The last time Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle graced the wide stage of Carnegie Hall, it was to conduct the complete Mahler symphonies along with Pierre Boulez, the great French maestro and composer - as well as the orchestra's honorary conductor - who died last year. Eight years later, the Israeli-Argentinian conductor brings his Berlin band back to New York for another marathon run-through of a great Austrian symphonist, Anton Bruckner. Over the course of eleven days (January 19 - 29), they will tackle all of Bruckner's nine numbered symphonies (there are a couple of others kicking about, but no need to worry about those). The concerts will also mark milestones in both the conductor and the orchestra's history. 2017 is the Staatskapelle's 175th season as a symphony orchestra (although the ensemble itself is much older, dating from 1570), as well as the 60th anniversary of Barenboim's Carnegie Hall debut.
Ahead of the Carnegie performances, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle are giving a Bruckner preview at their usual stomping grounds, the Berlin Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus, after presenting the first third of the cycle at the Philharmonie de Paris last week.
Bruckner's Third Symphony is often considered the composer's first fully-realized work in the genre, a harmonically complex and poetically demanding work that the Viennese public of 1877 rejected with a vehemence that wounded the composer. Vienna's leading critic Eduard Hanslick wrote that the work was "a vision of Beethoven's Ninth" that "made friends with Wagner's Walküre and wound up trampled under the hooves of their horses." (n.b. - Bruckner had in fact dedicated the first version of the score, completed four years earlier, to his idol, Wagner, whom Hanslick had decidedly mixed feelings). The Berlin performances pair the hour-long symphony with Mozart's late D major Piano Concerto (no. 24), nicknamed "The Coronation," a stately work with a particularly dramatic and sustained role for the soloist.
Last night at the Philharmonie, Barenboim did double duty as pianist and conductor, as he will in most of the Carnegie appearances. On a program such as this, the opening concerto can't help but feel like a delicate appetizer to a particularly rich entrée. The pared-down orchestra played with crisp precision, to which Barenboim added his thoroughly unmannered playing. With lightness of touch and a somewhat melting sound, his subtle and interior performance was somewhat at odds with the trim delicacy of the instruments. The cadenza in the Allegro sounded especially child-like, with the coda arriving almost matter-of-factly. Throughout, Barenboim played and conducted with ease and fluidity, and his musicians responded with a measured and detailed performance that was careful to a fault. At times, it made Mozart's artful simplicity sound bloodless.
Barenboim has recorded the Third three times, more than any other symphony by Bruckner. Reviewing the most recent release, a live 2010 performance with the Staatskapelle that is available as a digital download on the conductor's own Peral label (a CD release of that full symphonic cycle is forthcoming from Deutsche Grammophon), the British magazine Gramophone called it a highlight of the set, noting volatile tempi, an impassioned climax in the Adagio and the rollicking gait of the Scherzo. All I can say is that the conductor's conception of this piece seems to have changed entirely over the past seven years. I have rarely heard the Staatskapelle sound more magnificent (if only they played with this level of intensity and focus night after night at the Staatsoper!), yet after a thoroughly thrilling opening movement, with dazzling crescendoes and warmly lyrical passages, Barenboim conducted so arthritically that even the virtuosity of this sensational mass of musicians eventually grew tiresome. Despite radiant pianissimo and sturdy brass in the Adagio, high-tension precision in the Scherzo and fiercely on-target crescendo upon crescendo in the Finale, the tempi were so unvaried, and the whole musical fabric sounded so thick and leaden, that Barenboim often seemed to be leading his musicians on a high-pressure endurance test.
Recently, Barenboim made an interesting observation about Bruckner's symphonies seeming more archeological than architectural. "One often talks about the architecture of the music. But with Bruckner symphonies, sometimes I have the feeling that it goes deeper and deeper, more like an archeological expedition rather than an architectural building," the 74-year-old conductor said. On the basis of this performance, neither he nor his musicians seem to have found all that much.
IV. SUBSCRIPTION CONCERT | STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN
Conductor and Solist: Daniel Barenboim
January 9 - PHILHARMONIE BERLIN - GROSSER SAAL
January 10 - KONZERTHAUS BERLIN - GROSSER SAAL