Timid BSO Tantalizes at Tanglewood

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, sporting a full program of internationally renowned conductors and soloists, rounded out another fine summer at the Tangle-wood Music Center. Perhaps the most exciting of the thrice-weekly concerts was that involving both Bernard Haitink and Gidon Kremer.

Haitink, who had been conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam for more than twenty years, led the BSO in a performance of the Prelude to the First Act of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg, the Sibelius Violin Concerto, and Brahms' First Symphony. Kremer joined the orchestra as soloist in the concerto.

The exertion of playing the Wag ner overture immediately showed one of the BSO's prime weaknesses--it can't play very loudly. It's possible that the Koussevitsky Music Shed, because of its open-air construction, dissipates the sound. Despite possible infrastructure problems, the orchestra seemed to lack a fierce fortissimo at the top of its dynamic range.

The born section, on their home Teutonic turf, played creditably but sometimes overpowered the strings. It wasn't that the brass were too loud--the strings just couldn't keep up. In fact, even Haitink's tight meter could not keep the strings from sounding a bit tired at the end of the piece.

Kremer came on stage

for the Sibelius dressed in a black shirt and pants, canary yellow jacket and yellowish how tie. A former student of David Oistrakh. Kremer uncharacteristically let his innovation stop with his wardrobe. Instead of inserting strains of modern composers' work, as he has with cadenzas by Schnitke and Robert Levin '68, he stuck to Sibelius's own cadenzas.

The Sibelius concerto's first movement consists of a series of impressive solo passages interspersed with cascading tuttis and fine wind entrances. As the orchestra began, its glistening harmonics were accompanied by a low roll of thunder; it was raining hard by the third movement. Kremer played the beginning of the first lick a bit raggedly but was well on target by the time he handed the melodic line over to the orchestra. His second solo passage came off perfectly, with brilliantly intoned harmonizations.

The orchestra came up a bit short during the huge swells of the tutti. Unfortunately, the rumbling of the lower strings appeared more like the lulling motion of a ship than the towering waves that crash against it. Only some enthusiastic brass entrances rescued the accompaniment.

In the third solo part and cadenza. Kremer showed a pair of weaknesses. His violent charging at his violin with the bow occasionally gave his notes unsteady attacks. If the problem was due to excess energy, it's excusable: few violinists have so able a bow arm as Oistrakh had. In addition, Kremer's tone seemed to run sharp now and then. Perhaps he was rattled by losing a string from his bow during the lick.

The second movement highlighted the sweeter part of Kremer's musicianship. His tones were mellifluous and limpid, and his chords and changes were exceptionally clear. Here, the BSO's modest and controlled playing led to an extremely touching performance.

In the last movement, Kremer's articulations gained still more grace than in the previous two. His strong rendering of the famous passage on the E string reflected true mastery of the instrument. The balance between the soloist and orchestra towards the end of the piece was impeccable; Haitink and Kremer returned to the stage for numerous standing ovations.

The Brahms piece

began with an indication of the circular evolution of musical audiences. In the halls of the eighteenth century, which catered to aristocrats whose particular interest was not necessarily the music, there was no sense in a conductor or concert master waiting for silence: the orchestra simply played--preferably loudly at first--to quiet the crowd. It is partly for this reason that most symphonies from the classical begin with a forte. When Haitink took the stage, the noise from the crowd of the elderly and well-to-do did not diminish. Thus, he dove straight into the cataclysmic opening bars of Brahms to silence the audience.

Immediately, the intense crispness of the BSO under Haitink struck the listener. This orchestra underwent a complete transformation under their visiting leader; suddenly, the BSO was the Concert-gebouw's forgotten sibling. The string pizzacati were sharp and their entrances were flawless. In the second movement, the wind choruses were perfectly tuned and placed. Then came the crowning moment--the horn-violin duo, in which concertmaster Malcolm Lowe played so exquisitely as to melt one's heart.

The BSO delivered the third movement's fluid onset, a walking clarinet line with string accompaniment much like the third movement of his Clarinet Quintet, with serenity and warmth. The brass sounded a bit jumbled in the tutti, but Haitink brought the movement to a clean closure.

Haitink's finale constituted nothing less than a triumph. The "alpenhorn" theme flowed majestically through the Shed and Lawn, as did the brass chorale that follows it. Haitink's initial reading of the main theme (the one derived from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) seemed last at first. The tempo, however, reaped its reward in the development, instead of the usual disconnected and episodic character of that section. Haitink's interpretation was brisk and lively. He could only be faulted for his treatment of the piece's climax--the return of the chorale--which he sprinted through with inappropriate disinterest.

The BSO could certainly gain immense quality and repertoire from a music director of Haitink's skills. It's true that Seiji Ozawa hasn't been talking about retirement, but Haitink gave the orchestra glimpses of Herbert von Karaian's Berlin Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber's Vienna Philharmonic and George Szell's Cleveland Orchestra. If they could also strengthen their sound with a few more powerful players, the BSO would catapult itself back to the stature it knew under Charles Munch--that of the foremost symphony in the nation.