Opposites attract: Ticciati conducts a Pépin premiere and Bruckner's Ninth in Berlin

What do a fresh new violin concerto by a young French composer and a popular 19th-century symphony have in common? Not much, admittedly. In the programme notes of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester’s latest concert at the Berlin Philharmonie, we read that the pairing of two such pieces – Camille Pépin’s Le Sommeil a pris ton empreinte and Bruckner’s Ninth – was voluntarily antithetical. Conductor Robin Ticciati invited the audience not to try and reconcile the opposites, but to embrace them in their contrasts: on one side a work inspired by Surrealist poetry, on the other a testament to faith, united only by Ticciati’s idiosyncratic rendition.

Taking its name from the title of a poem by Paul Éluard, Pépin’s concerto was dedicated to Renaud Capuçon, who premiered it in France in April before bringing it to Germany. Composer and interpreter chose three of Éluard’s works centred on love – its birth, death and renewal – and made a musical structure out of them. Each of the five movements is accompanied by a corresponding lyric: the first, middle and last ones share the title of the entire concerto; the second and fourth movements are named after two poems dedicated to the author’s first and second wives. This textual refrain suggests a similar musical setting, generating a sort of five-part rondo where the short principal theme frames the other longer episodes.

Having an entire score tailored to one’s peculiarities and talent is a double-edged sword, which risks to escalate comfort into ostentation. Capuçon maintained an unwavering focus for the entire piece which, despite its limited length, requires a nearly constant solo presence. The opening tremolos developed into more animated sections where the alternation between solo and tutti recalled the model of Baroque concertos, Capuçon dialoguing with Ticciati’s orchestra rather than antagonising it. The ensemble took cues from the violinist and expanded his sound, which remained spacious even in the quietest moments. Further hints to tradition were provided by the cadenzas in the second and fourth movements, customary occasions to display some virtuosic playing. Pépin’s orchestration has a cinematic flair to it, which would not be out of place in a big-budget art movie – and which Ticciati highlighted dutifully, thanks to a sweeping, almost narrative quality of conducting.

From the silence that Pépin’s concerto faded into, Bruckner’s symphony emerged gradually, as if coming into focus from afar. Starting from the pianissimo of the first bars – a veritable act of creation – Ticciati made it his mission to constantly adjust the score’s brightness, letting it shine luminously but also darkening it to the point of murk. Unlike some other interpretations, Ticciati’s was dramatic, but not harrowing. The fortissimo main theme of the first movement sounded solemn (feierlich) rather than catastrophic, hinting that the symphony’s incomplete state should not take away from its intended majestic praise of God. 

Just as monumental were the chorale sections in the third movement. And yet the most delicate details in the score were never lost: the animated internal movements and their often lyrical nature were offered by Ticciati as oases intrinsic of a complex religious experience, with its own final evanescing into silence, evocative of something mysterious and grand.