Esther Yoo, Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic in Mendelssohn and Bruckner in ADDA Alicante

What new observations might one have of an event featuring Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and Bruckner’s Symphony No9? These are both works that I have heard many times over the years and several times each in the concert hall. Recordings of them exist in myriad interpretations - especially the Mendelssohn, which, along with concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, is amongst the most played violin concertos in the concert hall. Audiences, however, are renowned for liking what they know, so, despite the regularity of its performance, this particular concerto features in most concert seasons of most orchestras.

What is new about every presentation of a work, no matter how often it is played, is the performance. And on this occasion, the soloist was Esther Yoo and the orchestra was the Munich Philharmonic, under their soon-to-be resident conductor Lahav Shani. Esther Yoo’s playing with superb, committed, expressive, and always engaging with the music, never merely playing the notes. Unusually, Lahav Shani chose to conduct without a score. Often, even the most accomplished and experienced conductor uses a score when directing a concerto, perhaps to underline that if anything goes wrong, it is the responsibility of the soloist. But on this occasion, Lahav Shani showed he knew the music so completely that the presence of the score would have been simply redundant.

This was indeed a spirited, and at times a thoughtful performance of a work that always has the potential to become a cliché. The performers ensured, on the other hand, that this utterly familiar work became an original, fresh statement. Esther Yoo’s performance was warmly received by the ADDA audience, and she offered an unaccompanied sarabande by JS Bach as an encore.

And what more is to be said about Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony? Unfinished it might be, stopping at the end of a slow movement placed third, though it still lasts more than an hour. Personally, I find that I can always admire Bruckner’s music from afar, but I find repeatedly that it never invites me inside its world. The composer, apparently, was writing cathedrals in sound, giant blocks of stone and glass piled high. And, as if we were looking up at a ribbed and vaulted Gothic roof, we know that it is heavy, and we know that it is solid, but in detail, it is often light and often even soaring.

Again, Lahav Shani chose to conduct without a score, but his attention to detail throughout was precise and expressive. The Munich Philharmonic definitely makes a sound commensurate with the demands of this work, and on many occasions the tutti actually felt physically massive. But this orchestra is also completely subtle in its playing, and the textures provided by the composer’s orchestration were always to the fore.

In Alicante, we are used to an orchestra that is totally committed to the musical experience, and it is therefore the highest praise possible for this audience member to say that the Munich Philharmonic was at least as good as our regular experience. It goes beyond praise to know that many of those present thought that this orchestra surpassed our norm. Now that is something new.

ADDA Alicante under Josep Vicent begin a new season with Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

 

Anton Bruckner was born in 1824, meaning this year is his bicentenary. In recognition of this, the new season of Alicante concerts opened with a performance of his Seventh Symphony by the ADDA orchestra under the artistic director, Josep Vicent.

This is a mammoth work that lasts over an hour. The first two movements alone exceeded forty minutes. As a result, as with this evening, it is often played alone, with no other work either before or after it to offer musical contrast. With such immersion, an audience ought to feel bathed in the musical style to such an extent that the experience is all enveloping.

But nothing involving Anton Buckner is ever that that simple. He was a paradoxically simple man, yet simultaneously outrageously complex. Deeply religious, but with an often-expressed passion – unrealised - for young girls, he seemed to offer up to the world a riddle that could never be solved. A professor in Vienna and a teacher of many years, he never attained sufficient confidence in his own abilities to finish definitively most of his works. Near constant revision, often prompted by the lukewarm praise of others, left multiple versions of many of his works. This can give much scope for conductors to pick and choose, to incorporate this revision or ignore another. Definitive Bruckner is an oxymoron.

And with the work of Anton Bruckner, no one is going to notice very much, given that by design the music often swerves, changes direction or delights in apparent non sequiturs quite often. Bulow described the composer as “half genius, half simpleton” and he had the reputation, even in society events, of turning up dressed like a peasant. He was an enigma, was overtly sensuous with the sound of his music, but deeply religious, and lived, generally speaking, the life of an ascetic. His express motivation was to write music to celebrate the glory of God, in both scale and depth.

The ADDA programme notes quoted Wilhelm Furtwangler saying that Bruckner composed Gothic music that had mistakenly been transplanted into the nineteenth century. Stylistically, the music is far from Gothic, but perhaps its architecture is not. Personally, I would go as far as describing the symphonies as cathedrals, where the parts only come together when the whole is considered from afar. There are no grab quotes from these symphonies, except perhaps in the scherzi, and even these are heavy on process rather than melody.

A possible problem with the cathedral analogy is perhaps that the composer had forgotten to include a door. It is possible to experience this music and feel permanently shut out. Yes, the edifice is impressive. Yes, it towers above us. But does it ever reveal its interior?

Having discussed the work, what about the performance? Well, it was faultless, committed, subtle, and even communicative. The Wagner tubas did not play a wrong note all evening, which is rarely the case with this notoriously mind-of-its-own instrument. Their sound, booming and enveloping, when added to a full orchestra created a special world, which the audience eagerly inhabited.

Josep Vicent drew every morsel of texture from the score and the resulting detail, even within the tutti, was simply vivid. In recognition of the work’s dedication to Ludwig II of Bavaria. The concert bore the subtitle “Legend of the mad king”. It wasn’t a legend, but it was a great start to a new season.

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.