Wolfgang Rihm has written a number of works for piano and orchestra – until recently, though, none of them had been called a concerto. But the work that was first performed at the Salzburg festival in 2014 and which the BBC Symphony Orchestra introduced to the UK, with Nicolas Hodges as the soloist and Lothar Koenigs conducting, is Rihm’s Piano Concerto No 2. Whether his first piano concerto ever existed, or whether it now hides under a different title, remains a mystery.
In fact, this 25-minute work in two linked movements unambiguously merits its label. The musical dialectic, and the relationship between the piano and the orchestra, are clearly rooted in the Austro-German piano-concerto tradition running through Schoenberg and Brahms right back to Beethoven. The first movement is mostly restrained and reflective, the second more explosive and obviously virtuosic, though the soloist hardly gets a moment off in either. The language hovers between tonality and atonality, often coming close to the world of early Schoenberg or Berg, as expressive melodic lines crystallise out from the milling textures, only to be reabsorbed again. It’s music that keeps you guessing, never quite going in the direction you expect or finding the resolution it seems to need.
Hodges negotiated it all with total cool command; the solo part is, I suspect, far more demanding than he made it seem. Koenigs was in his element too, and he continued the Germanic theme in the second half of the concert, with Bruckner’s seventh symphony.
Though the BBCSO probably doesn’t play as much Bruckner as the other London orchestras, this was a magnificently assured performance. The luscious depth of tone in the aspirational opening bars demonstrated immediately how the string section has matured since Sakari Oramo (a violinist himself) became the orchestra’s chief conductor, and that sense of richness and security pervaded every bar of the symphony. As a Bruckner interpreter, too, Koenigs has the precious knack of being able to shape and direct the performance precisely without ever seeming to impose himself on the music, so that everything seems part of an entirely natural process. The slow movement was shepherded to a radiant climax; led by the brass, the finale was utterly conclusive. It’s hard to remember when I last heard a performance of Bruckner’s Seventh that was so overwhelmingly convincing.
- The concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 on 28 February, and available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.
