Boulez Uncovers Buried Treasures
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When the Chicago Symphony took the Carnegie Hall stage Friday evening, it brought to mind that this hallowed place was almost the site of the world premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7, known colloquially as “The Song of the Night.” Mahler had composed the piece four years earlier, but shelved it as unplayable until the 1908 season.
By then ensconced as the new music director of the New York Philharmonic, the composer seriously contemplated introducing his most bizarre orchestral essay to his new public, but ultimately lost his nerve and launched what, 50 years later, Leonard Bernstein would call his “ugly stepchild” in Prague, with Alban Berg feverishly helping him with the orchestration right up until the evening of the performance.
As discussed in these pages last week, the Chicago Symphony still belongs on the list of the “big five” American orchestras, whether the original grouping from the 1950s or the revised version of today. Its overall sound is excellent, its strings lush and remarkably precise, its winds nimble and limpid, its lower brass the best in the country. This fine orchestra is without a leader at present and is being guided in the interim by two of our most precious international treasures, Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez, two of the most perspicacious Mahler conductors of our day. Mr. Boulez constructed a multicolored performance Friday and, in the main, his players responded eloquently.
Langsam — Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo was the most distinctive movement, with Mr. Boulez emphasizing the phantasmagoric aspects of this complex landscape. Eschewing the conventional flow of the music, he rather seized on the disjointed, dotted rhythms that haunt the piece, creating a somewhat off-kilter variety of march, not unlike Mahler’s own unique physical gait of three regular steps followed by one small step.
The Chicago strings were superb from the beginning, the violins, who rotate chairs on a regular basis, especially pleasing sonically. Some rather shrill high trumpet work took away a little from the whole, but overall this was highly impressive music making. Normally, I would reprimand a conductor who doesn’t observe Mahler’s instructions for a grand pause near the end of the movement, but, as Mr. Boulez was reordering the rhythmic structure, its insertion was moot.
“Nachtmusik I” was much more fluid, a somewhat seamy and dark version of the Rembrandt painting “Night Watch.” Normally reliable principal hornist Dale Clevenger had an off night and struggled here, but otherwise the movement was suitably spectral.
Schattenhaft (like a shadow) was absolutely superb. This is by far the most difficult movement of the five, and the players, especially the strings, demonstrated amazing nimbleness and dexterity. Those little, ghostly string effects were executed flawlessly and Mr. Boulez made sure that even the most hidden of their innervoiced expressions was audible. Such intense fits and starts helped to justify his akimbo version of the first movement.
In 1975, at the head of the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Boulez invited two students to perform the guitar and mandolin parts of the fourth movement, “Nachtmusik II.” In an inspired stroke of clarity, he seated them at the front of the stage as if they were soloists. Maestro is a highly skilled composer — and, since the death of Gyorgy Ligeti earlier this year, the undisputed living champion of this increasingly arcane art — and is passionately interested in each sonic moment. It is apparent that Mr. Boulez is aware of the acoustical anomaly created by Mahler: The crisp mandolin is easily heard above the orchestra, but the guitar, with its gentle timbre, is often subsumed by the sound of its hundred or so colleagues.
The guitar part is crucial to this Italianate serenade and, in most live performances, its ending morendo (dying away), so vital to the narrative subtext of this dramatic work, is barely audible. For this performance, the mandolin and guitar players were seated at the front — where the last desk of the first violins would normally reside — and they and the two harpists were placed on a raised platform. I have heard dozens of versions of this symphony live and only Mr. Boulez and Mariss Jansons bother to seat the players in this manner.
The acoustical placement paid big dividends — we could hear every strum, every pluck. The eye-opener, for me, was the harp parts. Who knew that there were such treasures buried in this score? The flutes and clarinets at the end of the movement were absolutely delicious.
There was a noticeable deflation of energy for the Rondo finale, and this was a major disappointment. The movement was not only enervated but a bit singsong. But Mr. Boulez rallied the troops, and ended with a flourish and a gigantic ovation. The CSO board will need to choose a new music director eventually, but they need not hurry. I’ll take a regency of Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez any day.