There’s hyphenated
Bach-Busoni, Schubert-Liszt, Chopin-Godowsky
and there’s Gershwin-Roberts. That’s
the general tenor of this outdoors concert
given at the Waldbühne in Berlin
in 2003 in which the Berlin Philharmonic
let down their collective hair with
the alarmingly grey-mop-tousled Seiji
Ozawa presiding. This was a holiday
mood summer concert given under a canopy
that slightly – yet worryingly – resembled
one of Jean-Paul Gautier’s Madonna bras.
The concert was rather more decorous.
The camera shots are
pretty conventional; out to the sea
of faces on the hillside; a (huge) crane
camera swooping low as it runs up to
the stage in the distance; often the
same positioned sectional shots of the
band and shots of the enthusiastically
baton less Ozawa from the orchestra’s
perspective as he dances, coils, strolls
and generally cavorts his way through
the darkening night. Not a concert for
Boult fans, it should be said.
The first thing to
note is that unlike Euroarts’ other
release, from Leipzig, that I’ve also
reviewed, the canopy or amphitheatre
or both conspire to deaden the Berlin
Phil’s sound somewhat and this does
have a rather deleterious effect especially
in An American in Paris – and at tricky
balancing moments such as the muted
trumpet episode in the Rhapsody. Still
Ozawa is used to this sort of acoustic
fare from his days in Tanglewood and
he’s a tinkling, beaming presence. As
Rhapsody in Blue starts up the director
has gone for a tracking crane shot,
artfully starting from behind the branches
of a tree on the fringes of the amphitheatre,
and slowly moving in; not everyone of
course wants to see a clarinettist bluing
the blues but you can hear it at least.
This and the Concerto are arranged by
Marcus Roberts who with his trio is
centre stage - piano, bass and drums.
The arrangement is to intercut Gershwin
with moments for the trio; things such
as Lisztian chordal charge and Harlem
Stride (like his erstwhile employer
Wynton Marsalis Roberts goes right back
when it comes to Jazz).
The same goes for the
Concerto in F but this time the trio
infuse rather more straight ahead bop
and Latin Americana in their sections,
as well as some delightfully rhapsodic
moments from Roberts and alert playing
from his knowledgeable and adept rhythm
partners. I can’t say that the forty-two
minutes passed in a flash – in fact
after a while I yearned for some neither-fish-nor-fowl
straight ahead jazz or some proper Gershwin
– but Roberts’ admirers may well think
differently. The trio does stretch its
jazz chops on I Got Rhythm and the crowd
goes suitably crazy. The evening is
rounded out with the German equivalent
of Last Night of the Proms, Paul Lincke’s
Berliner Luft, which raises the natives
to delirious heights.
The bonus tracks include
interviews with Ozawa (brief, perfunctory,
smiling – but did he speak English in
Boston at all those near-thirty years?
It doesn’t sound like it) and with the
serious Roberts; there are a few rehearsal
segments of the trio in action as well,
a democratic organisation composed of
three articulate and personable men,
especially drummer Jason Marsalis who
spends his time at the drum kit bobbing
and weaving like a nervous corncrake.
Jonathan Woolf
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Seiji Ozawa 
DVD
EUROARTS 2053098 [209 minutes] 
