MUSIC REVIEW : Schwarz Saves the Day With ‘Gurrelieder’

Not every conductor knows the “Gurrelieder.” Arnold Schoenberg’s youthful masterpiece--possibly the last sprawling, monumental, super-emotional, resoundingly poetic gasp of a romanticism in decay--isn’t exactly regarded as standard repertory.

Admittedly, one gets to hear the work more and more these days. The Los Angeles Philharmonic ventured it under Zubin Mehta in 1968 and 1977. Even Keith Clark and the Pacific Symphony in Orange County had a stab at it in 1988. Still, the composer’s lofty, indulgent rhetoric and the Gargantuan forces needed to convey that rhetoric remain prohibitive in most quarters.

The number of major conductors who happen to know the “Gurrelieder” is small. One thinks of Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez and Herbert Blomstedt, in addition to Mehta, for starters. The number of major conductors who know the “Gurrelieder” and might be available to take over a performance at a short notice is laughably smaller.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic found this out last week when Andre Previn canceled his scheduled commitment here. Reportedly a victim of the flu, our beleaguered ex-music director left the management with a sprawling, monumental headache.

For a while, cancellation of the Schoenberg performances seemed the only sensible hope for relief. Then someone remembered Gerard Schwarz, the celebrated and--more important--versatile music-director of the Seattle Symphony.

Never mind that he had never conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic--he had spent his years here at the helm of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Never mind that he had ventured the “Gurrelieder” only once before, and that was some 20 years ago at the Juilliard School of Music. Never mind that he would have only four days of rehearsal. Never mind that he was off on a much wanted vacation, skiing with his family in some vaguely inaccessible locale.

Schwarz happens to be a musician who thrives on unlikely challenges. He doesn’t like to just say no.

He thrived emphatically on this challenge. Friday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he led a performance of the “Gurrelieder” that was neat and logical at worst, assertive and insightful at best. Just in case Los Angeles was still wondering, he proved that he can think big.

It would be less than realistic to pretend that he has grasped every subtle inflection of the piece overnight. It will take time for him to fill in all the blanks, to make a profoundly personal statement in this complex and often evasive music.

Some listeners could argue that he began the marathon rather tentatively, that once in a while he would bury the singers under the thick orchestral blanket, that he sometimes slighted the transitional dynamics or that he occasionally rushed needlessly toward cadences. He really did blow the climactic summer wind, for instance, into a mighty storm.

No matter. Even at this early stage, he exerted fine technical control and demonstrated a keen understanding of the inherent structural problems. He savored the cumulative tensions of the piece, appreciated the crucial difference between pathos and sentimentality, between power and bombast.

He offered enlightened, essentially authoritative music-making on a properly heroic scale. He coaxed brilliant playing from a decisively sympathetic, eminently cooperative orchestra. He certainly has earned a return engagement under more comfortable circumstances.

Luckily, he inherited a splendid ensemble of soloists, three of them holdovers from Mehta’s last “Gurrelieder.” Jessye Norman sang the tragic rhapsodies of Tove with uncommonly lush tone and sweeping ecstasy. Florence Quivar brought otherworldly pathos to the song of the Wood-Dove. Hans Hotter, now 81 and still revered as the greatest Wotan of his time, once again burst the confines of Sprechgesang with the passionate poignance of his “Summer Wind” narration.

Like most tenors-- helden or human--Gary Lakes found the ascending outbursts of Waldemar an unreasonable strain. He compensated, however, with forthright lyricism wherever possible.

James Johnson was the rather muffled Peasant. David Gordon managed the plaints of Klaus the Fool pointedly, a sinus infection notwithstanding. The Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Pacific Chorale fused to make an appropriately mighty noise.

The large, appreciative audience followed the printed text dutifully. Unfortunately, the management made the mistake of providing an uncredited, inaccurate and all-too-liberal libretto. This padded translation obviously was intended to be sung, not to be read.