Riccardo Muti & Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Schubert & Bruckner at Salzburg Pageant

We started comparatively intimately, restrained but wealthy, taking you on a journey to the far perkier Allegro vivace. This was partaking but with fierce element, with a vigorous bounce but critical and intent, making a efficiency that was alive and pressing, with flashes of extra tragic motifs within the growth.

The Andante started gracefully but intimate with the advantage of fine-grained string tone. There have been transient touches of drama and it was fascinating to listen to Schubert bringing in moments of partaking counterpoint. The Menuetto was most undoubtedly a rustic dance, sturdy rhythms to the fore, but with a pleasant swing to the trio. The Allegro finale was partaking, but with a way of urgency and, maybe surprisingly, nervousness. The center part at moments of urgency but there was additionally a Rossini-like insouciance.

For Bruckner’s mass the refrain was the live performance arm of the Vienna State Opera Refrain with the stage stuffed with a wholesome variety of singers. Muti’s unashamedly symphonic strategy to this music introduced out Bruckner’s transcendent sense of scale. No matter Bruckner’s authentic intentions have been, the refrain sound was that we would count on within the Te Deum. Bruckner’s mass settings have been influenced by the Cecilian motion with its emphasis on directness and readability of phrases in musical settings. This chimed in with Bruckner’s symphonic preferences and right here, for a lot of the work, the refrain sang in homophonic blocks of sound enlivened by orchestral textures. That stated, the refrain’ diction was not fairly what it may have been.

There was a hyperlink with Schubert in that Bruckner’s use of his soloists was very very similar to a semi-chorus relatively as Schubert did in his plenty. Right here, with the large-scale of the refrain Muti introduced out the contrasts of scale between refrain and soloists.

The Kyrie was sober, the choral phrases unfolding in a manner that was leisurely but with an underlying fervency. The Gloria started vividly vigorous, the choir’s virtually trenchant strains enlivened by orchestral counterpoint. Tender solos from soprano Ying Fang and mezzo-soprano Wiebke Lehmkuhl solely served to stress the ability of the choral-orchestral contributions. This dichotomy continued via the motion until Bruckner introduced issues to a triumphant, fugal conclusion.

The opening sections of the Credo have been notable for the vigour of the choral contributions, the music trenchantly striding throughout the orchestra, the singers assured in affirming their message. There was a second of pure aural magic as Muti and Bruckner used the soli as an echo refrain on the phrases ‘Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine’. When the assured proclamation halted, Pavel Breslik’s radiant tenor made ‘Et incarnatus’ an intimate solo intertwining with the solo violin. The darkness of the male refrain at ‘et homo factus est’ led to some extremely welcome chromatic refrain writing, echoed by William Thomas’ intense bass solo. Vivid vigour and choral affirmation returned, with Muti making a positively symphonic really feel to the textures, although there have been moments of thriller and the entire of the concluding part of the Credo could possibly be summed up by the phrase ‘triumph and thriller’.

The flippantly seductive orchestral textures firstly of the Sanctus complemented the extra direct choral statements, resulting in a joyful Hosanna that includes acquainted modifications of scale between the soli and the total refrain. 

As somebody acquainted primarily with Bruckner’s sacred motets and for whom his symphonies can appear considerably lengthy winded of their procedures, Bruckner’s reluctance to maneuver on or attain a conclusion on this music made you perceive why the mass may appear too lengthy. Actually, a Benedictus of this size could be liturgically inappropriate these days and possibly was so in Bruckner’s day. But clearly, the motion was felt by Bruckner to wish this amplitude to take care of the sacred. Actually it moved from the intimate and tender to one thing extra intense with some quasi-operatic singing from the soloists.

The Agnus Dei was surprisingly sober and intense with some pretty contrasts within the repeated ‘Miserere nobis’ from the soli, till the ultimate chorus when richer textures led to a symphonic growth that returned to a way of the transcendent.