The pleasure which recordings impart is considerable, but it's surely
different, in kind, from that vouchsafed by attendance.  Take last
night's experience at the Philharmonie, here in Munich.  Paavo Jaervi
was conducting the MPO in a program of Erki-Sven Tuur's _Insula Deserta_;
Robert Schumann's Concerto for Piano and Orchstra, Op.  54, Radu Lupu at
the keyboard; and Shosty's 10th.

The first piece, by an Estonian modern now aged 41 or 42, looked very
hard to play in parts, viz the startup from a loaded silence that slowly
grows into a sostenuto single note, no vibrato, and only then gains volume,
ever so slowly.  This then turns into some pretty music that changes from
tuneful to chaotic, from rhythmic to bumpy, yet somehow cohered under
Jaervi's hands-on management.  The piece remained pleasurable to the end,
in some part, no doubt, because it lasted only about nine minutes.For that,
and more, it got a nice hand from the full house.  (Except from my elderly,
season-ticket neighbor.)

The Schumann followed.  Jaervi had little to do with this one.  Here, Radu
Lupu took over.  Seated in a flimsy-looking chair fitted with a back rest,
he played most of the time laid back into it..  Only for the faster and/or
louder passages he then shifted forward, presumably to gain more purchase
for his keyboard attacks.  Throughout, his playing, as well as his regard,
remained in concert with whatever orchestra section happened to be
relevant.  Serene and relaxed, he conveyed the picture of an aging Indian
swami, the head bedizened by an etiolation resembling steel wool.  For the
more affetuoso passages his head cocked slightly to the back and to the
left, which is to say in the concert master's direction, the concert master
being a countryman who attended to the maestro's requirments like a gypsy
primas to those of a revelling chieftain.  The act brought the house down.
They wouldn't let Lupu go.  (Er, his sound was pretty good, too!)

Jaervi got to justify the generous emolument he doubtless received for
his evening's chores in the Shosty Ten.  In the initial moderato he didn't
come up with anything electrifying, but then, in the second movement, the
allegro, he and the band took off as if playing for their lives at some
Slavic chieftain's wedding.  Same in the allegro that's sandwiched into
fourth movement.  What did it get 'em? A long, standing ovation by the
house (that's ordinarily in haste to depart to catch a late train, or a
late beer).

My wife and I then had the pleasure of sharing our subway carriage, for
part of the ride at least, with one of the horns--plus a nondescript horde
of nightlifers.  Great evening--except, perhaps, for longtime Philharmonie
attenders who may have shared our feeling that, since Celibidache's demise,
personnel attrtirion has changed the sound of the orchestra very greatly.
It used to radiate a color all its own, and practice a Zusammenspiel that
was extraordinary.  Now it's just a another topnotch band like other
topnotch bands, a Lincoln among Chryslers and Cadillacs.  Pity(?).

(Oh, and the evening cost us about 72 dollars, subway fare included.)

Denis Fodor