Vienna rang in the official, opening performance of Philippe Jordan as new head conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker last evening in the Konzerthaus. Though Jordan and the Symphoniker have been happy bedfellows many times before, this concert marked the beginning of a new stage in their relationship and was therefore a highly anticipated event.
Jordan is a perfect conductor. There is even something nearly too perfect about his technique – an ideal blend of flexibility and precision seem to permeate his gestures, and he completely looks the part; he has the posture of a dancer – his angles are ideal and crisp, yet contain beautiful flow and energy. One could call him robotic, but only in the most positive sense of the word. He may well be one of those futuristic, Asimov-inspired androids that are somehow more perfect than mere mortals without losing any of their humanoid charm.
Schubert’s First Symphony opened the evening. The work, composed at the tender age of 16, is much of what one would expect from an ambitious, teenage genius: it clearly exhibits Schubert’s solid grasp of classical form, his penchant for beautiful melody and points towards his astonishing potential. Filled with numerous musical quotations and gestures, Schubert’s own themes are generally mildly developed and often sequenced and repeated at length. It is a far cry from perfection – the second movement is lengthy for the amount of musical material it contains, and the scoring – doublings in the high brass for example – creates balance issues. The symphony has a youthful charm, however, and was skillfully rendered.
Janáček spoke a vastly different musical language. Janáček was the king of layered ostinati with varying rhythmic movement and loved shifting around meter and pulse – the hemiola is where he is very much at home. This, coupled with his unique blend of folk melody and dark, modal harmonies gives his music a flair that is his alone. The Mša glagolskaja, known to us as the Glagolitic Mass or Slavonic Mass, consists of eight movements, the first and last of which are purely instrumental. After the “Úvod” (Introduction) comes a dark “Gospodi pomiluj” (Kyrie) dominated by low winds and introducing the choir. This is followed by a “Slava” (Gloria) full of rhythmic interplay of 4 against 3, then a lengthy “Vĕruju” (Credo) full of simple folk melodies, chromatic interruptions, metric shifts and instrumental interludes between offerings by the soloists. Movement five, “Svet” (Sanctus) features stately incantations from soprano, tenor and bass soloists and the following “Agneče Božij” (Agnus Dei) begins with solo work, then erupts in a frenetic choral and orchestral dance. The penultimate movement, “Varhany solo” (Postludium) is a unique, difficult organ solo (bravo, Robert Kovács) and the instrumental “Intrada” (Exodus) rounds out the work with some particularly impressive work from the brass and winds.