Leonard Bernstein conducts Boston Symphony Orchestra in Brahms (1972)

by | Jul 16, 2008 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

Leonard Bernstein conducts Boston Symphony Orchestra in Brahms (1972)
Program: BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73; Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98
Studio: Unitel Classics DVD 2072138   [Distr. by Naxos]
Video: 4:3 Color
Audio: PCM Stereo
Extras: “Bernstein at Tanglewood”
Length: 85 minutes (Bonus: 9 minutes)
Rating: ****

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) returned to Tanglewood for a series of open rehearsals (22-23 August 1972) and a videotaped concert (25 August 1972); and he must have considered the whole a kind of homecoming, since he had been a Koussevitzky protégé in Boston back in 1940, hearing these same Brahms symphonies under the Russian master’s baton. Directed by Robert Englander, the concert before us has nothing to do with the black-tux portrait of Bernstein that graces the cover art: this is an informal, summer-fare program, the audience in casuals and Bernstein in a white coat. But there is nothing ‘informal’ about his two Brahms symphonies: they are molded, polished, and exalted in the typical Bernstein tradition of subjective sturm und drang.

Assuming a perpetual, hunched position over the orchestra, Bernstein launches into the D Major, sans first movement repeat, ‘bowing’ the lovely cello line with his baton, lifting the big cadences high over his head, calling for grandeur from horn and tympani, Dwyer’s flute a constant presence. The Adagio is all breathed phrases, a slight diminuendo followed by graduated crescendo to the first period. His left hand fluttering over his heart, Bernstein ushers in French horn and oboe antiphons, flutes, and then the violins open up the real Brahms serenade in Technicolor. The development projects that degree of sensuality intrinsic to Bernstein’s inflamed personality. French horn and basses proceed to a kind of ‘fate’ motif, with the original material having become a dirge of summer gloriously fading away.

The Allegretto’s trio section becomes quite jaunty, leading to lush sequences that trip to the da capo. The bassoon has his moment of sun, gilded by surrounding strings. The coda ripples with nostalgia. Again, the hunched back leans into the Allegro con spirito, and a mad dance this will be, given the Brahms reticence about self-abandon. When the music breaks loose, Bernstein bites his lower lip in unbuttoned canters and gallops. He punches out the tympani part in left-hand jabs. After Dwyer’s flute utters the ‘fate’ motif, Bernstein winds up the full throttle of his baton like Dizzy Dean. The camera shoots from behind the tympani and to the left of the woodwinds to capture something of Bernstein’s hectic energy that lifts the coda off the Mercator map and into the enraptured hearts of the BSO audience.

Bernstein plays the E Minor for its valedictory lyricism, the weird ‘tango’ theme ushered in via Bernstein’s left hand, the fingers spread and extended to broaden his sense of color palette from the BSO winds and strings. Dwyer’s flute invokes the soft countersubject. The first period ends with tympanic figures, Bernstein thrusting his baton like a spear from the film 300. The ‘formula’ of rising and falling triplets ceases to be geometric but rather a passionate tug of war in modal ambiguity, a point Bernstein makes in his brief ‘bonus’ video.  That Bernstein can instill cosmic mystery to this music in the middle of a summer day is itself a wonder of natural talent. The contrapuntal, syncopated coda had Bernstein winding his arms rotor-like, as steam virtually rises from the superheated string section. The ubiquitous tympani thunders the last chords, hint of Armageddon.

Phrygian E for the Andante, the camera caressing two French horns, the dotted motif molded with Bernstein’s hand over his mouth for sotto voce. Clarinet and pizzicato strings take us into an exalted world, a bittersweet series of songs that might have been sung by Francesca da Rimini. Bernstein leads with his hand over his heart.  No stinting of emotion for the contrapunctus, the broad, melodic panorama opening up as a hymn of praise, swollen with the generosity of life. Mirthful spirits for the Scherzo, the triangle doing its bit to ring in the giddy energies. Muscular, Falstaffian lines take us to the brief trio section’s three French horns, only for the da capo to explode once more. The typical ‘Bernstein possession’ has occurred, and it takes us into the Passacaglia full fury. At first, the music proceeds as dirge; then, the figures soften and become protean, leading to Dwyer’s wonderful flute variation. Straddling the podium, Bernstein wants Brahms to elicit Whitman’s “barbaric yawp” in the midst of these ‘learned’ musical procedures. For the last five minutes of the symphony, Bernstein’s baton becomes a priapic extension of his body, a tribute to musical testosterone combined with virile, mental power. The last chords bring down a hypnotized house.

The bonus track has Bernstein narrate a brief history of Tanglewood, particularly as the dream-child of Serge Koussevitzky to have a music center that was no less a learning academy. Bernstein smokes and converses with a handful of conducting students, arguing that music history is one of ambiguity, and as that ambivalence dominated, tonality itself had to give way. It is a necessary luxury for students to have access to a full symphony orchestra to learn their trade. Stills of 1940 Tanglewood show a young Bernstein among the first Koussevitzky class in conducting. Later, we see the reserve of composers who took residence at Tanglewood, to ensure that composition as well as performance was cherished at this remarkable center. For Bernstein to lead the Brahms symphonies is to repay the memories of Koussevitzky’s inspired guidance in these precious scores.

–Gary Lemco

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