\n<\/p>\n
The Vienna Philharmonic hasn\u2019t had a chief conductor since 1933. But it has had favorite conductors.<\/p>\n
Of the great musicians who have led this self-governing, proudly idiosyncratic orchestra, Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez were made honorary members; Herbert von Karajan and Karl B\u00f6hm were given honorary conducting titles. The violinist Daniel Froschauer, the Philharmonic\u2019s chairman, has said that today, the ensemble not so secretly has two maestros at the top of its roster: Riccardo Muti<\/a> and Franz Welser-M\u00f6st<\/a>.<\/p>\n At Carnegie Hall last weekend, it was the Austrian-born Welser-M\u00f6st, 63, who conducted three breathless, exhilarating and often moving performances by the Philharmonic, in meaty programs of Bruckner and Mahler symphonies, and works by Berg, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Strauss and Ravel.<\/p>\n It takes a lot to win over the affection of the Philharmonic, one of Europe\u2019s finest ensembles, just as it takes a lot to join its ranks. These players \u2014 known for their lush sound, their brighter, higher tuning frequency<\/a> and their distinctly Viennese articulation \u2014 can be haughty and stubborn; I have seen them outright defy a conductor in rehearsal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Welser-M\u00f6st has not only penetrated the Philharmonic\u2019s inner circle, but also has done so while leading the Cleveland Orchestra \u2014 another top-notch ensemble, though one whose sound differs enormously from that of the Viennese.<\/p>\n The main difference between the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic is that while the Clevelanders have been criticized for giving performances that are too good, no one could ever accuse the Viennese of the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Cleveland, Welser-M\u00f6st has for the past two decades maintained and deepened the orchestra\u2019s transparent, clean sound. (He will leave<\/a> his post in 2027.) Its playing is the most precise of any American ensemble, impeccably balanced to the delight of perfectionists and the frustration of those who crave more daring in their concerts.<\/p>\n The Philharmonic is also impressively skilled, but with a touch of messiness that tends to enliven rather than diminish a score. These players are, above all, human: Expressivity pervades their wide tremolos, wailing glissandos and physical gestures that verge on theatrical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If the Clevelanders like their music lean, the Viennese like it fatty, \u201cmit Schlag.\u201d Together, these orchestras embody two approaches to musical excellence. And able to walk either path with them is Welser-M\u00f6st.<\/p>\n At Carnegie, the Philharmonic\u2019s style was at its most pronounced in Bruckner and Mahler\u2019s ninth symphonies \u2014 which were fitting inclusions in Welser-M\u00f6st\u2019s Perspectives series<\/a> at the hall, but not in its festival \u201cFall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The Weimar Republic, during its short life from 1918 to 1933, was an extraordinary period for all types of art. Audience members at the Philharmonic concerts, though, could barely glean that from its three programs, which only glanced at the era and grasped at thematic relevance. The performances more richly represented the Germanic world inching into modernism on the cusp of World War I, and the disillusioned mood of the war\u2019s aftermath: the decline of Romanticism and the rise of embittered irony.<\/p>\n That idea can overlap with, but is not the same as, the precarity and collapse of the Weimar Republic. And where they met was the Philharmonic\u2019s Saturday program, which opened with Hindemith\u2019s Konzertmusik f\u00fcr Blasorchester, written in 1926 for a military band with the kind of satirical spirit you could hear on the revue stages of Berlin at the time. It was there that Schoenberg\u2019s Variations for Orchestra premiered in 1928, disastrously mishandled by the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler. But at Carnegie both received easily legible readings; the Schoenberg, played with a comfort that let its underlying expressiveness come through, provided proof that \u201catonal\u201d doesn\u2019t inherently mean \u201cunpleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, the Philharmonic\u2019s programming trailed away from the Weimar Republic, with works like Ravel\u2019s \u201cLa Valse,\u201d first performed not in Germany but in the Paris of 1920; and Strauss\u2019s Symphonic Fantasy from \u201cDie Frau Ohne Schatten,\u201d a 1947 reworking of an opera written before and during World War I.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Which is not to discount the performances of these pieces. The Ravel unfurled like a dreamy memory of the Philharmonic\u2019s famous New Year\u2019s concerts \u2014 one that gives way to a nightmare. And the Strauss, difficult to balance with its large scale and dense writing, was an alluringly perfumed stroll through the luxuriant sound world of \u201cFrau.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Furthest, perhaps, from the Weimar theme was the Bruckner, dedicated to God and left incomplete at the composer\u2019s death in 1896. Welser-M\u00f6st likes to play with juxtaposition, and on Friday, he paired it, as something of a finale, with Berg\u2019s Three Pieces for Orchestra, written in the 1910s \u2014 Berg\u2019s music bringing Bruckner\u2019s across the threshold of modernity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Bruckner\u2019s Ninth, discursive and inconclusive, at one point rivaling the mystery and mystical power of Wagner\u2019s \u201cParsifal,\u201d acquired dramatic shape and cohesion under Welser-M\u00f6st. Its introduction began quietly until it escalated to an explosive declaration, and the passages that followed rose and fell like a distress signal, flaring brightly and fading. From silences emerged wisps of melody and balletic delicacy, before more eruptions that left behind softly glowing halos of sound.<\/p>\n There was a similar sense of shape \u2014 a wrangling of immensity \u2014 in Mahler\u2019s Ninth Symphony, which stood alone on Sunday. Welser-M\u00f6st took a brisk tempo, but with vitality rather than impatience, making for a running time of about 75 minutes where some conductors stretch the score to more than 90.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This is a work full of farewells: an allusion to Beethoven\u2019s \u201cLes Adieux\u201d sonata, inscriptions by Mahler of \u201cLeb\u2019 wohl!\u201d and an ending that quietly takes leave while, as Theodor Adorno wrote, looking questioningly into uncertainty.<\/p>\n Welser-M\u00f6st\u2019s interpretation was one with much to say on the way out. The first movement developed with defiant freedom before giving way, in later movements, to a l\u00e4ndler, a folk dance particularly popular in Austria, that began with rustic earthiness but ended with a cosmic dance, and, by the finale, a passionate elegy.<\/p>\n That last movement is often performed as a kind of prolonged death. But the direction \u201cersterbend,\u201d or \u201cdying,\u201d doesn\u2019t appear in the score until the penultimate page, and the Philharmonic players didn\u2019t take a linear journey to arrive there, with swerves of energy from passages of glacial tranquillity. The music wasn\u2019t ready to say goodbye, and after three days, neither were they.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n