Saturday 15th October 2013
Review of the concert by Philip Worth
In November 1792 at the Freihaus-Theatre auf der Wieden in Vienna Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute’ celebrated the one hundredth performance of a spectacularly successful run since its premiere in September 1791. No surprises here – ‘The Magic Flute’ displays, in every aspect, Mozart’s incomparable genius at the zenith of its power and glory, whether one speaks of arias, recitatives, plots, characters but, above all, music not equalled for endless inspiration before or, arguably, since. No wonder that the Vienna public (and beyond) could not get enough of it! The one notable absentee at the one hundredth performance was the composer himself – he had died nearly a year before at the age of thirty-five. 222 years later the world still mourns his premature loss. The DSO’s spirited performance of the overture echoes Mozart’s own sentiment expressed in a letter written in 1786:
“Melody is the very essence of music. When I think of a good melodist I think of a fine race horse. A contrapuntist is only a post horse.”
A reviewer moving on from Mozart to Beethoven runs the risk of a premature dearth of superlatives. Fulsome claims such as ‘the world’s greatest composer’ beg more questions than they answer. One lobby awards the crown to Mozart, another, with equal vigour, to Beethoven. Does this place Schubert, Wagner, Brahms and a legion of other giants among the ‘also rans’? This, of course, points up the absurdity of the whole debate. Genius, impossible either to analyse or ignore, has one undeniable attribute – uniqueness, (who could ever confuse the music of Schumann with that of Delius?) So comparisons are not so much odious as pointless. But let’s stay for the moment with Beethoven, whose violin concerto was played with such great aplomb by the young virtuoso Francesca Barritt. After a poor premiere in 1806 followed by nearly forty years of neglect the work was triumphantly resurrected in 1844 by Mendelssohn with Joseph Joachim as soloist and has never looked back since then. It is music that challenges the soloist, both technically and artistically; this, possibly, is why there have been so many individual attempts to fashion the cadenza, involving both violinists (e.g. Joshua Bell, Fritz Kreisler) and composers (e.g. Saint Saens) to mention but a very few. I recall first hearing a live performance, as a boy, just after the War, and have heard it played many times since, but never better than Francesca’s reading of the work; the artistry was there, but this was powered, also, by youthful vitality.
Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony (number 8) has satisfied musical appetites on two levels since its composition in 1822 and its premiere in 1865 ( ! ) To begin with (and most importantly) its pure lyrical beauty has enchanted music lovers the world over for nearly a century and a half; secondly, there’s the mystery – why unfinished? Human nature generally loves a mystery, and attempts to solve this one have kept musicians and musicologists happily busy since 1865. Theories abound: did Schubert put it aside because another piece (Wanderer Fantasy?) gripped his imagination? Was he dissatisfied with the first two movements? Was it lost and rediscovered forty years later? The truth will never be known but, be that as it may, many ‘completions’ have been attempted and a number actually performed. The composers concerned have usually been talented, often of great distinction, and sincere in their efforts but, let’s face it, none has been a Schubert. But what of the DSO? No problem – it simply gets on with what it’s good at, which is playing great music to the best of its ability.
Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg’ has not enjoyed a consistently good press since its premiere in 1868. The problem was that it became a kind of musical icon of the Nazi party, the favourite of Adolf Hitler and contained, perhaps a hint of anti-semitism. If you looked hard enough you could maybe detect that and indeed the closing words of the opera are sung by Hans Sachs in which he glorifies German musical art and begs his countrymen not to allow it to become tainted by alien influences – whatever they might be. But this latter day tendency to identify Wagner’s music with Nazism is narrow minded and blinkered. The Mastersingers contains wonderful music and extols music itself as the greatest art form without which human life would indeed be much the poorer. Listening to the DSO play excerpts from Act 3 might well convince us of the truth of that sentiment.
In November 1792 at the Freihaus-Theatre auf der Wieden in Vienna Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute’ celebrated the one hundredth performance of a spectacularly successful run since its premiere in September 1791. No surprises here – ‘The Magic Flute’ displays, in every aspect, Mozart’s incomparable genius at the zenith of its power and glory, whether one speaks of arias, recitatives, plots, characters but, above all, music not equalled for endless inspiration before or, arguably, since. No wonder that the Vienna public (and beyond) could not get enough of it! The one notable absentee at the one hundredth performance was the composer himself – he had died nearly a year before at the age of thirty-five. 222 years later the world still mourns his premature loss. The DSO’s spirited performance of the overture echoes Mozart’s own sentiment expressed in a letter written in 1786:
“Melody is the very essence of music. When I think of a good melodist I think of a fine race horse. A contrapuntist is only a post horse.”
A reviewer moving on from Mozart to Beethoven runs the risk of a premature dearth of superlatives. Fulsome claims such as ‘the world’s greatest composer’ beg more questions than they answer. One lobby awards the crown to Mozart, another, with equal vigour, to Beethoven. Does this place Schubert, Wagner, Brahms and a legion of other giants among the ‘also rans’? This, of course, points up the absurdity of the whole debate. Genius, impossible either to analyse or ignore, has one undeniable attribute – uniqueness, (who could ever confuse the music of Schumann with that of Delius?) So comparisons are not so much odious as pointless. But let’s stay for the moment with Beethoven, whose violin concerto was played with such great aplomb by the young virtuoso Francesca Barritt. After a poor premiere in 1806 followed by nearly forty years of neglect the work was triumphantly resurrected in 1844 by Mendelssohn with Joseph Joachim as soloist and has never looked back since then. It is music that challenges the soloist, both technically and artistically; this, possibly, is why there have been so many individual attempts to fashion the cadenza, involving both violinists (e.g. Joshua Bell, Fritz Kreisler) and composers (e.g. Saint Saens) to mention but a very few. I recall first hearing a live performance, as a boy, just after the War, and have heard it played many times since, but never better than Francesca’s reading of the work; the artistry was there, but this was powered, also, by youthful vitality.
Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony (number 8) has satisfied musical appetites on two levels since its composition in 1822 and its premiere in 1865 ( ! ) To begin with (and most importantly) its pure lyrical beauty has enchanted music lovers the world over for nearly a century and a half; secondly, there’s the mystery – why unfinished? Human nature generally loves a mystery, and attempts to solve this one have kept musicians and musicologists happily busy since 1865. Theories abound: did Schubert put it aside because another piece (Wanderer Fantasy?) gripped his imagination? Was he dissatisfied with the first two movements? Was it lost and rediscovered forty years later? The truth will never be known but, be that as it may, many ‘completions’ have been attempted and a number actually performed. The composers concerned have usually been talented, often of great distinction, and sincere in their efforts but, let’s face it, none has been a Schubert. But what of the DSO? No problem – it simply gets on with what it’s good at, which is playing great music to the best of its ability.
Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg’ has not enjoyed a consistently good press since its premiere in 1868. The problem was that it became a kind of musical icon of the Nazi party, the favourite of Adolf Hitler and contained, perhaps a hint of anti-semitism. If you looked hard enough you could maybe detect that and indeed the closing words of the opera are sung by Hans Sachs in which he glorifies German musical art and begs his countrymen not to allow it to become tainted by alien influences – whatever they might be. But this latter day tendency to identify Wagner’s music with Nazism is narrow minded and blinkered. The Mastersingers contains wonderful music and extols music itself as the greatest art form without which human life would indeed be much the poorer. Listening to the DSO play excerpts from Act 3 might well convince us of the truth of that sentiment.