If there is any difference between
how Berliners and Londoners see classical music it is in the formers’
passion. No city boasts so much, and sit in any café in the Charlottenberg
or Mitte areas and you will find at least one person who knows something
about what is on that night. In the case of its leading orchestra pride
is natural and real. It is inconceivable, for example, that posters
of any conductor would ever line a London street, yet on the short journey
from Tempelhof to the Tiergarten, which borders on its south side the
reconstructionist, Scharoun-designed Philharmonie (on the inappropriately
named Herbert–von-Karajan Straße) countless posters saying ‘Welcome
Sir Simon’ were as popular as those advertising mid-European commercialism.
Suddenly, Rattle has become the cover boy for a revitalised cultural
Berlin. Look at them under the failing light of a balmy Berlin evening
and Rattle appeared to be wearing a halo on some. The buzz after the
concert as people spilled out onto the streets was that the halo might
not be long in coming, although how well some of the more conservative
elements of Berlin’s musical elite will take to his radical (by Philharmonic
standards) programming remains to be seen. There is promised Bruckner
with Schoenberg and Goebells with Stravinsky in future concerts – as
well as Turnage. How many of the glittering bejewelled ladies on display
last night will still be there when Rattle does Blood on the Floor?
It will determine whether Rattle, like his predecessor sometimes did,
plays to less than sold out houses.
Of course, Rattle is no stranger
to Berlin, having first conducted the orchestra in 1987, but this concert
was his first as the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Music Director. It was
typical Rattle – something new, something old – and expectations were
feverishly high. In fact, I have rarely been in a concert hall where
the atmosphere was palpably electric, so tensile. It is a sign of Rattle’s
confidence in this orchestra – and perhaps in his audience - that he
can programme music such as Asyla - a challenge for any orchestra,
but especially one with so negligible a performance history of English
music as the Berliners. Although by no means an ‘english’ work, Asyla
is less intrinsically European in its tonality than some works the orchestra
has played under Abbado (Stockhausen, for example). The performance
was tensely played with not quite the freedom the work needs – but so
transluscent was the Berliner’s idiomatic tone colouring it mattered
little if there were minor problems with pitch and ensemble. Dynamically,
the music had a hushed intensity when needed, but also a wild ferocity,
which Rattle nurtured to even greater effect in his performance of Mahler’s
Fifth Symphony.
Problems of pitch were noticeable
in the horns during the performance of the symphony – oddly, and, symmetrically,
at the opening and close of the work. However, this should not detract
from the standard of orchestral playing which was superlative, energised
by Rattle’s dynamic baton control; and rarely did this performance seem
anything other than an electrifying experience. Rattle perhaps takes
the opening two movements at a broader tempo than is ideal, but he sees
the symphony in a single 70-minute vision which culminates in a coda
of fearsome abandon. There is a touch of drama about how Rattle frames
these final bars, in part reminiscent of how Furtwängler used to
end Beethoven’s Ninth. It is undoubtedly searing, verging on the hysterical.
The acoustics of the Philharmonie
flatter this orchestra’s broad tone beautifully – and Rattle is technically
adept at focussing the sound so the inner strands of orchestration grow
preternaturally. It is noticeable, for example, how trenchant the percussion
can sound in a Rattle performance, and here they sounded harder and
more caustic than one usually experiences with this orchestra. The strings
are luxuriant – especially the ‘cellos which excelled throughout the
performance, and few orchestras seem able to give ffff the volcanic,
earth-shattering terror which the Berliners do and yet keep it so controlled.
Rattle seemed to make the orchestra produce blistering sounds which
were given with incredible, yet economic, restrain.
If Rattle’s perception of the faster
movements is towards one of dislocation, his view of the adagietto
is its very antithesis. Fluid and restrained with a lighter string tone,
it is given hypnotic beauty. His gestures are almost minimalist and
yet there is a searing edginess to the plangency of tone, redolent of
chamber music in its sculpted articulation. The contrasts between the
storminess of the opening marches and the brassy perorations of the
Finale were almost more unsettling because of the hymnal, reflective
qualities he gave the adagietto.
As far as inaugural concerts go
this was a triumph, the warmth of the ovation he received genuine, his
pleasure with the orchestra one of real affection. His encore was a
delicately focussed performance of Brahms’ F major Hungarian Dance almost
designed to send us off in a state of transient dreaminess. EMI will
release the Mahler symphony at the end of the month. As I walked down
Budapester Straße the occasional Rattle poster was now bathed
in streetlight. It would never happen in London, I thought.
Marc Bridle
Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker
will perform Schoenberg, Bruckner, Haydn and Mahler at two concerts
at the Royal Festival Hall in October. BBC 2 will televise Rattle’s
inaugural concert on 21st September.
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