Barenboim pedals a breathtaking Brahms cycle

Slightly feverish from a head cold proved the perfect way for our reviewer to listen to Barenboim’s Brahms odyssey

Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin performing on the opening night of their three-concert tour at Sydney Opera House. Picture: Peter Adamik

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The last time he was here Daniel Barenboim was 28 and performing with his then wife cellist Jacqueline du Pre. That was 48 years ago, so there was a special frisson going round the Sydney Opera House audience on the first night of his three-night tour conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Barenboim’s association with this band goes back to 1992, and in 2000 he was made conductor for life of the orchestra which traces its ancestry back to the 16th century.

It was obvious from the opening bars of Brahms’ Symphony No 1 that here was a special relationship.

Conductor and musicians seem to breathe as one in symbiosis — each knows what the other wants, even with gestures as small as a raised eyebrow.

Barenboim is as famously critical of both metronome markings — especially when it comes to Beethoven — as he is dismissive about historically informed performances. Instead he relies on his awareness of harmony, counterpoint, emotion and acute musical intuition to produce what he needs from his orchestra.

FEBRILE

The result is simply breathtaking. He casts new light on familiar works, never milking the beautiful adagios or overcooking the giddying climaxes. The funeral march movement from Beethoven’s Eroica will live long in this listener’s memory.

The Staatskapelle is an orchestra which has its own signature sound, powerful but not overpowering in the strings, glorious in the woodwinds and lustrous, almost silken, in the brass section.

Concertmaster duties were shared over the three nights between Wolfram Brandl (Sunday, Brahms 1 and 2), and up-and-coming young Korean virtuoso Jiyoon Lee (Monday, Brahms 3 and 4, and Tuesday, Schubert’s Unfinished and Beethoven’s Eroica).

The woodwinds, especially in the pastoral second symphony, are like those silver or golden traceries of light lining a cloud obscuring the sun

I was feeling light-headed and slightly feverish from a head cold for these concerts and it struck me that this is the perfect way to listen to Brahms. The sweeping passionate themes — often played in the high strings — have that febrile quality, particularly in the opening movement of the third symphony, which Barenboim chose to play straight through without breaks, giving this enigmatic and intriguing work a sense of continuity.

The Staatskapelle Berlin’s history stretches back to the 16th century. Picture: Peter Adamik

The broad brass, so often carried by the french horn for which Brahms reserves his most beautiful tune, also in the third, bring some balm while the array of nine basses wheeze bronchitically below. And the woodwinds — especially in the pastoral second symphony — are like those silver or golden traceries of light lining a cloud obscuring the sun.

HOMILY

But it is the string sound which ravishes the listener — from the Beethovenian closing movement of the first — Brahms’ Ode to Joy — to the lilting falling thirds of the opening to his last and greatest symphony, the Fourth.

On the second night, after the performance of the Fourth brought the audience to its feet, Barenboim delivered a homily which encapsulates his humanitarian philosophy as a citizen of four countries — including Israel and Palestine — saying that the concert had been dedicated to the memory of “the first creative inhabitants of this continent”.

He added that reconciliation in the country had taken a long time — people didn’t talk about when he was here 60 years ago — “but better late than never”.

“A country that does not make its account with the past is not a country that deserves to be in the society of nations”, he concluded amid applause.

These three appearances, along with the recent one-off recital by pianist Sir Andras Schiff, mark a monumental highlight of the concert season.

We came to be ravished by Brahms, seduced by Schubert and inspired by heroic Beethoven. And we were not disappointed.

DETAILS

● CONCERTS: Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin

● WHERE: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

● WHEN: Sunday, November 25; Monday, November 26; Tuesday, November 27