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Reviews of Lance's Tanglewood Festival Chorus Performances |
  
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MUSIC REVIEW
The news was the American premiere of a new edition of the ''Slavonic Mass'' of Leos Janacek. Scholar Paul Wingfield has restored some rhythmic complexities that were simplified before the first performance and reintroduced difficult material that was cut from the Credo and the Sanctus. In addition he honors Janacek's instruction that the Intrada appear both at the opening and closing of the work rather than in the position that has become traditional between the Gloria and the Credo.
Rattle, who has conducted the standard version many times, believes the ''Slavonic Mass'' is the greatest choral work of this century, and it is certainly one of them. The result of the changes and restorations is to make a thrilling work even more dramatic in shape and vigorous in content. In its combination of splendor, archaism, and immediacy this work isn't like anything else in music, even Janacek's music; its music surges like a force of nature, and it has a dark undertow in it too. The performance was an extraordinary event that brought the audience to its feet.
Singing in Old Slavonic, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was secure, vibrant, engaged, mysterious, and meaningful. There was a strong solo team in which the Polish soprano Elzbieta Szmytka and the British tenor John Mitchinson were outstanding - Mitchinson, now 65, was soloist in the BSO premiere 20 years ago, but he retains a wonderful resonance at the highest altitude of his range. James David Christie delivered a dynamic performance of the terrifying organ solo, playing straight through the limitations of the decaying Symphony Hall instrument. The orchestral performance was of coruscating brilliance, propelled by Everett Firth's heartbeat timpani. Rattle has always had a special affinity for Janacek, and chose a suite from the composer's opera ''The Cunning Little Vixen'' for his first engagement here in 1983. He has done nothing better here than the ''Slavonic Mass,'' which he led with an exhilarating firmness of rhythm that communicated the radiant, unshakeable faith of the composer's vision.
Janacek is now universally regarded as one of the century's greatest composers, a view few would have put forward during his lifetime. The Polish master Karel Szymanowski, 28 years younger, now seems to be coming into his own the way Janacek did a generation ago, although they are very different composers, despite the strong nationalistic current that runs through the work of each of them. Szymanowski is a composer of rare subtlety and refinement - imagine Bartok crossed with Faure. His ''Stabat Mater'' is a work of contemplative rapture, tough-minded but marked by a compassion so encompassing that it becomes serene. Rattle secured a glowing performance of this work, which featured comforting tones from mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson and singing of unforgettable poignancy from the copper-headed Szmytka, who looks like Piaf or Stratas, and uses her voice with comparable imagination and intensity - she sounded like an overtone of the orchestra, a still, small voice speaking from the center of flame. Bass Michail Ryssov was loud, woofy, and insecure, not an attractive combination of qualities.
This was God's plenty, but there was more: The concert opened with a wonderfully lilting performance of the Dvorak Wind Serenade, music that placed us in the landscapes that helped nurture the visions that followed.
This story ran on page D07 of the Boston Globe on 01/09/98.
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ir Simon Rattle made his seasonal return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra last night with a pair of choral masterworks from Central Europe that stirred the soul. 
