Carnegie Hall: Bavarian Radio Symphony Performs Adams, Strauss and Berlioz

Yesterday evening, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra gave the first of three concerts at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Mariss Jansons who became its music director in 2003 and whose contract has been extended through 2018.  With the exception of the opening piece, the program centered on the late nineteenth century; it included works by John Adams, Strauss and Berlioz.

The concert began with Adams' Slonimsky's Earbox (1996), a tribute to the composer's friend, the Russian-American composer Nicolas Slonimsky who died in 1995 at age 101.  Slonimsky himself was quite an eccentric character.  He began his long career in music as assistant to Serge Koussevitzky in the early 1920's and ended it as a friend of Frank Zappa.  Along the way, he conducted in 1931 the premiere of Ives' Three Places in New England and wrote a number of influential books on music.  The work created in his honor by Adams takes Le chant du rossignol by Stravinsky as its source.  Wikipedia describes the piece succinctly as "a step toward integrating standard minimalist techniques with a more complex contrapuntal style."  It starts with a cacophonous opening that eventually subsides and makes way for the rhythmic pulsations associated with Adams' minimalist period before once again raising the volume for a forceful ending.  

The next work was Strauss' Don Juan, Op. 20 (1888), the first of the composer's famous tone poems.  According to Strauss, the work was based on an unfinished poem by Nikolaus Lenau, but it should also be remembered that Strauss had the year before conducted Mozart's Don Giovanni in Munich and must necessarily have obtained some ideas from that experience.  At any rate, Don Juan was the composer's first great international success and launched his career and fame.  From its grandiose opening through its lyrical romantic episodes, this short work is tightly constructed and displays throughout a confident mastery unusual for a composer still only in his twenties.  It is also filled with the self-indulgence that would characterize much of Strauss' early work.  As one listens, it is apparent that Strauss was his own greatest admirer.  In many ways the character of Don Juan is a projection of the composer's persona as he wished it to appear.  This youthful arrogance makes the work less enjoyable than would otherwise be the case and more difficult to appreciate.

After intermission, the program concluded with Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14 (1830).  Like Strauss' Don Juan, this symphony is also an example of program music.  Berlioz himself was quite explicit on this point:

"The composer’s intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following programme must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression."

The scenes which the music is intended to illustrate are the most melodramatic and lurid imaginable - including a March to the Scaffold and a Witches' Sabbath - a fact that no doubt is partly responsible for the work's continued popularity.  As a depiction of a self-destructive artist enraptured by a beautiful woman, the work is clearly intended as a self-portrait.  It is a representation of an opium dream and it is obvious that Berlioz, besotted at the time with with his love for the actress Harriet Smithson, was under the influence of some strong stimulant while composing it.  My own favorite comment on this is that of Leonard Bernstein as quoted in Wikipedia:

"Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature, and because history suggests Berlioz composed at least a portion of it under the influence of opium. According to Bernstein, 'Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral.'"

None of this, however, should distract from the power and innovation displayed in the music itself.  Whatever else may be said about it, Symphonie Fantastique is a truly revolutionary work.  Though Beethoven's symphonies had been written only a few years before, this is in a completely different vein.  It is safe to say nothing like it had ever been composed before, and it had enormous influence on a number of composers who followed.

I was very impressed by the performance of both orchestra and conductor at this concert.  The Bavarian Radio Symphony is a truly top notch organization and one of the best I've heard this season.  It gave a careful and exciting reading of each work performed.  I was shocked that there were so many empty seats for such an outstanding group performing such a popular program.  Though the audience actually present was highly enthusiastic, these highly talented musicians deserved much better.