BBCSSO, 14/04/2022
Wagner : Parsifal - Act 1 Prelude & Good Friday Music
Mozart : "Ah, lo previdi!", K. 272 (Sophie Bevan, soprano)
Strauss : Ein Heldenleben
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder
It may only be Maundy Thursday, but that didn't make music from Wagner's last opera, Parsifal, any less appropriate for the period, and it was good to have both the opening Prelude and the Good Friday music. They don't fit together quite as seamlessly as the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde - they weren't conceived to do so, unlike the earlier piece - and I miss the voice more here than in the Liebestod, but it's a similarly exalted plane, if for different reasons. The Prelude's solemnity gave way to the luminous Good Friday music in one smooth sweep, and played with quiet concentration.
The concert aria "Ah, lo previdi!" was written in 1777 for the soprano Josefa Dušek, and is one of the last pieces written in Salzburg. It's structured in four parts, recitative - aria - recitative - cavatina, the first two fiery and raging, the second two more melancholy and reflective. Sophie Bevan has a big, clear voice, powerful and expressive, but had it not been for the lyrics sheet, I wouldn't have had the slightest notion of what she was saying. Her Italian was frankly mushy, which similarly rendered some of her singing less distinct than it should have been, which was rather a pity, and the aria comes to a rather abrupt end, which is disconcerting.
Ein Heldenleben is also the work of a relatively young composer. In one of the last sections, where Strauss indulges in a good deal of auto-quotation, there's nothing from any of his major operas, for the simple reason that he hadn't yet written them. All of his great tone poems, those exciting paintings for orchestra, pre-date the operas and were written before the turn of the 20th Century. Strauss was in his thirties. There is something a little self-indulgent about the piece, Strauss showing off his dazzling orchestral technique to the max, with complex textures and colours, particularly in the Battle scene, but the sheer verve of it, and the conviction, both in the composition, and in tonight's performance, attract and hold the listener's attention for all the right reasons. The orchestra's leader, Laura Samuel, shone as the Hero's Companion - or rather, as Strauss admitted, a portrait of his wife, the soprano Pauline de Ahna, in all her excitable, temperamental glory. As a whole, it's a work that can sag under the weight of its own bombast, but Mark Elder kept it moving and alive, with detailed attention to the intricacies of its texture, and the radiant serenity of the final page closed the loop with that of Wagner's music at the start of the evening.
[Next : 15th April]