The first Sunday of the 2010 Dresden Music Festival saw an impressive tally of no fewer than three orchestral concerts in the city, as well as a choral concert in the park of Scholss Pillnitz. By the time I arrived at the Semperoper for the afternoon concert given by Murray Perahia and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, early birds had already had a chance to catch the late morning repeat of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky's Saturday evening programme of Shostakovich, Britten and Tchaikovsky with the Dresden Philharmonic. That might have more obviously reflected this year's theme – Russlandia – but at least the Festival's Director (or 'Intendant'), Jan Vogler, was on hand to serve another of its themes, the Schumann anniversary, in performing his enigmatic cello concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony in the evening. And if that all sounds rather a lot to keep up with, it's no accident: the festival boasts a wide roster of artists in a packed programme that makes use of Dresden's impressive selection of venues.
Among these venues, the Semperoper must be counted as the finest, in terms of its acoustic if nothing else. This helped the vibrant sound of the ASMF strings as they launched into intricate textures of Stravinsky's 1946 Concerto in D, giving warmth and clarity to the busy, neo-classical lines. They were discretely led on this occasion from the front desk by leader Kenneth Sillito, but each played with a chamber-music intimacy that was maintained as Perahia joined them for Mozart's A-major concerto, K.488. Placed at the keyboard in the centre of the orchestra, with his back to the audience, the piano's sound was fully integrated into the ensemble. It is true that some of the passage work risked been drowned out, but Perahia's touch was as pearly and finely judged as ever, while the communication between him and the orchestra – particularly the wonderfully characterised wind solos – was something to marvel at. Perahia chose to leave the famously bare textures in the central Adagio unadorned, to moving effect, and rattled through the finale with joyous abandon, albeit occasionally to the detriment of accuracy.
He led Bach's G minor concerto BWV1058 from the keyboard once more, taking his place both as soloist and continuo player and allowing the piano to be further subsumed into the orchestral texture. That texture still takes some getting used to in repertoire usually heard on authentic instruments, but Perahia's instinct for the composer forced these issues into the background in a performance whose rhythmic vitality was irresistible. The same qualities were in evidence as Perahia finally took up the baton for the final work, Haydn's 'Oxford' Symphony No. 92. It made a welcome change to hear a Haydn symphony at the close of a concert, rather than as the perfunctory first-half filler we've become so used to, and the straightforward joie de vivre of Perahia's account was a pleasure. Rhythms were tautly sprung and textures cleanly maintained, while the ASMF's wonderful wind section excelled themselves once more, particularly flautist Michael Cox and oboist Christopher Cowie.
The evening concert by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra saw considerable contrast in the exuberant conducting of its Austrian Music Director, Manfred Honeck. Honeck has presided over a resurgence in the orchestra's fortunes, bringing them in some style out of the period following Mariss Jansons's departure in 2003, and on this form they stake a reasonable claim to joining more renowned members of America's orchestral elite.
In the first half, they were joined by Vogler in Schumann's Concerto, a work particularly close to the cellist's heart. Honeck provided sensitive support to Vogler's beautifully expressive lines in a touching account of a concerto that is slow to yield its secrets, mixing Schumann's characteristic Innigkeit with reluctant concessions to virtuosity. Vogler took a little time to get his eye in, but balanced these elements expertly, and it's difficult to imagine more eloquent championship for the work than it received here.
The second half brought together the massed ranks of the Pittsburgh orchestra for a visceral, no-holds-barred account of Mahler's First Symphony. Japanese label Exton has recently released Honeck's reading of the work with this orchestra, to wide acclaim, although not yet released in the UK, and on this evidence, they clearly relish the symphony's many opportunities for display, while Honeck has stated his aim to recapture the work's folk roots. He's also clearly benefited from having been exposed to some great Mahler interpretations during his ten year stint as a violist with the Vienna Philharmonic, and then as Claudio Abbado's assistant. No facet of Mahler's brilliant orchestration was left unexplored in an interpretation that revelled in extremes, from rustic boisterousness to sweet sentimentality. Meanwhile, in the Semperoper's glorious acoustic, the sheer sound of the orchestra was thrillingly vivid and unashamedly glamorous.
The calm evocation of nature at the start gave way as Honeck whipped up a flurry of fanfares, the Pittsburgh horns excelling themselves, in particular. He controlled the tension built up over Mahler's extended pedal points with a remarkably sure touch, even if I detected a tendency to over-do the contrasts, particularly in terms of tempo extremes, once that tension was released. Rarely has the second movement Ländler made such a memorable impression, though, with the cellos throwing good manners aside to dig indecorously into their accompanying figures, and the Trio section sweetly Viennese. Such delicious touches of portamento and rubato abounded in the famous Funeral March, too, even if I felt Honeck's tempi could be inflexible as the movement progressed—the same problem undermined the waltz in the second encore, the final part of Strauss's Rosenkavalier Suite. For sheer rip-roaring drama, on the other hand, the Finale could hardly be beaten. Other conductors might have found greater ambiguity and subtlety in this work, or a clearer sense of overarching structure, but with the Pittsburghers on such irresistible form and Honeck's sure dramatic touch, this was undoubtedly thrilling music making. Here we clearly have a partnership to watch.
By Hugo Shirley
Photo Credits: Nana Watanabe/Sony Classical (Murray Perahia) & Jason Cohn (Manfred Honeck)
The Dresden Festival continues until 6 June 2010, for details see the festival website