Musikfest 3: Expression and Excitement

Antonio Pappano © Ibermúsica

Berlin, domingo, 6 de septiembre de 2026.

Philharmonie. Gubaidulina: Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor. Eivind Ringstad, viola. London Symphony Orchestra. Sir Antonio Pappano, conductor

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Although the opening days of this year’s edition of Musikfest Berlin were notable for their adventurous programmes – where else could one hope to hear Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Rihm’s Tutuguri, and the world première of Yvonne Loriod’s La Sainte Face within the span of a single week? – a guest performance from Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra demonstrated that sometimes a traditional concerto-and-symphony programme can be just as rewarding. Admittedly the symphony in question was Bruckner’s Ninth, the final epic utterance from a composer who rarely worked at a small scale; however it was Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto, given an intensely dramatic performance from the orchestra and violist Eivind Ringstad, that proved the evening’s more revelatory work.

Sofia Gubaidulina, who died last year, wrote numerous concertante works, including no fewer than three violin concertos, as well as major works for cello and flute. As with the violin concertos, the viola concerto (written in 1996) unfolded as a single unbroken movement; but where the violin works were given a spiritual or metaphysical framing in their choice of name – Offertorium, In tempus praesens, etc. – the work presented on this evening was simply Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. Beneath the unusually generic title, however, was a work of tremendous expression: over the course of some thirty minutes, the restless, ever-searching viola part remained locked in a high-stakes dialogue with an orchestra that was by turns consoling, questioning, and occasionally overwhelming.

The piece was scored for a large orchestra that included piano, celesta and harpsichord, as well as Wagner tubas and an extensive array of percussion. The most intriguing feature of the orchestration, however, was a quartet of solo strings – violin, viola, cello and double bass – arranged in a half-circle around the conductor. Neither part of the orchestra proper nor virtuoso soloists in their own right, the quartet served as a kind of resonator for the solo part, sometimes tremoring in sympathy when the anguished intensity of the viola lines became too great, but also occasionally working to intensify the expressive power of the solo writing.

While the capacitance of this extra quartet might have seemed an unnecessary precaution in most works, the lucid playing of Eivind Ringstad was sometimes enough to convince one that the solo part genuinely did contain more emotion than a single instrument could bear. The unaccompanied opening, made up of brief but pointed outbursts from the extremes of the instrument’s range, established a mood of taut anxiety against which the dark responses of the full string section sounded oddly comforting. As it developed, the solo part revealed itself to be less interested in furious virtuosity than in sustaining a mood of tightly-coiled desolation; when the viola did finally erupt into a passage of frenetic velocity around two-thirds of the way through – a passage made mesmerising by the rapture of Mr Ringstad’s playing – the exertions were enough to send the string quartet into minor fits of agitation.

Sir Antonio, while remaining a deeply sympathetic accompanist, seemed to thrive on the dramatic tension in even the work’s calmest moments. If the concerto’s first half is remarkable for its patience, the orchestra responded to the probing quality of the viola with undercurrents of nervous energy. Yet Sir Antonio’s acute sense of narrative pacing never came at the expense of Gubaidulina’s fascinating orchestral textures: a passage in which the viola was paired with piano and Wagner tubas was unexpectedly lyrical, while a later meeting of timpani and col legno strings generated tremendous excitement through minimal means. But despite the great contributions of the orchestra, the focus remained on Mr Ringstad, whose impassioned playing was so well received that he returned to the stage for a delicately wrought account of Vieuxtemps’ Capriccio for viola.

When Bruckner died in 1896 he left his final numbered symphony incomplete; and while there have been numerous attempts to reconstruct the final movement over the past half-century, the Ninth is most often performed in its three movement version, as it was on this evening. Even though Bruckner worked on the symphony for the better part of a decade, its association with the composer’s death has often led to performances infused with haunted reverence. There are, however, other approaches, as Sir Antonio demonstrated: his lean, excitable reading proceeded with a heightened sense of internal drama and inevitable momentum while managing to retain much of the monumental grandeur that makes the symphony so enduring.

Admittedly, anyone expecting a performance of rapt spirituality might have been disappointed. From the very opening bars, with their shimmering strings and quietly portentous horns, it was apparent that Sir Antonio had no intention of lingering. His sense of purpose propelled the orchestra towards an invigorating first tutti, notable for the concentration of its horns and fearsome glow of its trombones. The string theme that emerges in its aftermath was no less beautiful for displaying a similar drive. Indeed, Sir Antonio possessed a strong sense of how to mould each moment for maximum effect without losing sight of the larger structure; one of the most consistently impressive aspects of the first movement was how effortlessly the disparate episodes flowed into one another.

Sir Antonio’s presentation of the symphony as a work of earthy drama was brought to life by an orchestra that boasted a majestically deep brass section and unfailingly superb playing from the low strings. The horns, especially, provided countless moments of highly focussed ensemble playing, rounded and radiant in the quieter passages, but able to generate great anticipation when playing against the cellos and basses in the gradual build of the first movement finale.

The second movement was perhaps the most electrifying. The woodwinds and pizzicato strings of the opening pushed forth with a heightened sense of urgency, and when they were joined by the full orchestra for the first appearance of the Scherzo theme the forceful pace remained undiminished, resulting in an appropriately fearsome explosion. Even the relative calm of the trio seemed driven by a similarly infectious pulse. Yet Sir Antonio’s penchant for gripping immediacy was underpinned by a strong sense of orchestral balance, and even in the movement’s wildest moments one could always discern the complex arrangement of its moving parts.

It was only in the third movement that Sir Antonio’s approach seemed at odds with the solemnity of the music. But even here the reading’s relatively brisk pace provided ample opportunity for magnificent playing – the strings, in particular, were on fine form – and yielded a few moments of undiluted excitement, most notably a passage for cellos and trombones and the agitated cross-currents in the build up to the movement’s terrifying climax. Certainly there have been performances of the movement – and the symphony as a whole – that have approached the score with a greater sense of awe, but the extrovert performance on this evening proved that Bruckner doesn’t always have to be lofty to be wholly compelling.