Pack it up again: The BR Symphony Orchestra is touring through Spain
Created: 11/27/2022, 3:57 p.m
By: Markus Thiel
At the opening concert in the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, the BR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer played, among other things, Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
© Astrid Ackermann/BRSO
The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is on tour in Spain.
The first stop on the concert tour with conductor Iván Fischer was Valencia.
A pair of pliers, a cut fence, and a few doses of super glue—even a conductor can be disconcerted.
So while climate activists cycled onto the runway in south-east Berlin to get stuck, Iván Fischer was also stuck, albeit at the gate.
Actually checked in for a flight with a stopover to Valencia.
Vain.
Telephone calls, e-mails, unloading suitcases, checking in again, hectic communication between the ensemble, which had already arrived in Spain, and the desk clerk.
The result: with an extra overnight stop in Paris, Fischer still managed to get to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Now for a rehearsal that was postponed to the afternoon, six hours before the concert.
Pragmatists get it.
The orchestra's tour of Spain with Zubin Mehta was planned
Somehow that fits the whole trip.
The Munich band originally wanted to tour Asia this fall with 86-year-old Zubin Mehta.
It also had to be canceled for financial reasons.
A Spain tour was organized as a replacement.
But then Mehta canceled due to exhaustion, as he said.
Iván Fischer, who knows the orchestra very well, stepped in.
Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, Madrid again, then Zaragoza.
Within Spain, the express train is used in an environmentally friendly manner.
Musicians confirm that traveling is less stressful anyway.
Other circumstances require special working hours.
One sample per program, that's all Fischer has at his disposal.
Works such as Mahler's Fifth are in the repertoire, and this colossus was just lifted in Munich under James Gaffigan.
"I don't want to change too much," says Fischer at the beginning.
A rehearsal is what an orchestra wants it to be: brief, painless, efficient, without a lot of talk by the conductor, only short interruptions.
Fischer interjects important things.
A crafty set screw driver.
"Instead of eighths please tenths.
It would be nice if… I'd be happy if…” The tone is polite but firm.
Steep stairs and a labyrinth of corridors: members of the orchestra on the complicated way to the stage.
© Astrid Ackermann/BRSO
The opening concert lures tout Valencia to the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.
The auditorium has 1490 seats.
And anyone who finds their seat, whether a member of the orchestra or the audience, is lucky.
Santiago Calatrava, the city's grandson, has come up with a bold architectural spectacle, a lying eye on the edge of the center.
The building with its four halls, including an opera house, was opened in 2005.
Outside hui, but inside the disillusionment.
A concert venue like a lecture hall, the sand and turquoise tones taste so-so.
There are few signposts for visitors.
Hardly any foyers either.
You look out over the nocturnal Valencia from drafty terraces and wait to be admitted.
A labyrinth of corridors in bunker concrete behind the stage.
To get to the stage, you have to take the lift to the eighth floor, some artists' cloakrooms are on "-3".
It is the BR-Symphoniker's first major tour since 2019
After all, the orchestras are traveling again.
This is also a sign that musical life is slowly recovering after Corona.
Even if, in view of rising freight and transport costs, the question arises as to whether tours will still be possible at all.
But at the moment the organizers are apparently liquid.
The Staatskapelle Berlin has just left for South Korea and Japan with its new flame, Christian Thielemann.
The Berlin Philharmonic will play in New York, Boston and Chicago this fall.
And the Vienna Philharmonic traveled to Taiwan and South Korea with Franz Welser-Möst, starting with two politically controversial concerts in Hong Kong that only insiders noticed.
That was also the plan: Guest performances in China?
Just now?
"You don't have to make a big deal of it,"
For the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, it is actually the first major tour (apart from short city trips) since November 2019, since the last concerts with Mariss Jansons.
Back then, in New York's Carnegie Hall, the evening with the mortally weakened man was about to be cancelled, and as is well known, Jansons died a month later.
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Nice on the outside, but inside... The bold architecture was designed by Santiago Calatrava.
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The Munich team last made a guest appearance in Spain in 2014.
After the rehearsal quickie with Iván Fischer, an amazingly coherent concert succeeds there in the evening.
Haydn's Sinfonia concertante with the orchestra's own soloists Radoslaw Szulc (violin), Ramón Ortega Quero (oboe), Mor Biron (bassoon) and Giorgo Kharadze (cello) is a very sunny, witty sound speech.
As an encore, the quartet plays an acclaimed Passacaglia by Handel.
Parallel to the World Cup game, Richard Strauss' "Four Last Songs" will be played
Mahler's Fifth doesn't turn into sweaty confessional music afterwards.
Everything is allowed to unfold completely naturally.
The tempo architecture is right, as is the balance between detail and overview.
In the last sentence you don't hear (as is often the case) multiple, like insane final attempts towards the finish line, everything gets its own value.
Fischer's humor, his musical temperament, his knowing coolness prevent the spectacle.
In general humor: The second tour program is pure Richard Strauss.
Sunday, parallel to the World Cup game, the “Four Last Songs” will be played in Madrid.
At the time of going to press, it wasn't clear whether it was the right comment about the match.