Marathon Man

November 19 - 22

BARTÓK Divertimento for String Orchestra
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 12
----INTERMISSION----
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2
Christoph von Dohnányi, Conductor
Paul Lewis, Piano

A visit to the dentist sometimes turns into a painful ordeal. Acknowledgment that this is for our own good mollifies us enough to submit to the uncomfortable procedure. Perhaps just as crucial in overcoming the natural reluctance to place ourselves at the mercy of a potentially pain-wielding professional is the belief our dentist is doing his best to minimize our suffering, and that furthermore, he derives no secret sadistic pleasure from all the painful picking, prodding and poking.

A conductor actually has a few ways to positively affect an orchestra in rehearsals, although more often than not the opportunities to employ them are bungled or misused. In brief, one of those is didactic, embodied in the maestro who comes to town with a number of interesting musical ideas which, if not presented in an insufferable manner, are available for the entertainment and maybe even enlightenment of all whose ears are not yet permanently calloused over. Another approach is the corrective – the maestro who performs the necessary and laudable services of scraping away at the orchestral tartar, filling the musical cavities, reigning in the rhythmical overbite, and maybe even addressing chronic institutional halitosis. This conductor has the chance of leaving the orchestra in better shape than when he found it.

Obviously, the lure of sadism sometimes proves too much, and what begins as constructive turns cruel and capricious. Cleaning the gums turns into a relentless pricking an poking, looking for blood, then gleefully pointing it out, holding a mirror up before the hapless, chair-bound orchestra. “You see! We have a problem here, such a pity. Let me get another pick. Nurse! No, the longer, more cruelly formed one please...”

To stipulate a need for the old-school type Great Maestro, one might argue that the ends justify the means (in our modern era, so long as they conform to the union contract). However, the end aimed at by barking “Watch it!” a split second before someone makes an entrance remains obscure to me, among a number of other things. Sadly, the performances this week had a somewhat flabby, dull, and uncomfortable aspect to them, a kind of Middle-European precision goosestep performed in stocking feet.

09/22-25

London

Nice to be in truly world class city. On past trips the driest place to be in London has been onstage at Royal Festival Hall, but this time around the weather cooperates. After Paris, the city looks beautifully clean.

The two concerts here (Mozart/Brahms, Haydn/Bruckner) were well received, although as in the other cities much of the adulation was directed towards Haitink. Musically, this has to be one of the most satisfying tours I can recall – consistently high levels of performance from the orchestra, no histrionics from the podium, full houses. I wonder this is our last trip with Haitink since we have a new boss coming in next year. If so, it's a somewhat bittersweet moment, for me anyway.

09/19-21

Paris

At around 6 AM the train from Hütteldorf arrived in Munich where groups of Oktoberfest revelers were carousing in the station (a very nice one, BTW). These fresh-faced youths, toting impossibly large beer bottles, were either getting an early start on the day's drinking or, possessed of superhuman stamina, were still up from the night before. When two opposing teams decided to start some sort of demolition derby with the luggage carts it was time to hit the streets until my onward connection.

In Paris the Shostakovich/Mozart program became the Brahms 1/Mozart 41 program. Haitink sure does a nice Brahms 1, the leaner sort of interpretation where you can see the bones, rather than flopping a bloated, hulking carcass onto the stage. Of course, any conductor who realizes the second movement is marked Andante Sostenuto rather than Largo Lugubriouso goes a long way to winning me over. After leaving the German speaking world, audience enthusiasm for the Bruckner 7 dropped noticeably. A colleague pointed out a gentleman who had his hands firmly clamped over his ears.

Salle Pleyel – the Avery Fisher Hall of Europe – had an interesting effect on us. I heard a few people remark “You know, the sound in here isn't that bad!”

Paris supposedly has many sights to see, but since the city also has a major dog-doo problem I spent the entire time watching where I stepped and so saw little besides my shoe tops. After two days I finally did notice a gentleman picking up after his dog. I squelched the urge to congratulate him when it occurred to me that throwing my arms around a complete stranger holding a bag of poop might be ripe for misinterpretation.

09/15-19

Vienna

Travel from Luzern to Vienna, uneventful. The Musikverein is the same old place, which is what is nice about it. Some of the end pin holes in the stage look like they might be a hundred and fifty years old, the kind of tradition you can put your foot on. The hall has a fantastic resonance that, if we aren't careful, we can fill with a fantastic jumble of sound. At rehearsals Haitink asked us repeatedly not to (surprise) overplay. Performing Bruckner in the Musikverein feels very appropriate somehow, although I can't say I came away from the concert liking Bruckner or understanding what he was up to any better. But if you put a pig in mud I suppose he's happy even if he can't tell you why.

There is a story floating around that Bruckner, a shy and possibly troubled man, asked that the bare breasted caryatids in the Musikverein be covered. I have no idea if this actually occurred (the request and/or the covering) but I think of it whenever I play there.

We performed both programs (Mozart/Shostakovich, Haydn/Bruckner) in Vienna with a day off in between which I used to pay homage to another reviled, discredited, and dare I say misunderstood, historical figure. I spent a few pleasant hours at the all but deserted Arnold Schoenberg Institute – well worth the € 5 price of admission IMHO.

The dingy blockhouse that is Vienna's Hütteldorf train station left a lot to be desired. The decrepit waiting room reminded me of places I'd seen in the old Soviet Union – uncomfortable seats, peeling paint, bright, crackling fluorescent lights. All in all not the kind of place to spend the time between concert and midnight train. At the last minute the track for our train changed and we all lurched and jostled our way through a grimy, fetid passageway before emerging onto the correct platform – like a scene out of Dr. Zhivago, perhaps 1984, I thought. Wondering if the little dis-utopian scene I found myself caught in, the nightmare vision of a Europe that might have been, could possibly be some sort of penance for my foolish beliefs, I promised to make no more visits to Marx Engels statue. Just then the station loudspeakers began playing Pierrot Lunaire.

09/12-14

Luzern

Getting to Luzern turned out to be one of those magnificent ordeals arising from an almost obsessive desire to travel separately from my colleagues. At midnight, the view of Berlin from the elevated train platform was magical. The train arriving half an hour late and falling 45 minutes behind before reaching Dortmund, not so magical considering the scheduled connection time of 47 minutes.

A city on a large lake in need of a new concert hall sounds oddly familiar. Only Luzern did something modern, and in my opinion, quite spectacular. Not all my colleagues like the acoustics of the concert hall as much as I do, but everyone is entitled to be wrong, I suppose. We played two programs, Mozart/Shostakovich repeated from Berlin, and then and Haydn 101 paired with (yes, again) Bruckner 7.

Sunday morning, I set out to climb nearby Mount Pilatus whose summit was, as usual, hidden in clouds. I don't know the mileage of the hike – the sign says '4 hours' – but the elevation gain is about 5,200 feet. A few times the clouds parted to offer views of the scenery below, but for the most part, I trudged through dense fog. After about three hours I entered a series of steep switchbacks crossing a rockfall. The summit could not be far above me, but where? My feet were sore, my spirits flagging until, from still high above, came the plaintive melody of a single alp-horn. The lone voice, at length joined, became a chorus. I stopped to listen, briefly disoriented that the sound of a horn could produce in me something quite strange, a feeling I can only describe as the absence negativity. Rallying, I stumbled upward.