A Tired Symphony In Need of Retuning

Audiences are lucky if they hear one of the watershed works of music history performed well. Conductor James Levine — who seems determined to pack as much punch as possible into his New York orchestral appearances — presented two important pieces on the same program Saturday evening at Carnegie Hall. Sadly, these were hardly fine performances.There is an inherent problem in mounting a concert version of Béla Bartók’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.” This is a loud score, and there are spots where one can simply never hear the singers. I have attended several of these experiments in the past and have always encountered the same acoustical phenomenon. Still, I had hoped that Mr. Levine could conjure up some legerdemain that would solve the problem. This night, conducting his Boston Symphony Orchestra, he did not.In at least one case, this was unfortunate. Mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter offered her usual highly developed performance, complete with marvelously shaped notes and a solid acting. Ms. von Otter is much too intelligent a singer to shout, so there were sections wherein she appeared to be mouthing her words while Mr. Levine let loose his instrumental forces.Bluebeard was sung rather coolly by the bass-baritone Albert Dohmen. He has a pleasant enough tone, but seemed little invested in characterization. If he envisioned the duke as an automaton, then he did a creditable job. Otherwise his phlegmatic bordered on the catatonic. Ors Kisfaludy was ecstatic as the speaker.There were moments of great beauty in this realization, especially the section where Judith first sees the jewels. Here the combination of flutes, harps, and Ms. von Otter’s campanilian instrument was irresistible. Much of the dramatic power, however, was in the imbalance between cast and ensemble.After intermission, the performance of the Symphony No. 1 of Johannes Brahms was dreadful. Mr. Levine’s tempos throughout were brisk and muscular. The ensemble sound, however, was ragged from the start and individual solos, including that of the first oboe, were discordant — had they not tuned to this instrument’s A?One option for Mr. Levine was to retune the orchestra after the first movement, but he chose rather to soldier on. More than a few patrons communicated their displeasure with body language — grimacing and wincing during this cringefest. The orchestra really came unglued by this point, sounding not only slovenly but physically tired as well. In the case of the winds and brass, perhaps too much loud blowing in the Bartók had taken its toll on their embouchures. One perversely amusing minute revealed a hornist, meant to echo his mate in the finale, play his phrases in a completely different manner.Reports of Boston’s demise under Seiji Ozawa were greatly exaggerated, but James Levine has not been able to produce consistently good evenings of solid music making. To be sure, some of his performances have been magical, but others have seemed unfocused, pedestrian, under-rehearsed. Though it would be a blow for New York, maybe he needs to concentrate his energies on one musical project.***There are two stellar characteristics of the Rose Studio series of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. First, these recitals offer the opportunity to hear world-class musicians interact with, but not dominate, aspirants on their way up. Second, the intimate room affords the listener the ability to observe the physical peregrination of the music as it flits from desk to desk — chamber music in a chamber, as artistic director David Finckel pointed out on Thursday night.For this performance, the veteran cellist Fred Sherry joined five younger players for two outstanding performances. Anchoring Beethoven’s String Trio in G Major, Op. 9, No. 1 along with violist David Kim, Mr. Sherry provided not only brisk and clear accompaniment but also a sense of absolute confidence. This particular reading also offered a very pleasant surprise.Violinist Yoon Kwon has an exceptional tone, brilliant, limpid, muscular, and arresting. I thought of it as a soloist’s sound long before I read on my journey home that she is currently the youngest member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Probably she is a bit torn about her future at this juncture, but with a sound like this, the world is her oyster.This rendition as a whole was sparkling. The tempo of the Allegro con brio was snappy, the final note of the Adagio remarkable for its synchronized bowing as the three executed a diminuendo, then a crescendo, and then another diminuendo. The third movement was noticeably shorter than normal, seeming to throw off the balance of the work as a whole. However, the second trio section was missing from this edition of the scherzo and so the musicians offered it as a standalone encore after the performance proper.As for the beauty of sound, with the possible exception of late, autumnal Brahms, no piece in the string repertoire is more ravishing than his early Sextet in B-flat Major, Op. 18. Great washes of gorgeous tonal color abound in this youthful piece, and these were the right players to project it. The three from the Beethoven took their places as second chairs to allow a new crop of artists to shine. Cellist Julie Albers is a find. She reminds me of a young Sharon Robinson with a deeply burnished, woody tone, a healthy and unapologetic vibrato and a sure-handed sense of phrasing. Her solos in the second movement, with their hint of the sea shanties of the composer’s native Hamburg, were superb.Principal violist of the Toronto Symphony, Teng Li, introduced the main theme of the piece with another impressively big projection. Her inner voice duets with Mr. Kim were also quite lovely. With an unfortunately rather pedestrian tone, only violinist Erin Keefe seemed out of her league.

A Tired Symphony In Need of Retuning

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