A somewhat larger audience than Tuesday’s turned out
to hear Nagano and Quasthoff give their versions of Mahler’s most tragic
song cycle and what is arguably Schubert’s best loved symphony. You
have to be made of stern stuff not to be moved by the circumstances
surrounding ‘Kindertotenlieder;’ the poems set by Mahler are only a
fraction of the 428 which Ruckert wrote about the deaths of two of his
children, one of those set having actually been written the morning
after the child’s demise, and as for Mahler himself, his beloved eldest
daughter died two years after the work was completed, after which the
composer could not bring himself to study or conduct it. The work contains
many of the elements which those who love Mahler most admire, and which
those who loathe him most deprecate; raw personal feeling, almost too-vivid
word – setting, intensely pictorial use of the orchestra, and above
all that sense of sweeping emotion which either sends you swooning or
reaching for the remote.
In this performance, surprisingly, it was the orchestra
which provided the most unalloyed pleasure; I must have heard this work
at least thirty times in concert, quite apart from all the recordings,
and I have never previously heard such exact, fluent, sweetly phrased
renditions of the orchestral parts of it; Nagano guided the strings,
in particular, in playing of exceptional tenderness, delicacy and tremulous
emotion. All of those qualities are ones I would generally associate
with Thomas Quasthoff, but on this occasion his singing was not at the
level of the orchestra’s playing, and it was truly heartening to see
that he recognized the greatness of the support he had been given, acknowledging
the players in a very significant way.
Quasthoff’s voice is, of course, very beautiful indeed,
and he uses it with great skill, but here I had the impression that
he was not really very familiar with the music; I do not say this because
he had the score in front of him - he usually does, but barely glances
at it – but because he seemed unusually reliant on it, only looking
at the audience occasionally. He sang the most inherently moving phrases
such as ‘Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt!’ and ‘Sieh’ uns nur an,
denn bald sind wir dir ferne!’ with some feeling as well as lovely shaping
of the lines, but in general this was not a deeply moving performance.
Michael Kennedy once commented of Fischer-Dieskau’s
performance of the second song, in the 1955 recording under Kempe: ‘…..
the singing, oh, the singing! In the second song the repeated phrase
‘O Augen’ is sung with a compassionate intensity that tells us all we
dare know about this kind of remorse,’ and I can still recall the depth
of the emotion I felt when I heard him sing this work. Quasthoff’s could
perhaps be regarded as a more muscular interpretation; certainly his
singing of the first four stanzas of the final song was stripped of
any sentimentality, ‘I could say nothing’ being more enraged than regretful,
and his final ‘In diesem Wetter……..’ was touching rather than engulfing.
As valid an interpretation as any other, one might say, especially since
this is a work which confronts us with such raw emotions.
Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major symphony is not such a divisive
piece; most music lovers would agree that its place amongst the great
works is secure, and Nagano here directed a performance remarkable for
its verve, crispness of articulation and sheer musical excitement. Solti
once remarked that the playing of this symphony should show ‘precision
and gentleness achieved simultaneously,’ and this was exactly what was
shown here. It puzzles me that this conductor is regarded as bloodless
and clinical in some quarters; it’s true that his intellectual qualities
predominate, especially in terms of tempi and structure, but the sound
he obtains from the orchestra, and the obvious rapport he has with the
players are both remarkable. He directed a performance of unassuming
grandeur, ‘Schubertian’ in the best sense, and he drew playing of exceptional
finesse from every section of the orchestra; in the Scherzo, the strings
sparkled and the wind instruments made as mellow a sound as I have ever
heard in this work.
In the Finale, the standard of playing was simply superb;
that wonderful melody was never once over-phrased, and the bold, energetic
pulse of the music almost convinced you that it was the kind of composition
that comes ‘as naturally as the leaves to a tree.’ The conductor and
orchestra were given a rapturous reception from a generally most attentive
audience, save for one young lady who appeared to be writing her memoirs
throughout the performance, energetically and noisily scratching lines
out when it pleased her and finally shoving her notebook into her bag
with much flapping about; even the pointed glares of Thomas Quasthoff,
sitting directly in front of us, were powerless to prevent her display
of distracting inattention.
Melanie Eskenazi
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