Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn in ADDA Alicante with Max Bragado-Darman - a concert of surprise and excellence

 

This was a program that seemed so middle-of-the-road that attendance might mean getting hit from both directions, from both predictability and familiarity. A programme comprising Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn sounds both predictable and familiar and there are certainly some concert goers who are attracted by these promises. But here the familiarity disappears with closer inspection.

OK, the Beethoven Egmont Overture is frequently played. It is, however, so full of wonderful energy that it can be heard of fresh every time. The unpredictability here started with the opening chords. I have not heard this piece in concert for some time and the textures of the opening phrases seemed utterly new to me. I had never before noticed such harmonies. And these were written in 1810! From the very first bars, thanks to a conductor whose clearly intimate knowledge of the repertoire allows him to draw a listener’s attention to detail without losing overall shape, this concert was going to be familiar perhaps, but certainly not predictable. The final passages of the overture were even repeated at the end of the evening as an encore, and, even second time through, the work’s conclusion was still full of energy and invention.

A Bruch concerto followed. But, as the evening’s program notes pointed out, this was neither a popular violin concerto nor a Scottish fantasy. It was in fact, the double concerto, opus 88, originally written for clarinet and viola, but reshaped by the composer himself for violin and viola. This is mid-Romantic music written as late as 1911. It is backward looking in its apparent willingness to revisit well-trodden paths, but then it is also modern in the way that the soloists share material with the orchestra in the form of a dialogue, if a dialogue can have three contributors, without the need to place the soloists on a showing- off pedestal. The result, especially in the hands of Max Bragado-Darman and the ADDA orchestra and the evening’s soloists, Sarah Ferrández on viola and Maria Florea on violin, was an intimate experience, an examination of melody and texture. The soloists played a little Bach counterpoint as an encore.

Then, in part two, we came to the main course, which was Mendelssohn’s last symphony, number five, The Reformation. Familiar it might be, but I checked, and I have not heard it in the concert hall for over fifty years. Familiar it also may be because of other composers having mined it. Phrases in the violins during the first movement are pure Parsifal from the end of Wagner’s creative life. The theme of the slow movement reappears as a waltz in Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite a hundred years later. And the sonorities of the chorales in the finale might even be reminiscent of Copland!

But, to make musical sense, a symphony needs to be performed with sufficient vision for the intellectual progression to make sense, or, if that be the point, to emphasize its chance and randomness. The latter qualities are not part of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre and the ADDA Orchestra had a director in Max Bragado-Darman whose overview of the music was so perfect that it became transparent. Only the composer’s inspiration shone through, but this was surely this evening’s conductor’s mission and, as such, it was both surprising and memorable. This was a performance by all of the very highest quality, never predictable, and whose familiarity led to respect.

Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonia under Paavo Järvi with Maria Dueñas in Schubert and Bruch

When you have been to a lot of concerts - when you reach a certain age! - real surprises are quite rare. Even new works fall into expected groups when you have heard a lot of them. In over fifty years of concert-going, I cannot remember a performance of Schubert’s Symphony No. 1, let alone a concert with Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 on the same programme.  Surprise? Will it come from a program advertising Schubert and Bruch? Well, yes, if it also includes the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonia Bremen with Paavo Järvi with Maria Dueñas as soloist.

Let’s start with the Schubert symphonies. Number one had his first performance some seventy years after it was written in 1813. During his lifetime, Franz Schubert heard little of his music performed before a paying audience. This is immediately one in the eye for anyone who justifies taste via popularity. Here we have perhaps the greatest European composer of all time who managed to have just a handful of his works performed in public during his lifetime. A populist would have to declare him and his work worthless. Things were obviously different at the start of the nineteenth century. But is public exposure any easier now? At the start of the nineteenth century, Schubert could at least invite his friends to a recital. Salons were all the rage. In the twenty-first century, how many unhittable videos are posted on the Internet? And are they all bad? Conversely, it what gets the hits automatically good?

The first symphony was the work of a sixteen-year-old. And yet it sounds mature, in spite of orchestral writing that on occasions advertises immaturity and lack of experience. But what is in the work is the unusual mixture of dance and celebration with dark self-doubt that would come to characterise the composer’s later works. The work runs to half an hour and feels like a deliberately serious statement by a young man who knew he had talent, but still could not see a definitive way to express it. Would things change?

After the break, we also had a performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 2. This is surprising music, along with the First Symphony, but there is greater maturity in the writing. The sound world seems to be that Mendelssohn, rather than Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven. But Schubert wrote his first two symphonies in 1813 and 1814 to 1815 a decade before Mendelssohn wrote anything of note. I remain wedded to the idea that no one is ever born before their time. A public, however, can become fixed in a culture that prevents it from appreciating the novel, however, and that tendency can render some creative geniuses to appear to be ahead of the time. So it probably was with Schubert. Unknown and unheard, he was already writing revolutionary music a decade at least before it became institutionalized by Mendelssohn. This time, these early symphonies by Schubert formed the real surprise of this concert.

Bruch’s First Violin Concerto is never a surprise. Unless, that is, it is played by someone like Maria Dueñas. No matter what reputation precedes, perfect artistry transforms even the most familiar music into something unique and even surprising.

María Dueñas pulled everything out of this music. Too often a piece like Bruch’s concerto is played for its populist kudos, with all the edges shaved to smooth, presented to pacify an expectant crowd rather than energise them. Maria Dueñas gave it everything, often attacking phases with a confidence that I personally have not heard before. Isn’t it amazing when something so familiar can be transformed by performance into a complete surprise. Brava!

In total, the ADDA audience demanded and received three encores, two from María Dueñas, and one from the orchestra. The orchestral offering at the end was the Andante Festivo of Sibelius. Like the Valse Triste, this piece ostensibly offers a celebration in a minor key promoting reflection. It is a beautiful piece, amplified by its understatement. Maria Dueñas gave two encores, one solo, and one with the orchestral strings. The first was an arrangement of Fauré’s Après Un Rêve, which was, after the Bruch concerto, sweet on sweet. Then, solo, she gave a performance of Applemania by Igudesman which, on the face of it, is a show-off piece designed for competitions. In the hands of María Dueñas, it was music, simply beautiful music.

Alicante enthuses over Joshua Bell, Alan Gilbert and NDR Elbphilharmonie in Bruch and Bruckner

 

It looked like a middle-of-the-road program of Romantic staples. Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony were both written around 1880, though, as with everything, Bruckner took all criticisms to heart and later reworked various aspects of his work without changing its overall shape. These works of similar origin, of course, also contrasted. The Bruch Fantasy was written for a star performer, Pablo Sarasate, and clearly the composer had its potential for audience popularity in mind, whereas Bruckner probably did not write anything outside the intensely personal, internal drive to express his faith. The Fantasy uses popular song and folk melodies as its basis, whereas Bruckner‘s music always seems driven by a very personal energy. In any case, these are works that this particular listener has heard many times and represent an approach to music which is not a great personal favourite. I had also prepared, choosing earlier to listen to a performance of the symphony I recalled from a previous tour of Spain by a foreign orchestra some years ago, a tour which included a performance of the symphony in Alicante which I attended. Thus prepared, I applauded the North German Radio (NDR) Elbphilharmonie orchestra onto the stage.

What I had not anticipated was a performance the like of which I have rarely heard. Joshua Bell arrived to play the Bruch Scottish Fantasy. Now reputations can be built on marketing, in which case the performance experience of the ego is often less than the promise. With Joshua Bell, one feels, the opposite is true. He is in such control of the music, so at ease with its expression, that the instrument, the human being, the art and interpretation become a single force. The result would be devalued by the label ‘spellbinding’. It felt at times like an effort to remember to breathe, so completely absorbed were this audience in the performance. It was an experience enhanced by Joshua Bell’s obvious ability and delight in communicating with conductor, fellow musicians and audience to create a sense of inclusion and sharing. An encore seemed inevitable and appeared. It was again a popular choice, but in unfamiliar guise. Thus, O Mi Babbino Caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi became a violin solo with understated orchestral accompaniment.

Thus far not mentioned, the conductor Alan Gilbert then led his NDR Elbphilharmonie orchestra in the Bruckner symphony. Given the orchestra’s previous association with Gunther Wand, this was surely familiar territory for the band, but this familiarity not only bred respect, but immediate and radiant brilliance. Their relationship with their recently adopted chief conductor is clearly not only going to build on the orchestra’s tradition but also enhance it.

There was not a moment in this performance when the playing, the interpretation, the sound, the phrasing, even the complete musical sense fell below the breath-taking, even revelatory. Often, Bruckner’s tremolo strings create the oral equivalent of a painter’s wash, stating nothing in itself, but colouring the overall effect with a dominating presence. In the hands of the NDR and Alan Gilbert, the tremolos clarified by adding what felt like the perspective of another dimension within the image. Through this clarified air, the landscape was able to offer its magical, often guilt-ridden detail.

Long before the end of this performance, it was clear that this was one of the very best interpretations of music I have ever heard. My earlier preparation became irrelevant. Nothing could have prepared a listener for this radiance, this sheer beauty of sound, this perfect balance, this always enlightened phrasing. For the first time in this concert goer’s experience, the music of Anton Bruckner made sense as well as an impression.

Joshua Bell, Alan Gilbert, Max Brooke, Anton Bruckner and the orchestra of North German Radio thus combined to deliver what can only be described as the experience of a lifetime.