Saturday, March 22, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
It was disappointing that Zubin Mehta had to withdraw from this week’s Berlin concerts due to ill-health (possibly the knock-on effect following a recent eight-concert tour he undertook with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, from Beijing to Budapest, reported elsewhere as “gruelling”). Mehta’s absence cleared the way for Sebastian Weigle (since 2019 principal conductor of the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra) to make his Philharmoniker debut, with Mehta’s programme unchanged.
Weigle may cut a authoritarian figure when conducting but the Overture to Weber’s final opera told a different story to the ears; disciplined, yes, but also shapely, affectionate and light-textured. Schubert”s Ninth (or, today, Eighth) Symphony also begins with a horn-call (two players this time), here heralding a laboured and stolid introduction and then speeding into a rather regimented if bubbly Allegro that rushed into the coda and turned grandiose. The con moto aspect of the second movement was well-judged, although passages of lyrical loveliness leaned to the foursquare. The Scherzo was driven along so that occasional emphases or holdings-back came across as mannered, though the Trio made flowing progress, and the Finale fired along if gratefully leavened by dips to pianissimo. Weigle observed most repeats and he and the Berliners were unstinting during the ultimate measures. (There’s a recent Mehta ‘Great’ below.)
Central to this concert, thirteen-year-old Himari, already signed by Decca (news below), and also a Berliner debut this week, impressed and not just because of her age. If tone and projection were a little restricted, she coped admirably with the numerous pyrotechnics that challenge the soloist in this otherwise unmemorable Concerto (I recall Wieniawski’s Second as being more engaging). The accompaniment was understandably no more than dutiful. As an encore, Himari offered something from John Corigliano’s The Red Violin Caprices and did so with bravura and conviction.