Bamberger Symphoniker, Bruckner, Mahler, Hans Rott
Usher Hall, 6/8/24
Bamberger Symphoniker, Jakub Hrůša, Conductor, Catriona Morison, Mezzo-Soprano
This first concert of the short residency of the Bamberger Symphoniker in the Usher Hall was one of the finest in all my 50 years of going to the Edinburgh Festival, and it was a tragedy that the hall was less than half full. A spontaneous standing ovation at the end is such a rarity here in Edinburgh that questions must be asked about marketing. I will address the matter in a separate Blog elsewhere on the Edinburgh Music Review.
The orchestra came into existence in 1946, after WWII, when the members of the old German Philharmonic in Prague were exiled from the new Czechoslovakia. They had been a German-speaking orchestra and were no longer welcome after the ravages of the Nazis. They relocated to the small Bavarian town of Bamberg where they thrived through hard work, and subsidy from town and state government. Bamberg is a city similar in size to Paisley or East Kilbride. Imagine a fully funded professional symphony orchestra, on tour for many weeks in the year, in Scotland!
The orchestra appointed the Brno conductor, Jakub Hrůša, as Chief Conductor in 2016, and he has done much to further raise the reputation of this excellent orchestra. His star is very much on the up, as he is now Music Director Designate of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, succeeding Sir Antonio Pappano.
The cleverly constructed programme started with a little known work by Bruckner, his Symphonic Prelude, and the wonderful ‘Songs of a Wayfarer’ by Mahler, followed by a performance of Hans Rott’s First Symphony. Bruckner was Rott’s teacher and Mahler was a contemporary of his at the Vienna Conservatory.
The Symphonic Prelude was discovered just after WWII in the estate of Rudolf Krzyzanowski, a pupil of Bruckner’s, who in 1877, along with Mahler, prepared the piano transcription of the master’s Third Symphony. In the years since this discovery, there has been much controversy over the authenticity of the work. Is it by Bruckner, Mahler, Krzyzanowski? No one knows, but what is clear is that it is a terrific piece, and the Bambergers played it brilliantly.
Next we heard the short song cycle, ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’, which Mahler wrote in 1884/85 in the wake of his unhappy affair with Johanna Richter. His own words, based on the folk poetry of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the source for much of Mahler’s early work, were originally set for voice and piano, and only orchestrated later in 1896.
These songs are sad and beautiful, and a perfect vehicle for Edinburgh’s superstar mezzo, Catriona Morison. I have heard Ms Morison a couple of times over the last year, each time bowled over by her poised and eloquent singing. Here she demonstrated all the qualities which make her such a sought-after artist, with wonderfully controlled soft legato singing contrasted with full throated power when needed, in the third song. In Catriona Morison, and Beth Taylor from Glasgow, Scotland has produced two of the best current mezzos in the world, and I just wish more people could have been here to experience Ms Morison’s singing. She was superbly accompanied by Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberger Symphoniker.
After the interval, we heard the extraordinary First Symphony by the Austrian composer, Hans Rott. He wrote the first movement in 1878, aged 20, as an entry for the Vienna Conservatory composition competition, and finished the symphony over the next two years. It was rejected and mocked, and within four years he was dead, interned in an asylum for lunatics, where he contracted pneumonia and died at the age of 26.
The symphony was only discovered in 1989, by the musicologist Paul Banks, and is amazing. As a first symphony, it must rank as one of the most astonishing debuts of all time. Mahler’s first, written at the age of 27, is perhaps the more revolutionary, but Rott’s work is similarly innovatory, incorporating elements of Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler and Brahms. There is a majestic first movement, a deeply expressive Adagio, a boisterous and thrilling Scherzo, almost catching this critic out on the verge of applause, and a huge, perhaps overlong but nonetheless dramatic finale, with several climaxes suggesting a big bang conclusion but actually ending with a serene Wagnerian sweetness.
Hrůša and the Bambergers played the symphony as if their lives depended on it, with superb solos from the leader, Bart Vandenbogaerde, Principal Horn, Christoph Ess, Flute, Ulrich Biersack and a special mention for the player of the most prominent triangle I have ever heard in a symphony, Jens Herz!
This was a simply phenomenal concert, deserving a much bigger audience, and although the cheers and standing ovation will have thrilled the orchestra, the Festival needs to look seriously at its marketing. I will go into this more on the Blog, but why was Catriona Morison, and her Mahler songs, almost entirely absent from the publicity. Surely, some advance knowledge of Edinburgh’s finest singer performing some famous Mahler would have brought in the crowds?
Nonetheless, it augurs well for the rest of the Bambergers’ Residency.
Photo credit: Andrew Perry
