Saturday, November 6, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
It was debut week for Jordi Savall with the Berliner Philharmoniker. For the third time in three days, the Berliners (recently returned from an Asian tour with Kirill Petrenko) entered into Savall’s particular brand of Baroquery and Classicism, the Rameau exuberant with flaring timpani and ceremonial trumpets, shapely melodies and dancing measures fortified by tambourine and bass drum as well as continuo instruments plucking and tinkling along. Gluck’s ballet music (with guitar continuo, as befits Savall’s Spanish heritage) introduced a purer invention, if not without rusticity, or timpani thunder, a galant style that linked to Mozart, here his ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, its performance under Savall one of integrity and poise, everything belonging/is related, and with clarity of detail and rhythmic definition, so that the beginning of the first-movement development, as an example, wasn’t sticky (but nor is it from Leinsdorf in Boston sixty-odd years ago) and to say that the Andante second movement was swift would be an understatement. The Minuet really danced, and was lightly sprung, the Trio following suit, as did the Finale, i.e. attacca – fast, fast, fast – the music somewhat diminished, becoming faceless under the mask of speed, for all that the playing was superb. Not surprisingly, all repeats were made (beneficial especially to the Finale’s second half) – but Leinsdorf, all those years ago, was equally generous – and if the rat-a-tat timpani became a little irritating, it was the concluding fugue, launched by sky-rocketing horns, and its definition of parts, that was worth the journey. An encore wasn’t expected, a reprise of the weather report that ends the Gluck, even more tempestuous this time, with much applause then raining-down on Savall and the willing and able Berliners.
- Jean-Philippe Rameau Naïs, suite (arr. Jordi Savall)
- Christoph Willibald Gluck Don Juan, ballet
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 “Jupiter”