BBCSSO: Schumann’s ‘Spring’ Symphony
City Halls, Glasgow - 29/09/22
The second concert of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2022/23 season on 29th September was billed as “Elegant, Poised, Energising Schumann”, and that composer’s First Symphony is indeed all of those things, and a worthy headline work comprising the second half of the concert. Headline, but not necessarily highlight. The other two works, Zemlinsky’s ‘Sinfonietta’ of 1935 and Richard Strauss’ Oboe Concerto of 1946, with soloist Cristina Gómez Godoy, contributed no less to a “basket of goodies”, a noted trend in post-pandemic programming, attracting audiences that are gradually returning but still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. If the programming was informed by a unifying theme, that theme might be itself “thematic unity” – all three works, to a greater or lesser extent, permit the same musical ideas to recur in the otherwise different movements. The performance was conducted by guest conductor (and composer) Matthias Pintscher.
The City Halls had thankfully shed the “mood lighting” of the previous week and, equally thankfully, the house lights were no longer so severely dimmed, so it was possible to read the programme and for this reviewer to make legible notes. It would also appear that the new home of our 6 wonderful double bassists, ranged high up at the back of the stage facing forward, is a permanent arrangement. Delightful. The concert was broadcast live in Radio 3 (so I expect it will be accessible on BBC Sounds for a while).
Zemlinsky’s 3-movement ‘Sinfonietta’ is in his late style: lean on romanticism, but big on tonal colour, exploration of sonority and the tension between lucidity and complexity. It is very redolent of the style of film music that accompanied psychological dramas of the 1930s and, perhaps ironically, the tonal world of Korngold, who had been Zemlinsky’s pupil and whose own Sinfonietta is a youthful work utterly steeped in late Romanticism. The first movement, brisk, characterful and multi-faceted, with episodes of tormented dreamscape and quirky waltz standing out for me, received some great playing, with fine solos for trumpet, violin and flute. The slow movement, very much the heart of the piece, had a somewhat elegiac flavour, with some equally fine passages for muted trumpet over double basses, and trudging trombones with timpani; harps adding to the dreamlike quality. After a climax, strings in eerie harmony drew the movement to a close with a slightly soured cadence, sealing the comparison with Korngold. The finale, a playful scampering dance with episodes that I would term “troll stomp”, “singing strings” and “final romp”, seemed to blow away the earlier nightmares and gallop to a big finish. Matthias Pintscher got under the skin of this music and let the orchestra loose on it – they ran with it and it was excellent.
Richard Strauss’ Oboe Concerto had an interesting genesis. After the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, a US corporal, John de Lancie, was stationed in Garmisch in Germany, near the Austrian border. A program of de-Nazification was under way and nobody was above suspicion. In Civvy Street, de Lancie was the principal oboe of the Pittsburgh Orchestra, so was excited to find the composer of ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ living in Garmisch, in a very low mood, as evidenced by the air of dejection and despair that hangs over his ‘Metamorphosen’. An unlikely friendship developed between the two men. When de Lancie asked the composer if he would consider writing an oboe concerto, the composer said no, so that was that. Except it wasn’t because Strauss found himself returning to the idea. The oboe concerto is in sunny D major. We have a lot to thank de Lancie for, because I do not believe that the Four Last Songs could have been so permeated with a sense of abiding hope if the oboe concerto had not first driven a change of outlook.
Sunny indeed, but also lyrical and autumnal, the piece is in three movements played without a break. From a handful of musical ideas used imaginatively and eloquently, Strauss fashions a work that seems to distil the very essence of the instrument. Long rhapsodic flowing phrases demand supreme breath control and sensitive phrasing. With Cristina Gómez Godoy, all that and more is what the music received. Moments of chamber music abound in the writing, with brief duets between the oboe and, among others, solo viola and clarinet. The rhapsodic first movement is followed by a romance-like slow movement, leading, after a virtuoso cadenza, straight into a dance-like finale, full of mischief and playfulness as soloist and orchestra dance around each other. For me, the concerto was the shining highlight of the evening, receiving a performance that was as utterly delightful as it was virtuosic.
Not to say that there was anything deficient in the performance of Schumann’s fresh, confident, innovative First Symphony. I cannot recall a time in my life when I didn’t love all four of Schumann’s symphonies and my favourite at any one time is generally whichever of the four I’ve heard most recently. Schumann brings to bear every ounce of melodic inventiveness to fashion a work that is worthy of the legacy of Beethoven and Schubert (and there is something very Schubertian about the long phrases of the Larghetto). A scherzo with not one but two trios is a thrilling innovation, as is the idea of themes from the first movement reappearing later in the piece, a device that was to find fullest exposition in the Fourth Symphony. I do not subscribe to the view that Schumann’s orchestration is stodgy. He did not enjoy the luxury of the reliable professionalism of orchestral musicians that did not arise until later in the 19th Century. Matthias Pintscher had the measure of the structure and beauty of this work and the band with which to express it and express it they did. It was a very fine performance of a great symphony.
The next concert in the BBCSSO season will be in late October.