A few missed notes
By Sam Allis, Globe Staff, 4/21/2002
We are forever blessed to have had Seiji Ozawa in our midst. He was a rare bird who flew in ether we had never known. Yet it is only now that Boston fully appreciates the beauty of his arc, as it becomes memory.
Ozawa passed through this town like a wraith - a distant, elegant figure who loved the town but never embraced it as many wanted, save his unflagging presence at Foxboro and Fenway. He leaves on a current of gnawing regret. We wish we had tried harder to get to know him. We wish he had tried harder to get to know us.
Late in the game, Ozawa began conducting the Bach cantatas at Emmanuel Church in the Back Bay. They were small, Sunday morning jewels free to anyone who showed up. In them, he became a part of the community. It's a tragedy he didn't conduct them early in his tenure because they would have cemented an intimate Ozawa connection with the city beyond the gild and grandeur of Symphony Hall.
Ozawa didn't put Boston on the musical map. He kept it there. As has been often noted, he is far more respected in the rest of the world than here - and in certain quarters of New York. Talk to the Euros - as tough on conductors as they are soft on Arafat - and they swoon.
''He is one of the great conductors and a stunning accompanyist,'' says Andre Previn, who has seen them all. ''And he is a very, very good friend. He has enormous loyalty.''
So why don't we swoon? Do the Euros have a better ear? Are we simply boors? It is indeed boorish in foreign eyes for us to want a piece of him. But that's what we do with all our luminaries. We have no restraint. It's the American way.
We never did find out what makes him tick. For some stars, the mystery works. Think DiMaggio. Not Ozawa. Not in Boston, beyond the seats of Symphony Hall. For many, he was simply a glamorous blur with large hair. Contrast this with Leonard Bernstein, who talked to anything that moved and held cocktail parties for the Black Panthers. There must be a middle ground.
Never forget when taking his measure that Ozawa is Japanese. This has nothing to do with inscrutability and everything to do with the depth of the cultural divide between the countries. In Tokyo, many consider him a renegade, tainted by the gaijin culture of the West. Over here, he takes hits for his Eastern reserve. The man can't win.
Mischief is rampant in Ozawa. Take gambling. He is an habitue of casinos across the globe. The same idiot savant memory that allows him to conduct huge pieces without a score makes him a lethal card counter in his favorite game, blackjack. (Hence the license plate on the symphony limo: BSO 21.)
His command of English is a thing of wonder. Whenever he wants to, he can understand and speak just fine. (He damned well should after 29 years.) His remarks to the orchestra members on a farewell harbor cruise last Tuesday evening, for example, were exquisite and lucid.
The joke is that he is barely literate in a handful of languages, but that is silly. Almost nothing goes over his head. He operates his English like a slide trombone, decreasing his proficiency to avoid something, and ratcheting it up when it matters. I think we call this passive-aggressive behavior.
The man never seemed to be here. (Wait for James Levine if you want to see a disappearing act.) Supporters counter that when you include his Tanglewood time, he ranks high for local commitment among A-list conductors. But most of Boston does not go to Tanglewood, so the comparison is specious. His absence most of this final season has been particularly trying.
Unlike his colleagues, Ozawa didn't simply dart back and forth across the Atlantic. He triangulated his travel through Japan, where his family lives. While we were in awe of his stamina, we missed him on the podium. We were hurt by his sustained absences, and hurt produces resentment.
Those who penetrate the wall around him find a figure of charm, subtlety, and plumb goofiness. Ozawa wears well the loose, beautiful clothes of Hanae Mori and Valentino, yet lacks all pomposity. He inhales news and gossip like a tapir, loves his Scotch, and tells wicked jokes. He plays tennis with the same grace he displays on the podium.
Ozawa is also addicted to skiing. At 62, he was a forerunner for an Olympic Alpine event at Nagano, where he has kept a ski house for years. This past winter in Vienna, he snuck off to the Arlberg whenever he could. He is 66 and doesn't carry an ounce of body fat. He belongs in the Smithsonian.
The Berkshires have always been a haven for him. For years, he hit with a wonderful Tasmanian tennis pro, Geoff Harvey. You'd see Ozawa barreling around Lenox, dwarfed in his rusting Chevy Suburban, adorned in a T-shirt and tortoise shells on a chain. He adored Mundy's, a now-defunct watering hole in Housatonic known for the goat tethered to the bar.
The man has always been something of a space cadet. Previn recalls when the two decided to have lunch one day in the Tanglewood cafeteria. Previn followed Ozawa for a while until Ozawa stopped and asked, ''Where is cafeteria?'' Like Eeyore and Pooh, they trudged for directions to his personal assistant, Karen Leopardi, who berated them both for their ignorance.
Ozawa's exit has been moving and grand. The bumps in the rearview mirror have been subsumed by his lasting, instinctive talent. We will never worship the man, but we recognize, belatedly, that Seiji Ozawa is the real thing. This will become more apparent with time.