Lenox — This past weekend’s (July 11-13) offerings at Tanglewood marked the first appearance here of Andris Nelsons as music director designate of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, after an untimely household accident last summer gave us pause after years of the health-related cancellations of James Levine. It should be a source of overwhelming satisfaction, if not relief, to patrons of the BSO, that not only has the Orchestra found itself a 35-year-old in seemingly perfect health, they have also, as with Levine before him, claimed for themselves one of the greatest living conductors in the world today.
One might even think the BSO spoiled to have nabbed this Latvian maestro whose haunting ground is quite often the Central European circuit of Berlin, Vienna and Bayreuth. Perhaps he could have chosen a better set of opening concerts than second-rate Dvorak, and a selection of 20th century schmaltz (Strauss and Rachmaninoff), not to mention “Bolero.” But it is characteristic of great conductors to make music sound better than it actually is; and though Nelsons is too young to be praised so highly, he does this in spades. Nelsons seems to care so much about the music, we cannot but exude some care ourselves, however indifferent we were to the pieces beforehand.
Friday’s all-Dvorak evening opened with the bland, if agreeable tone poem “The Noonday Witch,” opus 108, based on the Czech folk legend by Karel Jaromir Erben (1811-1870). One is charmed here by Dvorak’s expert orchestration in the winds, which introduce the theme, but the piece lacks substance, and being a tone-poem, has no real convincing form either.
The main offering of Friday’s first half was Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor, opus 53, played by the very mediocre Anne-Sophie Mutter. Unhappily, the piece is mediocre, too, this despite all the effort put in by the great 19th century virtuoso Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) who famously helped Brahms and Bruch write their concertos, though it is perhaps instructive that Joachim never could bring himself to perform this work.
The listener is thrust into to this concerto as if already mid-way though. Here especially Dvorak is brimming with good ideas, but unable to introduce them in a way that sounds natural, or has much formal coherence. There are certainly glimpses of the sort of solo-orchestral interaction that bear the unmistakable Joachim mark, which we recognize from the Brahms and the Bruch concertos, and Dvorak’s musical instincts, especially in the first movement, are nearly always good. But, as it is, this piece is a bit of a folkloric chaos with, now and then, an infusion from the Germanic orchestral tradition of Joachim and Brahms.
By the finale, Dvorak’s creative genius has gone stale, though the final movement’s theme is probably the work’s best. The solo part is also uncompromising, and one has to feel for Mutter here: So much technical effort, and comparatively little musical return. But Mutter’s tone is also underwhelming; she manages to project, though only slightly, above the orchestra, and there seemed to be a deliberate effort on her part to take the Romanticism out of the piece, exactly the opposite of what Nelsons was trying to do.
The evening’s second half featured Dvorak’s Symphony No.8 in G, opus 88, undoubtedly the evening’s best work. Really, there are some very good themes here, especially those introduced by the cellos in the first and fourth movements, and here, much more so than in the concerto, Dvorak’s genius of invention is not in question. What is in question is the composer’s mastery of form, and reliably good taste in development and re-presentation of material (his orchestration is reliably expert).
In the second movement we get something of an unmemorable balletic score; the third movement is a lovely waltz, also at home in the dance tradition — though without dancers, I’m afraid.
The finale contains without a doubt the symphony’s best material, introduced by a brief trumpet fanfare and then with the work’s best theme in the cellos. What follows is a stirring forte variation for strings, after which we are thrown headlong in to a frenzied tutti — a circus complete with trilling horns. Perhaps this symbolizes Dvorak as a whole, a creative genius, but not the most nimble or subtle of musical writers. But with Nelsons it came off rather well; the strings have a richness and Romantic sensibility under Nelsons one usually doesn’t find these days, and, in general, the orchestra played with a zeal and alertness not always habitual to even the best ensembles.
The program booklet has informed me that I am supposed to refer to Saturday evening’s concert as the “Tanglewood Gala” though I am not at all sure why. Perhaps because the evening featured both the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, in the first half, and the BSO, after the intermission; perhaps because Section 1 seats were priced at fundraiser levels; or perhaps because the program was, a bit more than usual, in the way of a Pops concert; or perhaps even because of the after-concert fireworks, or the reception at the Highwood House. I really do not know; though it certainly was instructive to hear two different orchestras play back-to-back on the same stage.
In case you were wondering the BSO does have a markedly grander sound than the TMC orchestra, though the sort of lush phrasing which Nelsons was able to get out of the TMC players was certainly commendable. The TMC Orchestra’s responsibility for the evening was the Suite and Final Scene from Richard Strauss’ most accessible opera, and probably most enduring hit, “Der Rosenkavalier.” Even in what is really a series of opera highlights, and the entire sumptuous last scene, one had the sense there was one single musical thread which connected it all, thanks in no small part to Nelsons’ reverent, carefully molded phrasing. The singing of the final scene, featuring soloists Sophie Bevan, Angela Denoke and Isabel Leonard, is so seamlessly woven into the rather symphonic texture of the writing that one didn’t have much time to appreciate them individually, though the overall effect was quite appealing.
The BSO began the programs’ second half with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.” In it Maestro Nelsons reminded one not a little of Carlos Kleiber at the Vienna New Years concerts of the early 1990s: Confectionary bombast taken very seriously. At first it seems as if the symphonic dances will be much more than this — indeed the first movement is much more than this. There are some very nice passages which are very agreeable if taken in a languid, late Viennese kind of way, which Nelsons really sells to the listener, and, as in the Dvorak 8, even the more unnatural transitions are leant a kind of seamlessness, as we are caught up in Nelsons’ musical reverie; but even he cannot stop the works final movement from being over-blown bit of uninspired mush.
At least the evenings final offering, “Bolero,” has never pretended to be anything profound. Perhaps if I were sitting in the famed Paris Opera House, probably the most sumptuous theatre ever conceived, with a troupe of very talented dancers from Ida Rubinstein’s ballet troupe (such was the premier in 1928) I could begin to get into the thing; or perhaps if it were a bona fide Pops Concert. But Ravel himself probably best described the piece when he wrote that it consisted, “wholly of orchestral tissue without music…with no contrasts…and practically no invention, and that it was up to listeners to take it or leave it.” I think we should leave it; for I would rather dwell on Nelsons’ prodigious musicianship with something a little more pregnant.
The Sunday afternoon concert was another episode of Tanglewood’s concession to the considerably larger attendance for Boston Pops Concerts by scheduling the Pops on a Sunday afternoon, historically, along with Friday and Saturday evening, the domain of the BSO alone. For my part, as much as I enjoy the best of American Pop music of the 1930s and 40s, and the great Broadway tradition reaching through the 50s, when I go to the symphony I tend to want to hear the real thing. But it is undeniable that as Broadway pit orchestras have been reduced in size, and there is a dearth of live presentations of these tunes with large ensembles, there is a popular need for such presentations. As unsuitable a place for the Pops is as the Shed at Tanglewood, the crowds keep coming in droves: Broadway take note.
The special guest of the evening was Jason Alexander, best known for his role on Seinfeld, but who began as a Broadway leading man and singer, for which he won a Tony Award (Jerome Robbins’ “Broadway”) and continues to appear in Theatre regularly in Los Angeles, where he runs his own theatre company. Alexander can sing, therefore; but it is probably the comedic — chatter interspersed throughout — which was most pleasing.
