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University Centre Auditorium
August 9, 2008
"Wagner is the Puccini of music!"
This impenetrable remark has since appeared in many variants (the targets including, inter alia, Copland and Verdi), but it would appear to have originated with J.B. Morton (alias "Beachcomber") - or, to be more precise, one of his comic creations. Captain Foulenough, perhaps, or more likely, Dr. Strabismus (Whom God Preserve) of Utrecht.
While you are pondering the remark's meaning - assuming it has one - allow me to tell you about Saturday night's opening concert of the Euphonia Festival, in which the music of Wagner (and not Puccini) played a significant rôle.
"Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the last, love shall, for once, find utter repletion. I have devised in my mind a Tristan und Isolde, the simplest, yet most full-blooded musical conception imaginable, and with the 'black flag' that waves at the end I shall cover myself over to die."
So wrote Wagner to Franz Liszt in 1854, although it would be another three years before he began work on the opera in earnest (putting aside Siegfried), five before it would be completed and a dozen before its first performance - attempts to produce the work in Vienna had led to its being considered unperformable.
What is clear is that the music requires a first-class Wagnerian soprano and heldentenor, a fine orchestra and a conductor who knows how to shape and mould.
The opening half of Saturday's concert consisted of almost an hour of Tristan: the opening Prelude, Act II Scene II and the Liebestod. Fortunately, all of the ingredients required for a thoroughly satisfying musical experience were in place and the time flew by.
The two principals - Turid Karlsen and John Charles Pierce - were both stunning, possessing two of the most powerful voices I have ever heard and the intelligence to use their instruments in the service of the music. In addition, although Wagner does not necessarily provide as many opportunities for quieter, more lyrical singing - he did love a good fortissimo - when the opportunities arose, both Karlsen and Pierce demonstrated some quite beautiful tone production.
Although the programme included the complete libretto, it must be admitted that much of the text is complete drivel and I was happy to give up any attempt to keep up with the plot (hardly the world's most complex in any case) and simply abandon myself to the glorious sounds.
While hardly the operatic world's most fulfilling rôle, Brangäne is a pivotal one and Ingrid Attrot, stepping in at the eleventh hour, sang with purity and clarity.
Simon Capet directed the whole flawlessly; the opening prelude gave us both a sense of his direction - slow, to be sure, but tightly controlled - and of the sound of the Euphonia Festival Orchestra, which was sublime, grounded in a marvellously firm bass line, with warm, rich string tone, excellently characterised winds and solemn, powerful brass.
The standing ovation which followed the final notes was thoroughly deserved by all concerned.
The second half of the evening comprised Brahms's Symphony No.1 - completed in 1876, but gestating for at least two decades.
For those who thought they knew this music well, Saturday's performance was a joy, even revelatory in parts - to some extent this was due to the orchestral layout, as I've discussed below, but to an equal, if not larger, extent, it was Capet's approach to the music and his fidelity to the score which reaped dividends.
The biggest surprise was in the symphony's famous introduction, taken at a terrific lick; far from the almost weary, grinding fatality we are used to, this was ominous and serious, to be true, but, in Capet's hands, it almost danced.
The succeeding allegro - it sounds "somewhat harsh, but I have quickly become accustomed to it", wrote Clara Schumann to Joseph Joachim in July 1864, a dozen years before the symphony firs saw the light of day - was taken at a smoothly flowing tempo, with a slight easing for the second subject and - thank you! - the exposition repeat present and correct.
The andante opened with some gorgeous strings and was well shaped; the intermezzo, which followed, was gently lilting. Both movements offered much rarely-heard detail.
The finale offers a number of challenges for the conductor and I have heard numerous "name" conductors fluff them more or less badly.
Capet clearly believes that the composer knew best and by following the score avoided the pitfalls, the biggest of which is the transition from the "big" theme to the main allegro, where a huge, unmarked accelerando is, alas, the norm. Capet joined my select band of conductors - the others are Sir John Barbirolli and George Corwin - who choose to eschew this. The music works all the better for it.
Indeed, it was Capet's unerring sense of pulse which steered the movement safely through dangerous waters to its triumphal - and very exciting - conclusion.
One highly unusual facet of Saturday's concert was the layout of the orchestra, which Capet has based on that used by the famous Meiningen Orchestra whose performances of Brahms under their conductor Fritz Steinbach in the late 19th century were particularly admired. (Steinbach, incidentally, succeeded Hans von Bülow in Meiningen; it was, of course, von Bülow's wife, Cosima - Liszt's daughter - with whom Wagner was having an affair in 1864, when Tristan was premiered.)
In this scheme the violins are placed on either side of the conductor, with the violas in between. Behind the violas were the winds, with the cellos behind them and the doublebasses behind them. The horns were off to the left at the rear and the timpani, trumpets and trombones to the right.
Quite why this layout eventually fell into disuse is beyond me: from talking to them I know that the musicians found it easier to hear each other, as did Capet. And for the audience, the difference was quite astonishing. The cello and bass phalanx at the rear provided that superbly weighty bass line, the upper strings' position made explicit the many antiphonal passages in which phrases are passed from first to second violins to violas - both the Wagner and Brahms for all their differences, are replete with such passages - and the winds and brass blended in without ever losing their own individual colours.
And what an orchestra Capet has assembled. This was orchestral playing as good as any I've heard in Victoria; the players not only sounded exceptional, they were clearly enjoying themselves and this evidently communicated itself to the audience.
A spectacular opening to a new venture. One can only regret that the Farquhar Auditorium was not packed to the rafters: it certainly should have been.
Perhaps for this afternoon's repeat? You still have time. Don't miss it - you'll be kicking yourself if you do.
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