Readers, you know of my longstanding contention: The most dread word in the English language is “concert-lecture.” (That is, if you’ll accept hyphenated words.) David Robertson, the music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, gave a doozy during a two-evening stand at Carnegie Hall. Along with his orchestra, he presented a program called Seeing Debussy, Hearing Monet. Clever title, huh? Robertson’s purpose, as you can guess, was to link those two famous Impressionist Claudes: Debussy and Monet. More broadly, his purpose was to link music and painting.
Oh, do arts administrators—and critics, and other nuisances—love this sort of thing! They love anything smacking of the “innovative,” or of “reaching out.” And they especially love what is multimedia—the more media, the better! Interconnectedness is a watchword of today. I’m not sure that Robertson enhanced our understanding of Debussy, or of Monet, but he gives a very good concert-lecture.
He speaks fluently, in a “power whisper,” to borrow a phrase I once heard applied to the speech of George Stephanopoulos, the Washington commentator. He combines knowledge and humor. In shirtsleeves, and equipped with a lavalier mike, he was audience-friendliness itself. Robertson compared Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun to Monet’s Morning on the Seine series; then he lined up Jeux with those water lilies at Giverny. As the orchestra played, slides appeared on a screen above the stage. Robertson lamented that, while the music was perfectly real, he had only reproductions to show us, rather than Monet’s paintings themselves. I thought of Sergiu Celibidache’s famous quip about recordings: Listening to one is “like kissing a photograph of Brigitte Bardot.”
Whatever you thought of the lecturing, Robertson conducted, and the St. Louis orchestra played, very well. This was particularly true of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which—because it is so very familiar—needs an especially sensitive and musical performance to enchant a listener (a veteran listener, that is). It was something of a relief to know that you could hear this piece again.
In the course of his talking, Robertson mentioned that the poet Mallarmé said that he envied music: envied it for its expressive capabilities, more numerous and profound than a mere word-user’s. And it was Debussy himself who said—or is quoted as saying—“Music begins where human speech leaves off.” And yet, a great many people, it seems, want their music mixed with this human speech.
The next night, Robertson and the St. Louis appeared in Carnegie Hall again, for a regular concert—or rather, almost for a regular concert, because Robertson did some more talking, and showed some more slides. This was for a piece by Morton Feldman, his Coptic Light, written a year before the composer’s death in 1987. As the evening’s program notes informed us, the piece was “inspired by ancient Coptic textiles that Feldman discovered in the Louvre.” And the piece “exemplifies the composer’s late music in its harmonic stasis and reiteration of brief motifs …” That it does, whether you like it or not.
And Maestro Robertson expected you not to like it. At the end of his mini-lecture—and before he lifted his baton—he said, in essence, “You probably won’t care for this piece, but the chairs in the hall are comfortable, and try not to snore too loudly. Don’t make any noise at all, so that your neighbors—who may enjoy the work—are undisturbed.” That’s a hell of a stage-setter! As the music played, we would see slides of those Coptic textiles on the screen overhead. Robertson assured us that we would all be “united in this tapestry of life.”
I don’t know. Coptic Light is a half-hour long, and I am tempted to describe it as an imposition—an imposition on an audience and its time. This is the kind of piece you know well, if you haunt concert halls: a druggy, laid-back, psychedelic piece. “See the colors, man” (and in this case, we could actually see some colors on that screen). The piece is extremely repetitive—some brand of minimalism—and might be characterized as lulling: but there is a difference between lulling and insulting. True, Coptic Light conjures up an ancient past. But so do a few snatches from the score of Patton, and they do so just as well, and more briefly.
Very few people will say that the emperor has no clothes. If they see that he is naked, they won’t open their mouths, for fear of being labeled square, or unsophisticated. And yet some, looking at this emperor, see the richest, most praiseworthy robes. I sometimes wish I had their eyes, or ears. And the modernist composer has no more steadfast friend than David Robertson (the former music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain).
Do you care for an anecdote concerning Arnold Schoenberg? I learned it from The New Criterion’s own Roger Kimball. A disciple of Schoenberg’s has organized an evening of Schoenberg’s music, and, after the first piece, he (the disciple) will say a few words. The music ends, and before the man can talk, the critic Lionel Abel calls out, “Okay, we’ve had the lecture—when do we get the music?”
Robertson had begun his Carnegie Hall concert with a Mozart overture, that to The Magic Flute. The orchestra’s initial entrance was wretched, which came as no surprise, since so many orchestras—the best—begin their pieces badly. As the overture proceeded, it was moderately together, but only moderately so. And it was nothing like incisive, or bold, or interesting. Altogether, this was too relaxed a performance, almost an indifferent one. The music was without its tension, and fun, and thrill. It served as a merely dutiful curtain-opener, and that is not Mozart.
I should note that, in this overture—and throughout the two concerts—the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra played with a warm and inviting sound. Of course, virtually every orchestra sounds warm and inviting in Carnegie Hall. I’ve sometimes said that, with these acoustics, even the Yonkers Kazoo Quintet could sound like the Vienna Phil.
After intermission, the conductor turned to one of Mahler’s masterpieces, Das Lied von der Erde. (Did Mahler write non-masterpieces?) This work, as you know, requires two singers, a tenor and a mezzo, although sometimes baritones take over that lower part, as Fischer-Dieskau did so memorably. The St. Louis’s singers were the Australian tenor Stuart Skelton and the American mezzo Michelle DeYoung. Skelton showed a beautiful voice, although sometimes you could not hear it, for the orchestra: This almost always happens to tenors in Das Lied. Also, Skelton tended to extremes, including in his physical gestures. He should reconsider those operatic movements in music like this. Actually, he might want to avoid them in opera. Once, Skelton turned his page melodramatically—kind of disgusting.
DeYoung is a proven Mahler singer, and I remember, particularly, a Third Symphony, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco orchestra. The mezzo’s first note in Das Lied is a high and difficult one, and singers often botch it: but not this one. All through the work, she offered her dusky carpet of sound, and that sound contained a number of colors. The final section—the sublime “Abschied”—might have had more transcendence. To focus on details, the line “Die liebe Erde” should bring tremendous release, which it did not, and the utterings of “Ewig” should sort of fade away, or somehow transfix—they did not.
But the main responsibility for any Lied lies with the conductor, and David Robertson did not compel. He did some things admirably—this is not an incompetent conductor—but, like his tenor, he committed extremes (and undoubtedly Stuart Skelton was following his leader). Some tempos were ruinously fast; some rough Mahlerian moments were simply too rough, approaching crude; jokey passages were wrongly vulgar. And “Der Abschied” went by unremarkably. I once heard Leontyne Price say in a masterclass—to a student who had sung a major aria—“Dear, you didn’t lay a glove on it.” Somehow, Mahler’s Lied was untouched too.
And, by the way: It was nearly impossible to hear the mandolin at the end. Mahler doesn’t put it there to blend in!
Consider, now, a pianist: the Scotsman Steven Osborne. The winner of a couple of major piano competitions in the 1990s, he played a recital in Zankel Hall (downstairs in the Carnegie complex). He designed a most interesting program, too.
It began with the three Novelettes of Poulenc. If we hear any piano music by this composer at all, it’s usually the Trois Mouvements Perpétuels, which Rubinstein loved, and played frequently and well. But Poulenc’s piano inventory is fairly extensive, and excellent. The first and second of the Novelettes were written in 1927 and 1928; the last was written decades later, in 1959, and it borrows a theme from Falla’s Amor brujo (quite explicitly). Of course, the best known of all novelettes are those composed by Schumann—who in fact coined the term. Do you know its origin? The term has nothing to do with novels or novelty. It was a tribute to an English soprano who must have been lovely: Clara Novello. (Schumann was to marry another Clara.)
Poulenc’s Novelette No. 1 is in C major, and there’s something about starting a concert in an affirming C major. This is a beautiful little piece, gentle, dreamy, a bit mysterious. And Steven Osborne played it exquisitely. In fact, nothing on this whole, long program would be more satisfying. Novelette No. 2, in B-flat minor, is a diabolical little exercise, rattling and smart. Osborne played it with due crispness. And the third piece—the one inspired by Falla—has that off-kilter allure so typical of Poulenc. We hear some of the intervals of the composer’s opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites in it. Osborne played the melodic line a little stiffly, but he obviously has a feeling for this music.
Then he turned to Debussy—Book I of his Preludes. All twelve of them. I have to say, I have grown tired of completeness in the concert hall. You know: four Ballades (Chopin), four Scherzos (Chopin again), thirty-two Beethoven sonatas (well, only every now and then, spread out over a couple of weeks). But completeness is a fashion of our times. I believe I’ve heard more complete performances of Debussy’s Book I in the past few seasons than I have performances of individual Preludes, or small groups of them. And that’s weird. At least Osborne did not go on to Book II (ingenious and invaluable as this music is).
He traversed the Preludes with dignity, intelligence, and sensitivity. He did not play mesmerizingly, and he is not the colorist that some others are—but he is not unwise to feature Debussy. He played the Preludes as though they were movements in one, long piano work (they are not). Osborne has plenty of technique, as he proved in “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest” (and as he would prove even more unmistakably later in the recital). Frankly, he could use more relaxation in the arms, but who couldn’t? And sometimes, in a concert hall, we hear a dog not barking: Osborne did nothing stupid, jarring, egotistical. We expect taste from a U.K. pianist, and Osborne provided it.
And yet: You’ve heard “La Fille aux cheveux de lin” played more purely. You’ve heard “La Sérénade interrompue” played more humorously. “La Cathédrale engloutie” missed some of its watery stateliness, and mystery; altogether, it was too big, bordering on clunky. “La Danse de Puck” was nicely subtle—more puckish than ha-ha. The closing Prelude in Book I may be the lightest of them all: “Minstrels,” played with a kind of stuttering wit by our pianist. He missed one of his final notes, however, causing him to rise from the bench and face the audience with a grimace. That was endearing—sort of schoolboyish.
After intermission, he looked homeward, giving us a sonata by Sir Michael Tippett, whose centenary we have just celebrated (Tippett was born in 1905, dying in 1998). Tippett wrote four piano sonatas, of which Osborne played No. 2. I have a fond memory of Murray Perahia’s playing No. 1, many years ago. He played with such grace and mastery—this was before he decided to become a piano-shaking barnstormer. Prior to playing No. 2, Osborne spoke to the audience. I always say that contemporary music is flattered when it is unaccompanied by talk—but performers often feel the need to talk. Osborne observed that there is a lack of continuity in Tippett’s sonata, with one idea giving way to another, without a bridge; also that the music is “unsettling.” Well, anyone could have heard that, once the music began. But perhaps Osborne wanted to say, “It’s supposed to be this way, you know.”
He played the sonata with authority, giving the music real fire, and some of the percussiveness and drive we associate with Prokofiev. He also showed that the sonata coheres, no matter how peculiar its plot. And one more thing about this performance: I have said that Osborne could have done the sonata the favor of not talking about it; he might also have done it the favor of memorizing it.
What he had memorized was Beethoven’s Sonata No. 21 in C major, nicknamed the “Waldstein.” As it is good to open a program with an affirming C major, it is good to close one that way as well. And yet Steven Osborne wasn’t a model of British pianism in the “Waldstein.” He slopped and banged through much of the first movement, which was surprising. There was no need to play with such volume and aggressiveness. As for the second movement, it was decently judged, but it was also rather phrase-by-phrase—each phrase being sculpted just so. This hindered the overall flow of the movement. The final movement, as you know, has one of the loveliest openings in music—and Osborne did it justice. But then he went in for some more banging, some more pounding, some more overaggressiveness. It could not have been guessed that he would do this from his playing of the Poulenc, and the Debussy. (The Tippett was a different matter, for that is a clangorous piece.)
I must not leave the impression that Osborne utterly failed in the “Waldstein.” He did some limpid playing, and he trilled well: The Rondo is just about the most trill-filled music in the piano repertoire. Also, Osborne knew his own mind, whatever we thought of it. But he can play this sonata with more refinement—a refinement he showed so gratifyingly in, for example, those Novelettes.
Zankel Hall’s small crowd was appreciative, and asked for encores. Osborne gave two: First was an improvisation of Keith Jarrett. A cool cat, Mr. Osborne. But I should not be sniffy—ultimately, this improvisation was sweet and touching. And then Osborne sat down for some virtuosic jazz. Hey, when in America … This was an improvisation on “(Back Home Again in) Indiana,” which Art Tatum unforgettably did up. Osborne is not Tatum, no—but he was not unidiomatic, and he nicely capped a diverse and appealing recital.
I close with a compliment you might think slight, but which is not at all insignificant: I’d like to hear him again.
The New York Philharmonic has had a parade of guest conductors, Lorin Maazel having been away quite a bit this season. One of those guests was Iván Fischer, the Hungarian maestro. With the pianist (and conductor) Zoltán Kocsis, he co-founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra, in 1983. That orchestra is more than respectable, it is a toast of the international concert scene.
Fischer began his New York program with something close to home: Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, from 1917. (Or rather, the orchestral version comes from that year—Bartók wrote the piano score two years before.) As you know, Bartók was an eager ethnomusicologist—to use an anachronistic word—and he made many forays into the hinterland to collect and marvel at tunes. The Romanian Folk Dances are probably the most popular of his “ethnic” works, and they are, indeed, hard not to love.
This Hungarian guest led them superbly—with the right emphases, the right grace. Fischer allowed no cutesiness, nothing kitschy. I was reminded of the great Czech conductors—Talich, Ančerl, and the rest—who conducted Dvořák, Smetana, Novák, et al., flavorfully yet straightforwardly. This is a far cry from Western conductors who try, painfully, to be “Czech.” In any case, Fischer brought out the glory of the Romanian Folk Dances, and I found myself wishing that those peasants could hear how Bartók, this sympathetic genius, immortalized them and their music.
Next on the program was a work for violin and orchestra by Henri Dutilleux, not a concerto but amounting to one. This is L’Arbre des songes, from 1985 (and dedicated to Isaac Stern). Dutilleux is now ninety, like the American composer George Perle, who was honored with a concert in Zankel Hall last month. (While I’m on the subject of ninetieth birthdays: Earl Wild gave his ninetieth-birthday recital in Carnegie Hall at the end of November. Readers may recall my piece on his eighty-fifth-birthday recital, in the same hall. In this most recent recital, Wild played wonderfully—and not just for a nonagenarian.) Dutilleux’s output is relatively small, but it reflects great care. L’Arbre des songes is typical Dutilleux: transparent, shimmering, logical, a bit otherworldly, somewhat angelic—“spiritual,” in a Shirley MacLaine-ish way.
The soloist was the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, familiar, perhaps, in these pages from his efforts in Salzburg. He is “principal guest artist” of the Camerata Salzburg, conducting and appearing as soloist with them (often at the same time). Kavakos is a formidable musician, doing credit to Greece, which—past Callas and Mitropoulos—has not had much to cheer about, in this field. Kavakos played his Dutilleux with keen understanding, an array of tonal colors, and a very sure technique. This was astounding playing, really.
Is L’Arbre des songes astounding? I have heard many Dutilleux pieces—few as they are, overall—and I have never disliked one. I can’t say that I have ever adored one. L’Arbre is supposed to entrance you, remove you to another realm. If it does, lucky you. If it doesn’t—it is a long-feeling twenty-five-minute sit.
The big symphony on the second half of the program was Rachmaninoff’s No. 2, one of the great symphonies of the Romantic repertoire. The slow movement is a special achievement, made into a pop song, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again,” which is some form of flattery. I heard Fischer conduct the Philharmonic in the work on an earlier evening than the one I’ve been discussing (long story). He did not deliver a first-rate performance—but the music so impressed itself on me once more, I could not get it out of my head for a week.