Exploring the Drastic Range of the Kaisersaal Concert at the Mozart Festival: Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Soprano Marlis Petersen

Mozart Festival: Drastic range of the Kaisersaal concert with the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra and soprano Marlis Petersen

WURZBURG

06/29/2023 – 5:50 p.m

3
Min.

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Soprano Marlis Petersen met the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra and General Music Director Enrico Calesso at the Mozart Festival. Photo: Fabian Gebert

Photo: Fabian Gebert

How does Anton Webern, who radically applied the twelve-tone principle, fit in with the beautiful sounds of Viennese Classicism? At the Mozart Festival, the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra explored this question in a Kaisersaal concert with highs and lows. Also loaded:

the award-winning soprano Marlis Petersen, who is impressive with her intense stage presence. And here is a first answer as to why the Würzburg musicians ventured into the spheres of modernity and the dissolution of tonality under General Music Director Enrico Calesso: Petersen set standards in their interpretation of Alban Berg’s »Lulu«. It should also be said in advance that the evening attempted to write a small piece of history from a musicological point of view, because Mozart’s Maurerische Funeral Music was heard again in the original version for the first time in 240 years. But first things first.

So let’s start with Anton Webern’s (1883 to 1945) symphony in two movements op. 21, first performed in Berlin in 1928. Why? Because at the Kaisersaal concert evening, two representatives of Viennese classicism – Mozart and Beethoven – will meet two representatives of the Second Viennese School – Anon Webern and Alban Berg. Vienna remains Vienna. And Richard Strauss is also called upon, perhaps to make the transition from late romantic opulence to tonal unleashing a little more tangible. Because it is hardly possible to understand Anton Webern’s composition acoustically alone. It would take knowledge of the musical text and its intellectual world at the beginning of the 20th century in order to understand the then completely new, but also cerebral dimension of sound today. The fact that the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra starts the concert with the symphony in a twelve-tone oeuvre and works its way through the composition with a focus on a transparent sound is courageous – and at the same time creates many a perplexed face. Especially because the break in style in the magnificent ambience of the imperial hall of the baroque residence is particularly drastic.

Soprano Marlis Petersen then enters the same room, and the audience can breathe a sigh of relief. Richard Strauss (1864 to 1949) composed the four-part song cycle »Girls’ Flowers« at the young age of 23. Pay attention to the lyrics – better not from today’s point of view: four female characters desirable at that time (for the lords of creation) are described in a template-like manner – the always lovely “Cornflower”, the coquettish “Poppy”, the melancholic “Epheus”, the exotic profound but distant »water rose«. For the soprano, however, the four songs offer plenty of scope to develop the tone poems with wonderful intensity.

This also applies to the following “Seven Early Songs” by Alban Berg (1885 to 1935). Like Anton Webern, he belonged – alongside Arnold Schönberg – to the triumvirate of the »Second Viennese School«. Unlike Webern, however, he moved between the worlds of late Romanticism and the dissolution of tonality, now also in a much more accessible way for the Kaisersaal audience. Petersen declaimed the stylistically highly diverse songs profoundly and with a great voice. The orchestra takes up the sophistication of the tonal color and plays to the soprano. For Marlis Petersen, Berg’s songs are a home game, for the audience an experience. It’s a pity, by the way, that no Mozart interpretation by the soloist could be heard at the Mozart Festival, not even as a small encore. Because the singer herself writes: »My singing was and is always inspired by Mozart’s spirit, the Marlis voice loves his musical way of writing.«

Then, in the second part of the concert, his »Maureric Funeral Music« in C minor, K. 477, composed for two Masonic brothers, was announced as a »real Mozart sensation«. Würzburg’s prominent Mozart researcher Professor Ulrich Konrad had previously worked out the original version in a new edition. In 1785, Mozart (1756-1791) recorded »2 violins, 2 violes, 1 clarinet, 1 basset horn, 2 oboe, 2 corni e basso« in his own catalog of works. However, the instruments initially set down by Mozart later went unnoticed, as he composed three additional parts himself. With two more bass horns and a contrabassoon, eleven became 14 voices. After almost 240 years, the work will be heard for the very first time at the Mozart Festival in its presumably original form, according to the announcement. But here the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra misses an opportunity under Calesso’s direction. Perhaps due in small parts to the difficult sound of the Kaisersaal, but above all to the very imprecise playing, the funeral music, which actually stands for its extraordinary intimacy, sounds spongy, dull, amateurish and leaves you at a loss. A »Mozart sensation« should have sounded different.

In the end, the orchestra remains in the “Viennese Classic” with Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770 to 1827) Seventh Symphony in A major and wants to counter the sadness with exuberant joy. The “funeral music” seems to have an effect, however, and the first movement remains blurred. Then the musicians catch themselves, are present again, work out the richness of colour, do without slow tempi under Calesso’s direction and play the symphony determined by the rhythm in a decidedly dynamic and energetic way. The audience can still experience a brilliant concert finale, including occasional shouts of bravo.

MICHAELA SCHNEIDER

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