United States Bach, Wagner, Mahler: Lise Davidsen (soprano), The Met Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor). Carnegie Hall, New York, 1.2.2024. (RP)
Bach – Fuga (2. Ricercata) a 6 voci for Orchestra (from Musical Offering) (orch. Webern)
Wagner – Wesendonck Lieder
Mahler – Symphony No.5
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall for a sold-out live performance with soprano Lise Davidsen because the star attraction. Or maybe she was simply certainly one of two, contemplating the viewers’s response to the thrilling efficiency of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony that concluded this system.
The first work was Webern’s Fuga, his reimagining of the six-part ‘Ricercata’ from Bach’s Musical Offering. Bach didn’t specify the devices for use in performing this seminal work, however the huge forces employed by Webern positively went past something the Baroque grasp might have envisioned.
Webern’s genius is revealed within the readability and transparency he achieved in his transformation of Bach’s music, in addition to his employment of an progressive approach referred to as Klangfarbenmelodie. In the latter, a melody, at instances only some notes of it, is handed from one instrument to a different.
It got here as no shock that The Met Orchestra performed the Webern with sensitivity and a focus to element. Under Nézet-Séguin’s baton, the solo passages emerged seamlessly from the shimmering, ever-changing, luminescent carpet of orchestral sound. Each word was set to perfection, leading to a serenely lovely and calming musical interlude.
There was an analogous sense of reserve from each soloist and conductor in Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. Nézet-Séguin revels in letting an orchestra rip, and Davidsen has a voice that may effortlessly trip the crest of a wave of orchestral sound at any quantity. Such expansiveness, nonetheless, was not the strategy of both artist on this deeply rewarding efficiency of Wagner’s ‘paean to transformative and forbidden love’.
Davidsen’s singing in ‘Der Engel’ reached its apex as her voice floated effortlessly whereas singing of angels floating down from heaven to assuage a troubled soul. The orchestral postlude that concludes the track glowed with rapture. In ‘Im Triebhaus’, Davidsen sang with a sensuality matched by the taking part in of principal violist Milan Milisavljević.
‘Schmerzen’, the fourth of the 5 songs within the cycle, was the primary during which Davidsen hinted on the dimension and splendor of her voice. Yet right here too, she and Nézet-Séguin took an natural strategy to each incremental improve in quantity and the gradual ratcheting up of the turbulent feelings contained within the track.
In ‘Träume’, the ultimate track within the cycle, soprano and orchestra mixed ardour with serenity to depict desires that instantly seem and shortly fade away. Davidsen’s languorous phrases, which she spun so effortlessly, had been a surprise.
Caution was left outdoors the door with Davidsen’s rapturous account of her solely encore, ‘Dich, teure Halle’ from Tannhäuser. For a singer with such an outstanding voice, Davidsen is a very delicate artist. Even at this comparatively early stage of her profession, she has mastered the artwork of modulating her voice to serve each the music and the area during which she is singing. In this jubilant aria, her superb sound resounded all through Carnegie Hall, with its fabled acoustics caressing her voice simply because it has for thus many different nice singers.
The remaining work on this system was the Mahler symphony. The dimension of the orchestra for which he wrote it was not so very completely different than what Webern referred to as for in his orchestration of the Bach. Where Webern favored transparency and management, nonetheless, Mahler leaned into magnificent outbursts of sound overflowing with emotion.
From the trumpet solo, so splendidly performed by principal David Krauss, to the concluding orchestral effusion of triumph and laughter, Nézet-Séguin led a powerful efficiency of Mahler’s revolutionary work. There was actual Schwung from the strings within the first motion, whereas within the second, the violins performed with such urgency it appeared as in the event that they had been tugging the sound from their devices reasonably than bowing.
The brass had been superb all through. Principal hornist Brad Gemeinhardt performed flawlessly within the Scherzo, and Sasha Romero, principal trombonist, was likewise afforded a solo bow. The Adagietto started so softly one sensed vibration and never sound.
Polyphony was on the coronary heart of this live performance. With Webern’s orchestration of the Fuga, the connection was apparent because of the work that impressed it. Mahler’s experimentation with the shape grew from his submersion in Bach’s works on the time he was engaged on the Fifth Symphony. Performing each items in a single live performance was an imaginative stroke of programming that linked the centuries.
Rick Perdian