Hey, where's Mr. J. Strauss?
Feb. 28th, 2009 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
klezmerOur recent visit to Carnegie Hall had been a big expectation: Wiener Philharmoniker, an ensemble with a 160 year history, conducted by the celebrated Zubin Mehta, on their world tour. The orchestra with just a few women playing there. I don't care much about that though many do.
The program comprised Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Bruckner's Ninth. A big piece of work, two monumental compositions. Mehta was hilarious. So were the strings of the W.Ph. I heard such a celestial sound of the strings only in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. My assumption is, it might be Mehta's concious choice to work with orchestras providing a certain type of timbral pattern. But I may be wrong, as well.
So, in Schoenberg's Quintet arranged for the chamber orchestra, the strings grasped each moment of audience's attention. Despite the known homogenious nature of the strings' sound, they were sparkling with dozens of timbral nuances, boasting the perfect intonation.
Bruckner's Ninth obviously is kind of back-breaker, even for fine players. It is not only the matter of the ensemble playing, but not to a lesser extent the psychic and physical stamina, too. Mehta masterfully built a monumental building of the symphony. He conducted both pieces with no scores in front of him, just as real conductors do. I recalled Ilya Musin's sagacious saying, "a conductor must perform with a score in his head, not his head in the score." As for the players, I had a hard feeling that I was listening to two or even three orchestras which for some reason coincided in the time and space on the same stage. The brass section had quite too many flaws, for that level of orchestra. The woodwinds were good, but stood apart by themselves. The timpanist was time and again holding his ears to his instruments. And finally, the strings were as perfect as in Verklärte Nacht. I could assume it was a jet lag that impacted this famous orchestra so badly. Or they simply didn't have time to rehearse. But only Mr. Mehta's solid concept and profound and exact knowledge of what he was doing along with his artistic charisma saved the performance the best those qualities could do.
I was not disappointed with the concert. But I left the concert hall with a strange feeling that something was not there. Hopefully, for the other two nights, the musicians had a good sleep and had an extra rehearsal. Gustav Mahler would have turned around in his grave otherwise.
The program comprised Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Bruckner's Ninth. A big piece of work, two monumental compositions. Mehta was hilarious. So were the strings of the W.Ph. I heard such a celestial sound of the strings only in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. My assumption is, it might be Mehta's concious choice to work with orchestras providing a certain type of timbral pattern. But I may be wrong, as well.
So, in Schoenberg's Quintet arranged for the chamber orchestra, the strings grasped each moment of audience's attention. Despite the known homogenious nature of the strings' sound, they were sparkling with dozens of timbral nuances, boasting the perfect intonation.
Bruckner's Ninth obviously is kind of back-breaker, even for fine players. It is not only the matter of the ensemble playing, but not to a lesser extent the psychic and physical stamina, too. Mehta masterfully built a monumental building of the symphony. He conducted both pieces with no scores in front of him, just as real conductors do. I recalled Ilya Musin's sagacious saying, "a conductor must perform with a score in his head, not his head in the score." As for the players, I had a hard feeling that I was listening to two or even three orchestras which for some reason coincided in the time and space on the same stage. The brass section had quite too many flaws, for that level of orchestra. The woodwinds were good, but stood apart by themselves. The timpanist was time and again holding his ears to his instruments. And finally, the strings were as perfect as in Verklärte Nacht. I could assume it was a jet lag that impacted this famous orchestra so badly. Or they simply didn't have time to rehearse. But only Mr. Mehta's solid concept and profound and exact knowledge of what he was doing along with his artistic charisma saved the performance the best those qualities could do.
I was not disappointed with the concert. But I left the concert hall with a strange feeling that something was not there. Hopefully, for the other two nights, the musicians had a good sleep and had an extra rehearsal. Gustav Mahler would have turned around in his grave otherwise.
