It’s not every chamber group that can sell out Carnegie Hall—and the Emerson String Quartet almost did. The Emerson is one of the finest chamber groups in the world, but it did them no harm that they had booked a guest star: the baritone Thomas Hampson, known for his remarkable voice, his cerebral manner, and his matinee-idol looks. Their program had a theme, and that theme was despair, tragedy, and death. This wasn’t exactly a hootenanny. The concert was part of an Emerson String Quartet project called “Text/ Subtext.” Its purpose is to explore “relationships between instrumental music and narrative,” as the group’s promotional materials put it.
Lots of concerts have themes these days. It is close to de rigueur. There once was a time—not so long ago—when a concert didn’t need a theme, and did not feel compelled to teach musicology. It was enough to present great or at least interesting music. Now, however, to do so seems almost low-class. Night after night, I go to the concert hall, and if the program doesn’t have an actual, conscious, stated theme, the writer of the program notes will “unify” the performed pieces somehow, often in the most imaginative and strained ways. “The connection between this Byrd pavan and this Bolcom rag? Well, here it is!”
I maintain, however, that the presentation of great or interesting music—whether related or not—is still an honorable motivation. And, if you really want to press the case, all music is related, at some level.
In Carnegie Hall, the Emerson played the Quartet No. 1 by Smetana and then went to Dover Beach, Barber’s small masterwork for string quartet and baritone. This piece should be the province of every American baritone, even if a German—Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau—pretty much set the standard for it. Hampson sounded magnificent, of course, but he did a lot of sliding around, giving a strange impression of soupiness. (It is in some way a nautical work, you might plead.) This performance did not cast a spell, either, which the best renderings of Dover Beach do. But it was capable, and to hear this work is always moving.
After intermission, Hampson returned with his regular accompanist, the pianist Craig Rutenberg, for three songs by Schubert. These were meant to set the scene for the composer’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet, which would be the final work on the program. (One of the songs, of course, was “Death and the Maiden.”) I might comment here just on the matter of applause. At the end of the second song, Hampson held out his hand—somewhat peevishly—because he didn’t want the audience to applaud. I find that, as a rule, it’s better for a singer simply to give in to such applause, or at least not to object. It makes for less of a scene. When some applaud, other audience members shush—which is far uglier than any spell-breaking applause (and, truthfully, often the spell is not there).
In the old days—as long as I’m waxing nostalgic in this chronicle—musicians tended to be more relaxed about applause. Arthur Rubinstein would actually get up in the middle of a concerto, if the audience applauded after a movement—he felt he should acknowledge it. A few years ago, Earl Wild performed his eighty-fifth birthday recital in Carnegie Hall. The audience applauded in a middle of a group—and, sure enough, old-school as he is, he stood to bow.
Shortly after the Emerson String Quartet and Thomas Hampson appeared, Leif Ove Andsnes—the young Norwegian pianist—gave a recital in Carnegie Hall, and he, too, held out his hand, not wanting applause between Grieg Lyric Pieces. Then, oddly, he did not pause for applause before heading into a couple of Debussy studies, perhaps wanting to suggest a continuity between the Grieg pieces and the Debussy pieces. That was fine for himself, if he wanted to eschew applause—but I rather thought that Grieg deserved some.
Back to Hampson for a moment: It just so happens that, sometime in the mid-1990s, I heard him give a recital at George Mason University in Virginia. He was singing a group of barge songs, I believe—those river ballads of which he is fond—and the audience, obedient, did not applaud between items. After the end of one song, where he particularly wanted applause, apparently, he remarked—right there on the stage—“You’ve been too well trained.” Some audiences can never win!
This year, as you may know, is the centenary of the death of Hugo Wolf. It is also the bicentennial of the birth of Hector Berlioz, and the eightieth-birthday year of Ned Rorem. All of these anniversaries have been marked recently in New York. Not long after his outing with the Emerson String Quartet, Thomas Hampson appeared again in Carnegie Hall for an all-Wolf recital with Daniel Barenboim at the keyboard. And a month before that, Marilyn Horne had appeared at the Juilliard School for one of her master classes. She had the kids sing only Wolf—song after song. She lamented that Wolf was not more often heard in the recital hall, speculating that he was shoved aside for Richard Strauss. But she allowed that it would be good to hear more of this highly distinctive master in 2003.
Wolf was the “discovery” of Walter Legge, the magisterial executive for EMI, the British record company. If Legge did not discover him, he certainly popularized him. It didn’t hurt—in fact, it meant close to everything—that Legge’s wife was Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the German soprano who became Wolf’s champion. She gave many all-Wolf recitals, including at least one with Wilhelm Furtwängler, the great conductor, at the keyboard. The recital I have in mind was captured on recording. On this evidence, Furtwängler (also a composer, by the way) wasn’t a great pianist; he wasn’t even a good pianist—but it was a nice gesture.
Daniel Barenboim, of course, is a very good pianist, and Hampson is a valuable lieder singer. Among his teachers was Schwarzkopf herself, who no doubt imparted her wisdom in her typically pointed way.
Elsewhere, Ned Rorem was acknowledged with a birthday concert at the Manhattan School of Music. It’s hard to believe the old rascal’s eighty. He certainly doesn’t look it, as handsome, spry, and tart as ever. He is still more enfant terrible than grand old man. Last fall, I interviewed him for MuseNews, the newish wire service devoted to the arts. I asked whether he had anything he would especially like to compose in the years ahead—any “unfinished business.” He said, “No, I’ve said everything I have to say.” Besides which, “I have commissions that will take some years to be completed.” And did it weigh on him, I wondered, what posterity would think of him? Whether it would think of him? “Yeah,” he said. “I know people who say, ‘I don’t care what happens to me after I die.’ But I do, and I see no point in living otherwise… . I like to think that music and words go on. In the world we live in, you get edged out so quickly.”
Rorem will not be edged out—certainly not in his birthday year of 2003. As for posterity, one must leave that to posterity.
And Berlioz, the two-hundred-year-old? We are positively swimming in him, and it won’t end until December. Already we’ve had Les Troyens at the Met, the Requiem from the New York Philharmonic (conducted by Charles Dutoit), Sir Colin Davis doing a festival at Avery Fisher Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, innumerable other explorations, restatings, and tributes. The Berliozians are in hog heaven. As for others: They will simply have to ride it out. The next Berlioz explosion won’t take place until 2053.
Do you remember the last time you went to an all-wind chamber concert? My point exactly: They are a rarity—but they shouldn’t be, necessarily. If you were to go to such a concert, you would do well to make it one by the Ensemble Wien-Berlin. This is a group composed of principal wind players from the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. The ensemble is not a start-up, celebrating now its twentieth anniversary (speaking of those). A recent tour included Alice Tully Hall—which was packed, I should report, on a late Sunday afternoon at the beginning of a blizzard. This audience must have known something.
I have referred to this concert as all-winds, but that is not quite true: The Ensemble was joined by a pianist, for two of the works on the program. That pianist was André-Michel Schub. Does the name ring a bell to you? Years ago—in 1981—he won the Van Cliburn competition, and he was a very big deal. (The Van Cliburn competition was a much bigger deal in those days, too.) Great things were expected of Schub, and he has had a solid career. But it has not been a superstar’s career. It has been a quieter career, filled with a variety of satisfactions—e.g., a windy chamber concert like this.
Opening the program was Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat major for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, Op. 16. As soon as the Ensemble Wien-Berlin—plus Schub—started to play, you knew you were in the company of civilized men. It doesn’t take any longer: just a bar or two. Few things are more disheartening than hearing the first notes of a concert and knowing that you’re in for a bumpy ride. Few things are more encouraging than a wonderful start, promising a couple of hours’ fulfillment.
Schub’s playing was exemplary. His phrasing was elegant, his technique was nimble, and his musical collegiality was obvious. He played Beethoven with both poetry and strength. A student of Rudolf Serkin, he has the Serkin-like firmness, but he is a far more relaxed and supple player than his mentor. (I might note here that, in this same period, Peter Serkin—son of the late master—played the Brahms D-minor concerto with the New York Philharmonic [Eds: See Patrick J. Smith’s “Concert note” following this chronicle]. Young Serkin seems to be playing more like the old man, and looking like him, with every passing year.)
After the Beethoven came a work by Janáček: Mládí, or “Youth.” As the title suggests, this is an autobiographical look back, by a composer near the end of his life. It is a fond look back, too. We seem to be in a big Janáček year, though no anniversary applies. Jenůfa, of course, played to great acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, and sundry other works have been sprinkled around the concert halls and recital halls.
Mládí calls for a flute and a piccolo (Wolfgang Schulz, first deskman of the Vienna Philharmonic, handled both instruments), an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon, a horn, and a bass clarinet. Each player was golden: Schulz displayed both virtuosity and refinement, the oboist Hansjörg Schellenberger produced a remarkably unnasal sound … and the French hornist, Stefan Dohr? He did things on that instrument that are just not supposed to be done on that instrument.
Next on the program was a quintet of Reicha—no, not Steve Reich, but Anton Reicha, who was a contemporary of Beethoven and who made a specialty of these wind quintets, penning no fewer than twenty-four of them. The one we heard on this occasion—that in D major, op. 91, no. 3—is well crafted and congenial, utterly deserving of its unearthing. I must say once more that it was astonishing to hear that French horn. French horns are supposed to flub, and just get by. It is probably the most forgiven instrument because it is one of the hardest. But Stefan Dohr—principal of the Berlin Philharmonic—is almost a coloratura French hornist, which is a ridiculous phrase, until you actually hear Dohr. In addition, he can summon up any number of colors. A young man, he may well be the king of his instrument.
The last work played was the Sextet of Poulenc, a composer who loved winds—who declared that they were more important to him than strings. Much of the happiest literature in the field comes from him. It is often said that Poulenc was either bawdy or holy—swinging between those extremes. But the Sextet, rather than bawdy, is tart, saucy, fizzy, playful, jazzy, plaintive: and thoroughly French. The Ensemble Wien-Berlin, with André-Michel Schub again, showed it to best effect.
You might have considered this concert a “specialty concert”—almost a curiosity. But the chamber repertory for winds needs to be exposed, and this was one of the most rewarding concerts—from all points of view—of the season.
One night in early March, we had a taste of the Philadelphia Orchestra future: Christoph Eschenbach guest-conducted them in Carnegie Hall. He won’t be a guest conductor for long. He is slated to take over as music director next fall, with the retirement—or at least the departure from Philadelphia—of Wolfgang Sawallisch. The latter has been doing a Schumann series at Carnegie, conducting all four symphonies and the concertos (for piano, violin, and cello). These performances have been wise and tasteful, even if I have asked for more brio and uplift (for example, in the B-flat symphony, nicknamed “the Spring”).
About Eschenbach, a lot of people are nervous. Lovers of the Philadelphia Orchestra are tense. Eschenbach is no doubt a talented man, but he is an uneven and willful conductor. You never quite know what you’re going to get from him. I have heard him conduct some truly wretched performances—I think of a Mahler Sixth with the New York Philharmonic. I have heard him conduct some superb performances—I could cite an Arabella (by Richard Strauss) at the Met. And many other outings have been merely indifferent.
One thing’s sure: People in Philadelphia will enjoy looking at Eschenbach, except for purer, more decorum-minded ones. He is one of the most animated podium performers in the business. He is fantastically energetic, making Lorin Maazel, for example, seem almost sedate. But where Maazel is elegant and balletic, Eschenbach is more herky-jerky and blunt. Maazel is also more economical than Eschenbach, for whom no amount of motion, apparently, can be too much. But, as I have remarked before in these pages, the most important thing for a conductor is communication: and how he achieves it is entirely up to him. If the orchestra understands what is wanted and responds, that’s all that matters.
Beginning the recent program was—of course—Berlioz, his overture to Benvenuto Cellini. (Incidentally, the Metropolitan Opera will mount its first-ever production of this neglected opera next season.) The overture is one of this composer’s most fetching short pieces, full of merriment and romance. Eschenbach led a peppy performance, but it was not technically sharp, and one can certainly get as much out of an orchestra with less exhorting and other carrying on.
The major work of the evening was Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, a piece long associated with the Philadelphians. Eugene Ormandy was an early champion of it and, of course, recorded it. In the opening movement, Eschenbach was surprisingly tender and lyrical, applying much less tension than is customary. The playing seemed a little too rich, not cold or bleak enough (not that this music has to be stereotypically “Russian,” or, better, “Soviet”). Eschenbach’s baton was slow and mannered. One wanted to say, “Get on with it, and let the music speak, with no ‘interpretive’ interference.” The conductor balanced his slowness by taking the faster sections extra-fast.
The second movement had a nice vigor, but Eschenbach always lets you know he’s there, particularly in his tempo fluctuations. And, again, the orchestra did not exactly function like a Swiss clock, technically. Sawallisch’s discipline was absent. The third movement—Largo—is, needless to say, one of the most beautiful things in the symphonic literature. It was depressing that Eschenbach’s opening phrase had no naturalness whatsoever. Every note was “placed”—by him—rather than simply breathed. But the movement built capably, and the woodwind solos were fabulous.
The final movement was quite fast—despite its marking: Allegro non troppo—but it was sturdy and compact, just as Shostakovich wants. It had aural and visceral power, of course—but how could it not, with a splendid machine like the Philadelphia Orchestra? The performance was creditable enough, but one felt that the entire drama had not been wrung out of this work, and that this orchestra had been somewhat wasted. The ending was hugely slow, with Eschenbach literally conducting every note. This was manufactured, manipulated, and wrong.
But we all have to settle in, because Christoph Eschenbach is just beginning with his new band, and conductors of the Philadelphia Orchestra tend to stay a long time. In fact, it has had only four conductors since 1912. You may claim I’m cheating, however: because Ormandy stayed for forty-four years. The likes of that tenure, we will probably not see again. Anywhere.