|
SYMPHONY REVIEW
Ozawa's Impressive Orchestra, Terrific Mahler Ninth
January 9, 2001
|
By Michelle Dulak
Visiting conductors on the San Francisco Symphony's concert series are generally (and understandably) reluctant to tread on Michael Tilson Thomas' repertory home turf. But Seiji Ozawa, who conducted at Davies Symphony Hall last Sunday, had every justification for performing Mahler's Ninth Symphony, an MTT favorite. Ozawa's association with Mahler's music goes back even farther than Thomas'. Ozawa led the San Francisco Symphony from 1970-76, and on Sunday he was back with Japan's Saito Kinen Orchestra and the Mahler Ninth.
Ozawa himself founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan more than sixteen years ago, and from the sound of things, he has built it into a very impressive ensemble. The membership is, of course, overwhelmingly Japanese (though there are prominent exceptions, like the well-known Karl Leister, who is Ozawa's principal clarinet). Most of the players are quite young as well (though, again, with exceptions), and their overall quality is very high. Most of the musicians' names were unfamiliar to me, but I was startled and delighted to find the distinguished chamber-music player Ko Iwasaki (a longtime colleague of Gidon Kremer) mid way down the list of cellos.
It is not an orchestra quite on the level of today's San Francisco Symphony, I think, but it is very fine. Best were the strings, who threw themselves into their music with a passionate involvement that was as evident to the eye as to the ear. They were nimble, delicate, vehement, and bluff by turns, following Mahler's intentions and Ozawa's lead with great agility. And while their true excellence was in pianissimo (there were some heart-stopping effects here), they could make meaty sounds too, as the violins did (high up on the G string) at the beginning of the last movement. The one lack was of sheer power, especially from the violins in the highest register, where they were impeccably in tune and not a bit tepid, but simply not quite strong enough.
The winds were a little less impressive. They were animated and full of character, but didn't always blend terribly well; and there were particular timbres (I'm thinking especially of the principal oboist's rich, almost clotted tone) that stuck out a bit too much. The brass, too, were a mixed bag. The horns (seated, unusually, somewhere towards the back of the second violins, a good twenty feet or more from the rest of the brass) were splendid, the trumpets and trombones rather crass. As is his custom, Ozawa conducted from memory and without a baton, molding every gesture with his bare hands. He and his orchestra clearly had together grown to know the music in intimate detail. It was not a blockbuster performance; the "big moments" were, if anything, underplayed. But the long stretches--especially the expanse of the last movement, though the first was scarcely less impressive--Ozawa sustained with unusual patience and control. The ending, preternaturally hushed, was amazing; and for once a Davies Symphony Hall audience refrained from applauding until 25 seconds of silence had gone by, a rare tribute. And what followed was the longest and most unanimous standing ovation I've yet seen at Davies. It went on and on, Ozawa revisiting the stage many times and (in the end) apparently thanking every single player personally as he wandered through the orchestra. The audience can't have been demanding an encore (what do you play to follow Mahler 9? Ozawa sensibly decided: nothing). Some, no doubt, were remembering and commemorating Ozawa's term as the SFS's music director; others, possibly, were applauding Ozawa's creation of a Japanese orchestra worthy to compete in the Euro-American big leagues. And some rose to honor a terrific Mahler 9. I joined them. (Michelle Dulak is a violinist and violist who has written about music for "Strings," "Stagebill," "Early Music America" and The New York Times.) ©2001 Michelle Dulak, all rights reserved |
