Last Friday, we were treated by InterDaF to a concert at the Gewandhaus. This was my first time inside of the venue and I quite liked the design. Even better, my seat was in the front row behind the orchestra which ended up providing a very unique concert experience.
The first piece was a Bach concerto for harpsichords played on three grand pianos with a reduced orchestra. This, I must admit, was a little bit jarring for me. After hearing Bach for the past week played on period instruments in strict historically-informed practice, I was at once caught off guard by the more modern sound. The orchestra played more or less without vibrato, and the pianists all played with crisp tone and minimal sustain pedal, and yet … I felt as if I was listening to a romantic concerto and by the end I was kind of underwhelmed. Bach is often so densely textured and, for me, if it doesn’t breathe it risks becoming incomprehensible. In a thick, homogeneously blended sound, I find it much harder to track the individual lines. This is to say that the music becomes reduced in my ear to really only its harmonic content. When the instruments’ sounds decay faster, it creates space in the music that allows me to hear each line entering, swelling, receding, exiting, etc. For me personally, modern pianos combined with modern string instruments don’t really offer that possibility, or at least didn’t in this concert. Nonetheless, the musicians and soloists played brilliantly of course and I did enjoy it very much, I suppose I’m just nitpicking.
The second piece, the Honegger, I enjoyed as well, perhaps more so as it went on. As I am somewhat new to appreciating 20th century music, I’m not sure I have anything further to say, except that I particularly liked the climax in the third movement when the trumpet soloist finally entered with the chorale line. The final piece, the Brahms 4, was definitely the highlight of the concert for me. It’s a symphony I am familiar with but not one that I know extremely well, which made it a joy to rediscover through this concert. The full orchestra was one of the best I’ve heard and the variety of dynamics and colors they were able to achieve was extraordinary. However, what made it a special experience for me was actually where I was sitting. I was so close that I could read off the timpanist and bassoonists’ scores as they were playing! Seeing the timpanist’s play up close, I was simply astounded by his level of precision. I was so close that I felt like I was almost in the orchestra, and I was able to see very clearly how the musicians near me were reacting to the conductor in real time. Personally, seeing visually how what I’m hearing is actually getting produced makes me so much more engrossed in the music.
Overall, these things made this a very memorable concert experience!
