|
Back
Debussy on the North Sea Hamburg
Elbphilharmonie
06/02/2026 - & May 24 (Wien), 27 (Essen), June 1 (Frankfurt), 2026
Richard Wagner: Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Prelude to Act III & Karfreitagszauber from Parsifal
Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33
Claude Debussy: La Mer
Gautier Capuçon (cello)
Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Daniele Gatti (conductor)
G. Capuçon, D. Gatti (© Oliver Killig)
A few days ago, I found myself inside one of the most magnificent concert halls on the planet. I had the good fortune to have been offered a guided tour of this majestic hall while empty, and was immediately mesmerized by its architecture, sense of grandeur and the attention to sonic detail invested in the building as a whole. However, this marvelous tour paled in comparison to being in its midst when filled to its 2,100‑seat capacity. It was humbling to be but one person in such a vast gathering, and life‑affirming to know that on this splendid June evening, so many people chose to hear this glorious music.
Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden was founded in 1548 by the Elector of Saxony, one of the many fiefdoms constituting the Holy Roman Empire. Carl Maria von Weber (1786‑1726) and Richard Wagner (1813‑1883) both served as the orchestra’s Hofkapellmeister. Richard Strauss (1864‑1949), Fritz Reiner (1888‑1963), Fritz Busch (1890‑1953), Joseph Keilberth (1908‑1968), Rudolf Kempe (1910‑1976), Karl Böhm (1894‑1981), Hans Vonk (1942‑2004), Herbert Blomstedt (b.1927), Giuseppe Sinopoli (1946‑2001), Bernard Haitink (1929‑2021), Fabio Luisi (b.1959) and Christian Thielemann (b.1959) have been among the orchestra’s storied principal conductors.
Two years ago, I visited the historic architectural gem that is Dresden, and attended a concert by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under its new Milan‑born conductor, Daniele Gatti (b. 1961). I had previously heard this fine ensemble led by others, and at my first concert under its then newly-appointed leader Daniele Gatti, the applause at the concert’s conclusion was enthusiastic and prolonged. Yet, a gentleman with whom I chatted at intermission didn’t agree. For him, this was tepid appreciation compared to the usual inaugural concert of the season, and especially considering its new conductor. The man had been a subscriber since the nineties and had witnessed some of its legendary past conductors. I was aware that it is not easy to replace a conductor as appreciated as Thielemann, and assumed that time would arrange things.
In fact, the orchestra has become more connected to Gatti. They follow him religiously while retaining their distinct sound. In certain pieces, such as the orchestral excerpt from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, one occasionally felt a disconnect, but this is minor quibbling. The ensemble’s magic was at its most sublime for Debussy’s La Mer.
The concert opened with the rousing Overture from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a clin d’œil to Gatti’s having conducted the opera at last summer’s Bayreuth Festival. Given the largely negative reviews of the Italian conductor’s performance on that occasion, it was not the best of ideas. At other performances of this touring concert, music from Tristan und Isolde was played instead. Possibly attempting to take a sober approach, the result was a slow tempo and an overall muddled sound, particularly in the strings. Despite some beautiful passages, it lacked vitality.
Born in 1981, France’s Gautier Capuçon is one of today’s most celebrated cellists. His interpretation of Saint‑Saëns’ First Cello Concerto was elegant, brilliantly paced and most of all, passionate. His technical virtuosity gave way to ardent lyricism in the concerto’s final movement. Watching his utter control of the bow and instrument while solidly concentrating was thrilling.
After a moving elocution to the public, Capuçon bid farewell to the orchestra with whom he had spent the season as guest resident artist. He thanked them warmly, regaling the Hamburg audience with a memorable, albeit schmaltzy, encore, Jérôme Ducros’s variation on the popular soprano-mezzo duet “Viens Malika!” from Delibes’s Lakmé, which he performed with the orchestra’s six cellists. Needless to say, it brought the house down.
The second part of the programme also started with Wagner, albeit in a very different mood, his Prelude and Good Friday Spell from Parsifal, which opened with a dark heaviness. The orchestra solemnly sustained the Grail motif and moved, with poise, to a state of grace that melted the most reticent in the audience. This orchestra has a special gift for Strauss and Wagner, and few can bring this music to life as they do.
The final offering was also the concert’s most beautifully interpreted work, Debussy’s nautical masterpiece, La Mer. Gatti deftly navigated the prisms of colour, varying the tempi to exaggerate its lush orchestration, bringing out the work’s rich textures. In the final movement, “Dialogue of the Wind and Sea,” Gatti brought the orchestra to full throttle. This movement is sometimes described as a chromatic idea in triplets: the oboe, English horn, and bassoon. The culmination of the piece had a delightful, though far from grandiloquent, cathartic effect, an ideal conclusion for a memorable concert.
Ossama el Naggar
|
