The no-more-than-adequate booklet notes complement
the booklet listing. Only four movements of the five that make up Berg’s
Lulu Suite are mentioned, indeed played, but there’s no explanation
of why the opening and most substantial part (‘Rondo’) is missing. Perhaps
it was not played but someone should be on the ball and say this. (Boulez
recorded the whole suite in the ’seventies in New York for CBS, now
Sony.) The Suite is thus more fragmentary-sounding than Berg, in his
symphonic condensing of his (unfinished) opera, intended. Friedrich
Cerha has subsequently completed Lulu, which Boulez has recorded for
DG.
Then there’s the date of this filmed concert. 25 and
26 April state the listings; the notes relay 26. One concert played
twice? Two different concerts excerpted into one for DVD? "The
Firebird Suite (1910)". Really? There’s a choice of dates for the
various suites Stravinsky made – 1911, 1919 or 1945. Boulez actually
conducts the complete ballet score; the word ‘suite’ is therefore erroneous
and used ignorantly.
And the subtitle option. This didn’t work for me –
I only had Japanese (for ‘Lulu’s Song’ and the Debussy); the English
option (and others) resolutely refusing to come into play.
Plunging into the second Lulu movement is unsatisfactory,
and this is the least interesting part of the concert, mostly because
of the missing movement. The four sections that we have are well enough
done, especially the ‘Variations’, Boulez’s articulate qualities paying
dividends, and Christine Schäfer (DVD coming into its own for her!)
is on home ground in a role she has almost made her own. That said,
she is aurally balanced too closely, and the sound overall is a tad
bass heavy and distant. Cut the bass for the clarity one expects from
a Boulez performance.
The Debussy items include the relatively rare Le
jet d’eau (Baudelaire) – radiant and fluidly expressive – and one
of Debussy’s highpoints in my view. The Villon settings, the first two
songs, are of a special order. It is possible to indulge these songs
more, but Schäfer is polished in her phrasing and Boulez doesn’t
lack tenderness. I did wonder if sound and picture are always perfectly
in sync, especially when involving Schäfer (her close balance seems
manufactured), but if there is a parting its infinitesimal.
By the time The Firebird is reached the sound
that I had initially thought diffuse, and with relatively restricted
dynamics, seems to have more impact, if never matching the very present
applause! There’s too much of that – for example all the curtain-calls
for Berg are in place, and soon followed by another burst of hand-clapping
to herald Debussy. Throughout, solo instruments are admirably clear
though some tuttis lack the last degree of impact and expansion. I did
fiddle with the volume quite a bit; its lowest setting was for applause!
Watching music being performed courtesy of a director
and cameras is not the same as being at a concert – one doesn’t have
the choice of what to view and what not to view; or indeed close one’s
eyes. There is little to object to in this production – a traditional
crosscutting of instruments and conductor.
I did listen for a large amount of The Firebird. This
is a marvellous account of a Boulez favourite. If, watching Boulez,
you can never quite tell what he’s thinking or feeling, the truth lies
in the listening. His acute understanding (and affection for) Stravinsky’s
Diaghilev commission allows not only a wonderful soundscape but also
a vivid telling of the music’s narrative. This is an atmospheric, precisely
coloured and detailed account of Stravinsky’s outsize score, one I would
like to return to as a purely musical experience, away from the camera
lens, for its refinement, translucence and virtuosity. That said, it’s
always a pleasurable lesson to watch Boulez’s conducting technique –
what an orchestra sees – every gesture pertinent, his hands independent.
Also it is valuable and rewarding to have film of CSO luminaries such
as Samuel Magad (concertmaster), Larry Combs (clarinet), Adolph Herseth
(trumpet) and Dale Clevenger (horn), the latter’s solos throughout Firebird
suitably entranced.
There’s an 11-minute feature, "Barenboim meets
Boulez", described as ‘Part 1’ (I wonder where the rest is!), which
finds Barenboim (CSO Music Director) effectively interviewing Boulez
about this concert, twentieth-century music and Boulez’s thoughts on
conducting. Apart from the satisfaction of noting that a conversion
taking place in 2000 talks of the previous century (from 2001) as "this",
Boulez effectively says that music’s upheaval (as determined by Schoenberg
and Webern) was "organic", that too many people reject ‘new’
music before giving it proper consideration and listening more to it
(I would add listening better). He considers himself an intuitive conductor,
subtly changing his interpretation to accommodate a hall’s acoustic
and the input of the musicians in front of him.
Boulez’s minute examination of scores is a source of
inspiration. That he is also flexible and aware of ‘the moment’ has
also been the prize for the intelligent listener; nice to know Boulez
himself confirms these qualities.
Colin Anderson
[101 minutes]