Music May 1999
Concert note
On Moses und Aron by Arnold Schoenberg, at the Chicago Sympohony Orchestra
Perhaps New York audiences got the better deal with the near-simultaneous performances of Arnold Schoenbergs Moses und Aron that took place at the Met and in Chicago. At the concert performances of Schoenbergs opera, Chicago audiences missed out on the Mets cable-version debaucheries in the Golden Calf scene and other stage business that can enlivenor divert one fromthe gnarled, less-than-tuneful score. Certainly, the pristine objectivity of Pierre Boulez and the turn-on-a-dime virtuosity of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus heard at Symphony Center allowed one, for better or worse, to concentrate on the Austrian composers music.
Schoenbergs star ascended when the postwar Darmstadt musical leaders took up serialism as their god, and it has largely stayed there since due to their advocacy. Yet even today, while the composer enjoys the support of all the...
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