Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Left (Seat
S104, $50).
Program
Rendering (1989) by Schubert/Luciano Berio.
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (“Emperor”) (1810)
by Beethoven.
We came back from Hong Kong on Monday, so I was a bit apprehensive
whether we could stay awake for the concert.
The fear was compounded by my lingering cough which kept me up both
nights I have been home. It turned out
okay, though. I was tired, but managed
to stay awake during the entire concert.
Anne did doze off towards the end of the first half.
We read in the Program Notes a description by Berio of
the piece Rendering: “This restoration is made along the lines of the modern
restoration of frescoes that aims at reviving the old colors without however
trying to disguise the damage that time has caused, often leaving inevitable
empty patches in the composition (for instance as in the case of Giotto in
Assisi).” Fair enough, and I can indeed picture what such a restored painting would
look like.
Alas, it is not that straightforward when it comes to
music. Foremost amongst the many reasons
why it is different with music is when it comes to restoration of a painting,
we are talking about a completed work that faded with time, and the restorer’s
objective is to bring back as much as she can while leaving blank the portions
she isn’t sure of. What is done with the
Schubert piece wasn’t quite that: Schubert didn’t finish the piece and we
therefore do not have a case of lost notes a restorer is trying to reconstruct. A better equivalent would be someone taking
Giotto’s sketches and trying to make a complete painting out of it. Here I have to take a bit of issue with how
it was done: in filling in the missing pieces, Berio did it with his own
style. When a restorer sees two disjoint
segments, the thing to do is to draw a straight line between them rather than
create a new idea to link them together.
And we have a lot of that here.
Enough analysis, let’s move on to the performance. Given our seats, I expected great acoustics
(or at least relatively good acoustics, this is Avery Fisher Hall, after all)
but was surprised at how thin the orchestra sounded. Perhaps it was due to the placement of the
group: the stage was brought forward a bit to allow for seating behind the
orchestra; perhaps it was due to this decorative “thing” hanging over the
orchestra (come to think of it, it may be an acoustic thing, and if so it
certainly didn’t do the job.)
The music itself is quite interesting. To the uninitiated, which I imagine would be
most of the audience, the music can either be considered a modern piece with
classical elements thrown in, or a classical piece with modern elements thrown
in, and it is more than just a juxtaposition of the two genres. In my opinion, the first two movements
(Allegro, Andante) are more the former, and the last movement (Allegro) the
latter. I wonder if this is due to the availability
of original Schubert material with regard to the three movements. The main contrast between Schubert and Berio,
as I hear it, is that Schubert’s segments are much more solid compared to the
shimmering effect of Berio’s segments.
While it is fun to analyze music this way, I would much
rather hear material that appeals directly to whichever part of my brain
appreciates music. Of course many would
say it’s the same part of the brain that does analysis and appreciates music. In any case, most people would have only
limited exposure to this piece – I can’t imagine going to another performance
of this piece even if I wanted to – and would soon forget about it.
The Beethoven concerto certainly didn’t suffer from these
issues. It is straightforward, familiar,
and always enjoyable. The music speaks
for itself, appeals to the listener directly, and moves forward at a pace that
doesn’t allow time for a deep analysis.
Its three movements are: Allegro, Adagio un poco moto, and Rondo:
Allegro ma non troppo.
If you consider the elements of Ohlsson’s performance -
tempo, dynamics, phrasing, and overall architecture – you would rate them all
high. When taken together, however, they
do not quite translate to a memorable performance. That seems to be my beef with him in my
prior write-ups on his performance. The
other blemish would be in tonight’s performance the piano playing dominated the
orchestra, which I found somewhat surprising, and attribute it to more than
simply acoustics.
Which leads to the subject of the conductor. Susanna Malkki is Finnish, a former cellist
who started doing full time conducting about 15 years ago. One would root for woman conductors (two
others come to mind: Marin Alsop and Xian Zhang) in this male-dominated
profession. She seems very mechanical in
her movements, and at times I worried if she was in total control – this is a
statement about her and the orchestra.
She has worked with some big name orchestras, though.
A couple of additional remarks. Ohlsson played as encore a very familiar
Chopin piece – Waltz No. 1, Op. 18.
Also, the annotator David Wright’s write-ups are enjoyable to read and
sheds considerable light on the music, especially for the Schubert/Berio piece. He writes for the audience, not for his peers.
No comments:
Post a Comment