Riccardo Muti, the veteran conductor, has spent a life with Verdi. Also with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted the VPO in fifty-three straight seasons. If that is not a record—it has to be close to it.
Yesterday morning, in the Great Festival Hall at the Salzburg Festival, Muti conducted both: both Verdi and the Vienna Philharmonic. The first half of the program comprised Verdi’s Stabat Mater and Te Deum. These come from the collection of works known as Four Sacred Pieces. Yet the four were not composed as a quartet; they were composed individually, and published together. Alongside the VPO, of course, was its associated chorus.
Exactly forty years ago, Muti made a recording of the Four Sacred Pieces with another great orchestra in the heart of Europe: the Berlin Philharmonic. And the chorus? The Swedish Radio Chorus plus the Stockholm Chamber Choir. An example of international cooperation.
Yesterday morning, the Stabat Mater began with a good, rounded attack, followed by a beautiful diminuendo. Later, there was some portamento—tasteful, pleasing portamento. I thought this was a little daring, and commendable. Players and singers must not fear portamento in Mahler. Or in Verdi.
The Four Sacred Pieces must breathe. If they don’t breathe—if they get bogged down—they are dead. Muti never let the Stabat Mater, or the Te Deum, die. They always breathed. And Muti did nothing showy. His gestures were economical. He simply guided the music in a natural, logical, musical way.
Question: Are the Four Sacred Pieces operatic? Or oratorio-like? The answer is yes, I think. I’m not sure Verdi felt the need to make a great distinction between the two forms—as exhibited most astoundingly in his Requiem. At the end of the Te Deum, there is a choral outburst that resembles “Immenso Fthà!” from Aida.
In the Te Deum, the Vienna chorus had some problems with pitch, when singing without orchestra, but this was not ruinous. The Philharmonic brass showed how to play loud without blaring. The Te Deum had an intensity that was not overblown. An honest intensity, rather than a false, manufactured one.
Speaking of falsity: there is something I think of as “the false hold.” A conductor will hold his arms in the air at the end of a piece, in an attempt to “stay in the moment” and ward off applause. Sometimes this is wise—not false. But very often it is unwise and false. When the Te Deum ended—on another beautiful diminuendo—Muti simply dropped his arms and nodded at the orchestra and chorus. The audience applauded.
Classy, in my opinion.
The second half of Monday morning’s concert consisted of one work—one of the greatest ever written. (How’s that for a statement?) This is Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7.
Like the other Bruckner symphonies, it is a journey. A long journey. Musicians and the audience, both, must settle in to it. Muti always conducted with the journey in mind—not page by page, or episode by episode. And, as in the Verdi, he did nothing showy, nothing for effect (or mere effect).
In golf, we sometimes say that a player is “deliberate.” Or, pejoratively, we say that a player is “slow.” Muti was deliberate. His internal clock worked—rather like Celibidache’s, over the years. The Bruckner Seventh had its undulations, its crestings, its musings. Muti let it unfold.
The great Adagio was a study in unhurried sighing. I thought there was something Schubertian about it. In the Scherzo, the principal trumpet, Jürgen Pöchhacker, was a Steady Eddie. The Finale had suspense, anticipation, hopefulness, uplift. Unison playing between brass and strings was memorable.
At the end, Muti again dropped his arms, matter-of-factly. No need to milk the moment or gild the lily. After various principals and sections had had their bows, Muti refused to take a solo one, as usual.
Let me tell you, there are worse ways to begin a day than with Verdi and Bruckner—and so well expressed.