BBCSSO, 02/12/2021

Schoenberg : Kammersymphonie No. 2

Korngold : Lieder des Abschieds (Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano)

Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique"

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Alpesh Chauhan

Schoenberg began his 2nd Chamber Symphony at much the same time as he wrote the 1st, which is a seminal work marking Schoenberg's transition from the lush post-Romantic atonality of early pieces like Verklärte Nacht into the more concise language of serialism.  He was unable to complete the 2nd Chamber Symphony, though, nor did he succeed on two subsequent occasions.  It wasn't until 1939, when he received a commission from Fritz Stiedry, that he took it up again; in the interim, his musical style had altered radically, and it's almost shocking to find Schoenberg 'reverting' to the unabashed lyricism of his earlier years.  It's in the second movement, which had been unfinished, that you start to hear the influences of his evolution, though it never falls into the sort of powerful, abrasive dodecaphonism of something like A Survivor from Warsaw.  What does change fairly markedly from the initial version is the orchestral texture, which Schoenberg revised thoroughly, and refined into something much more transparent, more soloistic and, indeed, more chamber-like.  Alpesh Chauhan and the orchestra gave a focused, intent reading, enjoying the colours of the score,

They brought much the same focus and attention to orchestral colour to the Korngold Songs of Farewell, in subtle support of Karen Cargill's eloquent interpretation.  These four songs are something like a cross between Mahler and Richard Strauss, with the melancholy poetry of the former allied to the jewelled textures of the latter.  Originally written for voice and piano, Korngold created the orchestral version three years after the 1921 premiere and, for him, the forces concerned are relatively restrained; notably there is no brass, which keeps the overall timbre fairly muted.  Karen Cargill folded the generous amplitude of her voice right down into the intense intimacy of these songs, the warm opulence of her timbre caressing and inviting.  The third song was particularly compelling, but the whole set was beautifully controlled.  

She did not make us work too hard for an encore, and what an encore!  Arguably Richard Strauss's most beautiful song, "Morgen!", written 20 years earlier than the Korngold, but very much in the same blend of melancholy and hope, all exquisite poise and luminous timbre.  You could have heard a pin drop, so complete was the concentration and the commitment, an instant of pure magic, such as one always hopes for, but does not often get in performance.

That first half was going to be a hard act to follow, and I will confess that Tchaikovsky 6 is not my favourite piece.  I find it tips very, very easily into self-indulgence, bathos rather than passion.  Chauhan didn't let it slip that far, but nor was I really touched by his reading overall.  The second theme of the first movement was a little on the slow side for my liking.  There was some loss of articulation, again at the start of the first movement, and in the scurrying figuration of the third and, tellingly, there was no applause (however slight) at the end of the March - in a really engaging performance of this symphony, it's very rare that an audience doesn't break out into some applause, even when they know perfectly well there's another movement to come.  Still, at the end, he had imparted enough gravity that the music, dying away into a prolonged silence, seemed to linger on some inaudible plane to hold us all under its spell.  

[Next : 3rd December]