It has been five years since the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra made its last visit to New York, under the baton of the late Mariss Jansons. On his first visit to Carnegie Hall in eight years, new Chief Conductor Sir Simon Rattle wound up the ensemble’s two-day residency and four-city American tour in spectacular fashion, with a superbly performed program of Wagner, Adès and Beethoven.
Opening with a resplendent rendition of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Rattle displayed effortless dynamic control over the 85-member orchestra, shifting the sound from level to level without the slightest hitch. As he allowed the first section to gently unfold, he drew exquisitely expressive sound from the strings, the woodwinds responding with an elegant rendering of the famous “Tristan chord” that led into a flexible, colorfully refined exploration of the music’s revolutionary harmonies before fading away and drifting into a dreamlike and glowingly harmonious Liebestod.
In its US premiere, Thomas Adès’ Aquifer, commissioned by the BRSO with support from Carnegie Hall and first unveiled at the Herkulessaal in Munich three weeks earlier, proved a compatible follow-up to the Wagner. The forceful 17-minute score, masterfully designed for a large orchestra requiring six percussionists, constantly changes in form and character, and like the Tristan Prelude, alternates flowing passages of soaring orchestral splendor with moments of quiet intensity. The title, a reference to a geological structure that absorbs and transmits water, can be viewed as a metaphor for the unabated flow of the music, as it unfolds in a single span over seven sections, differentiated by tempo changes, and culminates in an ecstatic coda. Rattle and his musicians shaped an enthralling performance of this powerful piece.
The second half of the concert was taken up by an alert, affectionate account of Beethoven’s life-affirming Pastoral Symphony. After an Allegro full of rustic gaiety, highlighted by a particularly lovely dialogue between the woodwinds and strings, Rattle kept the bubbling brook of the Andante freely flowing and allowed wonderfully expressive freedom in the songs of the nightingale, quail and cuckoos. The high-spirited exuberance of the third movement’s country gathering grew increasingly boisterous and led into a fiercely dramatic depiction of the thunderstorm, followed by a tender reading of the finale. With an elated Shepherd’s Song and the violins sounding radiant, it wrapped up a fresh and direct reading of this familiar work.
In memory of the BRSO’s late music director, Mariss Jansons, Rattle and the orchestra offered a rambunctious rendering of Antonin Dvořák’s rhythmically charged Slavonic Dance in C major, Op.72 no.7.
