Tag Archives: Markus Stenz

In concert – James Ehnes, CBSO / Markus Stenz: Schumann Violin Concerto & Bruckner Symphony no.7

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James Ehnes (violin, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Markus Stenz (below)

Schumann Violin Concerto in D minor WoO23 (1853)
Bruckner Symphony no.7 in E major WAB107 (1881-83, ed. Nowak)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 25 April 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of James Ehnes (c) Benjamin Ealovega, Markus Stenz (c) Kaupo Kikkas

His appearance here for performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony two years ago had made one hope that Markus Stenz might soon be invited back to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – such being so tonight for this outstanding programme of Schumann and Bruckner.

Although it now enjoys frequent hearing, Schumann’s Violin Concerto yet remains under the shadow of its eight-decade limbo after the composer’s mental breakdown then decision by its intended soloist Joseph Joachim to withhold performance. Only in 1937 was it given in public, since when it has gradually come to be regarded (as Yehudi Menuhin believed it would be) as the missing link between Beethoven and Brahms. Certainly, there was nothing tentative about James Ehnes’ advocacy, which proved as interpretively acute as it was technically immaculate.

Pacing the initial movement so that its earnest character never becomes unduly sombre is not easy, but Ehnes ensured its halting progress never felt effortful and Stenz drew textures of no mean luminosity from these modest forces. The slow movement seemed more eloquent for its listless pathos, with its terse transition into the finale astutely judged. Its underlying polonaise rhythm deftly inflected, this rather gauche rondo yielded an easy-going momentum in the call and response between soloist and orchestra, through to a conclusion both genial and resolute.

A memorable performance which reinforced Ehnes as among the most consistent (as well as undemonstrative) of present-day virtuosi – something that was no less evident in his account of the Third Sonata (‘Ballade’) by Eugène Ysaÿe which here made for a scintillating encore.

The UK has seen little of Stenz since his tenure with the London Sinfonietta during the mid-1990s, a pity given he has few peers among conductors of his generation in terms of Austro-German repertoire. Such was borne out by Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony – Classical in its lucidity of motion, Romantic in its frequently impulsive emotion. Not least an initial Allegro moderato that elided between its contrasting themes with unforced rightness, the abruptness of certain tempo changes (accentuated by his rare recourse these days to the Nowak edition) channelled into a coda of surging sublimity. Even finer was the Adagio for the inevitability with which this drew respectively elegiac and lyrical themes into a sustained traversal, via an exultant peroration (cymbal and triangle duly outdone by timpani), to a nobly resigned close.

The latter two movements can easily seem anti-climactic, but there was nothing understated about the Scherzo as Stenz heard this – the impetus and acerbity of its outer sections finding accord with a trio whose lilting poise was delectably pointed. As for the Finale, most succinct of Bruckner’s maturity, Stenz emphasized its expressive contrast between themes through his choice of tempi – while managing to mould these into a convincing unity before heading into a coda which revisits that of the first movement with blazing affirmation in the here and now.

The performance would not have made the impact it did without the CBSO playing at or near its best throughout – such Bruckner interpretation having few, if any, equals when it comes to live music-making. One can only hope conductor and orchestra will work together again soon.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on violinist James Ehnes and conductor Markus Stenz

Published post no.2,161 – Saturday 26 April 2024

In concert – Janai Brugger, Karen Cargill, CBSO Chorus & CBSO / Markus Stenz: Mahler ‘Resurrection’ Symphony

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CBSO season finale: Mahler.

Mahler Symphony no.2 in C minor ‘Resurrection’ (1888-94)

Janai Brugger (soprano), Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano), CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Markus Stenz

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Saturday 25 June 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse Photos courtesy of Beki Smith

At the end of another season by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra what could be more fitting than the symphony to have been programmed by the orchestra’s last five principal conductors, defining the Simon Rattle era and been scheduled during the majority of seasons ever since?

Tonight’s performance (and that on the previous Wednesday) was to have been conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, but maternity leave occasioned an infrequent UK appearance (at least since his highly regarded tenure with London Sinfonietta in the mid-1990s) for Markus Stenz, who has recorded a Mahler cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne as centrepiece of his discography majoring on 20th-century music and that of the post-war era. A ‘Resurrection’, indeed, where this work’s ‘darkness to light’ trajectory seemed by no means a fait accompli.

Many are the conductors who, even now, ride roughshod across the first movement’s fraught trajectory or fall victim to a deceptively sectional unfolding; under Stenz, there was no doubt as to the cohesion with which dramatic and pastoral elements were drawn into an integrated and dynamic whole. Suffused if not overloaded with pathos, those closing pages carried over the ensuing (two-minute) pause into an Andante whose alternation of the genial and ominous was pointedly but never self-consciously evident. Felicitous playing here from CBSO strings and woodwind, then by the brass in a scherzo whose barbed irony and ‘dancing on a volcano’ volatility was tangible. Stenz was right to proceed directly through the latter four movements with minimal pause – so ensuring an intensifying emotional curve into those conflicts ahead.

First, Karen Cargill made for an eloquent though not ideally steady exponent of the ‘Urlicht’ setting with its calm before the storm of the vast closing movement. Positioned at upper left of the platform, she and Janai Brugger gave of their best in a setting of Friedrich Klopstock’s (suitably Mahler-ized) hymn Die Auferstehung where the relatively lean CBSO Chorus gave notice of its long familiarity in this music. The route taken there brought out the best from the CBSO but also Stenz’s interpretive focus – the starkly contrasted orchestral episodes evincing a formal logic and expressive inclusiveness that, with playing of unfailing clarity (not least by his antiphonal placing of the violins), ensured the finale never degenerated into a sequence of dramatic tableaux – the sureness of Mahler’s symphonic reach tangible throughout its course.

At around 85 minutes, this was a spacious while never lethargic reading which positioned the work as a precursor to the existential symphonic battles ahead rather than the culmination of a symphonic lineage stretching back to Beethoven’s Fifth. Nor was there any impersonality or lack of conviction with Stenz’s approach – his grip on the formal dimensions of the outer movements being matched by his conception of the work as a cohesive and cumulative unity. The CBSO’s playing married assurance with a palpable sense of responding ‘to the moment’.

Birmingham might have waited until 1975 to hear Mahler Two, but it gave the premiere of Stanford’s Requiem back in 1897 and gives this work again when Martyn Brabbins directs the CBSO in a revival next Saturday. An event which, in itself, is of no mean significance.

For more information on the CBSO visit their website, and for more on the soloists click on the names to read about Janai Brugger, Karen Cargill and conductor Markus Stenz