Review: Wiener Symphoniker with Kopatchinskaja and Shokhakimov

Photo of Kopatchinskaja - from her website

After completing the tour with the Bach Cantata Choir, I took a train to Vienna to meet up with some old friends. I also heard a concert (June 17), featuring the fearless and peerless violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja with the Wiener Symphoniker under conductor Aziz Shokhakimov at the Wiener Konzerthaus. Kopatchinskaja is known for her wizardry with new works, and for this concert, she played Arnold Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto, which is rarely done because of its technical demands. In fact, it is so seldom performed that Kopatchinskaja, who grew up in Moldova, gave a passionate fifteen-minute introduction about the piece in which she talked (auf Deutsche) about Schoenberg’s genius, his fear of the number 13 – which she joked must have influenced his development of 12-tone technique – as well as the world premiere by Louis Krasner instead of Jascha Heifetz, who found the Violin Concerto unplayable, and music critics’ bewildered reaction to the piece. She also noted that the piece is beautiful – now and then – and her comment drew some chuckles from the audience.

Before embarking on the treacherous concerto, Kopatchinskaja quickly removed her slippers – she apparently enjoys playing barefoot – and then launched into the piece with an almost visceral intensity. She created all sorts of eclectic sounds with phrases that alternated quickly from silvery silkiness to aggressive gnawing. The second movement had a languid feeling that was interrupted here and there by accented, darting passages in which Kopatchinskaja would jump a bit. In the final movement, she had a duet with a percussionist on the snare drum in which she switched between glassy-smooth tones and scratchy-rough tones. After the piece subsided into a quiet space, a sudden kapow from the bass drum woke up the audience, and Kopatchinskaja and forces drove vigorously to the finale. Listeners responded with hearty enthusiasm, although I think that most of us didn’t know what to make of the piece. It seemed to contain an entire kitchen-sink of sounds and changes of meter. Kopatchinskaja clearly enjoyed playing it, but despite the lengthy applause, which brought her back to center stage a couple of times, she didn’t play an encore.

For the second half of the concert, Shokhakimov, who is the currently the Music Director of the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, led the orchestra in a grand performance of Selections from Suites 1 and 2 from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” The Uzbeki-born conductor demonstrated a clear affinity for Prokofiev’s evocative and sweeping music. The excellent acoustics of the hall made the sound very present – as if it is emerging right next to the concertgoers. The strings were especially impressive with the speed and clarity during the fight scene leading to the death of Tybalt, but the trumpets could have been louder – to bring out the tragic quality.

The orchestra loved playing under Shokhakimov and let him take a solo bow. He will return to the Konzerthaus with Kapatchinskaja and the orchestra to perform the same program on July 16 at 11 am.

 

After the Prokofiev