{"id":14513,"date":"2013-11-15T12:45:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T16:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=14513"},"modified":"2014-03-15T17:47:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T21:47:16","slug":"whatever-happened-to-mtt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=14513","title":{"rendered":"Whatever Happened to MTT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve blown hot and cold on Michael Tilson Thomas\u2019s considerable abilities over the years. I vividly recall a masterful\u00a0Ein Heldenleben <\/i>(10\/9\/02) and an emotionally affecting Das Lied von der Erde <\/i>(2\/13\/02) at Carnegie Hall with the San Francisco Symphony, of which he has been music director since 1995 and raised to one of the top seven orchestras in the country. His late-1970s recordings with the Buffalo Philharmonic of the complete music of the American master Carl Ruggles (Other Minds CD) will likely never be equaled. His irresistible programs, frequently of 20th-century American and Russian music, have drawn me to his concerts every season despite his tendency to interpretive fussiness and self regard. In Thomas\u2019s curiously muted Carnegie concert on Wednesday (11\/13), for instance, works by Beethoven, Steven Mackey, Mozart, and Copland perplexed to a degree I don\u2019t previously recall. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019s apparent aim for a beautiful, unforced orchestral sonority \u00e0 la Herbert von Karajan dulled both the lyricism and triumph of Beethoven\u2019s Leonore<\/i> Overture No. 3. In Mackey\u2019s program note for his playfully orchestrated Eating Greens <\/i>(1993), he aspires to join \u201ca tradition of American \u2018crackpot inventors\u2019 \u201d led by Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Lou Harrison, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Harry Partch, and Conlon Nancarrow. The music had no chance in Thomas\u2019s devitalized performance, however, which lacked any semblance of sparkle, wit, or crackpottery. Bernstein might have pulled it off if he had cared or lived long enough. Mozart\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 25 with Jeremy Denk seemed a near complete mismatch of minds. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Only in Copland\u2019s Symphonic Ode <\/i>(1927-29; revised 1955) did Thomas demonstrate commitment. It\u2019s a piece he reveres and has recorded with distinction. It was a favorite of Copland\u2019s too\u2014an attempt to compose \u201cpurer, non-programmatic\u201d music after his jazz-inflected works of the 1920s, following his return to the U.S. after studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. But it\u2019s not top-drawer Copland. Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony couldn’t master the difficult\u00a0rhythms, and the premiere was postponed for revisions. These days, such “difficulties” are second nature to such virtuoso conductors and players as Thomas and his San Franciscans, but audiences have never warmed to either this piece or\u00a0this period of Copland’s works. As in the evening’s previous performances, applause was perfunctory. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By the mid-\u201930s Copland had moved on to his folk-nationalist \u201cAmerican\u201d period, and in an encore\u00a0Thomas at last unleashed his San Francisco players\u2019 inherent splendor with\u00a0 the Hoe Down from the composer\u2019s ever-popular Rodeo<\/i>. The audience went wild.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n