Actually, Julian Anderson’s oratorio “Exiles” should have been heard in Munich in January 2022. Due to Covid, the piece premiered in Berlin on April 22nd, and now it had its premiere on Thursday evening in the Isarphilharmonie in Munich. Anderson came for the performance of the Bavarian Radio Choir and Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck.
In five sentences, the 55-year-old Brit looks at different forms of exile, from the externally imposed exile of a war refugee to the internal exile of cultural workers in the Corona period. Anderson emphasizes this program interculturally and intertextually, overlaying various languages and texts in the vocal parts, including letters, poems and psalms in French, Hebrew or English. But even in the wordless instrumental setting, the orchestra is able to transport Anderson’s message.
As strictly composed as “Exiles” may be, it demands a great deal of trust from the well over a hundred actors. In this large cast, the choir does not sing from the stage, but from the rank. Due to the distance, keeping in touch is more difficult than the choir from the Herkulessaal is used to, the singers later explain in an interview with the SZ. The orchestra musicians would also play a lot as soloists and with such a young piece they would have hardly any clues from recordings.
Honeck must be trusted. Stoically and unequivocally, he brings the choir, orchestra and the soloist Julia Bullock together in the middle. Bullock manages to cut through with her dark, powerful soprano. This is not a matter of course, as it feels like being in a vault full of overlapping reverberations at the latest when the overtones are played in electronically – oppressive, overwhelming, at times comforting. Or as alto Kerstin Rosenfeldt remarked after the concert: “I often thought the piece was like a painting. You stand in front of it, it speaks to you, but you don’t know exactly what it means.”
An audience cannot react more thunderously
Anxiety is also reflected in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Composed under the censorship of the Stalin regime and under threat of banishment to Siberia, Shostakovich presents what is supposed to be a showcase work of Soviet aesthetics. Honeck has deliberately worked out their ironically exaggerated extremes. The BR Orchestra was good breeding ground for this, it has played this symphony many times under Jansons.
Honeck can now reap the rewards, but also lets the musicians discover new things, for example that a triple piano in the right place can and must be barely perceptible. “It’s a lot of fun and shows a lot of trust when you can push your limits like that,” reports trumpeter Thomas Kiechle. The leap of faith pays off. The delicate string tremolos in the third movement, which support the outstanding wooden solos and which Honeck has played sul ponticello in order to make the freezing cold of Siberia tangible, go through marrow and bone and hit with no less force than the massive finale. Like a buzzing swarm of wasps, Honeck goaded the strings until the energy of the orchestra almost knocked him off his feet at the final chord. An audience cannot react more thunderously.