Carnegie Hall: James Levine Conducts Brahms and Berlioz

Yesterday, I went to Carnegie Hall for the last scheduled concert of the regular season, and the afternoon certainly provided a fitting finale to the wonderful performances I've seen these past several months.  James Levine was at his best as he led the Met Orchestra in renditions of works by two of the nineteenth century's most important composers, Brahms and Berlioz.  A connecting thread between these artists, so dissimilar at first glance, was that both were heavily influenced by their feelings for two very different women while writing their respective pieces.

The program opened with Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 (1858).  The composer was still only 21 years old when he began work on the first movement in 1854.  Only the year before he had been introduced, by means of a letter from violinist Joseph Joachim, to Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, and this proved to be a turning point in his life.  Robert's involuntary commitment to an asylum, also in 1854, could not but have weighed heavily on Brahms's mind as he composed this piece.  Robert in fact died in the asylum in 1856 before the work was finished.  In his place, it was Joachim who so carefully advised Brahms on the writing of the concerto that the young composer eventually discarded the second and third movements he had originally written and replaced them with an adagio and a rondo.  As late as 1858 Joachim was still revising and reorchestrating Brahms's work.

If Brahms, who was always meticulous in the composition of his works, seemed ambivalent about the structure of his concerto, it was not only because this was his first orchestral work but also because Brahms was extremely self conscious that he was working in the shadow of Beethoven, at least as far as public expectations were concerned.  The composer displayed in creating the concerto all the self-doubt and hesitation that would prevent him from completing a symphony for another twenty years.  The present work was in fact initially conceived as a sonata for two pianos and then as a full symphony before Brahms ultimately decided that it should be a concerto.  At this point, he sought the advice of his more experienced fellow music student Julius Grimm regarding the orchestration before then going on to ask Joachim for his advice.

Looming behind the creation of the concerto, though, was the figure of Clara Schumann for whom Brahms harbored feelings that were, to say the least, conflicted.  In 1856, while still in the midst of work on the piece, Brahms wrote to Clara:

"I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you, and do as many good things for you, as you would like. You are so infinitely dear to me that I can hardly express it. I should like to call you darling and lots of other names, without ever getting enough of adoring you."

It was Clara's approval Brahms had sought above all others, even that of Joachim, and one can imagine that the 1861 performance in Hamburg at which Brahms conducted and Clara was soloist was the goal he had had in mind all along.  It must to an extent have been for him the realization of a romantic fantasy even though that performance, like most of those that had preceded it, ended in humiliating failure.

If the Brahms concerto was not particularly well received at its premiere or at several subsequent performances, it has since become a staple of the repertoire and an opportunity for pianists to display their skill.  Yesterday, it was given the finest performance imaginable with Yefim Bronfman as soloist.  Though the pianist is best known for his interpretations of the Russian repertoire, he displayed complete mastery of the Brahms.  His performance of the concerto was a tour de force that brought the sold out audience to its feet.

After intermission, the afternoon ended with a performance of that work of unbridled passion, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (1830).  I've always considered this a perfect example of what an artist can accomplish when driven by unrequited love, not to mention the hallucinatory effects of opium.  In this sense, its subtitle épisode de la vie d'un artiste is perfectly appropriate.  Though Berlioz's relationship with Harriet Smithson may ultimately have ended badly for them both, it will remain forever memorialized in this unique opus that has since found a permanent niche in the symphonic repertoire.  That certainly that should be enough to justify any heartbreak and emotional suffering the composer had to endure along the way.

The work offered a fascinating contrast to the Brahms concerto that had preceded it.  Although both composers are customarily referred to as Romantics, their approach to music could not have been more dissimilar.  Brahms, no matter how deep his feeling for Clara Schumann - and he was obviously in love with her on some level - was the ultimate craftsman and was often criticized for being too academic in his approach to music (a reservation I myself have often shared when listening to his work).  As mentioned, he was always morbidly conscious of what Beethoven had achieved before him and in his own works, notably the First Symphony, often included references to the master's symphonies.  Berlioz, on the other hand, was held so tightly in the grip of passion and drug addiction that he threw tradition out the window and instead came up with a work so innovative it owed little to the classical symphonies that had preceded it.  It is hard to believe when listening to it that its 1830 premiere came only six years after that of Beethoven's Ninth.  In a sense, Berlioz was looking forward while Brahms kept his gaze steadily fixed on the past.

This was the last concert given by the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for a full year.  Their season certainly ended on a high note.  At the conclusion of the second half, the entire audience remained at the places to give James Levine a long standing ovation as he returned to the stage in his wheelchair to take one bow after another and to point out to the audience those members of the orchestra he felt most deserved their accolades.

Although the orchestra will once again be scheduling its annual subscription series next season, all the concerts will be in a single week in May after the opera season has ended.  It should be worth the wait.  I consider this the best orchestra, and Levine the best conductor, in the world and am greatly looking forward to those 2016 concerts which will feature such soloists as Renée Fleming and Evgeny Kissin.