Music review: Brahms: The Symphonies
Conductor Mark Wigglesworth achieves an utterly compelling feat: leading the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra through all four Brahms symphonies from memory alone.
Mark Wigglesworth’s incoming gesture as the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s new chief conductor is a bold one: by taking on the four symphonies of Brahms, he has chosen one of the great summits of the repertoire. And the surprise is that he’s doing it all from memory.
It is a rare sight indeed to see a conductor direct an entire symphony without the score, and to do so in all four of these mighty works is itself an major feat. Yet this is the challenge Wigglesworth has set himself at least so far in this Brahms Symphony series.
The British conductor’s confidence in his own ability turns out to be well founded: this series can already be declared one of the finest things the ASO has done. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 were utterly compelling and brilliantly performed.
Wigglesworth has appeared many times before with our orchestra, latterly in the role of principal guest conductor, so we already know a bit about him. His performances are always well thought out and meticulously prepared.
His Brahms is uncontrived and exceptionally true to the spirit of this music. There is nothing controversial about his interpretations: he maintains a general smoothness of outline with no jolts or surprises, and externals such as tempo selection and overall shape are all fairly standard. That’s all good news — one does not want to tamper with Brahms, and his classical foundations don’t allow it.
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What rises up so magnificently in these performances is their fidelity to character. They are utterly right as to the music’s internalised drama and expressive core. Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op.68 was deeply involving besides being very highly finished. Energy felt contained, not eruptive as it can be, in the introduction’s escalating violin theme and pounding timpani. The inexorable gathering of strength of this opening movement was the mightier for it.
What a magnificent first symphony this is, perhaps the best first symphony ever written; and it came about because neither conductor nor orchestra were overawed by this music but instead able to penetrate its very fibre. Bravo. The strings were articulate and just the right weight of tone, allowing full room for the winds, horns and brass to make their contributions.
A pizzicato accelerando in the last movement is one of the symphony’s biggest tests for timing, and the players pulled this off just beautifully. So many details like this were spotless. Tuning and ensemble all came together in wonderful sweep, no doubt stemming from Wigglesworth’s decision to conduct entirely from memory. Lifting this music out of its notation is so interesting: it allows more continuous flow and yields a more potent end result.
With its interior turbulence and subtle gradations of mood, Symphony No. 2 in D, Op.73, moves further towards Brahms’s own personal (un-Beethovenian) symphonic language. This performance was truly divine to witness and even more special. It revealed this work to be, in effect, a four-part symphonic poem. There is so much to get right in it, and generally less is more. Absolutely in the know, Wigglesworth captured all the ineffable spirit of this music.
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Again under his direction, the ASO looked scrupulously prepared yet sounded simultaneously liberated. Every musician’s keenness was palpable, and their energies in this symphony’s finale combined in a blazing triumph.
Stephen Hough is as much of a drawcard as Wigglesworth and the orchestra. Soloist in Rachmaninov’s piano concertos two years ago, this UK pianist is again gracing the stage in this Brahms series – but oddly not in any Brahms. The latter’s two piano concertos, which Hough handsomely committed to disc in 2013 with Wigglesworth and the Salzburger Festspielhaus (on Hyperion), will have to wait for another occasion.
For now, it was Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Hough was resolute and commanding in the former’s Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37. Vivaciously spirited and unerring in his judgement of line, weight and timing, this was an altogether persuasive performance. He clearly knows this concerto like the back of his hand, and the whole structure and purpose of this music felt invigoratingly alive.
The surprise was to find Hough effectively driving this performance, not by treading on the conductor’s toes but by his sheer inspiration at the keyboard — as one feels Beethoven meant it to be. There were other smaller surprises along the way, too: an interesting smearing of harmony to suspend the tension as the orchestra re-joins the soloist following the cadenza, and then at the beginning of the second movement when prolonged pedalling in the piano part conjures an aura of mystery.
Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op.25, is an uncharacteristic work for him in its frenzied action, and Hough made no attempt to disguise this. Rather, he turned the pace right up and let fly like the wind. It sounded like what it truly is: history’s first concerto to truly dazzle. Being the complete master, Hough accomplished an astonishing turnabout in the second movement, slowing things right down to impart a magical lift to melody.
So this series is not all about Brahms and his symphonies. Haydn’s Symphony No.1 in D is another wonderful debut effort and has a delicious crescendo at the start (Mannheim ‘steamroller’ style). Neat and tidily performed, this was a gem. So too, albeit in a far expanded way, was the Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner’s Lohengrin. Ethereal and gossamer-like, it seemed to transcend all feeling of time in a wonderful performance from Wigglesworth and the ASO.
And Hough’s own concerto, ‘The world of yesterday’, is yet to come. There’s plenty else to look forward to, and Brahms lovers really ought to beat a path to these concerts.
Brahms: The Symphonies continues on May 28 and 31 at the Adelaide Town Hall. The first two concerts, reviewed here, took place on May 21 and 24