Georg Solti in Rehearsal &
Performance—Richard Wagner. EuroArts DVD. $29.99.
Richard Strauss: At the End of
the Rainbow—A Documentary by Eric Schulz. C Major DVD. $24.99.
Martha Argerich and Daniel
Barenboim: Piano Duos. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 21
and 23; Rondo in A, K386. Ingrid Jacoby, piano; Academy of St. Martin in
the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. ICA Classics. $16.99.
Many concertgoers, including
some otherwise knowledgeable ones, continue to believe that the primary work of
a conductor occurs in front of the audience, usually involving “waving a stick”
and cuing instruments during a performance. In fact, though, like the tip of an
iceberg, a conductor’s podium manner at a concert represents only a very small
part of what conducting is all about. Just how small a part is clear from DVDs
such as the new EuroArts release featuring a 1966 rehearsal of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture with Georg Solti and
the Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester. This hour-long DVD is certainly a
limited-interest item, but it is a very interesting one indeed for conducting
students and listeners curious about what a conductor really does before a
performance. Solti was unkindly known as “the screaming skull” for his
notoriously quick temper and vociferous demands on orchestra members, but the
intensity seen here is far more muted – either because Solti was in a
comparatively good mood when the documentary was made, or because director
Dieter Ertel chose to excise some of the excesses, or both. In any case, what
comes across here is rehearsing led by a highly knowledgeable and meticulous
conductor, one who knows the score intimately and has very clear ideas of how
it should sound, where the emphases should be, and how orchestral musicians
should cooperate in order to fulfill the conductor’s vision and, through him,
that of the composer. Solti is demanding
here, yes, but never without reason and never of anything that the members of
the orchestra are unable to provide. The result is a genuinely insightful look
(if perhaps a slightly whitewashed one) at what made Solti the podium master and
master Wagner interpreter that he was, and what led to concert performances as
skilled and convincing as that of the Tannhäuser
Overture as seen and heard here after its rehearsal time is concluded to
Solti’s satisfaction.
Insight of another sort,
also for a distinctly limited audience, is offered by director Eric Schulz in
the documentary Richard Strauss: At the
End of the Rainbow. The hour-and-a-half production contains all the usual
elements of a film about a musician: archival footage, commentary by the
composer’s relatives and by musicians who knew and worked with him and those
who have studied his works, and pictures of the composer at various ages and
with various people who were important in his life. Its most intriguing element
is footage of the première of
Strauss’ 1934 Olympic Anthem at the
notorious 1936 Olympics in Berlin – featuring the Berlin Philharmonic and a
thousand-strong choir led by Strauss himself. Strauss’ relationship with the
Nazis is a continuing source of debate, and the use of his music for Hitler’s
Olympics distresses many people, but of course it was not he who commanded that
the performance be staged; and his participation was part of his years-long
cooperation with the Nazis for the sake of relatives of his who were Jewish and
whom he managed to save from death because the Nazis considered him a valuable
cultural face to show the world (although Goebbels called Strauss a “decadent
neurotic” and looked forward to getting rid of him as soon as possible). The
Olympics scene is the one on this C Major DVD that is most likely to stir
strong emotions among those who still debate Strauss’ ties with the Nazis, but
it is not, from a strictly musical perspective, particularly noteworthy.
Indeed, music itself is rather oddly in the background in Schulz’ film, whose
title comes from the idea that Strauss was the last great Romantic composer and
therefore “at the end of the rainbow.” The proposition is arguable at best –
Rachmaninoff, for example, could qualify just as well – but it does give a
centering point to the documentary and a foundation upon which Schulz can erect
an otherwise fairly straightforward account of Strauss’ life and works. Little
that is said about Strauss here, and little about him that is presented by
actors dramatizing specific scenes, is especially new or noteworthy, although
the film is certainly well-paced and does include a variety of viewpoints.
However, for Strauss as for other composers, there is ultimately more
communicated by the music a person composed than by words describing the music
and its creator.
Thus, the two-piano recital
by Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim on a EuroArts DVD connects with
listeners in a more-direct way than the more-intellectual DVDs about Solti and
Strauss. This is a live April 2014 recording from Philharmonie Berlin, its
featured work being the piano-duet version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The two-piano version of the ballet has some
genuinely interesting moments as it reveals the inner skeleton upon which
Stravinsky’s fascinating orchestration is hung, and Argerich and Barenboim do a
first-rate job with the complex and frequently changing rhythms and the wide
dynamic range called for in the piece. Nevertheless, even when performed this well,
this piano reduction is also a reduction in the communicative power of The Rite of Spring, whose effects stem
not only from its glaring harmonies and distinctive rhythms but also from its
masterful orchestration. There is an inevitable paleness to a piano version of
this work, for which all the video’s focus on the performers’ obvious
involvement in the music does not really compensate. Indeed, the performer
focus, here as in other DVDs of classical recitals, to some extent undermines
the effectiveness of the other works heard here. They are Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D, K448 (375a)
and Schubert’s Variations on an Original
Theme, D813. Argerich and Barenboim seem thoroughly comfortable playing
together, and their parts blend very well, with neither attempting to assert
himself or herself to the detriment of the other. The Mozart, in particular,
showcases the pianists’ lovely balance and fine sense of style, even if the two
modern concert grands are a bit too heavy-toned and overwrought for music whose
underlying delicacy is to be cherished. But the music is even more effective
and involving if a listener closes his or her eyes and listens to the
interwoven piano lines – showing, yet again, that watching a DVD of this sort
of performance is not necessarily the best way to experience the music, since
the visuals easily become a distraction when one’s eyes are required to focus
on whatever is shown on screen (a different experience from attending a live
performance, when one can focus where one wishes).
To understand why even a
fine performance like that of Argerich and Barenboim is a (+++) experience on
DVD, it is only necessary to listen to a (++++) piano CD, such as Ingrid
Jacoby’s new recording of Mozart concertos for ICA Classics. The purity of tone
and excellence of interpretation from Jacoby and the Academy of St. Martin in
the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner come through here with clarity
undistracted by visuals and all the more engaging as a result. Jacoby has an
especially wonderful way with Piano Concerto No. 21, producing an
interpretation whose first movement is longer than the second and third put
together and is capped by an unusually attractive cadenza by Jacoby and
Benjamin Kaplin. The gorgeous, flowing lyricism of this movement seems so
effortlessly composed and interpreted here that it is almost impossible not to
lose oneself in a gentle flow that seems to go on and on, yet ends too soon.
This is a truly lovely rendition of the movement, and the remainder of the
concerto is scarcely less involving, with beautiful forward motion in the Andante and a finale (using Dinu
Lipatti’s cadenza) that simply bubbles. Concerto No. 23, in which Jacoby uses
Mozart’s own first-movement cadenza, is not quite as impressive, but it is
still played with understanding, emotional involvement, and excellent balance
between soloist and orchestra. It is only because the interpretation seems a
tad more reserved at times, almost stand-offish or intellectualized, that No.
23 falls a touch short of No. 21. The Rondo
in A, K386, makes a fine complement to No. 23, which is in the same key.
The rondo’s lyrical expansiveness comes through in a thoroughly accomplished
manner here, and Jacoby’s own cadenza fits the music very well. There is no
video component to this release, and none is necessary – or desirable. Mozart’s
music, when this well performed, calls up listeners’ emotions and their own
internal images far more effectively than any mere camera ever can.
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