The next concert I watched in Munich was the major highlight of my European trip. This was a sold out event by the Bavarian State Orchestra under its general music director, Kirill Petrenko at the National Theatre on 6 June.
There were just two works on the programme, which were Tchaikovsky’s evergreen Violin Concerto with Frank Peter Zimmermann and the rarely played Sinfonia Domestica by Richard Strauss.
Zimmermann, sporting his newly loaned 1727 "Général Dupont" ex-Grumiaux Stradivarius, gave a coruscating interpretation of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with some Leopold Auer variants replacing the score in places. He played with passionate commitment and searching beauty with endless and subtle variety of nuances and tone.
Every melodic phrase was carefully shaped; if repeated, it was moulded afresh. The virtuoso high-speed scales and passagework had a frenetic and demonic quality whilst the more tender passages were breathtakingly hushed and intense. Burnished lower notes gave way to nut-brown sweetness and lyrical intensity at the top range.
The first movement cadenza was a remarkable piece of storytelling, which flowed into the principal flutist’s lovingly lyrical entry to blend with Zimmermann’s gentle trills at the end of the cadenza. Petrenko made the mundane orchestral tutti passages sound alive and freshly minted.
The second movement ("Canzonetta") was spellbinding and achieved a chamber music-like intimacy particularly in the exchange between the solo violin and clarinet.
The finale was a vivacious and exhilarating Cossack dance featuring exciting tempo changes. Despite being fast and frenzied, the rhythms were precise and alive as Zimmermann, the Bavarian State Orchestra and Petrenko brought the concerto to a most thrilling close.
After many curtain calls, Zimmermann obliged the audience with a most unusual encore. This was not the typical solo Bach or Paganini, but Rachmaninov’s Prelude Op 23 No 5 in G minor transcribed from the piano version for solo violin by Ernst Schliephake who dedicated it to Ruggiero Ricci for his 75th birthday.
This was truly an astounding encore piece as the transcription to a four-fingered solo violin part from a ten-fingered piano part was stunning in Zimmermann’s near–perfect execution.
In the second half, we heard a most glorious account of Richard Strauss’ Sinfonia Domestica by Petrenko. Sinfonia Domestica is not generally in the list of popular Richard Strauss compositions (Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben and Eine Alpensinfonie for example).
When presenting one of Richard Strauss’ lesser-known tone poems, it helps to have one of the composer’s greatest living interpreters in Petrenko in total command of an orchestra on absolutely top form.
The Bavarian State Orchestra strings led by concertmaster David Schultheiss were at their sumptuous best in the central love scene. Petrenko encouraged a glorious and brilliantly majestic tutti sound from the orchestra both here and in Strauss’ grandiloquent coda. I found myself marvelling at the spectacle of Strauss’ riotously colourful score, as revealed by Petrenko, who will be the next Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s chief conductor and artistic director from 2019.
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