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Staatskapelle Berlin -- Great Concert

Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-01-23 15:58

I went to a memorable concert on Wednesday night – the Staatskapelle Berlin at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Daniel Barenboim in an all-Schumann program. They played the Piano Concerto, with Radu Lupu, and the Second Symphony.

Berlin is down to "only" seven orchestras these days. The SB is the orchestra of the Berlin Staatsoper and is, probably, the #2 orchestra in Berlin, behind the Philharmonic. I had frankly mistaken them for the better known Staatskapelle Dresden. The SB seems to be like the Vienna Philharmonic, which has a large roster of players who rotate between opera and concert performances. The SB roster is huge – 126 players, with at least two on every part (including bass clarinet and tuba) with the sole exception of Eb clarinet – but the group that played on Wednesday was only around 100. There are some women – 16 out of 126 – a relatively small number, but ahead of Vienna, though well short of US standards.

The SB, unlike the Berlin Philharmonic, retains a distinctly German tone and style. (Almost all the names on the roster are German.) The strings play with a less vigorous – and less unanimous – attack than other in orchestras, but they "nourish" the sound more. Barenboim talked about this in an excellent interview in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/arts/music/23STAA.html?pagewanted=all , where he said that it is partly mechanical. "If you compare German instruments with non-German instruments — a German clarinet as opposed to a French clarinet; a German Steinway from Hamburg as opposed to an American Steinway — the instruments themselves have much more resistance. They resist the player trying to play them: in the flow of air, or the weight of the key, you feel a kind of resistance of the instrument, which makes the sound less harsh and less direct. It's a little bit like the sound of the German language; you go through the whole process of the consonants, and the weight of the consonants, until you get to the bloody vowel."

The SB brass have a gentle attack and a burnished rather than brazen tone. The tympanist is a star, mounted on a platform and taking the lead at every entrance.

The woodwinds cultivate a blend rather than contrasting sounds. Each of them can step out and play a distinctive solo, but each then steps back into the tapestry. Unlike American orchestras, where the flutist usually leads the woodwinds, the SB woodwinds are led by the first oboist, Volkmar Besser, who is clearly the star woodwind player. He has a sound unlike anyone else – both rich and plangent, rippling with gorgeous colors.

The clarinetists are Matthias Glander, Heiner Schindler and Tillmann Straube, with Eb player Udolf Wäntig and bass clarinetists Hartmut Schuldt and Sylvia Schmückle-Wagner. My seat was too low to see whether they used two or three clarinets, but I’m sure that only Glander, Schindler and perhaps Straube played. Glander has a wonderful, creamy tone, with great power, precise technique and long, beautifully arched phrasing.

The orchestra as a whole also played with a more blended tone than we’re used to. This is obviously what they and Barenboim want, but part of it is the physical setup. They were seated all the way at the back of the Carnegie Hall stage, under the domed stage area and well behind the proscenium arch. Also, they used only two sets of risers, with all the string players on the stage floor. Finally, they use an unusual and old-fashioned seating layout – from the left, 1st violins, cellos, violas and 2nd violins, with the basses on the left behind the 1st violins and cellos. Toscanini used this setup, saying that the two violin sections were the shoulders of the orchestra. The effect was quite obvious on Wednesday, particularly in the Symphony, where phrases are frequently passed between the two violin sections.

The Piano Concerto was superb. Radu Lupu is one of the great pianists, and his glowing tone easily filled the hall. I’ve heard a number of pianists in Carnegie Hall over the last couple of years, including Alfred Brendel and Evgeny Kissin, but none of them came "over the footlights" like Lupu. Also, unlike many soloists, Lupu, Barenboim and the orchestra really listened hard and reacted to one another as they played. They weren’t afraid to pull back to pianissimo and whisper beautiful phrases back and forth, even in the fast movements.

The Second Symphony was equally fine. Barenboim wanted very quick tempos, and the orchestra gave a thoroughbred response. They set the style in the first movement, which took off after the slow introduction. The second movement, Scherzo: Allegro vivace, went like the wind – by far the fastest version I’ve heard – and the long phrases coalesced perfectly. The third movement, Adagio espressivo, was truly espressivo, and the fourth movement, Allegro molto vivace built tremendous momentum to the volcanic coda.

Barenboim has been criticized for "overconducting" and subdividing the beat so as to kill the longer phrase. He certainly didn’t do that on Wednesday. In fact, he often didn’t even give a downbeat, but got the music going and then just outlined the larger phrases. Unlike many orchestras (e.g., the NY Philharmonic), the SB played really "on" Barenboim’s beat, so that when he did give a nuance, the orchestra was right with him.

Barenboim and the SB have just released a boxed set of the Schumann Symphonies. It’s high on my want list.

This was a thrilling, memorable concert. The Staatskapelle Berlin has its own distinct voice, unlike any other orchestra. Hear them if you can.

Best regards.

Ken Shaw