3.6.3 The Changing of the Avant-Guard

Conductor Lawrence Renes and violinist Leonidas Kavakos joined the Seattle SO at Benaroya Hall this afternoon for a program of Brahms, Bartók and Stravinsky. Renes’ conducting is quite workable; the group stayed together and, notwithstanding a slightly hesitant start to the first of the two Hungarian Dances (5 and 6), they played quite brilliantly for the whole show.

Thinking back over decades of recordings of Béla Bartók’s music, it is interesting to observe the slow evolution of musical interpretation. What began as fearsome uncharted territory, filled with rugged mountains of clangorous chords and dense forests of dissonant counterpoint, explored only by the most adventurous few, has now been paved with sonic superhighways from which to see its views from tour-bus comfort, dotted with the cozy familiar sights of fast food joints and real live Hungarian local color. Perhaps it is only because performers simply did not understand his music in the old days that every rendition was something new, something scratchy, noisy, angularly unique. Today’s performers, born and bred on the sounds of Bartok know his every nuance, every orchestral color, are familiar with every turn of phrase and every asymmetric rhythm. What used to be avant-guard is now merely good ol’ Béla. And while Schoenberg’s broad romantic phrases are still butchered by those who suspect his music to be nothing but noise, and thus play it that way, Bartok’s beautiful noises are being gentrified, smoothed over, and turned to porridge.

Kavakos, who has a disk to his credit on the Naxos label with the Bartók concertos, played the second today with practiced precision and an admirable and dignified expression. While the question whether the work is served by such dignity remains open, the polished treatment reveals the concerto itself to be something less than the sum of its parts. What used to be challenging modernism now sounds like athematic meanderings. Despite the ominous and dramatically promising opening on the harp and despite the magnificent cadenza with its famous quarter-tone chromaticisms, the concerto on the whole is long-winded and ponderous, shuddering under the combined weight of all those catchy Bartok calling cards—like the totally unjustifiable use of celesta for what amounts to only a few bars.

After the intermission we had the treat of Petrouchka in the 1947 version. From my seat directly above the orchestra the trombones ripped, the cellos sang, the conductor stayed out of the way, and the whole presentation generally rocked. It was only after the end that it dawned on me that I had not a single quibble with the tempos taken at any time. In all likelihood, what this means is not that the conductor was unimpeachable in his choice of tempos; it means that all the tempos he took were exactly the same that I am used to from my favorite recording of the work as conducted by some famous conductor or other. Is this another sign of the creeping homogenization of what was once the height of modernity? Or am I, a reviewer in search of something negative to say, merely resorting to the old saw of ‘it’s too perfect’? Perhaps. I thoroughly enjoyed today’s concert, and merely make the observation that the avant-guard of a century ago may by now have finally and fully been assimilated into the ranks of Music by Dead White Guys.

2006.11.11