Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Arnold Schoenberg’s influence is felt in concert halls today more often than his music is heard. The music of the composer’s early, tonal period, before he progressed to atonality and 12-tone composition, is if anything even less frequently programmed than his “avant garde” works. That’s ironic, as it’s naturally more accessible to audiences, even now, in the year of his 150th birth anniversary.
To mark that occasion, and to breach for one evening the wall that divides us from the German pioneer’s tonal achievements, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) presented Schoenberg’s giant cantata Gurre-Lieder on March 22 at Carnegie Hall.
Orchestral Excess?
The sheer size of the orchestra that this work calls for is a big reason it’s seldom heard. (The ASO has a slogan: “Music you won’t hear anywhere else.”) Even the huge ensemble cramming the big Perelman Stage was a somewhat trimmed representation – 28 violins instead of 40, eight double basses and not 12.
But the four harps? All there. A French horn section reaching double digits – how often? And I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a contrabass trombone.
Behind the massive orchestra was space for only a fairly small choir. Fortunately the Bard Festival Chorale can sound big in small numbers.
Begun at the dawn of the 20th century, but not completed until 1913 when Schoenberg had otherwise already left tonality behind, Gurre-Lieder is a setting of a German translation of a long Danish poem by Jens Peter Jacobsen. The text recounts the legend of King Waldemar, his great love Tove, and the drama that transpired when his wife learned of their affair.
The work is in three parts. Contrary to what you might expect from the word “lieder” (“songs”) in the title, within those parts many of the sections flow into one another, unlike in an oratorio or a typical cantata. This actually creates a somewhat operatic feel.
But Gurre-Lieder is not a work that demands staging. The excellent soloists simply stood in front. With one exception, that is. Brenton Ryan as Klaus the Jester, drolly charismatic though his role is more narrative than active, sprung about and sang festively, helping to enliven Part III.
Love Talk
Part I, the longest, is mostly an exchange between the lovers. Tenor Dominic Armstrong seemed in good voice, but the lower part of his range was hard to hear over the orchestra, even with Mr. Botstein’s skillful sculpting of dynamics. Felicia Moore as Tove brought a bright, powerful soprano that rang out in sharp relief.
Krysty Swann as the Wood-Dove, accompanied appropriately by much talk from the woodwinds, applied her glowing high mezzo to the narration of Tove’s death and funeral. In the second half, bass-baritone Alan Held was a savory, crowd-pleasing presence as the Peasant, with Carsten Wittmoser a sturdy bass-baritone Narrator.
Schoenberg in Descriptive Mode
The music is full of pleasing melodies and fascinating harmonies, all progressing at a generally stately pace. It’s also descriptive. Brassy alarums and galloping rhythms emerge as Waldemar calls for his horse to hurry him toward Tove’s castle. Triumphant strains ring out as he finally glimpses her. Tove declares her love via a wondrous melody in an aria that turns wisecracking, but then ascends to poetry: “For I have kissed my roses all to death / The while I thought of you.” The orchestra beautifully dramatized that moment with a pullback and then a swell. The music then drops to quiet stillness for a night scene, with drums stressing Waldemar’s turn to morbidity: “Our time is done.”
Mr. Botstein marshaled the orchestra, and later the choir, with his usual mix of boldness and finesse to illustrate all this. The sublime orchestral interlude before the Wood-Dove closes Part I was as towering as the lengthy instrumental prologue was hypnotic.
The lower voices of the choir issued a strong, gutsy sound as Waldemar’s Men surging to the battlefield in Part III. Ryan’s Jester cut through like a knife, and Armstrong’s Waldemar found a stronger register in an angry aria where the king shakes his fist at God. Wittmoser sang the Narrator’s recitative in an appealing conversational mode, before a boldly climactic song by the full chorus closed the work with an optimistic depiction of a new morning.
Looking Back
When Gurre-Lieder premiered in Vienna 111 years ago, Schoenberg felt he was already well into his own new morning. He wasn’t happy about the premiere’s rousing success; it wasn’t the kind of music he now wanted to be known and respected for. What would he have thought about a New York City audience responding rapturously in 2024, as happened on Friday? Would the composer have weighed himself down with a century’s worth of additional disappointment?
Or might he have understood finally that while styles change, and composers go in and out of fashion, worthy music retains its essence, and thus its cultural value and meaning? That’s what Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra so ably remind us at concerts like this one.
