BBC Philharmonic - Juanjo Mena conducts Wagner - Sat 29th September, Bridgewater Hall

[Stanfordian]

I'm looking forward to Juanjo Mena conducting the BBC Phil in an all-Wagner programme on Saturday evening at the Bridgewater Hall. The programme is:

Tannhäuser Overture;
Wesendonck Lieder with soprano Brigitte Hahn
Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journeys;
Siegfried's funeral music;
Immolation scene from Götterdämmerung

I think that Wesendonck Lieder is a masterwork and from my experience in recent years it has tended to be overshadowed by Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs. German soprano Brigitte Hahn, a Wagner specialist, is performing the Wesendonck Lieder.

It took me while to track it down at a reasonable price but I managed to obtain a used CD of Wesendonck Lieder sung by the wonderful soprano Astrid Varnay (1919-2006) with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Ludwig. In particular I find her singing of Im Treibhaus (In the tropical greenhouse) spine tingling. Varney recorded the Wesendonck Lieder in 1955 at the Hercules Hall, Munich on Deutsche Grammophon 423 955-2.

[Simon B]

As ever when bleeding chunks from the Ring (usually Götterdämmerung) are played, I hope they're not going to use a nasty budget re-orchestration minus things like Wagner tubas/bass trumpet/contrabass trombone which thoroughly trashes the soundworld IMO.

Other than that, looking forward to it (and presumably it'll be broadcast on R3 at some arbitrary point in the future). I've been far from convinced by Juanjo Mena so far in the rep at which stereotype would suggest he'd be a natural - Ravel, Debussy, de Falla etc. All a bit four-square and perfunctory, though he does manage to ratchet up some menace in the ubiquitous Boléro.

Somewhat unexpectedly, he does seem to have the gift with Bruckner and R Strauss, on which basis Wagner might be a good match.

Though attending concerts less often in Manchester these days, I note that attendances at the Bridgewater are still generally rather... alarming. You'd think a Wagner night would be a fairly safe bet, but it doesn't look like it. We shall see...

[Stanfordian]

As ever when bleeding chunks from the Ring (usually Götterdämmerung) are played, I hope they're not going to use a nasty budget re-orchestration minus things like Wagner tubas/bass trumpet/contrabass trombone which thoroughly trashes the soundworld IMO.

Other than that, looking forward to it (and presumably it'll be broadcast on R3 at some arbitrary point in the future). I've been far from convinced by Juanjo Mena so far in the rep at which stereotype would suggest he'd be a natural - Ravel, Debussy, de Falla etc. All a bit four-square and perfunctory, though he does manage to ratchet up some menace in the ubiquitous Boléro.

Somewhat unexpectedly, he does seem to have the gift with Bruckner and R Strauss, on which basis Wagner might be a good match.

Though attending concerts less often in Manchester these days, I note that attendances at the Bridgewater are still generally rather... alarming. You'd think a Wagner night would be a fairly safe bet, but it doesn't look like it. We shall see...

Hiya Simon B,

From what I could see at last night's concert the BBC Phil used the whole Wagner kit and caboodle.

[Simon B]

Hiya Simon B,

From what I could see at last night's concert the BBC Phil used the whole Wagner kit and caboodle.

It did look that way except for the having the contrabass trombone part (not having access to a score I assume that the usually present contrabass trombone is explicitly specified in Götterdämmerung) played on a normal bass trombone, mostly with slide in about 317th position!

An enjoyable concert - albeit of rather short measure (all over by 21:15 according to the notices) I thought. Having assembled all that apparatus they could have easily given some more excerpts, maybe lobbed in a bit of Rheingold or Walkure or whatever...

The dramatic impact of the immolation scene as a bleeding chunk is always severely compromised by the absence of the preceding umpteen hours and multiple operas worth of buildup, but even so the sheer sonic majesty of it is enough to get to me. Brigitte Hahn was struggling to make herself heard over it all at times, despite Mena's obvious attempts to balance things, but the otherwise excellent Bridgewater acoustic does rather tend to swallow singers for some reason. On the whole a pretty good concert (a few unusually conspicuous mistakes in the brass aside) which should be worth a listen when it's broadcast on R3.

One thing is for sure about Mena - he can't organise curtain calls for indiviual players/sections to save his life! He's not alone among conductors in this though. It's a source of enduring mild amusement to me (simple things, simple minds) given that you'd imagine that using visual means to indicate what you'd like musicians to do is rather part of the job description. Most unusually the 1st timpanist got the first curtain call (fine by me based on a characteristically musical, incisive performance), but whether this was intentional is anyone's guess. After that there was much slightly shifty "does he mean me?" standing up, in several cases followed by sudden doubly shifty sitting down of the "don't look at me, guv" variety upon twigging that he didn't mean them after all. They need to have a rehearsal!

[Stanfordian]

It did look that way except for the having the contrabass trombone part (not having access to a score I assume that the usually present contrabass trombone is explicitly specified in Götterdämmerung) played on a normal bass trombone, mostly with slide in about 317th position!

An enjoyable concert - albeit of rather short measure (all over by 21:15 according to the notices) I thought. Having assembled all that apparatus they could have easily given some more excerpts, maybe lobbed in a bit of Rheingold or Walkure or whatever...

The dramatic impact of the immolation scene as a bleeding chunk is always severely compromised by the absence of the preceding umpteen hours and multiple operas worth of buildup, but even so the sheer sonic majesty of it is enough to get to me. Brigitte Hahn was struggling to make herself heard over it all at times, despite Mena's obvious attempts to balance things, but the otherwise excellent Bridgewater acoustic does rather tend to swallow singers for some reason. On the whole a pretty good concert (a few unusually conspicuous mistakes in the brass aside) which should be worth a listen when it's broadcast on R3.

One thing is for sure about Mena - he can't organise curtain calls for indiviual players/sections to save his life! He's not alone among conductors in this though. It's a source of enduring mild amusement to me (simple things, simple minds) given that you'd imagine that using visual means to indicate what you'd like musicians to do is rather part of the job description. Most unusually the timpanist got the first curtain call (fine by me based on a characteristically musical, incisive performance), but whether this was intentional is anyone's guess. After that there was much slightly shifty "does he mean me?" standing up, in several cases followed by sudden doubly shifty sitting down of the "don't look at me, guv" variety upon twigging that he didn't mean them after all. They need to have a rehearsal!

I have already written my review saying virtually the same thing especially the soloist who never seemed comfortable and got swamped in the louder passages. An enjoyable programme but for me it lacked drama; it never caught fire.

[Roslynmuse]

I would agree with what has been written above. I enjoyed the orchestral playing more than the vocal contributions, but even they lacked tension and narrative thrust. The Tannhauser Overture was fussily phrased; the Rhine Journey and Funeral March were bitty and episodic; the orchestra itself sounded well for most of the time but the performances swung from moment to moment without an over-arching frame. Not enough blade in Brigitte Hahn's voice (except once or twice in the Immolation Scene). She looked very ill-at-ease in the Wesendonck Lieder and there were several breaths that were surely not intended, and some text errors too. I was most bothered by Mena's occasional accelerations eg near the end of the Immolation Scene. He certainly doesn't have Mark Elder's patience in this rep. I have to say that I haven't yet heard a concert of his that I have enjoyed; I think I went to four of his last season - Mahler 2, Bruckner 6 - I know that interpretation was pretty universally praised, but it didn't do it for me -, and two of the Debussy/Takemitsu series; there was some truly dreadful Mozart playing in the first one and an underwhelming La mer in the other.

[Roslynmuse]

Just listened to the broadcast on iPlayer (same reservations about the performances, although not being able to see the soprano did help a bit). There was about half an hour left afterwards before CE and in making a link to the extra piece (a Weber symphony), the continuity announcer referred to Wagner as the 'e-pi-tome' (three syllables) of Romanticism in music. Please tell me that I haven't been mispronouncing this word (by giving it four syllables) for the last forty years...