Jesús Reina, Pierre Bleuse and ADDA Alicante in Ravel, Strauss and Mozart

For the third time this season, Alicante’s ADDA audience heard a major piece by Richard Strauss. The Violin Concerto is an early work, written when the young man was a teenager and still searching for a mature voice. As a consequence, it does remind one of Brahms, Mendelssohn here and there, amongst others.

But its overall conception is quite different. For a start, there is no obvious cadenza. Even at sixteen years of age, Richard Strauss was trying to write a concerto where soloist and orchestra were to combine to deliver an integrated musical experience. This was never conceived as a vehicle to allow a soloist merely to show off. And so it needs to be performed cooperatively, with the soloist always mindful of the orchestra’s contribution.

On this occasion, the soloist was Jesús Reina, a musician who devotes much of his time to playing chamber music in small ensembles. If anyone would be sympathetic to this need for integration, then, surely, he would be. The audience was not to be disappointed. He was so completely sympathetic to the orchestra’s role that he often turned during the time when he was not contributing to face the orchestra and actually listen to what they were playing. The result was a truly integrated work, with a musical argument coming to the fore. Pierre Bleuse’s direction also allowed the perfect balance to develop.

The concert had begun with the orchestral version of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Now this work is often played almost as if it were conceived as an eighteenth-century concerto grosso, rather than an homage to the form from the point of view of a twentieth century composer.

This performance crafted by Pierre Bleuse was different. The shape was still there, but the hard, staccato edges seem to be softened. The strings seem to be offering commentaries rather than statements. The result was a beautifully balanced, surprising and thoroughly post-impressionist, twentieth century piece. It paid homage to the past while saying something quite new. It is such a familiar piece, but what a surprise!

Mozart’s G Minor Symphony occupied the second half of the concert. It is hard to find anything new to say about the work, but it is also a work that does not need novelty. It is so well crafted, so perfectly conceived, that it makes its own points every time it is played.

Pierre Bleuse’s direction brought out every aspect of Mozart’s score. It was serious, threatening, lyrical, playful, and always inventive. A real treat brought the evening to a close in the shape of Chabrier’s Habañera, a surprisingly subtle an interesting little piece. Another surprise!

Vienna surprise – Mitsuko Uchida and the Mahler Chamber orchestra play Mozart and Schoenberg in Alicante

 

After hearing Mitsuko Uchida and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Alicante’s ADDA concert hall, I was sufficiently surprised by what I had heard to be prompted to download a score as soon as I got home. I don’t think I have ever heard this music played in this way. The impression this event made on me was one of surprise.

The program did not promise a surprise, or even suggest one. On offer was a peculiarly Viennese sandwich, the bread from the first school of the city’s composers and the filling from the second. The two outer layers were both Mozart piano concertos, numbers 25 and 27, whilst the filling was provided by Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1. All of these works are familiar, the Mozart concerti perhaps over-familiar, in that they are played, perhaps overplayed, by a multitude of soloists. The Schoenberg is less commonly included on concert programmes, especially in the style the Mahler Chamber Orchestra chose to present it, but it’s a piece that has been in the repertoire for over a century, so surely there’s nothing new here!

Let’s start with the Schoenberg. As the evening’s programme notes reminded us, the first chamber symphony caused a riot at its first performance in 1907. The music was clearly not what the audience was expecting and, always afraid of the new, they vented their disquiet. And yet this chamber symphony pre-dates Schoenberg’s adoption of the twelve tone system, let alone its later manifestation as serialism. This work is in late Romantic style, but now the key changes are more extreme, the harmonies more dissonant and, perhaps crucially, the ideas pass by faster, rather like a series of juxtaposed miniatures and fragments.

It sounds like a musical equivalent of Braque’s cubism, in that recognizable shapes are still there, but they are cut up, reassembled, overlapped in order to break up the lines and encourage listeners to savour the moment rather than anticipate the next. But there is surely also some of Schiele’s emotional aggression in this music. It remains a piece that challenges its audience to listen, though it does analytically conform to the ‘traditional’ symphonic structure.

Playing this work convincingly on stage needs expert musicians with the habits of the cooperative communication that makes chamber music such a joy. Only with all of these ingredients can performers make a success of this music. Some fifteen members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra stood to play this piece and their performance was almost beyond perfect. Musical ideas were passed around with nods and smiles and the work’s complexity simply became the medium via which these arresting sonorities were communicated. A century can make a massive difference. Suffice it to say that this performance was greeted with cheers, not jeers.

So the filling in the sandwich was very tasty indeed. But what about the Mozart bread and butter that confined it? Well, this was the real surprise. Mitsuko Uchida was soloist and director for both concerti. This in itself is not so rare. But what was utterly surprising, even arresting, was the way the pieces were played. Yes, it was perfect. Yes, all the notes were there and all in the correct order. Yes, these pieces are familiar. But the phrasing and dynamics were chosen to emphasize the music’s emotional meaning, which was beautifully and implicitly communicated. I rarely associate Mozart’s music with emotional involvement. Usually, the sheer decorative elegance gets in the way of human contact, like a hard glaze that hides the material beneath. But this was something quite different and utterly original.

The score I consulted afterwards was that of the Piano Concerto No. 27. Had I ever heard the opening played so quietly? Had I ever heard the pauses inserted to make the sentences and paragraphs of this music make such complete sense? Well, the score did in fact say ‘p’ at the start. Unlike Schoenberg over a century later, Mozart did not use many expression marks to indicate performance style. This is often interpreted as meaning that everything should be played in a mechanical rhythm, with phrasing and emphasis only minimally applied. But in the hands of Mitsuko Uchida and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, this Mozart was vivid, emotional and above all communicative rather than showy. And, with deference to Mitsuko Uchida, the dynamics are all there in the score. The real difference was achieved via touch and phrasing, and all of this was a result of Mitsuko Uchida’s playing and interpretation of the score. As was the case with Mozart, himself, and this evening with Mitsuko Uchida, the surprise could be attributed to the presence of genius.

Fumiaki Miura plays Mendelssohn and Mozart with ADDA, Alicante - undertstated perfection

 

“Less is more” is an expression that I have often heard when I have proffered criticisms of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Usually these words follow a criticism of mine where I use Mozart as an example of the predictability of the machinations of Classicism when contrasted with the fluidity and personal expression of nineteenth century Romanticism, or indeed the wholly personal world of twentieth century music. I have not usually given the Classical era a great deal of credibility, generally finding its products elegant, but rather repetitive and lacking in intellectual challenge. After an evening with Fumiaki Miura in ADDA, Alicante, I now understand the term “less is more” somewhat better.

Fumiaki Miura, without doubt, is one of the premiere rank of soloists currently populating the world’s concert halls. And it is rare, amongst this group of international superstars, to encounter a musical personality like that of a Fumiaki Miura, a talent that displays understatement, apparent humility and much reflection.

Fumiaki Miura’s program with the ADDA orchestra looked conventional. He opened with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro Overture and then played Mendelssohn’s famous violin concerto. More Mozart opened the second half, but this was the less than familiar Little Night Serenade, K525. A stirring but entirely controlled performance of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony finished the evening. But the originality in this program came from Fumiaki Miura’s role.

It has become commonplace in recent years for a soloist also to conduct. And on this evening that is what happened. Fumiaki Meera conducted the overture and the symphony, whilst he was both soloist and conductor in the concerto. The difference, and it was a crucial difference, came in the Mozart Little Night Serenade the start of the second half.

In K525 Mozart wrote a dialogue between two orchestras. It is neither a grand work not a serious dialogue, but it remains a small orchestra effectively being a soloist in front of a larger band. So here Miura Fumiaki was leading a small group of soloists, playing himself and directing at the same time. This was wholly original. And the piece itself worked beautifully, as did the director’s choice of treating all the small orchestra as soloists of equal stature. Hence my observation of humility.

And so, on an evening where nothing on the printed programme naturally appealed or excited this particular audience member, Fumiaki Miura’s performance and direction became the memorable aspect of a memorable concert. It must also be said that Fumiaki Miura’s own playing of the Mendelssohn concerto was rapturously received by the audience and the orchestra alike. His tone high up in the violin’s range is both sweet and accurate, with none of the occasional metallic timbre that can sometimes intrude in that upper register. His playing was also undemonstrative, displayed none of the pyrotechnics that are often associated with big name performers. This was music in its purest, wholly communicative form.

As an encore, the orchestra offered a short piece of Mendelssohn, more like chamber music for orchestra than a rousing lollipop to end an evening. This too worked beautifully, and an understated but thoroughly virtuosic evening of Classicism and early Romanticism delivered surprises throughout, as well as beautiful music. For this concert goer, this less was surely more.