Returning to Carnegie Hall for their annual triad of performances around the time of Spring’s awakening, the Vienna Philharmonic invited Franz Welser-Möst, their trusted collaborator, to be at their helm. The programmes they proposed were not only part of Welser-Möst’s “Perspectives” series, but also of a months-long festival that Carnegie Hall has labelled “Fall of the Weimar Republic – Dancing on the Precipice”.
Associating the Bruckner and Berg works performed on Friday with the Weimar Republic seems a tad far-fetched. Although Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra was revised in the 1920s, they were essentially completed in 1915. As such, they reflect the anxiety and tension felt during the twilight of the Austrian Empire rather than during the so-called Weimar Republic. Anton Bruckner died in 1896, decades before the end of World War 1. Even though his music continued to be performed in German-speaking lands during the later era, it received less assiduous attention compared to works by other late Romantics such as Brahms or Wagner.
Welser-Möst juxtaposed Bruckner’s final symphony and Berg’s early work in rapid succession, allowing only a brief pause for additional instrumentalists to come on stage. This deliberate sequencing suggests that he aimed to establish a direct link between the two pieces. Interestingly enough, by doing so, he also explicitly avoided dwelling upon the more obvious connection between Berg’s work and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, scheduled to be performed on its own during the last concert of this series.
It is difficult to gauge the extent to which Welser-Möst's attempt was successful. The connection between Bruckner’s monumental symphonies, with their expansive structures, rich harmonies and brass-heavy orchestrations, and Berg’s leaner, more expressionistic music seems to be an evolutive one, via Mahler and Schoenberg. Nevertheless, Welser-Möst’s efforts were clearly meritorious. While the music moved forward, he gradually lightened Bruckner’s hefty soundscape, underlining the Romantic composer’s harmonic explorations and his inclination to push the boundaries of traditional tonality. On the other hand, the conductor repeatedly drew attention to Berg’s willingness to imbue his music with heightened expressive depth and emotional intensity.
The rendition of Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth Symphony may not have been the most electrifying, but it was meticulously crafted with precise balances between strings and woodwinds. The frequent dynamic transitions were constantly suspenseful, while the brass section was encouraged into unexpected subtleties. The Scherzo exuded tension and menace, propelled by a great rhythmic drive. In contrast, the sense of sadness and longing in the final Adagio was portrayed with restraint, eschewing unnecessary pathos.
With its multiple structural arches, Berg’s Op.6 can be viewed as both a symphony in three movements and a “suite of character pieces for large orchestra” as Schoenberg, the composer’s teacher, would call such an endeavour. It is music that needs to be listened to repeatedly in order to uncover its many riches. In a tightly controlled performance, Welser-Möst brought forward the meticulous interweaving of musical material stemming from the five themes initially appearing in the Prelude and the unrelenting motivic transformation. Reminiscences of Mahlerian Ländler and premonitions of Wozzeck were evident in the second part, while the successive climaxes in the Marsch were approached with the same determination as the Brucknerian climaxes beforehand.
As in Bruckner’s symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic demonstrated the same high level of cohesion, with individual members, including concertmaster Volkhard Steude, stepping up assuredly when required.
