Ever since the Elbphilharmonie opened its doors to the public in January 2017 (after years of delays and enormous, truly scandalous cost overruns for this impressive building), the concert hall in Hamburg’s port has been and remains a magnet for leading international orchestras. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic (Wiener Philharmoniker) were among the first to be hosted. Since then, every artistic season here resembles a parade of exceptional musical ensembles — whether they come from nearby Berlin, slightly further Dresden, or even more distant Munich, or travel from London or New York to Germany’s second-largest city. It has now simply become a matter of prestige for the ‘who’s who’ of the orchestral scene to present their artistic ‘card’ right here.
However, the architecturally stimulating Grand Hall is anything but an acoustic gift for the musicians performing in it: the clarity of the Elbphilharmonie mercilessly reveals even the slightest performing inaccuracy; a ‘lenient’ blended sound, characteristic of traditional music temples, is difficult to achieve here. Sir Simon Rattle had called the acoustics ‘tricky.’ Yet, an orchestra that knows how to adapt to the complex conditions of the hall, that reduces dynamics and manages to reconcile subtlety with intensity, can indeed achieve wonders and showcase its virtues to the fullest.
After the impressively overdue debut of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie last Sunday (22.2), one could exclaim: “Finally.” The Greeks had been absent from this stage until now; neither of the two major concert organizers — the municipal “Hamburg Musik” and the private “Konzertdirektion Dr. Rudolf Goette” — had invited the Greek ensemble until today. Only now have the young Berlin producers of Concerts Pamploma recognized the potential of this excellent orchestra — and arranged for its debut on the Elbe.
The first impression: this is an orchestra with a strong character — dark, warm, and grounded in its fundamental sound foundation, yet wonderfully clear in the finely balanced equilibrium of its sections; musically ‘breathing’ collectively in shaping the interpretation, harmoniously combining outstanding individual performances, such as those of the delightful woodwinds (oboe, clarinets, bassoons!), with the strings; flexible in transitions between exquisitely crafted pianissimi and powerful sonic explosions.
The truly exhilarating element of this captivating evening, however, was the program itself, which in no way followed expected patterns, but constantly offered acoustic surprises and corresponding intensity. Yiannis Constantinidis’s (1903–1984) “Dodecanese Suite No. 1” served from the beginning of the evening as a generous statement of the orchestra’s artistic identity. One could not have embraced the audience more skillfully. In this work, authentic Greek identity is successfully combined with Central European breadth: references to the archaic aura of antiquity meet impressionistic chromatic games; traditional music motifs meet jazz elements; nature-loving ecstasy meets cinematic soundscapes. The Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra subtly explored this consistent fusion of heterogeneous sound worlds. The mind often turned to similar compositional experiments by Béla Bartók or Igor Stravinsky. The orchestra’s joy soon turned into acoustic delight for the audience.
As if to follow Ariadne’s thread from this beginning, the composer-pianist Fazıl Say, who was not present at the concert, seemed in the “Concerto for Ancient Lyre op. 122 ‘Ballad of Ephesus'” to be inspired by the resonance of temporally distant elements. The German premiere of the work, written for the lyre as the great ancient mother of so many classical instruments (from the harp and violin to the cello and piano), somehow connected archaeology with avant-garde. The soloist Nikos Xanthoulis on the lyre and bass lyre charmingly explained the peculiarities of his delicate instrument, which was electronically amplified in combination with the large orchestra. The plectrum playing technique was only understood through the comparison of ancient depictions of the instrument: sonic archaeology in the best sense. Say combines the simplicity of the lyre with a minimalistic-folkloric orchestral substratum in his episodically varied work, allowing Xanthoulis to ideally develop the instrument’s intensely ‘operatic’ tonal spectrum. The ancient modes of the East — Ionian, Phrygian, Aeolian — are also heard. Say, Xanthoulis, and the Orchestra became ambassadors of a millennia-old cultural history that musically knows no borders.
In this dramatically intelligent and inspired evening, even the most traditional works on the program did not sound conventional at all. In Camille Saint-Saëns’s First Cello Concerto before the intermission, the stylistically assured soloist Jeremias Fliedl chose precise sonic articulation instead of a nebulous, opulent euphony. His delicate sound possesses discreet elegance. The Austrian cellist seems to want to prove with his playing: less is more.
In the last work of the evening, it became clear why the guests from Greece had brought an old master to the podium. Thomas Sanderling had a special friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich, who, after their acquaintance in Moscow, had entrusted the then young conductor with the German premieres of several of his symphonies. It was precisely this experience that Sanderling now conveyed in the pleasantly sober, almost classically pure and tightly conducted interpretation of Shostakovich’s Ninth. To the expectations of writing, at the end of World War II, a fanfare in honor of the murderous Soviet leader, the composer responded with his own bold sarcasm and with a dance-like light, lively E-flat major, without his usual mournful darkness. The Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra rendered these nuances with all its class, personality, and joyful awareness of that dialectic that characterizes great art.
