Just in: Berlin Phil recasts Erwartung
OrchestrasThis week’s run of Arnold Schoenberg’s monologue has lost its Berlin interpreter.
Here’s the quick switch:
Press Release
Tamara Wilson has to cancel for personal reasons – Ausrine Stundyte takes over the soprano part in Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung under the baton of Eun Sun Kim
Soprano Tamara Wilson has to cancel her participation in the concerts on 18, 19 and 20 April under the baton of Eun Sun Kim for personal reasons. Her part in Schoenberg’s Erwartung will now be sung by soprano Ausrine Stundyte.
The Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation is very grateful to Ausrine Stundyte for stepping in at such short notice. The program remains unchanged. Ausrine Stundyte makes her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in these concerts.
Thu 18.04.24 20:00
Fri 19.04.24 20:00
Sat 20.04.24 19:00
Philharmonie Berlin, main auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Eun Sun Kim conductor
Ausrine Stundyte soprano
Arnold Schoenberg Erwartung (Expectation), one-act monodrama, op. 17
Sergej Rachmaninov Symphony No. 3 in A minor, op. 44
It is extremely fortunate they found a soprano who has the part of this hysterial borderline woman in her repertoire.
Most singers wo processed the part, have to undergo therapy afterwards, to be able to move-on and sing parts of the regular repertoire.
In the unforgettable words of Maestro Haitink, as he came off stage after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, ‘Thankgod I never have to conduct that awful work again.’
Disappointed to hear that about one of my favorite pieces.
(But then again, he said the same about Mahler 8…. Just imagine “Wozzeck.” I’d say “what a jerk,” but don’t want to be any more incendiary than necessary.)
It’s a masterpiece of emotional and mental disintegration, at the very edge of what one can do with music. So of course it is awful, because the subject is awful. But who would conduct a work that one dislikes so wholeheartedly?
The best part is the first third; when the strings get whining the music turns into larmoyant meandering.
In a way the music is utterly visionary and daring, but it exists at an extreme, and extremes are not very safe ground to build an oeuvre on, as Schoenberg nonetheless did. Yet, I would always admire the visionary nature of the piece and its apt expressionism.
Sometimes it’s done with ‘Neither’ by Morton Feldman, also a monodrama about mental awfulness but entirely opposite of ‘Erwartung’ – a suffocating, static nightmare, which makes a very tame impression in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kirlix4Q3mk
Bernard Haitink didn’t, and wouldn’t, say the same about Wozzeck.
Schönberg and Berg are musically opposition.
Says more about Haitink’s lack of appreciation than of Schönberg’s great work.
Haitink may have said that, but it wasn’t after conducting Erwartung with the Boston Symphony—he never led it here.