SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT

Stravinsky  and Bruckner: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,  Lorin Maazel (conductor), Barbican Hall, London,3.3.2010 (GD)

 
Stravinsky:  The Rite of Spring

Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1889 Novak Edition)

 

This was a very opulent sounding Rite. From the bassoon in high register which initiates the work, and all through the opening 'Adoration of the Earth',  Maazel elicited some eloquently lucid textures; the entry of the high C trumpet, with underlying swirls and cascades from the English horn and bassoons, was as clear as I have ever heard it. But surely the preceding clarinet trills were too loud? The stamping rhythms in the strings and eight horns, in the 'Auguries of Spring' were meticulously executed but I also wondered whether  the very plush tone here is what Stravinsky had in mind since surely a more acerbic and earthy thrust is appropriate.  And by the time we came to 'Round-dances of Spring' I also pondered whether the huge allargando that Maazel made in the thrusting trombone glissandi figure figure made sense in Stravinsky's terms. I  am not just pedantically referring to the score here: we have to hand, Stravinsky's detailed comments on a range of recordings, including his own, made in his last decade. The composer was very meticulous regarding issues of balance and tempi and and  with this in mind,  the 'Procession of the Sage' with its unprecedented  complexity (at the time of composition) in stretto, ostinato counterpoint, and orchestral dynamics, layout and texture, felt less well balanced  than the composer clearly wanted: a lack of precise rhythmic inflection at every measure did not help matters either. Maazel did draw some sensuous playing from the strings in particular in the introduction to Part Two with its evocation of  primitive Russian nights but even this might have been a little too lush and sensuous.  Perfectly fine  in 'Salome' perhaps, but here something more 'cold' and detached from any human emotion is surely the order of the day. The trumpet duo, although nicely balanced, was also too loud.

Even odder and possibly perverse too,  was Maazel decison to ignore the composer's explicit 'Molto allargando' marking at the percussive, thudding beginning of the 'Glorification of the Chosen One', and at its reprise in the adjoining rhythmic figure in brass and woodwind, while introducing the unmarked allargando, mentioned earlier.  The following 'Evocation of the Ancestors' failed to maintain a sense of continuity in relation to the preceding section, and the crescendo rolls for timpani/bass drum figures after each heraldic fanfare in brass and woodwind lacked dramatic impact, or so it seemed to me.

In the concluding 'Ritual Action of the Ancestors' and 'Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One',  Maazel and the orchestra continued to produce some sumptuous sounds but also continued to detract from the primitive, savage drama of the score, losing any sense of sustained thrust and tension, particularly in the 'Sacrificial Dance sequence, where the pulsating rhythmic figures started to sound tame and superficial. In the last sequence, ending in the final  tutti crash, Maazel made no clear distinction between the upbeat and the downbeat,  thus robbing the music of its exact rhythmic register.  The final orchestral crash was replete tonight with another percussive effect added by conductor who jumped and stamp-landed on the rostrum!

The genealogy of the various versions of Bruckner's Third Symphony is far too complex to go to summarise. Suffice it to say that Maazel opted for the I889 revised version of the score edited by Leopold Nowak, apparently the preferred version nowadays, with its emendations making Bruckner's 'excesses' more amenable to symphonic structure. Personally, I have some affection for the earlier 1877 version, also edited by Nowak, which retains material from Bruckner's original. Could it be that Bruckner's rambling excesses, with the manically repetitive coda to the third movement scherzo, come somehow closer to the uniquely 'primitive' quality of this composer's music? Perhaps.

Bruckner marks the first movement,  'Rather slow' and 'mysterious'. Maazel opened the work at a  much faster tempo than and left little space for anything resembling 'mystery'. But by the time we reached   the tonal region of E flat, initiating the famous trumpet motive, Maazel found it necessary to slow down considerably. This juxtaposition of tempo adjustments was a characteristic of the whole movement but here the Vienna orchestra was on home ground, and some glorious playing ensued in the F major second subject led by violas. And what brass! Sounding Wagnerian - fitting in a symphony often nicknamed the 'Wagner' symphony- but also having a uniquely Brucknerian tone, the sound was tremendous. Despite the fact that Maazel  pulled out the throttle for the modulated D minor development and surging chorale climax, it sounded 'fantastic',  sending a chill down the spine, to use a psychosomatic cliche!  And tonight, at the initiation of the development section, Bruckner's self-quotations from the 'Miserere' of the F minor Mass, and a theme from the Second Symphony were also clearly discernable. 

Bruckner obviously intended the second movement as an 'adagio', but also added his famous 'Bewegt' (with movement) as a caution to conductors who fetishise 'slow motion'. On this score Maazel did well, more or less sustaining a steady adagio throughout. There were one or two sequences where I would have welcomed more subtlety in phrasing and dynamic gradation, but again, as a tribute to how well the VPO know, and 'live' this music  and this tradition, the allusion to the 'sleep' motive from Act III of Wagner's 'Die Walkure', and the Viennese sacred cadence, found in the Masses of  Haydn and Mozart as well as  Bruckner's own F minor Mass, were beautifully intoned - exacty what 'great' Bruckner playing is all about.

The D minor Scherzo, a cross between the dark menaces of the 'Walpurgis Nacht', and the bucolic tones of Upper Austrian peasant dance music, although wonderfully played, needed more dramatic inflection, in the manner of Bohm or Horenstein: but how this great Austrian orchestra phrased those dance ryhthms in the trio section.  In the finale, the F sharp major second subject polka, miraculously modulated to include a chorale theme later taken up in the brass, the playing was absolutely hors concours. The climactic re-statement of the opening trumpet theme, now modulated into a triumphant D major for the coda, sounded both joyous and triumphant, as though the whole great orchestra were paying deliberate homage, in its own unique way,  to this very Austrian composer. How sad then, that at one time this coda chorale was used in vulgarised form by the Nazis as a motive to their radio propaganda broadcasts. Thankfully we were light years removed from this here, with Bruckner restored to his rightfully honoured place in a unique tradition.

Geoff Diggines