Johannes Brahms did not start well at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In 1859, its First piano concert It was booed by the public, and in 1869 the critic destroyed the premiere of the final version of A German requiemwhich described as “halfway between the attractive and the repulsive, between simplicity and extravagance.” Everything changed four years later, when this funeral oratory, based on Bible verses translated into German by Luther, was scheduled three times and celebrated with enthusiasm. “I am horrified to know what evidence my friends from Leipzig are subjected when my requiem listened so frequently,” the composer was ironic in a letter.
Precisely in 1868 he could be heard for the first time at the Gewandhaus the Symphony no. 5, “Reform”by Felix Mendelssohn, after his posthumous publication. It was a youth rarity that the composer himself refused to direct during his years as Kapellmeister In Leipzig (1835-1847), and from which he came to write: “It is the composition that I would like to burn from all I have written.”
The musical fortnight has just closed its 86th edition evoking this venerable tradition of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The historic Sajona Orchestra, founded in 1781 in a ship in the Casa de los Dañeros – where it took its name – debuted at the Donostiarra Festival with two concerts that culminated on Friday, August 29, paying tribute to its legacy: a symphony of its most famous Kapellmeister and Brahms’s work released in Leipzig that consecrated him as a composer. Both scores, with Luther as a link, were incorporated into the repertoire of the Saxon Orchestra between 1868 and 1869 by the Gewandhaus chapel master Carl Reinecke. In San Sebastián they have been directed by the current head of that position, the Latvian Andris Nelsons (Riga, 46 years), as part of a tour that will continue this weekend at the Santander International Festival and next week at the Philharmonie in Paris.
Nelsons opened the Symphony “Reform” of Mendelssohn with an exquisite introduction. In just three minutes he condensed its interpretive identity signs: a compact sound, away from historicist, but transparent and bright fashions even in the utliest passages, together with an innate emotional depth. That quality allowed him to enhance the sequence of the Amen of Dresdethat Wagner would reuse in Parsifalas well as the beautiful slow movement inspired by an ARIA of his Cantata in tribute to Alberto Durero, where the spirituality of Nuremberg’s artist is reflected. The culminating moment came in the finalewith an admirable symphonic fantasy about the Lutheran coral A ‘firm castle is our god (“A powerful strength is our God”).
The best of the night came after the break with an exceptional interpretation of A German requiem of Brahms. Nelsons showed his Central European credentials again after a year in which he has directed with excellence the orchestral music of Dmitri Shostakóvich, without neglecting his constant link with Gustav Mahler. He presented an architectural, smooth and delicate brahms, with admirable woods sustained by an impressive severe rope. However, it was striking to see it sitting in front of the score, less physically active and more concentrated.
For the occasion he had the Orfeón Donostiarra, prepared by Esteban Urzelai as guest director, who will also act in Santander. The conjunction of the Basque Choir with the Saxon orchestra had its first flash in the second movement, with the climatic ascents to the funeral in the funeral march Because all meat is like grass (“Because all flesh is like grass”), based on a verse from Pedro’s first letter. But Donostiarra Orfeón shone especially in the final choir Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord (“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord”) where he showed an excellent sopranos rope with volume and density.
But it was the two interventions of Christian Gerhaher, next to the choir and the orchestra, in the third and fifth movements, which finished turning this Brahms into an unforgettable experience. En Lord, teach me that an end with me must have an end (“Lord, let me know that I will have an end”), the German baritone embodied, with impeccable voice and diction, the fearful man before death. It reached even greater intensity with its revelation of hope in resurrection, in Because we have no lasting one here (“Since we do not have a permanent abode”), which coincided with the most successful, dramatic intervention, of the Donostiarra choir, enhanced by the sound wrapping of the Saxon orchestra. For its part, the soprano Julia Kleiter starred, with an exquisite phrasing, the most beautiful moment of the work: the fifth movement, You now have sadness (“Now you are sad”), where he evokes the mother who comforts us through verses of the Gospel of John.
Everything culminated with twenty seconds of silence before the applause, especially aimed at the excellent performance of the Donostiarra Orfeón, also recognized by Gerhaher and Kleiter. That same silence was the starting point of the first concert of the Gewandhaus, on Thursday 28. With a thorough version in the dynamic details of the Singing in memory Benjamin Britten For bell and rope, by Arvo Pärt, Nelsons paid tribute to the Estonian composer, who will turn 90 years.
Next, the Concert for violin from Antonín Dvořák, with Isabelle Faust as luxurious replacement of Hilary Hahn. The German violinist, very aware of the score, cost him to settle in the first movement, although he enhanced the lyrical meditation of the second and led the imagination with the furiant of the third. As a tip, he showed his stylistic versatility when interpreting the third number of Fun for the violin alone, op. 18 (1762), of the French Louis-Gabriel William.
The highlights of the first concert of the Gewandhaus arrived in the second part with the Symphony no. 2 by Jean Sibelius. Nelsons directed with great gestural wealth an organically cohesive version of the work, with the pastoral mosaic of the first movement. The contrasts of the second sounded clear, such as evocation of a constant rebirth. The powerful Lipsian rope foured with disturbing energy very livelyand that intensity was channeled by Nelsons to build the famous finale Without fear of expressiveness. The triumphal Re major sounded more apotheosic than expected, although without losing the obsessive flashes of nostalgia that, according to the biographer of Sibelius, Erik Tawaststjerna, refer to the tragedy of their sister -in -law Elli Jarnefelt.
The final stretch of this edition of the musical fortnight included, on Wednesday, August 27, a concert by Thomas Adès (London, 54 years) at the head of the Orchestra of the National Opera of Paris. Beyond the tribute to the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel, the performance offered the rarity at the Donostiarra festival to see a composer directing his own music. Adès presented his Piano concert (2018) together with his recipient, Russian-American pianist Kirill Gerstein, as a soloist. The work reflects the ability of the British to travel from the twentieth to the twentieth century through a reinvention of the classic concert, with winks to Gershwin, Prokófiev and Nancarrow, but always true to their sound personality. In the Kursaal especially the beautiful and obsessive slow movement, in which Adès evokes from the present the Baroque Chacon.
The tribute to Ravel began with little shine in the neoclassical The tomb of Couperinbut everything changed in the second part with the most expressionist version of the Basque-French composer. Adès achieved in the Concert for the left hand An amazing fluidity, with dense and colorful textures impregnated with a large rhythmic drive, which Gerstein raised from the keyboard thanks to a combination of dazzling virtuosity, controlled power and expressive refinement. And the English composer culminated the evening with a masterful interpretation of The waltzwhere that fateful swirl has been heard so clearly that is seizing the work, with rhythmic and harmonic excesses, until a traumatic end.