Fighting back onto the podium: Daniel Barenboim conducts the Berlin Philharmonic

There seems to have been a misunderstanding before the concert began: there is a chair on the raised platform in the Philharmonie. But Daniel Barenboim has it removed as soon as he has climbed the stairs. He prefers standing. After an illness he has fought his way back, at least to the podium as a conductor, if not yet to the grand piano.

Reduced movements

Barenboim was never a great gesture artist, but now he has reduced his movements even further, hangs his arms most of the time, and sometimes does not conduct at all. But the Berliner Philharmoniker, with concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley at the helm, wouldn’t be the professional orchestra they are if they couldn’t pick up on the few impulses that do come and develop them independently.

In any case, Gabriel Fauré’s incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s drama “Pelléas et Mélisande”, composed before the opera by Claude Debussy, sounds anything but uninspired, pervaded by shimmering undercurrents, with a beautifully designed dynamic arc as the climax in the fourth, last movement.

France is the topic, or rather the relationship between Richard Wagner and the neighboring country, which is characterized by an intimate mutual love-hate relationship, see the legendary “Tannhäuser” bankruptcy in Paris in 1861 because of a ballet placed in the wrong place. Three years earlier he had composed the songs to texts by his muse, Mathilde Wesendonck, who was underestimated as a poet. Elina Garanca sings it with a wonderfully full, bronze mezzo.

Wagner’s chromatic magic, which then comes to full bloom in “Tristan”, also made an impression on César Franck, which can be heard in his later and only symphony in D minor. A unique work, because in the best Beethoven manner the form becomes the content here, which is not often the case in French music of the 19th century. The themes modulated by the keys return cyclically, could a Nietzsche reading even have crept in? The Philharmoniker shine with razor-sharp strings and robust wind instruments, and communication with Daniel Barenboim obviously runs through channels other than gestures. A smile crosses his face to the applause as the whole room stands up. (uba)