![\"Passau](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bistumPassauStephansdom.jpg\")
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By ANDREW POWELL PASSAU \u2014 What more heavenly way to mark your 90th birthday than conducting a favorite symphony in four cathedrals on four successive nights, and with an orchestra that adores you? This, at least, was Herbert Blomstedt<\/a>\u2019s thinking, amenably realized by the Bamberger Symphoniker<\/a> \u2014 in Bamberg\u2019s Dom St Peter und St Georg<\/a> July 19, W\u00fcrzburg\u2019s St-Kilians-Dom<\/a> July 20, Passau\u2019s Dom St Stephan<\/a> July 21, and, aptly in this case jumping from Bavaria to Austria July 22, the Stiftsbasilika St Florian<\/a>. On the stands: Bruckner\u2019s Fifth, his Fantastische<\/em>, a work that climaxes only in conclusion.<\/p>\n Blomstedt wore a beatific smile here as he gently yet cohesively propelled the players through the 75- to 80-minute score, applying a number of firm accelerations (to clock in at the fast end of that range). Occasionally he requested less sound, from his chair on his podium on a tube-and-clamp orchestra platform far below Dom St Stephan\u2019s emphatic white moldings and rich Carpoforo Tencalla<\/a> frescos. Cathedral acoustics had their various effects: here was \u201cstaccato with resonance,\u201d in Jochum\u2019s phrase; here, too, pizzicato without exactness, quite a drawback in this symphony.<\/p>\n The cohesion lay of course in the counterpoint: not everyone\u2019s strong suit but certainly Blomstedt\u2019s. So the grand musical edifice stood straight and its sections and parts sounded and ended exactly where they needed to. Light shone into the music, much as it streamed through Carlo Lurago<\/a>\u2019s transom windows. Ideas flowed in long breaths. There was no leaning on particular notes, no pushing for effect by the Bambergers. Blomstedt presented a rational and questioning, ultimately peaceful, encounter with this magnificent score, keeping volume in reserve for its late peroration. Even there, from where the Finale\u2019s two fugues sound together in the brass (after the double fugue) and the horns lastly restate the first-movement theme, no one blasted. Balances had been set, and the American-born maestro could cue without visible effort players he has known for decades, his back to a capacity crowd.<\/p>\n The Passau performance took place as part of European Weeks<\/a>, in another American connection. This was the first festival founded in postwar Germany, in 1952, when the U.S. 7th Army Symphony Orchestra<\/a> served in the pit for Le nozze di Figaro<\/em> starring Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender<\/a> and \u201cWe Demand the United States of Europe\u201d served as marketing slogan. The 65th European Weeks was as busy as any before.<\/p>\n Home to Europe\u2019s largest cathedral organ<\/a>, Dom St Stephan splendidly models the Italian Baroque. Along with Lurago and Tencalla, designer Giovanni Battista Carlone<\/a> produced its dramas of contrast: stucco against frescos, daylight against shadows, plain verticals against the ovalled, vaulted ceiling<\/a>. Outside, meanwhile, three rivers calmly meet: the charcoal-colored Ilz<\/a> from the Bavarian Forest, the milky-aqua Inn<\/a> from St Moritz via Innsbruck, and, in between, the coffee-colored Danube<\/a> from the Black Forest. (Munich\u2019s Isar<\/a> and Salzburg\u2019s Salzach<\/a> are upstream tributaries.) The main stem takes the Danube name although the Inn has been the trunk flow, and the coffee color prevails as it enters Austria two kilometers down.<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 Di\u00f6zese Passau<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: July 29, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n
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