Not in Amsterdam, but in Rotterdam, the hero Strauss sounds

In the same week, large orchestral works, symphonic poems by Richard Strauss, were played in two cities. The Concertgebouw Orchestra played in Amsterdam A Alpine Symphonyin Rotterdam the Rotterdam Philharmonic played A Hero’s Life (Sunday is the repeat).

The Amsterdam concert, led by the future chef Klaus Mäkelä, is surprisingly disappointing after a strong concert under Jaap van Zweden last week. Perhaps the musicians were misled by the mechanical way in which cellist Sol Gabetta played Ernest Bloch’s usually captivating Hebrew Schelomo rusty, but the RCO and Mäkelä are unable to paint a view of a mountain landscape.

The first eruption, the sunrise, still sounds like a popping pink tidal wave. But then the idyllic picture quickly disappears. Especially since the sun keeps shining dazzlingly. It’s the string group: they just don’t subside. Sweet birds in the piccolo and dangling cowbells notwithstanding; the rapturousness of the valleys (eyes slightly squinted, nose and eyebrows in the air, reveling swaying back and forth on long romantic lines) – as important as a lead-up to a mountaintop eruption – is confused with volume, almost as loud like the mountain top itself. That going back and forth is purely in the ironing arm. The eruptions are beautiful in themselves, but a mountain is only imposing by the grace of a valley. And there are hardly any. There is some space for a beautiful oboe solo, but the last note has not yet sounded or it is rolled over again.

The Concertgebouw Orchestra is too sloppy with Strauss. Problems with their future boss Mäkelä?

It doesn’t get bad, of course, Strauss is deep in the Concertgebouw Orchestra tradition. But it is too messy. The horns are too late on almost every important bet. Strings and woodwinds lose each other here and there. String players sometimes even iron unevenly within their group, where that is certainly not the intention. Are there infancy communication problems between the orchestra and their future chief Klaus Mäkelä? It especially seems like he was too sweet at rehearsal. He drags, drags and pushes during the concert, but it is too late for such major corrections. He leaves Sol Gabetta behind Schelomo walking down the long stairs alone to the applause; he himself had sprawled on a couch behind the open doors in full view of the room. Is he tired of maintaining his three orchestras (Oslo, Paris and Amsterdam)? He does not get to a deeper insight, a journey and a goal all evening.

Hero in Rotterdam

No, for a good Strauss you have to be in Rotterdam this week. The Rotterdam Philharmonic plays the younger at their New Year’s concert A Hero’s Life (dedicated by Strauss to the Concertgebouw Orchestra, of all places) and may have the good fortune of an excellent solo support act in pianist Daniil Trifonov. He makes a character of his part in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. In the first part he changes from a disinterested person (in the left hand you hear an irritated ‘Let me now’, and an explanatory ‘that’s not why!’) into a suddenly indulgent little boy who actually wants to participate anyway.

His second part is reflective, humble (‘sorry!’) and the third part is full of joy about the conversion. In short, a resounding narrative. Chef Lahav Shani then effortlessly finds a story for the hero Strauss, greatly aided by a flexible string group that can fly, but can also disappear. Hear how they end in an incomparable softness at the end of the third part, the ‘companion of the hero’. Hear how they are transparent enough to make out the low shrill of the contrabassoon and how they sink in to let the E-flat clarinet shriek.

Shani, together with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, shows that a crescendo from a soft low to a slightly louder volume can be many times more exciting than a crescendo from loud to very loud. Concertmaster Igor Gruppman, who is retiring this season, does what Gabetta couldn’t: play a terribly difficult solo part with great technique and feeling, especially at the end.

The New Year’s concert of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra can be heard on Sunday afternoon. Inl: rpho.nl From Monday you can listen back on npoklassiek.nl Recordings of the concerts of the KCO and RPhO are respectively broadcast on NPO Klassiek on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening and can be listened back there: npoklassiek.nl