2/3 New York Philharmonic Opening Night - Welcome Kurt Masur / Bruckner Symphony No. 7 2. (9/11/91) скачать в хорошем качестве

2/3 New York Philharmonic Opening Night - Welcome Kurt Masur / Bruckner Symphony No. 7 2. (9/11/91)

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major 2. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam Kurt Masur, conductor New York Philharmonic Orchestra Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center - New York, NY (9/11/91) NY Times - Edward Rothstein New musical eras are often proclaimed with compositional polemics, breaks with tradition, revisionist or revolutionary fanfares. But last night at Avery Fisher Hall, a new era was ushered in the most understated fashion. After a two-year search rife with rumors of choices made and chances lost, and after more than a year of anticipation, Kurt Masur's debut as music director of the New York Philharmonic was a brief in favor of tradition, a declaration that a new musical era can sometimes be an old one. A generation ago, this notion would have been scandalous. In 1958, when Leonard Bernstein took over the Philharmonic and became the first American-trained, American-born music director of an American orchestra, the hope was for a brave new world; when the composer Pierre Boulez was brought in in 1969, the hope was to institutionalize new music, bringing it into the mainstream; when Zubin Mehta came in 1978, the hope was that there would be a explosion of charismatic podium-work, maestoso maestroing. Now the hope, with Mr. Masur, is that the tradition itself will simply return to its origins, with taste, solidity and good sense. In interviews, Mr. Masur has stated that his intentions include "a steadier musical life," and a "warm, human sound." In his first appearance, Mr. Masur offered substantial signs of each, showing himself thoroughly comfortable and unpretentious about his musical goals. But he also showed how much more work is yet to be done in creating a coherent sound and musical approach for this country's oldest orchestra. Bruckner's Seventh Symphony was given an ambitious but common-sensical reading, with Mr. Masur neither demanding obsessive unity, nor casually giving reign to indulgent detail and blunt climax. The conductor seemed to follow the music into whatever temperamental climates it led him, sometimes finding extraordinary detail (as in the mutating brass chords), other times simply taking pleasure in the phrasing (throughout the first movement). Mr. Masur even seemed to actively resist a mapping out of texture and tone. This gave episodes in the symphony a casual grace, but also left aspects of its peculiar emotional journey unexplained. The recapitulation of the symphony's first movement, for example, was grandly shaped, the cello's lines singing under the boldly swelling tremulos of the strings. The scherzo, too, was solid, robust and energetic. But the pungent agonies of the second movement were often left to fend for themselves and Bruckner's haunting mixture of innocence and gargantuan agony was generally unconvincing, even miscellaneous. To a certain extent, this performance demonstrated the challenges facing Mr. Masur and the orchestra. The Bruckner symphony depends on carefully carved textures and balances; the structure of the music requires echoes of temperments and sounds, not just returning melodic and harmonic gestures. But the orchestra still has some of the edginess of the Mehta years. The hall also made many of the fortissimos stringent rather than grand. And Mr. Masur has not yet reached the point with his players where atmospheric and textural subtleties are easily achieved. The other challenge was posed by the program's first half, which represented the New World into which this maestro of the Old is entering. In the two fanfares by John Adams and the songs by Aaron Copland, Mr. Masur was selecting works as unmistakably American as the Bruckner was Germanic. The challenge now is far greater, though, than individual performances. While many other American orchestras once had their own distinctive musical profiles, through long tenures of such conductors as Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia or Serge Koussevitzky and Charles Munch in Boston, New York has not had the benefit of such long term devotion and attention. The hope is that in this city of discontented critics and often disoriented listeners, Mr. Masur and his new orchestra will begin a long path toward mutual influence while making a musical case for the tradition that gave us Adams, Copland and Bruckner. The New York Philharmonic Kurt Masur, conductor; Thomas Hampson, baritone. At Avery Fisher Hall. Adams . . . "Tromba lontana"; "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" Copland . . . "Old American Songs," Set 2 Bruckner . . . Symphony No. 7