Currentzis Rocks Rameau

This was the most unusual orchestra concert I have ever seen--and one of the best. By the end of the evening the usually staid Salzburg audience members were not only giving a standing ovation, but about half the audience refused to leave and seemed content to keep clapping in unison until the orchestra came back for another encore (which they did not)!

Where I come from, every performer gets a standing ovation which is partly out of enthusiasm, partly because of uncomfortable wooden pews and partly because the audience are getting ready to leave. This is not the case in Salzburg where a standing ovation is so rare that I don't think I recall one in the many concerts I have attended here. So what magic did Greek, but resident in Russia, conductor Teodor Currentzis wield?

The concert began in darkness with the only light coming from the stand lights of the harpsichord, flute, violin and viola da gamba as they played one of the intimate chamber pieces from Pièces de clavecin en concerts. This was followed by an overture to a Rameau opera as the lights came up. The orchestra, Currentzis' own musicAeterna now based in St. Petersburg, is a full-sized orchestra with ten first and ten second violins with winds in proper proportion. Last night the band also included harpsichord, theorbo and three percussionists with all the wind players on historic instruments.

Last night I witnessed one of those things that cause me to have such deep respect for orchestral musicians. I was in the second row, very close to the first violins and one of the fourth desk violinists had a string break early in the first set. I heard the snap and, as I am a guitarist, immediately recognized the sound. It looked like the 4th, G string to me. All he had time to do was flip it out of the way and he continued to play the whole of the set without missing a note!! Don't ask me how. Between sets of pieces he slapped on a new string and retuned. Wow.

But what was really remarkable last night was the basic conception of the music, what I have characterized as Currentzis rocks Rameau. Currentzis is of the wiggly-finger school of conducting (à la Gergiev) and one of the delights was watching him wiggle his fingers as he conducted his soprano in extended trills. He leaps in the air, stamps his feet and occasionally wanders among the orchestra, sometimes with a drum. Oh, and so does the orchestra: leap in the air, stamp their feet and occasionally wander around. Everything is done to de-formalize and re-energize the approach to the music and while I am usually skeptical of this kind of thing, last night it was done superbly well.

A lot of the performance was done in semi-darkness with just stand lights and the first half ended with the whole orchestra trooping offstage in darkness as they continued to play the last refrain of a contredanse from Les Boréades.

The second half was as good as the first with excerpts from Rameau operas including arias brilliantly sung by soprano Nadezhda Pavlova. Towards the end of the evening the minimal formality seemed to break down even further as conductor Currentzis said they were going to do three encores--oh, by this time of the night the audience was clapping after every piece! I'm not sure what the first two were, but for the last, a famous rondeau from Les Indes Galantes that I have posted here a couple of times, the choir, missing up to this point, came out and stood just in front of the stage. So the only time they appeared was for the final encore. But they brought the house down. And Salzburg applauded as I have rarely heard them. Here is a photo from just before the choir came out--sorry, missed getting a shot of them.

And here, just to give you a taste of the evening is a performance of that rondeau from Les Indes Galantes that I have posted here before:

Now you are going to have that stuck in your head for the next day! There is a clip of this same piece conducted by Correntzis in a 2016 performance in Vienna, but there is no video and the sound isn't great. But have a listen to the Currentzis performance as it certainly will show you how he uses the percussion: