Symphonic Dramas and a Discovery

Jakub Hrůša  Conductor      
Stéphanie d’Oustrac Mezzo-Soprano
 
Goethe-Institut invites the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to its auditorium in a digital format with high definition video live-streaming for the connoisseurs of Western classical music of Chennai. The Digital Concert Hall with excellent sound and video is the best close-to-real experience one can get.
 
Programme
 
Miloslav Kabeláč
Mysterium času (Mystery of Time), Passacaglia for large Orchestra, op. 31 (28 min.)
Antonín Dvořák
Concert Overture Othello, op. 93 (17 min.)
Hector Berlioz
Cléopâtre, Lyric Scene (24 min.)
Béla Bartók
The Miraculous Mandarin, Suite, Sz 73 (23 min.)
 
Jakub Hrůša, a gifted storyteller and the Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony returns to conduct the Berliner Philharmoniker for a second time presenting enthralling settings of three dark tales. We experience Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ in the gripping tonal language of Antonín Dvořák, witness the last moments of ‘Cléopâtre’ in Hector Berlioz’s eponymous psychological drama (Soloist: Stéphanie d’Oustrac) and how Béla Bartók tells with brutal energy the sinister story of ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’. Plus a discovery at the beginning: the inexorable progress of the passacaglia ‘Mysterium času’ (Mystery of Time) by Miloslav Kabeláč.
 
Silenced: Miloslav Kabeláč and his Mysterium času
 
The first piece on the programme creates a contrast: Mysterium času, in which Miloslav Kabeláč traces the phenomenon of time. The work leads in an enormous arc from timelessness through time and back to timelessness, depicting the mystery of becoming and passing away. This music does not have antagonisms as its theme, but rather the effect of elemental forces which originate from the same source. It is unquestionably an immediately compelling tone poem, an introspective yet majestic meditation on the nature of time, without which there would be neither human beings nor music.
Kabeláč is one of the most tragic figures of modern music. He had no prospect of success in his country that formed his style.  “His pieces are studies of what music can do without any extra-musical help”, Hrůša explains. For him, Kabeláč is one of the most important composers of the 20th century.
 
Death through jealousy: Antonín Dvořák’s Othello op. 93
 
Hrůša has programmed a stirring tone poem by the Czech composer: the concert overture Othello, inspired by William Shakespeare’s drama and dealing with one of the most destructive sides of human existence depicting the darker sides of love and the destruction of happiness through demonic jealousy, thirst for revenge, anger, love, desperation, pain, and finally regret – Dvořák leads the titular hero through an extensive emotional spectrum. Othello opens with a peaceful chorale representing fulfilled romantic bliss, which is already interrupted by the piercing cry of the strings in the tenth bar. The chorale returns briefly, then the “nature” motif familiar from the first overture is heard in the woodwinds, still indifferent to begin with but immediately taking on demonic dimensions. The dark side of nature, symbolizing destructive passions, emerges as the main theme of the work, which is not sparing with brutal attacks in triple forte and at the close threatens to shatter the compositional structure itself.
 
Death of a queen: Cléopâtre by Hector Berlioz
 
Hector Berlioz also knows how to set extreme states of mind to music effectively. His scène lyrique Cléopâtre for soprano and orchestra, plays a central role in the story and commemorates the last moments of the Egyptian queen before her suicide by snakebite with realistic precision. She recalls glory days and mourns the loss of her beauty and power. The work is a thriller and psychogram rolled into one. The orchestral introduction reflects the inner psychological conflict and sorrow of the protagonist. Her situation is extremely tragic. The mezzosoprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac, who is considered a specialist for the French repertoire, is returning to the Philharmonic after nearly 15 years to lend Cleopatra her voice. In her first recitative Cleopatra contemplates the hopeless situation. But she gives a terrible cry as the memory of Actium interrupts her thoughts. In a weakening voice she once again thinks of her lover Mark Antony, hoping to prove herself worthy of him through this end. The orchestra depicts the death spasms and increasingly faltering heartbeat of the greatest queen of antiquity. However Berlioz’s revolutionary potential and eccentric style, admittedly, still found little support among his contemporaries.
 
Death and deliverance in a seedy hotel: Béla Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin
 
The Cologne premiere of Béla Bartók’s grotesque ballet pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin provoked a downright scandal in 1926. In this work, the Hungarian composer reflects the apocalyptic attitude towards life prevailing at the time – with an aggressive motoric impulse, an atonal harmonic language and an expressive, unsettling tonal language. The theme of forced prostitution could be scandalous if one did not understand the deeper philosophical meaning, namely the invocation of indestructible sexual drive. The ballet, from which Bartók compiled a concert version in suite form after the premiere, focuses on a young girl who is to be bartered away by unscrupulous pimps. The girl tries to overcome her fear and disgust with a dance, but then flees, terrified. After a wild chase, the exotic suitor overtakes the distraught girl. Bartók composed a concert version which met musical rather than dramatic requirements. He used only the first two-thirds of the stage version up to the chase, the chorus was omitted, and there was a new concert ending. Bartók thus dispensed with the moral point of the pantomime, the mystical idealization of love, which no one understood anyway.
 
So here are three moving stories, three gripping compositions and intense dramatic experiences!