Last week, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra returned to Dongyi after six years, kicking off the spring and summer symphony concerts of Dongyi's performance season. From April 17th to 18th, "Listen to the Symphony·Go to the East" ushered in another historic moment: the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra joined hands with its chief conductor and Grammy Award winner Christian Mesela to perform "The Complete Brahms" symphony".
This is the first time that the complete symphonies of Brahms are performed in Shanghai. What’s interesting is that this is the orchestra’s third visit to Shanghai, including its first performance in China at Dongyi in 2005. Every time, it has an indissoluble bond with “Brahms”.
Live pictures Photography: Chen Yulin
visited Shanghai three times to perform Brahms in a "marathon"
The West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1947, has a long history. As Germany's top radio symphony orchestra, it inherited the German and Austrian traditions. The glorious tradition of music, known as one of the best interpreters of German classical music. The orchestra not only covers German and Austrian classics and modern works, but is also synonymous with German rigor, superb skills and profound heritage, representing the highest level and brand certification of today's international symphony. It is particularly good at performing the works of Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler, and Brahms is the orchestra's specialty.
Christian Mesela was interviewed at Dongyi
Since the 2019/2020 season, Christian Mesela has served as the chief conductor of the orchestra, joining the list of well-known chief conductors in the long history of the orchestra, comparable to Christoph ·Master conductors such as von Dohnanyi, Gary Bertini, Semyon Bychkov and Jukka-Pekka Sarast.
"It is important to me that the orchestra and the musicians feel that they represent the identity of the German orchestra." Before this Dongyi performance, Mesela said in an interview with the media that he regarded this music trip as a cultural exchange trip and hoped that through Brahms's symphony, the audience could feel the cultural identity of Germany .
This is the third time the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra has visited Shanghai. In 2005, the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra performed in Dongyi for the first time in China. World-famous conductor Semyon Bychkov and Chinese pianist Chen Sa presented a classic concert to the Shanghai audience, including Brahms. "Fourth Symphony". In 2015, the orchestra brought the German violinist Peter Zimmermann to bring "Complete Brahms" and entertained Shanghai with the "Fourth Symphony" and a pastoral-style "Violin Concerto in D Major" audience. This time back in Shanghai, the orchestra once again chose Brahms for this "marathon" complete work. Mesela believes that for such an orchestra with a long tradition of German and Austrian works, Brahms has become part of their identity.
A bright star in the contemporary conducting world
Christian Mesela is known as "one of the most promising conductors of the young generation". In recent years, he has won widespread praise from the global music industry for his extraordinary talent and outstanding leadership. Not long ago, the famous classical music website Bachtrack announced the ranking of the "Top Ten Busiest Conductors in the World" for 2023. Mesela ranked seventh, which is enough to illustrate his popularity.
"I grew up in a musical family, so classical music has always been a part of my life." Christian Mesela was born in Romania in 1980. Before becoming a professional conductor, he was a professional violinist. In 2020, Mesela recorded Wynton Marsalis's Violin Concerto for Nicola Benedetti with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and won the 62nd Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
"When I began to understand that music is a universal language, I put down my violin and chose to devote myself to a wider world of repertoire, a world that was no longer limited to one instrument." As a professional conductor, Mesela will Treat each composer and each piece as an opportunity to discover something new, and listen very carefully to the orchestra to help them understand the emotions the composer is trying to convey. “Classical music is more than superficial entertainment, it requires time, patience and understanding to fully appreciate its charm."
Because of this, Mesela gave sound advice to first-time classical music listeners, "Don't expect to fully understand it on the first listen. I've spent a lifetime understanding music, and sometimes I still feel like I don't. Understand it. Rather than giving music just one chance, invest the time in advance and go to ten or twenty concerts before deciding whether it's the music for you. ”
The orthodox German-Austrian sound interprets the complete set of Brahms
Johannes Brahms is known as one of the greatest classical musicians of the 19th century. As the spokesperson of Bach and Beethoven, the two orthodox German-Austrian music The successor, in the magnificent history of music, Brahms adhered to the belief of classicism and left a precious musical legacy for future generations with his profound and emotional music works.
Live photo: Chen Yulin.
The selection of Brahms' complete symphony for this tour is unique. It is rare to select the works of only one composer for a tour, and the selection of works by Brahms, the master of German and Austrian classical music, is even more unique. A challenge. Although Brahms only composed four symphonies in his lifetime, each of them is a classic, which does not affect his reputation as "one of the greatest symphony composers after Beethoven". ".
"The First Symphony is Brahms' most complex and difficult work. It took him 15 years to complete," Mesela said in the interview. At that time, Brahms was still in Under the influence and shadow of Beethoven, this is why the beginning of the symphony is so dark and deep. By the Second Symphony, Brahms matured and began to develop his own sound style, in which Viennese culture and Hungarian music can be heard. The influence of family on him. Mesela believes that the Third Symphony is the most philosophical of the four. “At that time, Brahms’s friends were all living a happy family life, and he was lonely. Yes, but he enjoyed this loneliness very much. Therefore, you can hear sadness in the Third Symphony, and you can also hear pure joy and happiness. "In the Fourth Symphony, Mesela believed that Brahms showed his ability as a master, "He did not innovate forward like Wagner, but went back to a long time ago, such as Bach's time, he He once said that he wanted to take the musical form like Bach wrote the Passacaglia and make it his own," Mesela explained.
In this concert, he spent two nights It is very rare to perform a set of Brahms’ complete works. “Putting these works in a set allows you to understand the timeline and background of the creation of these works, see the transformation of their creation, and gain a better understanding of Brahms as a composer. The growth process of the family. Mesela said. As an orchestra conductor, he wants to reproduce the "universe" conceived by Brahms when he created music through the orchestra's performance. "The composer extracts what he wants to express from his universe." Things are concentrated on the two-dimensional plane of the score." After about 150 years, he believes that the emotions in Brahms' music are connected and can ultimately reflect the audience's own heart. "Music is like a mirror, My job is to hold this mirror up to you so you can see who you are. "
