Why the Vienna New Year Concert matters

The Wiener Neujahrskonzert, the Vienna New Year's Concert 2018 with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Riccardo Muti, for the fifth time - he's much older now than when the photo above was taken, but you're only as old as you want to be.  Muti was on good form, clearly enjoying himself.  Spontaneity is the spirit !  Like champagne, the Vienna formula works best when it's served fresh with wit and gaiety. Some years, it's fallen flat, and you think "not again" and then, like this year, it sparkles again.  The Wiener Philharmoniker parties, too. All year round, they play "serious" repertoire, but on New Year's Day, they make merry with Strauss (Johann I and II, not Richard !), with marches, waltzes and ventures in operetta.  But Vienna is "more" than music, it's the world's biggest New Year's Eve Party.

All over the world, millions join in the festivities.  When the concerts started, Vienna was the capital of an Empire.  Now it commands a new position as flagship of classical music for many who wouldn't otherwise listen at all.  Not by any stretch of the imagination is it typical concert fare and it does not represent what happens the rest of the year. But so what if some of those listening think all concerts are like this ?  The Vienna New Year's Concert fascinates because it's a symbol. It presents western culture as something glorious, thrilling and fun, which all can enjoy. The spirit of Empire, reprised : nothing wrong with that since it's not backed by military might.  So why not celebrate Vienna itself, and its heritage ?  Now the world's sinking into small-minded reductionism, it's a good idea to remember that the idea of nation state isn't compulsory.  Can we dream of a world without borders, where all can participate as they wish ? As long as it’s not enforced by the barrel of a gun, physical or mental. Remember what happened to the Hapsburgs in 1918.

Since the New Year's Concert is not an ordinary concert by any means, it's perfectly valid to present it on an extraordinary scale.  Music, especially music like this, is communal, meant to be heard live, involving all the senses. The audience might not dance, but they know about the New Year’s Ball, and about the waltz tradition.  They dress up to enhance the sense of occasion.   Hence the flowers, bringing scent and countryside into the city in mid-winter.  New Year means hope and renewal, and the return of summer. Miss that and you miss the whole darn point of the New Year Concert !
The Neujahrskonzert represents much more than music. Vienna itself  (and Austria) is the star !  Thus the shots of the city in its splendour.  This year, we get to see architectural treasure, in greater close up than we could walking round as tourists. As we hear the Tales from the Vienna Woods, we see them, briefly, and see close-ups of the zither being played, an important detail for those keen on how music is made.  Music doesn't exist in isolation. It's the product of many influences, and, as we listen, we (in theory anyway) might be opening our minds to the richness of human endeavour.  Vienna brings to millions all over the world, the experience of live music "in the round", in its true context. For that, we should celebrate.

Please also see Thielemann Swings !  Christian Theielemann's Silvesterkonzert in Dresden, which matters because he's doing Vienna next year

Eleven year old's opera premieres in Vienna

Eleven-year-old Erich Korngold wrote Der Schneeman, which was premiered this month 100 years ago in a version for two pianos and dancers. Aged 13, he played one of the pianos. It caught the attention of the Emperor Franz Josef who ordered a fully orchestrated version to be created for the Hofopernhaus. where it was played by the Vienna Philharmonic in October 1910   Read more HERE

and below
a snippet
from an even earlier Korngold piece written aged 6 !

Luckiest man ever?

Tonight, Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Opera House! But first something cheering. A few years ago I was walking in Dahlem in Berlin, and saw a monument to a composer I'd barely heard of: Robert Stolz 1880-1975. How that man was blessed under a lucky star! Born in Vienna, he moved in the right circles. As a boy he played the piano in a concert with Brahms in attendance. He met Strauss, Humperdinck and many others. He started a prosperous career in music theatre but lost all in the First World War. Off he moves to Berlin and starts another prosperous career in Weimar Berlin (hence the monument in Dahlem).

He made and lost several fortunes and went through four traumatic divorces. Then the Nazis came and he lost everything again. He started up once more in Vienna, but they came there, too. When he fled to Paris, his latest wife took his money and papers and left him high and dry. So there he is, bald, broke, stateless and 60. But what should happen? Weeks before his internment by the French as an enemy alien, he'd met a beautiful 19-year-old heiress. She fell in love with him, sprang him from prison and married him. They went to Hollywood where he started yet another successful career writing for movies.

Being echt Viennese he returned to Austria in 1946 where he became the embodiment of Viennese light music and operetta, a living symbol of a former age. His wife still lives in Vienna, aged 90, continuing to devote her life to promoting his work. There's lots of Stolz's music around and it's still regularly performed. Last night at the Wigmore Hall, at Imogen Cooper's 60th birthday celebration (she looked radiant!), Wolfgang Holzmair, passionate promoter of things Austrian, sang one of Stolz's 2,000 or so songs, about dancing and happiness, from one of his hit operettas in the 1920's. I'll do more on Stolz later, but what a lucky man!

Mahler, Freudian pioneer - Salonen's psychologically astute Mahler 7th

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony doesn’t quite fit in with the usual Mahler fascination with metaphysics, and is something of a Cinderella compared with blockbusters like the 5^th,, 6^th, 8^th and 9^th symphonies. Yet it has unique charms. Clues to performance are embedded in the orchestration, so it’s a test of any conductor to hear how he understands them as he builds an interpretation.

Esa-Pekka Salonen produced an original and valid approach with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. His Mahler 7^th doesn’t rely on big flashy effects to impress the audience. Instead he’s subtle, as befits a piece with such emphasis on night and shadows. At night, images are blurred, details only briefly perceptible, hidden by darkness. What we hear is elusive, disguised. We need to be alert to subtle hints of what is not revealed.

The First movement starts conventionally enough with brass fanfares, often interpreted as a kind of funeral march. But is it anything so concrete? Mahler writes lots of military processions, but here Salonen indicates that it’s no ordinary, daylight march but a progression into another mode of being, into sleep, into the world of dreams. Gradually the ensemble fades and solo violin emerges, sweetly poignant. It’s as if the hustle and bustle of daily reality has gone, and we’re somewhere more private and intimate.

Thus, we flowed gently into Nachtmusik 1, the first of the two movements where hushed sounds evoke mystery. Alma Mahler said that the composer thought of Eichendorff while writing, and perhaps that’s true, as Eichendorff was a master of magical, almost surreal night images. “Verschweigene Liebe”, for example (set by Hugo Wolf) specifically refers to the idea of night as an escape from daytime consciousness. “Die Nacht is verschweigen, Gedanken sind frei”. (The night is mute: Thoughts run free).

Thus the atmosphere of secrecy in this performance, created by the delicacy of detail. The elaborate programme notes to this series “Vienna: City of Dreams” refer to the idea of magic in this symphony, and indeed the idea of enchantment is present. But Mahler was not one to fluff about with fairies. Even when he’s setting folk tales with magic elements, like songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, there’s a very adult, unsentimental awareness in his work. He’s not a gullible believer, his magic comes from an awareness of the irrational forces in the human psyche.

In short, Salonen relates this symphony to Mahler’s interest in psychology and the power of the unconscious. It’s disappointing that this series, with its ostentatious claims to connect music with what was happening in Vienna at the time, undercuts the very importance of the period by frequent references to the past, as if Vienna 1900-30 was a throwback to the 19^th century rather than a time of quite revolutionary change. This symphony really does evoke the idea of a city of dreams. Certainly lip service is paid in the notes to Freud and other thinkers, but the message hasn’t go through to the actual core of the texts, which defeats the whole purpose of the series. Perhaps that’s because the series is aimed at a very general audience that might be scared off by any hint of modernity. There’s infinitely more to Mahler than Wagner. Indeed, the more you think about the music, what’s interesting about Mahler is that he’s not Wagner.

There is Romanticism in this symphony but it’s not there as frivolous sugar coating. Eichendorff was by no means the only poet who wrote in the Romantic vein. Think of Gottfried Herder, the father of folk-oriented Romantic poetry, a key figure behind the mindset of the period. Brentano and von Arnim, who compiled the collection that is Des Knaben Wunderhorn knew that fairy tales had menacing undercurrents. And we have only to think of Goethe’s Erlkönig, which Mahler knew, to appreciate that magic and dreams were a framework for describing the id and the subconscious long before Freud devised the terms.

Fortunately Salonen and the Philharmonia know their Mahler well. Mandolins and guitars reference strolling troubadors serenading lovers. Indeed, the recurrent “call and response” instrumental pairings may also support the image, which puts the unusual structure of the symphony into perspective : two Nachtmusiks of different characters calling to each other over the divide of the middle movement. Conventionally a middle movement is central, but Mahler turns the concept on its head. Instead, as with so much else in Mahler, there’s a strong sense of direction. In its quiet way, the symphony is heading towards a powerful conclusion.

Salonen’s understated delicacy allowed the sensuality in the piece to emerge, langorously. Troubadors sing of love, albeit often unrequited love, and love is an “altered state” rather than something coldly calculating: an example of the irrational in normal life. I was half hoping for some sensuous portamenti, but Salonen didn’t oblige. James Clark, the concertmaster, obliged with some lusciously pure playing, and the strings responded – “call and response” again. Lovely rich winds, too, especially the lower tones – Gordon Laing’s contrabassoon deeply resonant.

In this symphony, the brass is important. I’ve heard performances collapse when something went horribly awry with one horn – the poor player has probably never lived it down. No such accidents here. The Philharmonia is far too good, and Salonen rehearses them well. Indeed, it’s heart warming to hear the musicians speak of this conductor. London has gained immeasurably, and Los Angeles can have Dudamel.

Oddly enough the cowbells sounded more ragged than usual. They aren’t the most controlled of instruments, and at first I thought it disrupted the flow. Then I realised, cowbells are supposed to sound ragged, as anyone who’s heard the cows being herded home from alpine meadows can attest. Mahler knew all about cowbells from personal experience. So perhaps the cowbells indicate a wildness and freedom beyond the normal ambit of formal symphonic playing? Perhaps they, too, hint at the wildness of the subconscious ? Gedanken sind frei. Mahler may not have set the poem, but its spirit infuses this symphony.

And so to the all-important climax in the final movement. It builds up in fits and starts, rather like slow awakening, but gradually the major keys assert themselves firmly. No more irony now, we’re back in the real world. Or are we? Woven into the tumult are those cowbells again, reminding us that disorder will return as surely as day turns into night.

Pairing this symphony with Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces was a good choice. Like the symphony, the disparate pieces together add to a coherent mood. Berg was still very young when he wrote it – alas he was never to get old – but already he’s grasped the concept of music as act of freedom. The violin stands up to the massed orchestra but is eventually overwhelmed by the savagery of the March. Or is it? As the music begins to distort, maybe there’s hope for the subconscious to escape.

Please see the review HERE and look at the site

Die Herzogin von Chicago Kálmán Korngold

To understand the music of the 1920's and 30's it helps to listen to the music of the time. This might sound obvious, but a lot of what is written these days follows assumptions that don't reflect how music was actually heard and made. These sanitized assumptions in turn change the way we hear things, not for the best.

That's why Emmerich (Imre) Kálmán's Die Herzogin von Chicago is such an important piece. Kálmán was a student of Bartók and Kodály, so his credentials are legit, even though Die Herzogin was an immense popular success. In this crazy, witty operetta, Kálmán integrates conventional "serious" music with jazz, and also draws on the long-standing Austro-German tradition of satirical cabaret (which Schoenberg knew about). The opera is a trenchant comment on the impact of America and social revolution on a Europe just emerging from the First World War. It's hilarious, but no less significant for that.

In 2004, the opera was revived in Vienna to great acclaim. The original 1928 version was five hours long with lots of dialogue, much of which was topical controversy at the time. Some of the savage social edge remains, for when the editors condensed the original script they created a scene where corrupt politicians discuss "expediency" while dividing the spoils. Some things don't ever change!

An impossibly wealthy American heiress, Miss Mary, makes a bet with her Chicago friends that she can bag a prince when she goes to Europe, because anything can be bought with money. In fact it's really not all that different in Europe, for in the tiny kingdom of Sylvania, Prince Sándor Boris and his Ministers are trying to keep the cheering natives happy while the King is off to Paris. Then, as now, there’s nothing like a Royal Wedding to please the locals. They even have "Prince" dolls! The Prince's fiancée is in on the act, for act it is. Neither has illusions.

Cut to Miss Mary's arrival. "Cut" is the right word because one of the sub-texts of this operetta is the influence of Hollywood and the movies. Miss Mary’s best friend is Bondy, a film director, who sees all life as an unfolding movie. Throughout the opera there are references to movies. Kálmán creates hyper coloured music for the music sequences, which is surprisngly perceptive as movies at that time were silents. It's worth listening to this opera for the music alone as it tells something about the way film music germinated. Film music didn't just appear from nowhere. So much nonsense is written about composers and film that this opera is an antidote. Kálmán was a near contemporary of Erich Korngold, and they would have known of each other. Interestingly, both moved to California, and back to Vienna where they both died in the early 50's.

The Prince doesn't want to marry the American so gets his aide to play him while he plays the aide. We've all seen this plot device before, and here it's hilariously well done. Miss Mary must know the device too as she pursues the "aide" and dumps the "prince". The Sylvanians want her money and she wants status. Cue for a great party scene with Viennese waltz on gypsy violin, and songs about Schubert and Johann Strauss, who "shall return one day". There's a nightclub scene where Miss Mary does the charleston, and a bizarre parody of Beethoven's Fifth as foxtrot, danced by two bald women. There’s a takeoff of Ernst Krenek’s Johnny Spielt Auf which had been the sensation of Vienna in 1926 – Kálmán steals Krenek’s central image of a black man with a golden saxophone! Krenek’s operetta, incidentally, was also revived in Vienna in 2003, so there are in-jokes within in-jokes.

Of course Miss Mary falls for the Prince in disguise and Princess fiancée falls for Bondy, the movie director. To jazz up the old story, part of the staging involves a backdrop on which scenes from movies are projected. In fact they show the same four characters, got up as fantasy. It's a scream. The Prince and Mary dissolve into a cartoon cowboy and an Indian Princess, called Morgenrot, and cruise along in a canoe in the moonlight – modern eyes might see references to Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald, especially as Bondy is schmoozing Princess Rosemarie! It’s also a great excuse for more wonderful "Indian" dancing that gets progressively more bizarre, because as we know real Native American culture was already being parodied in Hollywood. It makes a surprisingly powerful point about cultural imperialism and what might face Europe if Europeans didn’t hold their own. As one of the directors said, "it’s still relevant".

Despite the whimsy, there is serious stuff. America was showing the Old World a completely different way of living, much more shocking to Europeans then than we realize, after eighty years of familiarity through TV, mass media and cheap travel. That was still the age when European peasants emigrated, never to return. This operetta makes a strong point that, for all their exoticism, Americans are, at heart, dislocated Europeans. Bondy reveals that his grandfather was a Jewish nobody from some tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. How shocked the old man would be to see his grandson hobnobbing with royal Sylvanian families!

Then the King comes back, with two Parisian floozies, and tries to put the make on Miss Mary who isn’t falling for that Kuss die Hande nonsense. It is hard to describe just how wild the jokes are from now on, parodying French operetta and German, wordplays and wit, with references to Viennese culture, current events (like monkey glands and Viagra). And of course, everything ends up "happily ever after", though it's like whistling in a graveyard.

Die Herzogin von Chicago is available on CD and DVD - I'd recommend the DVD for the fabulous sets, staging and acting. "Opera archaeology" may have dug the score up and revised it, but this is a fabulous, important moment in music history.

Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony Salonen London

http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2011/01/zemlinsky-lyric-symphony-1.htmlFor more on Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, pleas read my most recent analyses HERE and HERE. It's one of my favourites, which I've lived with many years.  

Esa Pekka Salonen conducted Zemlinsky;'s Lyric Symphony with the Philharmonia in 2008. Very good, though the soloists didn't come over clearly. Next morning after the concert I was off to Frankfurt and who should be sitting in the same coffee shop at Heathrow ? Members of the Philharmonia, off to their next gig in Köln! It was great to see them and congratulate them on their good work. It wasn't quite in the league of their recent Gurrelieder, but that was so exceptional, it would be hard to top. (see my review below and Mark's too).

Zemlinsky isn't everyone's cup of tea as his music isn't often performed as well as it might be. Last year I listened again to the massive James Conlon Zemlinsky series on EMI, which was reissued as a cheap box set. It was strange how disappointing it sounded, for these were the recordings I learned Zemlinsky from in the first place. Perhaps my tastes have changed after learning more and hearing more. The recordings I've turned to most in recent years have been those by Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. I'd avoided these at first because they were expensive. But cost doesn't equate with value. Budget recordings may be cheap, but in the long term, a good performance lasts longer, whatever the initial cost.

Salonen's Zemlinsky, from this hearing, is promising. He could bear comparison with Chailly, though I suspect Salonen doesn't favour the more "picturesque" aspects of Zemlinsky's work: The Lyric Symphony is the composer's most sophisticated moment. Choosing the right voices is tricky.The soprano part is particularly demanding, though the baritone can get away with straightforward singing (though really good singing transforms the part). The real challenge is interpretation : what is the music about, how do its pieces fit together ? I think Salonen has what it takes to conduct a really interesting Lyric Symphony . Unlike something massive like Gurrelieder, this symphony is not difficult to programme, so perhaps Salonen can develop it in his repertoire.

Im weißen Rössl restored

Im weißen Rössl was a huge hit when it premiered in 1930. It merged Austrian folk dance and tunes with jazz and modern rhythms. Risqué too - near naked men prancing about, and some girls, too.

There were ballet sequences, dance acts etc. The whole thing was orchestrated for 250 players, the big string section divided 16 times. Plus a jazz combo and a Tirolean troupe battling out "old" and "new". Presumably shades of Kalman's smash hit, Die Herzogin von Chicago, which pits the Charleston against the czardas, American brashness versus Mitteleuropaische "breeding". People in the 20's and 30's were much sharper than people give them credit for now. Those who wanted to preserve a fake past won out, though, some of them coming to power in 1933.

It was reshaped for right-thinking folks and became "banal family-entertainment in the harmless Disney style - no nudity, no modern rhythms, no nothing". Luckily, the original score has been found and the piece is being staged again in all its irreverent glory, in June 2009 in Dresden.

Read the whole story http://www.operetta-research-center.org/main.php?task=newsart&cat=1&sub_cat=1&id=00086

Schoenberg Zemlinsky Salonen London

On Thursday 12th at the South Bank, Esa Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra will be playing Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. Before that Oliver Knussen will be conducting two of his own song cycles, the wonderful Songs for Sue and Ocean de terre. Claire Booth sings Knussen - this should be very good indeed as she's made the cycles her own, she sings them so well.

Everybody but everybody repeats the usual cliché connecting Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Zemlinsky's LS ((code to save typing the whole name). It's much wiser though, to listen to each piece on its own terms and appreciate how unique each one is. Both are symphonies with song. Zemlinsky sets lines from Tagore about two lovers in ancient India. There's a sort of narrative, though it's not clear, but the parts are a kind of dialogue. Mahler sets Chinese poetry, but his songs don't relate to each other causatively. They are expressions of internal psychological states. Mahler's destination is linear, oriented towards transcendence, even if he refers to the return of Spring. Zemlinsky's piece is more circular, like the wheel of karma. Lots more - just listen, for comparison clouds just how original each piece is.

What the Viennese secession did was break away from the hyperfervid neurosis of High Victorian taste, the claustrophobia that exists even in Wagner. That's why it ushered in more fluid lines in design, painting, literature. Zemlinsky is a lot more than an obtuse proto-Wagnerian. He's the missing link (if there is one) between Mahler and the Second Viennese School. He uses extreme exotic lushness but doesn't swoon. Instead the whole thrust is towards new frontiers, new ideas. Prince and girl know they have to go their separate ways. He sings "Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir uf deinen Weg zu leuchten". I hold my lamp up high to light you on your way. Light, again, but a different kind of light. In a good performance of this symphony you can hear pre-echoes of Berg quite distinctly. Zemlinsky knew what was happening around him.

Oddly enough there are lots of tickets left for the performance on Thursday. Below is a description of the most illuminating recording of the LS ever. Scroll down , enjoy

Zemlinsky Lyrische Symphonie Magic Eschenbach

This is an absolutely fantastic recording of Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. At one stage I used to have 'em all, but this one is so outstanding it eclipses all else. Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris, Goerne and Schafer (a dream team).

It's groundbreaking because it's informed by recent discoveries about Zemlinsky and his style. Anthony Beaumont’s is the most perceptive of Zemlinsky scholars. His research into Zemlinsky's ideas and methods resulted in a complete re-edition of the score, revealing its true, lucid beauty.

In the 1920’s, Tagore was wildly popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of the time. Remember, India was still a colony. Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. He knew what Tagore represented. He's not looking backward, but forward..

This performance shows with penetrating clarity just how imaginative Zemlinsky’s writing was. No muddy meandering here. Eschenbach and his soloists have thought the whole symphony through. This is an interpretation with vivid insights, gained not only from the score itself, but informed by an understanding of the music of his time.

Thus those rich drum rolls that lead into the symphony announce things to come, as drum rolls should be – quite literally a “curtain raiser” for a cosmic adventure. Immediately, refreshingly clear brass introduce the three note figure that recurs in myriad guises through the whole symphony. Then, softly, out of the orchestra, the baritones voice enters, quietly but with intense depth and feeling. “Ich bin friedlos” (a variant of the three note figure). Goerne is just over forty, still not at the peak of his powers, and yet it’s hard to imagine any singer delivering such authority and nuance to these words. The way he curls his voice around the vowels is utterly delicious – Meine Seele schweift in Sensucht, den Saum der dunkeln Weite zu berühten. You don’t need a word of German to enjoy the richness of his tone.

Berühten, becalmed. Yet this music is anything but listless. It reflects the overwhelming “thirst” in the text for distant, unknown horizons and the “Great Beyond”. Goerne sings Ich bin voll Verlangen with eagerness, then shapes the next words “und wachsam” with warm, rounded, sensuality. It’s delicious to hear two different, but valid feelings, in the space of a few seconds. Make no mistake, this music is about seeking, striving for something yet unknown, which grows from a pool of stillness.

A lovely skittish violin solo introduces the second movement. Schäfer’s voice with its pure, light quality expresses youth better than most of the sopranos who’ve sung this part. She may sound almost breathless with excitement, but she’s far too assured a singer to lose the musical line, Mutter, der junge…. the vowels underline each other., opening out. For the first time we hear an almost Bergian leap in the voice, when Zemlinsky decorates the line Zieg mir, wie soll mein Haar… Both the image and the sudden leap will recur later in the symphony. For the moment, Schäfer colours it with warmth, as though blossoming into womanhood before our ears. The music illustrating the exotic procession is one of the rare overtly “oriental” touches Zemlinsky indulges in. In the tumultuous postlude, the full orchestra surges forth, complete with drums and cymbals, yet the echoes of the three note theme gradually assert themselves as the soprano song blends seamlessly into the next baritone entry. There’s no narrative, we never discover how the girl and prince meet, if they do at all. The erotic tension and waves of sound owe much to Wagner, but also to Berg and Schoenberg. Goerne’s singing in the third movement is some of the most beautiful in the whole symphony. It is quite breathtakingly sensitive and nuanced. Du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen, he repeats, each time with intense, but nuanced feeling. These notes, too, are repeated throughout the symphony .

The fourth movement, expands the symphony into new territory. Again, an exquisite violin solo sets the mood, which deepens with cellos and violas. Schäfer’s voice cleanly rings out Spricht’s du mir Speak to me! The line here is tender, yet also discordant, with frequent sudden leaps in pitch which are decidedly modern. So, too, is the indeterminate tonality, creating at once lushness and unreality. The music seems to hover as if it were the stuff of dreams and unconscious. It’s atmospheric, pure chromatic impressionism. There are murmurs of Spricht’s du mir, and again the painfully beautiful violin, and sinister, dark woodwind. This song is sensual, but it’s no excuse for sentimental indulgence, and the orchestra plays with well judged reticence. . It is, after all, a movement about the silence of intimacy. Nur die Bäume werden im Dunkel flüstern (only the trees will whisper in the dark),

The fanfare with which the fifth movement starts seems to drive away the strange mood that had prevailed before. It may seem relatively conventional music but this is emotionally amorphous territory. When the sixth movement starts, there’s no mistaking the modernism here. Horn and bass clarinet inject a darker, discordant mood. Schäfer’s extensive experience in new music means she copes effortlessly with those sudden tonal swoops while still keeping sensual beauty. She makes “mein gierigen Hände” sound genuinely eager. This is Ewartung, minus the harsh dementia, and all the more complex for that. The mood is rocked by rhythmic melody, as the singer becomes aware Träume lassen sich nicht eingefangen (dreams can’t be made captive). Only then does the voice rise in horror, punctuated by a single, fatal drumstroke. Has it all been an illusion ? It’s not clear, nor on what level, but that’s what makes it so intruiging. Zemlinsky wisely leaves the ideas floating. Instead, he lets the music segue, mysteriously, into the final movement.

This final song is full of interpretative possibilities. The protagonist accepts that the affair is at an end, yet is dignified and positive. Lass es nicht eine Tod sein, sondern Vollendung (let it not be a death, but completeness). Even love is sublimated in creative rebirth. Lass Liebe in Erinn’rung schmelzen und Schmerz in lieder. Let love ache and melt in memory, in song. The dignified calmy with which Goerne sings confirms that the protagonist has reached that “Great Beyond” he sang of in the first movement and has found the horizons he sought.. This time, the violin returns, playing a sweet, plaintive melody., while the orchestra echoes the word Vollendung, Vollendung. Then there’s another transition. A warmer note, like a breeze, enters on the strings, and the wavering halftones resolve from minor, gradually, to major. With infinite depth , Goerne sings that last phrase Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose. “zu leuchten” is sung with such goodwill, that you feel that whoever embarks on the next phase will be going armed with knowledge and faith gained by those who care enough to light them on their way. The postlude is led by a distant woodwind, a reference to the flute that called in the very beginning of this journey. There are echoes, too, of the Du bist mein Eigen theme, emphasizing the sense of fulfillment. Gradually the wavering half tones resolve, and the music moves from minor to major, concluding in another shimmering plane of colour. .

Anthony Beaumont, in his analysis of the symphony, said “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only in performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”. Eschenbach recognizes its profoundly spiritual qualities, keeping the textures clear, letting them shimmer through unsullied. It’s the very purity of the orchestral playing that sheds light on the dynamics of the scoring. The soloists voices complement each other perfectly, and are in turn complemented by the elegance of the orchestral sound.

Gurrelieder Salonen London Part 2

When Schoenberg returns to Gurrelieder in 1910, he has new energy and purpose. What a transformation! Of course the Wagner elements are still there, like the rhythms straight out of Der fliegende Hollander, lurching upwards and down like waves. Because King Waldemar cursed God, he and his men are cursed in return, forced to ride the clouds each night. But this is also the surreal, mad world of Ewartung. Anti-atonalists don't understand that atonality isn't anti-music but a way of extending the possibilities of music. Schoenberg and his contemporaries were responding to new frontiers opened by Freud and others. Ideas could no longer be contained in cosy boxes of certainty. How could music remain unchanged ?

What Schoenberg did was more than invent the 12 tone system. So what if composers don't write in serial rows or whatever any more? The real revolution Schoenberg rode the crest of was the idea that there are more possibilities to music than we realize.

So in Part 3 of Gurrelieder, there's a wildness breaking through that will one day find expression in many different ways. How Schoenberg must have smiled when he set the Bauer's terrified words. No more hiding under blankets, no more formula prayers.

Klaus-Narr isn't talking nonsense. He isn't a sophisticated person but he's talking about complex things, so he uses odd images. When Waldemar cursed God, he shouted, "Lasst mich, Herr, die Kappe deines Hofnarr'n tragen!". "Let me wear your jester's cap", all you stand for is a joke. Klaus Narr is the jester, whose job it is to say things to kings they don't want to hear, cloaking them as jest. Like Waldemar and his hunters, the jester is dead, too, a haunted spirit forced to walk in endless circles, going nowhere. It's not a good thing and he knows it. His music is unsettling, as it should be, leading into the demonic haunted chorus that fades Versinkt! Versinkt! before the truly amazing Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind. This is remarkable music : perhaps someone should analyze technically how it works. It sweeps away all that's gone before. Waldemar's curse is not resolved. Instead, this music and the Sprecher herald something completely beyond the level of straightforward story.

For many years I couldn't understand why the Sprecher is absolutely, pivotally important. Then I heard Hans Hotter. It was 1994, he was 85 years old, but so powerful that he transformed the entire performance. Hotter looked frail but he had such presence and authority that at last I realized what the Sprecher means. Gurrelieder is much more than narrative, it is more than a dramatic story. The Sprecher represents something so bizarre that even now it's hard to understand.

He's an elemental force, the very spirit of life, which overcomes death and darkness. Like Kluas-Narr he seems t0o speak in riddles, but the real "fools" are those who think the riddles are a joke. Are the gnats the knights, is Waldemar "Sankt Johanisswurm" ? What is real, what's illusion ? The words are simple but the portents far more profound. The whole locus of parts 1 and 2 are overturned, we are in an altogether more bizarre realm where nothing is what it seems. The Sprecher is the Waldtaube revisited, on an altogether more complex plane. Expressionism expresses things straight narrative can't hope to reach.

Hence the way the part is written, not song, not speech. It doesn't strain the voice, so it's usually taken by retired singers, even actors. But even if it's not physically a strain it requires exceptional musical sensibility to get those wavering pitches right and establish the significance of the part. In capsule, the Sprecher is atonality, modernism, a whole new way of approaching musical expression. No one uses Sprechstimme as such anymore, but its spirit lives on in, in different forms.

And to make the new beginnings clear, Schoenberg writes the magnificent coda at the end. Chorus and orchestra explode. "Seht die Sonne!" Behold the sun ! The night is driven away and the new dawn glows in a blaze of light. Fantastic playing from the orchestra here : Salonen doesn't lose sight of the purpose behind the enthralling glory.

Gurrelieder is dramatic, but staging would trivialize its whole meaning. It's distinctly not an opera, Wagnerisms notwithstanding. In this performance, light effects were skilfully used to intensify the mood. This isn't a new idea, as the music cries out contrasts of light and dark and shades between. Whoever did the lighting here was an artist, so sensitively was the music enhanced.

As Schoenberg himself said, Gurrelieder is a cantata, even if ends in a completely bizarre new way. The cantata form goes back at least to Bach. Mendelssohn and Schumann showed how it could serve secular drama. It's not a good idea to connect Gurrelieder to Mahler's Das klagende Lied. Mahler decisively and unequivocally turned away from cantata and from writing opera at a very early stage in his career. Instead, he went on to create something very different indeed. Often, people think Mahler is an opera man at heart. That's nonsense, and shows no understanding whatsoever of Mahler, demeaning what he really achieved. Similarly, Gurrelieder needs to be appreciated for what it is, cantata with a wonderful twist.

So much money has gone into this project, Vienna, City of Dreams, that it's a shame it's let down by the programme notes. Obviously, there are advantages to describing things in terms of Mahler, particularly with his anniversary year coming up and the lucrative marketing boom that will create. But oversimplification can become misleading and inaccurate. The world of Des Knaben Wunderhorn long predated Mahler. The Gothic in central European culture goes back a long way, and was a major impetus behind the whole Romantic movement. Indeed, the Romantic fascination with folk tale and horror created the whole mindset that enabled Freud and Jung to find terminology to describe. The Romantic interest in the individual also led to changes in politics, society, and aesthetics. Vienna 1900-35 wouldn't have happened at all if it hadn't been for the early 19th century Romantics.

Vienna as myth "City of Dreams"

"Vienna, City of Dreams, 1900-1935" is a series of concerts, exhibitions and other tie-ins running in 18 different European cities this spring and summer. It will be a huge commercial success because it builds upon the popular image of Vienna already ingrained into our minds.

Not for nothing the series gives great prominence to illustrations by Gustav Klimt. Klimt pervades commercial culture. We've all got the posters, postcards, CD covers, t-shirts, fridge magnets. So the series has inbuilt, instant "branding". You can't knock Klimt anymore than you dare knock motherhood or apple pie.

But therein lies the contradiction. Klimt's art may be glamorous, glossy and impressive but it reflects only one aspect of what was really going on in Vienna at this time. ' Read the link below, where Waldemar Januszczak describes him as "a pygmy seen through a microsope".

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article4025174.ece

The concerts focus on well-known standards like Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Zemlinsky. That's no disadvantage as this is good music and it needs to be heard. The Philharmonia are an excellent orchestra, who deliver. Esa-Pekka Salonen is much underrated. His Sibelius series last year was brilliant, shattering the cosy sub-Tchaikovsky image many still have of the composer. So it is no defect at all if the series ignores composers like Krenek, Eisler and Schreker. It's a good thing if it brings good music, and good music needs to heard.

Basically, this is Second Viennese School, without using the term because it would scare the crowds away. In the last ten years, coinciding with the rise of internet message boards and similar founts of infinite wisdom, it's become fashionable to blame all modern music on Schoenberg and dodecaphony. Anti-atonality fanatics can't get their heads round the fact that Schoenberg adored Brahms and that there have been lots of different types of modern music. One of the best things in the programme book that comes with the series, is that it states that such ideas "belong to a cartoon account of music history".

It was good then that Julian Johnson, the series organizer, gave a talk before the Gurrelieder concert which emphasized the affinity the work has to Wagner. While most people who know Wagner can make the Gurrelieder connection, there are many more who don't, so this was a perfectly valid way of legitimizing Schoenberg by placing him in context. But there aren't many composers who weren't influenced by Wagner and the love/death obsession that runs throughout 19th century thought. And Wagner was a revolutionary. The talk hardly touched on the second part of Gurrelieder, or the new ground Schoenberg was breaking. It might have been an opportunity to explain these new aspects, but caution seems to have won out. The booklet refers to the "regret" some have that Schoenberg didn't continue to write in a late Romantic style, and that others dismiss it as "romantic excess". But artists can't help doing what they do. They are driven to create and can't choose, as such. And one of the finest recordings is by Boulez. In any case, people who have shelled out huge money to hear Gurrelieder are probably open to learning more about it.

It's a Faustian pact. Getting mass audiences may mean pandering to populist anti-modernism, but that in itself amounts to an attempt to refute nearly everything the period stood for. Of course people looked back on the past, but the reason the period is so fascinating was because there was so much happening that was new and innovative. The series bases its spiel on parallel developments in literature, psychology, politics etc. Playing down the modernity in the music contradicts the whole basic premise. Vienna 1900-1935 was a hotbed of intellectual change. That's why it is important : it was the birth of so much that is "modern".

It's Faustian, too, balancing how much information to give. The booklet is lavishly produced, full of one-line quotes. Especially impressive are Edward Timms's diagrams of the circles connecting people. These diagrams are justly famous because the influences are elaborate. But there's no context. How many people reading this know, or care, about the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Social Party? Or many of the people named therein ? If they did, they'd know Timms's books on Vienna anyway. The diagrams are there to add an illusion of authority and gravitas.

This imbalance of specialist knowledge and generalist simplification is worrying because a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. There are things in the booklet which over-simplify to the point of being misleading. But that's no big deal given that anyone can find out more if they want to. But the question is, will they ?

We live in an age where there's so much information around that it's easy to mistake quantity for quality. We have the illusion of knowledge, but not the intellectual depth to process it. Of course the series will inspire many to listen and think further, but there is also many who won't. It's not the series's fault that our culture values appearances rather than content. So the Klimt connection is apt. Looking at Klimt makes us think we know more than we actually do about secessionist Vienna and what followed. But it's shiny wrapping paper, point of sale attraction. There is absolutely nothing wrong about being commercial per se because it "spreads the word". What matters is the substance of what is being sold. Certainly in terms of music this series delivers but I'm less convinced by the packaging. Unfortunately, the medium is often the message, so it does matter how the subject is represented.

Modernity is the Elephant In The Room. It may not be easy to sell, but it needs to be acknowledged because that's what Vienna 1900-35 was about.

Vienna Boys Choir sing in Chinese

This will make you grateful for a good honest dose of Cantopop ! VBC sing Mou li Hua, The Jasmine Song. Aiya! as they'd say in the vernacular. This clip is better than the other one in circulation. There's also a clip of a big Chinese star singing before Viennese choir and orchestra in the Goldener Saal.

But at least they are trying, and recognize that most of the world isn't Austro-German. Which is a lot more to their credit than most in this increasingly anglophone monoculture.

Alternative to New Year in Vienna - Chinese Radetsky

Love how the audience doesn't quite take it in at first !