October 22, 2008

MUSIC REVIEW

Daring to Be Audacious at Carnegie

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

On Monday night James Levine took the Boston Symphony Orchestra to

Carnegie Hall for the first time this season and made some news. There
was the New York premiere of a rhapsodic piece by Leon Kirchner, still
productive at 89. And the great pianist Maurizio Pollini inspired Mr.
Levine and the Boston Symphony to an arresting, insightful account of
Schumann’s Piano Concerto.

Yet it is also noteworthy when a performance of a repertory staple

conveys what was audacious about the piece when it was new. This is
what Mr. Levine and the Boston players achieved during their bold
performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony, during the first
half of this concert.

Mr. Levine drew on his instincts for operatic drama in this visceral
reading of the score. The slow introduction to the first movement
sounded like halting, ominous stirrings from some subterranean
Wagnerian realm. When the main theme of the Allegro non troppo
section began, Mr. Levine allowed ample dramatic spaces for the
phrases to breathe. Somehow, though, the taut linear direction of the
music never slackened. In the pleading second theme, Mr. Levine
shaped the soaring melody as if it were an operatic outpouring, yet with
no indulgently expressive touches.

The second movement, a waltz in unconventional 5/4 time, had plenty

of lilt and grace. Still, Mr. Levine kept punctuating the music,
highlighting instruments to point out the insistent flow of two-plus-
three beats per measure. The waltz came across as deceptively
charming. You never entirely relaxed.
He captured the jostling energy of the third movement, a relentless
march that culminates in a brilliant climax. More than ever the music
seemed to anticipate the opening of Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka,” which
evokes a carnival street fair in St. Petersburg. The trade-off was some
occasional shakiness in the execution, especially in the strings. But who
cared? The anguished final movement was played with too much
strength and fortitude to seem ultimately defeated.

Mr. Levine conducted the premiere of Mr. Kirchner’s 14-minute score,

“The Forbidden,” just last week in Boston. The piece is actually Mr.
Kirchner’s reworking of a score that first appeared in 2003 as a piano
sonata, then morphed into a string quartet. Here Mr. Kirchner joins an
honored tradition of composers recycling their works.

The title, taken from a passage in Thomas Mann’s “Doctor Faustus,”

suggests that in this score, Mr. Kirchner, who studied with Schoenberg
in the 1930s and was powerfully influenced by the 12-tone technique, is
grappling with the forbidden — that is, old diatonic tonality. The
onrushing music swings between atonal, pointillist outbursts and
diatonically grounded lyrical passages. For all the darting phrases and
layered textures, a clear thematic line runs through the music, almost
like a narrative voice. Mr. Levine drew a vibrantly colored and clear-
textured performance from the orchestra. Though unsteady on his feet,
Mr. Kirchner, with some help, appeared onstage to acknowledge the
ovation.

There was another prolonged ovation for Mr. Pollini, who gave a
masterly yet youthful and exciting performance of the Schumann
concerto. Anticipation will be high for Mr. Pollini’s solo recital on
Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall.