A Good Deed – and Some Good Music,Too
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

SALZBURG, Austria – As you may remember from a review last week, the festival is honoring Franz Schreker this year. He was an Austrian composer (1878-1934) whose father was Jewish (and super-assimilated). When the Nazis came to power, they stripped Schreker of his position – director of the Berlin Conservatory – and banned his music. After the Nazi period, Schreker was largely forgotten, because the late Romanticism that he embodied was despised – not by audiences, but by a rigid musical establishment. The same fate befell Korngold and Zemlinsky. All of these composers have been honored by the Salzburg Festival, in a series that ends this year.
The festival has performed a good deed; it has also done itself a favor by purveying some good, unfamiliar music.
The big Schreker work on the docket was an opera, “Die Gezeichneten” (“The Branded Ones”). But smaller pieces have had their place as well. On a program of the Camerata Salzburg on Wednesday night was a Schreker “dance pantomime,” composed in 1908. This is “Der Geburtstag der Infantin” – “The Birthday of the Infanta” – after a novella by Oscar Wilde. What does it sound like? It sounds like Schreker, and Korngold, and Zemlinsky. It also sounds like “movie music,” although in 1908 we are a long way from Al Jolson and the talkies. I should say, it sounds like what movie music would be: expressive, “atmospheric,” very Viennese. Schreker’s pantomime tells a story, although you don’t have to know the story, or see any dancing, to enjoy the score. It is pleasant by itself.
Is it immortal music? No – but it is certainly worth hearing, and more than once.
It was well played, too, by the Camerata Salzburg, under conductor Leonidas Kavakos. This young Greek is both a violinist and a conductor, and he has been “principal guest artist” for this group since 2001. He sold the Schreker piece effectively. To cite just one detail: In a waltz section – sophisticated and unusual – he really swung.
Not nearly as successful was the piece with which the concert had begun: Mozart’s great Sinfonia concertante in E flat, for violin and viola. The Camerata was essentially a riderless horse here, for Mr. Kavakos was playing the violin, along with Kim Kashkashian, viola. (Ms. Kashkashian is a Detroiter.) Mozart’s first notes were not together at all. And the playing throughout the first movement – from orchestra and soloists alike – tended to be stiff, unnatural. Accents were exaggerated, in that annoying “period” style. This exaggeration can be a substitute for genuine musicality. The tempo was fast, bordering on rushed. Mr. Kavakos and Ms. Kashkashian had trouble playing in coordination, and they were not in tune with each other (I mean, as a matter of pitch). Ms. Kashkashian had intonation problems all her own.
But her admiration of the piece was obvious, and the orchestra played enthusiastically, with a dark, grainy sound.
The glorious slow movement – an Andante – was not badly played, but it can be far more touching. And the final movement – Presto – started promisingly: sprightly and exact. It fell apart, however – rushed, rough – and was nearly charmless.
The second half of the concert was devoted to a Beethoven symphony: the Fourth, in B flat. As had the Mozart, it began with a terrible entrance – and this time Mr. Kavakos was facing the orchestra with a baton, not facing the audience, with a violin! Beethoven’s opening section ought to be on tiptoe, as he gets ready to break into his laughing Allegro vivace. But it was not on tiptoe – it was more like on flat feet. As the first movement continued, Mr. Kavakos committed various misjudgments, including tempo fluctuations. He can conduct better than this – he has proven it.
The slow movement (Adagio) was unusually heavy at the start, which is odd from a chamber orchestra. But this movement was redeemed by the clarinetist, who was superb. This is one of the clarinet’s best moments in the entire orchestral repertory, the Adagio of the Beethoven Fourth – and the Camerata Salzburg’s took advantage of it. Other solo instruments did not fare so well. The third movement was nice and earthy, but the fourth? Mr. Kavakos had a hard time keeping his band together, and the bassoonist, poor fellow, fell out of the wagon entirely. I don’t mean to say that this was a disgraceful or embarrassing performance of the Fourth. But I wouldn’t call it Salzburg-worthy.
And this concert was long, too – mediocre and long is a bad combination. Trapped in my row, I was scared to death they’d repeat Beethoven’s last movement as an encore. The audience was applauding like crazy, as though they’d just heard Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic. Fortunately, Mr. Kavakos called it a night.