{"id":10699,"date":"2013-04-12T12:52:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T16:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=10699"},"modified":"2013-05-07T05:24:41","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T09:24:41","slug":"rco-anniversary-extravaganza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=10699","title":{"rendered":"RCO Anniversary Extravaganza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Rebecca Schmid<\/p>\n

If tradition means not preserving the ashes but fanning the flames, in the words of Gustav Mahler, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is celebrating its 125th anniversary with one foot firmly planted in the past and the other striding fearlessly into the future. Between a tour of six continents this season, the orchestra gave an anniversary concert on April 10 at its home concert hall, the Concertgebouw, founded the same year as the orchestra, in 1888, with an official opening on April 11. For modern-day residents of the Netherlands, this month also marks an important time in politics. Queen Beatrix will soon cede the throne to Prince Willem-Alexander, making him the country\u2019s first King since 1890. The event honored the royal family, in attendance with Princess M\u00e1xima\u2014soon-to-be Queen and the orchestra\u2019s official patron\u2014with red carpeting and black-tie dress. But the RCO, a crowned exception on the Netherlands\u2019 tenuous landscape of budget slashes to the arts, does not take its status for granted. The entire proceeds of the concert, which featured three soloists\u2014Thomas Hampson, Janine Jansen and Lang Lang\u2014in a program of late 19th and turn-of-the-century repertoire alongside a new work by Dutch composer Bob Zimmerman, will be invested in educational outreach.<\/p>\n

The RCO, which enjoyed close relationships with Mahler and Strauss under the 50-year tenure of Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, has not only kept this music flowing in its veins but performs in a hall which provides an ideal acoustic environment for the luxurious strings, golden brass and sumptuous dynamic architecture that emerges under Music Director Mariss Jansons (winner of this year\u2019s Ernst von Siemens Prize, otherwise known as the classical world\u2019s \u2018Nobel\u2019). The Concertgebouw was modelled after the Gewandhaus in Leipzig but, unlike its German counterpart, survived World War Two. Inaugurating a new era for the building, projection screens hung in gilded frames on each side of the stage, providing a canvas for historical images and artists\u2019 commentary much in the style of the Beyond the Score <\/a><\/em>series initiated by the Chicago Symphony or the multi-media presentations of the New World Symphony <\/a>in Miami.<\/p>\n

Hampson, before taking the stage for Mahler songs from the Knaben Wunderhorn <\/em>cycle and Lieder <\/em>eines fahrenden Gesellen<\/em>, praised the RCO musicians on video for a \u201cdesire to be true to the master\u201d that is \u201chugely more evident than in other places,\u201d referring to composer as \u201cone of their own.\u201d The ambient whirring that opened and closed the footage may have lent his comments a clich\u00e9d tone, but the unforced beauty of the orchestra in Ging heut\u2019 morgen \u00fcbers Feld <\/em>or the perfectly shaped rubati of Rheinlegenden <\/em>lived up to the baritone\u2019s elation. Hampson, one of few singers today who is able to capture Mahler\u2019s searing irony, was at his best in the final Lob des hohen Verstandes<\/em>, supported by the orchestra\u2019s playful woodwinds and the fresh energy of its low strings. The swelling of individual lines that Jansons was able to achieve in Rheinlegenden <\/em>found an even more powerful outlet in the suite from Strauss\u2019 Rosenkavalier<\/em>, penned in 1944 with the relationship of the Marschallin and Octavian at its center. Waltzes floated through the hall with warm nostalgia, and slow, tender passages glowed with burning intensity under Jansons\u2019 inviting gestures.<\/p>\n

He may be the only conductor who could have brought together string players from the Concertgebouw, his Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic\u2014the latter being the only two orchestras where he guest conducts. The ensemble created an impressive homogeneity of tone in the El\u00e9gie <\/em>from Tchaikovsky\u2019s Serenade for Strings<\/em>, with a silky pianissimo and crescendi that breathed further and further into celestial rapture. Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Introduction et Rondo capriccioso <\/em>received an affecting performance with Dutch violinist Jansen as soloist, whose fierce communication powers lent fast passages vibrancy and spunk. Lang, having described the third movement of Prokofiev\u2019s Third Piano Concerto onscreen as a “kind of war,” demonstrated a virtuosity so clean as to border on mechanical but created a wild energy with the orchestra in the final stretch.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman\u2019s Komt vrieden in het ronden<\/em>, a neo-Romantic set of variations on a well-known Dutch folk song, fit well with the rest of the program and gave equal spotlight to all three soloists\u2014an occasion that is not likely to be repeated. The audience laughed in amusement upon Hampson\u2019s first entrance, while Lang was the King of Piano Cool as he read through the score. Jansen invested her lines with more personal expression in the music\u2019s circular exchanges built on conventional harmonic schemes. The program opened with the prelude from Wagner\u2019s Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/em>, which was performed for the inauguration of the building 125 years ago. Jansons drew a sound that was rich but never bombastic. The conductor\u2019s humility was more than apparent during standing ovations for the extravagant occasion. Despite a high dose of old world charm, the evening was mostly memorable for the RCO\u2019s fresh, exciting musicianship that invested even the most familiar Romantic works with new meaning. Surely this is the essential ingredient for every orchestra\u2014even if it doesn\u2019t bear the title of the \u201cworld\u2019s greatest,\u201d as bestowed by Gramophone <\/em>Magazine in 2008\u2014as its preserves its legacy while forging a path into the complex demands of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

rebeccaschmid.info<\/a><\/p>\n