Bavarian Radio SO in New York (I): Karita Mattila, Soprano, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons, Chief Conductor, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 03.11.2006 (BH)

 
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 54 (1939)
R. Strauss: Four Last Songs (1948)
R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Suite (arr. 1944)

 

 

 

It’s a great month when one can hear not one, but two readings of Shostakovich’s underplayed Sixth Symphony.  (Valery Gergiev and the Kirov brought it here last week, in a concert that was one of the high points of his Shostakovich series.)  Structurally slightly unusual, the Sixth begins mournfully slow, followed by a peppier second movement that is half the length of the first, and a raucous gallop to end it all. In effect, the piece gets faster and faster as it progresses.  Mariss Jansons has recorded an entire cycle of these symphonies with eight different orchestras, which illustrates his versatility and consistency, no matter what the ensemble, but this reading immediately telegraphed that his three-night stay with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra would be a weekend to remember.

If one imagines the Fifth Symphony’s triumphant final bars, the anguish that begins the Sixth seems particularly haunting, its heated opening cry the perfect vehicle for the Bavarian strings.  Eventually the ensemble reaches a stirring, passionate climax before the tension wanes, as waves of soft trills fade into the eerie ending.  The second movement, a waltz that vacillates between slippery woodwinds and craggy string writing, staggers about before again finding a delicate conclusion, here showing off the ensemble’s expert wind section.  Shostakovich lets out all the stops in the final movement, which explodes into a jaunty comic circus that Jansons exploited for every last bit of humor and virtuosity. 

As one reviewer noted, Karita Mattila looked great if not exactly “autumnal” in a dramatic shoulder-less dark purple dress, her hair a perfect coif atop her imposing frame.  One of the world’s current great interpreters of Richard Strauss, she has recorded the Four Last Songs with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.  Here, her approach was more life-affirming, more soaring and more athletic than the pure radiance used by some other singers, as if this farewell is teeming with questions and conundrums.  I enjoyed her work on this evening, as I usually do, but I’m not totally convinced she is entirely at home in these masterpieces.  It may seem an odd comment, but their calm resignation almost seems to stifle her natural dramatic instincts, ever so slightly, which served her so well in her peerless Salome.

Robert Frost’s little cat feet came to mind during the initial encore, Johann Strauss’ Pizzicato Polka, and almost hilarious in its quietude.  It left a delicious aftertaste, but I was hoping that Jansons and these expert players would pull out all the stops for a second one, something loud, and sure enough, during the applause additional brass players sneaked onto the stage for a jet-propelled “Farandole” from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne. 

 

 

Bruce Hodges

 

 

Picture © Markus Dlouhy