WETA FM 90.9 Blog

June 25^th through the 27^th the NSO will perform Richard Strauss’ Hölderlin Hymns with Karita Mattila. Mikko Franck conducts. Earlier this year, I heard Mattila in those very songs with the same orchestra with which I also first heard Mikko Franck conduct. This is a recollection of the little Strauss cycle of the Munich Philharmonic this spring.

If the music of Richard Strauss is associated with any particular city, that city is not Berlin (where he got his conducting-feet wet), or Dresden (where most of his operas where premiered), or Vienna (where he was co-director of the State Opera), but Munich. Richard Strauss was born in Munich, son of the first horn player at the Munich Court Orchestra (now the Opera’s Bavarian State Orchestra), second cousin to that ensemble’s concertmaster (who taught him violin), and nephew to the brewery owner George Pschorr.

And among Munich Orchestras, none have currently made Strauss more their own than the Munich Philharmonic. Neither Mariss Jansons of the BRSO (despite a terrific Till Eulenspiegel recently) nor Kent Nagano heading the Bavarian State Orchestra are explicit Straussians. Christian Thielemann—utterly un-Bavarian in so many ways but more in tune with the late romantic musical soul than perhaps any other conductor of his generation—is an overt Straussian. The first this city has had since Wolfgang Sawallisch left the opera house in 1992. Good Strauss, any orchestra in Munich is capable of. For consistently great Strauss, the Munich Philharmonic is the address of choice.

This isn’t really news, but it was impressively reaffirmed in three Strauss concerts the orchestra put on earlier this year. Strauss rarities were on the menu for the middle string of concerts (March 5^th, 6^th, 8^th) that included works so rarely played that even Thielemann had not been familiar with them and used—a rarity with him in Strauss—the score.

The first concert opened tenderly with the Capriccio’s sublime prelude—a sextet so fragile, so moving that it encapsulates the character of the Countess from the most beautiful of Strauss’ neglected operas. If you like Metamorphosen in principle, but find that a touch too meandering, the Capriccio Sextet was made for you. As the front bench string players of the Munich Philharmonic delivered beyond the call of duty, Thielemann and half the Philharmonic, on his encouragement, listened from the orchestra stalls. A fitting prelude followed by the three Hölderlin Hymns op.71 (1921) with Karita Mattila whose bold outfit made her look like a East German discus thrower in evening dress and heels. That image wasn’t quite inappropriate given the required—and more than sufficiently supplied—force necessary for to compete with the unbridled orchestral explosion that Thielemann encouraged.

These songs are very rarely heard, but apart from the demands on the soloist who needs to sing right ‘through’ the orchestral luster, there is no reason for this neglect. Among the three songs is contained everything from the very wistful essence of Strauss à la “Frau ohne Schatten” (in “Hymn to Love”) to Strauss’ boldest harmonies in “Love” (encored) which sounds as though Sibelius’ Forth Symphony was dropped into the Straussian crock pot. Mattila, who overcame the acoustic challenges of the Philharmonic hall easily enough, sang as if made for these particular, mercilessly gorgeous pieces.

After intermission, the Second Horn Concerto (the pendant to his youthful and brilliant first such work) created pensive, even fragile mood of late Straus with the Philharmonic’s solo hornist Ivo Gass not letting the challenging but idiomatic concerto get the better of him. Equally off the beaten Strauss-path and equally enthralling the “Intermezzo Interludes”. Intermezzo, even less often performed outside Germany than Capriccio, is typical Strauss: A sturdy-rustic counterpart to the mythical realm of his “FrOSch”, ‘earthing’ his art and opera by tackling an utterly domestic, unashamedly autobiographical situation with more than a wink of the eye, lest the genre be taken to seriously. Strauss asked Hofmannsthal for this theatrically linked complement, but his librettist declined, citing lack of competence in the desired genre of matrimonial love and jealousy. Mundane (though always deeply sympathetic) the topic of a jealous wife may be, but that cannot faze the gorgeousness of the music which, if listened to in the filtered form of the Interludes, becomes plain obvious.

The last concert in this Strauss trilogy—from March 11^th to March 15^th—added Pfitzner and Henze to the mix, making it an example of inspired programming, an ideal night for the bleeding heart romantic, and a feast for Strauss lovers thanks to Diana Damrau. At the center of the evening were 16 of orchestral songs, eight on either side of intermission. Reaching toward Strauss’ musical language from either side of the 20^th century romanticism were two three-partite orchestral suites (one culled from an opera, the other from an orchestral cantata) by Hans Werner Henze and Hans Pfitzner. The suite from the Bassarids by the former to open the evening, the Eichendorff Cantata Suite of the latter to cap it.

Henze’s red-blooded 1960s Bassarids, of which the Philharmonic gave the first Munich (concert) performance and part of the Bavarian State Opera’s 2008 season, might be based on 12 tone rows, but it cannot deny its romantic core, its luxuriant nature, its (appropriately) Bacchanalian outbursts of emotion. Thielemann even sees the Suite, taken from the third act climax of the opera and put together upon request from Christoph von Dohnányi, in the direct lineage of Pfitzner. It stretches conservative ears without overburdening them and readies them to hear the Eichendorff Cantata Suite which contains some of Pfitzner’s most daring harmonic episodes. The quasi symphonic Suite contains some truly great music (some of which was plagiarized by the Lord of the Rings soundtrack); a cello cantilena, a brass chorale, and the longest flute solo of any orchestral piece are particular highlights. Even the Philharmonic’s string section pulled together to make for a memorable reading—important since for the aching beauty to come through, Pfitzner must be played with absolute precision.

Diana Damrau, in a cobalt blue dress with a harlequinesque breastplate, is a bundle of unbridled energy with a good touch of childlike joy in what she does, whose dramatic talent befits these songs almost as much as it odes her operatic characters. She’s a vocal phenomenon who can sing above (not ‘through’) a full orchestra with ease, yet not devoid of insecurities. Some of the Strauss songs—”Amor”, “Ständchen”, “Wiegenlied”, “Allerseelen”, and “Cäcilie” among them, all very different from the Hölderlin songs Mattila sang—Strauss could well have written for her. Unfortunately there are too many seats in the Philharmonic Hall where some of her subtleties won’t have been noticeable… then again, if she had made herself fully audible for everyone on that acoustic, there wouldn’t have been any subtleties left. If Virgin will release a disc with these orchestral and orchestrated songs of Strauss (as planned), I know it will be high up on my want-list.

The Third—chronologically the first—concert in this Strauss series was a concert performance of Der Rosenkavalier. With three of the best singers in the female roles that can be had—Renée Fleming as the Feldmarschallin, Sophie Koch as Octavian, and Diana Damrau as Sophie—and Christian Thielemann conducting, this was a Strauss lover’s ‘quadfecta’. Koch and Damrau, which I heard in these roles two years ago, also in Munich, are simply stunning. Koch, even in a concert performance, can act the most convincing Octavian I have seen, and her voice—not per se the prettiest instrument—fits perfectly. Diana Damrau eats up any Strauss role she is given, a dramatic and vocal dream boat. Fleming, once she starts getting involved in the role, rather than projecting herself, is marvelous and has acquired just the seductive matronly touch—quite like Adrianne Pieczonka—that makes her Feldmarschallin so believable.

The great advantage of a concert performance is that the orchestral part is heard in all its detail—some of which usually gets stuck in the pit. The Munich Philharmonic showed again what great potential they have as an opera orchestra. Thielemann, who supports his singers without being particularly easy on them, got splendid details from the score. The crude sexual brass that backs Ochs (Franz Hawlata, in creaky voice but more than making up for it with his acting) called to mind most vividly the trombones used to similar effect by Shostakovich in Lady Macbeth. Telling of the quality of the cast (assuming one didn’t mind Hawlata) was that Ramón Vargas’ Italian singer was among the weaker links in the chain. In the DVD recording of this performance form Baden-Baden (staged—to be issued by Unitel later this year), Jonas Kaufmann takes that part, undoubtedly adding a little extra glamour.