Ozawa leaves on a perfect note -- Farewell concerts emotional, daring
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff, 4/21/2002
The sold-out audience in Symphony Hall gave Seiji Ozawa a roaring standing ovation last night, a tribute to the symbol, the musician, and the man.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra appears on the international stage and confers cultural luster on its native city, and for 29 seasons Ozawa has been its leader. From the beginning his musical talents were exceptional, and over decades of life experience he never ceased to hone and develop them. Music reaches people personally, and Ozawa has always invested himself personally, so he has been a figure in the lives of the many thousands of people who follow the BSO.
Yesterday, his last full day in Symphony Hall as music director, he led two concerts. The morning was free and informal, his gift to the city. He led Berlioz's ''Symphonie fantastique,'' one of the BSO's signature pieces decades before Ozawa, and one it will continue to play extravagantly well for his successors. But the chemistry of Ozawa, the orchestra, and this piece was always combustible and exciting, and so it was again yesterday morning - the performance was full of dash, swagger, refinement, waltzing allure, pastoral ease, terror, and nightmare. The audience, some of them probably new to Symphony Hall, applauded between movements, and why not? Berlioz heard little enough applause in his life.
Ozawa led with impeccable control, although it must have been difficult for him - this was one of the first pieces he heard the orchestra play, under Charles Munch, on tour, in Japan in 1958, when he was still a student. The tympanist in that performance was Everett ''Vic'' Firth, who has decided to close his legendary career of 50 seasons, and who was playing his last ''Fantastique'' yesterday. Other vanished voices of BSO players of the past, dead, and retired, hovered in the air, while their successors played well enough for all of them.
Ozawa thought John Williams was supposed to conduct ''The Stars and Stripes Forever,'' but Williams was seated in the audience, so Ozawa led it himself, with meticulous attention to detail - it sounded like music, and it was pure celebration, and the balloons descended from the ceiling. Ozawa made his exit carrying one of them.
Afterward he gave an impromptu press converence in the hallway.
''This is the first time I experience saying goodbye after such a long time, and the emotion is very difficult. I must separate the emotion from the music and keep my mind clear for tonight.''
After a nap, Ozawa, 66, was back in Symphony Hall for the third and last performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony of this final series. He certainly did keep his mind clear, but waves of emotion clearly passed among him, the orchestra, and the audience, and back again.
This symphony was a daring choice for a farewell, because it is so challenging for players and conductor - challenging both technically and emotionally. To play the principal horn part three days in a row is like running three consecutive marathons. The first three movements are like a fever dream, everything intense, extreme, and in a constant state of change, interchange and flux. In the last movement the fever breaks and the spirit is free because of all it has experienced, and accepted.
The piece demands meticulous attention to detail - the first three entrances in the opening come at different dynamic levels, and the piece is full of simultaneous, contrasting, conflicting events. Ozawa signalled them all with his limber arms and his fingers which could caress, curl into a fist, and shimmer in absolute peace.
Virtually every section of the orchestra and every principal has important solos, and each of them was presented to Ozawa and to Mahler in a sense of tribute; this was the great performance everyone was too intent on giving Thursday night. This time everyone let it happen.
The silence at the end was profound and then the tumult began - the rush of cameras up the aisles, the floral tribute. Ozawa bounded around the orchestra, shaking virtually every hand he could get to. He brought Firth to the front, twice, and Firth received his own floral tribute. The orchestra sat and stomped its feet. And about the only way for it to end was for Ozawa to command the players to leave the stage with him, and they took their time doing it. At Locke-Ober's, a party was in preparation and the Perrier Jouet was on ice, but the ovations kept coming.
Sometimes Ozawa has not received the respect in the musical world that is his due. He has given unformed performances but never a meretricious or a dishonest one, never one without emotion, and audiences have always responded to that. In Vienna, every waitress, taxi-driver, and tour guide knows everything about the Opera and what is going on there, even if he or she has never been inside; that is the world Ozawa is going to.
Ozawa will know how to respond to that situation, because he has created a comparable one here. People love him; he's our guy.