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DVD REVIEW | Andris Nelsons Pays Homage to Strauss

By Paul E. Robinson on January 8, 2015

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Andris Nelsons, conductor

Andris Nelsons conducts Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel, and Macbeth. Recorded at the Royal Concertgebouw, 2013 (Also sprach Zarathustra) and 2014 (Macbeth, Till Eulenspiegel) Blu-ray DVD 719004. Running time: 80 min.

Andris Nelsons is only 36 but already he has emerged as one of the leading conductors of his generation. After an extensive search he was chosen to head the Boston Symphony, one of the world’s finest orchestras. He recently concluded his tenure as music director of the City of Birmingham Orchestra – Simon Rattle’s old band until he went to Berlin – and he is in demand at the Met and virtually all the leading orchestras in the world. This new DVD finds him on the podium in front of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and this remarkable orchestra has never sounded better.

Unlike many conductors Nelsons is a joy to watch. But the often extravagant gestures rarely seem affected or superfluous. Nelsons is clearly a man who loves music and can hardly contain himself when he conducts. He often conducts from a crouch but my impression is that being a tall man who is short-sighted Nelsons needs to crouch to see the score. His facial expressions while conducting remind me of a young boy on Christmas morning; he just can’t believe what he is seeing – or hearing in Nelson’s case – and the experience fills him with wonder and joy.

But the important point is that this child-like wonder he brings to his conducting is effective in getting an orchestra to do what he wants. And there is no doubt about this. In Also Sprach Zarathustra the members of the Royal Concertgebouw play like men and women possessed. It is exciting music-making, but it is also very disciplined. Balances have been carefully rehearsed and the quiet passages are executed with infinite care. This is a wonderful performance.

Till Eulenspiegel is also excellent with superb horn and e-flat clarinet solos. But it seems to me that the performance I heard recently by Eschenbach and the Vienna Philharmonic from last summer’s concert in Schönbrunn was even better. It is also available on DVD (Sony).

Macbeth is one of Strauss’ early tone poems and it is rarely played or recorded. And compared to Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan and all the rest it is an inferior piece. Speaking personally, I have never much liked it. The present performance makes the best possible case for Macbeth but I doubt that many listeners rushed out the Concertgebouw afterwards to buy a recording of the work. I also doubt that more than a handful of people in the hall could have hummed a few bars of Macbeth five minutes after hearing it.

And yet, Nelsons convinced me that I might have missed the point of Macbeth all these years. This is the young Strauss – he was 23 at the time – experimenting with form, orchestration and especially harmony. It was composed in the years 1887-1890. At the same time Strauss was working on Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan, two of his greatest masterpieces. But in Macbeth Strauss was going in a different direction. Remember that Brahms had just written his Fourth Symphony in 1884 and was still very much alive and Wagner had just died in 1883. But here was Strauss taking chromaticism and dissonance to a higher level. Nor was this a passing phase. There are pages of Salome (1905) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919) that rival Schoenberg in their chromaticism. But unlike Schoenberg, Strauss was not interested in changing the course of music; rather, he suited the music to the subject at hand. Strauss wrote little purely abstract music. Nearly everything he composed was either an opera or a symphonic poem with a story attached. Chromaticism suited the psychological intensity of a drama like Salome but it would have been all wrong for Der Rosenkavalier.

Strauss’ Macbeth like Shakespeare’s play is essentially a psychological drama and Strauss thought he had found the right musical language to depict it. On its own terms it is an intriguing early experiment on Strauss’ part even though it ultimately fails to leave a very positive impression.

Strauss was always looking for new possibilities in orchestration and in Macbeth there are several innovations. Strauss worked as a musical assistant at the Bayreuth Festival in 1889 and he was struck by Wagner’s use of the bass trumpet. Wagner had heard this instrument in Austrian cavalry bands and added it to his orchestra for the Ring. Strauss in turn added it to his orchestra for Macbeth. Strauss also devised a way of rubbing a Tam-tam with a triangle stick in Macbeth. Thanks to an alert producer (Ferenc Soeteman) both innovations can be clearly seen in this DVD.

For more about Andris Nelsons visit his website at www.andrisnelsons.com. Nelsons is now very active in Boston and he will also be leading several concerts at Tanglewood this summer. Among the highlights will be a performance of Mahler’s massive Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand.”

Paul Robinson

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