LUCERNE — Curiosity, the rubric for this year’s Lucerne Festival, is a fitting lens through which to explore a high-karat concert line-up ranging from core repertoire to contemporary music. An all-Rachmaninoff program with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under music director Riccardo Chailly on Aug. 20 unfortunately did not provide a representative example, and a guest performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre from Dresden embracing the latest historical performance practice the following evening was more of an anomaly. (I was struck with a case of Covid and could not attend other concerts as planned.)
Interestingly enough, however, both composers have a strong connection to Lucerne: Wagner wrote parts of the Ring at his villa in Tribschen, within walking distance of the city. And Rachmaninoff owned a summer villa further out on Lake Lucerne, where in the 1930s he wrote Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Third Symphony. Neither of these scores was on Chailly’s program. Rather, the chosen repertoire set out to explore the composer’s evolution from juvenilia to the Symphonic Dances, premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy in 1941.
The Symphonic Dances proved a high point as Chailly led with incisive phrasing but also restraint. The woodwinds were particularly elegant. In the final “Allegro,” the entire orchestra faded gradually to a flawless pianissimo aided by the famously clear acoustics of the KKL concert hall.
Less dance-like and generally unsatisfying in terms of expression was the opening Scherzo for Orchestra in D minor, Rachmaninoff’s first surviving orchestra piece. While technically impressive, the phrasing under Chailly was rushed and executed entirely without rubato before slowing down suddenly at the end. Rachmaninoff’s so-called Youth Symphony, of 1891, brought forth more nuance, with swelling lines in the horns and low strings. The woodwinds again stood out most for their polish and expressivity, while the violins could have been more wistful in the “Grave” section.
The choice of the First Piano Concerto, originally written just before the Youth Symphony but revised during the October Revolution of 1917, seemed a strange decision. It is markedly less successful than Rachmaninoff’s oft-performed second and third concertos, opening with a bombastic blast and cadenza-like passage before ceding a sweeping theme in what must be shaped carefully lest it become too sentimental. Nevertheless, the young soloist Alexander Malofeev (reported about by CVNA when he participated in the China International Music Competition in 2019) sensitively echoed the orchestra, and the tortured soul of the composer finally emerged toward the end of the first movement with a sense of longing in the strings. The following “Andante” had depth across solo and ensemble passages, while the final “Allegro vivace” was lively and virtuosic, although the brass could have played more softly.
A concert performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre, joining the Dresden Festival Orchestra with Concerto Köln under Kent Nagano, brought forth the highest musical standards. The enterprise was based on a research project into Wagner’s Ring that the German Federal Government has supported with no less than two million Euro (in addition to funding from the State of Saxony). Little Switzerland rolled out the red carpet for the final stop of a tour that included concerts in Prague, Amsterdam, and three cities in Germany.
The made-to-order ensemble features a mix of original and newly built instruments that set out to recreate the sound of the work as conceived by Wagner, and the tuning of A is to 435 Hertz, lower than today’s standard The singers have been coached to sing only with natural vibrato and the attention to diction that the composer demanded, with wonderful results. Not once did a performer force his or her voice. Gut strings lend a raw, opaque color to the orchestra, while touches such as a Stierhorn (made with the actual horn of a bull) from a balcony in the second act animated the evening.
Among the uniformly excellent cast, Sarah Wegener stood out as Sieglinde for her sweet timbre and excellent text expression. Äsa Jäger brought an expansive voice to the role of Brünnhilde, and Simon Bailey was a predictably authoritative Wotan. Nagano accompanied with immaculate technique and sensitivity, only letting the orchestra rip during interludes so as not to overwhelm the singers. A long silence descended before the audience broke out into applause and eventually a standing ovation. As is usually the case in Lucerne, it was well-deserved.
