Maazel's Wagner
As a homage to Pittsburgh native Lorin Maazel, Music Director of the PSO from 1984 to 1996, I'd like to compare several Wagner recordings, most by Maazel but some by others. My colleagues who play in the PSO uniformly tell me that the orchestra owes its current world-class musicality--its precision, its string tone, its nimbleness--to Maazel. Toward the end of his long career, Maazel began to record a great deal of Wagner. Toward the beginning, he had been the first American to conduct at Bayreuth, in 1960.
The recordings I will compare are his PSO Tannhäuser, his Philharmonia Tannhäuser, and Andrew Davis's Tannhäuser; and his PSO Walküre with his Berlin Philharmonic Walküre. Later I will write more on Wagner, perhaps the symphony's historic touchstone of its central European core.
Let me begin with the most recent overture to Tannhäuser, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in 2006 and heard on the PSO's own label under the title "Let's Make Music Together!" The recording is a tour-de-force of orchestral virtuosity and sonic splendor. The opening horns sound soft and gorgeous; the string entrance is surprisingly clear, clean, and lush; the Venusberg music is stunningly precise; the clarinet solo a moment of perfection.
Upon reflection, however, I realized I was bamboozled. My attention was given over to the virtuosity and distracted from what matters--the emotional content. This performance showcases the brilliance of the PSO, but like a photorealistic painting, it elicits wonder over how it was realized before it elicits the question "Why bother?" Upon closer inspection, the "perfection" works against the music, as a uniform, inflexible sculpture in steel would lose nuance in comparison to the same sculpture in wood, where the varied grain and texture may add greater interest. With this in mind, Davis's shortcomings are heard in the tempos that sound more robotic than romantic. Phrases are not sculpted to change character from one to the next, nor in the middle, nor are they delineated with dynamics or a slight pause. Despite this performance's astonishing sonic glory, it lacks Wagnerian passion and mystery. The orchestra shines while revealing the shallowness of the conductor.
[...more to come...]
