Barenboim/Berliner Philharmoniker review — gossamer refinement from a conductor frail but unbowed

There is a particular kind of magic held by conductors over orchestras as their careers near their conclusions. “This might be our last concert together,” they seem to say. “Pay attention!”

Daniel Barenboim has not been well. After a series of cancellations last year, he stepped down in January from his post as music director of the Staatsoper Berlin, citing “a serious neurological condition”. This week’s concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie was planned in better times, when Barenboim was still performing his strong, domineering persona. Ever the showman, Barenboim is now performing a frail persona, although once he had arrived at the podium, his first act was to demand the removal of the chair that had been placed there for him.

The audience applauded his small act of defiance rapturously, and he flashed an impish grin. You could almost see the accolade quickening his pulse. There was not a great deal of energy left for Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande orchestral suite, which Barenboim conducted with minimal gestures. But the outcome was one of maximal delicacy, as the musicians paid immense attention both to his small commands and to each other; instead of orchestral force, we got chamber music.

The mood continued in Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, with Elīna Garanča as soloist. This is where things could easily have turned to stodge, since the songs form a kind of pocket version of Tristan und Isolde, and Barenboim’s Wagner has been getting steadily slower over the years. But they did not. Instead, Barenboim aimed for gossamer refinement, and Garanča’s focus seemed to turn inwards, building washes of gentle colour with the players. Such intense concentration created a disarming sense of honesty and, with it, moments of almost shocking intimacy. Garanča’s tone was creamy, her enunciation flawless, her musicality profound, and the instrumentalists listened with every fibre of their being. Everyone leaned forward, nobody dared to breathe. Or perhaps we all breathed together.

When Garanča pulled a flower from her bouquet to present to the concertmaster, it was more than a routine gesture of politeness. It was a recognition of the degree to which he, and through him, his peers shared responsibility for the outcome; at times like these, the intervention of a good concertmaster can save the day.

After the interval, César Franck’s D Minor Symphony was a necessarily more bombastic affair. Barenboim conducted without a score; this was familiar territory for everyone. With less at stake, there were more moments when the orchestra was given free rein, and there was correspondingly less detail. Here, things did slow down and thicken.

No matter. The audience leapt to its feet. Barenboim glowed, and with trembling hands disassembled his bunch of flowers in order to present all the women he could reach with an individual bloom. Then the effort became too much, and he shoved the rest of the bouquet at the next woman in line. Barenboim survives, unreconstructed.

★★★★☆

berliner-philharmoniker.de