World star from China: Lang Lang in the Philharmonie

More prominence is hardly possible: with Andris Nelsons on the podium and Lang Lang on the piano, the Berlin-based Mahler Chamber Orchestra is going on a European tour to celebrate its 25th anniversary. A third completes the bunch of prominent names, and he outshines everyone: What great music did Beethoven actually write that even after 200 years you can’t get enough of it?

On Tuesday evening in the Philharmonie, three works in C minor are on the program, Beethoven’s famous key of fate, they were written between 1803 and 1807. The Coriolan Overture immediately sets the tone: driving relentlessly forward, it captures the drama that ends with the suicide of the title hero , in 314 bars together. Nelsons, who phenotypically seems to want to resemble the late Johannes Brahms more and more, conducts the whole body confidently, with far-reaching movements. The smallest details, such as slightly delayed entries, reveal a certain restlessness and nervousness in the orchestra.

The introduction to the third piano concerto that follows is very solemn and subdued, almost dull. But there is the likeable world star from China, because of whom this concert is hopelessly sold out. Lang Lang plays on his own planet, even if he doesn’t isolate himself in a genius way, but communicates with the tutti again and again. He reacts, establishes relationships – but it is quite clear who is the leader here. One notices: Lang Lang does not play the orchestra against the wall, but could if he wanted to.

His touch changes, sometimes waxy soft, extremely defined, lushly blooming in the cadenza of the first movement. One presents himself in the full, sovereign consciousness of his skill. The final rondo has an austere charm, Lang Lang grabs it majestically, but never in such a way that it becomes too much, that the tonal balance would break. As the only encore he leads the song “Rainbow Connection”, once incomparably intoned by Kermit the Frog in the “Muppet Show”, from tender beginnings to a wild keyboard thunderstorm.

Apotheosis in C major

After the break then the apotheosis in C minor, which – yes – before the Ninth, Beethoven’s most important symphony, the Fifth. Nelsons begins the four famous strokes of fate at an extremely swift, even dashing tempo, and any reservations that one might have had about the orchestra at the beginning are blown away: this interpretation succeeds completely convincingly, both as a whole and in its parts, in the oboe solos or – and above all – the two horns. As is almost always the case with Beethoven, the whole magic of absolute music shines in the third movement, which does not illustrate a program but has itself and its construction as its content.

Even now there are probably still many Lang Lang fans in the audience who only go to the concert from time to time. Ambiguous happiness: sold-out houses are of course always great, but reflexively clapping between the movements and thus destroying the internal dramaturgy of the pieces is still ignorant. Luckily there is no opportunity to do so in the smooth transition to the fourth movement: the sound rises from the quietest pianissimo depths, culminating in the major outburst, culminating in triple C – long before Nietzsche used this term. A stirring finale follows, conducted by Nelson with a sure hand, in which some things get momentarily a bit sloppy, but the jubilant character of this music, which leaves no room for doubt (Schubert would undoubtedly have composed it differently), irons that out immediately.