MET Miscellany
It's time to say something about the last of this season's MET Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall, and if you'll just think for a minute and give it a bit of the old college try (history of that phrase, anyone?), you'll spare me the effort and write it yourself. Am I going to say that the performances were great? Of course. Am I going to say that the program was a mess? You bet.
I'm beginning to think that there is a hole in, or near the middle of, James Levine's musicality. Perhaps it's a kind of undiscriminating gourmandise: too much is never enough. It doesn't matter what goodies are spread upon the table, as long as they're all, individually, delicious. My own taste in music is less focused, I suppose; I don't drop into the center of each thing that I hear with an empty mind, oblivious of what I've already heard (or even of what I expect to hear later). Concert performances are paramount - nothing can redeem poor or indifferent execution - but concert programs are tantamount: they're as important. A well put-together program enhances the sheen of each of its part. Perhaps I'm afflicted with gesamtkonzertohren: I hear the entire concert with one pair of ears (pardon my pseudo-Wagnerism).
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Comments
Wow, that really is too long a program. I agree with you about listening to the entire program, not discrete morceaux. I don't know if it's entirely due to Levine -- sometimes I think that orchestral organizations feel like they have to justify their bloated ticket prices by force-feeding three hours of performance to the spectators. To me, that's a little like people who consider restaurant quality to be directly proportional with the size of the portions. (I think it tends towards inverse proportionality.)
Boston has had an odd, long phase-in of James Levine as music director of the Boston Symphony. It's been "James Levine is coming," "BSO has selected James Levine," and, finally, last year, "Boston welcomes James Levine," for what seems like about four or five years. I must admit some ignorance of Levine apart from some sordid rumors about pedophilia and a coterie of lawyers designated to keep him away from little boys.
More pedantry: Although it's technically correct that Mahler was born in Bohemia (and grew up in Moravia), I don't think he or the Czechs would ever have considered him a local. Like Kafka, as a German-speaking Jew, he would have been identified as a German and a Jew by the Czechs, and as a Jew by the Germans. I would be surprised if he spoke Czech particularly well; Dvořák, on the other hand, was something of a Czech nationalist (albeit a liberal one, as some nationalists were in the 19th century).
Posted by: Max | February 1, 2005 11:26 AM
While no one regards Mahler and Dvorak as compatriots, they grew up with similar folk music in the air, and - I haven't a score handy - what seemed like a "second subject" of the first movement of the Eighth Symphony was palably Mahlerian, although I don't think I'd have noticed if not for the Rückert songs earlier.
James Levine is - trust us here in Gotham - a truly great conductor.
Posted by: R J Keefe | February 1, 2005 01:17 PM
I would have thought we're beyond comments about how a man needs a good woman behind him...as it turns out, Mr. Levine has indeed had a female companion for many years. As for those old hoary and totally unproven rumors about his sex life, I again wonder why hoary and totally unproven rumors about anyone's private life is fodder for conversation, in this day and age. The spectacle of Court TV and Dominick Dunne is almost (not quite, though) enough to make me give up cable.
The point is well taken that it is over-produced--he wants everyone to share all his musical enthusiasms. I have now heard over 400 Levine performances in opera and concert; he has had a fast period, a slow period, a very slow period, a very very very slow period.....but in it all is an astonishing musical intelligence, and he has seemed revitalized this year. Next year he will celebrate 35 years at the Met, which is astonishing. I had thought I wanted him to go when Volpe leaves in 2006, but I have recently recanted this apostasy, and am glad he has had his contract extended to 2011. Boston is lucky; we have Maazel, who perhaps is a bit better than Mehta, but not by much, and we are stuck with him until 2009. I hope Jimmy continues to be well and grace us with his genius.
Posted by: PPOQ | February 1, 2005 01:32 PM