![\"Members](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/scoresMPhil.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
By ANDREW POWELL MUNICH \u2014 In eight days in May 2004, as a kind of audition for the post of principal conductor, Valery Gergiev<\/a> drove the London Symphony Orchestra brilliantly, if roughly, through recorded concerts of all of Prokofiev\u2019s symphonies. Acclaim ensued, he got the job, and two years later the hasty, also electrifying and poignant, cycle rolled out on Philips CDs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now that Gergiev is headed here as Chefdirigent<\/i> of the Munich Philharmonic<\/a>, his attention is on Stravinsky. Only this time he already has the job, from Sept. 2015. And while Gergiev can<\/i> be effective in this composer\u2019s music too, he isn\u2019t always, as Sedgwick Clark recently noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n Munich\u2019s Stravinsky cycle, if that is what it turns out to be, got off to a sad start Dec. 18. On the program, at the orchestra\u2019s crooked Gasteig<\/a> home, four French-name works: L\u2019oiseau de feu<\/i> (1910), Symphonies d\u2019instruments \u00e0 vent<\/i> (1920), and the cantatas Le roi des \u00e9toiles<\/i> (1912) and Les noces<\/i> (1923).<\/p>\n Technically it was a good night. The orchestra and the pianists played well, the singing had discipline. Microphones presumably were turned on.<\/p>\n Artistically, though, nothing much happened, above all in the popular ballet score, which coasted vacantly and sounded headless, as if the orchestra members had crafted an interpretation by themselves.<\/p>\n The inspired Les noces<\/i> should have been a treat, with four Mariinsky singers on hand (soprano Irina Vasilieva<\/a>, mezzo-soprano Olga Savova<\/a>, tenor Alexander Timchenko<\/a> and bass Ilya Bannik<\/a>), but Gergiev operated merely as traffic cop. Visceral bite in the score counted for little, despite robust contributions from Vasilieva and Savova and the energy of pianists Sergei Babayan<\/a>, Dmitri Levkovich<\/a>, Marina Radiushina<\/a> and Andrius Zlabys<\/a>, plus able percussionists. Adding to the woe, the cantata\u2019s torrent of words blurred in the wide, fan-shaped auditorium.<\/p>\n Although perfectly intoned, the Symphonies<\/i> suffered from blunting of essential rhythmic impulses. Only the brief King of the Stars (\u0417\u0432\u0435\u0437\u0434\u043e\u043b\u0438\u043a\u0438\u0439<\/i>, actually Star Face)<\/i> brought satisfaction, its alien harmonies and odd temporal properties carefully managed.<\/p>\n But who knows? Recordings may paint a more enthralling, or at any rate clearer, picture of this first regular-program collaboration of the Munich Philharmonic and the boss-to-be since the January 2013 announcement<\/a> of his hire. And there is always hope for the cycle\u2019s second installment.<\/p>\n The concert, not incidentally, was beset by unnerving circumstance. A testy news conference the previous afternoon (Dec. 17); a human rights protest in the form of a Putin-Gergiev pantomime<\/a> on the Gasteig\u2019s forecourt, watched by hundreds of arriving concertgoers; the unrealized menace of heckling during the music; daytime pressure from City of Munich politicians; and, not least, a week of frenzy<\/a> for the maestro before he even landed here \u2014 all amount to another discussion.<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 Wild und Leise<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: March 27, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMaestro, 62, Outruns Players<\/a>
\nTrifonov\u2019s Rach 3 Cocktail<\/a>
\nGergiev, Munich\u2019s Mistake<\/a>
\nAntonini Works Alcina\u2019s Magic<\/a>
\nJansons Turns 75<\/a><\/p>\n