Stormy Schnittke, Brilliant Brucker: Daniel Harding steps in at the Proms

Feisty: Harding and Zimmermann in Schnittke's Viola Concerto
Photo credit: BBC

For this year's last concert of the traditional bumper final weekend of the Proms season, the Berlin Philharmonic were due to give a concert of Schnittke's Viola Concerto and Shostakovich's 10th under  Kirill Petrenko. However the Berliners' chief, having given a spellbinding performance of Mahler's 7th the day before (see review here), was on doctors' orders to rest his injured foot, and so handed the baton to the world's only conductor/airline pilot, Daniel Harding.

The first half was unchanged: Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto with soloist Tabea Zimmermann. Schnittke's is a fascinating work, and at its first outing at the Proms under a soloist other than the work's dedicatee, Yuri Bashmet, it proved a piece rich in energy, yet darkly pensive; the composer completed it during failing health, perhaps reflected in the vicious repetetive rhythms of the last movement, before all falls away. 

Deafening Eternal Silence. Alfred Schnittke's Gravestone.
Credit: de:Benutzer:Wwwrathert - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Schnittke-Grab_2.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0

The viola may be an unlikely solo instrument, but Schnittke places it front and centre, even replacing orchestral violins with their alto clef cousins. In the extended solo passages, Zimmermann's tone was extraordinary, full of warmth and rich vibrato, yet possessing a depth and doubt that suited the work. The work suited the venue too: as the sound of Zimmermann's viola embraced the hall, it was difficult to believe with her double stopping it was just her playing, with an orchestra featuring a harpsichord and celeste, passages seemed to contain spellbinding otherworldly sounds, before anchoring us with earthly vigour and passion. In the dying final bars, a breathless and captivated Albert Hall was held in silence paused before the well-deserved cheering of the Prommers.

Harding replaced Shostakovich with Bruckner, a substitution which no-one after having heard the performance could have complained about. The famous opening horn solo, soaring above a shimmering bed of barely audible violin tremolos (and, in the Albert Hall, completely inaudible), was played with nigh-perfection by principal Stefan Dohr, promising a magical performance. 

By holding back the easily overblown brass chorales, Harding shone a light on Bruckner's intricate writing for the woodwind, making it easy to feel as if we were hearing chamber music in a mesmerising second movement. This was very much Bruckner with a light touch: the more delicate and precise Harding was, the greater and more compelling became the expertly crafted main brass themes, with the Berliner brass section, far from dragging the orchestra down, finding space to soar and lift.

For the Bruckner nerds, Harding opted for the second version of the symphony from 1881, conducting from the score recently edited by Benjamin Korstvedt in 2019. A 'controversial' edition, at least according to the programme notes, which refused to be drawn on a reason for this, but there could have been nothing controversial about this performance. Harding's conducting was marked by its restraint, handing freedom for the orchestra to express itself; the stops and starts of Bruckner's music became flowing, coherent ebbs and waves. Harding's approach was expertly judged; crescendos grew naturally, never forced or hurried, as Harding successfully shied away from the grand in favour of the sublime.