MUSIC REVIEW
The Sweeping Gestures of a Swiveling Maestro
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: January 24, 2011
James Levine devoted the Met Orchestra’s concert at Carnegie Hall on Sunday afternoon to two works, but they were big, demanding ones.Mozart’s “Posthorn” Serenade (K. 320), despite a title that suggests a light entertainment, is as grand as most of his symphonies and, at 45 minutes, twice as long as most of them. And “Das Lied von der Erde,” Mahler’s monumental setting of ancient Chinese poetry, is a symphony disguised as a song cycle.
Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
The Met Orchestra, led by James Levine, performed Mozart and Mahler at Carnegie Hall on Sunday.
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Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Mr. Levine led the orchestra from his customary swivel chair.
Mr. Levine led these works with the energy and sweeping conducting gestures that he has brought to his work all season, and though he continues to walk with a cane, as he did at the opening of “Simon Boccanegra” at the Met on Thursday, he did not seem in the least frail, as he reportedly did then. He took the stage at a good clip, the cane apparently providing a measure of security. When he reached the podium, he handed the cane to the concertmaster and climbed onto his customary swivel chair.
And he swiveled: to the right and to the left and even, at one point in the Mozart, nearly all the way around to the audience.
Mr. Levine has long been an eloquent Mozartean. And if his interpretive approach has been largely unaffected by the findings and fashions of the period-instrument movement, he has always found ways to keep his performances trim and tightly focused while reveling in both the heft and the sonic sheen that a modern orchestra can provide.
Mostly, his account of the “Posthorn” achieved those qualities, thanks in great measure to the orchestra’s beautifully tuned brass chords, elegant flute and oboe playing, and a string sound that blended an often velvety tone with precise, unified ornamentation. Even when the reading veered toward heaviness, in both minuets, Mr. Levine usually applied an unexpected balance or a thoughtful phrasing touch that effectively disarmed any objections.
The orchestra’s playing was even more sumptuous in the Mahler, not surprisingly, and Mr. Levine’s reading was more highly personalized, for better and for worse. His penchant for lingering tempos and dramatic pauses made a certain sense in the finale, “Der Abschied,” which is, after all, a mystical account of a final, pained leave-taking, tinged with the disappointments of a troubled life. Yet at times Mr. Levine seemed to take these effects slightly too far. The sense of tension and expectation that his tempos occasioned can easily give way to impatience, and that began to happen toward the end of the performance.
The soloists were also a mixed success: Simon O’Neill’s tenor sounded thin against Mahler’s lush orchestral backdrop, and at times he had trouble making himself heard. Michelle DeYoung, the mezzo-soprano, was more powerful and more consistently pleasing, and in “Der Abschied,” her nuanced reading touched the core of the music.
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