After their first appearance at this year's Proms, featuring Schubert and Bruckner, the Vienna Philharmonic and Daniel Barenboim left behind the 'world of comfort' of Imperial Vienna for an excursion to the farther reaches of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, it was as though on this tour to Hungary (Bartòk, Kodaly and Ligeti) and Romania (Enescu) we were confined to the plushly decorated interior of a first class carriage with little opportunity to get out and really breathe the air.
That is to say, throughout the programme the Viennese musicians maintained a certain imperial hauteur, playing their way through the programme with stunning technical control and glorious tone without really seeking to reproduce the any feeling of local colour.
The programme on paper seemed a slightly forbidding prospect and it was a shame that it had so obviously put the punters off – the hall was some distance off being full – but it actually worked rather well.
The opening performance of Bartòk's Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta was remarkable for the sheer richness of sound produced by the Vienna strings. The first movement was controlled in one long crescendo in the strings, the percussion only playing a minor role. Throughout this movement as through the rest of the work, the string tone was a marvel of richness and flexibility. In the finale in particular, the virtuosity of the playing was there for all to hear. The players maintained their sovereign tonal control even through its most frenetic passages and it was certainly thrilling, at the movement's opening, to see them all plucking away with such power and precision. Although perhaps a touch smooth-edged, the real substance of the work obscured slightly by that brilliant Viennese veneer, this was still a performance that was greatly enjoyable on its own terms.
The second half of the concert was made up of Kodály's Dances of Gálanta and Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 framing Ligeti's astonishing Atmosphères. The Kodály gave the orchestra's soloists a chance to shine - Peter Schmidl's wonderful clarinet solos particularly sticking in the memory - but one couldn't help feeling that the players weren't quite at ease with the unbridled rusticity and boisterousness of it all. That said, here and in the Enescu, there was something thrilling in the tension between the orchestra's natural tendencies and the demands of the music, like watching a Rolls Royce tear round a rally course, even if Barenboim occasionally took his foot off the throttle.
Sandwiched between the gypsy-inspired Kodály and Enescu we had to breath the rarified, constricted air of Ligeti's Atmosphères. Here the pure physicality of the orchestra's sound was expertly controlled and unleashed by Barenboim to shattering effect. Probably one of Ligeti's best known pieces due to its use in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the audience was spellbound by the effect of hearing it live.
One's view of the performances, particularly of the Kodàly and Enescu – the audience reacted with huge enthusiasm to the whole second half, enthusiasm which reached fever pitch in the Enescu – must depend on what one demands out of an interpretation of these works. It could not be said that the Vienna Philharmonic achieved anything like an authentic flavour in their performances, so on that level, one would have to concede it was inadequate. However on another level, this was a hugely enjoyable performance, and it was interesting to see an orchestra try to push itself out of its comfort zone, even if the result was a bit like watching Prince Charles dance with an African tribe.
Perhaps a tacit admission of the players' discomfort on this Eastern excursion came in the two encores as we returned to Vienna and to Johann Strauss - first with the Annen-Polka, then Johann Strauss's Éljen a Magyar (his homage to Hungary, safely wrapped up in a Viennese sugar-coating). Throughout, Daniel Barenboim had conducted with vigour but, despite applause from the orchestra, I suspect that he's got a little way to go before he can fully impose his interpretative vision on this famously strong-willed band, and for that reason, it was difficult to tell exactly what that vision might be. For me the tensions that this concert produced, although causing it to fall short of a unqualified success, made for a uniquely fascinating evening. The fact remains: whatever you might say about the Vienna Philharmonic, they are always worth hearing.
By Hugo Shirley