SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Mozart and Bruckner:  Philharmonia Orchestra, Kurt Masur (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London 19.2.2010 (JPr)

As the former principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra Maestro Masur’s first loyalty has been to that ensemble and this was the first time he had conducted their London rival, the Philharmonia, for more than a couple of decades. This orchestra is undoubtedly one of the world's finest, and Masur extract, as to be expected, outstanding playing from it.

This was the first of three concerts with the same programme in a short tour with the orchestra that would go on to Germany and Belgium. The concert opener, Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E flat, was composed in the prolific burst of inspiration in the summer of 1788  which saw Mozart produce his final three symphonies. Mozart had a particular fondness for the key of E flat and he used it for a number of works including his final opera, Die Zauberflöte and there are a number of moments of magisterial authority in Symphony No. 39 which are redolent of that operatic swansong. Tall, batonless, unbending and with quivering gestures, the 82-year old Masur unfolded the dense textures of the Mozart with statesman-like assurance without offering anything novel by way of interpretation; he seemed to be discarding all thoughts of modern stylistic notions in favour of familiar, traditional and heavyish Mozart.

Maestro Masur has led some masterly performances of the German Romantic repertory in his distinguished career and he seems to have a particular affinity for Bruckner. Whilst every minimalist gesture of his on the podium commands authority,  they seem tempered here by the inherent spirituality and serenity of Bruckner’s music and he puts some ‘soul’ into an otherwise rather austere work, the Fourth Symphony, also in E flat. It is questionable that what we were hearing is what the composer would have wanted us to experience; since the symphony’s rejection by the Vienna Philharmonic in the mid-1870s it has been subjected to revisions by the composer himself, by his acolytes and successors to such an extent that apparently at least seven possible versions exist. Masur and the Philharmonia were performing the 1936 version by Robert Haas. In Bruckner’s lifetime it was rapturously received in 1881 and Bruckner had labelled it Romantic,  alluding to its depiction of a quasi-Wagnerian world of medieval castles and hunts in leafy woodland glades: everything, I guess, which Bruckner considered would appeal to the public both then and now.

Conducting, as with the Mozart, entirely from memory,  Masur delivered  from the opening bars onwards, a performance replete with breadth, spaciousness and haunting imagery. The impeccable musicians around him were his faultless collaborators in the enterprise and they began, with the hushed, exquisitely sustained trembling strings bringing us the E flat major chord over which the famous solo horn, like some forlorn memory of a hunting call, ushered in the elementary main theme. Then with the two-plus-three subject, a feeling of barely contained tension begins to be created until with the release of a climax, this dies aware to become almost bucolic before a chorale in the brass; this section of the Philharmonia were on top form throughout the 65 minute symphony.

The slow(er) movement, an Andante, was warm, sonorous and with more than just a hint of the procession of a band of pilgrims to it. Perhaps this is an allusion to Wagner’s Tannhäuser in the same way that the horns at the opening of the Scherzo are very reminiscent of the start of the second act of Tristan und Isolde. Masur gave this movement, the so-called ‘Hunting Scherzo’, an urgent, rhythmic vitality. In the end all was as it should be in this popular Bruckner symphony since Maestro Masur held together the potentially rambling long-spanning structures of the Finale with consummate assertiveness; bringing grandeur to the movement's disjointed restlessness and ending with a peroration that was stirring, edge-of-the seat stuff - Bruckner at its best. Generously applauded by both the orchestra and the packed Royal Festival Hall audience, an appreciative Kurt Masur held up the leader’s score to direct our applause towards where he thought it was most deserved … to Bruckner himself.

In a humorous comment in the Evening Standard (18.2.10) Laura Craik describes her experience of the audience at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall – ‘So uptight is the classical music crowd that one is only permitted to cough between movements, or whatever … they are called. Who knew? The consequence of this repression is that, as soon as the last violin string fades, the entire audience breaks out in a loud, bronchial hack. It is very disconcerting but also really funny. In the sober world of classical music, you get your laughs where you can’. The audience at this concert must have read that on their journey to the Royal Festival Hall as they seemed only to happy to cast off the shackles of this ‘repression’ and felt empowered enough to cough ad libitum throughout the entire evening.  Deep down, Kurt Masur would surely have condoned these coughers’ rights to intrude on the music, since his libertarian values were always at the centre of the significant role this distinguished former Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus played in the peaceful demonstrations that resulted in the reunification of Germany. However I am also fairly sure the incessant extraneous noise was as annoying to him as to the rest of us managing to keep their coughs at bay until a suitable pause in the proceedings.

Jim Pritchard