Monday 31 August 2015

Sanderling & Kempf in Beethoven (Dresden)

This summer I travelled to Germany (Frankfurt, Dresden and Berlin). Amongst the usual sight-seeing activity, I incorporated some concert-going as well. It was only natural that I attended some concerts with some great Austro-Germanic repertoire in Germany. It was a disappointment that I could not get tickets to see the fabled Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra but watching the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra under Michael Sanderling with piano soloist Freddy Kempf was some musical compensation instead.
The programme comprised 3 Beethoven works - the Egmont Overture, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Sixth Symphony. The concert took place in the Schauspielhaus, Dresden on a cloudy Sunday morning on 7 June.
The opening opus was the "Egmont" Overture, which was played in a lively and historically informed manner. Apart from some tonal heft that was lacking, chief conductor Michael Sanderling found suitable drama in this most Beethovenian of all Beethoven's overtures.
Next up, pianist Freddy Kempf emerged to play Beethoven's lyrical Fourth Piano Concerto. The tempo that was set for the first movement (Allegro moderato) was way too swift for the soloist to articulate the florid piano writing in this most gentle of the five piano concertos. Often, Kempf either missed clusters of notes or fluffed Beethoven's ornate sequences of notes in this movement. The slow movement was much better played and one could imagine Orpheus taming the Furies at the gates of Hades. Sanderling and Kempf found a suitable speed and the lively third movement brought about some lovely playing from the pianist. Kempf duly obliged the audience with a Rachmaninov encore.
In the second half of the concert, we enjoyed a thoroughly magnificent performance of the "Pastoral" symphony. The Dresden PO and Sanderling were in their element and all aspects of Beethoven's pictorial and picturesque symphonic content were explicitly and lovingly played. The symphony was magnificent in all its rustic aspects, the vivid thunderstorm as well as the final shepherd's gentle song of thanksgiving.

No comments: