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Beethoven, Messiaen and Brahms: Christian Tetzlaff (violin), The MET Orchestra, James Levine (conductor), Carnegie Hall, New York City, 5.10.2008 (BH)

Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B-flat Major, Op. 133 (1825-1826)
Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964)
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 (1878)


For a minute or so I thought James Levine was having a stroke, during what turned out to be an extraordinary reading of Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum with the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.  Scored for winds, brass and percussion, the composer indicates that between each of the five sections, pauses should be taken, and we're talking substantial amounts of time: over a minute and perhaps close to three.  The result is monolithic blocks of sound surrounded by vales of silence, even contemplative silence.  (Not everyone in the audience agreed, with some either coughing in protest or leaving for intermission.)

But as the half-hour piece continued, one could feel a rapturous transformation entering Messiaen's severe sound world, helped by some spectacular playing from the MET musicians.  One perceptive friend commented that while other Messiaen works seem to come to easy tonal resolutions here and there, this one remains resolutely granitic.  It's the aural equivalent of Stonehenge.  I haven't seen Levine do something this daring since 1999, when he led the MET ensemble in John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis.

To complement the string-less Messiaen, Levine opened the afternoon with Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, in an arrangement for full string orchestra—here, over sixty players, in marked contrast to the version for string quartet.  For one not accustomed to the MET Orchestra in this venue, the initial boldness of sound was breathtaking.  But the high tessituras in the first violins—fine when played by a single instrument—here struck some as too shrill.  While I don't expect this to replace the quartet version, I affirm Levine's decision (as he explained in his own notes) to bring it to a wider audience.

In the first few measures of Brahms's Violin Concerto, Christian Tetzlaff sounded a bit timid, like a salmon guilelessly plunging into a raging torrent, but he quickly recovered to deliver one of the most athletic, satisfying readings I've heard in years.  Despite some intonation problems here and there (and also in his encore, Gavotte en Rondeau from Bach's third Partita), Tetzlaff remains one of the world's most formidable violinists, and the spontaneous applause after the first movement was the initial indicator.  Despite his slim frame, he can carry an almost physical sonic punch, which is almost essential with this orchestral powerhouse.  The oboe solo in the second movement was pure magic.  Levine and the orchestra tore into the final movement with Tetzlaff in hot pursuit, and at the end the ovations poured forth loudly.  As a friend remarked afterward: "Two crazy pieces followed by one not so"—a pretty succinct assessment in my book.

Bruce Hodges


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