Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito, The New York Times
The first two nights of the Boston Symphony’s annual
pilgrimage to Carnegie Hall provided a disparate set of results, showcasing
just how much of an effect a conductor has on even a top-tier ensemble. Still
without a musical conductor since James Levine left his oft-neglected post in
2011, the Boston Symphony has suffered through a roster of guest conductors at
Carnegie—both new and familiar faces to the BSO—with plenty of concerning substitutions
made at the last minute.
The two conductors at the helm this week couldn’t have been
more diametrically opposed in how they led the orchestra: Rafael Frühbeck de
Burgos, definitely in the twilight hours of his career and remained seated
throughout the performance, gave a stoic rendition of three 20th-century works,
while Daniele Gatti—fresh from leading the critically acclaimed new production
of Parsifal at the Metropolitan
Opera—imbued a fresh and precise perspective to Mahler’s titanic Third
Symphony.
For Wednesday night’s program, the BSO delivered two works
that the group originally premiered, harkening back to the orchestra’s heyday
under Serge Koussevitsky, whose deep-seeded relationships with the major
composition figures of the time yielded an incredible output of new music.
Unfortunately, under de Burgos, both Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, as well as Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra suffered, with a
lack of energy, precise articulation, and unified sound weaving its way
throughout the evening.
The Hindemith found the large string section fighting for
cohesive intonation, and the first violin section had plenty of cringe-worth
moments that rang through the hall. Not until the first movement’s sweeping,
unison melody across the five string sections did the orchestra display the
dark, burnished sound quality that one associates with the group.
Luckily, the brass and solo winds were able to pick up the
slack in the Bartók—most notably in the second movement’s capricious “Giuoco
delle coppie,” where whimsical woodwind duets gave way to a meditative chorale
from the brass that was not only perfectly paced, but elegantly pitched. The
stellar music-making didn’t last for long though, as the elegiac third movement
and adrenaline-pumping final two movements hit a wall, with de Burgos’ choice
of tempi failing to show the virtuosity of the onstage musicians’ abilities.
Photo credit: The Classical Review
Conversely, Gatti was dynamic in conveying a set of
innovative and aggressive ideas that made even the most long-winded passages of
the Mahler seem fresh and rewarding. The lengthy first movement—usually hinging
on the brash and martial march—was more about the tempestuous night music of
the opening material; each time the sun set and D minor returned, Gatti
extracted stormy tremolos from the strings and woodwinds. Principal Trombone
Toby Oft was Herculean in his account of the central solo, sounding like a
stentorian preacher calling out to his congregation.
The four brief movements sandwiched between the first and
sixth movements’ expansive sound worlds usually come across as frivolous
intermezzos, but under Gatti’s direction, even these showed a heightened sense
of dramatic power that furthered the work’s momentum. Woodwinds excelled in the
third movement, with fluttering trills and avian shrieks adding incredible
character, contrasting the pastoral offstage posthorn solo that brought
momentary respite to the proceedings. Anne Sofie von Otter gave a moving performance of Nietzche’s
“Midnight Song” from Also sprach Zarathustra,
and while her lower register didn’t always carry across the large orchestra,
her warm and intense sound was perfectly suited to conveying the poem’s shadowy
text.
Given Gatti’s expert communication with the orchestra—who,
as opposed to the previous night, seemed to comply with his every laser-like
baton gesture—and rising stature as a vivid interpreter of the Germanic canon,
it would be a bold move of the Boston Symphony administration to see how much
blossoming could come of this musical relationship. Unlike the appointment of
Levine in 2001, there should be a sweeping push amongst musicians and executives
alike to ensure that the next music director have the physical vitality (as well as
career longevity) to develop the orchestra into the powerhouse it could be once
again.
More pics on the photo page.