Friday, January 10, 2025

Herkulessaal, Munich

Herbert Blomstedt continues to create musical waves and also take on eleventh-hour engagements (additional Czech Philharmonic concerts next week).

This choral coupling (played again tomorrow night) led off with Symphony of Psalms, Stravinsky scoring without violins, violas and clarinets, if adding two pianos. Blomstedt presided over a rhythmically alert, expressively shaped account, the BR Choir bringing forth solemn processionals and otherworldly invocations, with woodwinds and brass integrating their details precisely and therefore pertinently, bass pizzicatos fibrously sounded.

Blomstedt conducted the Mendelssohn (a ‘Symphony-Cantata’, aka “Hymn of Praise”) during last year’s Salzburg Festival. Now, as then, he gave arrest and impetus to the first movement, the BRSO exhilaratingly energetic, the intermezzo-like second movement was shaped gracefully, played with much expression and the right degree of intensity so as to charge the air with significance, a quality carried into the slow movement, rustic woodwinds a pleasure. In its continuous state, this hybrid statement now welcomes the chorus (developing the trombones’ motif heard at the outset of the work, and later conjuring Midsummer Night’s Dream magic and oratorical splendour), the solo singers one-by-one adding a further layer of personality, especially the mellifluous tenor Tilman Lichdi. There was much that was enchanting, and the contrapuntal build-up to the closing pages was as thrilling as it was inevitable, Bavarian Radio, masters of its microphones, playing its part, as did the audience in registering a further example of ‘Blomstedt silence’ before applauding.

Nikola Hillebrand, Sopran; Marie Henriette Reinhold, Mezzosopran; Tilman Lichdi, Tenor
Igor Strawinsky: “Psalmensinfonie”; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sinfonie Nr. 2 B-Dur – “Lobgesang”

Rehearsal of the Mendelssohn (extract)…

https://www.facebook.com/reel/886050796747092

Interview with HB (published a few days ago)…

https://www-merkur-de.translate.goog/kultur/dirigent-herbert-blomstedt-interview-symphonieorchester-des-bayerischen-rundfunks-gespraech-zr-93499601.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Czech Philharmonic, January 16-18: Blomstedt replaces Bychkov.

Column Post #8,400: Berliner Philharmoniker – Herbert Blomstedt conducts Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, with Leif Ove Andsnes playing Mozart’s D-minor Piano Concerto (No.20/K466). Live Digital Concert Hall webcast.

Salzburg Festival 2024 – Herbert Blomstedt conducts choral Brahms (Schicksalslied) & Mendelssohn (Lobgesang) with Wiener Singverein & Wiener Philharmoniker. Live relay on Österreich 1 [oe1.ORF.at].