Dalbavie: Concertate
il suono (2000) (New York premiere)
Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques (1955-56)
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major (1929-31)
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin,
Op. 19 (1927)
Perhaps
I should just bite the bullet and move to
Cleveland. It would be hard to find fault
with almost anything in this unusually imaginative
and superbly played concert, the first of
two nights by this powerhouse of an orchestra
with an equal powerhouse, almost 80 years
old, at the helm.
One
of the French spectralists, Marc-André
Dalbavie is a young composer aiming high,
and in the pieces I’ve heard, including this
one, he does hit the mark. Inspired by Corelli
and Bach, Concertate il suono was completed
in 2000 for the Cleveland Orchestra, which
played it here with almost supernatural confidence.
With the onstage forces augmented by small
groups and single players scattered around
the hall, the work begins with a waterfall
of softly descending open fifths, but quickly
transforms into buzzing, nervous activity
with tremolos coursing through the entire
ensemble. Near the close, the open-fifths
motif returns in a different guise, before
the piece concludes with a single unexpected
plucked note. In this case, it was difficult
to separate the work itself from the absolutely
virtuosic performance; if nothing else, one
could simply admire the sleek Cleveland machinery
working overtime.
Having
not heard Mitsuko Uchida recently, I was glad
to hear her in two relatively dissimilar works.
The Ravel was one of the best performances
I’ve heard, but it was the underplayed Messiaen
that made the most indelible impression, managing
to be both spare and florid at the same time
in depicting some 48 different birds. To my
ears, these are not particularly innocuous,
pleasant birds, waiting patiently in the background
to be noticed. These are wild, brazenly sensuous
and insistent creatures, each wanting to be
a peacock and not shy about saying it. In
a highly alert performance, Uchida, Boulez
and the musicians seemed almost perfectly
synchronized. As the piece treads to its conclusion,
Boulez coaxed the stark final chords with
calm understatement, and the Cleveland players’
tone could not have been more beautifully
precise.
The
Ravel was beautifully proportioned, and if
a friend confessed that she longed for Argerich’s
frenzy, Uchida’s sense of balance seemed just
right. In a grateful move during the curtain
calls, Boulez recognized Lisa Wellbaum on
harp and Felix Kraus on English horn who also
astonished as much as Uchida.
I don’t
see why the Bartók, one of his masterpieces,
isn’t performed more often. Perhaps the story
itself is just too weird, even for 21st-century
audiences steeped in weirdness. Similar to
Richard Strauss’ Salome, Bartók
couples some of his most inspired music to
a story that is hideous, uncomfortably lurid
and just flat-out strange. Or perhaps the
ending, coming after so much hurtling drama
can perhaps seem anticlimactic: the piece
sort of lurches to a halt, as if after such
frenzy all one can do is expire in exhaustion.
The opening, not to mention the central Chase
scene with its intense fugue, are some of
the most viscerally exciting passages Bartók
wrote, and elsewhere the piece vacillates
between eerie, tense quietness and swarms
of notes that pelt the listener like hard
rain. Bartók sometimes uses his huge
forces sparingly, such as near the end when
"the body of the Mandarin begins to glow
with a greenish-blue light" and the chorus
makes its chilling entrance. With the huge
orchestra and chorus stretched across the
stage, just watching the musicians was a marvel
in itself, and Boulez’ gestures – as spare
as an Ad Reinhardt painting – made audible
every square inch of Bartók’s tense,
slithering canvas.
What
more can be said about the Cleveland Orchestra,
a group that probably deserves to be listed
with the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore
as one of our national treasures? The horns
outdid themselves, both in the Messiaen and
the Bartók, and the percussion section
deserves singular praise in the latter. It
might not seem like a single, lonely triangle
would have much dynamic range, but somehow
here the percussionist playing it achieved
more suave volume levels than most orchestras
can imagine. A good number of friends think
this is not only the finest orchestra in the
United States, but in the world, and certainly
from the way they were playing last night,
I’d be hard-pressed to disagree.
Bruce Hodges
Return to:
Music on the Web