In preparation for the Schumann Symphony concert under Kent Nagano, I
read through twelve reviews of earlier Schumann performances and failed to
find even two that agreed on a single point.
A couple of years ago, Kent Nagano took over the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, an orchestra steeped in traditions going back
almost to Schumann's days and in the course of which it was shaped,
honed and moulded by some of the leading maestros of the late nineteenth and
twentieth centuries (such as Hans von Bülow, Hermann Levi, Richard Strauss, Bruno Walter, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Georg Solti,
Rudolf Kempe, Ferenc Fricsay, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Mehta, and Kent Nagano since 2006).
As Musical Director of the Munich Opera, he has already managed to lighten some of the conventional opera-smog that increasingly marked Zubin Mehta's popular but populist approach. His Parsifal, Onegin, and recently Tristan, and his passionate dedication to contemporary opera, introduced a new era in Munich, albeit without yet achieving the international star quality that marked the era of Sir Peter Jonas as Artistic Director. His double role as Musical and Artistic Director of the Munich Opera was an interim solution imposed on him: after the long and highly successful rule of Sir Peter Jonas, two trial periods of new Artistic Directors, on the continent called Intendant, resulted in short-lived failures.
The new Artistic Director Klaus Bachler, up to now Director of the
famous Vienna Burgtheater, the National Theatre of Austria, will take
up his function during the next season, so that Kent Nagano can
dedicate himself full-time to the orchestra, which in the short period under his baton has taken its place amongst the top orchestras of Europe. Much is expected from the tandem of Bachler-Nagano.
I feel it would be nothing short of impudence for me trying
nigglingly to comment on Nagano's interpretation of the Schumann. All I can say
is that I found the concert a wonderful experience.
The exceptionally wide stage allowed the lateral spreading of the
strings to the very edges, which must have contributed to a
wonderfully warm, non-directional glow to fill the air, against which
the wind and brass, although not lifted physically above the level of
the strings, came through with an almost soloistic intensity.
Few orchestras can muster a quartet of horn players able brilliantly to
cope with the fiendish difficulties of Schumann's Konzertstück für 4
Hörner und grosses Orchester, Op. 85. The introduction of ventils in
the structure of horns, allowing a full chromatic scale to be played
on this difficult instrument, which was previously so prone to muffed tones even
in the hands of eminent players, persuaded Schumann almost
aggressively to prove that the future belonged to the ventil-horns. Of
the great composers, enthusiastically embracing this instrument in
their orchestration, only Brahms held out, because he doggedly
believed that with the introduction of the ventil-horn, the
inimitable sound quality of the natural horn would be lost. The
horn passages at the beginning of the Ring, the second act of Tristan,
or the notorious Siegfried call, rely already on the use of the
ventil-horn.
It says much of the standards achieved and maintained by this orchestra that after performing this beautiful, seldom-heard composition, of
which Schumann was very proud, the four players just took their place
on the platform and resumed their role as rank and file members.
Kent Nagano dispenses completely with conventional theatricalities in
conducting. His beat is precise and crystal clear, relying on the tip of
the baton and largely concentrated in the right arm.
Solo passages are shaped by the soloists, while he turns to them in
respectful admiration, allowing them, as it were, complete freedom to
express themselves. A wonderful unison passage between the principal
cellist and the clarinet in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony
sounded like a single instrument with a new, never-before-heard
sound quality, though the players were not even in visual contact and
did not seem to rely on help from the conductor.
This kind of almost chamber music-like playing characterised even the
majestic climaxes, which Kent Nagano
built up with a sign language that was addressed to the orchestra and
not to the audience. Yet, when it came to sharp, explosive
thrusts, or the brilliantly executed interchange of rapid string
and wind dialogues, they were pointed by Nagano with the precision of
a scalpel piercing the air. Kent Nagano is an analytical conductor who
searches for and discovers passages and colours in scores that give
his interpretations a feeling of expectancy that one is going to hear
something never pointed out before. And this is what I felt throughout
this concert, even in works that I have loved and admired throughout my
life. Having had a lot of orchestral playing experience under many
great maestros, even as a listener I willingly and eagerly submitted myself to his command.
This concert was sponsored by the 1400 Friends of the Festspielhaus,
remarkable in a small town of some 55000 inhabitants.
A further indication of the respect the culture of classical music
enjoys in Germany was the sudden appearance on the stage at the end of
the concert of Herr Schaeuble, the Minister of the Interior,
propelling himself in a wheelchair (he barely escaped an
assassination attempt some years ago), to thank the orchestra and the
Maestro in a few well chosen words.