Masur makes beautiful music
Masur honors the memory of M.L.King
The two pieces that make up this weekend's Cleveland Orchestra program under
guest conductor Kurt Masur in Severance Hall give eloquent testimony to the
power of music to make what is unbearable not only bearable but beautiful, too.
The pieces have much in common. First comes an elegy for the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. by Canadian composer Oskar Morawetz, with the orchestra's
principal cellist, Stephen Geber, as soloist. Then, after intermission, Masur leads Mahler's ninth symphony, the composer's
elegy for his own mortality. It is interesting to realize that Mahler and Morawetz, though separated by
many years in time, came from towns very close to each other in Bohemia.
Heartfelt Music by Morawetz
Morawetz's Memorial to Martin Luther King sets the cello solo off
against the orchestra as a kind of rhapsodic singer or commentator, very much
the way Ernest Bloch used the same instrument in Schelomo. But Morawetz
makes the contrast sharper by banishing all other stringed instruments from the
stage and limiting himself to winds, brass and percussion.
The idiom is passionate yet basically tonal, imaginative rather than overtly
pictorial. The solo cello laments at length, there is a kind of sinister march
leading up to the fatal shot, a wild outburst of grief, a passionate funeral
march based on the tune of the now-famous spiritual Free at Last, a final
outburst of protest and finally, a soft, philosophic conclusion.
It is a beautiful work, concise in design, heartfelt in expression and
traditional enough in its language to reach the layman.
At last night's concert, the piece benefited from a beautiful performance by
Geber, who produced a lovely singing cello tone, and by the orchestral wind
players, particularly the trumpets, who played their lines as though they were a
choir of violins.
Morawetz sets himself a difficult task by limiting his orchestra in the way
he did, but he brought the trick off. More important, he made a genuine and
beautiful personal statement of grief and protest. He was present last night to
share the applause with Geber, Masur and the players. Masur had obviously gotten
deeply inside the piece and he made it come alive in performance.
Passionate Commitment to Mahler
If the evening's two composers had a lot in common, one thing they certainly
did not have in common was their attitude toward length. Morawetz compressed an
elaborate musical scenario and a lot of emotion into 20 minutes; Mahler in the
ninth symphony let it sprawl out over almost 80 minutes.
[...]
This splendid program (which is repeated tonight and tomorrow) is the perfect
illustration of how and why music makes difficult emotions bearable by
transmuting them into art. Both these pieces, in their different ways, move us
almost in spite of ourselves. In the hands of a fine conductor and splendid
players, they leave us drained but grateful.
