In an all-Brahms program at the Musikverein this weekend, Igor Levit, Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic painted the composer in very different lights. The works themselves were created at very different periods in Brahms’ life. His First Piano Concerto was born in a time of turbulence and disquiet. It came into being with great difficulty over about four years when the composer was in his early twenties. Robert Schumann, his friend and mentor had succumbed to madness and death, and the young composer's feelings for Clara Schumann were reaching a crisis point. The first movement enters with turbulent drama, but the piano’s entrance is tonally indecisive and hauntingly plaintive, but soon grows dramatic, with wonderfully melodic moments and brilliant trills. The second movement is a hymn-like, tuneful chain of slowly descending pearls and the final cheeky, hemiola-filled rondo always elicits smiles.
Levit seemed particularly interested in focusing on the interiority of the work, keeping the entire exposition and much of the first movement so quiet that I questioned occasionally if my ear was blocked. Although he opened up his sound for the edgily dramatic second entrance, he seemed to generally be playing for a much smaller hall and those audience members standing in the back would have certainly had to strain. The second movement was handled similarly. Although Levit is clearly a formidable mind who has curated every note and intention down to its micro-core, he would occasionally pull back dynamically at the end of a phrase instead of just passing it off naturally to the orchestra, which began to feel slightly precious.
Then again, I have never heard the concerto so crystalline and Levit’s reading required everyone to lean in and listen for each note. Although I prefer a bit more natural warmth, swell and soul to his impeccable stratification of lines and cool analysis, it was not only technically perfect (those trills, though…) but minutely intentional. The third movement worked the most organically with its surprising rhythmic offsets and hemiola switches on a dime. The audience were rewarded with an encore, Debussy’s Prélude Des Pas sur la neige, which is much more Levit’s wheelhouse. Although it was… a choice to perform the most quiet and crystalline work imaginable in the Großer Saal during allergy season. We were all lucky to hear what we could.
Even if Levit was not quite in his wheelhouse with Brahms, the Vienna Philharmonic were playing a home game in the second half with his D major Second Symphony. Every phrase had the combination of lightness, warmth, core and swell to make it feel ideally satisfying in a very relaxing-deep-in-your-belly sort of way. Paired with Christian Thielemann, one of the few conductors the orchestra allows to really lead and inspire them, they were completely in their element. And lead Theilemann did; the secondary F sharp theme of the first movement, always a gorgeous lullaby, I have not heard more beautifully lilted. From the opening cello solo in the pastoral second movement, the soloists were all stars, with the oboist having a banner showing throughout all the highlight moments for him in the third movement. The finale contained all the spirit, ethereal melody and majestic swell one could desire, and the applause was deafening, with Thielemann called to the stage half a dozen times after the final tones of the symphony ended in a triumphant blaze.
