Mozart, Bruckner: Piotr Anderszewski (piano),London Symphony Orchestra, Myung-Whun Chung (conductor), Barbican Hall, 24.5.2007 (AVE)

 

There is a perverse and lazy fashion today to couple Mozart with Bruckner in concert – usually with a violin concerto or piano concerto – and it never succeeds because they both come from different musical worlds and sound so odd and ill at ease together in concert.

Piotr Anderszewski’s heavy handed performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major actually made this marvellous music sound coarse toned. In the Allegro his monochrome playing was far too brutal, producing a brittle and reverberant sound that was quite unbearable to the ears, and to make matters worse he never varied his tone so it all came across as just glaringly loud. The Adagio was cold, clinical and graceless and again far too harsh and heavy toned for such sublime and tranquil music. The concluding Allegro assai sounded just noisy and rushed with notes being smudged and the tone sounding hard edged, butchering the notes - this was indeed murdered Mozart!

Whilst the celebrated Korean conductor Myung-Whun Chung offered sensitive support, the LSO woodwind were far too recessed, never really interacting with their soloist who often drowned them out anyway: there was zero rapport between soloist and orchestra even though Anderszewski appeared to be looking at the players to take cues. Yet the audience seemed seduced by Anderszewski’s in ‘your face’ Mozart and gave him ample applause.

The last time I heard Myung-Whun Chung with the LSO at the Barbican Hall was in a truly paradigm performance of Brahms’ First Symphony: never had I ever heard such a great performance in concert of this over-played warhorse. Chung repeated this with a performance of Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony only this time it was not only the greatest performance of this work I have ever heard in concert – but it even surpassed any recordings that I have heard including those by: Wand, Jochum, Harnoncourt, Barenboim, Giulini, Klemperer, Karajan, Rosbaud, Walter, Bohm, Maazel, Sinopoli and Sanderling.

Chung’s conducting technique is elegant and economic, always for the orchestra and never for the audience. Words that came to mind during this revelating performance of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony were: mesmerising, glowing, shining, blinding, scintillating, dazzling, illuminating, flashing, shimmering, gleaming, mourning, pining, sparkling, intoxicating. This was such a radiant, over whelming and awe inspiring performance and had an attentive audience totally transfixed and transformed at once.

Chung is the only conductor who so convincingly made the work sound like a unified whole with the last two movements being perfectly integrated with the vast first two movements; even with our great Bruckner conductors of the past none of them could ever really make the symphony work as a whole and come off with the last two movements always sounding fragmented and detached from the two previous movements (which could easily be played on their own akin to the unity of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony).

Conducting without a score, Chung had absolute control over tempi and dynamics in the expansive Allegro moderato and Adagio allowing the fluid architectural structures to unfold as if organically and never making the music sound conducted or mannered: Chung always had his hand on the throbbing pulse of these two grand movements giving us the sensations of pining and mourning, yearning and striving yet never sounding overtly too sentimental. The poignant and serene Adagio was written when Wagner was dying and the coda became Bruckner’s memorial “to the memory of the late, deeply beloved and immortal master.”

The concluding climax of the Allegro was amazingly built up and executed with the brilliant brass shining forth, and this was repeated in the closing coda of the Adagio where again the brass glowed with a warm resonance the like of which I have never heard before – not even from the Vienna Philharmonic. This was some of the finest brass playing that I have ever heard: one simply never gets that gleaming sheen from recordings because one has to also see as well as hear the brass because part of the sensation of sound is the sight of the golden glow of the brass instruments which always adds to the shine of the sounds.

Chung made the Scherzo sound so convincing and not like a Hammer Horror sound track or as a grotesque pastiche of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries which is so often the case: here Chung brought out incredible orchestra details and translucency, securing pulsating and buoyant rhythms and galvanising dramatic dynamic contrasts with brass and timpani sounding thunderous. Chung also made the rather clumsy and problematic Finale sound right for once including the closing bars which always sound as if the last notes have become beheaded from the body of the movement sounding like it has been cut short without an end. Yet Chung could do it and for once I heard this movement actually ‘end’ – yet all other conductors simply cannot ‘end’ this movement, always making it sound severed without a climax.

Throughout, the well-rehearsed LSO played with great precision and beauty of tone producing the perfect Bruckner sound. The highly appreciative and attentive audience gave Chung rapturous applause yet he responded in a rather self-effacing reserved manner, aiming all applause and praise at the orchestra, who clearly loved playing for him.

I simply cannot imagine ever hearing such a phenomenal performance of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony ever again and Chung has proved himself beyond doubt to be our finest living Bruckner conductor. It was a great tragedy that this sublime performance was not recorded for the LSO Live label whilst far less distinguished performances by Haitink and Davis are. It is high time Chung took over the reins of the LSO and Haitink and Davis went off into retirement.

 

Alex Verney-Elliott

 

Further listening:

Mozart: Piano Concerto No 23 & 26: Friedrich Gulda (piano), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (conductor): Apex: CD 8573-89091-2.

Bruckner Symphony No. 7: Philharmonic Society of New York, Arturo Toscanini (conductor),: 27/1/35. Ansfelden CD ANS-0127.

Bruckner Symphony No. 7: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Lovro von Matacic (conductor): Supraphon CD: SU 3781-2.