New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Payare with Alisa Weilerstein – cello

Schumann: Manfred Overture, Op 115
Prokofiev: Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra in E minor, Op 125
Mahler: Symphony No 1 in D

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 27 June, 6:30 pm

A couple of highly promising young musicians whose existence have so far escaped my attention appeared with the NZSO on Friday.  Rafael Payare is the product of Venezuela’s Sistema musical organisation that involves young people seriously in classical music, and has already given rise to one of the most illustrious young conductors, Gustavo Dudamel. Payare is obviously following a similar path.

He is married to Alisa Weilerstein, the cello soloist who played the Prokofiev.

It was easy to see how the orchestra has responded to Payare’s approach both to them and to the music; starting with the overture, Schumann’s Manfred. Apart from Shakespeare, only two English writers have become big business in other parts of Europe: Byron and Scott, and for composers in particular. Byron attracted Berlioz, Donizetti and Verdi, Liszt and Tchaikovsky. Schumann too who was drawn to Byron’s verse drama, Manfred. Byron dismissed Manfred, written in 1817, as something eccentric and untheatrical, writing that he didn’t know whether it was good or bad. He called it ‘mad’ and wrote that he had rendered it quite impossible for the stage. In spite of that, Schumann composed not just an overture but other pieces of incidental music for the play, suggesting that he did envisage that it might be staged. I don’t know whether it was. There was a good deal more contemporary dramatic literature in Germany in the early 19th century than there was in Britain.

The central attraction of the piece was a kind of supernatural being who lives with the guilt of an unnamed crime (it was no doubt that which attracted both Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, in his little-played Manfred Symphony). Byron wrote it in Venice after fleeing England after the exposure of his relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh.  It was the product of the age of Faust Part I (and the character Manfred owes something to Faust in fact – yes, I did read it many years ago) and other works of the Sturm und Drang era including Schiller’s Die Räuber, and the English Gothic novel.

I had not heard the Manfred Overture for many years and wondered whether its strong impression on me would still exist. It was, and very much. Schumann’s account of the subject is taut, melodically strong, portraying the hero’s sombre, disturbed character, and this performance was arresting and excitable, giving Schumann the most persuasive account one could hope for. It’s scored for a normal orchestra, double woodwinds, except for four horns which lent a fine dramatic resonance. The conductor handled the unexpected turns with panache, particularly the mock anti-climax at the end.

Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto was played by the NZSO with German cellist Alban Gerhardt about six years ago, in what I recall as a fire-eating performance, feverish, with pretty fast speeds.

Here there were smaller string numbers (12, 10, 8, 8, 6) and an otherwise conventional orchestra.  The cellist in the open phase did not project her sound very strongly, but her instrument carried the essentially lyrical solo writing engagingly, contrasting with the more sombre orchestral scoring, dominated by its repeating, stolid rising theme that opens the piece. It’s an arresting and dark rather than an ingratiating work however, even though the energy of the Allegro movement is compelling and there’s plenty of more conspicuous playing for the cello.

Most of those I spoke to, unfamiliar with the work, did not find it engaging, which was my own reaction when I first encountered it many years ago. A merely routine performance will never do: its enjoyment demands a highly persuasive performance, to turn what at first seems dry, rather laconic, melodically obscure music into a work that has some real emotional integrity, even at times, excitement. For example, after the cadenza in the middle of the Allegro the orchestra returns to a pulsing cross-string passage that is emotionally gripping, like the sound of a hammering steam train at high speed.

The second is the longest movement and seems to contain the widest variety of moods and speeds, and it’s here that a driving propulsion and a sense of purpose emerged, powerfully inspired by Payare’s direction of the orchestra. Though the last movement begins with what can only be described as a real melody, first-time listeners can be forgiven for sensing a severity and unforgiving character in the work as a whole, and that initial impression can be hard to shake off even as very interesting developments and quite memorable sounds create a work of art that is strong and original without recourse to alienating avant-garde techniques.

It’s quite a tough work nevertheless; and there was no doubt that the relationship between conductor and cellist lent the performance a special energy and displayed a belief in and an affection for the music.

Then came Mahler’s First Symphony. The orchestra reassembled after the interval, at full strength (which I discuss later). It opens with the most uncanny, ethereal sounds, such as no symphony at that time had approached in any way, an exploratory feeling, as off-stage trumpets and then cuckoo sounds on clarinet suggest a pastoral scene, reinforced by one of the most beguiling Wayfarer songs; and quotes from other songs, his own and ‘Frère Jacques’. From the very first, the orchestra created a sound world that was vivid and full of character.

For a first symphony, it is impressive both for its individual character, its novelties of shape and structure and in the size of orchestra used. Much of that character derives from its evolving growth and the revisions which the programme note covers to some extent – born as a five movement symphonic poem in two parts, begun when Mahler was 24 and first performed in Budapest when he was 29. That version included a movement known as Blumine (Flower piece) lifted from an earlier work most of which has been lost. That one movement, found in 1966, had been between the first and second movements when it was played in Budapest in 1889 and again in 1893 and 1894. The Budapest version was called ‘Symphonic-Poem in 2 Parts’.

Between the Budapest performance and the revision for Hamburg in 1893 Mahler added the name Aus dem Leben eines Einsamen (From the Life of a Lonely-one). Just before the Hamburg performance the name Titan was added, though he made it clear that it was not in any way about Jean Paul’s novel. But he removed that title after the Hamburg performance in 1893 and there is no reason for it to be so-called now. (Titan, published in 1800-03, is a somewhat wild, Romantic novel a prominent feature of which is its beautiful and evocative nocturnal landscape descriptions, a feature that can be easily visualised in the symphony).  The third performance was in Weimar on 3 June 1894. Here, the Blumine movement was deleted.

The orchestration of the Budapest version was conventional for the time, with double woodwinds and four horns, but by the 1893 Hamburg performance Mahler had supplied it with three of each woodwind instrument.

For Weimar in 1894 Mahler increased his winds: four each of the woodwinds, and 3 additional horns making a total seven horns. There are two sets of timpani as well as additional wind instruments to lend extra power in climaxes, mainly in the last movement. It still included the title from Titan.

The present form was only arrived at for the fourth performance in Berlin in 1896 when the title Titan was deleted and it was named for the first time, ‘Symphony in D major’.

Its provenance from a tone poem contributes to its greatness and its permanent place in the repertoire: a miraculous combination of imagination and narrative with the structure and discipline of the traditional symphony. This explains the remarkable originality of this first symphony, but it hardly accounts for the confidence its composer displays in handling very disparate materials and the triumph of creating a soundscape that met initially with strong criticism but which really assured its eventual and permanent success. It is that strong, original voice, along with a very rich melodic gift, that has kept it among the most popular symphonic works.

But music does not play itself, and it proved the ideal subject for a young conductor with exceptional energy as well as great musical imagination and the ability to inspire an orchestra that sometimes shows a certain resistance to the efforts of young, gifted, ambitious conductors. This time the orchestra was very obviously won over.

The other aspect of this and of Mahler’s other earlier works is the absence of any impact from the horrors of war, which were to affect to a greater or lesser degree, most composers who lived beyond the second decade of the 20th century. Mahler knew no wars. (There might be no wars to account for the more complex emotional landscapes of the later symphonies, but an increasingly tortured life can explain that).

He was only ten when the short but awful Franco-Prussian war took place and died three years before World War One began. I often contemplate the enormous emotional gulf between Mahler and the composer who was probably most influenced by him – Shostakovich, who grew up surrounded by the effects of the Revolution and then lived through Stalin’s terrors and the Second World War.

Out of the long peace that had brought the Austro-Hungarian Empire to its condition of decadent complaisance, the artist could indulge in the self-absorption that gave rise to Freud and a bit later, Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Salome, and compose a finale ending in huge triumphalism, with horns and trombones standing to point their instruments into the audience in an uproarious spirit of invincibility. And the house went wild, with far more noise and clamour than reticent Wellington audiences usually allow.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pietari Inkinen

Beethoven: Symphonies No 6 (Pastoral) and 7 in F and A, respectively

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 14 June, 6:30 pm

On Friday, after posting my Thursday review, I was reminded that this was not the first Beethoven cycle that the NZSO has undertaken – a fact that I should have remembered for I reviewed them for The Evening Post, in November 1995.  Then, the symphonies, conducted in the Town Hall (give it back to us!) by Janos Fürst who died in 2007, were spread over five concerts over three weeks, from 1 to 18 November; the performance of the Pastoral was accompanied by the 5th (Emperor) Piano Concerto, with Michael Houstoun, and the other pairings were: 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 7 and 8, 1 and 9.

On Saturday evening we heard the 6th and 7th symphonies. The dynamics were rather different from the first two concerts: the Pastoral is the second longest of them; it is a departure from the normal classical four movements, has a pictorial programme, and is one of the most loved of them all. Though the evening was becoming cloudy, the sun shone in the Michael Fowler Centre and the air danced.

Sitting centre stalls, one hears things in perfect balance and the large orchestra delivered a sound that was opulent, clear and balanced both spatially and between sections. As in the earlier performances one’s ears became attuned particularly to the ten cellos and eight basses, as large and as beautifully played as in the most famous orchestras: bass weight and sonority are fundamental to an emotionally satisfying performance.

This lent the first movement, ‘cheerful feelings aroused on arriving in the countryside’, glowing warmth and colour, the colour mainly from the woodwinds and horns, though they tended to be a bit covered by the strings, the writing for which must be held partly to blame.

The second movement, a ‘scene by the brook’, is slower but the playing was no less resolute, holding the attention in the gentle embrace of a languid summer’s day. Inkinen’s guiding of the third movement was characterized not only by playing that portrayed an unsophisticated gaiety, a sort of rhythmic stiffness, but also in playing that was, at one point presumably deliberate, a little wayward in articulation, simulating amateurs. Though I could see little of the wind players, I did glimpse Peter Dykes playing the lovely oboe solo here.

The storm was most effective with a sudden calm and a shocking return of the thunder which leads to the rapturous finale, cellos seeming to lead the choir in singing a sort of hymn of thanksgiving to end a wonderfully varied and beautiful performance.

The seventh symphony, after the astonishment and excitement of its discovery when I was about 19, has not really held its place in my heart. It has its moments, such as the inviting though remarkably long introductory passages, but there has always seemed to me too much unadorned thematic repetition, too little plain beauty. The exception is the slow movement, merely an allegretto, but which is a refuge for a few minutes with a heart-warming melody; it was performed here with sufficient rhythmic flexibility to overcome the constant pulse that, to me, imposes a shade too much rhythm to perform the role of bringer of repose in the midst of wildness and ecstasy.

The symphony, nevertheless, makes big demands on an orchestra, and Inkinen took every advantage of abrupt dynamic changes, of opportunities for grand or exciting tuttis, long stretches of molto vivace figures and passage-work, to showcase solos, such as the frequent ethereal or sparkling flute passages from Bridget Douglas.

I suppose it is the third movement, Scherzo in all but name, that seems to repeat once too often.

The Finale which is marked as a modest Allegro con brio – not Molto allegro or Prestissimo, or some such – is usually played as fast as possible and was here. Merely very fast doesn’t work, and I think this performance verged on using speed rather than intensity and emotional integrity as its driver. Nevertheless, Inkinen set the audience by the ears as he changed gears, aborting a third repeat of the Presto. The compulsive theme that Weber thought proof of Beethoven’s madness took hold of the auditorium and there was a sense of mesmerized astonishment as it drove forward with a sustained momentum to a climactic ending.

There was shouting and long applause and many of the audience came to their feet (though not as many as those who stood at the end of No 5 the night before) through a sense of exhilaration as the music seems to express some kind of triumph shared by all mankind, foreshadowing the mood of the Choral Symphony we are to hear on Sunday afternoon.

BEETHOVEN – Symphonies 4 and 5

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 13th June, 2014

This was the second concert in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven symphony traversal with conductor Pietari Inkinen. Putting the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies in the same programme brought listeners face-to face – perhaps cheek-to-jowl would be a more apt expression – with one of the most cherished cornerstones of critical appraisal of these works. This is the long-established idea of a dichotomy that separates the composer’s odd- and even-numbered symphonies.

Well, perhaps the exception to the rule is the First – it’s demonstrably not of the range and scope of grandeur and tragic expression of the “Eroica”, or the Fifth, and doesn’t have the Dionysian energies of the Seventh, much less the cosmic reach of the Ninth. Even so, in its own way the work could be honorably counted among the composer’s symphonic “movers and shakers”, setting its first listeners on their ears with its very opening dissonant chord, and later in the work rumbustiously re-defining the concept of a “dance movement” in a classical symphony!

But as for the other odd-numbered works, it’s true that they’re invariable made of sterner stuff than their immediate neighbours in the canon – though closer examination hardly bears out some of the descriptions these “happier” latter works have garnered from well-meaning commentators over the years. In particular, the Fourth Symphony has  been both misrepresented with faint praise and castigated roundly, to the point where it became for a while a kind of “Cinderella” work, especially set against either of its two illustrious and more overtly “grunty” neighbours.

That usually perceptive and erudite critic Robert Schumann really did the work few favours by famously describing it as “a slender Grecian maiden between two Norse Giants”, unless he had some kind of Hellenic tomboy idea at the back of his mind, certainly romantic and dreamy in some moods, but mischievous, angular  and energetic in others. What’s surprising is the polarity of comment that the work has inspired in other quarters – Berlioz waxed lyrical about it, writing of the crescendo in the development section of the first movement as “one of the happiest inspirations we know in music”, and that the second movement Adagio “defies analysis….. so pure are the forms, so angelic the expression of the melody….one is gripped by emotion which by the end has reached an unbearable pitch of intensity…”

Contrast this with the reaction of the composer of “Der Freischütz”, Carl Maria von Weber, who, in a stylized critique set within the framework of a nightmare, had characters variously describe Beethoven’s work as “a musical monstrosity, revolting alike to the nature of the instruments and the expression of thought, and with no intention whatever but that of a mere show-off…” and the slow movement in particular “full of short, disjointed, unconnected ideas, at the rate of three or four notes per quarter of an hour…”. Evidently, in the realms of music appreciation, as in life, there’s “nowt sae queer as folk!”

Be it fulsome appreciation or savage criticism, it does put this so-called “Grecian maiden” of a work in a new light when encountering these responses. And it’s in that spirit that I offer these “contemporary” takes on a work that’s since been somewhat put in a “lesser” kind of category by its companions on either side – in my view, most unfairly. To my delight the NZSO’s performance of the music this evening demonstrated that Pietari Inkinen and his musicians thought so as well.

We were taken right from the first chord at the outset into a mysterious twilit world – somewhere, I’ve read someone’s description of the ambience created by this introduction as that of 4am, which I rather like! – one from which the steady tread of time led towards a sudden burst of light and energy from the whole orchestra, here superbly delivered, and followed by a number of whiplash chords which joyously launched the allegro, the playing replete with energetic, exuberant spirits.

Pietari Inkinen’s policy of employing (so far in the series) all the first movement repeats allowed us extra pleasure here, after which the players purposefully dug into the music’s development sequence, shaping the impulses towards the beginning of that amazing crescendo so vividly described by Berlioz in his analysis of the work. Alongside sterling work by the strings, the performance featured some magical wind-playing throughout, as well as on-the-spot support from brass and timpani.

The winds particularly came into their own in the dreamy, rhapsodic slow movement (what starry stillnesses were evoked at times!), as well as in the dynamically-driven finale – in the latter, both bassoon and clarinet literally threw themselves at their insanely manic solos and brought them off spectacularly!

In these performances it was the finales of both symphonies which capped off the pleasure for me – while I thought the Fourth’s Scherzo a shade bland in effect, wanting more rhythmic “point” and greater dynamic variation, the finale was a great success. In Inkinen’s hands, it took on the aspect of a whirling dervish, a molto perpetuum, exhilarating and positively vertiginous in its impact.

If the Fourth Symphony delighted the audience, the eponymous Fifth had an overwhelming impact, and especially so the finale – here, an unbridled victory celebration, at once exhausting and life-enhancing! So prodigious was the effect of it all that, in fact, conductor and orchestra received a well-nigh standing ovation at its end, one justly merited in direct relation to the excitement and sense of involvement with the music that was generated and communicated to listeners.

Conductor Inkinen made clear his intentions right from the outset, no sooner returning to the podium and acknowledging our applause than turning and instantly signalling his players to hurl those opening notes upwards and outwards, to galvanizing effect. Allowing only touches of rhetorical broadening with each appearance of the famous motto theme, he kept the music’s urgency and thrust well to the fore throughout the movement.  After this had run its course, the Andante movement which followed might have initially seemed unremarkable in its sweetness, but in fact it became for us a miracle of dramatic contrast, the orchestral playing by turns lyrical, rapturous and majestic in the music’s service.

Then, with the scherzo and trio, we were returned to dark, C Minor business with louring ‘cellos and basses and vigorous, forcible and heroic figures from the horns. The orchestral basses had already impressed with their sonorous playing of parts of the Funeral March of the “Eroica” on the previous evening, and here they demonstrated tremendous power and agility with the Trio’s rapid fugato-like lines, before finally giving way to the upper strings and the winds, who ushered in the work’s most mysterious and eerie passages.

These, of course, inspired one of writer E.M.Forster’s characters in the novel “Howard’s End” to imbue the music with the idea of a “great goblin walking across the world” – and the music’s stealthy, treading aspect was evocatively conveyed by winds and arco/pizzicato strings. It was here my only, very slight disappointment throughout the whole performance occurred, with that brief but potent strings and timpani transition passage from scherzo to finale.  I wanted to feel those sounds even more “cut adrift” amid the darkness and mystery, as if for a few pivotal moments the music and its performers and listeners had abandoned all sense and reason to a process of elemental coalescence!

Still, even if chaos seemed to me less-than-fully engaged, the goal, once achieved, burst about us all with unbridled exultation!  Here, Beethoven’s finale was a proper life-affirmation, moments of pure joy climbed towards and fiercely grasped again and again by a composer expressing the purpose for which he was put in this world – and we loved him for it and revelled in these musicians’ wholehearted and briilliantly-played celebrations of those moments and of the journeying towards them. The acclaim which greeted conductor and players at the end was richly deserved.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pietari Inkinen

Beethoven: Symphonies No 1, 2 and 3, in C, D and E flat respectively

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 12 June, 6:30 pm

Here is the third in Pietari Inkinen’s great symphonic cycles, following Sibelius and Brahms. This time, of course, the greatest such creations in the whole history of symphonic music.

It was interesting to hear Inkinen’s conversation with Eva Radich on RNZ Concert in which, as far as I know, not having caught all of it, neither remarked that simply to tackle this music is to make a statement about the world-class character of the orchestra, as well as to suggest something about the conductor’s feeling about his own readiness to undertake such a grand and formidable project.

Even in the decades immediately after Beethoven’s, it has pleased many critics to dismiss the first and second symphonies, in comparison with the later masterpieces. To so judge them is to overlook the fact that by 1800 when the second was composed, no existing symphony could come anywhere near them, apart perhaps from Mozart’s last three. How ridiculous it is to compare a composer’s relatively early works with more complex and profound music that might have emerged later.

To play these three in the same evening was in fact to allow us to hear the clear kinship that they share. The stately and confident character of the opening of the C major symphony announced at once that Beethoven had absorbed and surpassed, at least in adventurousness, the models of Haydn and Mozart.  Though one must be careful not to confuse those elements that might represent ‘progress’ (a dangerous notion) with inspiration and creativity involving the expression of profound human truth.

The latter exists in roughly equal measure in Josquin, Tallis, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Handel and Bach, Haydn and Mozart, Schubert and Berlioz, Verdi and Wagner, Bruckner and Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Strauss, Debussy…

Inkinen’s input could be heard in the careful energy that he projects, civilised by discretion and precision, but given dramatic character by the vivid dynamic shifts, readiness to allow flexible rhythms and to make arresting changes of tempo.  The slow movement, in triple time, opens with attentive fugal treatment of the unpretentious theme and it’s a sudden pianissimo that enlivens it. The Menuetto, indicated ‘allegro molto e vivace’ seems like a contradiction: it must be one of the fastest ever – I’d hate to try dancing to it; it’s really a scherzo in disguise.

The true heart of the symphony is the last movement, starting with the repeated, playful attempts to play a scale; here Inkinen gave the orchestra licence to burst the seams, very fast, employing quite simple material adventurously and without too much attention to orchestral proprieties.

The second symphony, in D, set alongside the first, reveals a confidence and discursiveness in the longish Adagio introduction which seems to merge more organically into the Allegro.

The performance seemed to relish the chances to disappear into pianissimi occasionally, suddenly to burst out afresh. There are repeated conversations between strings and winds – clarinet, then bassoon, flute, horn… Here, and often in this and in the Eroica, Inkinen seemed to cherish beautifully executed wind playing. And in the Scherzo, one felt a scarcely contained impulse to flippancy. But it’s the finale where it was possible to sense the emergence of a more versatile and dynamic composer, the music taken at some speed almost as if pushing players beyond their limit.

There seemed a much shorter distance between No 2 and the great Eroica than is suggested by many commentators.

Two commanding chords take the place of the Adagios that introduced the two earlier symphonies. I might have hoped for a slightly more fearsome impact but these were a good enough announcement of a composer for a revolutionary era.

You could have argued that the full-sized orchestra used in Nos 1 and 2 was larger than is kosher for essentially classical works (strings were 16, 14, 12, 10, 8), but the numbers were right for the Eroica.  Though scored for three horns, compared with two for Nos 1 and 2, we had four offering more flexibility; otherwise the orchestra was of the same size.

Here, as in the earlier pair, Inkinen’s stamp consisted, rather than through any radical interpretative revelations, in paying striking attention to dynamic and tempo markings which were sufficient to hold the audience in a semblance of trance throughout. For example the emphatic, thudding wind accompaniment to the lyrical strings; but more than anything, there was constant delight in the many solo wind phrases or passages from flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and of course horns and trumpets. Though this orchestra’s strings are incomparable, it’s the clarity and beauty of the winds (horns have recovered their form) that lends any performance special piquancy, and these are all available.

No Eroica can survive without a Marche funèbre (again, nearly 20minutes long like the first movement) that is masterly and profound. This performance had weight from the great body of cellos and basses, as well as transparency, emotional impact, slow, treading tempi and a knack of subsiding into anguished pianissimi from which it seemed almost impossible to recover.

The justification for four horns became clear in the Scherzo: joyous, sanguine, life-affirming, and then the Finale filled the auditorium with energy, achieved through fugal writing, high-lighted by sudden breaks, sustaining an expectancy and excitement that built to the grandeur and triumph of the Coda. That, I am loath to confess, sounded just a little less thrilling than my hopes had been (certain performances, early in life, sometimes raise expectations that are impossible to erase). Nevertheless, in all, this first concert exceeded reasonable hopes, and confirmed both the orchestra’s excellence and the conductor’s vision, sense of structure and his awareness of the importance of refinement and detailing, not to mention pure excitement.

The next three evenings are bound to be among the year’s most memorable.