小澤征爾と音楽批評

私はボストンで小澤征爾指揮のBoston Symphony Orchestra を何度も聴いています．

最初は留学中で，当日売りの列に並んでいたら，列の途中にいた私に中年の白人夫人がつかつかと歩み寄ってきて，「余った切符があるからよかったら貴方にあげる」といわれて喜んで頂戴したのが最初の出会いでした．

その後も私が受けていた奨学金財団が篤志家から毎回複数のチケットを寄贈されていて，小澤というとそれを申し込んでは聴きに行くことが出来ました．

その後，研究者としてボストンに滞在した時にはシーズン・チケットを買って月に2回くらいの割合でBSOに通い，年間で一番回数の多かったのはもちろん小澤征爾でした．
しかし，私はBoston の有力紙， Boston Globe をもっぱら大学図書館で読んでいましたが，その署名入り音楽評欄で毎回小澤には酷評が浴びせられていました．
その後帰国してからも小澤+BSOには関心を持って，ネット上で音楽評を見ていましたが，酷評ぶりは変らず，小澤がウイーンに去る1年ほど前からは，New York Times　も加わって，小澤はマンネリからBSOのモラルを低下させ，二流のレベルに低下させたと口を揃えていたものです．

昨年から小澤は白内障や気管支炎，帯状疱疹が重なって日本に帰って休養し，ウイーンのモーツアルト生誕250年記念行事を放擲して1年以上の休暇をとり，聖路加病院で静養していましたが，5月から6月にかけてはハワイで静養して4曲のスコアの勉強をしたということです．

私はBSOのスケジュールのなかに8月5日のTanglewood で小澤+BSO　でマーラーの2番が予定されていることに注目して，小澤はこの4年ぶりの再会に執念を燃やしているに違いないと私の Homepage の掲示板に書いていました．

事実，小澤は小澤征爾音楽塾オーケストラとマーラーの「復活」で愛知芸術劇場で復帰し，京都，浜松，東京で計4度「復活」をやりました．これはその以前にも新日本フィルでいわば練習した曲をBoston で本番をやるという小澤一流のパターンに沿ったものと理解していました．
私の予想は的中し，8月7日のBoston Globe は批評家は変っていましたが，同紙として初めて小澤に拍手を送る音楽評を載せていました．これまで同紙は小澤に好意的記事を書いたことがなかったけれども，小澤がマーラーの都市，マーラーのオーケストラと4年を過ごしたことが今回の好演に繋がったという形で賛辞を呈し，同時に，退団後4年も経って，後任のJames Levine とBSOから名誉音楽監督　Music Director　Laureate を贈られたことを書いています．

以下，版権の所在を明記してコピーしておきます．私は同紙にSubscribe していて配信されたものですから，この形の引用に問題はないと思いますが，ここから孫引きされるのはどうかご遠慮下さい．

MUSIC REVIEW

For Ozawa, an emotional and expressive return to Tanglewood

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | August 7, 2006

LENOX -- Some sectors of the press and public never warmed to Seiji Ozawa during his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But a large audience in Boston, in the Berkshires, and around the world certainly did. An audience of 10,495 turned up at Tanglewood Saturday night to hear Ozawa's first concert with the BSO since he left his position four years ago, and his first with the new title his successor James Levine and the orchestra bestowed on him, music director laureate. When he came onstage, the audience leapt to its feet and erupted in shouts of welcome.

His choice for this occasion was Mahler's Symphony No. 2, ``Resurrection," which he has often conducted with the BSO and other orchestras on ceremonial occasions, as in the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. But Ozawa did not offer his familiar, well-organized performance.

Although there are only a few new faces in the BSO since his time, it has become a different and more responsive orchestra now, and Ozawa is a different conductor, too. Four years in Mahler's city, Vienna, and a busy schedule with Mahler's orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, in concerts and operatic performances, have been good for him.

This must have been a very emotional occasion for the conductor; certainly the performance gloried in strong and contrasting emotions. Ozawa's association with Tanglewood began when he arrived as a student in 1960. In addition, Ozawa was returning to the big leagues after an absence of seven months because of medical problems affecting his eye.

Despite a long history of injury and illness, Ozawa remains remarkably fluid and expressive in movement. This is not merely choreography for the audience; in fact, it moves in advance of the music and helps summon its character from the orchestra. His remains a unique physical gift that has become better coordinated with insight and experience.

His Mahler Second is still rigorously organized and superbly controlled, and these qualities are crucial to the long funeral march in the first movement and the sequence of contrasting events from which the composer built the mighty and inspiring finale. There were touches of the old overdrive kicking in, but the performance was more relaxed than it used to be, and it has become a real interpretation, too, full of idiomatic detail and spontaneous impulse, particularly in the quieter passages.

The BSO playing was glorious; many episodes, like the brass chorales that used to sputter and splatter, were admirable in ensemble and balance. The hushed entry of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus into the finale was once again an unearthly and spine-tingling moment. There were significant and eloquent instrumental solos from Ronald Barron, trombone, and John Ferrillo, oboe. The vocal soloists were Nathalie Stutzmann, singing with deep-plush contralto tone and warm feeling, and Heidi Grant Murphy, tracing the higher lines with her pearly soprano.

The audience, chorus, and orchestra went crazy at the end, repeatedly demanding the return of Ozawa to the stage. He seemed to be grasping everyone he could get near enough to touch, and each time he appeared from the side door, he ran out to the center, as if he could hardly wait to arrive at his old home again.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.