Athleticism meets artistry: the Waseda Symphony at the Elbphilharmonie

Some orchestras are named after the building they occupy (Amsterdam, Leipzig and Zürich spring to mind), but very few bear the name of the tertiary institution they are attached to. Waseda University in Tokyo has well over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and yet lacks a music faculty. Nevertheless, some 250 majors in other subjects and amateur musicians (very few contemplate music as a career, but they all get taken on the overseas tours) have been brought to the point where they can hold their own with other ensembles on the international touring circuit. Founded in 1913 and currently on its fifteenth European tour, the Waseda Symphony Orchestra has worked with illustrious maestri including Sir Simon Rattle and in 1978 won the International Youth Orchestra Competition in Berlin.

Pride of place in this review must go to the very last item on the programme, Mono-Prism for Japanese (taiko) drums and orchestra, a work which Maki Ishii wrote for the Boston Symphony and Seiji Ozawa some forty years ago. In this performance, with Eitetsu Hayashi and his Eitetsu Fu-un no Kai ensemble, and conducted by Kazufumi Yamashita, the twenty-minute piece emerged as a magnificent display vehicle for the athleticism and artistry not only of the five drummers, but the orchestra itself which sported a veritable armoury of classical as well as Japanese percussion instruments.

If you are into astonishing aural experiences, forget Stravinsky’s Rite and listen to the incantatory frenzy at the heart of this work with its astonishing decibel levels. It begins with a soft beating of the gong and earthy sounds from the basses, followed by cascades of string glissandi and agitated percussion before the five drummers launch themselves imperceptibly into a massive and perfectly controlled crescendo, then deafening fortissimo and finally diminuendo, using side-drums on slanted stands which are tensioned with rope. Later, these smaller drums “speak” individually, producing myriad sounds akin to rattlesnakes, woodpeckers or icy winds ripping leaves off the trees. They give way to larger drums that add their own specific range of colour and dynamic shadings before two drummers position themselves on either side of one of the largest drums you are ever likely to see, supported on a gigantic stand because of its weight (400 kilos), and played with a frenetic intensity including vocal contributions. This section forms a central cadenza before the orchestra returns to the mesmerising sound-world with which the piece started. The commitment of all the players was never once in doubt, with needlepoint precision in the playing and smiles of joyous contentment creeping over faces that had earlier appeared dour and expressionless.

Shakespeare, whose first major translator into Japanese attended Waseda University, left his imprint on the earlier proceedings. The realm of Titania and Oberon is conjured up in Nicolai’s overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor, the opening of which yields nothing in terms of atmosphere to previous works by Weber and Mendelssohn. There were sweet-toned and nutty sounds from the agile body of strings, with dappled effects from wind and brass, but the playing never really came from the heart. Nor did it in Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy-Overture Romeo and Juliet, where Friar Laurence’s chords at the opening were suitably solemn and weighty, but once into the Allegro giusto section few of the emotional undercurrents were permitted to come anywhere close to the surface.

It is easy to poke fun at the “domestic symphony” that Richard Strauss wrote as a kind of autobiographical indulgence in 1902/03 (his penultimate assay at the symphonic poem before he turned his attention exclusively towards writing operas). Hans Richter famously quipped that not all the gods being burned alive in Valhalla could make one-quarter of the noise produced by a single Bavarian baby in his bath. There is something slightly twee about having particular instruments assigned to the characteristics of the three principal players in this one-day-and-night in the life of the Strauss family (the clock strikes seven twice, once in the evening and then in the morning). That said, it was a masterstroke to employ the oboe d’amore to represent his son Franz (who went on to become the greatest horn-player of his day), and the work itself tests the mettle of any orchestra, since it features technically challenging passages for all sections and numerous exposed instrumental solos. The conductor too needs not only to shape the sudden surges of emotion but also to retain maximum clarity, especially in the polyphonic complexity of the finale. Yamashita was more successful at the latter, whereas in his concern to keep things moving the pot was occasionally allowed to simmer but never properly came to the boil. In Strauss always remember: faint heart never wins fair lady.

Note that the next stage in this tour (with identical programme) is being screened via the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall as a free livestream on Sunday, 4 March at 11.00 CET.