Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
I’ve been here before, and recently, with Andris Nelsons: the Shostakovich with Vienna in Salzburg, the Dvořák with Isabelle Faust & Leipzig in London. The Salzburg Shostakovich rests in my mind favourably, as will this Berlin account, a pained first movement, secretive clarinet solos from Wenzel Fuchs, menacing silhouettes in a half-lit inhospitable parlour awaiting a fateful knock on the door, with an incremental climb to a searing climax, the tempo organic to what had gone before to underline symphonic credentials without denuding the release of deeply-felt emotions, and then the return of doubts and shadows: no way out. The Stalin Scherzo (a portrait of), not hectic, got the ‘terror’ and madness message across through stealth and impact, developing the danger, and, in relation, heightening the desolation that can be found in the succeeding movement, which might dance free of riddles, if only briefly (fantastic lung-power from Berlin hornists) to an unholy silence and the brooding beginning to the Finale, contrasted with the forthcoming high spirits, during which the DSCH motif is thundered out, although, unlike Nelsons’s Vienna account, the timpani roll was less elongated (as I recall it). From there Shostakovich’s ciphers abound as he plays the game of ‘beat the censor’, although Nelsons lets the music be ambivalent – hear it as you will – and what of the concluding timpani solo, loud and every-note-accurate from Vincent Vogel, a triumphant tattoo or an indiscriminate machine gun?
Benjamin Beilman was replacing Hilary Hahn in the Dvořák. He was impressive – with bull’s-eye intonation, fire and elegance, soul and Slavonic spirit, accompanied with character and enticing detail, Beilman given a platform to be as absorbing in the solo part as Midori had been the other day (relatively) from Boston (also Nelsons’s territory) and he went on to further captivate with the Largo from JSB’s C-major Sonata (BWV1005).
The concert’s novelty was Marcel Dupré’s Cortège et Litanie. Not sure what it was doing here, contextually, and needing an organist, too, for a mere few minutes, although the tender opening is quite lovely, pastoral, reminding of Fauré, even if it doesn’t take long to change to ceremonial bombast, a large orchestra dishing out decibels.