Sometimes a large orchestra with fortissimo force, roaring basses, crashing brass, thunderstorms and cymbal thunderstorms can certainly create fear – at least as far as required by the respective composer. Unfortunately, there is also an uncomfortable kind of honest playing in front of yourself, in which a heavy-footed, lumpy to coarse overall sound impression is created, which has more to do with constant mezzoforte and noise than with music.
Fortunately, on that evening in the Herkulessaal in Munich there was nothing of such hardship to be experienced. On the one hand, because the very young Finnish miracle conductor Klaus Mäkelä did not let the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra sink into false severity for Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony. And on the other hand, because the great Frank Peter Zimmermann performed even the trickiest virtuosity on the violin in Béla Bartók’s second rhapsody and in Bohuslav Martinů’s Suite concertante just as easily as he never got sticky in lyrical cantilenas.
The aria is tender and melancholy, the scherzo a flashing violin piece
Unfortunately, both pieces are rarely offered, but they are brilliantly attractive. In any case, the audience cheered with delight when Zimmermann threw the rhythmic finesse, the double-grip cascades, spring bow variants, flageolet tips and pizzicato jokes into the hall as vital as they were sound-conscious.
In Bartók’s Rhapsody from 1928, all the equilibrism is down to earth at the same time. Folk dances are hinted at, ingeniously interwoven and multicolored in dialogue with the orchestra. Mäkelä ensured that the question-and-answer games between the soloist and the ensemble were as resilient and audible as Bartók had designed. In spite of all the pleasure, this rich virtuoso piece also features the harshness that gives Bartók’s music its diversity and different levels of sensation.
Martinů’s Suite concertante, written in 1938/39 for the Russian violinist Samuel Dushkin, is a veritable four-movement concerto in which Stravinsky associations as well as a penchant for Baroque formal art are part of the original sound fantasy. The way Zimmermann chanted the opening Toccata as relentlessly as it was beautifully toned, the Aria sang tenderly and melancholy, the Scherzo turned into a glittering violin piece and in the final rondo debated again with the orchestra in the highest vivacity – it was pure joy. The artist thanked the roaring applause with the Adagio from Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo sonata in C major. It was as quiet as a mouse in the hall.
The sudden appearance of the soprano Anna Lucia Richter brought a theatrical effect
Klaus Mäkelä conducted Mahler’s 4th Symphony light-handed, responsive and present. No self-importance interfered with the lightness of the orchestral sound. Mäkelä is a successful cellist by nature, so he knew what to do with the strings. Whoever begins the slow movement so carefully in the quietest pianissimo, can calmly build up the string choir without any violent gesture and can so organically increase without false impulses, is a conductor of high grades.
In the second movement, concertmaster Radoslaw Szulc offered a nasty act of godfather death in all the supposed country bliss. The performance created a real theatrical effect with the sudden appearance of the soprano Anna Lucia Richter on the glistening E major rush at the end of the slow movement. When the singer finished her soprano solo with a gentle glow from heavenly joys, the orchestral epilogue ended so gently that afterwards there was a long pause of emotion. Then an ovation for Klaus Mäkelä and the orchestra.