Wednesday was Lorin Maazel Day. Thus spake the mayor of New York. Gosh, what gush.
The proclamation, read from the stage by the chairman of the Philharmonic, suggested that Maazel’s performances were always “critically acclaimed”. Some might find that a bit of an exaggeration.
The occasion was Maazel’s final programme as music director. He held the job for seven years, and, as of 2007 (when the last statistics were released), earned a base salary of $2.8m. If that did not make him the best orchestra-conductor in the US, it certainly made him the best paid.
Compounding the provincial hyperbole, the chairman called the Philharmonic “the greatest orchestra in the world”. He praised Maazel for conveying a universal “message of peace and beauty” and heralded the valedictory vehicle, Mahler’s gargantuan Eighth Symphony, as “rarely performed”. Perhaps he missed Pierre Boulez’s performance with the Staatskapelle Berlin at Carnegie Hall last month.
When the quasi-beatification ended and the music began, Maazel made Mahler abnormally noisy and ponderous, tough and bombastic. At least that is how it sounded from a disadvantageous seat in the eighth row. Avery Fisher Hall, never celebrated for sonic clarity, distorted the inherent complexities virtually beyond recognition. Echoes abounded, balances went awry, attacks blurred. Some voices disappeared in the muddle, others boomed as if electronically amplified. It was ugly.
If one watched the conductor, one discerned cool concentration, technical bravado and a telling concern for detail. If one just listened, the lofty rhetoric turned vulgar, also chaotic.
Christine Brewer dispatched the primary soprano solos with brilliance unmatched by her motley colleagues (Nancy Gustafson, Nancy Maultsby, Mary Phillips, Jeanine De Bique, Anthony Dean Griffey, Wolfgang Schöne and Jason Grant). Three choirs, well trained by Joseph Flummerfelt, sang conscientiously amid the din. The orchestra worked nobly, I think, against bad acoustic odds.
During the opening exercises, the modest maestro made a little speech. Deflecting personal glory, he declared that Lorin Maazel Day would give way to Gustav Mahler Night. No such luck. ★★★☆☆
