It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic completed their previous cycle of Mahler symphonies together. But a decade it is and, as we find ourselves in Petrenko’s penultimate season as Chief Conductor, they are to repeat the nine numbered symphonies in chronological order over a 12 month period.
Whilst some of these works will be a complete concert by
themselves, the first offers room in the programme for something before the
interval. Utilising a similarly lavish orchestra as the Mahler, this concert
opened with Im Sommerwind, the early 1904 tone poem by Anton Webern. There are undeniably
echoes here of the magical, romantic earthiness of Mahler’s work, which surely
provided some inspiration to the young Webern. It’s an expansive atmospheric
work that breathes the open air every bit as much as Mahler, and the orchestra
breathed with it. Maybe the summer wind it evoked was all too real, as there
seemed to be an epidemic of hayfever in parts of the audience, but the chorus
of coughs and sneezes were no match for the music, and it triumphed over the
extraneous noises in its radiant closing pages.
What followed was a very unexpected treat for this reviewer.
I must confess to a lifelong allergy to Schubert Lieder, so I was not expecting
to be so engaged by the selection of five songs on offer, each in
orchestrations by different hands, but all voiced by the outstanding baritone
Benjamin Appl. From Die Forelle to Erlkonig, Appl had my full attention
throughout, really bringing Schubert’s songs to vivid life. Whilst aware of the
orchestral arrangements that accompanied him and the care that went into
playing them, it might just as well have been a solo piano, because the
absolute star here was this extraordinary vocal performance. I am now much
happier than I’d expected about the prospect of hearing these songs again at
Sunday’s concert.
But then to the Mahler, and the symphony which rises out of
the primordial soup in its sustained, mystical opening to build the monumental
foundations of the towering canon of works that are to follow it. There is real
architecture in this music, despite its folk inspiration and its scenes of
nature, and Petrenko really demonstrates an understanding of the shape of the
work as a whole. It’s all too easy for music on this scale to turn to bombast,
with conductors tempted to pull out all the stops with these large orchestral
forces. Petrenko never falls for this trap. Whilst he can certainly draw an impressive
volume of sound from the orchestra, it’s all about balance, restraint and
absolute control of dynamics. The result is an extraordinary sustained
development of tension in the music that is quite breathtaking. Again and again
throughout his tenure here, Petrenko has shown an ability to take a vast
arsenal of performers and get them to play with incredible gentleness. It has
been said that, whilst Mahler wrote almost no chamber music, his chamber music
was contained within the symphonies, and this is amply demonstrated here.
My only tiny quibble with Petrenko’s reading of this score
is the extraordinary speed with which he despatches the very last few bars, but
it's very much a matter of personal taste and I’m sure many would disagree
with me on this.
This is a very distinguished start to what promises to be
yet another landmark Mahler cycle from RLPO. The next six numbered symphonies are
performed over the remaining five months of the current season. The 8th will be
presented at the Royal Albert Hall in October, where the orchestra will join forces with
the Royal Philharmonic, and the 9th will conclude the cycle in the early part
of the RLPO’s 2020/21 season in Liverpool.
 |
| Benjamin Appl - photo (c) Sony / Lars Borges |
Star Rating: Five Stars
Comments
Post a Comment