United Kingdom PROM 5 – Schoenberg, Zemlinsky: BBC Nationwide Orchestra of Wales / Ryan Bancroft (conductor). Royal Albert Corridor, London, 22.7.2024. (CK)
Schoenberg – Pelleas und Melisande
Zemlinsky – Die Seejungfrau
Schoenberg and Zemlinsky? It was daring of the BBC to recreate a Viennese live performance in 1905 by harnessing these two fin de siècle behemoths (by composing brothers-in-law) collectively, and courageous of Ryan Bancroft and the BBC Nationwide Orchestra of Wales to take them on. Each are costly to mount: Pelleas und Melisande requires over 100 gamers and Die Seejungfrau isn’t far behind. Simply one among them, maybe coupled with a preferred concerto, would have made higher industrial sense (poor Schoenberg – his title nonetheless robotically evokes the phrase Field Workplace Dying).
However that is what the Proms, uniquely, can do, offering us with valuable alternatives to listen to items in uncommon and illuminating contexts. Planners and performers had been rewarded, not with a full home (the Rausing Circle was sparsely populated) however with the palpable dedication and enthusiasm of those that had been there.
Schoenberg wrote Pelleas und Melisande earlier than he started to really feel the affect of Mahler: Richard Strauss is actually there (Paul Griffiths, in his programme notice, tells us that it was Strauss who directed the younger Schoenberg to the subject), however in Schoenberg’s unfolding drama (in contrast to that of a Strauss tone poem) nobody component – a personality, a theme – stands away from the others: they’re regularly meshing, altering form within the unceasing tug and pull of the music in a psychodrama that mirrors Maeterlinck’s symbolist play, during which nothing is for certain and nobody is knowable. Outdoors the decaying fort is the forest, that central Expressionist image for the Unconscious: and it’s all too simple, within the thickets of Schoenberg’s advanced texture, to lose one’s manner.
Besides in a efficiency like this. Massive items have extra room to breathe within the Royal Albert Corridor: however the efficiency’s success was not merely a matter of acoustics. Bancroft sculpted the efficiency together with his batonless palms, charting the music’s oceanic swell across the nice climaxes as clearly because the passages the place solo devices entwine like filaments of sunshine. And, as my companion remarked, he stored the sooner sections transferring, in order that flexibility averted monotony. The enjoying of the BBC NOW was excellent and sometimes very lovely: they and the conductor gave the impression to be inside this tough music (I virtually wrote ‘comfortably inside’, however that may give completely the incorrect impression).
Invidious, maybe, to pick highlights, however laborious to not: the pleasant, waltz-like flutes as Melisande performs with the ring by the fountain, solo devices resulting in a magical string texture; flutes once more, eerie with harps; a quiet bass drum, muted trombones and people flutes once more, flutter-tonguing this time, warning us that the ominous Destiny theme is as soon as extra on its manner. Or, after Schoenberg, for causes finest recognized to himself, has taken us again to the start (about two-thirds of the best way by means of), the shimmering, unearthly sounds (Griffiths calls them ‘curtains of falling stars’) with which Schoenberg returns us to the story and prepares us for its finish.
It’s attainable, with hindsight, to detect tonality straining on the leash in Pelleas und Melisande; however in Die Seejungfrau, as in every little thing he wrote, Zemlinsky remained resolutely and gorgeously tonal. From its bottom-of-the-sea stirrings to its shining ending, three actions and forty minutes later, it ravishes the sympathetic ear: harps typically in play, woodwind darting like fish or glistening like jewels within the darkness. No scarcity of pleasure: the marriage festivities that open the second motion introduced the Hochzeitsstück within the corresponding motion of Mahler’s youthful Das klagende Lied to thoughts; and Bancroft dealt with this motion’s climaxes magnificently. The third motion was additionally fantastically performed, from its hushed opening by way of spooky muted trumpets and trombones, solo horn and harps and essentially the most delicate sounds in higher strings, growing in quantity and rigidity to a marvellous climax (spectacular timpani).
Zemlinsky might not have damaged new floor as a composer, however it is vitally clear that his music has its personal type of gorgeousness. One other BBC Promenade efficiency of the Lyric Symphony, or the opera Der Zwerg, can be most welcome. In the meantime, hats off to Ryan Bancroft and the BBC Nationwide Orchestra of Wales for one of many headiest concert events I can bear in mind.
Chris Kettle
