John Dalmas wrote:

>The point is how many times will I get to listen to the Rabushka, and do I
>have another 25 years?

A bit of that sort of figuring must have engaged the audience
attending/not attending James Levine's current performances here of
Berg's Violin Concerto and Mahler's 9th.  Usually the Munich Philharmonic
has no trouble filling its hall and certainly the first performance of
the conductor who will be the orchestra's musical director well into the
2Ks should have be an additional, strong spur to attendance.  But the
performance I exxperienced was by no means booked out.  Pity.  The
no-shows, I'm guessing, must have stayed away because of the Berg, but
had they come they would have experienced Christian Teztlaff in almost
miraculous form.  Now, I've never succeeded in either understanding or
liking the Berg concerto.  It's supposed to be somewhat mournful in
intent,yet for that purpose has always struck me as raucous.None the less,
seeing Tetzlaff giving it a heroic try was worth to me the price of
admission, just by itself.  The Mahler, also no great Munich favorite, was
dispatched right smartly by a superbly alert orchestra which, regrettably,
on this night was led by a man who couldn't pull the 9th together--until
near the end of the symphony, when things not only began to click, but to
soar.  Too late, alas.  The two reviews I've seen were sympathetic to
Levine but not to the programming.  Modernism too ardent, they both seemed
to want to say.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask],.com