Van Dam Steps In, A Sublime Substitute

Woody Allen was right: 80% of success is showing up. Consider the plight of workaholic James Levine, who spent his winter vacation conducting three orchestral afternoons at Carnegie Hall. First, he asked baritone Thomas Quasthoff to appear in the final concert with a selection of orchestrated Schubert lieder. Two of the proposed songs were orchestrated by Anton Webern, whose rarely heard Symphony was also scheduled.

But Mr. Quasthoff cancelled, giving plenty of notice. Since Anne Sofie von Otter was singing the premiere performance of “Pelleas et Melisande” the night before, Mr. Levine tapped her to be the replacement, changing the program to feature Ravel’s “Sheherazade.” This was a lot to ask after a four-hour performance, but apparently Ms. von Otter felt up to the task.

Before the second of the orchestra’s busman’s holidays, however, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson pulled out of her projected appearance with Ben Heppner in Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde.” But wait, Ms. von Otter knows that piece well – is in fact a magnificent Mahler singer – and so she was enlisted to be the substitute. This move stimulated management to drop her from the now crazy-quilt last performance.

Mr. Levine’s dogged resistance against thematic programming for orchestral concerts has, at least in this instance, served him well. Any piece can fit in when the rest of the program is Wuorinen, Dvorak, and Weber. Jose van Dam added to the glorious hotchpotch by bringing with him works of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Mahler. Those of us who are familiar with his live performances know that, as powerful as he is as a singer of opera, he is even more adept at the intimate song recital. His program progressed from the majestic to the sublime. A Mozart concert aria “Mentre ti lascio” and “Es ist genug” from “Elijah” were delivered with the noblest of craggy voices, heroic and authoritarian by turns.

But when Mr. van Dam came to three of the Ruckert Lieder, he stepped into the rarified atmosphere of emotional truth and pain. Extremely quiet and expressive, he offered sound so silken as to defy description, accompanied by rapturous solo work in the orchestra’s wind section. My only complaint was that about midway through the final song – “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” – I could no longer see Mr. van Dam, since a rather large pool of salt water welled up between my eyes and my glasses. Not wanting to disturb my neighbors, I could not wipe them off until after the performance.

The Webern Symphony is one of the most important works of the previous century, a pointillistic distillation of a full-blown romantic symphonic essay. In Webern’s futuristic style, whole passages are reduced to a single note, entire instrumental sections boiled down to a single solo utterance. This is extremely difficult music for an orchestra to play well, and Maestro Levine and his colleagues must have spent considerable rehearsal time on this 10-minute piece. Mr. Levine takes the first movement twice as fast as anyone else, but this briskness works perfectly for him. I would venture to say that this was the best live performance that I will ever hear of this forgotten opus.

Mr. Levine has been so successful in the opera house for so long it is easy to forget that he learned the craft of symphonic conducting from the great George Szell. Mr. Szell had a special feel for Dvorak and Mr. Levine inherited it, right down to the emphasis on swirling lower strings. The Eighth is the most beautiful of all of these “out of doors” symphonies and begins with a lovely melody for the assembled cellos. The Met celli are exceptionally lush and richly burnished and, as the movement progressed, they were backed up and bottomed out by a more than full compliment of 10 string basses. This was resonance almost primeval in its import. The performance as a whole was notable for its elan and no-nonsense tempi, both evocative of the glory days of Mr. Szell.

The entire proceedings began with a rousing and crisp reading of the overture to “Der Freischutz.” This performance seemed almost preordained to be fabulous. After all, it was realized by the best opera orchestra in the world.

– Fred Kirshnit

A Sloppy Symphony

Pierre Boulez has been conducting Mahler for 40 years now, and perhaps the most significant comment to make about his labors is that they have been anything but stagnant. In my own collection, a taped radio broadcast from a BBC concert in 1970 of the Third Symphony stands out as an emotional rollercoaster, filled with grand gesture and sweeping import that carries the performance along to incredible heights even as the live musicians commit many gaffes. A few seasons later, however, when Mr. Boulez came to the New York Philharmonic, his Mahler was most notable for a disconnect between maestro and players. The recalcitrant personnel barely paid him any attention. An irritatingly dreadful rendition of the Seventh is burned into my memory.

In recent years, Mr. Boulez has fashioned extremely thoughtful movements of Mahler in the studio – including, for my money, the most achingly beautiful Andante from the “Tragic” Symphony ever recorded. But his live performances can be frustratingly cold.

Thursday’s account of the Fifth with the London Symphony was competent but not exceptional. Preceded by his own “Livre pour cordes,” a 12-minute piece for strings, this Mahler was surprisingly erratic. Mr. Boulez takes the composer’s instructions to perform the first movement as a funeral march. At so glacial a tempo, much energy is lost. It was not only the pace but the inability of the musicians to properly shape their phrases at such a slow speed that led to this feeling of enervation.

The oft-excerpted Adagietto was this night taken at a relatively fast clip, in fact the identical tempo to the first movement. Scholarship has shown that this was Mahler’s own tempo, but Mr. Boulez’s restraint led only to a superficial examination of the intensity of emotion embedded in this love song to Alma Schindler. To be fair, the conductor did not milk the piece as many of his schmaltzy colleagues do. But a little more passion would have been much appreciated.

The only section that was superlatively performed was what Mahler himself called “my accursed movement.” The Scherzo is an ersatz horn concerto that requires exceptional playing from not only the principal but also his mates. This night the horns were great, the soloist even emoting successfully – very difficult to do with a brass instrument – and the rest of the section, with the lone exception of one echo effect, successfully supporting him. Mr. Boulez also found the proper Viennese lilt for this movement, a commodity woefully missing from the surrounding parts.

The orchestra as a whole was solid but the cello section was disappointingly pedestrian. Strangulated passages in both flute and trumpet did little to project their professionalism. Had this performance, note for note, been delivered by the Dallas Symphony, I would praise it to the skies. But isn’t it legitimate to hold the London Symphony and Pierre Boulez to a higher standard?

– Fred Kirshnit

Fresh Young Voices

Two weeks after the supreme mistress of the song recital, Victoria de los Angeles, died, the Marilyn Horne Foundation and the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall proved that the genre still inspires new artists. Four singers and three pianists were presented at Zankel Hall under the auspices of the foundation, whose namesake served as a witty, eager hostess clearly bursting with pride over her young discoveries.

All the young singers showed signs that a bit more finishing work was needed. Some songs tended to big moments surrounded by less developed ones. Not all the choices of repertoire were apt. But this was a considerable assortment of talent. With the right training, experience, and care, these singers and pianists should be entertaining audiences for years to come.

Erin Wall, the soprano, has a lovely lyric sound with surprising reserves of power. The traditional “Go ‘Way From My Window,” was her finest number. But this voice is built for Mozart and Beethoven; selections by those composers might have shown her to better advantage. Megan Latham sang Brahms’s “Och Moder, Ich well en Ding han,” with no-holds-barred humor. Her rendition of “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair,” was on the right track, and it took courage to do this number before Ms. Horne, the supreme interpreter of this great American song.

Simon O’Neill is a New Zealander with a lilting Irish tenor of near-heldentenor amplitude, but he sings with an open-hearted generosity that delighted the audience. We heard all six stanzas of “Danny Boy” (the first two are often omitted), and he glided poignantly through “The Last Rose of Summer.”

The most memorable moments of the recital belonged to baritone Quinn Kelsey. In everything he sang – Ravel’s “Cinq chansons populaires grecques” (sung in Greek, not French), two Hawaiian songs, even in “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes,” Mr. Kelsey’s ravishing baritone caressed the air, its considerable beauty anchored by fully felt emotions. Lieder singers must be storytellers, and Mr. Kelsey used timing and enunciation to make whatever he sang absorbing.

Ms. Horne, who two weeks ago turned 71, added to the program an appearance by a major star, the bass Rene Pape. We are used to his commanding impersonations of Wagner characters; His gorgeous voice goes even better with his sweet, almost humble concert manner. As a female concertgoer put it after Mr. Pape sang “Camelot’s” “If Ever I Would Leave You” (a Broadway album by him seems a great idea): “Adorable. Completely adorable.”

The host herself staunchly refused to join the curtain call, instead choosing to lead the applause – the one seriously objectionable decision of the night.

– Patrick Giles