendelssohn tends to stand. The oboe
solo was utterly ravishing, putting me in mind of a Bach obbligato. Dorothea
Röschmann, who had the only real vocal solos in the work, proved imploring yet,
as one would suspect, possessed of a thrillingly ‘big’ voice. Her aria with
female chorus brought similarities not only with the inevitable Midsummer Night’s Dream but also the Second
Symphony. After that, the male-voice opening to the chorus, ‘Was betrübst du
dich, meine Seele’, offered imposing contrast, without sounding merely
grandiose. Röschmann’s recitative, ‘Mein Gott, betrübt ist meine Seele an mir’,
sounded veritably Elsa-like; following that, there was fine work from her and
the male quartet (two from the Arnold Schönberg Chor). The choir provided an echt-Romantic choral sound, perfectly
blended, in the final number, the orchestra producing playing of quite amazing
clarity. It may have been the only time I have heard this work in the concert
hall, but I doubt I should have had many, if any, opportunities to hear it
performed better.
The Scottish Symphony – I do not think we are supposed to call it his ‘Scotch’
any more! – receives many more performances, of course, but perhaps not so many
as one might expect. At least in my experience, its Italian brother seems to crop up far more often. The opening to the
first movement was grave yet sweet of tone; indeed, the whole introduction sounded
full of potentiality, not unlike Haydn in that respect. Heras-Casado imparted a
fine sense of momentum; he clearly knew, and knew how to communicate, its
contours. The Allegro un poco agitato
soon developed a fine head of steam, as it were. As earlier, there was a fine
sense of intimacy too; indeed, that was really one of the hallmarks of this
performance, which seemed conceived very much in chamber-music style. There was
certainly little that was Wagnerian about Heras-Casado’s Mendelssohn; not that
there is anything wrong with such an approach, which I remember well from Sir
Colin Davis conducting this symphony, but there is rarely one ‘correct’
way. And, although Heras-Casado could drive quite hard, the second group
yielded in lovely – yes, I must have used up my store by now – fashion, the
development of its material seeming here of particular interest (subtleties
brought out without underlining). There was brilliantly virtuosic playing to be
heard in the scherzo; essentially, it sounded as a Mendelssohn scherzo should
(whatever I might have said about there not being one way). Clarity of
counterpoint was admirable; so, crucially, was its direction. The opening to
the Adagio was infused with sweet
Viennese longing, which, under Heras-Casado’s wise leadership, did not neglect
the particular twists that mark this music as Mendelssohn’s, close though it
rightly might have sounded at times to Schumann. The sterner, majestic passages
were given their full due too, and, again, there was a fine sense of how the
movement cohered as a whole. There followed as spirited and, in general, precise an account as one might hope for of the
finale, tension maintained throughout. My only real cavil was a slightly
hesitant moment or two at the turn to the minor, but after that, the music grew
to a splendid final peroration.
