April 11 & 12, 2025
Meymandi Concert Hall
Raleigh, North Carolina – USA
April 13, 2025
Memorial Hall
Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA
North Carolina Symphony; Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor; Susanna Phillips, soprano.
Franz SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 7 in B Minor (“Unfinished”), D. 759
Richard STRAUSS: Four Last Songs (1949)
Edward ELGAR: Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”), op. 36
Christopher Hill | 14 APR 2025
This past weekend, Carlos Miguel Prieto led the North Carolina Symphony in three romantic-era pieces, one early, one late, and one very late. Writing around 1797, at the very outset of the romantic era, Berlin essayist Wilhelm Wackenroder avered that romantic expression requires the “utter submersion of the spirit in surging torrents of feelings.” No piece could better exemplify this characterization than a work written a generation later, in the fall of 1822, Schubert’s Symphony in B Minor (“Unfinished”), D. 759, the first piece on Prieto’s program.
To this reviewer’s knowledge, no Symphony in B minor was written before Schubert. Many symphonies in B minor were written after Schubert, among them Tchaikovsky’s, which treads similar expressive territory. Why did Schubert choose this key? A useful clue comes from Schubert’s biographer, John Reed, who, having surveyed the composer’s songs of the period, refers to B minor as “Schubert’s key of alienation and despair.” Yet it was clear by fall 1822 that the year 1822 was shaping up as a most encouraging one for the composer, thanks to publications and commissions that were starting to pay handsomely. So why the alienation and despair? Most likely because 1822 was also the year Schubert learned he had syphilis, a disease from which Schubert knew few, if any, escaped alive and unharmed.
So why unfinished? Because for Schubert symphonies had, for several years, been personal projects, projects he could lay aside to compose commissioned music, which he prioritized because it paid. In May 1818, for example, he drafted two movements of a symphony in D major; in spring 1821, he drafted four movements of another symphony in D major; in August 1821, he drafted four movements of a Symphony in E major (formerly numbered 7). Then, in fall 1822, he drafted three—or possibly four—movements of D. 759 in B minor, the third movement being a scherzo, complete save for the second trio, the fourth movement being either undrafted or drafted but repurposed as the 383-mm. B minor orchestral “Entr’acte No. 1” for Rosamunde. Scholars differ on how convincingly the Rosamunde entr’acte fits with the rest of the symphony. Thanks to good performances of the four-movement version on CD, we can make up our own minds.
In typical concert presentations, only the first two movements of D. 759 are played. Today, the first of these two movements might typically last fifteen minutes. But during the first three-fifths of the twentieth century, when beliefs in organic, evolutionary, mathematical, and economic metaphors for art were at their peak, it was common for exposition repeats to be omitted in classical symphonies, in which case Schubert’s first movement might last ten or eleven minutes. Prieto omitted it, and his first movement lasted nine minutes.
Schubert opens the first movement with a passacaglia-like tune in the lower strings, an invocation perhaps of something played on an organ’s pedals or, more generally, perhaps of matters deeply serious and sacred. But instead of continuing contrapuntally with this promising line, Schubert immediately switches to an atmospheric texture of shifting half-lit patterns, over which an oboe and clarinet together sing the movement’s plaintive first subject, saving a real working out of the low opening for the end of the movement. Schubert brings the plaintive subject to an orchestral climax and then, using a mere four-note bridge, launches into a contrasting, sunnier tune in the relative major, played by cellos in a warm register, its phrases constructed rather more formally than those of most Schubert tunes, as almost-palindromes. Stark juxtapositions of mood like this become increasingly intense as the movement progresses, lending it a dramatic quality, like a high-contrast print.
As in everything I have heard Prieto conduct, textures and balances were superbly judged, and musical surfaces deftly polished. The dramatic intrusions of Fate in Schubert’s score were conducted, literally, from the gut, with repeated forceful forward thrusts of the arms from below the waist level. Prieto’s Schubert sounds like Schobert, brisk and determined, with plenty of Sturm und Drang and a dance-driven tempo that need never vary. Audience applause at the end of the movement showed the appeal of this approach.
The second movement, in E major, begins and ends with echt-Schubertian paragraphs that combine simplicity and profundity in a way we also recognize from Beethoven’s middle-period masterpieces. Here, solos by oboe, clarinet, and horn players were beautifully nuanced and touching. In contrast, the secondary sections of the “Andante con moto” movement invoke the sort of high seriousness heard, say, in the “Kyrie” of Mozart’s Requiem. Prieto conducted these sections with the same gutsy vigor seen during the first movement.
During the last years of his life, Richard Strauss composed five songs for voice and orchestra (three on texts by Herman Hesse) and turned the piano accompaniment of a much earlier song into an orchestral one. He gave to Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad manuscripts of four of the songs and asked her to sing them with a major conductor of her choice. In the event, Flagstad chose one of the greatest conductor/composers of her era, Wilhelm Furtwängler, perhaps not knowing his private antipathy to much of Strauss’ output. The première occurred on 22 May 1950, with the four songs performed in the following order: “Beim Schlafgehen,” “September,” “Frühling,” and “Im Abendrot.” It was Strauss’ publisher, Roth, who changed the order to the one generally adopted today: “Frühling,” “September,” “Beim Schlafgehen,” and “Im Abendrot.” Roth also provided the generic title Four Last Songs.
The whole cycle is musically and technically imposing. Among the four songs, life-affirming Frühling may be the most vocally challenging in terms of both the vocal line itself and the resources a singer must summon to be heard above the orchestra. On the other hand, much of Frühling lies in the upper register, where energy comes more easily. In contrast, much of the song September is cast in the middle register and is sung over contrapuntally complex textures. Strauss often supports the vocalist by doubling her lyrical line in the winds, but ultimately it is up to the vocalist to make these doubling lines sound like doubled rather than leading ones. “Beim Schlafgehen” may be the most beloved of the four songs, with its moving violin solo transition separating the lieder-like day section from the more arioso-like night section. Strauss’ vocal line here is especially memorable, and it lies higher than the line in September.
The cycle ends with a summation of all that has come before, using a text by Eichendorff describing a loving couple at the end of their lives. For Strauss, this could only have evoked his own wife, the singer Pauline de Ahna, whose voice he most often had in mind when writing for soprano. For this reason alone, it’s useful to ask what Pauline de Ahna might have brought to Four Last Songs. Well, Pauline’s vocal quality was once described as dramatic, glowing, and youthful sounding. In Raleigh, the soloist was Susanna Phillips, who is well-regarded in Mozart and Verdi roles at several major opera houses. In the Strauss, Phillips had both glow and youth in her voice. Of drama, there was less, but this, your reviewer thinks, was deliberate, as discussed below.
On stage at the Meymandi, Phillips appeared the very embodiment of the rich and timeless music she was singing, benign in her unforced beauty, centered in a posture of clarity and charity, and seemingly attuned in spirit to a realm beyond any prosceniums. If she seemed almost to be channeling something, part of that impression was due to (what seemed to be) a deliberate constancy in her affect, as though lines she sang were not of the turbulent here and now but of some remembrance from which she long ago became detached. Given the number of outstanding here-and-now performances by great sopranos of the past, Phillips’ was a daring performance, and your reviewer found it moving. At the same time, I would be remiss not to mention that her mellifluous voice was often at a disadvantage in Four Last Songs when the tessitura lay below her upper register. This was evident in “September,” but even more so at the end of “Im Abendrot”—for whatever reason. During the final vocal measures, one could see the singer’s lips move, but such sounds as escaped them traveled in some direction other than the one where your reviewer sat. In sum, Phillips’ performance was, while not perfect, daring, vocally beautiful, insightful, and moving. For his part, Prieto conducted Four Last Songs with emotional nuance and plenty of ebb and flow. In these works, his hands were usually held at chest level, close to his heart.
Soprano Susanna Phillips performs Strauss’ ‘Four Last Songs’ with the North Carolina Symphony. (credit: John Hansen)
During the last decade of the nineteenth century, England was home to at least half a dozen worthy symphonic composers, including Frederic Cliffe, Frederic Cowen, Hubert Parry, and Charles Stanford. To these names may be added talented British orchestral composers like Alexander Mackenzie and Frederic Delius, who chose not to write symphonies. However, whatever the symphonic proclivities of these composers, British concert-goers generally wanted no truck with their music unless the specific piece was intended for a chorus or the salon. Prominent Continental conductors like Hans Richter, who programmed symphonic music by British composers in England, were baffled by the cold receptions local audiences afforded new compositions by their UK compatriots. Such was the world in which Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”).
Brahms had more or less begun the genre of independent orchestral variations with his opus 56 in 1873. Dvorak took up the challenge with his Symphonic Variations of 1877. It took a while before other composers followed these examples, but the genre had started gaining traction by the late 1890s: Hubert Parry wrote such a work in 1897, and Richard Strauss tried his hand at it with Don Quixote (also 1897). Elgar’s contribution came in 1899.
Elgar once revealed that the “enigma” is a well-known tune—possibly by a Continental composer—and that his original theme is a counterpoint to it. Naturally, Elgar did not reveal the name of the famous tune or its composer; he had long since learned that pieces—at least pieces by English composers—encoding intriguing riddles get played more often than other, perhaps equally good, what-you-hear-is-what-you-get pieces. Regarding the nature of the enigma, more than one plausible guess has been ventured, but that game, enjoyable as it may be, is tangential to the music. Similarly, each of the fourteen variations (counting the “Finale” as one) intends to capture qualities the composer associated with a particular acquaintance; in other words, the variations constitute a collection of “characteristic” pieces, another genre much in vogue in the 1890s.
Prieto and the North Carolina Symphony proved superb partners in bringing out delightful details within each of the fourteen character variations. Sometimes, these details are humorous, as in variation 3; sometimes, they are vociferous, as in variation 4; sometimes, they are both, as in variation 11. All the variations proved delightful; none overstayed their welcome. The range was broad, and detail was vividly captured. The Enigma Variations made Elgar famous in England, and they brought the Raleigh evening to a rousing close. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- North Carolina Symphony: ncsymphony.org
- Carlos Miguel Prieto: carlosmiguelprieto.com
- Susanna Phillips: susannaphillips.com
Read more by Christopher Hill.
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