On Friday evening WQXR, New York City's classical music station, broadcast a live concert from Carnegie Hall that featured the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, led by Daniel Harding, a conductor better known in Europe than America who has been rumored as a possible replacement for Daniele Gatti, the orchestra's former chief conductor who was abruptly fired last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
The program opened with the New York premiere of a short work by Guillaume Connesson entitled Eiréné after the Greek goddess of peace. The single movement work, roughly ten minutes in length, consisted of three themes that the composer, quoted in the program notes, described as follows:
"The first is sinuous and caressing, with ambiguous chromaticism. The second theme—a joyful, spring-like call motif in the Indian Shri mode—symbolizes the awakening of nature, and its dotted rhythm is full of naive joy. The third theme is of a vocal nature, a hymn to newfound peace that still carries past sufferings."
Eiréné, a 2018 commission from the Royal Concertgebouw, began with bell sounds reminiscent of Arvo Pärt's tintinnabular style before mixing uneasily with a neo-romantic string section and then ending with a film score finale.
A quarter centuy ago, one could not go through a season without hearing at least two performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 (1809-1811). With its rousing martial music, the concerto made a fitting end to the composer's middle "heroic" period and was long considered one of his greatest works. In the past several years, however, this same piece, perhaps because it has become overfamiliar, has not been played nearly as often. I have only heard it a handful of times in the past few seasons. Another reason for its absence in concert halls, however, may be that its grand heroic sound is no longer a good fit for the anxious times in which we now live.
In many ways the concerto is a throwback to Beethoven's early "classical" period when he was still heavily under the influence of Mozart and Haydn. Like the Symphony No. 8, written only a year later, the concerto adheres closely to the classical formula. It is in the traditional three fast-slow-fast movements and ends with a rondo. One is tempted to think that Beethoven, about to enter his late period, wanted to revisit the forms he had employed in his youth in order to demonstrate how much better he could handle them at the height of his powers. The fact that the work was written for Beethoven's most important patron, Archduke Rudolf, who played it at its private premiere, may at least partially account for its martial air.
The soloist at Wednesday's performance was Pierre-Laurent Aimard. His playing was very crisp with each note clearly articulated. Pianist and orchestra worked extremely well together and managed to create between them an original and striking rendition of a timeless classic. For an encore Mr. Aimard performed the scherzo from Strauss's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 5.
After intermission the program ended with a performance of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (1898). I have to admit that I have never cared for the majority of Strauss's tone poems, least of all the present work. To my mind, the best one word description for it would be "vainglorious." It's significant that it was composed only a year after the death of Brahms when Strauss suddenly found himself by default the most prominent composer in Europe. He must have felt then, at only age 34, that he had finally arrived and that his place in musical history was secure. No wonder then that the piece is so self-referential. According to Wikipedia, "the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works..." If there were any remaining doubt as to the identity of the unnamed hero, a remark quoted in the Carnegie Hall's program notes should be sufficient to dispell it:
The soloist at Wednesday's performance was Pierre-Laurent Aimard. His playing was very crisp with each note clearly articulated. Pianist and orchestra worked extremely well together and managed to create between them an original and striking rendition of a timeless classic. For an encore Mr. Aimard performed the scherzo from Strauss's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 5.
After intermission the program ended with a performance of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (1898). I have to admit that I have never cared for the majority of Strauss's tone poems, least of all the present work. To my mind, the best one word description for it would be "vainglorious." It's significant that it was composed only a year after the death of Brahms when Strauss suddenly found himself by default the most prominent composer in Europe. He must have felt then, at only age 34, that he had finally arrived and that his place in musical history was secure. No wonder then that the piece is so self-referential. According to Wikipedia, "the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works..." If there were any remaining doubt as to the identity of the unnamed hero, a remark quoted in the Carnegie Hall's program notes should be sufficient to dispell it:
"I don’t see why I shouldn’t compose a symphony about myself,” he [Strauss] told Romain Rolland (after issuing initial disclaimers); “I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander."
At the same time, Strauss's unbounded egotism was merely a reflection of the complacency within his own country. Germany, finally united by Bismarck, was at the turn of the twentieth century the economic and cultural powerhouse of Europe. It was filled with dreams of conquest and empire as it rushed headlong toward the cataclysm waiting to engulf it. It's noteworthy that Strauss never again composed a tone poem following the end of World War I. After 1918 neither Strauss nor Germany would ever again be the same.
The Royal Concertgebouw is a world class orchestra that benefited Wednesday evening from excellent conducting. Before this concert I had never even heard Mr. Harding's name, but based on the orchestra's performance I think he well deserves the position of chief conductor.
The archived performance is currently available for listening on WQXR's website.
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