Musical Archaeology
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.

If Charles Ives was, as Leonard Bernstein stated, “our Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson of music,” then Leon Botstein has to be our Lewis and Clark. Year in and year out, he explores the farthest reaches of the Western classical repertoire with his fine American Symphony Orchestra players as
faithful scouts. Their concerts have led me to an awakening interest in musical archaeology and a fresh attitude toward the unknown and underexposed. The ASO that has introduced me to some of my most satisfying latter-day relationships with composers, including Max Bruch, Egon Wellesz, and Mikolajus Ciurlionis – men whose work would have been virtually unknown to me had I attended concerts in almost any other city of the world.
The new season opened with a coupling of two friends who lived in just the right place at the right time. Theirs was the first generation in German musical culture to be freed from the polemical restraints of the Brahms-Wagner feud, and both absorbed the entire tradition just handed to them. As a composer, each is obscure in his own way.
If there is a piece a little less unfamiliar from the output of Hans Pfitzner, it is his opera “Palestrina.” The three preludes from this intellectual theater piece, so close in perspective to both Busoni’s “Doktor Faust” and Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler,” were executed brilliantly by Mr. Botstein’s forces this night. Each has a distinct mood: otherworldliness, violence, and contemplation respectively; each affords an opportunity for orchestral colors of a different intensity.
This variety was captured exactly right in this performance, even though the preludes themselves all end tentatively, as befits introductions to dramatic scenes. They do not exist ideally as concert works as, for example, do the “Four Sea Interludes” of Britten. But, when offered sensitively as they were Friday evening, they certainly were appetizing first courses.
The entree was a delicious performance of Pfitzner’s Violin Concerto, a sprawling, major work played by a soloist with a gigantic sound. Those who have seen the film of Alexander Markov performing the 24 caprices of Paganini will recognize this larger than life personality, whose zaftig violin tone took over Friday night’s concert right from the outset. Although he looks a bit young to have studied with Heifetz, Markov did indeed work with the old man in California, and he absorbed into every fiber of his being the unique confident quality that distinguished the master.
When Brahms, in a fit of pique, offered the premiere of his Violin Concerto not to his dear friend Joachim but to another soloist, he was rebuffed when the man rebelled against the long orchestral introduction to the second movement, exclaiming “with all of this beautiful music going on, what am I supposed to do?” Pfitzner presents an even greater problem for his violinist, excluding him altogether from this concerto’s elongated slow movement!
Mr. Markov stood motionless like a Buckingham Palace guard and simply waited out his ordeal. For the rest, he was a dynamo, tearing into the theme and variations of the first section and delicately bringing out the fantasy elements of the third. Greeted with a long and enthusiastic ovation, Mr. Markov offered an encore: a few bits of Paganini caprice, played with fire and devilish dexterity.
The other composer on the program is one whom we all revere but whose works we have never heard. Bruno Walter abandoned composition rather early on in his career, partly because of his own massive insecurities – he was an actual patient of Sigmund Freud in Vienna – but also due, unfortunately, to his paucity of inspiration and surplus of loquacity. Even Mahler, his beloved mentor, had no use for Walter’s creativity, writing to Alma in 1907, the same year as the premiere of his Symphony No. 1, which we heard Friday, that it “is sad to see such ardent and pointless labor.”
Still, the significance of performing this largest work of such a renowned figure is hard to ignore. Walter himself only conducted it twice and, as far as anyone can tell, this performance under Mr. Botstein was not only the American premiere but the only performance ever realized since. The piece is indeed swollen and elephantine, adopting that huge orchestral style of Walter’s contemporaries Strauss, Schonberg, and Zemlinsky, but without a distinct feel for transitions or completion of ideas. The adagio meanders interminably, masking any sense of individual thematic beauty with unwanted twists and turns.
Except for some messy intonation in the brass, however, the orchestra did very well; any given moment was evocative of the death throes of 19th-century excess. This is a curiosity worthy of an American Symphony recording, although I might not recommend the disc to anyone except scholars.
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When King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered in 1925, two trumpets were found inside. One was tuned in A flat, the other in B natural. When Giuseppe Verdi composed his triumphal march for “Aida” in 1871, he had divided his trumpet section into two groups, one tuned in A flat and one in B natural.
Somewhere along the way, Verdi has acquired the reputation as a gifted naif, a savant with a good ear, a peasant with a natural ability for musical communication. In reality he was a sophisticate who studied the scales of 19thcentury Egypt that had been in local use for millennia and extrapolated tunings that would approximate their exoticism, just as painstakingly as Puccini would later notate the bell patterns of Sant’ Angelo to create just the right mood for the last act of “Tosca.”
For those of us who find Amneris to be the focal point of the opera, the Metropolitan’s current production of “Aida” may be just the ticket. Dolora Zajick towers above the other principals in this cast to the point where she begins to sound like their teacher and they a group of acolytes at a master class.
There is much justification for singling out Amneris in this way. For one thing, she is the only thoroughly drawn character in the drama. Also, she exhibits complex emotions both vocally and dramatically (Amonasro does this as well). Further, she is the classic victim, capable of uttering that quintessential Verdian line – from “Il Trovatore” – “why am I the only one left alive?”
Ms. Zajick, who last season held her own very well against Renee Fleming in “Rusalka,” dominates this lively and magisterial performance throughout. Her voice is huge: During the finale of the gigantic spectacle that is Act II, scene two – with every member of the chorus and all of the principals singing and the orchestra intoning at double forte – every nuance, every modulation, every note from this powerful mezzo is crystal clear. The voice can be burnished and importunate but is just as likely to be strident and commanding. It is not exactly that the rest of the cast is weak, it is simply that she is exceptionally strong.
As great as Ms. Zajick is in this part, it is the assembled forces of the Met that carry this particular day. The chorus, for my money the best in the world, is out in full regalia for this extravaganza (this has to be the opera where the term “spear-carrier” was coined). The choreography is stunning, and dances received far more lusty ovations than arias this night.
Most impressively, the conducting of Marcello Viotti was so energetic and enthusiastic, the superb Met orchestra so focused and sharp, that this “Aida” was thrilling even in comparison to the thousands of others that have come before (this performance is the 1,067th of this company alone). Labor and management have agreed that no event shall last past midnight, and so Mr. Viotti enforced a brisk pace throughout, notable for instrumental precision and dramatic attack.
Anyone who has ever been to the Metropolitan Museum to enjoy a concert already knows what the sets for this production look like, but designer Gianni Quaranta deserves special mention for his spatial ideas. With outdoor amphitheaters and Hollywood as competition, it is difficult on a proscenium stage to mount an impressive enough “Aida” to satisfy both mass audience and cognoscenti, but this effort does just that with the clever device of moving walls.
For intimate scenes, the characters are isolated to the very front of the stage. For the massive ceremonial ones, the walls come down to reveal a perspective that seems almost infinite, bringing the outdoors in. The entire triumphal march tableau, complete with Maestro Viotti himself leading the applause for the ballet, was utterly fabulous.
The smaller parts were very satisfying from a vocal perspective. The three basses, so evocative of Don Carlo, were all in fine and powerful voice. Vitalij Kowaljow was a forceful Ramfis, Morris Robinson a mellifluous king, and Juan Pons an experienced and wily Amonasro, showing his sometime divided loyalties as both ruler and father with studied combinations of vocal and facial gestures. Oddly, it was only the two protagonists who seemed less than thrilling.
Franco Farina was lacking in solid technique as Radames. Basically but a comprimario, he has the habit of cheating quite a bit, that is, leaving off one note early to prepare for the next. His voice is undistinguished; although he hits his notes reasonably well, there is little character to them, and his lyrical lines are tentative.
The Aida of Fiorenza Cedolins had no technical problems per se, although she is a bit of an audible breather. She simply doesn’t have the ability to move anyone. She made little effort to shape her notes, and her combination of uninteresting tone and wooden facial expression led only to the pedestrian. Stacked up against Ms. Zajick, Ms. Cedolins was simply overmatched. Ms. Zajick was empathetic enough for the both of them, however, masterfully husbanding her resources to exude a moving combination of sorrow and pity.
But then, what else would you expect from someone named Dolora?