Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at Alte Oper Frankfurt: Bohemia in America

News from Catchy Tune: The Vienna Philharmonic plays Dvořák’s 9th Symphony under Daniel Harding – and Frank Peter Zimmerman plays Elgar’s Violin Concerto.

“A. Dvorák’s 9th Symphony Contains Elements of Inappropriate Assignment of Autosign!” In the program manual for the 2nd concerto with Chanda, there is still no warning for classical music works that do not use their own sources. Alte Oper’s “Orchestra Premium & Orchestra Premium Plus” are named for this symphony’s problem, but, as a combination of good will, forgiveness is offered.

The thematic material used by the Czech composer, born in 1841, during his three-year stay in America (1892-94), he intended to create a truly American symphony. Spiritual and dance music from African-American and indigenous peoples were integrated at the crossroads of the Wilhelminian period.

The imported sound signature (the premiere was in New York in 1893) also had a programmatic note: the second movement, for example, is like a funeral procession from Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Eroica to an apotheosis in the style of Marcia Funibre. ”. The song became a concert bestseller and gets hearts racing and clapping.

In the Great Hall, the Vienna Philharmonic undertook a work that was absolutely unremarkable, a slight difference in the structure of a movement that had received little attention so far. For example, the sustain of a harmonically faceless ostinato in the scherzo, or the “scotch snap” syncopation in the first movement.

Daniel Harding was the conductor of this “glorious piece,” who relied on precision and fine tuning, a listener whispered to his neighbor. And the top Austrian band lived this feeling to the fullest with its dense and rich sound.

Edward Elgar’s good nationalism in “Pomp and Circumstances” or “Land of Hope and Glory” would do without warning of identity politics. His Violin Concerto, premiered in 1910, has a purely European origin: overcoming barriers, labor, contemplation. Frank Peter Zimmerman now had the great virtues of self-assertion in his hands. They sounded almost schmaltzy in the solo’s vibrato-heavy and nearly continuous gloss and tonality-wide design, with more fingering on the low strings.