SYMPHONY CONCERT. 7 November, 2024. At The Cape Town City Hall. Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) conducted by Bernhard Gueller, soloist Maja Bogdanovic; Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op 33; Bruckner: Symphony No 4 in E flat, WAB104 (“Romantic”).
The Tchaikovsky “Variations on a Rococo Theme for Violoncello and Orchestra” dates from the Winter of 1876, when the composer was still attached to the Moscow Conservatoire. Unlike his later “Mozartiana” orchestral suites – which employ actual themes composed by Mozart – the subject of these variations was Tchaikovsky’s own invention, the “Rococo” appellation referring to its character rather than its provenance.
The variation form notwithstanding, the piece can claim status as a virtuoso Concert Piece, at least as demanding in technical and emotional requirements as many celebrated cello concertos. Indeed, only the first variation really employs mere alteration of the theme itself; thereafter, the treatment of the theme become ever more fragmentary or derivative, with the succeeding episodes increasingly resembling characteristic confections, not unlike the characteristic dances encountered in several of the composer’s ballet scores.
The departure from anything remotely resembling actual Rococo writing is enhanced by assigning the soloist increasingly demanding writing which mirrors the then contemporary advances in bravura playing coupled with a ripe Romanticism.
This reading commenced with a neatly diffident introduction, marked by the first of what were to be the evening’s many horn solos. It was followed by a suitably semplice account of the subject, with neat delineation of slurred or delicately delivered staccato notes; and was immediately succeeded by a cleanly delivered first variation, featuring the triplet version of the same material.
Gorgeous singing tone
Bogdanovic gave the second variation with its echoing orchestral phrases a somewhat more attacca character. The soaring demisemiquaver scale passages affording the soloist an opportunity to hint at as-yet undisclosed technical wizardry. The sustained lyricism of the third variation afforded Bogdanovic opportunity to display a serene melodic line, created by finely judged bowing, against the faintly suggested deux temps writing of the orchestral accompaniment. It also displayed the gorgeous singing tone of her not identified cello, nicely matched by fine flute and oboe solos.
The fifth variation afforded plenty of opportunity to display an assured technique in the consistent allegro passage work and the substantial cadenza that ends the variation, before the playful – almost nursery – writing of the 6th variation afforded some respite. There followed the quasi-martial writing of the final variation with its annexed coda, affording a final opportunity for conductor and soloist to demonstrate very crisp ensemble in what became and increasingly exhilarating performance. The ovation accorded Bogdanovic (and which certainly included Gueller and the orchestra) was well merited.
Fourth Symphony – “The Romantic”
After interval, we heard Bruckner’s great Fourth Symphony, titled by the composer “The Romantic”. Anton Bruckner was a contemporary and colleague of Brahms in the Vienna of the last three decades of the 19th century; but they could hardly have been more disparate in character and musical disposition.
The noted essayist Donald Tovey provides a compelling analysis of the very different musical roles they performed. He points out that the “Wagnerites” (the musical politicians who honoured Wagner) felt that their movement lacked a symphonist and found their desideratum in Bruckner, whose third symphony was dedicated to Wagner “and whose symphonies always began with Rheingold … and ended with Götterdämmerung climaxes.”
By way of contrast, Brahms was characterized as an aesthete Classicist, with no more ambition to emulate the larger scale of Wagner’s orchestration in his symphonies “than to be an agnostic pope or a breeder of St. Bernard dachshunds.”
Whilst, in his symphonic architecture, Bruckner might be seen to emulate Wagnerian economies of scale, there can be little doubt that the voice of his inner ear was that of the organ loft and his acoustic norm that of a resonant abbey, those being the formative elements of his early musical life.
And if Brahms’ symphonic musical lineage derived from Haydn via Beethoven, then Bruckner’s can surely be traced back to Schubert: not so much the Schubert of the ineffable lyricism and charming effect, but the late Schubert of the towering, “Great” 9th Symphony, as good an exemplar for the Bruckner symphonies as any other. It is perhaps not surprising that Bruckner revered Schubert – and even met him under quite extraordinary circumstances.
Exhumation of Schubert’s coffin
In his quite splendid study of Vienna in the year 1888, “A Nervous Splendour”, the author Frederic Morton recounts the events around the exhumation of Schubert’s coffin in the Währinger Cemetery and its translation to a far grander grave in Vienna’s new Central Cemetery, which had been made possible by the demolition of the old City walls and the construction of the Ringstrasse.
In September 1888, whilst Bruckner was working on another revision of his third “Wagner” symphony, he received a truly extraordinary invitation: to attend the exhumation of Schubert’s body at the Währinger Cemetery. So it was that, on 22 September at 3pm, appropriately garbed in funereal black jacket and top hat, Bruckner boarded the horse-drawn tram to the district cemetery where a number of musicians had joined the phalanx of doctors and anthropologists, all there to observe what they might.
At precisely 3.45pm the workers started digging and a crane then moved the coffin from its resting place to the nearby mortuary chapel, into which only a few officials – and Bruckner – were granted access. The coffin was opened and Anton Bruckner stood face to face with the mortal remains of Franz Schubert, then already 60 years dead.
Schubert’s skull was removed from the coffin and placed on a small table covered with black velvet. The skull was photographed four times and detailed notes taken of its condition. The anthropologists then ascertained the curvature and depths of the skull cavity (the fascination with phrenology having not yet been entirely discredited). At 5.30pm, when the officials wished to replace the skull in the coffin for its transfer to the new cemetery, Bruckner pushed forward and insisted on being allowed to touch “the head of the Master”. He held it tightly until the Mayor’s representative remonstrated with him; at which time Bruckner himself reluctantly but reverently reunited the skull with its skeleton, in the coffin.
So it was that Bruckner became the last person to touch Schubert.
It is quite difficult to fit Bruckner symphonies into a coherent chronology, since their original versions were frequently subsequently revised; and then, even after a final version had been signed off, further revisions were made at the printers by various Wagnerites anxious to infuse the score with the “correct” attributes – to all of which the humble composer gratefully acceded. So this fourth symphony, originally written in 1874, received multiple revisions (including an entirely new scherzo) before its first performance, conducted by Richter, in February 1881. It was an immediate success and subsequently revised several more times before eventual publication in 1889.
Live reading of a Bruckner symphony by Gueller
Although I have listened with considerable pleasure to at least one recording of a Bruckner Symphony by Gueller, and although there have certainly been performances of the 3rd,, 4th and 6th symphonies in the last two decades (the last of these given a wonderful reading by Reinhard Schwarz), I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of reviewing a live reading of a Bruckner symphony by Gueller until now.
Gueller had a musical apprenticeship with Sergiu Celibidache, one of the great Bruckner exponents of our times, who I was lucky enough to hear conduct this very work on tour with the Munich Philharmonic in Vienna’s Musikverein in the mid-80’s. One might accordingly expect him to display a certain affinity for this composer. Certainly, on the evidence of this reading, he does. And there were Celibidache hallmarks ascertainable in this reading too – not least, the wonderfully controlled crescendi that gave heightened dramatic and emotional impact to much of the writing.
The performance commenced with a suitably languid, almost mesmerizing reveal of the opening measures – with their shimmering strings and evocative horn solo. It was the composer who applied the appellation “Romantic” to the work: he even noted a short narrative for the work, involving a medieval city at dawn and knights riding out into the surrounding forests, etc. The textual account is not particularly helpful and one is better served receiving the imagery from the composer’s accomplished orchestration rather than from his somewhat simplistic prose.
Cerebral and emotional mastery
Gueller demonstrated both cerebral and emotional mastery in an account that was unashamedly Romantic – but perhaps more of a type depicted by a Caspar David Friedrich than a Wagnerian Meistersinger. This account was firmly rooted in the experience and transformation of an individual – in this case, the embarrassingly gauche country organist from Upper Austria, whose employment of instrumental and acoustic forces could transform his lowly self into a self-affirming hero of his own Epic narrative.
Gueller achieved this transformation by becoming as personally caught up in the recreation of these re-echoing sonorities as Bruckner himself might have been at an organ console in some vast Gothic space. There is a powerful internal emotional response to the creation of such sonority, which feeds off what has already been created and experienced to engender yet more of the same.
The orchestra responded with dedicated string attack, a wonderful wind presence and a whole-hearted brass contribution – including the marvellously insistent Schalltrichter auf conclusion to the first movement, the horns raising their bells to create a vividly enhanced, repetitive statement of the opening horn call, timpani providing a rolling pedal point.
The Andante was gorgeous. The opening series of chords gave rise to serene string sequences which built up into a rich string chorale before suddenly transforming into one of the loveliest viola melodies in all symphonic literature, paced by a delicate pizzicato accompaniment which was delivered with precision ensemble.
Then the Scherzo. I first became familiar with the opening of this single movement through a promotional cd put out by DGG in the earliest days of cds, called (as I recall it) “The Symphony”, and featuring snatches of individual movements of selected symphonies, from Haydn to Prokofiev. The opening section of this scherzo made the cut as the representative of its composer – and justly so, given its almost autobiographical representation of his acknowledged skill as an organ improvisator.
So, the movement’s commencement featured a rudimentary string accompaniment over which the horns executed a series of rising fanfares before resorting to antiphonal exchanges with the trumpets and eventually yielding to a trombone fanfare in a suitably surprising remote key. It was a wonderful account and took me right back to my youth, and to the excitement engendered by those very fanfares, in their disparate keys.
The languid Ländler of the trio was a naive delight, strings delivering a relaxed country dance of a type of Medievalism that might have been depicted by a Sullivan.We finished with a full-throated account of the finale – a curious movement in some ways, being certainly far slower than the immediately preceding scherzo and relying for its impression or sheer massiveness of effect, rather than rapidity. (This, too, speaks of organ practice, since the more stops are coupled to a playing manual (to attain volume), the heavier the tracker action of the keys becomes and the more difficult it is to play really quickly. In the result, full organ passages played on tracker organs tend to rely on mass rather than celerity for effect.
Gueller captured much of this effect in a reading that maintained tension despite its appropriately moderate pace – with some nicely prominent viola contribution again. Of course the transient delicacy of the string writing could not endure and winds and brass soon returned to build the movement to its inexorable and (some might say) long anticipated climax. It was a wonderful account of a splendid work.
What: CPO conducted by Bernhard Gueller, soloist Maja Bogdanovic
Reviewer: Deon Irish
WS
