Boston Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel, conductor
Symphony Hall, Boston
October 30, 2009
Full disclosure: the Sixth is my least favorite of the Beethoven symphonies. Some composers do placid quite well, but Beethoven isn’t usually one of them, especially in his repetition-as-development middle period: the Sixth’s pastoral equanimity can seem like a looping anti-depressant ad. But guest conductor Lorin Maazel, the latest James Levine substitute for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven symphony cycle, made his case for the Sixth on Friday’s concert by reaching back to another diffused-impact genre: the big-studio prestige movie.
Nowadays, prestige pictures tend to be Christmas-release faux-indie acting showcases, but I’m talking about venerable, Technicolor-epic Oscar bait, Gone With the Wind, The Ten Commandments, that sort of thing. That’s what Maazel turned the Sixth into: well-appointed, sparing no expense, subsuming its modest dramatic impact into sheer production value. The sound was big but conscientiously polished, every phrase erring on the side of expansively grand. (The prominence of the first violin line was even reminiscent of old-time studio orchestra practice.) Smooth and sumptuous, Beethoven’s pastoral pageant took on the gentle, slightly narcotic hedonism of old Hollywood at its most expensively respectable—luxuriously typecast, a few choice details (the shape of the start-and-stop opening, the receding storm in the timpani and basses in the fourth movement) dexterously and prominently fussed over.
Throughout, Maazel’s rapport with the orchestra, one he hasn’t conducted since 1973, was precise and flexible. One could see why orchestra players would like him, at least initially—his interpretive wishes were immediately clear, he maintained contact with the whole group, he was pretty fun to watch. All of that came through in the Seventh, in which the group cut loose a little more: Maazel was content to let the orchestra blow the roof off in the opening movement, plenty of cheerfully heavy stomping, although some moments of taffy-pull Romantic phrasing left the speed needing to be cranked back up. Maazel split the difference with a nimble tempo in the slow movement, a real Allegretto where some performances trend closer to a funeral march, giving the music a straightforward sweep. The Presto returned to the opening energy—and featured Maazel at his most choreographically entertaining, whipping accents out of the band like he was yanking free a tablecloth, shimmying through some motivic byplay between the strings and the winds—though, like the opening, the forward motion was a bit restrained.
I was getting set to make that into a generalization—this entire cycle seeming to showcase the orchestra’s sonic power but not its dexterity—but Maazel trumped that by turning off the limiter and gunning the motor for the Allegro con brio finale, lashing the music forward with insistent glee: visceral fun all around. It made for a thrilling hang-on-tight finish, the wheel seemingly grabbed by the composer’s less well-behaved side: Beethoven looking propriety and prudence in the face and, frankly, not giving a damn.
Matthew Guerrieri
Matthew Guerrieri is a composer, pianist, and writer whose music has been called ”gorgeous” by the New York Times. He writes regularly on music for the Boston Globe, and his articles have also appeared in Vanity Fair, NewMusicBox, Playbill, and Slate magazines. ...
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