MUSICALAMERICA.COM
July 23, 2002

FESTIVE FINALE AT THE NY PHIL
By Shirley Fleming

NEW YORK -- Nobody expected depth in Kurt Masur's final concert with the New York Philharmonic on Thursday, billed not only as a farewell but as a 75th birthday party, televised on Live from Lincoln Center. No matter. Avery Fisher Hall set the festive tone with colored banners festooning the stage, and that hostess non pareil, Beverly Sills, was onstage to introduce each piece and tie each into some aspect of Kurt Masur's life — sometimes tenuously indeed but all in the spirit of good will.

The first half hour of the program was a grab-bag of short selections designed to give solo shots to first-desk players, and it skated over a lot of territory very quickly. By the time we had heard the Introduction to Act III of Weber's "Der Freischüz" (a bang-up showcase for the horn section), Joseph Turrin's Fandango for Trumpet and Trombone, a Dittersdorf movement for viola and double bass, and a movement from Bach's D minor concerto for two violins, not to mention the opening "Candide" overture played without conductor as a salute to Leonard Bernstein, it seemed time to slow down a bit and dig a little deeper.

And so it transpired. The Nocturne and Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" provided smooth beauty and nimble orchestral footwork; principals Glenn Dicterow and Carter Brey poured their all into the finale of Brahms's Concerto for Violin and Cello; the Introduction to Act II, part 2 of "Madama Butterfly" focused nicely on the woodwind players. The program's closing works — the "Festival at Baghdad" from Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" and Ravel's "Bolero" — were crowd-pleasers in the best sense of the word, and exerted their customary spell.

Masur took the microphone to announce the encores and express his thanks for "this birthday salute to an old guy of 75." He encouraged the audience to shout out a couple of rhythmic responses to "Mambo" from "West Side Story," he offered a sprightly selection from Johann Strauss Jr., and — most effective of all — he began to conduct the strings in Bach's Air on the G String and after a few measures left the stage as the strings continued to play.

And so eleven years of Masur's productive, autocratic leadership came to a close. It is widely known that he wanted to stay on, and that the board's refusal to extend his contract angered him; he made no secret of it. Nor is it a secret that the players found him difficult, dictatorial, even "brutal" in rehearsal ("Over the years the scar tissue built up with most of us," a player said). But on one thing they agree: the orchestra plays on a far higher level than it did a decade ago. "We're more of a unit," concertmaster Dicterow told this writer. "We listen to each other more, we breathe together, there's an esprit de corps amongst us. It's just a tighter situation here than it once was."

As for Masur, he merely hinted at strained relationships in an interview with this writer some months ago. "As I started with the orchestra it was not easy. It is a great orchestra with great personalities. And they are still in it, still great personalities. But they understood that all I wanted was to work together for quality, for responsibility toward the composer, for meaningful interpretations. We will miss each other. But for me, what I have shared with the New York Philharmonic is a crown to my life."

It's not goodbye forever: Masur returns for a three-week stint as guest conductor next April.