THE NEW YORK SUN
July 22, 2002

KURT MASUR SAYS GOODBYE
by Jay Nordlinger

There was a lot packed into Thursday night's concert at Avery Fisher Hall: Kurt Masur's farewell to New York; his 75th birthday, and the end of the 25th season of "Live from Lincoln Center," on PBS. The hall was certainly decked out for the occasion, with colorful streamers, a riot of flowers, and Beverly Sills, America's diva. She played hostess for the event, as she's wont to do on PBS. She was witty and poised, and still a daughter of Brooklyn: "music directuh," she said; "Gustav Mahluh."

The program was an unusual one, composed of bits and movements. Maestro Masur said in his (very personal) program notes that he'd never permitted "single movements excerpted from great masterpieces" before, but wanted to make an exception, in order to "spotlight the mastery of the members of this Orchestra." Mr. Masur showed his generosity to the end: the focus was on the players, not the great podium sage at the close of an important tenure. He picked unusual repertoire — such as Dittersdorf's Sinfonia concertante for viola and double bass — so as to showcase as many players as possible. This was a farewell marked with class.

The show began with Bernstein's "Candide" Overture, another example of generosity, in that this outgoing conductor honored a predecessor. This orchestra played without conductor, as it had when Bernstein died. This is not an experiment — conductorless orchestral playing — to be repeated often.

Then is was on to some Carl Maria von Weber, the Introduction to Act III of his "Der Freischütz," an ultra- — almost comically — Germanic piece, as Miss Sills pointed out, highlighting the horn section. Really fine was the performance that followed, of Joseph Turrin's "Fandango" for trumpet and trombone. This is a delightful Latin-jazzy thing, written for Philip Smith (principal trumpet) and Joseph Alessi (principal trombone). They played gorgeously, glowingly, without a hint of a blare — all virtuosity and limberness. If more trombonists made that instrument sound as Mr. Alessi does, perhaps we'd have more music for trombone.

The Largo (ma non tanto) from Bach's double violin concerto is a favorite gala piece, and one of the loveliest slow movements Bach ever wrote (or that, therefore, anyone ever wrote). It is often played soupily, transformed into high-class elevator music. Needless to say, Mr. Masur would have none of this, and neither, consequently, would his soloists, Sheryl Staples and Michelle Kim. The music was beautiful and heartfelt — how could it not be? — but didn't drown.

Next came the Nocturne and Scherzo from Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Mr. Masur likes to point out that Mendelssohn was his fellow Leipziger (as was Bach). The Nocturne was meant to showcase Philip Myers, the principal hornist whose playing, as here, doesn't always match the huge enthusiasm for it. In the Scherzo, the Philharmonic's woodwinds were typically deft.

Soloists in the final movement of Brahms's double concerto were Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster, and Carter Brey, the first cellist. Mr. Dicterow was not at his best, rather ragged and scratchy; Mr. Brey was smooth and nimble.

Quite unusual to hear was the Introduction to Act II, Part 2, of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." Mr. Masur wished to include it because it was the last opera in which his wife, Tomoko, sang. It's not every day — it's pretty much never — that you hear a symphony orchestra like the Philharmonic play Puccini. They gave this dreamy music sweep and beauty — and Mr. Myers, by the way, played superbly.

Then came the "Festival at Baghdad" from Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade," a piece that Mr. Masur loves, and about which he has decided views. He leads it with great Germanic discipline, driving certain critics nuts. But this music — sprawling and rhapsodic — can benefit from a strong hand; Mr. Masur treats it more of less as he would the Egmont Overture — to stirring, renewing effect. Glenn Dicterow played well, and so did everyone else, in the best performance of the night...until the closing piece on the printed program, which was Ravel's "Boléro."

This is not normally considered Masur territory, but it should be. (The conductor remarked in his notes that the inclusion of "Boléro" pointed him toward his upcoming tenure with the Orchestre National de France.) Even more than the Russian "Scheherazade," the Ravel piece benefits from Masurian tough love. It was tight and thrilling, functioning just the way the composer wanted it to.

Racing against PBS's clock, the departing maestro offered three encores, beginning with more Bernstein — and more generosity — continuing with a little piece by Johann Strauss the Younger ("The Egyptian March," in which some members of the Philharmonic actually sang, and not well), and ending with Bach's other-worldly "Air on a G String." Mr. Masur pointed out, before beginning the piece, that the Bach "purists" would consider him "criminal" for performing this music with a big-orchestra string section — and the fact the this conductor disregards such folks is part of what makes him an invaluable music director. Toward the end of the piece, Mr. Masur left the podium, leaving the players in the spotlight, finishing themselves, as though to say: "This orchestra is more important than the man who happens to have the conductor's job."

Lorin Maazel begins that job in the fall. He will be handed an orchestra in unquestionably fine shape. In 1972, he was handed perhaps the best orchestra in the world, the Cleveland Orchestra, taken to the heights by George Szell. Many of us believe that the 1970s were a sad comedown in Cleveland. New York audiences, by now, have high expectations from their Philharmonic, whose standards were immediately raised, and then maintained, by Kurt Masur. Some of us are nervous. But who knows? Music is, among other things, an adventure.