For years, I have heard Germans say—sometimes too proudly—“There is no translation for Sehnsucht.” Yet we all can get the idea. One dictionary defines Sehnsucht as “yearning; wistful longing.” Portuguese-speakers have a similar word: saudade. Again, from a dictionary: “a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament.”
The first piece on the New York Philharmonic’s program last night is called Saudade. By a Portuguese or Brazilian composer, then? No, by a Lithuanian, born in St. Petersburg, or Leningrad, in 1973, and now living in New York. She is Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, and her piece was written in 2019, on commission from the Lithuanian Composers Union.
Does the piece express saudade? Yes, it certainly does. Would you know that—guess that—if you did not know the title? Perhaps. But, when it comes to music without words, we are always steered by titles. Think of La mer, Debussy’s three-picture work about the sea. Or maybe I should put “about” in quotation marks.
Speaking of the sea, Martinaitytė’s work, Saudade, sometimes put me in mind of life underseas. In one stretch, I thought of some great monster, stirring and emerging from the depths. This work could serve as the soundtrack to some underseas movie.
Music of an Impressionistic sort can play with your mind. And Saudade, I believe, is in part Impressionistic. I also want to use the term “sound design.” Yet sound design, in my experience, can be static, and this piece moves. When there is a feeling of stasis, there is still a feeling of action within the stasis, if you can imagine such a thing. Saudade is often a pleasant miasma. It has a streak of the New Age. “Lie back and see the colors.”
Much as I enjoyed and admired Saudade, I found it a little long. But regular readers know that I find virtually everything a little long (or more than a little). The piece shows that the composer loves music—and the possibilities of the orchestra—which counts for a lot.
Conducting Saudade, and the concert at large, was Santtu-Matias Rouvali. He is a Finn, and, as you know, they have more conductors in Finland than saunas. Rouvali made his New York Philharmonic debut in the 2019–20 season. (For my review, go here.) He is now the principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, in London, whose conductor laureate is Esa-Pekka Salonen, that elder Finn.
In Saudade, Rouvali was beautifully expressive. He also seemed to understand the structure of the piece, bringing out its natural shape. On the podium, he is both erect and loose. His posture is exemplary and his arms are fluid and graceful.
And, of course, he has commendable conductor’s hair: a wild bush.
After Saudade, amid much applause, there was a lone booer, who kept booing. What a boor. I wonder whether the composer heard only the boos, instead of the general applause. I thought of something that George Rochberg, the late American composer, told a young friend of mine: “It takes an iron stomach to be a composer.”
Next on the program came the six Brentano-Lieder of Richard Strauss—his gift to lyric and coloratura sopranos. What does “Brentano” mean? Strauss set poems of Clemens Brentano, a German (despite his Italian last name) who lived from 1778 to 1842.
On hand to do the singing was Golda Schultz, the South African soprano. I first reviewed her, I believe, when she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival: as Sophie in Strauss’s Rosenkavalier, in 2015. There is a quick way of saying what the Brentano-Lieder require: Sophie-singing.
And Schultz can do it. I have rhapsodized about her so often over the last several years, I’m not sure what else to say. I will say a few things about her performance last night.
Her high notes were easy. Un-grabbed. She was elastic, taffy-like, following Strauss’s lines, navigating his intervals. Her intonation was on the money. Her trilling was excellent. The German language was juicy and expressive in her mouth, as that language can almost uniquely be.
I remember Leontyne Price in a master class, many years ago, telling a student, “Enjoy those juicy German consonants. They’re there for your enjoyment. Exploit them.”
Golda Schultz showed a gift for putting ecstasy in her voice. The hit song “Amor” was coquettish, sure, as it should be, but not cutesy, as it can be, wrongly.
Through it all, Schultz was utterly winning. The sincerity and goodwill of this singer are obvious. There’s an old expression in music: “You play who you are.” You sing who you are, too. Between songs, the audience did some applauding, and Schultz did not scold or ignore them. Neither did she bow. She just smiled, appreciatively.
Speaking of smiling: Santtu-Matias Rouvali wore a face mask all through the concert. Does an orchestra miss something, when it can’t see the expressions on a conductor’s face? Is the conductor robbed of a tool of communication?
After intermission, we had a great symphony—a canonical symphony. (Apparently, that is still allowed, which is a relief.) Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. I had a memory of Lorin Maazel, the late conductor, whom I interviewed in the summer of 2009, as he was leaving the New York Phil.
I asked him about conducting familiar music. He seemed to relish it. Tchaik 5 was still glorious and thrilling to him, as far as one could tell. Maazel said, “It’s as glorious and thrilling as the day it was written,” and “if you become jaded because of overexposure, the problem is yours, not the composer’s.”
Well said, Lorin.
In conducting the symphony, young Maestro Rouvali was poised, straightforward, and sure-handed. He knew just what he wanted and, without straining, got it (I presume). He conducted a standard reading of Tchaik 5. Now, by “standard,” I don’t mean boring. I mean non-screwy. There were some personal stylistic touches along the way—in phrasing, in accentuation, in dynamics—but these were all sensible.
The opening pages of the symphony had a dark, Russian, and appealing sound. The principal clarinet, Pascual Martínez Forteza, performed his solo work ably. Rouvali was smart in not giving too much too soon—too much in emotion. He let the symphony have its architecture. I would have liked portions of the first movement warmer and lusher—more enveloping. But that is a subjective matter.
As for the second movement, it began with a wonderful growling sound in the low strings. Then Katy Woolley, the principal horn, went to work—and, like her clarinet counterpart, performed ably. Rouvali shaped this movement with exceptional musical intelligence. It was truly beautiful, this music.
A question. At the end of the movement, the clarinet lingered beyond the others (if I recall correctly). Does Tchaikovsky ask for that? Or was it a Rouvali touch?
The third movement, the waltz, had its swirling grace. And the Finale was fittingly taut and invigorating. Under Rouvali’s baton, there were some unusual, and effective, dynamics. The last section, for my taste, was too brisk. It was not incorrect, by any means. But I prefer more pomp—more maestosità.
In that 2009 interview, I asked Maazel, “Why do people sneer at Tchaikovsky? And at Rachmaninoff and Puccini and others?” He said, quick as a flash, “Envy.” These composers had so much talent. It’s not only that their detractors don’t have the same talent; it’s that they can’t even fathom it.