On a quartet of performances at this summer's Salzburg Festival
Editor’s Note: The below is an expanded version of an article to appear in the forthcoming National Review.
Salzburg, Austria
As usual, the Salzburg Festival is loaded with concerts, recitals, and operas. Plays, too — although these play second fiddle to the music. People from all over the world descend on Salzburg for the festival. Many, many tongues are heard on the streets. But the plays are in German — which limits their audience. Music is a language comprehensible to all (most of the time).
I propose to give you a sampler — comments on a chamber concert, an opera, a piano recital, and an orchestra concert.
The Vienna Philharmonic is the resident orchestra here, and, every summer, a handful of its members present a chamber concert. There is an expression in music lore: “the Mighty Handful” (referring to five Russian composers of the 19th century).
This summer, the chamber concert offered two works: a piano quintet and a string quintet. The first work, obviously, required an outsider, a ringer — a pianist. She was Yulianna Avdeeva, from Russia. And the work in question was the Piano Quintet of Alfred Schnittke, a Russian who lived from 1934 to 1998.
Russian? Yes. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Frankfurt and his mother was a Volga German.
His piano quintet begins very, very quietly, with notes on the piano. As Ms. Avdeeva played them, a siren passed outside the hall. One of the violinists raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Gee, that’s a great start.”
But the audience was quiet as a church mouse, from first note to last. This was impressive. Schnittke’s quintet demands patience on the part of the listener. It is not a crowd-pleaser. It is intimate, inward, and full of grief. Schnittke wrote it in memory of his mother. He later arranged it for orchestra, calling it “In Memoriam . . .”
So, yes, I was impressed by the audience. “At home,” I thought, “this would be a cough-and-fidget fest.” As for the Vienna Philharmonic strings, plus Avdeeva, they played with due sensitivity.
After intermission, we heard the String Quintet of Bruckner. (An additional violist joined his colleagues.) Anton Bruckner, the symphonist? One and the same. He wrote very few chamber works, and this quintet is the main one. You can hear Bruckner the symphonist in it. Still, it has the character of a chamber work (as well as the scale). It even has some whimsicality — not a quality often associated with this master.
The first violinist was Volkhard Steude, one of the concertmasters of the Philharmonic. (There are four of them.) (This orchestra has a lot of work to do, in concerts and operas.) Steude exercised leadership without being obnoxious about it. The five played as a true ensemble.
They played their Bruckner with intelligence, heart — and beauty of sound. Beauty that was almost shocking. The Vienna Phil has a reputation to uphold, even in a chamber concert. And a big part of that reputation is beauty of sound.
I thought of a slogan, used for years by the PGA Tour: “These guys are good.”
There is a range of operas at the festival, including several off the beaten path — by Mieczysław Weinberg, for example, and Luigi Dallapiccola. Also by Georg Friedrich Haas and Beat Furrer. These last two are contemporary Austrian composers — nothing wrong with a little home-country pride.
But Salzburg is Mozart’s town, and he has pride of place, as he deserves. The festival is staging two of his operas: La clemenza di Tito and Don Giovanni.
Giovanni is conducted by Teodor Currentzis, often described as “iconoclastic,” “controversial,” “eccentric” — there are other words. Born and raised in Greece, he completed his studies in Russia. In the ’90s, he was trained by the legendary Ilya Musin, who was himself in his 90s. In 2014, the Kremlin conferred Russian citizenship on Currentzis.
He is unconventional and brilliant, both on and off the podium. Several years ago, I did a public interview of him here in Salzburg. In stretches, he was spellbinding.
At home in Russia, he founded an orchestra, and an associated chorus, with a strangely rendered name: musicAeterna. In past years, he has brought these forces to Salzburg. But they are funded by VTB Bank — which is under sanction by the European Union, the United States, and others.
Which is sticky, given the war on Ukraine.
In 2022, Currentzis founded a different orchestra, utterly cosmopolitan, comprising musicians from dozens of countries. He calls it “Utopia” (the word created by Sir Thomas More, meaning “nowhere”). And Utopia is the orchestra in the pit for Don Giovanni.
On the night I attended, Currentzis was totally alive and thoroughly Mozartean. He was crisp, elegant, acute — all of it. The score was full of dance. The Catalogue Aria swung. Currentzis has a Jim Carrey physicality, which is deployed in the service of music (not merely for show).
Thinking about Currentzis, I thought of what George Szell said about Glenn Gould: “That nut’s a genius.”
The stage director for Don Giovanni is Romeo Castellucci, and the production is chock-full of symbolism. Various items descend or crash from the sky: cars, pianos, basketballs. Returning from intermission, a man sitting next to me asked, “What does it all mean?” I answered, “I think it means we should concentrate on the music.”
Overall, the cast was of high quality, starting with the baritone in the title role, Davide Luciano, from Italy. Vocally, musically, and theatrically, he was a real Giovanni. Donna Anna was portrayed by Nadezhda Pavlova, a Russian soprano. She is formidable, not least in her high pianissimos.
I think I have made this comment in the past, but here I go again: Another Pavlova, the ballerina, had a dessert named after her. Maybe someone should concoct something for this soprano.
In Julian Prégardien, the apple hasn’t fallen very far from the tree. He is a lyric tenor from Germany, like his father, Christoph, and he made an appealing Don Ottavio (though he is costumed nuttily in this production). Our Zerlina was another Russian soprano, Anna El-Khashem (part of whose heritage is Lebanese). Ideally, you want your Zerlina to combine naïveté and sensuality — which is exactly what Ms. El-Khashem did.
A question: Is Don Giovanni the best thing Mozart ever wrote? Yes — tied with ten or twenty other things.
Every summer, the festival presents four pianists who were born in the Soviet Union but have lived in the West for decades: Grigory Sokolov, Arcadi Volodos, Evgeny Kissin, and Igor Levit. Let’s talk Volodos.
For one thing, he is half the man he was. Oh, he is as good a pianist as ever — but he has achieved a major weight loss.
He began his recital as he often does: with late Schubert. Does it make sense to speak of “late Schubert,” given that the composer died at 31? Well, “late” is a relative term.
Once, I had the audacity to ask Michael Hersch, the American composer, whether he had favorite music. He answered, “For me, late Schubert piano music is where it’s at.” It certainly is.
Volodos played the Sonata in A minor, D. 845. Like many another Schubert sonata, it seems private, personal, barely intended for performance. Volodos understands Schubert’s world. He communes with him, so to speak, or speaks for him. Every detail is attended to, with no fussiness.
Let me pause for a sidenote — almost gossipy. At intermission, in the garden outside the hall, I saw Teodor Currentzis. Picture a white tank top; black hair, slicked back; and a cigarette. He looked like an extra in Grease. No doubt, the man is an individual.
After intermission, Volodos played Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, a work not often heard, for two reasons, probably: It is darn hard, technically, and it is strange. For Volodos, neither of these is a problem. He has all the technique in the world, and he understands what Schumann is after.
Volodos ended his printed program with Liszt: the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A minor, though souped up by Volodos himself. (Liszt’s rhapsodies are soupy enough on their own.) He makes a practice of this, as Horowitz and illustrious others did before him. Volodos played blizzards of notes, clearly and stylishly.
I thought of something that André Previn said about another André, Watts: “a lawn mower.” He meant it as a compliment. There are pianists who can plow through a piece like a lawn mower (an elegant one).
Volodos has go-to encores, and he played four of them on this evening. One of them was Malagueña, the oldie-but-goodie by Lecuona. Volodos, of course, has his own, souped-up version. I think Lecuona would rub his eyes and say, “I wouldn’t have thought it possible.” And, to emphasize: Volodos is as musical as he is virtuosic. The one (virtuosity) is always subordinate to the other (musicality).
He said good night with the Vivaldi-Bach Siciliano, which makes time stand still.
On a Saturday morning, the Vienna Philharmonic assembled to play Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 — the composer’s farewell to the world (one could argue). Sometimes, the New York Philharmonic likes to think of itself as a “Mahler orchestra.” The composer himself was the music director in New York in the last years of his life: 1909 to 1911. Prior to that, however, he had conducted these Viennese guys (or their forebears).
Standing on the podium for the Mahler Ninth was Andris Nelsons, whose full-time job is in Boston: He is the music director of the BSO. Like Volodos, he is now about half the man he was. Both of them should tell the tale: “How’d I do it?”
Nelsons is a Latvian, a protégé of the late Mariss Jansons. He began as a trumpeter playing in the Latvian National Opera orchestra. In an interview here, I once asked him, “What do trumpets do in opera?” He said, “Well, they announce things.” (Perfect answer.)
It goes without saying, Nelsons conducted Mahler 9 ably. He can do no other. At every turn, he exhibited maturity and sense. Anything to object to, anything at all? One might say this: The music was a little straight-ahead. Folk elements could have been earthier — more rustic. The symphony was a little clinical, a little dry-eyed. This was especially true of the last movement, I think, that killer Adagio.
But, but, but: At least Maestro Nelsons avoided bathos or sentimentalism. The music can speak for itself, without too much conductorial “help.”
Really, the Vienna Philharmonic is a splendid machine. “These guys are good.” They could coast on their reputation, but they don’t — they justify it, year after year, decade after decade. (I have seen older players “age out”; I have seen young ones get middle-aged.)
At the end of the symphony, the audience was dead silent. Early applause is almost indecent following this work. Finally, the fellow sitting next to me broke the silence with “Bravo.” I had the feeling he had been waiting, itching, to do this.
As the audience applauded, Nelsons asked principal players to stand. Sometimes orchestra players are confused: “Does he mean me?” To specify the instrument he meant, Nelsons made gestures. Indicating the trumpet, he moved his fingers, as though pressing the valves. I thought: “He’s used to it.”
From my seat near the stage, I saw an interaction between Nelsons and the morning’s concertmaster, Rainer Honeck (brother of Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra). Subtly, Honeck asked whether Nelsons wanted to remount the podium for a solo bow. Brooking no opposition, Nelsons shook his head no.
When Mahler died, his symphonies were not well established around the world. They were very far from canonical. Now they are practically as familiar, and valued, as Beethoven’s. I wish Mahler could know it. But, possibly, he would not be surprised.