Fleisher returns as an old masterBy Andrew L. Pincus
Special to The Eagle
LENOX -- Some Tanglewood students and visitors walking past the Leon Fleisher Carriage House must wonder who this Fleisher was. Did he give the money for the building, which serves as the Tanglewood Music Center's headquarters?
Wonder no more, friends. Warmly received by the applauding members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leon Fleisher returned to the Tanglewood stage Saturday night for the first time in seven years. Now 75, he is still -- or even more -- the philosopher-pianist that he was before and during his 12 years as the school's artistic director.
Fleisher's return was cause for celebration, not least because the BSO administration evidently sought to bury some of the rancor still remaining from his rough treatment by Seiji Ozawa, who forced him out in 1997 as the school's presiding spirit. But there was also cause for regret.
In the seven-year hiatus, Fleisher resumed a once-brilliant career as a two-handed pianist, thanks to Botox injections that gave him back the use of his crippled right hand. The work the BSO chose for him to play, however, was Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand, Fleisher's signature piece during his 30-plus years of wandering in a pianistic desert.
Too bad it couldn't have been one of the big two-hand concertos -- say, one of the Brahms concertos, which he has resumed playing. His recordings of those masterworks still set a standard.
Well, Fleisher always was a better pianist with one hand than some of those with two hands, and his performance of the Ravel was, if anything, more penetrating than ever.
Despite flashes of brilliance and touches of jazz, this concise concerto goes to dark places that Ravel rarely visited elsewhere in his music.
The depth of feeling was immediately evident in Fleisher's opening solo, which matched in power -- but not in bluntness -- the huge buildup in the orchestra's introduction under conductor Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos.
The whole performance, in fact, was something of a mismatch. Fleisher had the massive technical difficulties easily in hand. But where he was allusive and suggestive, Fruehbeck apparently wanted to make a clear statement. The mysterious march sequence turned downright sinister. A panther's stealthy grace went up against a bear's lumbering gait.
With any luck, Fleisher will be back -- let's hope as a two-handed pianist.
For the rest of the all-Ravel program, Fruehbeck conducted a more typical work, the complete "Daphnis et Chloe" ballet music.
This was not a typical performance, heaving and billowing in the evening air. Instead, Fruehbeck kept the hour-long work moving along with rhythmic tautness. He apparently tried to overcome the usual longueurs.
Unfortunately, the execution was not up to the conception, possibly because of the short rehearsal time for new ways. The orchestral work was uneven, and in this lushest of symphonic works, the sound was monochromatic. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, however, was in its element in its wordless ecstasies. Elizabeth Ostling acquitted herself well in the big flute solo.
More distinguished piano playing, but of a different order, came yesterday afternoon from Emanuel Ax in Mozart's last piano concerto, No. 27.
There is a gentleness of spirit at the heart of Ax's playing, and it dovetailed beautifully with Mozart's mellow view of the world's follies.
Even when the music and performance turned lively or dramatic, finely shaded nuances sustained the mood. A sudden slowing and hush for the first-movement development was magical. So was the entire slow movement in its moonlit glow. Each entry of the finale's rondo theme turned a different smiling face to the world.
Ax received sympathetic support from a reduced orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher, a German who followed up his impressive debut with the student orchestra last week with a comparable Tanglewood debut with parent BSO. He also led a strongly characterized performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute" Overture.
The program, which enjoyed (if that's the word) a continuous accompaniment of chirps and cheeps from the Shed's resident birds, ended with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, a work that seems to have fallen out of the repertoire.
Metzmacher made a good case for bringing it back. The performance bristled with satirical thrusts, as Shostakovich must. It shouted and screamed. It pounded out its furies in Timothy Genis' eloquent timpani outburst. But it also descended into the angst that was to become a hallmark of Shostakovich's later music.
Not bad for a 19-year-old composer. Not bad for a podium debut. Not bad for a weekend finale.
The BSO reported opening-week attendance as 28,649, an increase over 17,352 last year, when there were fewer classical concerts. There were 1,008 Tuesday, 1,440 Thursday, 7,551 Friday, 3,004 at the open rehearsal, 7,156 Saturday and 8,490 yesterday.
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