Tokyo Performances

NHK Symphony: Brahms and Strauss

I usually enjoy attending the NHK Symphony at NHK Hall. It's the one performance venue in Tokyo I can go to spontaneously and get a 1500 yen last-minute balcony ticket - where the sound is the best in the hall. So, I was looking forward to hearing one of my favorite pieces, Richard Strauss' "Four Last Songs" sung by noted soprana Anna Tomowa-Sintow.
The concert opened with Brahms' giant yawn "The Tragic Overture". I heard this 13 minute piece a couple years ago as a concert-opener as well, and I wonder why the programming cannot be more imaginative. There are certainly scores (pardon the pun) of openers out there that are less ponderous.
The conductor, Matthias Bamert, is well-noted, according to Wikipedia, but he had the ability to put me to sleep in the middle of that brief work.
Then the diva strode on stage. I have become sensitive to age issues recently, so I should be the last person to say that she is past her prime. According to Wikipedia she is 66 - a site unreliable for artists' birthdates. And she really shouldn't be performing any longer. She has had a fine career, and is featured in a recording of Kornghold's "Das Wunder der Heliane" that is one of my very favorites. But, she started off ragged and swooping in the first song. There were both sharp and grainy edges to her voice. It just seemed like a struggle. The second song, my favorite, came off a little better - but it sure wasn't Schwartzkopf or Price of Fleming or Hendricks or Te Kanawa or Norman. In the third she seemed to disagree with the conductor on the tempo. And, in the fourth, she acutually produced some beautiful phrases. Unfortunately, maestro Bamert conducted as if he were still conducting Brahms. The orchestra, as always, played valiantly, and the concertmaster's solos were stunning.
The second half of the concert was to be Schönberg's orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet op. 25. Although I was intrigued to hear something that I was unfamiliar with, I couldn't bring myself to be further disappointed, so I left.
The applause at the end of the Strauss was tepid and polite. And as with most Japanese audiences, at least three ovations are the bare minimum. That was enough to permit Ms Tomowa-Sintow to grant an encore, but I was out of the hall by the middle of an atrocious "Zueignung."
Some artists know when it's time to retire, and they do so gracefully with impeccable timing: Price, for one. Others hang on to the bitter end, to everyone's embarrassment: Pavarotti, Caballe, as examples.
The only good news of the evening was a brochure promising a complete cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies in the fall.

posted by Larry Wells @ 9:17 AM