Concert review

An honorary conductor and a brilliant soloist

There was a lot of applause, especially for Harriet Krijgh, a Dutch conductor who lives in Vienna.(Bild: Mathis Fotografie)

The Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra's second subscription concert on Sunday at the Bregenz Festspielhaus surprised and impressed. 

A single movement from a symphony is an unusual way to begin a concert. Even more so when this movement, namely the fourth movement "Adagietto" from Gustav Mahler's "Fifth", is as delicate and subtle as one could possibly imagine. But this movement actually has a life of its own. The composer sent it as a kind of love letter to his beloved Alma Schindler, who soon became his wife. In the 1970s, the piece became cult as the film music for Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice".

Some listeners may remember that Kirill Petrenko also performed this "Adagietto" as part of his Mahler cycle with the SOV. It was strikingly simple back then, while Gérard Korsten took a thoroughly romantic approach in the current concert, allowing for rubati and violin sobs.

A rarely heard work
The following Chamber Symphony No. 2 by Arnold Schönberg proved to be close and yet distant. Close, because it was composed only a few years after Mahler's "Fifth", and distant, because the character of Schönberg's work is completely contrary and testifies less to emotion than to objectivity. The two-movement work is tonal in E flat major, even though it was partly written after the composer's atonal phase and also after his turn to twelve-tone music. Performed with great commitment by the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra under its honorary conductor Gérard Korsten, the audience was grateful for the encounter with this rarely heard work.

Gérard Korsten left his mark on the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra.(Bild: Mathis Fotografie)

But the great highlight of this program was to follow after the interval. With the cello concerto by Antonín Dvořák, the SOV and its conductor Gérard Korsten were on top form, no doubt inspired by the charismatic soloist of the evening, the Vienna-based Dutch violinist Harriet Krijgh.

The rich sound of her instrument, her highly romantic playing style and her dedication to the music were fascinating, as was her dialog with the consistently excellent orchestral solos, such as the horn (Andreas Schuchter), oboe (Heidrun Pflüger) and flute (Anja Novotny-Baldauf). Harriet Krijgh thanked Gérard Korsten, who conducted the SOV from 2005 to 2018 and made it what it is today - a fabulous orchestra - with a simple Sarabande by Bach.