Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
Launched by a mellifluous horn solo from Stefan Dohr (noddingly approved by oboist Albrecht Mayer glancing back to his colleague), Daniil Trifonov proposed an expansive traversal of Brahms’s first movement, generously lyrical rather than emotionally fiery – that quality was more likely to come from the Berliners and Kirill Petrenko although Trifonov had his moments in a reading that pulled both ways, somewhat discontinuously if vivid, the second movement also driven by passion. Cued by a lovely cello solo, the Andante was about intimacy, the coming and going of confidences, a retreat to somewhere private, out of which the Finale’s dance rhythms were light-footed and agreeably sprung at a fair lick that didn’t preclude sudden accelerations. (Not convinced it was live though, more ‘deferred” from a little earlier, applause truncated, the third of three performances.) Following a short interval, a sprightly rendition of the Mastersingers Prelude, the antithesis of pomp and ponderousness, with charm to the fore in Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier, and then the seductive and the sinister rubbing shoulders in ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Salome. For an encore, a Quick Polka from Johann Strauss II, Stürmisch in Lieb’ und Tanz, suggesting that Vienna’s prowess in this repertoire is equalled in Berlin, one Philharmoniker to another.