Prom 69: 5.09.16 - Staatskapelle Berlin and Daniel Barenboim

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 5 Sep 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No 4 in E flat major, 'Romantic'

Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim piano/director


Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle Berlin open three consecutive evenings in which a Mozart piano concerto is paired with a Bruckner symphony. 'We shall never be able to do anything like that,' proclaimed Beethoven when he heard Mozart's dramatic, minor-key Piano Concerto No. 24.
As with Mozart in his concertos, with each of Bruckner's symphonies came a keener focus of vision and honing of craft. With the Fourth, Bruckner really came of age, bringing a newfound confidence in the glowing first movement, while its statuesque Andante is a moving premonition of loss.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07sxdfw

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Gosh - into the final week already!

[BBMmk2]

......and what a final week!!!

[Prommer]

......and what a final week!!!

Absolutely... I am very happy: the B Minor Mass, a Bruckner Fest... Barenboim AND Thielemann!!

[Prommer]

Stand by for the BrucknerFest...

"Who wants to be a Staatskapellmeister?"

[CallMePaul]

This concert has just finished - marvellous performance of the Bruckner. However, the Mozart concerto was a bit too heavy for my taste. Barenboim seems to have used a larger orchestra than many pianist-directors do. The wind playing in both works was first-class though.

[kernelbogey]

I thought the Bruckner beautiful: lots of detail brought out that can become obscured by the overall texture. Beautiful solo playing, especially from the clarinet and flute, though that is not to play down, for example, the wonderful brass sound. Overall a great performance.

[Petrushka]

I was in the hall fir this and am glad I was. This was the finest live Bruckner performance I've heard for many years, a quite magnificent account of the 4th Symphony and the playing, with the perfect sonority for Bruckner, absolutely outstanding. Can an hour ever have passed so quickly? Along with Haitink's Mahler 3 I'd nominate this Bruckner 4 as the most outstanding performance of the season.

Following hot on the heels of the Philharmonic perhaps the Staatskapelle felt they had to prove themselves the better orchestra. In my view they succeeded.

[David-G]

I suffered some distractions. A couple of young people asked if I would mind if they stood in the space in front of me. After ten minutes or so standing obviously became too much, as they sat on the floor (from where they would have seen nothing). And seeing nothing obviously became boring, because one of them started fishing in his briefcase, extracted a notebook and started writing things in it. They then started whispering to each other. And after more fishing in the briefcase, they started doing things on a mobile phone. All of this did not exactly aid my concentration.

[Bumfluff]

I was in the hall too. I liked the Bruckner a lot, but now I'm at home I'm listening to Abbado do it, and in comparison I think Barenboim fundamentally didn't know how to shape or present it. I will relisten though..

I agree with Petrushka though, the sound and playing were excellent.

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 69. BRUCKNER SYMPHONY NO.4. BERLIN STAATSKAPELLE/BARENBOIM. HDS @ 320KBPS.

It took a while to settle, this Bruckner 4. Initially sweet and warm in tonal character (lovely, wald-atmospheric horn!), but spatially and dynamically a little self-contained, the first movement sounded slightly cautious, even preludial - articulation wasn't always precise and some cross-rhythmical counterpoints felt imperfectly timed. Some passages seemed left to themselves. But the Staatskapelle's richly textured, well-defined brasses built deep and weighty climaxes. If Barenboim's rubato felt natural, going with the flow, I wasn't always quite at ease with his movement through the gesangsperiode: it was - OK, but I've heard this passage played with easier, more Schubertian songfulness and schwung. The coda too, wasn't as thrilling or as rhythmically on target as it could have been.

Perhaps it was part of Barenboim's longer view, as the Berlin Staatskapelle began the andante quasi allegretto at the threshold of audibility, followed by string-playing of marvellously contrasted fullness and warmth; thereafter exploring such extremes of dynamic and mood, Kaspar David Friedrich-isch Romantic landscape-evocations as to induce wonder in even the most studious follower of Brucknerian formal fluidities. Director and orchestra seemed more at home here than in the slightly unfocussed opening movement, finding a sonorous rapprochement with the earlier 20th-Century performing traditions of Fürtwangler or Knappertsbusch.

In the scherzo reprise after the trio, the brass (and orchestra generally) sounded far more assured and confident second time around, speaking out splendidly. Were they simply warming to their acoustically challenging task, or was this Barenboim's creativity in-the-moment, adding a splendid intensification to a large sectional repeat? A bit of both, I thought.

That Romantic rhetorical emphasis, sweet and warm string characters, the bold, convincing tempo variations, always expressively apt to the musical event - and the dark, full textured, rather east-european brass sonority reached a thrilling peak in the finale, which was clearly Barenboim's focal point, his goal, dynamically and emotionally. But always with some extra musical insight: the violin figures at the start of the coda were unusually distinct, more separately articulated rather than the tremolando susurrus we normally hear, carrying this through to the equivalently-weighted brass counterpoints in the final crescendo. (Too many performances give it all up for a standing-ovation blaze).
The only recording I could find which sounds like this is Vanska's, of the Korstvedt 1888 first published edition - it sounded like Barenboim (who plays Haas 1878-80 on his recordings and, I think, tonight) had imported the idea from there.

Well, at least he didn't include the pianissimo cymbals...

[P. G. Tipps]

I thought the Bruckner beautiful: lots of detail brought out that can become obscured by the overall texture. Beautiful solo playing, especially from the clarinet and flute, though that is not to play down, for example, the wonderful brass sound. Overall a great performance.

Yes, I listened to this performance through headphones and there was intricate detail brought out I hadn't realised was there before maybe normally drowned out by the mighty brass at times?

I agree this was a quite superb account. The coda of the Finale reminded me of Celi's recordings, it was genuinely awesome (a horribly over-used word these days, I admit).

Now for the Sixth tonight!

[kernelbogey]

Thanks, Jayne, for your detailed commentary. I will listen again while this is on iPlayer and take account of your comments in doing so.

[DracoM]

Well. as so many have praised it, maybe I ought to re-listen.
I heard via radio and it sounded a bit clumsy and strangely boxy. I kept wondering if the BBC had done anything with sound balance between the Mozart and the Bruckner.
For me, not a patch on Bohm.

[Petrushka]

JLW: The Scherzo was definitely different second time round. The timpani and brass were ever so slightly restrained at the first time conclusion but were really let off the leash for the repeat, the timpanist in particular. Agree that there was a degree of restraint in the first movement too but it became clear that this was part of Barenboim's long term vision. The finale can so often have little left in reserve but here Barenboim gave us, as PGT rightly says, a truly awesome coda.

I had a terrific seat in G stalls with a sense of involvement that was total. Not even the distraction of the elderly gentleman seated to my right noisily clearing his throat every five minutes could diminish that. I assumed that the clicking noises coming from the same direction were his false teeth. A night at the Proms eh?