On December 5 I returned to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to attend another concert by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra. This event, one of the DenizBank concerts, featured Italian guest conductor Alfonso Scarano and the Serbian-born Hungarian violinist Robert Lakatoš. Before the proceedings began, there was a recorded announcement asking the audience not to applaud between movements; this was a new departure for the venue, but one that was, I have to say, very necessary and certainly overdue.
The first work on the programme was the Violin Concerto No 1 in F sharp minor by the Polish violin virtuoso, composer and pedagogue Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880), the solo part being played by Lakatoš. Wieniawski, born to Jewish parents in Lublin, Poland in 1835, was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eight in recognition of his exceptional talent, and subsequently became one of the greatest violin virtuosi of all time. An International Violin Competition, named after him and first held in 1935, takes place in Poznań every five years.
The two violin concertos he wrote during his brief but distinguished career are of exceptional difficulty. In fact, his second violin concerto (in D minor) is more often performed than his first, but to say that they both require the performer to display absolute technical mastery of the instrument would be a ludicrous understatement.
The Violin Concerto No 1, first performed in Leipzig in 1853, may not be an outstanding work from the compositional point of view, but the solo violin part is of astonishing difficulty: the performer is required to produce double-stopping (that is, playing notes on two strings simultaneously) at breakneck speed, with jumps from the top to the bottom of the instrument’s range thrown in for good measure. Add to this some terrifyingly tricky writing for the artificial harmonics a good violinist can produce in the very top register, and you have a veritable nightmare of a piece.
Violinist Robert Lakatoš, born in Novi Sad (Serbia) in 1991. After receiving training in Novi Sad and Zurich, he won First Prize at the Pablo de Sarasate International Violin Festival in Pamplona, Spain, in 2015, and is currently Professor of Violin at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad and the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. In addition to past performances in Germany, Poland, the USA, Switzerland, Britain, Slovenia and Croatia as well as his native Serbia, recent engagements have taken him to Spain (where he often plays) and St. Petersburg.
The fact that Lakatoš’s rendering of the Wieniawski concerto on December 5 was not always entirely accurate did not in any way diminish my appreciation of his skill: the demands made by this work are unreasonable, and anyone who can give this formidable piece a fair shot has my respect. It would be nice to say that the orchestra rose to the occasion to support him, but unfortunately that would not be entirely accurate (with regard to the first movement, at least): there was a somewhat ragged duet between the woodwinds and a horn, and indeed the woodwind department as a whole did not coordinate well with the soloist in the initial stages. The orchestra’s string department, by contrast, performed well throughout the concerto, and the violins – inspired perhaps by Lakatoš’s example – stayed in tune even when playing at the very top of their range. I found the third movement (which follows a brief slow interlude) more enjoyable than the first, largely because there was less gratuitous showing off by the solo violin and therefore more to get one’s teeth into.
In this recording of Henryk Wieniawski’s *Violin Concerto No 1 in F sharp minor*, Itzhak Perlman is being accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.
Lakatoš played two encores; the second was quieter, smokier and less demonstrative than the first, and was thus more satisfying from the musical point of view. The auditorium was by no means full for this concert, so I hope the very enthusiastic applause he received from the audience – such as it was – at the end of his performance made up for the empty seats, and that he didn’t leave Istanbul feeling disappointed.
In the second half, the orchestra played the *Symphony No 3 in A minor*, the so-called ‘Scottish Symphony’, by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). In the summer of 1829 the 20-year-old composer made his first visit to Britain – the first of ten – to attend, and sometimes participate in, concerts in London, some of which included his own works. David A. McConnell, writing on the ‘Classic Review’ website, tells us that Mendelssohn ‘took the capital by storm, conducting his first symphony with the London Philharmonic and playing Beethoven’s Emperor concerto from memory, which thrilled audiences.’ In mid-July, no doubt in need of some rest and relaxation, he set off on a walking tour of Scotland with his friend Karl Klingemann.
While the two were in Edinburgh, the ruins of Holyrood Chapel at Holyrood Palace left a profound impression on Mendelssohn; it was on this occasion, in fact, that he received the inspiration for a new symphony. In a letter to his parents, he wrote: ‘In the deep twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved ...The chapel below is now roofless. Grass and ivy thrive there and at the broken altar where Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is ruined, decayed, and the clear heavens pour in. I think I have found there the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony.’ McConnell tells us that ‘It is indeed this initial sketch (with slight modifications) that became the opening theme of the slow introduction and the melodic DNA for most of the themes in the symphony.’ However, although Mendelssohn jotted down a few ideas for the work at the conclusion of his tour of the Highlands, he failed to make much progress with it, and in 1831 he laid the work aside, eventually completing it in Berlin in 1842.
In fact, this was not the only piece to come out of his Scottish holiday: during a visit to the island of Staffa, off the west coast, he was so excited by the sight of a famous cave – a structure, formed of basalt columns, that juts out into the sea – that he immediately noted down the theme for his overture *The Hebrides*. This work is sometimes known as Fingal’s Cave, ‘Fingal’ being the name of the hero of an epic poem by the 18th-century Scottish poet and historian James Macpherson. (Macpherson claimed that the poem was the work of a 3rd-century bard writing in Gaelic, but this assertion was, I fear, what in Cockney rhyming slang is known as a ‘pork pie’. He later distinguished himself by penning a response to the American Declaration of Independence in which he asserted the ‘rights’ of Great Britain and defended the actions of King George III.)
Returning to the concert, Mendelssohn’s four-movement Symphony No 3 was first performed in Leipzig, where he was director of the Gewandhaus concert hall, in 1842. Wikipedia describes the symphony as follows: ‘... the emotional scope of the work is wide, consisting of a dark and stormy first movement, a joyous and fairly brief second movement, a slow movement maintaining an apparent struggle between love and fate, and a finale that takes its components from Scottish folk dance.’
Before the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra began its performance, the announcement about not applauding between movements was repeated, and in consequence there was none of the ill-timed clapping that can sometimes disturb the musicians’ concentration. In the symphony, the orchestra’s initial entry was refreshingly crisp; indeed, their coordination was markedly better than it had been in the first movement of the Wieniawski. The woodwind department, in particular, upped its game several notches (there was some beautiful lyrical playing from them, especially in the second movement), and the strings’ timing was impeccable throughout the work. In the third movement, the brass section came in precisely on cue and in unison, and in the fourth their fanfare was an impressive blast of bombast. I especially enjoyed a subtle clarinet/bassoon duet, and thought the horns merited special praise for blaring out the big themes with gusto in the noisy final section (their most exposed entries come in at 37:23 and 37:55 in the recording below).
This performance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 3 is by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the outfit that gave the work its first hearing. The conductor is Kurt Masur, their kapellmeister for 26 years – from 1970 to 1996. (Masur, known as ‘one of the last old-style maestros’, went on to serve as music director of the New York Philharmonic.) It was the East Germany-based Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra that played Beethoven’s *Ninth Symphony* at the celebrations for German reunification in 1990.
For those interested in the technical aspects of the work, this video by the music critic Dave Hurwitz on his ‘Ultimate Classical Music Guide’ will be enlightening. He focusses on the thematic transformations in the ‘Scottish Symphony’ and its cyclical construction. Scroll on to 2:45 to skip the initial rant.
I cannot leave the subject of Mendelssohn without drawing attention to two of his works that although outstanding, are not performed as frequently as they deserve. The event that established me as a Mendelssohn fan was listening to a performance of his *String Octet in E flat major* by fellow-pupils at my secondary school. Astonishingly, this professionally-crafted masterpiece was written when the composer was only 16 years old. The ‘Allegro moderato ma con fuoco’ first movement, in particular, is to my mind one of the most exciting pieces ever written for strings, rivalling even César Franck’s *Sonata in A major for violin and piano* in its volcanic intensity. The late Conrad Wilson (former music critic of *The Scotsman*) described the octet in the following words: ‘Its youthful verve, brilliance and perfection make it one of the miracles of nineteenth-century music.’
Dave Hurwitz, in another of his videos, describes this work as ‘unkillable’ – by which he means that it is next to impossible to play it badly. “It’s so phenomenally well written for the performers,” he says, “that they’re just totally absorbed in the act of playing the work. ... It’s one of those pieces where you’re absolutely enveloped in the music. ... You just sort of immerse yourself and go into this trance-like fog, and out it comes. ... It’s technically challenging, it’s artistically worth every second of it, and it’s so well written that you can’t damage it.” In line with this judgement, he does not single out any particular recording as being ‘the best’ available. Here is [a link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSu1nH_T2E) to his pronouncements.
I, however, have made my choice. Here is a performance by ‘Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and friends’. Heifetz, by the way, was the highest-paid violinist in the world by the time he was 18. After hearing his debut concert at the Carnegie Hall, Fritz Kreisler (another leading violinist of the 20th century) said: “We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees.” This is a remastered recording, so please forgive the somewhat jerky start.
The second Mendelssohn work that I think needs rescuing from ill-deserved obscurity is his A Midsummer Night’s Dream overture. In this recording, we once again hear Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Where did that famous Wedding March actually come from? Well, now you know. And that braying donkey effect, depicting the Bottom character in Shakespeare’s play, is just wonderful. In my opinion, these swooping ‘hee-haws’ – first heard at 3:53 and 4:09 – completely belie Hurwitz’s comment that Mendelssohn had ‘no sense of humour’.
An aside: the donkey has made many important contributions to literature, including The Golden Ass (a somewhat bawdy ancientRoman novel, also called *Metamorphoses*, by the second-century author Apuleius) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes*. Incidentally, readers are advised to watch out for the forthcoming publication by Cornucopia of With Donkeys Across Anatolia – Christopher Trillo’s highly entertaining account of a journey through western Anatolia on donkey-back in 1981.
Is it not remarkable how frequently Scottish themes and outdoor adventures (such as walking tours of the Highlands and donkey-driven expeditions) have come up in this review? Accordingly, I will end with Edinburgh-born Stevenson’s account, at the end of the chapter entitled ‘Upper Gévaudan’ in his aforementioned book, of the philosophy behind the journey he undertook with his often-cantankerous four-legged companion Modestine in 1878.
‘For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more clearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting who can annoy himself about the future?’
That last sentence might well be applied not just to the frustrating but ultimately enlightening experiences encountered during travel, but also to the intense but ultimately rewarding concentration required to play a difficult piece of music such as the Mendelssohn Octet; both serve to ‘occupy and compose the mind’. Remember Dave Hurwitz’s comment about performers of this work being ‘just totally absorbed in the act of playing the work – you lose yourself in the music’? Spot on, Mr Hurwitz! All credit to him, too, for recognising Mendelssohn’s seldom acknowledged, but very real, genius.
