Ten magical minutes with Ligeti’s legendary “Lontano”, then the fascinating introspection in Elena Firsova’s tight concerto for piano (Yefim Bronfman) and orchestra from 2020 and finally the great, richly fabulous “Firebird” ballet by Igor Stravinsky: what a Increase from the finest subtlety and introversion to three quarters of an hour of absolute listening pleasure! In the Herkulessaal, which was unfortunately only sparsely occupied, the enthusiasm for this program and a brilliant BR symphony orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado was all the greater.
György Ligeti’s sound continuum from 1967, from which small pearls sparkle from time to time, is always fascinating and has not developed any patina. This was followed by the finely parling glass bead game of the 72-year-old Elena Firsova, who was born in Moscow and has lived in England since 1991. Here Bronfman was anything but a virtuoso concerto soloist, but as withdrawn and yet present as in his Schumann encore. Here, too, the focus is on a few varied events, such as the three notes of “Must it be?”, which outline the “difficult decision” in the finale of Beethoven’s opus 135 quartet.
In Igor Stravinsky’s “L’oiseau de feu” there was, in addition to the most beautiful chamber music, especially in the instrumental solos, a very different, sensually vibrating music, sometimes rhythmically pointed, sometimes melodically exuding, but also wildly dancing a whole world.
Heras-Casado modeled all this with both hands without a staff, often out of magical pianissimo, but was also able to paint the scenes about the magician Kaschtschej with gloomy, glowing sounds and to increase the orgiastic apotheosis of the finale from nothing to sheer immensity. The BR-Symphoniker followed with opalescent brilliance and sophisticated sound variety, as if he were the demonic magician himself.