David Geffen Hall, New York. Orchestra (Seat X103, $64.50).
MTT acknowledged each of the orchestra sections after the program concluded.
Program
Meditations on Rilke (2019; New York Premiere) by Michael Tilson Thomas (b. 1944).
Symphony in C major, D.944, Great (1825-26) by Schubert (1797-1828).
From what I can tell, even though his career has taken him overseas often, MTT considers himself more as an American conductor and composer (he would mention his Jewish roots every now and then). From both the Program Notes and his short speech before the concert, Meditations on Rilke is very much a result of his heritage: his father the piano player trying to find work in the 1930s (that would be before MTT was born), and his grandfather's life in 1915 - a connection I failed to grasp. He also speaks of the "Schubert-Mahler-Cowboy Western" arc. Schubert being a great writer of songs; Mahler whose format for Das Lied von der Erde MTT tried to follow for these songs; and western (Red River Valley type of western, not country western) because of his heritage.
The Meditations are based on poems by the German Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). It consists of six songs sung alternately by a man and a woman vocalist, with the fifth one a duet. (If you are counting, man: 1, 3, 6; woman 2, 4; duet 5.) One might ask why an American experience would use German lyrics; not a clue.
The six songs, totaling about 40 minutes, are:
Herbsttag (October Day)Ich lebe mein Leben (I Live My Life)Das Lied des Trinkers (The Song the Drunkard Sings)Immer wieder (Again, Again!)Imagniarer Lebenslauf (Imaginary Biography)Herbst (Autumn)
MTT took about five minutes to describe this collection. I quote some of what he said below, together with my observations. For the first movement, he mentioned the use of a slightly detuned upright piano, and that the piano plays an ascending scale (or is it descending?). I didn't catch that at all. There was quite a bit of ragtime swing to it, with the piano first passing the baton to the oboe which in turn passes it on. The third movement begins with quite a bit of orchestral music. The fourth begins with two cellos and horns. The last song is also "Autumn" and has an inverse (of the first song) scale played by the flute - I didn't catch that either. Overall, Sasha Cooke came across much better than Dashon Burton. The acoustics at my seat wasn't bad otherwise.
For "In the Composer's Words," MTT describes the songs as "based on motives that recur, recombine, and morph differently in each song." The opening piano passage describes a bar pianist of over 100 years ago (his father, as he said at the beginning), and the first song introduces many of the motives in the subsequent numbers. He also mentioned the fourth song is like a Schubert "cowboy song."
I perhaps got 10% (an arbitrary number) of all that. MTT expresses the wish that the audience would walk away with some of the melodies he wrote. While the songs are quite lyrical, I can't remember one single melody!
Sasha Cooke and Dashon Burton after performing MTT's Meditations on Rilke.
Looking back on the blog entries I made after listening to Schubert's Great (and it has been a few times), words like "boring," "long" were often used. I did enjoy it once (at least as recorded in this blog). The remark I made to myself tonight was: how many times can Schubert tease the audience about a movement's ending, but disappoint them by repeating another theme?
Much is made of Brahms not daring to compose a symphony because of the giant shadow cast by Beethoven. Schubert evidently had no such qualms, even though he was an admirer of Beethoven. Schubert never heard a full scale performance of any of his symphonies during his lifetime.
As mentioned above, my seat's acoustics was generally good, with the exception of the bass-baritone. To my surprise, on several occasions I seemed to catch the sound of an individual instrument.
View of auditorium from Seat X103.
The audience gave an enthusiastic ovation after the concert was finished. MTT quoted Bernstein and said "Far be it for a conductor to try to end a standing ovation ..." After the audience calmed down, he proceeded to thank each section of the orchestra. A nice gesture on his part.
Today MTT seemed to walk a bit more deliberately than when I last saw him in 2019. At about 79 that's not unexpected. I remember hearing his name in the 1970s, when he led the Buffalo Philharmonic. For the Schubert, he had the music score in front of him, but didn't seem to refer to it much, nor did he turn the pages consistently. The audience let out a chuckle when after each movement he seemed to flip over many pages to get to where he needed to be. After first publishing this blog, I found out MTT disclosed his cancer diagnosis last year.
When I got an email announcing a discount for this concert, I grabbed two tickets. Turns out we had babysitting duties and have to be in Hoboken. I gave CS a ticket and met up with him at the venue. Today traveling to and from Lincoln Center from Hoboken was straightforward.
1 comment:
In his closing comments MTT was quoiting Isaac Stern, not Leonard Bernstein.
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