 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Lit, full, bursting with love
By David Blake
Vienna Symphony Orchestra birthday celebration 1900-2000, Johannes Wildner (Conductor), Ahmed Abu Zahra (Piano), Nora Emödy (Piano), Florian Zwiauer (Violin). Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, February 8
This hundredth birthday concert of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra went to the brink, pulled back and lo we had... what did we have?
The hybrid aesthetic of these occasions surpasses all expectations. It was a seethe unparalleled. The opera house staff did a gladiatorial job of being helpful, heroic and charming. And out of the turmoil came a big birthday surprise gift, which would eventually prove well worth the waiting.
We had been promised a "light" programme. It proved to be lighter than light. It was airborne from the start. We were not vouchsafed anything from the orchestra's magic cabinet of wonders, merely a set of good old fashioned show-stopping waltz scenes.
At last the conductor emerged and the audience was fortunately in party mood,perfectly willing to join in the merriment put forth by Johannes Wildner, the conductor, performing in talk-show style. And so we were off on a sort of iconic globe-trotters' ball.
First came Mozart's overture to The Magic Flute. It was not magic, somewhat less, but honeyed and sunlit in the best of Vienna tone. How do they make that tone -- for generations the question has been asked and still it has had no answer. It was lovable, almost a laid back sing-song.
Then came the Concerto for two Pianos and Orchestra in E flat major, KV 316a. This brought back to Cairo two pianist who have played here before, Ahmed Abu Zahra and Nora Emödy, the Hungarian with a fine biting tone.
Ahmed Abu Zahra is an Egyptian, now of international status. He is a great Bartôk player who made a sensation a couple of years ago with the second piano concerto.
The players and orchestra seemed to want to skim beautifully over this piece. It became, therefore, that dreaded thing, un peu de joli Mozart -- cute, neat, almost dainty, with not a sign of Amadeus. What were Abu Zahra's beautiful hands doing? Where the zingy tone of Emödy?
The intermission gave pause to consider the Vienna phenomenon. It's there, it's a thing, it is a palpable nuance in music. It cannot be erased. Neither war nor racism can touch its position in European culture.
The Habsburg Empire has gone. Years pass and roll into oblivion yet still the Vienna style remains, a moral fibre on an everlasting and sustaining chord. It is a centre. Almost everyone who has been in the Music Veering succumbs to its atmosphere, awesome but Gemutlische, warm and soul disturbing.
The orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, is beyond criticism yet at times it make us angry. Can it ever make a tone or colour which lacks perfection?
They began again with Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus overture. Shades of every maestro in the business who has conducted this music haunt the piece. The perfection of its composition shines. The rhythms, even the Hungarian swoops into the czardas, were in place. Herr Wildner is a great conductor but still the performance failed to come clear out at us and set the house jumping to its feet. Where was the magic moment?
Massena and the Meditation from Thaïs allowed Florian Zwiauer to show a long, sustained silken thread and the orchestra to sob slightly at the sentiment. The violinist sent a clear, sad light like an elegiac sigh for lost opportunities which is the essence of this part of the Thaïs story.
It was during this part of the concert that things began to meet the hopes many of the audience had brought with them. Wildner began the Gruss aus Osterreich polka then the €gyptischer Marsch and the Kaiserwalzer conducting from the violin, and we had at last entered into the area which is totally echt Wien -- the one where the heavenly twins, tenor Richard Tauber and his contemporary violinist Fritz Kreisler, were the tear jerkers of the entire world.
Vienna ceased to be a city, it was music itself, warm and palpitating, with its heart flowing into the two grand orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic and this one, the Vienna Symphony.
Herr Wildner really let things sway and rip in the fullest sense. The audience was totally moved and into the scene. The music has been played almost to extinction but on this night it gave complete of its unique, mytho-legendary hold over the orchestral scene. We heard what no other orchestras can quite do -- the sound of the heroic days of Bruno Walter and the Pink Ball.
Wildner mentioned the Danube almost obliquely. Would they play or not? The concert was held on the thread and thrall and then they did it -- the opening of The Blue Danube, which permits the entire ensemble to become one unit to the entry to the celebrated tune. A pause, the pause no other orchestra but these two can bring off. Wildner and the Vienna Symphony brought it off and like a wonderful head of shiny, flowing hair combed in the sunlight it rose then fell into that click-swoop. The concert began its laughing and weeping finale so splendid it brought the entire evening up to Vienna's especial Elysium. The audience rose to its feet, the entire place melted with charm.
The Vienna Symphony had been here, the signet stamped in gold.
