New York Philharmonic
Kurt Masur (conductor)
Glenn Dicterow
(violin)
Carter Brey (cello)
Saturday 20 July 2002
Seiji Ozawa
Hall, Tanglewood,
Lenox, Massachusetts, USA
Presented by the
Tanglewood Music Festival
Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Cello
in A minor, Op. 102
Mahler: Symphony No. 1, "Titan"
New
York Philharmonic
Kurt Masur (conductor)
Yefim Bronfman
(piano)
Sunday 21 July 2002
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, Lenox,
Massachusetts, USA
Presented by the Tanglewood Music
Festival
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, Op.
73, "Emperor"
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, Op. 55,
"Eroica"
Kurt Masur bid the New York Philharmonic farewell with a pair of
concerts at Tanglewood (summer home of the Boston Symphony) in Massachusetts.
The weather couldn't have been nicer, the large auditorium was nearly full, and
the manicured lawn had a capacity crowd.
And the programming couldn't have been more basic: Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms. Unlike the televised pops concert with which Masur wrapped it up in Manhattan, however, these were programs of length and breadth. And the music obviously was close to the maestro's heart: he danced his way through the works with ease and panache, shaping each with a finely honed sense of dramatic and emotional structure.
Brahms intended his Concerto for Violin and Cello as a rift-healing gesture for his old friend Joseph Joachim, a violinist into whose failing marriage Brahms had tactlessly intruded. It worked: Joachim gave the premiere along with the cellist from Joachim's quartet.
It's not hard to hear the dialogue between the solo instruments as conversations between two old friends. To put a more fanciful face on it, it's a passionate exchange in a tavern, a fiery reunion that softens into wistful melancholy before finishing in a burst of exhilaration.
As performed by the Philharmonic's principal violinist and cellist, the solo voices glowed with an extra sense of affinity. Carter Brey launched into his opening cello solo with warm, rich-toned assurance and a brazen, effective use of rubato, setting up another distinguishing aspect of this performance: he was Don Quixote, by way of Brahms instead of Strauss, on a mission of reconciliation. Glenn Dicterow had a more steely edge to his playing, which added contrast to the passagework the two soloists played together. Dicterow's rhythm was more propulsive than Brey's, but he brought out the gypsy nature of the whole piece with a deft understanding of the looseness such a nature invites. This was the pairing of Heifetz and Feuermann, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Brahms and Joachim.
Masur, too, sculpted his part with easy dexterity. Again, his work demonstrated that it's not just the finale that brims with a merry gypsy dance — it's the work as a whole, never quite succumbing to the melancholy of its predominant minor key.
Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is an embrace of Nature — in all of Nature's perversity: gorgeous, treacherous and ultimately thrilling. The first movement is an awakening, followed by a rustic stroll with many stops to enjoy the birdsong.
As performed by Masur and the Philharmonic, the Symphony swooped from pianissimo to triple-forte with the throb of a fever dream. Each of the many waltz-like figures had an appropriate shape, an orchestra-wide sense of rubato that brought Mahler's music shimmering into life. That bizarre third-movement funeral procession, the Frère Jacques-in-minor nightmare, revealed its buried wit under Masur's hand. Of course it's funny — it has to be, with that old chestnut of a round keening from the lower strings.
And, of course, the finale crashed in almost unexpectedly and then kept up its manic pace even through the more dolorous interludes. When Mahler gets hold of a good thing, he can't seem to stop himself from bringing it around again and again, but the finale in this case — which seems about to end twice before it actually does — was too much fun to let go of quickly. Maybe Mahler knew that all along.
Mahler's First Symphony is a killer for the brass players, from the offstage fanfares at beginning and end to the cataclysmic explosions that periodically rock the section. But the New York Philharmonic is a great collection of talent, and there was nary a flub — certainly nothing that detracted from the excitement. The string sound, too, was gorgeous, one of the rare cases of hearing each section honed into a single voice.
The following afternoon was all Beethoven — or both Beethoven, with the "Emperor" and the "Eroica" comprising the program. With Yefim Bronfman at the piano, the concerto kicked off with all the high-blown intensity the piece demands.
Unfortunately, that intensity never let up, at least as far as Bronfman was concerned. He's an artist with a powerful technique who makes the formidable scores of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev seem like child's play. But his Beethoven was so bombastically Romantic that it allowed none of the composer's trademark wit to shine through. The piece is grounded in the Classical idiom, and much of its fun comes from the collision between Classical and Romantic sensibilities.
We heard how nicely Bronfman could pair himself with the orchestra in the second movement, which he took through its stately, tuneful paces to a very deft accompaniment, but the third movement again brought out that harsh edge, coupled with a lack of precision in his phrasing found him finishing passages well ahead of the orchestra.
And then there was the "Eroica." Masur performed it in New York in May to great acclaim; this was no less a milestone performance. H. L. Mencken termed the work's 1805 premiere "the most portentous phenomenon in the whole history of music," and it's important to note what a revolutionary work it was to 19th-century ears.
The ears of the 21st century are accustomed to much more, but the Eroica's power still compels — provided that, like the "Emperor" Concerto, it's shaped with its Classical background intact. Masur seemed almost too polite about it all at first, keeping the brass a little subdued in their first wail of that main theme, but then it became clear that he was marshaling those forces, building the intensity.
One of Masur's more subtle talents is his ability to match dynamics around
the orchestra, so that a single clarinet can answer the first violins without a
jarring drop in volume. This skill became increasingly evident as the first
movement roared to its close, and was a prime feature of the dark-hued funeral
march that followed.
Crisp tempos in the trio section of the third movement and a sense of the
dance in the fourth rounded the emotional sweep of the work: it's peasant music
mocking royalty by shrouding itself in royal robes, and this is behind its
never-ending appeal. However stormy the Masur decade with this orchestra may
have been, they united in a thrilling display of what they do best —
and the crowd couldn't have been happier.
