United Kingdom Widmann, Mahler: Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet), London Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding (conductor). Barbican Corridor, London, 24.3.2024. (CK)
Widmann – In the direction of Paradise (Labyrinth VI)
Mahler – Symphony No.5
Because the Barbican Corridor stage crammed up with gamers for Jorg Widmann’s In the direction of Paradise, I used to be reminded of a long-ago live performance given by Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra through which Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony was preceded by a gargantuan piece by Wolfgang Rihm (certainly one of Widmann’s lecturers) after which, maybe uniquely, gamers needed to depart the stage to scale back the orchestra to the scale required for Mahler 2. It didn’t fairly come to that (we had Mahler 5 to observe) although I think Widmann asks for decreased strings in order that the huge percussion part might be accommodated (Wikipedia lists nearly 100 objects, entrusted to 5 gamers). Additionally on present have been a contrabass clarinet (I had no thought such a factor existed), harps, celeste and an accordion.
Widmann was apparently the third most carried out composer in 2023 (after John Williams and Arvo Half – the place was John Adams, I’m wondering?), however his music was new to me. The programme notice recommended that he’s prolific, eclectic, chameleonic and unimaginable to pin down stylistically: but an unworthy a part of me thought right here we go once more, one other expressionistic nightmare within the line from Mahler and Berg by Hartmann to Henze and Rihm and Glanert – the German composers who didn’t go to Darmstadt, or didn’t keep there. (I like a few of Henze’s and Glanert’s music; I discover the truth that Rihm has written over 500 compositions terrifying.)
A very powerful factor about In the direction of Paradise is that it’s written for the prince of trumpeters, Håkan Hardenberger – now turned 60 – and carried out by him with dazzling artistry and aplomb. Starting in darkness, offstage proper, he makes a 40-minute journey into and across the orchestra, ultimately fading into the space and darkness offstage left (fairly like Tom Waits in Gavin Bryars’s Jesus’ Blood By no means Failed Me But). Hardenberger was a riveting presence all through, on his personal or participating with the orchestra in a wide range of methods: generally spraying splinters of sound in all instructions, generally soothing the orchestral beast with a lyrical line. There was a pleasant second early on when his light enjoying evoked a sympathetic response from James Fountain’s trumpet within the orchestra; one other, in a while, when his personal trumpet appeared nearly to bop; one other the place his quasi-tonal music sounded (dare I utter the phrase?) nearly kitschy.
The piece is the sixth in a collection of works subtitled Labyrinth: it appeared an applicable means to consider the complicated internet of sounds woven by the orchestra – generally baleful, generally seductive – because the soloist made his means by it. String harmonics; a horn chorale; tintinnabulations from the racks of gongs extending midway throughout the again of the stage; salvoes from the heavy brass and drums; glistening sounds from the lighter percussion; a nocturne with bells …at one stage it appeared as if we have been slowly ascending from darker timbres to lighter, as if we have been certainly travelling In the direction of Paradise: however that will be too easy, wouldn’t it? With out warning a percussion barrage opened up an enormous gap and all of us tumbled by it: not a lot a Labyrinth as a cosmic Snakes and Ladders.
Behind all of it lurks the determine of Mahler; at sure moments his music appears nearly to materialise – the primary Nachtmusik of the Seventh Symphony, the funeral march in Der Abschied from Das Lied von der Erde, the opening of the finale of the Second Symphony, the brass cortege on the finish of the Sixth. Mahler’s darker facet.
The theatrical component could remind us of Birtwistle (maybe Theseus Recreation or Infinite Parade). The trumpeter’s journey from darkness to darkness collapses the piece in a single’s reminiscence – fairly just like the well-known metaphor for human life, recorded by Bede, of the sparrow that flies out of the darkish by a lighted corridor and out once more into the storm. The rapturous reception was, rightly, for Hardenberger’s extraordinary efficiency; but in addition in recognition of the LSO’s tireless virtuosity in projecting Widmann’s rating with most vividness.
Daniel Harding appeared proper on high of this demanding piece. Unusual to do not forget that it’s nearly 30 years since I first noticed him, aged 20, conducting Stockhausen’s Gruppen with Simon Rattle and John Carewe. After the interval he led the LSO in an uncommonly effective efficiency of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony: a efficiency to rekindle my enthusiasm for the work, which has been on the wane for a while. Within the first two actions the music had enamel – it sounded extra harmful than standard, with a uncooked edge: James Fountain’s trumpet set the tone and continued as a formidable presence all through, as did Patrick King’s timpani enjoying, each loud and mushy. The temper was uncompromisingly black: the primary look of the chorale in direction of the top of the second motion gleamed magnificently earlier than the darkness closed in once more. Within the first motion certainly one of my favorite moments – the fantastic enlargement of tone at bar 247 – was given the area that I in any other case discover solely in Barbirolli’s well-known recording.
The sense of area continued by the fiendishly complicated Scherzo (I keep in mind Bernard Haitink, throughout a BBC Promenade efficiency, turning to us within the Area and muttering ‘that motion is the very satan’). Nicht eilen, instructs Mahler, don’t hurry: the readability of the enjoying invited us to marvel on the sheer invention of the music. Wonderful and delicate horn enjoying from the orchestra’s current acquisition Diego Incertis Sánchez, and a gloriously blended sound from the brass; and a palpable sense of pleasure because the motion neared its shut.
With violins left and proper, the Adagietto sounded pure and unforced, the strings pliant, phrasing and dynamics significant. The horn broke in simply because the string sound (morendo) died, and not using a second of silence: I preferred the impact, whether or not or not it’s sanctioned within the rating. The finale went irresistibly, the cellos digging into their bustling theme with a will, rollicking horns, oboes and clarinets with bells raised, and Harding’s conducting as expressive because it was dynamic. One other favorite second – the cheeky twirl on flutes, oboes and clarinets at Fig.29 – was projected with cartoonish vigour. The ending was correctly triumphant: not fairly Paradise Gained, maybe, however as Widmann says, ‘Aren’t all of us looking for paradise …at the very least in music?’
Chris Kettle