PETR WAGNER

Sts. Simon & Jude Church

April 28

An early music specialist with a modernist touch.

The viola da gamba is not the first instrument that comes to mind when you think of emotional expression. A mainstay of European classical music ensembles during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the viol, as it is more commonly known, is a cello-sized bowed string instrument, minus the tail spike; instead of propped on the floor, it is held between the legs. Like many early music instruments, it has an archaic sound, refined but narrow, even compressed, compared to the bigger and broader dynamics of modern instruments. Many performers play it with a matching restraint.

So it was treat to see Petr Wagner give a seven-string viol a good workout last night, playing with the finesse of a virtuoso and the energy of a rock guitarist. Wagner has a distinctive style that starts with the way he holds the instrument – not squarely in front of his body, but tucked at an angle between his right thigh and left knee, which changes the bow approach slightly and gives him a sharper sound. His fingering is emphatic and his bow work is deliberate, producing a beautiful legato. He likes to decorate a piece with grace notes and crisp flourishes, and is not above pounding the strings with the bow occasionally.

This style suited his material very well – a Le Pères et les fils pairing of works by Marin and Roland Marais, and Antoine and Jean-Baptiste Forqueray. The livelier pieces of the senior composers gave him an opportunity to work with colors and intensity, while the more elegant compositions by the sons were studies in stately, sophisticated interpretation.

Sharp attacks on the strings set the tone for the opening Piéces de Viole by Marin Marais, a favorite at Versailles and a remarkably prolific composer – he wrote nearly 600 pieces for the viola da gamba alone. Wagner was especially good at drawing out the melancholy undercurrents of Marais’ work without sacrificing any vitality or flair. He was even better with an assortment of similar pieces by Antoine Forqueray, another favorite of Louis XIV and, according to Wagner, “a terror to all booze joints in Paris.” Wagner pulled an amazing range of sounds out of six of his Piéces de Viole, playing with the same wild exuberance that reportedly characterized Forqueray’s own performances.

To the more staid work of Forqueray Jr., Wagner added a soaring quality that lifted the pieces both musically and aesthetically. And in a complex suite by the younger Marais, he found a deep well of emotion; at one point, the instrument itself seemed on the verge of tears. This would be an impressive accomplishment for any musician. But seeing someone squeeze that out of a viola da gamba was nothing short of a revelation.

It should be noted that Wagner had a stellar supporting cast providing the basso continuo. Viola da gamba player Hana Fleková and Baroque guitar/theorbo player Jan Krejča are regulars with Prague’s finest Baroque ensembles, Collegium 1704 and Collegium Marianum. Shalev Ad-El, who sat modestly in the rear at the harpsichord, is a star in his right, an accomplished conductor and well-regarded early music specialist. And if that wasn’t enough, Wagner’s young daughter ran up on stage as the performers were taking their bows and jumped into her father’s arms.

It said something about the emotional tenor of the evening that the father-daughter moment seemed sweet rather than mawkish. Viola da gamba recitals don’t usually inspire that kind of display, even from young family members. But judging from the reaction of the audience, which brought Wagner back for two well-deserved encores, he touched a lot of hearts in an appreciate crowd.

For more on Petr Wagner: http://www.petrwagner.com/homepage.html

And for a good primer on the viola da gamba: http://vdgsa.org/pgs/the_viol.html

CZECH PHILHARMONIC

Rudolfinum

April 22

You never know. Sometimes visiting performers come to town with sterling credentials and a stellar reputation and turn out to be every bit as good as their critical accolades. Other times, you find yourself looking in the program to make sure that the person onstage is indeed the one who was scheduled to perform that night.

Wielding a heavy metal baton.

Case in point: Friday night’s Czech Philharmonic concert, which featured two classical stars from Germany, conductor Jun Märkl and violin soloist Christian Tetzlaff. Märkl is the principal conductor and artistic director of the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, and has conducted orchestras around the world, including some of the finest in the United States, and at prestigious opera houses throughout Europe. Tetzlaff has recorded extensively and is known for his definitive interpretations of concertos by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Ligeti and Shostakovich, as well as Bach’s Partitas.

Yet Friday’s concert could hardly have been more disappointing. Märkl seemed to have no feel for the material – Debussy’s “Rondes de Printemps” from Images, Szymanowski’s Violin concerto No. 1 and Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The sound was entirely one-dimensional throughout all three pieces, with no definition or depth. The music had a nice surface gloss, but nothing beneath, like a polished but bloodless statue. And Tetzlaff sounded like he was choking his instrument rather than squeezing tender tones from it.

The problems were apparent early in the Debussy piece, a dazzling impressionist work. The music embodies all the freshness and vitality of spring, with a broad palette of colors, constantly changing rhythms and new geometries of composition. But it sounded heavy and tentative, almost ham-fisted at times, with the percussion section the only bright spot. To be generous, that could have been the orchestra, which is superb in the Central European repertoire but less adept with more dexterous composers.

Less impressive live.

The Szymanowski concerto got off to a rousing start, but Märkl quickly flattened the sound to put the focus on Tetzlaff. No problem with that, especially for a player of Tetzlaff’s technical skills. But his sound was off-putting, to say the least. In reviews of good recordings of the work, the violin sound is usually described as “sweet” or “delicate” – or in one case, “syrupy.” Tetzlaff’s sound Friday was, going directly to this critic’s notebook: “Whiny...a weird kind of moaning or keening...more like a high-pitched whistle than a tone...a wounded child...is this piece supposed to sound like this?”

More than anything, it was baffling. Teztlaff recorded the Szymanowski concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Vienna Philharmonic, and got generally positive reviews. But even the orchestra members had a hard time applauding Friday’s performance. And no offense to German violin maker Peter Greiner, but Tetzlaff really should get himself a good concert violin.

Märkl saved the worst for last, starting Pictures at a rapid clip and picking up speed as he went along. The pace alone left no time or space to develop nuances and layers. As if to compensate, he kept cranking the volume higher, until it was almost ear-splitting. Nothing against big noises, but that was the loudest this critic has ever heard the orchestra, bringing to mind the legendary amps from Spinal Tap that go up to 11. For heavy metal, it’s a great technique. On this particular occasion, it was ill-chosen and not enough to cover shabby musicianship.

As another critic noted after the concert, anyone can have an off-night. And perhaps any two can have an off-night. In Tetzlaff’s case, we’ll have a chance to find out, as he will be back in May for a Prague Spring concert with the San Francisco Symphony. He could be baffling again, or brilliant.

You never know.

For a bio and video of Märkl: http://www.intermusica.co.uk/artists/conductor/jun-markl/biography

And more on Christian Tetzlaff: http://www.christiantetzlaff.com/index_en.html