April 3 & 4, 2025
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor; David Coucheron, violin; Daniel Laufer, cello; Julie Coucheron, piano.
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56
Richard STRAUSS: Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64
Paul Hyde | 6 APR 2025
To call Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony a ‘peak musical experience’ is a pun too accurate to resist.
For romantic splendor, it doesn’t get much grander than this towering 1915 work, performed April 3-4 by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with the orchestra’s music director, Nathalie Stutzman, on the podium.
At the sold-out April 3 concert at Symphony Hall, Stutzmann led a sweeping account of the Alpine Symphony, spotlighting go-for-broke, rapturous music-making.
The evening began, however, with a lighter aperitif: Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring soloists David Coucheron (violin), Daniel Laufer (cello), and Julie Coucheron (piano). The performance was a part of the orchestra’s ongoing Beethoven Project, a year-long celebration of the German composer.
David Coucheron has been the Atlanta Symphony’s concertmaster since 2010. He often performs and has recorded albums with his sister, the featured piano soloist Julie Coucheron. Laufer, meanwhile, serves as the orchestra’s acting/associate principal cello.
The 1803 Triple Concerto dates from Beethoven’s so-called heroic period, but it’s really more classically captivating than heroically stirring.
The three fine soloists each exhibited a crisp articulation and stylistic grace in their playing. In performances of this work, the bright violin and percussive piano tend to overshadow the cello. Seemingly in recompense, Beethoven most often allows the cello to introduce themes and phrases.
The work displays Beethoven’s customary nobility but also includes music of chamberlike intimacy, as in the lovely second movement, which was sensitively rendered by the soloists and orchestra.
The work challenges all three soloists, but the solo cello part seems particularly demanding, with the cellist often playing high on the fingerboard. Despite a few intonation problems, Laufer negotiated the challenges commendably. David Coucheron displayed a meticulous attention to detail. I was particularly impressed with the chiseled clarity of Julie Coucheron’s playing.
Stutzmann drew polished playing from the orchestra, with the playful finale concluding the concerto in spirited fashion.
Triple Concerto soloists David Coucheron, Daniel Laufer, and Julie Coucheron take a bow. (uncredited image)
For the Alpine Symphony on the second half of the program, the orchestra almost doubled in size to 125 musicians, including several offstage French horn players. The colorful score features an array of rarely heard instruments, including Wagner tubas, a heckelphone, and a wind machine.
An Alpine Symphony is not often performed, and the reason is quite clear: It requires not only a huge orchestra but a world-class one.
Strauss called it a “symphony,” but it’s really an hour-long tone poem that vividly describes a hiker’s (or hikers’) climb up and descent down an Alpine mountain from morning to night. The poetic narrative is delivered through instrumental music in 22 episodes or movements.
During the performance, the titles of the movements were displayed on a digital screen above the orchestra — a welcome addition to the concert. There were also modest lighting effects, with color changes on the wall behind the musicians to suggest changes of mood.
An Alpine Symphony may remind a listener of the expansive landscapes of Thomas Cole or of Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. The latter 1818 painting, an iconic emblem of romanticism, happens to be on display in the U.S. for the first time at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (I was lucky enough recently to catch that excellent exhibition.) Like these visual works, the Alpine Symphony strives to evoke a sense of the sublime, so important to the romantic sensibility.
Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ (1818) on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (credit: Paul Hyde)
The performance often succeeded in doing just that, evoking the sublime, particularly in the blazing episodes titled “Sunrise” and “At the Summit.” The French horns — there were at least eight on stage, perhaps more — sounded particularly magnificent. Another scene featured several offstage horns to suggest hikers passing a hunting party. It was a pleasing effect, with the horns joyously declaiming from the balcony.
Strauss includes some charming and humorous episodes in the work as well. The movement “On the Alpine Pasture” features bird chirping and soft bells clanging to suggest sheep and cows. “Wrong Turn Through Thicket and Brush” paints a chaotic scene with grumbling and noisy frustration.
Among the most dynamic moments in the piece was the “Thunder and Storm” episode in which the entire orchestra creates a fierce, blustery cacophony with the wind machine howling and a bass drum player and two timpanists well-nigh bludgeoning their instruments.
There were moments as well of introspective quietude, often involving gentle solos, and Stutzmann stretched these out nicely. I rather wished, however, that Stutzmann had lingered a bit more over a few of the work’s pinnacles, as conductors often do.
Overall, Stutzmann conducted a well-shaped, powerful, and often thrilling performance.
Something marvelous happened at the end of the concert as the work concluded with a whisper of nightfall. The attentive audience waited quietly for several seconds after the last note had sounded. The silence lingered beautifully until Stutzmann dropped her arms. Only then did the audience applaud.
That’s a rather rare occurrence — a long rapt pause before applause — at an orchestral concert these days. It was wonderfully moving. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- David and Julie Coucheron: davidandjuliecoucheron.com
- Daniel Laufer: aso.org/artists/detail/daniel-laufer
- Caspar David Friedrich at the Met: metmuseum.org/exhibitions/caspar-david-friedrich-the-soul-of-nature
Read more by Paul Hyde.
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