United States Schoenberg, R. Strauss: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Christian Thielemann (conductor). Presented by Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley, 7.3.2023. (HS)
Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht for string orchestra, Op.4
R. Strauss – Eine Alpensinfonie, Op.64
The Vienna Philharmonic’s first return go to to the United States, which started with three packages at Carnegie Hall in New York final week, arrived in Berkeley on Tuesday for a similar three of their solely different cease on this tour.
In the primary live performance, conductor Christian Thielemann assembled a program that was, for an ensemble that appears to dedicate its energies to the peaks of classical and romantic period orchestral music, downright forward-thinking. Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht explores the outer limits of chromatic concord, earlier than the composer turned to atonality. Written across the similar time, within the second decade of the 20th century, Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie is his remaining and most expansive tone poem, each in size and in its instrumentation for greater than 125 musicians.
Describing in sound a day-long hike by means of the Alps, Strauss’s advanced interweaving of lengthy melodies and dense harmonies challenges any conductor to wrangle all of it into one thing that maintains ahead momentum. Thielemann’s no-nonsense ways stored the tempo pushing ahead, utilizing delicate changes in tempo and dynamics to maintain it compelling. This is the alternative of what we often hear in a efficiency of the Alpensinfonie.
Rather than aiming for contrasts, softening the sides on the quiet moments and powering up the massive moments, Thielemann prevented indulgences, which made the wonderful peaks and valleys of each scores come off as, effectively, much less alpine and extra intimate, regardless of the extra-large ensembles. If you might be amongst those that roll their eyes at this Strauss tone poem’s size and its tendency towards bloat, that would really feel invigorating. And Thielemann held the viewers’s consideration with pinpoint management of particulars on each web page of the rating, with out dropping the fluidity that may make the music unfold naturally.
The opening measures, which develop from darkness to a superb dawn, unfurled with stateliness and charm. The large moments all the time felt like they emerged naturally, even when they by no means blazed with the fireplace many conductors goal to realize.
The colours within the rating emerged with the identical type of managed palette. Whether in solos by the principal oboe or a riff from a heckelphone, a wisp of a violin or cello phrase or the complete weight of a brass part that featured two tubas and a row of Wagner tubas – none of those moments jumped off the stage. Instead, conductor and orchestra steadfastly remained related to the music that precedes and follows every of the dozen scenes.
The storm that whips up as a type of climax many of the means by means of the rating could have lacked the steadiness to let the percussion tones come by means of with their normal impact, however the texture of the strings served as worthy undercurrents.
The remaining part, because the day portrayed within the tone poem settles right into a burnished sundown, echoed the intertwined textures of Verklärte Nacht. This was one among a number of connections with the Schoenberg piece that made it an apt opener for the massive Strauss work. Not solely do each begin with quiet, deft variations on a descending scale, they spend most of their time pushing chromatic harmonies about so far as they will do with out creating harsh dissonances. The music does obtain a plushness, however even right here Thielemann compressed the sides so it didn’t come off as indulgent.
Schoenberg wrote the piece in 1899 as a string sextet (two every of violins, violas and cellos), reflecting the intimacy of the Richard Dehmel poem that impressed it. It was expanded right into a full string orchestra in 1917, together with the extra growth of a row of double basses within the basis, and infrequently tempts a efficiency to go excessive. But Thielemann prevented that right here, even with a full complement of some 5 dozen string gamers. He by no means let tempos lag, and aimed for at the least some transparency within the string enjoying.
If intonation generally faltered across the edges, the music flowed with sufficient power to attenuate the distraction. Even as these intonation slips recurred within the Strauss later, the constructive facet ultimately gained, making for a rewarding live performance.
The orchestra reminded us of its in style New Year’s Eve occasion with a scrumptious little waltz (Entr’acte-Valse by Joseph Helmesberger Jr.) as an encore. Truth to inform, it was my favourite second of the night. Every element fell into place simply and naturally.
The remaining packages will concentrate on Brahms, Bruckner and Mendelssohn.
Harvey Steiman