Sunday, August 10, 2025
Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, Austria
A busy Salzburg weekend for the Vienna Philharmonic, no doubt utilising to the utmost its pool of players and perhaps with a few headaches arranging rehearsal schedules. This ‘Tenths’ programme was also presented yesterday morning, while in the evening it was Verdi’s Macbeth (part of a run conducted by Philippe Jordan), with this afternoon bringing Salonen to conduct a concert including Webern, and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, and tonight there’s a chamber-music recital. Maria Stuarda tomorrow, and Muti in a few days, Schubert and Bruckner.
So, for the second time of asking, this Sunday-morning found the Wiener Philharmoniker essaying Mahler and Shostakovich, a (thinner-looking, dieting?) Andris Nelsons leading a spacious, twenty-seven-minute, account of the opening Adagio of Mahler’s unfinished Symphony: death-haunted, pained, dissonance and woodwinds highlighted, played with unstinting intensity (especially the strings, violins antiphonal, basses to the left), at once suggesting isolation, phrases carrying an edge, the climactic ten-note chord akin to a soul screaming, the remainder of the movement sadly reflective, chilling, affecting, and it seemed as personal to Nelsons as to Mahler.
The Moderato first movement of the Shostakovich was well-judged tempo-wise, flowing, yet shadows were present, and ideas entered indivisibly, not least a particularly expressive clarinet solo, although this wouldn’t be Shostakovich unless enigmas and ciphers weren’t suggested. The climax seared while ensuring clarity; impressive horns – questions unanswered come the coda though – followed by the Stalinesque Scherzo, propulsive, vehement, short notes a part of the portrait, a tirade of menace. The intermezzo-like opening to the third movement deceived, Nelsons alive to changeability, whether moods or suggestiveness (what do those horn-calls signal?) the dance that flares-up doing so here without warning. The opening of the Finale lamented rather, poised on characterful woodwinds, gleefully turned into an outdoors pursuit until the DSCH motif rang out with pride, timpani held for longer and louder than prescribed – an amendment that immediately convinced – and with a thrilling culmination. Excellent sound and picture; worth catching on repeats or when in the archive.
https://www.stage-plus.com/video/live_concert_9HKNCPA3DTN66PBIEHFJICPK?player=true&trackId=live_concert_9HKNCPA3DTN66PBIEHFJICPK (subscription needed)