Grand finale (II) - Haaretz

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Thu., August 23, 2007 Elul 9, 5767

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Grand finale (II)

By Ariel Hirschfeld

Mozart's Symphony No. 41, the "Jupiter," has no words and never will have, and it is hard to talk about it because it touches not what music expresses and not even beauty. It touches musicality itself - the basis of music as a movement of the spirit, as plenitude, as an occurrence of abundance and as a release from every fetter that stymies the abundance. Accordingly, I will not talk about it, but like many others, will point to it from afar.

One of the wiser people who have written about Mozart in our time, Jean-Victor Hocquard, the French thinker who devoted his life to the composer, speaks of the "power" of this symphony; of its being the essence of Mozartean power. Elaborating, he draws a precise distinction between power in the romantic sense, as it applies to Beethoven - "the impulse of passion, which bursts out of the depths of the unconscious, is released and carves out a path," - and power as it exists in Mozart: "the conscious control of the forces from which derive the generosity - the opposite of selfishness - the equilibrium, the forbearance, the lucid courage in the face of death."

Culture critic Rose Rosengard Subotnik also discerns a world of power ingrained in this symphony as opposed to royal power. This seems to me a riveting invitation to talk about the Jupiter Symphony: as a symphony about a different form of power - about departing from the "self" and from concepts of regime.

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This is because a Mozart symphony (I refer to his four last symphonies, those of the summer of 1788 and the Prague Symphony, No. 38, from the autumn of 1786) is not just a passage of beautiful music; it is a sui generis statement; a place which formulates, not in words, something that is not otherwise spoken; an entire civilization, like a city or country that presents us with human possibilities.

The three thunderous rolls that open Symphony No. 41 and are played by the entire orchestra sound like a royal declaration, routinely ceremonial; but immediately after them, delicately and quietly, issues forth a motif that emerges from the blows in three surging movements, and their interplay instantly creates a surprising complexity. The contrast between the motifs is understood as cause and effect: In counterpoint to the bold repetitive motion of earthly power, and as though born of it, emanates the rising, climbing movement, delicate and vulnerable. "Opening" the tension between the motifs, Mozart finds in it a taut drama, which afterward is played off against a second theme, which also consists of a dialogue - this time between tender gestures, filled with humor. (And there is another theme, small and mischievous, which Mozart took from a lovely aria he wrote that same June, whose words are "You are dense, my dear Pompeo, go and learn the ways of the world ..."). But the cardinal issue is the building of power: not like force of arms (the volume), but the power within the power - that is, an implicit sort of power. Each move is accompanied by a contrast, which acts as a restraining element: In one case, meter; in another, counterpoint. The result, far from a restrained world, is one of tremendous heterogeneity.

The second, slow movement emerges from the ascendant motif of the first, though now hushed and revolving around itself, played by strings (muted!), while from within it, on the basis of the familiar pattern from the opening of the symphony, "emerges" a motif that curls upward like blue smoke. It is this hazy line that becomes the springboard for the entire movement (about which Woody Allen said, in his movie "Manhattan," that it is one of the reasons that make life worth living). A clear relationship of colors exists between the movements, between suffusing warmth and coolness, and a world that is wholly hues of blue, gray and deep black. The relationship between the movements is not one of "joy vs. sadness," for example, but of different spheres, like day and night, something like a well that suddenly opens up next to one's home.

Flight of voices

The third movement, marked "Menuetto," opens as the king of stately dances, the drums and trumpets again heralding their presence. However, this minuet, which is meant to be courtly, develops into a flamboyant polyphonic movement, which transforms the dance, after only a few steps, into a flight of voices which overleap one another, already hinting at what is to come in the final movement.

Surely all the wisdom of the 18th century is subsumed in that last movement, and all the seeds of the future are whispered in it. It is some sort of unbelievable combination of the sonata and fugal forms, which intermesh not only different voices, but also radically different themes: Five themes pursue one another throughout the movement, interlock in different associations and separate again until at the end they are woven together, in parallel, concurrently, in a complete fabric that is present for a moment and then disappears into the thunderous flashes of the coda.

Among the movement's themes one stands out above all: a simple four-note theme - do, re, fa, mi - which is recapitulated in different voices, turns over, is hidden and then crops up again, constantly changing its hues and character: One moment it is a fanfare, and during another, it is a still, small voice; one moment it is the outline and during another, the middle; one moment it is scattered across the whole space, and during another, it is a single thread. At the peak of its development, Mozart presents it distorted and battered, as though it has been subjected to terrible pressure. The first people who wrote about Mozart discovered that he was fond of this theme and that it appears in many works - dating back to his first symphony, which he wrote as a youth - and that it plays itself out in choral segments, in one case embodying the words of the Credo in the Mass, in another the Sanctus. In fact, it is even tucked away in Symphony No. 40, composed two weeks earlier. Clearly it is a kind of signature, like an acrostic embedded in a poem. In the final movement of the Jupiter it is the "hero" of the most complex journey imaginable. It is a journey with no analogy other than life itself, with all its fear and splendor.

The greatest conductors have recorded the Jupiter Symphony, but few have successfully met the challenge. Most of them fail by trying to imbue it with excessive "splendor," ignoring the fact that the first movement is "Allegro vivace" and the fourth is "Allegro molto." Everything is very fast, sharp, clear and translucent; there is not a drop of fat in it. The failures are understandable: Everyone tries to match its physical size to its inner size. Sir Thomas Beecham is one of the exceptions to this rule, as is Benjamin Britten (as a conductor). The great Klemperer conducted an unforgettable rendition of the "Andante cantabile" and the "Finale," but forgoes the recapitulations, which are more vital in it than anywhere else. The "authentic music" conductors are spot-on with the tempi, but fail in the texture and in the exposition of the voices.

The best performance, perfect actually, in my opinion, comes from a totally surprising direction, from a very great conductor, but one who is unpredictable and not always reliable, a narcissistic conductor who is responsible for some of the most repulsive performances I know of Mozartean music: Leonard Bernstein. This is the late Bernstein, with the Vienna Philharmonic (1984). A rare enlightenment descended on him - maybe the symphony did it - and cast out the vain ego, replacing it with an eye-opening, direct, utterly forceful presence. This is a performance of surpassing greatness. As clear and lucid as can be imagined. Resplendent and simple at one and the same time. The tempi are sheer genius. All the recapitulations are executed properly. And more than all the others, Bernstein discovers that the last movement, both with and within its fugal cathedral, grows hot in the end and erupts in a blaze.

The first part of this article appeared in last week's Magazine.

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