In the last major subscription concert of the Linz Brucknerhaus season, the annual motto “Paths, Families, Generations, Schools” was the focus of a sensational evening on Tuesday with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henrik Nánási.
Spectacular because of the program that focused on the Generazione dell’Ottanta. Those Italian composers who turned their backs on opera at the beginning of the 20th century and sought a way back to the roots of instrumental music. They were inspired by the variety of styles of the time, found points of contact with the French music of Impressionism, but also with Gustav Mahler. However, without copying, but creating something new and independent by combining the impressions.
Three Brucknerhaus premieres, of which Alfredo Casella’s second symphony was even performed for the first time in Austria – mind you 112 years after its premiere! A gigantic work that does not deny its proximity to Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, also in C minor, and yet creates a different world, plays with surprising tonal effects and is rhythmically more concise. It is puzzling why this work has not made it into the repertoire and has never been heard in this country. The splendid impression depends not only on the great implementation by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra under Henrik Nánási, which was rightly acclaimed, but also on the fantastic quality of this music.
This is also offered by Gian Francesco Malipiero’s “Pause del Silenzio”, which was written in the middle of the First World War and represents a detachment from old formal traditions and from the dictates of thematic work. Seven woodcut-like miniatures of intense density, broken only by brass fanfares that briefly break the silence of the movements.
In the third violin concerto, “Concerto gregoriano”, Ottorino Respighi turned to the monophonic chants researched by his wife Elsa and, on the one hand, took up harmonic twists and, on the other hand, he embedded the demanding violin part almost unobtrusively into the orchestral events. Not a sensational virtuoso piece, but a work that turns the inner quality of the musical statement outwards.
Ilya Gringolts was the ideal soloist for this. Not only the beauty of his tone and the captivating technique inspired, but also his handling of this music, his speaking through and with the finely invented notes by Respighi. Together with the excellently present music ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra and the direction of Henrik Nánási, who thought no less of every detail, an impressive rendition of this work, which was also wrongly performed far too seldom, was achieved.
Source: Nachrichten
