As for the previous concerts, chirping and tweeting (the real McCoy, not the Internet version) could be heard all around the foyer of Avery Fisher Hall, which sounded like an aviary under attack. This, as far as I remember, according to the program notes, was to stress the accent on birdsong throughout the festival. So be it, but I found it a little overdone and a little irritating, as I’m not much of a nature lover and don’t really enjoy music imitating nature or vice-versa. The worst being, of course, the so-called music for relaxation or meditation consisting of exasperating waterfalls, waves, rainfalls, birdcalls, purrs, you name it, only second, as far as driving one crazy is concerned, to Chinese opera.
Once inside the hall, though, you escaped the ornithological effects and were only exposed to the occasional grumpy neighbor, like the one who ogled my Iphone with suspicion and disgust, so sure was he that the device would disrupt the concert just by existing. Little did he know that I am extremely careful and have never had any mishap of the sort with my cellular phone. I may have been born in the 17th century, but I’m now a technologically savvy 21st century citizen.
Speaking of the 21st century, I would like to mention a musical trend I’m far from thrilled with – and you will soon see how it fits in with the concert in review. I find that nowadays, alas!, for many musicians, the stress seems to be more on showmanship or even, I would venture to say, histrionics, than on the music itself, as if all those magnificent scores were not packed enough with drama, comedy, sadness, joy, energy, languidness, in short, the whole gamut of human sentiment. No, many musicians today seem to think that they have to add to the great music and wind up putting their egos forward to the detriment of the music they are supposed to interpret. Now, mind you, I don’t mean to say that musicians should not have their own word to add, on the contrary. “Flat”, mechanical playing would be just as lethal as, I believe, this new theatrical trend is. The musician’s role is to insufflate life into a written page that many would never have access to without him or her. And, as the pages were often written at a time when they could not be recorded for posterity, there is a fair amount of guesswork and reading between the notes and silences. In this “interpretation” lies the musician’s genius or lack of it. In the wide possibility of choices reposes the huge diversity of performances and the preferences and affinities one can feel for one or the other. That is why the “greatest violinist, or cellist, or percussionist, or pianist,….. in the world is obviously a ridiculous notion. There are no records to be set in music, or, for that matter, in any art. So you can only say that you prefer Gidon Kremer’s Franck Sonata to Joshua Bell’s, or Yo Yo Ma’s Rococo Variations to Mischa Maisky’s, but you can definitely not establish that any one of them is better than the other. And, as the French say about a different subject entirely, vive la différence!
What I object to is of course not the individuality and creativity of a performance, even if I disagree with the underlying ideas, but the use of extra-musical attitudes and devices purporting to add atmosphere or excitement to a concert in a fashion which can only be profoundly irritating to informed listeners and regrettably misleading to the ones less accustomed to classical music, who, if they are there, want to get a better notion of what it is all about and deserve a better initiation.
Why this outpouring, you may ask. Well, it all has to do with the first part of the last Mostly Mozart concert, in which Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst played Mozart’s masterpiece for his instrument. It seemed to me that Mr. Fröst was far more interested in his own contortions than in Mozart’s gorgeous music, and the result was a strangely tight sound, as it seemed that there was little energy left to push air out of the soloist’s lungs after he had used it all to swing and sway and wiggle and look around like Prince Siegfried searching for Odette. The rather short of breath first movement was followed by a sweet second movement, in which the pianissimos in the orchestra allowed the exceptional clarinet sounds to be heard – I say exceptional because it would take a complete butcher, which Mr. Fröst is not, to ruin the magnificent score. The third movement, unfortunately, was again far more about Mr. Fröst’s ability to play more notes per minute than the competition, a futile and detrimental exercise. And he could not resist playing an encore (the audience was delirious) and jumping into a klezmer dance, far more suited to his playing style than Mozart, and very entertaining, although it was not what I had come to hear (okay, I’m a stuffed crinoline, so what?).
After the intermission and more dirty looks at my very well-behaved cell phone, Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Concert Chorale of New York and the four excellent soloists did themselves proud in Beethoven’s Mass in C major, not as often performed as the great Missa Solemnis, but, I think, every bit as interesting. It is perhaps more “symphonic”and less “sacred”, more “operatic”and less “liturgical” but the orchestra, the choir and the singers all did a magnificent job and here, there was no doubt whatsoever that the star was Beethoven himself. In fact, in a very laudable and warm gesture, after giving everyone the opportunity to take a bow to the absolutely justified outburst of applause, Mr. Langrée grabbed the score from his stand and waved it high for everyone to see. A very fitting end to a beautiful performance.