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Germany Berlin Festtage [3] – Beethoven: Camilla Nylund (soprano), Anna Kissjudit (mezzo-soprano), Saimir Pirgu (tenor), René Pape (bass), Staatsopern Chor Berlin (refrain director: Martin Wright), Staatskapelle Berlin / Jérémie Rhorer (conductor). Philharmonie, Berlin, 7.4.2023. (MB)
Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D main, op.123
Thirty years because the launch of his recording of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim was as a consequence of return to the work, conducting it for the primary time with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Alas, that was to not be, but the primary performances the orchestras has given since 1962, on the Staatsoper beneath Franz Konwitschny – the one others because the Second World War in 1952 and 1947, on the Admiralspalast – went forward. French ‘early music’ conductor Jérémie Rhorer appeared a wierd alternative for Barenboim, however there was most likely not a mess of candidates out there. Few conductors method it recurrently; many by no means do. Wilhelm Furtwängler famously declined to conduct it in later years, contemplating himself unable to do justice to what he continued to consider to be Beethoven’s biggest work. (Many of us, if pressured, would agree.) It was additionally a really unusual alternative for Good Friday, although maybe that was not foremost within the minds of these assembling the programme. Rhorer’s method and, extra critically, his command of those distinguished forces proved of variable success. There have been nonetheless (aural) glimpses, generally greater than that, of what this extraordinary work may in the appropriate palms nonetheless be.
The Kyrie, like a lot of the work, was taken swiftly. It sounded virtually cheerful, at instances as if a setting of a unique textual content by a lesser pupil of Haydn. At least the ‘Christe’ part recommended slightly extra pressure, extra effort, extra issue, the 4 soloists richly expressive on their very own, considerably operatic, phrases — which didn’t appear at all times to be the identical as Rhorer’s. Balances have been at instances awry. The lead in to the second ‘Kyrie’, although, went each easily and inevitably. Rhorer was definitely not with out appreciation of the work’s dynamism, even when that generally meant scaling it right down to one thing extra digestible, moderately than scaling it as much as antinomies reconciled, if in any respect, solely on the degree of the Divinity. And therein, maybe, lay the best drawback. What did this imply? What was Beethoven trying to attain? Did he achieve this? Much was too prettified, all too readily reconciled.
There was, to be truthful, creditable, even ecstatic hyperbole to the opening of the Gloria, from each refrain and orchestra. However, Rhorer’s concern for fluency, not in itself in fact a nasty factor, once more continued to easy over moderately than to reveal the implacable. Motivic integrity was (typically) current, but a way of battle was solely intermittent. The timpani roll (Dominic Oelze) saying the ‘Quoniam’ was actually fairly one thing, as certainly was Oelze’s taking part in all through that part. And the sheer strangeness of a few of Beethoven’s harmonies, allied to their scoring, instructed right here too. Alas, the race to the end was solely profitable in elements. There was once more some sense of the cumulative, however majesty was roughly fully missing, and balances within the setting of ‘Amen’ have been far and wide.
The Credo was likewise extra profitable when Rhorer gave it area to announce its strangeness. Transparency allowed listening to of typically uncared for particulars: a vital double bass line, as an example, in addition to extra basic counterpoint. Much appeared rushed, although: an ideal pity when Saimir Pighu introduced ‘Et homo factus est’. Again, what did this imply? Should it not be (virtually) every thing? It definitely didn’t sound prefer it. The ascent of Christ into Heaven (‘et ascendit in caelum’) thrilled, although it was peculiar, even unnerving, to listen to it on Good Friday. Moreover, mandatory pressure on the refrain’s soprano voices might be heard in the direction of the shut. Beethoven’s writing is merciless and may sound so. That it didn’t add as much as far more than the sum of its variable elements was, I’m afraid to say, Rhorer’s fault, and his alone.
The Staatskapelle gamers supplied taking part in of lovely gravity to the opening of the Sanctus, ‘as if’ chamber music — and all the higher for such intimacy. When solo voices joined, the impression was enhanced moderately than effaced. Contrast with all the corporate of Heaven on ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ was one of the crucial profitable, certainly shifting, moments in the complete efficiency. Vibrato-less archaism, someplace between an outdated viol consort reimagined and orchestration of an organist’s liturgical ‘preluding’, prefaced the ‘Benedictus’, which at instances approached the Beethovenian elegant – Wolfgang Brandl’s solo violin couldn’t be faulted – and was at the least not harried; but a lot was too readily tamed, even domesticated.
A distinct, but allied, type of gravity possessed the primary part of the Agnus Dei. Its disappointment, first strengthened by René Pape’s bass solo, then by different soloists, Martin Wright’s excellent refrain shadowing them, permitted a high quality unfolding. Ultimately, although, it remained a bit too ‘normal’, as battlefield sounds got here and went, pictorial, even perhaps ‘interesting’, but little extra. It was nicely formed, but on a regular basis I longed for some sense that every thing, even one thing, was at stake. One doesn’t hear the Missa solemnis typically; nor, most likely, ought to one. For me, only one reside efficiency, from Colin Davis on the Proms in 2011, has aspired to and, for essentially the most half, realised the work’s greatness: of ambition, of humility, of awe, of humanity, and of a lot else. Whether I shall hear one other such efficiency stays to be seen.
Mark Berry