ConcertPulse
Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra / Julia Lezhneva / Adam Fischer
Elbphilharmonie, Großer Saal (Hamburg)
»Scena di Berenice«, which is rarely performed nowadays, was composed by Joseph Haydn during his second visit to London. The content is quintessential for a classical aria: a woman in love has been abandoned by her partner and now laments sonorously. 130 years later, a work by Béla Bartók caused a far-reaching scandal: the fiery dance pantomime called »The Miraculous Mandarin« was banned in Cologne in 1926 by the then Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer. This is how barbaric the music seemed to the listeners. And it is indeed true: Bartók was not interested in music as edification. He wanted to depict reality. And reality in the early 20th century was often a long way from harmonious. In the second half of the concert, Gustav Mahler’s fourth and arguably most light-filled symphony takes us back to the beginning of the century. But beware: the light in the symphony is tempered with some dark shallow waters. At a children’s concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall back in 1960, the great rediscoverer of Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, said: »Well, you might not believe it, but the man who wrote all that jolly stuff was one of the most unhappy people in history!«