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Among the many wonderful concerts this season, there is one that Sir Simon Rattle would particularly like to attend himself: Stravinsky and Mendelssohn, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. The BRSO Chief Conductor has long admired Blomstedt (who has reached the impressive age of 97): “He’s like a splendid wine that only gets better with age,” says Rattle. “The last time I heard Lobgesang I was in my teens and still a mediocre timpani player. And although I couldn’t grasp its quality back then, I am convinced that Mr. Blomstedt will reveal the magnificence of this work – as he always does.” Hardly anyone conducts with such understanding and such humility. “He is such an inspiration!”
Among the many wonderful concerts this season, there is one that Sir Simon Rattle would particularly like to attend himself: Stravinsky and Mendelssohn, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. The BRSO Chief Conductor has long admired Blomstedt (who has reached the impressive age of 97): “He’s like a splendid wine that only gets better with age,” says Rattle. “The last time I heard Lobgesang I was in my teens and still a mediocre timpani player. And although I couldn’t grasp its quality back then, I am convinced that Mr. Blomstedt will reveal the magnificence of this work – as he always does.” Hardly anyone conducts with such understanding and such humility. “He is such an inspiration!”
Sir Simon Rattle will once again conduct the BRSO in this year’s SZ Benefit Concert. Joining the orchestra and its Chief Conductor at this traditional event will be Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, one of the new international stars of classical music. A Berliner by choice, his playing achieves a natural balance between energy and virtuosity. He is a “perfect match” for Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, in which the composer assigned the soloist a new role (in contrast to the failed First): he holds the reins and initiates the musical narrative, is almost always active, dialogues with the orchestra, and drives the action forward.
This programme is unusually diverse even for the musicians of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yet the musical worlds of Ligeti, Wagner, and Webern, which merge more or less seamlessly in this concert, are not as far apart as one might think. And in the second half there is Bruckner’s auratic Ninth Symphony, a true monolith. “It seems that the Ninth is a limit. If one wishes to go beyond it, one must leave this world. Those who wrote a Ninth were already too close to the hereafter” – this was Schönberg’s prophetic statement regarding Mahler, who died without ever having heard his Ninth Symphony. Bruckner is also said to have been afraid of this fatal number: “I don’t want to start on my Ninth at all, I don’t dare.” He died while working on the fourth movement.
This programme is unusually diverse even for the musicians of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yet the musical worlds of Ligeti, Wagner, and Webern, which merge more or less seamlessly in this concert, are not as far apart as one might think. And in the second half there is Bruckner’s auratic Ninth Symphony, a true monolith. “It seems that the Ninth is a limit. If one wishes to go beyond it, one must leave this world. Those who wrote a Ninth were already too close to the hereafter” – this was Schönberg’s prophetic statement regarding Mahler, who died without ever having heard his Ninth Symphony. Bruckner is also said to have been afraid of this fatal number: “I don’t want to start on my Ninth at all, I don’t dare.” He died while working on the fourth movement.
In 2018, Harrison Birtwistle, one of the most influential contemporary British composers, wrote a typically intense, rugged piece lasting less than four minutes (that turned out to be one of his last) and dedicated it to Sir Simon. The piece acts as a fitting opening for the decidedly monumental work that follows: Mahler’s Seventh, to which Rattle turns his attention after having already performed the Sixth and Ninth with the BRSO. Mahler found it particularly difficult to complete the work at the time. While trying to compose an appropriate opening, he suffered from a debilitating writer’s block that plunged him into deep depression. On a rowing trip across Lake Wörthersee, he is said to have conceived the redemptive idea for the first movement – a tenor horn solo that leads directly into the emotional cosmos of the symphony.
In 2018, Harrison Birtwistle, one of the most influential contemporary British composers, wrote a typically intense, rugged piece lasting less than four minutes (that turned out to be one of his last) and dedicated it to Sir Simon. The piece acts as a fitting opening for the decidedly monumental work that follows: Mahler’s Seventh, to which Rattle turns his attention after having already performed the Sixth and Ninth with the BRSO. Mahler found it particularly difficult to complete the work at the time. While trying to compose an appropriate opening, he suffered from a debilitating writer’s block that plunged him into deep depression. On a rowing trip across Lake Wörthersee, he is said to have conceived the redemptive idea for the first movement – a tenor horn solo that leads directly into the emotional cosmos of the symphony.
The sequence of fourths in Schönberg’s First Chamber Symphony represents a “fanfare of new music”: it marks both a decisive moment in which the extended tonality of late Romanticism was on the verge of dissolving and a turning point for the “dissonant experimenter,” who was proud of this work. But success did not come: “There is nothing I long for more intensely than to be taken for a better sort of Tchaikovsky. Or if anything more, that people should know my melodies and whistle them.” With his Archduke Trio, on the other hand, Beethoven gazes far into the 19th century. However, the premiere in April 1814 marked the end of his performing career; it was his last concert as a pianist. And what about Reinecke? Perhaps the audience has to make a choice here. According to BRSO flautist Henrik Wiese, “you simply have to open your ears and heart, and let this music work its magic.”
A spectacular four-minute opening: Oliver Knussen’s Flourish With Fireworks is a resounding homage to Stravinsky and intentionally alludes to his brilliant orchestral showpiece Feu d’artifice. The new, kaleidoscopic Cello Concerto by the Australian-Chinese composer Liza Lim was written for Nicolas Altstaedt’s virtuosic abilities. In the furious Three Screaming Popes, the British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage was inspired by Francis Bacon’s disturbing portraits of popes, and embeds Spanish dances into the musical texture in such a way that a hint of tango remains recognizable here and there. Edward Gardner concludes this multifaceted program with the unfinished Cleveland Pictures, in which the famous collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art is musically depicted, with paintings ranging from Rodin and Fabergé to Goya and Turner serving as sources of inspiration.
Seven years after the light-hearted and ironic Symphonie classique, Prokofiev’s Second Symphony was to be a work “of steel and iron” – and its disjointed, dissonant sounds delivered an intense physical punch. This rarely performed work has been called “brutal,” “painful,” and “unloved.” However, this is certainly not Franz Welser-Möst’s view – he holds it in high esteem. This is similar to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, his “Fate Symphony,” about which Tchaikovsky himself wrote: “After every performance, I become more and more convinced that my last symphony is a failed work. It has turned out to be too colorful, too bulky, too insincere, too long, and generally unappealing. Has the beginning of the end really already arrived?” It has become one of the most popular orchestral works of all time.
Seven years after the light-hearted and ironic Symphonie classique, Prokofiev’s Second Symphony was to be a work “of steel and iron” – and its disjointed, dissonant sounds delivered an intense physical punch. This rarely performed work has been called “brutal,” “painful,” and “unloved.” However, this is certainly not Franz Welser-Möst’s view – he holds it in high esteem. This is similar to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, his “Fate Symphony,” about which Tchaikovsky himself wrote: “After every performance, I become more and more convinced that my last symphony is a failed work. It has turned out to be too colorful, too bulky, too insincere, too long, and generally unappealing. Has the beginning of the end really already arrived?” It has become one of the most popular orchestral works of all time.
Seven years after the light-hearted and ironic Symphonie classique, Prokofiev’s Second Symphony was to be a work “of steel and iron” – and its disjointed, dissonant sounds delivered an intense physical punch. This rarely performed work has been called “brutal,” “painful,” and “unloved.” However, this is certainly not Franz Welser-Möst’s view – he holds it in high esteem. This is similar to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, his “Fate Symphony,” about which Tchaikovsky himself wrote: “After every performance, I become more and more convinced that my last symphony is a failed work. It has turned out to be too colorful, too bulky, too insincere, too long, and generally unappealing. Has the beginning of the end really already arrived?” It has become one of the most popular orchestral works of all time.
