The winter concert of the bavarian chamber orchestra bad bruckenau is always a bit different from the other seasonal concerts. "The orchestra can choose whether and with which guest conductor it wants to make music or whether it does without a conductor altogether", said managing director pavol tkac, who buried the guests. So this time you could discover johannes moesus quite relaxed in the audience. And if one interpreted his facial expression correctly, he enjoyed this free evening.
His job had been taken over by someone else – because it might work without a conductor, but not without a leader. After all, the orchestra has to agree on a direction and a goal. The violinist yasushi ideue "from the orchestra’s pool of concertmasters (pavol tkac), a good friend, had quite a package on his back: first he was the soloist in antonio vivaldi’s "four seasons", then he led from the 1. Console from "souvenir de florence by peter tchaikovsky. It needed a good condition.
Original and relaxed
Vivaldi’s "four seasons are actually quite hackneyed. For a while, when research was just beginning, they were considered the symbol of italian baroque music par excellence, played on all appropriate and inappropriate occasions. This has changed with the rise of alternatives, and in the meantime the advertising has moved a few doors down. It was not necessarily to be expected that the bruckenau "seasons" would be performed in the this is how it was enjoyed. Yasushi ideue and his people had not faced the pressure of being original in any way, to play like… But this is what made them original and relaxed. They showed how modern instruments and bows and modern playing technique can get very close to vivaldi. Yasushi ideue as a soloist did not put himself, but the music in the foreground. He played with sovereign virtuosity and unagitatedness, drew wonderful pictures after nature, especially the chirping birds, so popular not only with vivaldi, or the country people getting drunker and drunker at the dance, which illustrated the texts of the underlying sonnets wonderfully. And he had the freedom to improvise many ornaments, as was customary in those days but is now somewhat forgotten.
The orchestra took up this course, entered into a close dialogue with the soloist, provided atmospheric backgrounds of thunderstorms, oppressive heat, cozy fireplace or the famous snoring shepherd dog. There was already a development, as later with haydn’s "seasons", a picture of country life that at the time had little to do with harsh reality but a great deal to do with enlightened ideals – but so varied that you didn’t even notice that you had heard twelve sentences in four concerts.
Complaining on a high level
But there were also small passages that had sounded different with the conductor – it is clear that this is absolute luxury lamentation. The driving momentum that ran through the whole work was a little restrained, because one was waiting for the other, so to speak. Johannes moesus had certainly exerted organizational pressure here. But, my god, that was maybe ten bars!
The break meant rebuilding, because now it became highly romantic. In peter tchaikovsky’s string sextet "souvenir de florence the harpsichord had been placed in between as a sound facet and furniture. But even four violins had their day off. In addition, there was a fourth viola and a violoncello. For yasushi ideue had not chosen the original version for two violins, two violas and two violoncellos, but an arrangement for string orchestra, of which there are several, because the music in its complex structure can be transposed so well as a symphony. One advantage: there is then also the 1. Violoncello is assigned the contrabass, which extends the tonal spectrum downward and thus provides a certain grounding.
Effective effect
However, yasushi ideue had reduced the string orchestra to a double quartet, each voice was doubled. That was quite courageous and not without risk, because two voices are much more difficult to mix and synchronize than three or more. But one has to give a huge compliment to the bruckenauers. With them it worked from quite excellent to outstanding. Moreover, ideue had not placed the partners of each individual voice next to each other, but one behind the other. This had a noticeable, effective effect: the overall sound was not fanned out to the width of twelve strings, but was strongly compressed and effective.
The ensemble knew this, played the powerful exposition from a standing position, without feeling its way in, with enormous emotional and tonal pressure. One could believe the story that tchaikovsky was still under the pitying impression of the suicide of hermann at the end of his just finished opera "pique dame" had left behind qualend. But one also feels the pressure of the cheerful memories with which the composer thought of his stay in florence. To the stringed dozen (how on earth does the doubling of sextett? There is no such thing as a duodecimet!) succeeded very vividly in showing two essential aspects of the work: on the one hand, the enormous fulle of compositional techniques, which were evident in the very strong counterpoint or in the double fugue in the last movement. But tchaikovsky had to prove himself against powerful competition, especially from brahms. And on the other hand, that in the stressful life of the composer, there were indeed moments when good humor and good humor overcame him. To reconcile this humor and the compositional density with an always sharply contoured sound was the sensation of the evening. Johann moesus would certainly have liked to conduct it. It would not have been necessary.
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