Anyone who has read the article by Stephen Pettitt
in the April issue of BBC Music Magazine will be familiar with the incredible
backdrop to this concert recording. To begin, it was less than a week
since the tragedy of September 11th and Andrea Gruber, booked
to sing the part of Tove, was stranded in the USA. Into the breach steps
Elizabeth Whitehouse although the decision has already been taken at
EMI to employ the services of Karita Mattila for the recording itself,
a point to which I shall return later. After the concert Rattle is to
sign a new contract with EMI, securing his future with the company for
the next seven years and even more exciting, the following day, after
what seems like an eternity of political wrangling, Rattle is to eventually
sign his ten-year contract as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.
The Berliners, both in terms of the orchestra and the
public, seem to have adopted Rattle as one of their own and the celebrations
surrounding this long awaited concert would have made it special in
its own right. The fact that the horror and images of the previous week’s
events in New York were still so vivid in people’s minds added an unforeseen
dimension that for all the wrong reasons rendered the circumstances
truly extraordinary.
That the circumstances had an impact on the music making
is never in doubt, the atmosphere being immediately palpable from the
opening orchestral prelude. Rattle gives several clues to his interpretational
stance on Gurrelieder in an interview in the accompanying booklet
with Holger Erdman. Comments such as "It is the most gigantic
chamber music ever written and should be very transparent"
and "I said to the orchestra that if they play it like Daphnis
and Chloé they won’t be too far wrong" say much
about the performance. The glistening arpeggios of the prelude certainly
have a crystal like clarity to them and in the manner of Rattle’s Mahler
recordings, there is a feeling that every gesture and nuance of Schoenberg’s
often highly sophisticated scoring is given the most scrupulous attention.
The series of love songs between Waldemar and Tove that form the heart
of part one are sung with the most sensitive advocacy by Thomas Moser
and Karita Mattila. The quality of Moser’s singing is immediately evident
in Waldemar’s first song, the eloquence of his expression at the words
"Rest, my senses, rest!" (2:19) utterly captivating.
Mattila too, in her responses to Waldemar’s words of love, is never
anything other than beguiling. Rattle captures a genuine sense of perspiring
urgency in the third song as Waldemar anxiously journeys by horseback
to be with his beloved Tove at Gurre and here we have the first true
demonstration of the magnificently wide ranging dynamics of the recording
with Waldemar’s triumphant declaration "Volmer has seen Tove",
and the ensuing orchestral passage that transports us into Tove’s rejoicing
at Waldemar’s arrival in the fourth song. The sudden darkened mood that
accompanies Waldemar’s premonition of death is chilling in its impact
and it is difficult to imagine finer orchestral playing to accompany
Waldemar’s ominous prophecy. Schoenberg’s development of the principal
themes from the love songs in the orchestral interlude that precedes
Song of the Wood Dove is ravishingly played, the orchestra responding
to Rattle as if he had been at the helm for years (try the wonderful
passage from around 3’10", the strings showing that they have lost
none of their renowned beauty of tone). Yet after all of this Anne Sophie
von Otter still succeeds in bringing more delights in Song of the
Wood Dove, delivering the narrative with consummate artistry and
musicality. The closing paragraphs from around 10’16" literally
had me had me gasping in admiration, the slow tread and descent into
the depths of despair powerfully evoked.
Waldemar’s condemnation of God that forms the brief
second part, leads us into part three and The Wild Hunt.
This startlingly vivid picture of Waldemar’s rampage with his vassals
is extraordinary in its orchestration and Rattle brings out not only
the apocalyptic nature of the music where appropriate but the myriad
detail that Schoenberg brings to his scoring, the creaking of coffin
lids opening, the clank of chain mail and the clash of weapons. Thomas
Quasthoff’s first appearance as the terrified peasant watching the procession
thundering past is finely done although he saves his best for the spoken
Melodrama, The Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind, later in part three.
The huge procession of Waldemar and his vassals itself is captured with
miraculous clarity by the EMI engineers, every detail clear despite
the huge forces involved. Rattle is obviously in his element here and
once again I found myself marvelling at the sheer depth of sound and
sonority that he draws from his Berlin forces, impressive even by their
standards. Philip Langridge excels as Klaus the Jester, capturing his
character with an uncanny reality and with the return of Waldemar’s
vassals to their graves at the first sign of sunrise, one can sense
the weary sinking of the ghouls into their coffins as the lids quietly
close. The concluding Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind belongs to
Thomas Quasthoff who attacks his part as the speaker with a dramatic
relish and enthusiasm that for this reviewer at least, puts him in a
class of his own. By the time Schoenberg came to write the Melodrama
some ten years after he had commenced work on Gurrelieder he
had already completed the Five Pieces for Orchestra and the sparer,
crystalline nature of his later style of orchestration is now very clearly
in evidence. Rattle makes no attempt to disguise it, quite rightly so,
if anything drawing attention to it yet it is to his credit that the
overall effect is seamless and above all natural. The closing evocation
of sunrise is quite magnificent, again bearing all the hallmarks of
that "Rattle sound" that had been so carefully cultivated
during his tenure with the CBSO and an amazing testament not only to
the influence he is able to bring to an orchestra but also to the obvious
musical embrace that the Berliners have responded with.
The danger of knowing too much about a recording before
listening to it is a very real one and if anything was likely to detract
from my enjoyment of this disc it was the knowledge that Karita Mattila
was not present at the concert recording, the engineers carrying out
some nifty dubbing later (incidentally EMI make no reference to this
fact in their booklet note). Initially the tendency is to listen for
any tell tale signs of the engineers work but I can honestly say that
I defy anyone to spot anything that gives the game away. Far from it
in fact because in reality I found myself so utterly lost in the magic
and musicality of the singing that my mind soon drifted away from any
technical concerns about the recording. The overriding fact is that
this performance will live with me for a long time to come. The standard
of the music making is of the highest order, the recording itself vividly
realistic, at times shatteringly so.
Extraordinary though the circumstances may have been,
if this is an indication of the electricity that is being generated
between Rattle and his new orchestra, their future together, artistically
at least, seems to be both assured and exciting.
Christopher Thomas.
Rundfunkchor Berlin