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[MUSIC REVIEW] TMC assays Mozart, Strauss, Shostakovich
7.04.06
TANGLEWOOD
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA
SEIJI OZAWA HALL
MONDAY JULY 3, 2006
BERNARD HAITINK, EVA OLLIKAINEN, AND TOMASZ GOLKA, CONDUCTORS
PROGRAM:
MOZART: SYMPHONY NO. 35 IN D, HAFFNER
STRAUSS: Death and Transfiguration, Tone poem for large orchestra
SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO. 10 IN E MINOR
Review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
Mozart + Strauss = Shostakovich. By the end of last night's stirring concert, at least that seems to have been the thinking that went into the programming of this perhaps seemingly odd juxtaposition of these three pieces and three composers.
Even more surprisingly, for this listener, was how the Mozart -- very standard fare in all its typical Mozartisms -- seemed the most exciting and exhilarating of the three pieces.
Credit for that undoubtedly goes to the remarkable young student conductor, EVA OLLIKAINEN, who at age 24 evinced remarkable control and authority, and clearly knew what she wanted to express through her immensely talented corps of student musicians.
OLLIKAINEN broke down the piece into its component parts, and had the orchestra play contrasting phrases with unique tonalities and textures, varying dynamics and tempo so that passages conversed with each other in different voices. The playing was always clear, crisp, and articulate, and at times it was so tightly wound it seemed like it might burst.
In the second movement, the Andante, OLLIKAINEN emphasized the theme played by the contrabasses -- a repetitive ostinato -- so that it nimbly telegraphed and evoked the dazzling minimalism of Philip Glass. And in the finale, different sections echoed phrases so faintly that you felt them as true echoes rather than hearing them.
All of this, of course, served to foreshadow the music yet to come, which by design took advantage of all these interpretive strategies.
Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, ostensibly written as a musical transcription of a poem about a dying man by his friend Alexander Ritter, was all about dualities (as its title indicates). These dualities included sunshine and light, childhood and old age, darkness and light, major and minor, and, unfortunately, the sublime and the ridiculous.
At its best, the piece, gamely conducted by TOMASZ GOLKA, was dramatic and evocative, conjured up short little vignettes and character sketches -- or at the very least moods. The piece began spare and economical, opening with soft wheezing like breathing and the slight ticking of the clock, followed by a mournful melody.
But then the grim reaper came knock-knock-knocking, with the horns blaring a dangerous fanfare and the oversized orchestra, including two harps, being put to full use. At its most dramatic, it foreshadowed some of John Williams music for films; at its sappiest, as in some violin and flute solos, it was just plain sappy.
Towards the end, as a gong tolled after an explosive cacophony, gaudy, ornate passages alternated with poignant lines of startling suggestiveness. Again, it was all about dualities: beauty and truth paired with bad taste and poor judgment (on the part of the composer, not the players).
Shostakovich's SYMPHONY No. 10, widely regarded as a portrait of Stalin (written shortly after the dictator's death), combined some of the clarity of Mozart with some of the Crayola muddle of Strauss. In this centennial year of the Russian composer, the piece, led by Bernard Haitink, was given a dramatic rendering, variously evoking sirens, alarms, tanks rolling in and occupying cities, in the discordant blasts of horns and the relentless sawing of the violins playing long, marching rows of eighth notes, answered by the machine-gun rat-a-tat of the snare drum and tympani.
---Review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
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