Throughout my conversation with Manfred Honeck in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago, there was one institution which seemed to loom over eveything we discussed: the Vienna Philharmonic, where Honeck spent a decade as a violist and which he has used as his role model to reshape and refine the Pittsburgh Symphony over the past 18 years. Manfred still maintains close ties with Vienna: this summer, he brings the PSO back to the Salzburg Festival, where the Vienna Phil has been the resident orchestra since 1922; while there, he’ll conduct the VPO in six performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.
“My brother (VPO concertmaster Rainer Honeck) will be playing when I conduct Ariadne,” Honeck told me. “But, it will be his last year, because we have these retirement rules.” (Unlike American orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic has a strict age limit of 65.)
When I mentioned that Vienna would be coming to Carnegie Hall for their annual visit this past weekend, Manfred smiled, reminiscing about what it was like to perform with them at Carnegie over the course of a decade. (He played Bruckner’s 8th with Karajan during his final appearance there in 1989.) I almost got the sense he’d be willing to jump back in if asked.
Like many others, I consider Vienna to be one of the best orchestras in the world, not just for their incredible technique and lustrous timbre, but because of their tradition as the living, breathing archetype for orchestral music as we know it. Even if they’re best known these days for Strauss waltzes on New Year’s, this is the orchestra that premiered the symphonies of Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and many others now part of the core repertoire. At the same time, they are never content to rest on their history, bringing their “A” game to each and every performance at home and abroad.
This year’s Carnegie concerts were led by Andris Nelsons, who’s been guest conducting Vienna since 2010; the VPO famously has no chief conductor. In a video on Vienna’s website, Nelsons speaks in glowing terms about the orchestra’s independence and his relationship with them.
“When we rehearse and perform, the task is to be on one team. I can encourage, I can inspire, I can give energy, give ideas. But I also take ideas from them.”
I wasn’t at Friday’s opening concert, but managed to hear it on WQXR, where the broadcast is now available to stream (see above). While Lang Lang’s performance of Bartòk’s 3rd piano concerto was impressive in its restraint – unusual for this notoriously showy pianist – Mahler’s 1st was simply epic, played with the supreme confidence and thrilling intensity you’d expect from the orchestra Mahler himself once led.
Saturday night’s concert was mostly lighter fare, starting with the sole contemporary work on the weekend: György Kurtág’s Petite musique solennelle (2015), a tribute to his friend Pierre Boulez on his 90th birthday. It was also Vienna’s oblique tribute to Kurtág, who turned 100 on February 19. Unfortunately, this had all the earmarks of the dreaded “bitter pill”: short modern work shoved in before getting to the stuff everyone’s paid (a lot!) to hear. Still, the solemn music – with sonorous brass, haunting chimes and piercing strings – was a worthwhile listen, even if it didn’t generate much applause.
Mozart wrote his “Linz” symphony (No. 36) in four days, which tells you everything you need to know about its complexity and depth. Which is not to say it wasn’t enjoyable: with its fleet strings and gentle woodwinds, it was a perfect Viennese bonbon.
Following intermission, Dvořák’s 6th offered a bit more meat, with its familiar Slavic-sounding Scherzo (actually based on a Czech folk dance) and rousing, brass-driven finale. Still, this was a far cry from the bold achievements still to come with the 8th and especially the “New World” symphony. The best thing on Saturday’s program might have been the encore: Josef Strauss’ “A Life of Love and Pleasure” waltz, which sent the crowd home smiling as if it were a piece of Sacher-torte.
Everyone has their bucket list items: seeing the Taj Mahal, climbing Mt. Everest, running the NYC marathon. I haven’t done any of those things, but I can now say I’ve heard the Vienna Philharmonic play Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, with which they opened their concert on Sunday afternoon. (For anyone who’s seen Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, that’s Vienna you hear during the opening credits.) Strauss’ tone poem, inspired by the Nietzsche novel, is in a category of its own: primal, grand, ferocious, enigmatic. Unfolding over half-an-hour, I’ll never forget the shocking power of the Sunrise theme, or it’s even more explosive recapitulation halfway through. Concertmaster Volkhard Steude played the extended violin solo with gliding effortlessness, and after the final plaintive flutes faded away, one needed no further example of why this orchestra remains one of the great wonders of the world.
After intermission, Vienna played a no less impressive Sibelius 2: hypnotic and dramatic, straddling the fault line between romantic and modern. The coda was extraordinary, building gradually to its majestic climax with clarion brass and singing strings, punctuated by Thomas Lechner’s pounding timpani. Nelsons conducted it all with tremendous gravitas and old-world nobility.
And then, there was more Strauss (this time, Johann Jr.): the “Enjoy Life” waltz, written for the opening of the Musikverein in 1870. With its dark, ominous beginning, it was a reminder of Strauss’ often-overlooked depth as a composer.
Reading some of the nitpicky reviews of this past weekend’s concerts, I couldn’t help but think of Richard Strauss’ musical response to his critics (aka “The Hero’s Adversaries“). (Hint: it’s not complimentary.) Whatever perverse pleasure these writers get from finding fault in minute details of Vienna’s playing, they miss the big picture of just how astonishing they sound. I’d trade a few flubs for playing at full tilt any day.
Does that make me a shameless apologist for the Vienna Philharmonic? Jeez, I hope so.
The Vienna Phil continues its US tour tonight in D.C., followed by a week of concerts in southern Florida. Not a bad place for a work trip away from wintry Austria.
More pics on Instagram.