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Richard Strauss, Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Brahms: Matthias Goerne (baritone), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall, London, 27.9.2008 (BBr)

Strauss: Metamorphosen (1945)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Gesangszene (1963)
Brahms: Symphony No 2 in D, op.72 (1877)


Strauss wrote Metamosphosen when the end of the European war was within sight. It’s a thirty minute funeral march – written for 23 solo strings but here it was performed with a fuller string body which certainly amplifies the emotional experience but robs the piece of some of its feeling of large scale chamber music, and thus some of its intimacy. It was based on an idea which occurred to the composer two years earlier and which metamorphoses into the main theme of the funeral march of the Eroica Symphony, heard at the very end. The piece laments many things, the death of German culture through the barbarism of politics (and thus man himself), the destruction of a way of life and, most important for Strauss, the wanton destruction of the German and Austrian Opera Houses – Weimar, Dresden and Vienna – where he had earlier scored many successes.

Stephen Johnson once described Metamorphosen to me as being like sitting in a warm bath where the water never goes cold, and tonight’s interpretation seemed to fulfil that statement. Certainly its high octane emotion is overpowering in its non–stop grief, there’s no respite from first bar to last, and this performance brought out every ounce of feeling and despair although Jurowski never allowed the emotionalism to get out of hand. It was an hard fought battle and it was overwhelming in its intensity.

Then, with no regard for the emotional onslaught, came Hartmann’s final, great, achievement, Gesangszene – a setting of words from Jean Giraudoux’s 1944 play Sodome et Gomorrhe, which concerns the destruction of those cities. The music is apocalyptic in its expressionist style, using a very full orchestra, including six percussionists, two sets of timpani and a piano duet, in fierce and uncompromising music which truly raised the roof and bolted us into our seats. Starting with the most innocent of flute solos, excellently played by Evgeny Brokmiller, the instrumental prelude grows to an overwhelming climax, both fully lyrical and strained, only to fall back to the solo flute accompanied by gongs. The voice enters, at first separated from the orchestra, and then gradually joining with it, in an hair raising account of Armageddon. Goerne was a fine soloist – in a role conceived for Fischer–Dieskau – bringing all the horror of the scene fully to life before our ears. Despite the huge forces employed he was never overpowered by the band and together they made an eloquent case for this much neglected, but very difficult and disturbing, work. Hartmann died before completing the work and the final few lines are, as has become the tradition, spoken. This seems quite natural, given the scheme of the work, and one would believe that this is exactly what Hartmann had intended. Jurowski galvanized his players for this performance into throwing themselves  whole heartedly  into the wild parade. Perhaps there were just a couple of moments of insecurity where a few more minutes of rehearsal might have sorted them out, but I must not be churlish. We must be grateful to the LPO, on top form, giving their time to this much underrated composer. This was worth the price of admission alone.

After all this high yield German Music, as John White once so evocatively described it, came Brahms’s sunniest Symphony – No.2. It came as a cold, fresh, glass of water after too much alcohol. This was very much a young man’s interpretation of Brahms, and was none the worse for that, with Jurowski’s ideas captured by the players in joyous communion with Brahms’s late romantic nature. Make no mistake, there was  drama as well as tenderness by turns, in every bar, the slow movement being particularly haunting. The boisterous finale was wonderfully luminous and the final climax well built and satisfyingly complete.

On the strength of this show, as the LPO enters its 76^th season, I think that we can expect some marvelous music making in the months to come.

Bob Briggs


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