Under Morlot, the BSO sounded mellow and delectable, which has been a characteristic it has maintained under any number of different types of music director over the years. This is also a very American orchestra, long a champion of new and American music. In fact, Serge Koussevitzky’s 1939 BSO recording of Roy Harris’ Third Symphony is the only classical inductee for 2012 in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
What Levine brought to Boston was a sumptuousness of texture, a fullness that was, if not new (Leonard Bernstein got a very sexy sound from this refined orchestra as well), certainly remarkable. That kind of intensity is what the Brahms concerto needed. The orchestra was creamy, and Shaham, his tone pure honey, had the violin solo passages slipping and sliding through all that Bostonian smoothness. But the lack of weight made the concerto feel like a musical oyster slithering down the throat with no beer to wash it down.
After intermission, Harbison’s symphony and Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloé” Suite No. 2 better showed just what a splendid ensemble this is. Harbison wrote his Fourth, which is dated 2003, directly after his opera, “The Great Gatsby.” A rhythmically spicy first of five movements begins in the jazz-remembered age where “Gatsby” left off. In an Intermezzo that follows, mellow metal and wood percussion begin a new journey. The deepest movement is a Threnody, which begins with sentimental strings but soon achieves a suitably tortured nature. The Finale returns to the “Gatsby”-ish opening — transformed, Harbison wrote in a program note, into something “somewhat callous.”
It is a satisfying symphony. Harbison doesn’t let old forms (there are hints even of waltz and march) work in old ways. The makeovers are subtle and disconcerting. What makes Harbison’s music moving is that familiar ground is not necessarily stable ground.
Morlot conducted a crack performance. The BSO’s long intimacy with Stravinsky (it gave the U.S. premiere of “Rite of Spring” and commissioned “Symphony of Psalms”), Bartók (it commissioned the Concerto for Orchestra), Copland and Bernstein was evident in a crisp yet colorful alertness that signaled not just professionalism but also a sense that this is music that means something.
The “Daphnis” suite dazzled. The winds, chirping like birds and providing the splashing sounds of nymphs in frolic, were extraordinary. The suave strings were more French than the French. The Boston brass presented a magical power of boldness in containment.
Levine, who recorded the complete Ravel ballet with the BSO, went for something heady and orgiastic. Morlot didn’t go there, seeming content with sparkle and sizzle. It’s a tradeoff, if an impressive and honest one.
The encore was Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture, played with all the winning verve in the world. But it was the wrong encore. This was the perfect time for one of the orchestra’s Carter specialties — say the three-minute “A Celebration of Some 100 x 150 Notes” — two hours before a historic American birthday barely noticed outside New York and Boston.
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— Mark Swed
Photo: (Above) Ludovic Morlot conducts the Boston Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Below) Violinist Gil Shaham. Credit: Anne Cusack/ Los Angeles Times.
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