Michael Tilson Thomas reviews

Leonard Bernstein’s 1957 musical, West Side Story, is one of his most perfect scores: effortlessly tuneful, sharply characterised, subtly integrated and successful in reconciling exuberant dance numbers with the tragic story-line of its source, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Michael Tilson Thomas’s new recording with his San Francisco forces does it justice by including the complete score (omitting only some instrumental reprises covering scene changes or accompanying dialogue); some spoken cues are incorporated where required by the context.

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

As Michael Tilson Thomas reaches the half-way mark in his San Francisco Mahler cycle, the balances are evenly weighed. We sit forward, as before, to savour infinitely well-prepared and committed orchestral playing in sound which rivals Chailly’s state-of-the-art Decca engineering. On the other hand, MTT’s over-masterful slow burns and exaggerated ritenutos are surely only second-best against the volatile impulse Abbado finds in every bar of the Ninth.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

What a difference recorded sound makes to the panavision spectacular of Mahler’s Second Symphony. Would we buy Michael Tilson Thomas’s elongated funeral fires and judgement-day tattoos without the shattering impact of crystal-clear percussion and perhaps the most vivid brass sound I’ve ever heard in this medium? Possibly not; this is an interpretation so in love with its largesse, from the pulled-about glimpse of heaven minutes into the first movement onward, that only the seductive sonics typical of MTT’s San Francisco Mahler cycle could carry it off.

Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Michael Tilson Thomas’s occasional extravagance of gesture was easily absorbed by the overall discipline of his breathtaking Mahler Sixth (reviewed June 2002), a grim fanfare to this handsome, limited-edition live cycle from San Francisco. It would have been out of place in three-quarters of the First Symphony, and fortunately the conductor’s deep affection for the naive in music informs an approach to Mahler’s ‘days of youth’ (as he originally subtitled the first and second movements) which stays light of hand and heart.

Gershwin, Bernstein, Milhaud, Adams, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Antheil, Raksin

This disc is a showcase for the spectacular talents of Michael Tilson Thomas’s orchestral academy and, unlike a number of symphonic jazz compilations, it’s wonderful. The motoric rhythms of John Adams’s Lollapalooza (something ‘large and outrageous’ in American slang) provides an invigorating start with particularly fresh-sounding brass (very Chicago Symphony) and the whole orchestra delighting in its abundance of notes, energy and fun.

Michael Tilson Thomas reviews

Bernstein at 100 – The Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood

Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette

Ives: Symphonies Nos 3 & 4, etc

Bernstein

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Gershwin, Bernstein, Milhaud, Adams, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Antheil, Raksin