Costa Blanca Arts Update - Adam Fischer, Elisabeth Leonskaja and the Dusseldorf Symphoniker in Beethoven and Mahler in Alicante's ADDA

 

I have seldom had the privilege of participating in a concert audience that showed their appreciation with such heartfelt enthusiasm. At the end of this performance of Mahler’s First Symphony, the fourth time that this symphony had been performed in this hall in recent years, this particular orchestra, the Dusseldorf Symphoniker, and this unique conductor, Adam Fischer, was cheered loud and long by admirers who stood to pay their respect to the quality of what they had just heard. Again the power of live performance is underlined as yet another life changing experience is perhaps surprisingly provided by a work whose intricacies were already familiar to most of the listeners.

And it must be said that the first half of the evening had already proved to be equally memorable via a performance of an equally familiar piece, the Emperor Concerto of Beethoven. The soloist was to have been Andras Schiff, but he had unfortunately had a fall and could not perform. We must wish him a speedy recovery.

His place at the piano was thus occupied by Elisabeth Leonskaja, no less, and she proved to be much more than a mere replacement. Throughout, her precision and touch were nothing short of breath-taking, especially in the quieter, more subtle parts of a work that too often is treated as a tour de force, which it definitely is not. The concerto provides a soloist with an opportunity to communicate Beethoven’s overall musical idea. Of course there is bravura, but as always with Beethoven, the meaning is in the contrasts, and these must be as vivid as possible. And it’s not just a matter of loud and soft, fast and slow, because the true contrast in this piece lies in the juxtaposition of tenderness alongside the boasting, intimacy alongside grandiloquence. Overall, it is a work that reminds us of our humility and humanity, though it also acknowledges that at times we have to make a show of things.

Elisabeth Leonskaja not only achieved the right balance, not only communicated these contrasts perfectly, but she also brought that something extra, that indefinable quality that we can all sense but never describe when we are in the presence of genius. And that genius became even more apparent when she offered her audience a substantial encore, a piece whish explored the impressionistic and symbolist imagery of music a century later than the work she had just performed. The result was spellbinding.

In the second half, it was the work, not the performer that was the replacement. Originally Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin had been programmed and its replacement brought a certain amount of disappointment to this particular member of the audience. I should not have been concerned, because what transpired over the fifty minutes of the second half was nothing less than miraculous.

Misgivings turned to gold as Adam Fischer’s clearly magical relationship with both the orchestra and the work unfolded. It seemed like the conductor was convinced he could drag extra expression from his players by brute force, persistence and dogged insistence. To describe him as living every note would be understatement, since his relationship with the piece is clearly deeper than that. At one point, there was real concern that he had put too much into his work as he stepped aside to take a short breather. In reality, we all needed that little space. The attention to detail was phenomenal, right down to the balance of the offstage trumpets at the start being controlled by just the right distance to leave the side doors ajar. At the end, Adam Fischer insisted that the final fanfares be delivered by standing horn players and the sound was resplendent. But again, it was in the vision of the overall balance of the symphony that Adam Fischer displayed his complete genius.

The inclusion of a Brahms Hungarian Dance as an encore certainly did not compensate for the missing Bartok, but by then we all felt that we had at least visited the conductor’s cultural home, albeit from afar.