Brahms : Solveig Kringelborn (soprano), Mariusz Kwiecien (baritone), Swedish Radio Choir, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Valeri Gergiev (conductor),De Doelen Concert Hall, Rotterdam, 24.5.2008 (BvW)

Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem, op.45 ( 1861/67)

Gergiev thanks the musicians at his farewell concert

 

What a task its is, to write about a concert as this one, so magical, so ethereal, without any doubt one of the best concerts I ever heard. It officially ended Gergiev’s 13 year tenure as Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Gergiev first conducted this orchestra in  1988 and will return in September for his own Gergiev Festival which began in 1996.

This performance of Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem in De Doelen was concentrated, intense and literally devotional,   at a level extremely rare in contemporary musical llife. At the end of the last movement,  silence was everything that remained: the whole audience was left in a state of bewilderement, almost shock.

Valeri Gergiev is the only living conductor I know of who can focus the energy of a big orchestra and chorus to the point where the listener forgets everything else and hears pure music. Gergiev is “playing” on his “instrument” exactly the way he wants and it reacts to him immediately. Usually,  one  encounters  music making like this only in the very best chamber music concerts. Gergiev shaped, chiseled, carved and moulded everything out of silence; there were many, many moments of pure enchantement, mystery and a real sense of devotion.

The lower strings had so many colours that one lost count,  each phrase lovingly shaped, coloured and balanced. Brahms’ Requiem, which so often sounds muddy and cloudy in other performances, came out as a masterpiece with  every single line audible yet without the total sounding clinical or analitycal. Gergiev conducted with enormous presence, his eyes everywhere, his movements very small.

Star among stars was the fabulous Swedish Radio Choir which sang as close to perfection as one could wish for. Gergiev was visibly excited and stimulated by the amazing possibilities of this extrra  which also reacted to each tiny movement of his fingers, each flickering of his eyes. The first two movements, for choir and orchestra, were miracles of balance and concentration. The audience was extremely silent and witnessed a blending of timbres in choir and orchestra which had to be heard to be believed. Unhappily,  the arrival of the two soloists (between the second and third movement) somehow broke this spell: they clearly came from outside, from “another” world.

The young Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, especially known from his operatic work, clearly missed the stage and could’t colour his text to make it understandable or memorable. Norwegian soprano Solveig Kringelborn looked charming and managed her solo quite beautifully and securely, but her performance was simply safe and sounded rather earthbound. Fortunately the last movement brought back the kind of concentration from the first movements. Then there was silence, pure silence for a minute or so....

With an  enormous number of microphones placed all over the orchestra and choir,  this concert was recorded for a possible CD-release later this year. It should be something to look forward to, although it will be hard to capture the special atmosphere of the live concert on disc.

Hearing the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in this form, reacting as one person on Gergiev, with gorgeous playing in all sections, one cannot help but wondering what will happen next season. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the next Music Director, is without doubt a very talented, young man, chosen unanimously by the players as Gergiev’s successor but it is and will be absolutely unfair to compare him now (at the age of 33) with Gergiev. I sincerely hope that he will not try to compete with Gergiev’s legacy (and shadow) but will simply  go on with new and adventurous programs to establish himself.

The Rotterdam Gergiev Festival 2008

Valeri Gergiev will be back in September at his own Gergiev-festival. The thirteenth edition of this festival will be themed Heaven and Earth. For eight days, from 6 through 13 September, the festival will present symphonic music, chamber music, opera, film, children's performances and a night program. The festival will confront the sacred with the profane and unite the human with the Divine. (See http://www.gergievfestival.nl/index_2008_ENG.html).

On Saturday 6th September Gergiev will conduct Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with new star mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova who sang an unforgetable Brangäne in last year’s Tristan and Isolde.  On Sunday 7th  September, th Festival presents the European premiere of The Karamazov Brothers , an opera by the Russian composer Alexander Smelkov, which also will come to London in 2009. Yannick Nézet-Séguin  has been  invited by Gergiev to conduct Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis on 10th September and on  Friday 12th, Gergiev himself is back with Bruckner’s Third Symphony and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler. The festival ends on Saturday 13th September with Stravinsky’s ballets Orpheus and The Rite of Spring.

Gergiev and the orchestra on disc: celebratory releases

To celebrate 20 years of music making with Valeri Gergiev the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra also released a 4-CD-set and a DVD. The CD-box “Rotterdam Philharmonic - 20 years of Gergiev live” includes a selection of the best recordings  made by this partnership and includes a few real gems. First of all there is a very unusual suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (i.e.in chronological order). It was recorded after an extensive tour in Asia and it shows! See Marc Bridle’s review. 

That Gergiev is an excellent Sibelius conductor (I remember a breathtaking Tapiola in 1998) one can hear in a very free and passionate account of the First Symphony. The last disc is made up of “modern” repertoire: Schnittke’s haunting Viola concerto (with Yuri Bashmet), Dutilleux’ Violin concerto L’arbre des songes (with Leonidas Kavakos) and Boris Tishchenko’s Suite from Yaroslavna.

Shostakovich’ Eleventh Symphony features on disc 3 and Gergiev’s debut in 1988 with Tsjaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is also included.

The DVD is called “Conducting doesn’t tire me” : a 100-minute documentary about conductor and orchestra traveling all over the globe. It defenitely is very interesting. Extra's include complete performances of La Valse and Alborado del gracioso, interviews with Janine Jansen, Vadim Repin, Leonidas Kavakos and Yuri Bashmet, filmed rehearsals of Mahler 7 and Sheherazade and a masterclass for young conductors.

The CD-box will cost around £27 Sterling (35 euro) the DVD £16  (20 euro).They are  both available onine  from the orchestra’s website.

Bas van Westerop

Picture © Marco Borggreve

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