Gray-haired modernity – Newspaper Kommersant No. 168 (7369) of 09/13/2022

For two weeks, the Musikfest Berlin symphonic music marathon, unprecedented in scope, continues in the German capital – 12 orchestras have already performed better than each other on the stage of the Berlin Philharmonic. At the same time, the well-known symphonic repertoire is actively supplemented by the post-war avant-garde and works by contemporary composers. Sharing impressions from what he saw and heard Gular Sadykh-zade.

Composer and conductor Enno Poppe, who performed in both roles, is responsible for current practices and radical experiments in the field of sound, timbre and presentation formats this year at the festival. With the EnsembleKollektiv Berlin, he held an interesting concert, performing Lisa Lim’s opus Machine for Contact with the Dead. Inspired by the sounds of ancient Chinese musical instruments found in the tomb of a Chinese ruler in Hubei province, an Australian composer has taken up some sort of musical archeology and built an imaginary machine that sends sound messages to the underworld. Her composition was logically continued in its own way by Yiannis Xenakis’ Jalons, in which he refers to the world of Ancient Greece – for Xenakis, Greece was the land of imagination, dreams, the land of promise.

Newly written pieces are literally piping hot at the festival, played by the best contemporary music ensembles, such as Europe’s oldest Ensemble Modern. For example, on the second day of the festival, Arnulf Hermann’s 40-minute variation cycle “Hard Boiled Variations – 15 1/2 Cycles” premiered. In pandan to them is a new composition by Enno Poppe “Koerper” (“Bodies”), demonstrating special attention to the possibilities and sound potentialities of the big band, which, according to Poppe, are underestimated and insufficiently used in composer’s everyday life. Behind the conductor’s stand was the author.

“Hot-hot” correlates quite accurately with the title of Herman’s variational cycle “Hard Boiled Variations”. The constructive principle, pursued by the author with all the inflexibility of a scholastic, is the gradual contraction of the duration of the variations from beginning to end, together with the acceleration of the tempo. So if the first variation, in which the theme was presented slowly and sedately, lasted five minutes, then the penultimate one shrank to three seconds, and the very last “semi-variation” (that same “1/2” from the title of the opus) generally represented one chord. However, the classics also indulged in such a virtuoso “compression” of thematic material: for example, Beethoven in the first part of his Fifteenth Sonata, by the end of the development, reduced the original theme to one chord – so the principle is not new and not discovered by Hermann. Arnulf Hermann’s variations also had a plastic expression: the Bonn company CocoonDance accompanied the performance with etudes arranged according to a similar principle – a gradual compression of a set of body movements and truncation of the pattern of the group’s movement in accordance with the compression and tempo acceleration of the variations.

Composers of the older generation – Sofya Gubaidulina, who has long lived in Germany, and the patriarch of German music Aribert Reimann – are also not forgotten. One of the best German orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus conducted by Andris Nelsons, performed a relatively new, dated 2019, but undoubtedly prophetic composition by Gubaidulina “Der Zorn Gottes” (“The Wrath of God”). It opens with a formidable roar of copper; this is probably how the trumpets of the archangels should sound, announcing the end of the world. The composition premiered in 2020, in the midst of pandemic restrictions, to an empty auditorium; Nelsons later recorded it on CD.

Gubaidulina draws terrible pictures of the collapse of the universe, using all the power and the whole palette of timbres of a huge symphony orchestra. The wild cacophony of tutti pumps fear and awe, making the hair stand on end. The orchestra rises three times in a mighty crescendo of incredible scope, the screaming brass and the extreme chorus of the strings finally reach the peak of volume, followed by a sudden and terrible in its suddenness breakage – into silence, into darkness, into the abyss. A pause – and the orchestra begins a difficult ascent; this is how an old man goes up the stairs, slowing down and taking a breath, before climbing the last two steps.

Gubaidulina manages sound arrays with a daring that could delight, but the open, sharp tragedy of this music leaves no room for admiration. This is the music of horror, music permeated with the cries of sinners, depicting the death of mankind in an apocalyptic fire. Gubaidulina is a person, a devout believer; perhaps faith endows her with the gift of providence, and her message sounds incredibly relevant precisely in today’s apocalyptic reality.

Shostakovich’s chamber symphony, which preceded Gubaidulina’s opus, thematically and figuratively prepared Der Zorn Gottes for perception. Shostakovich and Gubaidulina belong to the Soviet composing school, both grew up and formed in similar conditions of merciless totalitarian pressure on the individual. Shostakovich’s departure to “internal emigration” and his escapism are reflected in this music with all the eloquence and muteness of despair, paradoxically breaking through in the eerie dance “Freylahs”. A direct autoquote from the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – the melody of Katerina’s arioso “Seryozha, my good one” – a fragile island of lyricism in the midst of crazy running and ostinato rhythms. In juxtaposition of fragile lyrics, hysterical nervous laughter, the grotesque and bright, open genreism – the whole of Shostakovich, who never shied away from frontal techniques and used them without hesitation.

The Konzerthaus Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach offered the Berlin public a risky program composed entirely of the works of the patriarch of German music, Aribert Reimann. It must be admitted that the luxurious historical hall of the Konzerthaus looked empty on the evening of the concert: not everyone dares to listen for two hours in a row, not the easiest music to perceive, by no means pleasing to the ear and written rather uncompromisingly, in a harsh dissonant style that was considered mainstream half a century ago. Nevertheless, the vocal cycle for Rymann’s viola solo to lyrics by Celan seemed rather curious and was performed by the soloist Ursula Hesse von den Steinen quite impressively. The ideally even sound leading was not disturbed even by the risky jumps of the vocal part, of which this part essentially consisted (except for the endless half-tone chanting and chromatic glissando).

The evening ended with the orchestral cycle “Nine Pieces for Orchestra” – nine orchestral miniatures compiled like leaves from an album: each piece has one type of texture. The insect flickering in the fifth piece, the gloomy and archaic flavor in the sixth, the low timbres of the strings, the ominous beats of the timpani, the grinding tubas and trombones – it seemed as if someone was stealthily walking through a dark labyrinth, and the Minotaur lurked around the corner.

The panorama of modern music at the festival will continue in the coming days: already today at a concert of the Berlin Radio Orchestra, its current leader Vladimir Yurovsky will perform Xenakis’s “Ais”, a couple of days later, Xenakis’ famous “Tetras”, Lachenmann’s “Grido” and ” String Creatures by Lisa Lim. The program of the second concert of the Berlin Philharmonic also looks very radical and is composed of works by Xenakis, Zimmermann and Dallapikkola authors of the 20th century.

In addition, the performance of the Belgian baroque ensemble Collegium Vocale Gent with Philippe Herreweghe and a grandiose 24-hour theatrical marathon of church music in seven concerts with a repertory range from Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Tallis to Wolfgang Riem in the church Am Hohenzollernplatz are ahead.