Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Festival Theatre. 27 Jun 2015
A world-class live performance of Strauss’ Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder) has been on my bucket list for a long time, and every opportunity to hear them has been thwarted until last weekend when it was my very real pleasure to hear internationally acclaimed soprano Christine Brewer deliver her ninety-eighth performance of what is surely one of the pinnacle compositions of the twentieth century.
The Four last Songs take no prisoner. It takes a mature and robust voice to handle them, yet one that can also rise gracefully like a floating feather on a gentle zephyr. They demand a voice that can soar above a full-strength orchestra that has all but given itself over to glorious melodic lines that transport the player and listener alike. Christine Brewer was at one with all of that, although guest maestro Christoph Koenig was a little too generous on the forte side of the ledger, especially during the first two songs. In the third and fourth songs, and especially in Im Abendrot, Brewer’s expansive and mellifluous voice seemed to rise effortlessly out of nothing and fill the Festival theatre with transcendent melancholy and almost self-forgetfulness. The audience was transported.
And as if Vier letzte Lieder wasn’t enough to make one almost infinitely content, Mahler’s mighty Symphony No.1 ‘Titan’ followed in what was a tour de force performance. Koenig’s reading of Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni at the start of the evening was pedestrian, but his Mahler was anything but. Koenig’s pace was moderate. The programme notes indicated he would bring it home in around fifty-three minutes, which he did. Any slower and the contrasting savage mood shifts in the second movement would have been labored and awkward, and any faster and the evocative funereal third movement would have fallen in on itself as it was swamped by the attack of the final movement.
I love Mahler above all other symphonists, and I have far too many recordings of all his symphonies. I love to compare different interpretations, and I found much to appreciate in Koenig’s reading: clarity, appropriate tempo, passion, and thoughtful emphasis on principal instruments at key times. And how refreshing for the double basses to be acknowledged first in the bows!
Bravo.
Kym Clayton
When: 27 Jun
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
