Few cities can rival Vienna’s list of cultural and artistic luminaries. The thinkers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Carl Menger, Viktor Frankl, Friederich Hayek, and Sigmund Freud were all Viennese. So were the writers Stefan Zweig, Ignaz Castelli, and Arthur Schnitzler. And then, of course, there are Vienna’s composers: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, the Strausses (all three of them), Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, among others.
It was from this genius-studded metropolis that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra drew one of its recent programs: Johann Strauss’s Fledermaus overture, Brahms’s Double Concerto, and Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. Music Director Jader Bignamini, in his pre-concert remarks to the audience, announced the program as a “glittering” and “evocative” expression of Vienna’s musical vitality.
Pre-concert remarks are an odd thing. I have heard Maestro Bignamini (and other conductors) give such remarks before, and the audience never fails to respond with warmth and interest. Yet there is a part of me—the larger part, I think—that would prefer to do without them. Let the music do the talking, as they say.
Once underway, the program began with Strauss’s Fledermaus overture. As Bignamini promised, the music glittered and waltzed through the themes of the opera as if through rooms in a luxurious palace. I thought of Zweig’s description of the cultural sentiment in Austria before the First World War: its denizens “honestly thought that divergences between nations and religious faiths would gradually flow into a sense of common humanity, so that peace and security, the greatest of goods, would come to all mankind.” Glittering, yes, but ultimately naive.
Then came the Brahms Double Concerto, with Detroit’s concertmaster, Robyn Bollinger, and its principal cellist, Wei Yu, as soloists. Multi-soloist concertos were common throughout the Baroque and Classical periods, whereas few that were composed after Brahms’s effort are widely known. Perhaps one explanation for the form’s drifting out of style could be the sheer brilliance of this piece, which was written at the peak of Brahms’s powers in 1887 and incorporates all the subtlety and richness of his mature expression.
Balance is one of the primary concerns in a double concerto, and it is of particular concern when the soloists are playing instruments that differ in size, depth, and projection. Bollinger and Yu matched each other well in the second movement, weaving together the songlike lines with tenderness and poise. And they were at their best in the lighter passages of the third movement, which seemed tailor-made for their lively, athletic approach. They stretched the tempo in a few unconventional places, but I found myself pleasantly surprised—not distracted—by these digressions.
The heavier passages of the first movement, however, were less even. Yu, who possesses a thick, powerful sound reminiscent of Rostropovich, carried the cello line through those passages with appropriate Brahmsian richness. But the violin often seemed submerged under the orchestra, particularly when the ensemble surged into the louder dynamic ranges. To be sure, the violin is a smaller and lighter instrument than the cello, and an orchestra with a wide dynamic range is a wonderful thing. Still, the opening movement could have benefited from a more balanced presentation of the solo voices.
The orchestra returned after the intermission to perform Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, called “Pastorale” or, in Beethoven’s words, “Recollections of Country Life.” That moniker is, by Beethovenian standards, an anomaly. One does not often see such specific descriptors in Beethoven’s music; most of the time, he is a pure abstractionist. Yet the Sixth seems to have tugged at the more programmatic side of the great composer’s genius. Thus we see in the score specific notations like “cheerful impressions upon arriving in the countryside” and “scene by a brook,” or the designation of certain instruments as representative of various birds (flute as nightingale, oboe as quail, and so on).
I prefer a relaxed, unhurried “Pastorale,” and I was pleased to hear that Bignamini felt the same way. The opening movement was expansive and cheerful, light to the touch and perfectly paced. The Detroit strings deserve particular commendation here. Beethoven’s repeated motivic gestures can sometimes veer into monotony, but the strings, which carry most of the melodic material early on, maintained the momentum by calling attention to subtle variations in the score. The same was true in the dancelike third movement, which alternated between the rollicking and the simple, the robust and the contained. I could have used a bit more punch in the famous “thunderstorm” of the fourth movement, a bit more spine-shivering power, a bit less control. But that is a minor quibble, and certainly not one that detracted from the overall quality of the performance. This was one of the best renditions of Beethoven’s Sixth I’ve had the pleasure of hearing, and it was a reminder that the Detroit Symphony, for all its tribulations over the years, is a serious orchestra, a major ensemble in a major city that deserves to be considered alongside the best orchestras in the nation.
I will admit that a part of me entered the concert hall wary of the “Pastorale” performance given its familiarity, its size, and its deceptively challenging nuances. Such works can sometimes seem bland, so cemented are they in our collective musical consciousness. But Bignamini and the Detroit players presented a lovely and tasteful rendition, breathing new life into the great master’s hymn to nature. As I left the hall, I heard a patron remark: “Well, that was just plain lovely.” Indeed it was.
