Seiji Ozawa Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake was the first of Tchaikovsky's three great ballets– works which added a new level of depth and sophistication to what had been a purely superficial art form. Today the music is so well-known and popular that it's impossible to comprehend the difficulties the composer experienced at early performances. Audiences found the music "too symphonic," and the dancers were put off by the prominence given to the orchestra which, they felt, distracted ballet fans from the action on stage. Of course, all of these supposed "defects" are precisely what we admire about the music today, and this elegant but exciting performance reveals the music in all of its glory.

A "triumph of remembrance," wrote Die Welt following this stirring concert given by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Seiji Ozawa and with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist. It left its audience hovering between hushed reverence and deafening exultation. The Golden Hall of Vienna's Musikverein was the dazzling venue for the live recoding of this concert celebrating the 100th anniversary of Herbert Von Karajan's birth. And Karajan's "Berliners" never sounded better, according to the Frankfuter Allgemeine Zeitung, evoking "a time which self-confidently sought the private and subjective in music, and believed it could find them in the mirror of the works."

Das war ein Abend, wie Opernfreunde ihn lieben: Tschaikowskis »Pique Dame«, ein Werk des Repertoires und doch selten gespielt, ein Ensemble nicht nur berühmter Namen, sondern großer Singschauspieler, dazu ein Dirigent der Sonderklasse – eine Aufführung, wie sie auch an einem Haus wie der Wiener Staatsoper nicht zum »Alltag« gehört. Der Erfolg der Aufführung, der Jubel waren gleichsam vorprogrammiert. Zumal die Wiener Staatsoper ihrem Publikum noch eine ganz besondere Attraktion anzubieten hatte: Im Mittelpunkt des Abends und schier endloser Ovationen stand eine der großen Heroinen der Opernbühne, Martha Mödl, die hier in den Fünfziger- und Sechzigerjahren des Jahrhunderts als Leonore in Beethovens »Fidelio«, als Isolde und Brünnhilde, aber auch in so manchen Partien des dramatischen Mezzofachs Triumphe gefeiert hatte.

The 2nd of September 2010 marks Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s 75th birthday.
This new 11-CD set presents Seiji Ozawa in a wide variety of symphonic repertory with the orchestra’s with which he has been most closely associated since the early 1970s – from the San Francisco Symphony in 1972 in a programme of music centred round Romeo and Juliet, through his twenty-nine years at the Boston Symphony, to the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan – a celebration of a truly international Maestro.

This is the seemingly unavoidable Sibelius/Tchaikovsky pairing, one that has launched many a young career. Itzhak Perlman recorded these very same pieces for his own debut album on RCA, and with this very orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf. That's a fine disc, but Perlman would later surpass those efforts in later recordings. Nor do I find Leinsdorf an ideal partner, with the comically booming percussion in the Sibelius perhaps the biggest audible gaffe. These current readings are much more satisfying overall. Mullova has not redone these pieces, nor is she prone to recording much at all, so these early efforts deserve credit for holding up so well.

Seiji Ozawa was the first Asian conductor to rise to international stardom. After his Koussivitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he honed his skills as assistant to Leonard Bernstein in New York and Herbert von Karajan in Berlin. Directorships of the Nissei Theatre in Tokyo, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera followed. In 2016 he withdrew from the international scene to Japan, dedicating his time to the Mito Chamber Orchestra and to teaching.

The late Mstislav Rostropovich and Seiji Ozawa deliver probably the greatest digital recording of the Dvorak concerto. For those familiar with the analog Karajan/Rostropovich recording, this digital recording finds the soloist creating a similar impression married with a more supportive Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. Karajan's creamy string sound and often overly-dramatic stylization is replaced here by Ozawa's stricter approach; his handling of the orchestra is masterful in this taught, precise reading. The legendary Boston Symphony responds resplendently and, although they may not highlight the rustic Czech idiom of this music, they certainly bring much charm, warmth, and expected musicality to the accompaniment. But enough about the orchestra - on to Rostropovich.