SYMPHONY CONCERT. Thursday, 7 April, 2022. At The Cape Town City Hall. CPO conducted by Bernhard Gueller, soloist Antonio Pompa-Baldi; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat Major, Op 73 (“Emperor”); Brahms: Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 73. DEON IRISH reviews.
This programme featured the intriguing coincidence of featuring works by two composers of the first water, both of which have attained an enduring status as prime examples of their respective genres, and which both bear the opus number 73.
The concerto in question is instantly recognizable from the particular spatial sonority of its rich E flat opening orchestral chord. Of course, the immediately succeeding arpeggiatic piano fantasy puts the matter beyond any question; but I venture to think that most reasonably astute concert goers would get it on the opening chord alone.
The symphony is equally immediately spotted from the octave semitone turn by the cellos and basses in the opening bar. Like the concerto, the immediately succeeding dreamy subject of a quartet of upper horns and bassoons also put the matter out of doubt.
But there, to all intents and purposes, the similarities end. Of course, formal structural elements – like sonata form – remain present; but these are treated significantly differently in what a disparate works in almost every musically significant way.
The Beethoven concerto enjoys the sobriquet of “Emperor”, an appellation whose origin is now lost in time. One supposes that the author of this nickname intended it as a tribute to the consummate musical artistry that the work evidences in almost every measure: just as the Habsburg Emperor was overlord to the many other kings and rulers in what was then still the Holy Roman Empire.
However, too many performers seem to seize on that title as an excuse for a display of grandeur, bravura and even pomposity.
Rare technique, assured musicality
Antonio Pompa-Baldi – whose several visits to the City Hall stage have not only endeared him to a local public but also cemented his reputation as a pianist of truly rare technique and assured musicality – fell into no such trap in a reading that was infused throughout with a gentler mien, characterized particularly in subtle gradations of tonal effect. In saying this, I do not refer to mere volume – although that is a part of it; but rather to alterations of touch and of attack which result in pianistic sounds of differing quality.
The opening fantasia, although assertive, was never brusque and the soaring arpeggios resolved into subtly lyrical conclusions. It was this resort to poetic solutions that characterized the interpretation and came fully to the fore in the leggiermente triplets of the minor mode second subject. But there was imperiousness, too: decidedly so in the pounding dotted rhythm chords and succeeding striding double octave quavers that mark the return to the recapitulation.
Sublimely crafted floating line
The slow movement, naturally, provided even more fertile ground for the soloist to enjoy the hall’s rich acoustic in developing a sublimely crafted floating line that drew one ever deeper into the sequences of searingly beautiful melodic phrases.
Gueller provided a serenely lush accompaniment with strings (the celli deserve a grateful nod) and the flute, clarinet and horn trio; but one must note that the oboe and horn combination was a good deal less successful, something that did not presage well for the looming Brahms symphony.
Things did get worse at the end of the movement, when the horns did not manage a successful navigation of the drop from B to the enharmonic B flat and one began to realize just what a bloodbath the symphony might yet prove to be.
First, however, we had a hugely successful account of the romping and rollicking rondo that concludes the “Emperor”. Not that it was all romp and rollick, for Pompa-Baldi infused several of the variations with a delicacy of approach that simply delighted. The Alberti bass accompanied variant showed initial delicacy before discovering sterner stuff in the arpeggio broken octaves and the beautifully conceived (and precisely accompanied) ritardando into the recurring rondo theme.
The best was saved for last: the final, almost regretful, chromatic scales, over a pulsing but failing timpani heartbeat … and then a seemingly resurrected outburst of whirling and giddying energy in the final frenetic bars. Wonderful!
I must record a great deal less enthusiasm for the performance of the symphony. Not, I might add, of Gueller’s reading of the score, which was as insightful as one would have expected from him. But rather because he was badly let down by players in execution.
This symphony is, I confess, a personal favourite. It was written at Pörtschach, a resort town on Lake Wörth in the Austrian province of Styria, to which Brahms repaired for his summer holiday in three successive years; with this symphony, the celebrated violin concerto and the G major violin sonata being the fruits of these annual sojourns.
The lake lies in the foothills of the Alps in idyllic countryside – despite the different vegetation being somewhat reminiscent of the lakes between Wilderness and Knysna – and for those who seek the source of inspiration for a composer’s works, this landscape provides much suggestion.
The inviting opening movement was marred by indifferent horn playing and questionable wind intonation. But it is, of course, the second movement that contains much sterner stuff and here things really did fall apart, with chromatic first horn solos that made one blanch.
The gracious orchestration of the allegretto did fare somewhat better (although the oboes parted intonational ways at one stage) and provided something of a respite.
One anticipated a disastrous finale, but – who knows why? – the horns suddenly found their bottle and attacked the coda, in particular, in fairly spectacular fashion. If only these ten or so bars could have been replicated earlier.
What: Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, soloist Antonio Pompa-Baldi
Conductor: Bernhard Gueller
When: 7 April, 2022
Where: Cape Town City Hall
WS
