Leipzig Gewandhaus/Nelsons review – exquisite and thrilling Strauss from a great orchestra

Barbican, London
Andris Nelsons’ detailed approach to Strauss creates a stunning, opulent sound although at points the drama the music needed was lacking

This at times extraordinary concert marked the start of what remains of Andris Nelsons’ Strauss Project, planned as a major survey of the composer’s works shared between Nelsons’ two orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Boston Symphony. In the event, however, the Bostonians cancelled the European tour of which their concerts formed part, so only the two Gewandhaus performances – this was the first – went ahead as intended.

The programme consisted of Macbeth, Ein Heldenleben and the rather awkward Suite of highlights from Der Rosenkavalier, assembled in 1945 by the conductor Artur Rodzinski, and even though one might have occasional qualms about Nelsons’ interpretative choices, what was indisputable was the greatness of the orchestra itself, among the finest in the world, and the quality of their playing.

Their clear, opulent sound is ideally suited to Nelsons’ fastidious yet volatile approach to Strauss, where detail is paramount, even when the music is at its loudest. We were able to appreciate, for instance, the internal logic of the battle sequence of Heldenleben, rather than simply enduring the incoherent racket we frequently encounter. Elsewhere, there were moments of quite remarkable beauty: even without the voices, the Presentation of the Rose has rarely, I suspect, sounded so exquisite; and the hushed coda of Heldenleben was breathtaking.

Occasionally, however, Nelsons’ emphasis on finesse and textural detail came at the expense of drama. This is not to say, by any means, that he lacked insight, far from it: the sense of noble self-assurance, free from arrogance or bombast, that he brought to the Heldenleben recapitulation was thrilling and startlingly novel. But in Macbeth, particularly, the tensions sometimes slipped.

Prophetic of the intensity of Salome and Elektra, this is Strauss’s first psychodrama, and it should ideally inhabit similar extremes. But once past an electrifying opening, the sinewy flutes and jolting syncopations that herald both Lady Macbeth’s first appearance and her later instability sounded altogether too polite. The performance subsequently took time to regain momentum, and the climactic battering at the castle gate was less terrifying than it should be. Orchestrally it was tremendous, but its impact could have been more nerve-racking than it was.