Vienna goes to Hollywood: Oksana Lyniv conducts the Wiener Symphoniker

In her concert debut with the Wiener Symphoniker, Oksana Lyniv made an unlikely pairing of two very different Viennese composers. For much of their lives, Arnold Schoenberg and Erich Korngold were not the best of buddies, not least because of the animosity of Erich’s father, leading music critic Julius Korngold, towards the “new music” of the early 20th century. Yet both men suffered in the oppressive political atmosphere of the 1930s and emigrated to the United States. As Korngold said, “We thought of ourselves as Viennese; Hitler made us Jewish.” 

Both men settled in Hollywood where the two main works in Lyniv’s programme were written. Korngold was the toast of the movie industry, a celebrated composer of film music who invented the “Hollywood Sound” in scores to the likes of The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk. He vowed not to return to “concert music” until Hitler had been defeated. Thus, it was not until 1945 that he composed his Violin Concerto in D major. It’s lush and cinematic (Korngold self-quoting from four of his film scores) and is rightly an audience favourite. 

Another audience favourite, the amiable Gil Shaham, was the soloist in the Konzerthaus. His sweet tone and lashings of syrupy vibrato suit Korngold’s romantic writing, particularly in the central movement. Shaham’s sound is no longer especially large and he was occasionally engulfed by the Symphoniker at full pelt, but he negotiated the faster sections nimbly and his interactions with the Concertmaster were delightful. The orchestra supported the soloist well, with just the occasional ensemble lapse.

Schoenberg was the orchestrator rather than the composer of the evening’s other main work. His criteria for dressing Brahms’ Piano Quartet no.1 in G minor in orchestral garb were: “1. I like the piece. 2. It is seldom played. 3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.” 

For the most part, Schoenberg uses a Brahmsian palette, features that showcased the glossy sheen of the Symphoniker’s rich string section and its rounded brass in this earthy performance under Lyniv. Percussion-wise, Brahms rarely deployed anything more exotic than a triangle, but Schoenberg liberally sprinkled the score, especially the Rondo alla zingarese finale, with xylophone, glockenspiel and tambourine – Tinseltown glitter meets Klimt meets Budapest café, naughty but nice. 

That Gypsy Rondo finale went with a fierce kick, the culmination of a well-paced, very well-executed performance. The same could be said of the evening’s unappetising appetiser, Maxim Kolomiiets’ Espenbaum, a ten-minute work that began with a juggernaut of sound, rhythmically dispatched, before subsiding into rustling strings, shards of melodic motifs, ending with an apologetic bassoon solo. 

Lyniv is an interesting conductor to watch. Her stance is very rigid, her style angular. The baton slashing sometimes gave her conducting an abrasive feel, severe rather than invigorating. But she shaped the Andante con moto of the Brahms-Schoenberg tenderly and was generous in spotlighting individual players for applause. The orchestra responded with equal warmth.