More than a sum of parts : Jurowski, Berg, Denisov, Shostakovich

Vladimir Jurowski, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, London Philharmonic Orchestra,  photo : Sven Lorenz, Essen

Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Patricia Kopatchinskaja presented Alban Berg's Violin Concerto.  Kopatchinskaja, Jurowski and the LPO recorded Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and Prokofiev's Violin Concerto no 2 nearly four years ago, and the disc is a best seller, for good reason. Sine Berg's Violin Concerto is perhaps even more popular, the prospect of  hearing it with Kopatchinskaya, Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall was hard to resist. Hopefully, it will be released at some stage. In the meantime, listen to the repeat broadcast on BBC Radio 3. 

But this concert was also memorable because it connected Berg's Violin Concerto with Edison Denisov's Symphony no 2 and Shostakovich's Symphony no 15. Jurowski has a genius for devising programmes that are greater even than the sum of their parts.  Anyone can put a programme together; very few can do so on this level.  Please read my review of  Jurowski's Kancheli, Martinů and Ralph Vaughan Williams concert.  This evening's inspired combination drew out the  more esoteric levels from all three pieces, absolutely justifying  the theme "Belief and Beyond Belief". Although so much about South Bank marketing is gimmick, Jurowski's "Belief and Beyond"  is genuinely well thought through, and adds considerable depth to this year's series of LPO concerts.  By no means is the term Belief limited to conventional, organized religion.  The concept of Belief  informs the whole way we respond to the human condition, even when we don't believe in fixed concepts.  Jurowski's programmes relate to much wider ideas of spiritual and intellectual questioning.  Comic book rigidities go against the grain of creative expression.

Edison Denisov's Symphony no 2 (1996) is typical Jurowski territory: stretching boundaries. Although Denisov lived under Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, he didn't conform. His perspectives were modern and international. He learned from Debussy, Messiaen, Boulez and Stockhausen and eventually was able to move to Paris, where his music was supported by IRCAM.  Denisov's Symphony, written after he'd moved to Paris, inhabits a world of shimmering almost micro tonality,  sounds blending yet separate, like fluids of different densities flowing together. The voice of a violin emerges from the complex confluences, then  a group of low winds, then a murmur of bassoons and a rumble of percussion.  Swirling figures, very high tessitura, creating forward thrust, broken by staccato cross-currents. Harps and gunfire, I thought.  Savagely angular discords, and the music stops dead. Perhaps literally. Denisov was seriously ill  and passed away six months later.  On the broadcast, Jurowski says there's a quotation from a bassoon solo in Tchaikovsky's Pathétique,  transposed for double bass.

In programmes as esoteric as Jurowski's, it's wise to beware of clichés. Following the obvious idea that Berg's Violin Concerto represents Manon Gropius who died aged 16, South Bank marketing plays up the "Memory of an Angel" aspects of the piece. But Berg, being Berg, is cryptic, hiding behind surface appearances. Kopatchinskaja reminds us of Albina, Berg's secret love child, whom he never really knew. Listen to Kopatchinskaja sing the Carpathian (not Austrian) folk song Berg quotes in the piece! Her singing voice is sweet and bird like, which enhances what the piece represents.  When she plays, she defines the part with strong, affirmative poise. The melody is bittersweet, yet undaunted, even when the orchestra storms around her.  Disquieting shapes in the violin part and crashing chords in the orchestra: this isn't  dewy-eyed sentimentality but something far more profound.  Tonality hovers on the point of breaking and then dissolves, when no more can be said.  The quote "Es ist genug", is a reference to Bach. Jurowski understands that Berg, even at his most passionate, uses structure with the clarity of a mathematical mind. Puzzles and patterns are integral.  Hence the innate  power of this piece, and this very strong performance.

Shostakovich's Symphony no 15 starts with exuberance, rushing forward into quirky march with references to Rossini's William Tell.  Is Shostakovich thinking of military oppression or slyly satirizing music for the movies? Perhaps both, for this symphony is in many ways Shostakovich's memoir.  Was he a puppet in an insane toy shop, or was he pulling  strings?  The poignant Adagio might be a reflection, but, like Berg, Shostakovich can be enigma.  The single chord progressions suggests isolation, yet the violin takes up the pattern, leading the orchestra in a dance that is deflated by  typical Shostakovich raspberries.  Though the protagonist may be alone, he's surrounded by other voices.  The orchestration lets many individual instruments have their moment.  This symphony might be an ironic parody of film, unfolding in different scenes, with quotations from Shostakovich's own work and others.  Thus the dramatic chorale of percussion, complete with crashing gongs.  Yet the underlying melody flows, its way lit by unearthly celesta and xylophone.  A thoughtful performance,  highlighting the many individual sections in this excellent orchestra. Definitely a concert that was more than the sum of its parts.

Fučík Alex Ross : tonight at the South Bank

Tonight at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a remarkable programme. (My review is HERE). It starts with the Overture to Beethoven's Fidelio. Then, Schoenberg Ode to Napoleon op 41 and A Survivor from Warsaw op 46 and Luigi Nono's Julius Fučík, which will segue straight into Beethoven's Symphony no 5 without a break. Beethoven 9 might be more obvious, but there are good reasons for this choice.

This should be an extremely stirring recital because all these pieces are intense - and political.  Composers write about human situations they care passionately about. Why shouldn't they write about human rights and the suppression thereof? Beethoven shows us  that there never was a time when music had to be soothingly retro. The Sarah Palin School of Music will have to wipe Beethoven off the map! Much respect due to Jurowski for programming this. It's an act of courage and principle.

The photo above shows Julius Fučík (1872-1916) uncle of Julius Fučík (1903-43) the composer who wrote spectacular military marches, including Entrance of the Gladiators, which is often heard at the start of circuses and sporting events. That's relevant because Fučík the younger sacrificed his life to oppose the Nazis.  Here he is a an infant dressed up in the sort of costume that went nicely with the pomp and circumstance that his uncle's music inhabited (though not only for belligerent reasons). He's inspired. He's even got a hat, like a miniature Napoleon. This little lad grew up to be Communist leader and was arrested by the Nazis. He was tried by by Judge Freisler who would  murder thousands of opponents to the regime, and hanged in the Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. In 1947, his widow gathered together his writings and messages from prison and published Notes From the Gallows. Further irony: the Communist Party used Fučík's words to legitimize their regime. Luigi Nono, also  a Communist, chose Fučík as a subject because he cared about what Fučík stood for.

Nono was also son-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg. It's important to remember Schoenberg, Nono and their peers especially now that the South Bank has finally launched its Alex Ross The Rest is Noise year. That's been so heavily promoted for so long that it's hard to believe it still hasn't started. The year will mean programming based around Ross's idea of what 20th century music should be, which is not the same thing as what 20th century music actually was. For a much more incisive approach,  read Paul Griffiths. There is no comparison. It's not the dumbing down that's a problem but the idea that  musical experience should be governed by commercial promotion of one source, not necessarily the best, and so heavily marketed that this one source obliterates all else.  Totalitarian revision of music history? The South Bank gets state funding, but it uses its status to serve commercial purposes? No-one will dare query the ethics because there's too much money at stake.  All the more reason we need programmes like the one Jurowski has planned for us tonight.

Dvořàk Suk Ripening Jurowski, LPO

Vladimir Jurowski's leading the London Philharmonic Orchestra on adventures off the beaten track, some more fruitful than others. But better that than conducting safe bets on auto pilot. We need the Jurowski's of this world! Jurowski's latest programme at the Royal Festival Hall (which was being recorded) was a winner.

Last year, Jurowski conducted a concert built around Josef Suk's Asreal Symphony and Janáček’s The Eternal Gospel. Read more about that here, because Jurowski's two concerts connect, one growing from the other.Suk's Asrael Symphony grew from trauma. In the Bible, Asrael is the Angel of Death. Suk's wife Otilka had died suddenly, a year after the death of her father Antonín Dvořàk, Suk's mentor and friend. The symphony is a massive monument in music, through which Suk confronts his grief and perhaps finds a way forward.

The Ripening  op 34 is based on a poem, Zrání, by Antonín Sova, a contemporary of Suk, and a "modern" poet of the renaissance in Czech culture. I can't track down the poem in translation, but apparently it's about late summer, the "ripening" a metaphor for maturity and the cycle of life. So perhaps The Ripening, written over a long period ten years after the Asrael Symphony can be heard as a companion piece. Youth and love appear in the delicate, lyrical passages, swept away by fate in the form of the wild scherzo which dissipates into a strange plateau of looming, keeing lines: dark strings, gloomy winds. Yet again, trumpets stir the music on. Jurowski places a small brass section in the choir stalls so the sounds they make call forth over the tumult in the orchestra. When the offstage voices sing their wordless song, it's as if we're hearing voices from another dimension. The Ripening isn't specially rare, as there are several versions around : Talich, Pešek, Neumann, Ancerl, Bělohlávek and Kirill Petrenko. Jurowski's good at the broad sweep but the quieter moments come through sensitively, too.

Dvořàk Piano Concerto in G minor op 33 (1876) was described by Kurt Honolka as "a sort of symphony wiuth  piano obbligato, the solo part unrewarding which is why it is mostly played in the arrangement by Vilem Kurz, a piano professor". On the other hand, if soloists find the part interesting, they can make it sound rewarding. Martin Helmchen certainly seems to find it gracefully lyrical. Listen to him in the video clip below.

At first, there didn't seem much point in starting a Suk/Dvořàk programme with the suite on Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen, apart from the fact that it's fun and that Jurowski is conducting a Family Matinee at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 13th May, and will, of course be conducting the opera in full at Glyndebourne a week after that. Not all Czech music sounds the same!

Ironically, Brahms might have been a better choice, since Brahms, Dvořàk and Suk had stronger musical connections, and The Ripening would have even greater resonance in that context. .But the suite was created by Vaclav Talich, pictured centre in this sketch with Josef Suk (smoking) and Vítězslav Novák. Three of the biggest names in Prague in the early 1930's, all good friends and familiar with one other's work. But think more deeply about The Cunning Little Vixen. Chances are that the Glyndebourne production won't be as bright as the performance might be.  The opera's based on a comic strip, it's not naturalistic, nor twee. The "animals" are allegory, the story's about the cycle of life and death. So a very good opener to The Ripening, after all.