Rendering 14. Music.

            The article “BBC Symphony Orchestra, Barbican” was published by Ivan” on May 26, 2013. It discussed the BBC Symphony Orchestra performed a moving concert at the Barbican, London.

            Speaking of this article, it’s necessary to say that this concert had something perfect at its core, book-ended with things that were interesting and moving, sometimes even overwhelming, but problematic.

            In addition, the first of those problematic things was Wolfgang Rihm’s Nahe fern 1, a 10-minute orchestral Adagio which evoked the Romantic fascination with It arose out of sighing figures in the deep bass, broken up with silences, but it was never more than a dim light. Was this a real musical experience, or merely a second-hand one? It was hard to be sure, with music that shrouded itself so determinedly in dimness.

            By contrast Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony, which ended the concert, was almost painfully bright. It painted the heroic but doomed 1905 Russian Revolution, in a long arch that rose from frozen-dawn stillness to deafening martial clamour.

            It’s important to point that the impact of Shostakovich’s symphonies is always magnified by our knowledge of the political and personal torment behind them. But last night I found myself rebelling at the sheer brute insistence of the music, which all the BBC SO’s fervency and conductor Ingo Metzmacher’s shrewd pacing couldn’t disguise.

            Before this came something that plumbed equal depths of anguished feeling, but without any bullying insistence. This was a selection of songs from Mahler’s setting of folk poems Den Knaben Wunderhorn, made by the Danish baritone who performed them, Johan Reuter.But mostly he focused on military songs, with their evocation of ranks of ghostly soldiers. Whatever the mood, Reuter embodied it with the commanding presence and naked honesty that only truly great singers can muster.

            In conclusion I’d like to say that I think it was great performance. Unfortunately, I should say, that I have never been at the Symphony Orchestra performance, but thanks to this article, now I’d like to visit it.