Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra: Sunday Classics 2022
Usher Hall - 10/04/22
A disappointingly small audience turned up for this Sunday afternoon concert, although, like the BBCSSO a few weeks ago, it was a much more diverse audience than is normal for evening concerts, with a good number of younger people and families. This brought its own problems, in that most people were unaware of concert etiquette, and every song and every movement was applauded. Since there was no printed programme and no announcements, however, it was I suppose inevitable that, having established a habit of applause, there was no way for that to change. Still applause is better than booing and it meant that by the end of the final movement of the Mahler symphony, we were all able to give the performers a very rare Edinburgh standing ovation – ie a small number of people standing up and cheering. Audiences are an interesting phenomenon. As a performer, one gets to see a lot of them, and a motley band they are. For example, in the Netherlands if you don’t get a standing ovation it has been a disastrous concert! In Edinburgh, it is as rare as hens’ teeth!
I have no idea why this concert was not well-supported. A lack of advertising, an unfamiliar orchestra, no well-known names, who can tell? What I can tell you is that this was a magnificent concert, particularly the performance of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony after the interval. Mahler symphonies are a rare event these days. Whether his work is less popular nowadays, or it is perhaps too expensive to schedule, requiring big forces, but I had forgotten just how stunning a good live performance can be.
However, let’s start at the beginning. The concert opened with four orchestrated songs by the Croatian/Hungarian composer Dora Pejačević (1885-1923). She was born in Budapest in 1885, into a wealthy, aristocratic family and exhibited musical talent from a young age. Her family connections allowed her to study in Zagreb, Dresden and Munich, and indeed she was in the audience at the premiere of Strauss’ ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ in Dresden in 1911. The first song we heard was ‘Verwandlung’ (Metamorphosis), to a German text by Karl Kraus. It had been written for a society wedding in 1915, but, at the last minute, the wedding was cancelled, and the song unsung. Kraus apparently took the song to Arnold Schönberg with a view to getting it performed, but his reaction that naturally a woman could not be a creator of music, but that the composition showed promise, was unhelpful. This song, and a companion with a setting of Rilke, was finally performed in Zagreb in 1917. The final two songs, ‘Zwei Schmetterlingslieder’ (two Butterfly Songs), were performed in 1920, and a promising career beckoned. Unfortunately, Dora Pejačević died in childbirth in 1923, and the promise was unfulfilled. Her music was forgotten until recently, when a German record label decided to record her works, and this tour by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, with six touring dates in the UK, is allowing us to hear her music for the first time.
The orchestra was founded in 1870s and renamed the Zagreb Philharmonic in 1920. It is the premier symphony orchestra in Croatia. On this showing, they are very good indeed, and they have been touring Europe and the USA recently, with some success. Today they were conducted by the British conductor, Jan Latham-Koenig, a force of nature at the podium. As we were leaving the Usher Hall, I heard a young woman behind me saying that she had thought he was going to take off, such was his highly expansive style of conducting. It was certainly very effective, as well as entertaining. I have worked with Jan a couple of times in my career. He conducted a very moving ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ in Strasbourg 20 years ago, and in 2017 he conducted a production of ‘Peter Grimes’ in Monte Carlo, directed by José Cura, who also sang Grimes. I sang the lawyer Swallow, and it was a most successful venture. Jan is one of the British conductors who have spent most of their careers outside the UK and are consequently less well-known here. He is marvellously eccentric, but actually a very fine conductor, and he accompanied the Pejačević songs sensitively. The singer was the Croatian soprano, Marija Vidović, who displayed a pleasing voice but no recognisable words. Her biography boasts knowledge and fluency in seven languages, but it could have been any one of them here. The fact that it was German was really only clear with the programme! Still, she was comfortable on stage, and sang these little known songs with decent style. Her voice is naturally quite dark, and I felt she was more of a mezzo than a soprano.
The second work on the programme was Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, a much more mainstream piece, and a supremely virtuosic one. Jean Sibelius was himself a violinist, although not a virtuoso, and so was knowledgeable about the instrument for which he was writing. He wrote the concerto in 1903/4 and revised it in 1905, and the premiere of the revised version took place in Berlin, conducted by Richard Strauss. The soloist today was the young English violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen. It had been quite the weekend for the Waley-Cohen family, as Tamsin’s cousin Sam had just won the Grand National on a horse owned by her uncle. Presumably, celebrations were muted for her on Saturday, with a huge concerto to play on Sunday! She played this fiercely difficult concerto splendidly, overcoming its many intricacies with aplomb. The huge cadenza in the middle of the first movement was played stylishly, and I felt that the rapport between Mr Latham-Koenig and Ms Waley-Cohen was excellent. His tendency for the grand gesture apart, he kept the balance between soloist and orchestra perfectly, and the end was greeted with much acclaim.
After the interval, we were treated to a superb performance of Mahler’s extraordinary First Symphony. After its world premiere in Budapest in 1889, conducted by Mahler, it underwent several major revisions, notably the excision of the second movement, entitled ‘Blumine’, but by its Berlin premiere in 1896, again under the baton of the composer, it was more or less in the form we know it now. What a miraculous work! Nothing like it had ever been heard before, and even now, it takes the breath away with its extraordinary invention and boldness. Shimmering strings, bird call, offstage brass, two sets of three timpani, and a massive array of gongs, cymbals and drums, along with extensive woodwind and a barrage of brass – seven horns, five trumpets, four trombones and a tuba!
The Zagreb players and Jan Latham-Koenig gave us a great performance, both of power and subtlety. Each of the four movements unfolded naturally, with Mr Latham-Koenig in full control, urging and cajoling. Mahler used elements of songs he had written previously, and these Lieder are wrapped wonderfully into the texture. The occasional brass fanfares are apparently a reminder of his youth in Bohemia. He came from a lowly, German-speaking Jewish family who moved, when Gustav was a baby, to Jihlava (or Iglau as it was called in German), a thriving commercial city with a garrison of Austrian troops. The young Mahler grew up hearing military bands and lots of folk songs. His father ran a tavern, and then a group of taverns, and street music was everywhere. I visited Jihlava in the mid-80s when Czechoslovakia was still Communist, and you could sense how the town must have felt a century before. The town square is one of the largest in Europe, and one could imagine military bands playing there on high days and holidays.
Mahler brought many of these sounds of his childhood into his marvellous symphony, and this performance really brought them out. The unexpected solo for double bass, of the minor Frère Jacques theme, at the start of the third movement was beautifully played by, I think, Nikša Bobetko, and the great horn section towards the end of the finale was played by the entire section standing, a brilliant effect. The overwhelming climax of the end of the symphony was wonderfully exciting, and was greeted by an ovation, even with a smallish audience, rare for Edinburgh.
I’m not sure how we could have had a bigger turn out. Better publicity is the obvious first stage, but perhaps the national newspapers could help by flagging up potentially good concerts in their pages. Many of my friends were unaware of this excellent concert, as was I until asked to review it. Perhaps, we could make suggestions to our readers on the EMR? Would that be helpful? Let us know.
