It ends as it began: a solo double bass playing a “quarter note” and “two tied eighth notes,” a rhythm from which the romantic melody unfolds. This brings us almost by what seems chance, but obviously isn’t, to a keen awareness of the great proximity between Franz Schubert and Ludwig Van Beethoven. Being 27 years his junior, Franz Schubert would join in immortality the master he so revered, barely a year and a half after the latter’s passing in 1828.
Schubert’s “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern” (Song of the Spirits over the Waters) falls into the genre of the symphonic and choral poem, inspired by Goethe’s metaphorical love song from 1779, where the flow of water resembles the initiatory journey of the human being. This double bass (excellently played by Jean-Marie Marillier), which invariably marks time, akin to the drop of water, the inevitable passing of time, is gradually overwhelmed by the evocative power of the melody and chants, a perfect union between music and text. The magnificent male choirs, led by Giulio Magnanini, add this extra soul to the score, effortlessly leading the audience into a deep meditation on human destiny.
This same inspiration delivered by the double bass is found in Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, particularly in the second movement where the instrument alone launches this austere and regular punctuation – always a quarter note, two tied eighth notes – which, like the sad procession of a funeral march, dominates the entire Allegretto. Is it also a surprise to learn that the composer met Goethe while preparing this work? Conductor Marco Guidarini seemed to throw all his energy into this interpretation, favoring meticulous and sober classicism for the first two movements before allowing the full symphonic power to amplify in the last two. Perhaps to recall that at its first performance on December 8, 1813, the orchestra led by Ludwig Van Beethoven reportedly included only 28 musicians, indeed with strings and wind instruments. The romantic excess has obviously followed: in the Nice pit, one could count eight double basses the other evening.
Between these two already chosen musical pieces, a rare gem: Johannes Brahms’ “Rhapsodie for Alto and Male Choir.” This composer was born almost at the moment of the previous two’s deaths, which perhaps prematurely designated him as Beethoven’s successor. It is worth noting in the genesis of this work the intervention of Goethe: stricken with a necessarily impossible love for one of Robert Schumann’s daughters – perhaps a lateral transfer of the sweet sentiments he also harbored for Schumann’s wife Clara – Brahms sought a text by the German poet “Harzreise im Winter” (Harz Journey in Winter) to express his despair. An intense, profound, and dark work, whose beginning evokes the Requiem before giving way to tonal bipolarities that would be found later in Gustav Mahler. From this orchestral and choral ensemble in fusion, the voice of the contralto Nathalie Stutzmann slowly emanates from the telluric depths, a sort of vestal of the lyrical arts and guardian of the depths where reside, buried and apart from mortals, the most subtle emotions of man. Moving to tears, her wide range, comfortable in both the very low and slightly high notes, her voice’s suave and warm grain like velvet, casts its charm over the audience. Some of her fortissimos inevitably bring to mind the great Kathleen Ferrier in her performances of the Kindertotenlieder. Regarding Brahms, Robert Schumann was right to write: “Here is the new messiah of art.”
