SALZBURG DIARY : A Bad Night for Salonen, Philharmonic

The rains finally came to festive, air-conditionless Mozart country on Saturday. Relief at last.

Well, relief of sorts.

The summer swelter continues for Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They made a seemingly auspicious debut at the Grosses Festspielhaus last Thursday, with only a few isolated booers dampening the delight of a generally enthusiastic audience. Now the first reviews have hit the stands, and there is rain on the Southern California parade.

It is easy, of course, to find rationalizations for the bad news. Some of the Austrian and German critics are admittedly offended by the experimental, youth-oriented priorities of Gerard Mortier, who is attempting to exorcise the snobbish, conservative, glamour-cult image developed here for 30 years by the all-powerful, much revered Herbert von Karajan.

Some critics still seem to regard all things American as cheap plastic imitations of priceless European treasures. Salzburg, in any case, has been spoiled for decades by the best that Vienna and Berlin have to offer.

Most important, perhaps, Salonen may have miscalculated the impact of his opening agenda: an odd combination of highly disparate Austrian compositions that, even in a Los Angeles tryout, failed to reflect the maestro’s artistic profile in the best light. A few visitors to Hollywood Bowl actually had complained that Johann Strauss’ “Emperor Waltz” sounded anachronistic and straitjacketed, that the Berg Violin Concerto sounded oddly muted, and that much of the Mahler Fourth seemed willfully mannered.

Still, nothing prepared us for the Salzburg reviews. To call them “mixed” would be an act of ridiculously generous optimism.

“One can argue about American taste,” began the critic from the Vienna Presse, who signed his notice simply as jach . “The report from the Grosses Festspielhaus must be rather negative,” he continued. “The bizarre idea of playing the ‘Emperor Waltz’ as a prelude to the Berg Violin Concerto was obviously well intended as a bow to the host country. . . . But what really did not work is the manner in which Salonen wanted his musicians to play this music. The young maestro lacks the right rhythmic sense for such a challenge, and he tried to compensate with creative intervention that distorted the original beyond recognition. This was a waltz for asthmatics.”

Herr (or is it Frau?) jach went on to praise Kyung-Wha Chung, the soloist in the Berg, but complained that “no independent impulse emanated from the orchestra, which played no more than decently.” In the Mahler, Salonen was accused of ignoring the composer’s specific markings, and the Philharmonic was downgraded for a lack of discipline.

Karl Harb of the Salzburger Nachrichten wasn’t scandalized by the waltz. “Why,” he asked with a rhetorical hint of condescension, “shouldn’t it sound a bit like Hollywood?” He lauded Salonen’s daring, and his ear for detail. Then came the blow: In the Berg, “everything seemed dull, carefully spelled out but not deeply felt and organically developed.”

The Mahler? “Tired and dry.” Harb also found serious fault with the orchestra: “Technical inadequacies, imprecision, a disastrous oboe entrance.” He admitted that “one would overlook such blemishes if genuinely vital music were being made, but, surprisingly, Salonen seldom rose above the mere reproduction of notes.”

“Music From U.S. Drug Stores” was the headline over Thomas Gabler’s review in the Neue Kronenzeitung. He said the debut of “the Finnish wonder-conductor had been awaited with much excitement, but his appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic turned out to be less than brilliant. . . . The expected sensation did not occur.” The Strauss waltz, he writes, sounded “cold and gaudy,” and the orchestra struck Gabler as “insecure” in the “sterile” Mahler.

Peter Vujica of the Vienna Standard invoked an interesting contextual shade: a famous chef transplanted to lotus land from pristine Austria. Salonen’s “Emperor Waltz,” according to Vujica, “had as much in common with Johann Strauss as Wolfgang Puck’s menu at Chinois has in common with China.” In the same vein, Vujica claimed that Salonen turned Berg and Mahler into Austrian expatriates--and not to their advantage.

Werner Schuster of the Vienna Kurier attacked Salonen for being a “brash whiz kid” who commands much flash but little substance. The critic acknowledged the conductor’s youthful daring and his technical prowess, not to mention the orchestra’s “excellence.” Nevertheless, he bemoaned an “Emperor Waltz” “conducted against the grain, a blurrily painted Berg concerto and a Mahler symphony . . . that nearly resembled a brat’s prank.”

As George Bernard Shaw once observed, “a critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.” He practiced, of course, what he preached. Still, not all was lost in Salzburg.

Dieter Stoll of the Munich Abendzeiting saw the Philharmonic debut as a “small prelude to a great future.” He described Salonen as “a maestro with obvious star material . . . a choreographic podium strategist with the athletic spring of the young Bernstein and the energetic quest for order that marked the young Maazel.” The Berg struck Stoll as “a model of muted precision.” In summation, he found the Philharmonic “an orchestra again on its way to the top.”

Equally enthusiastic, if less carefully documented, was the report by Ilse Retzek in the Obero-sterreichische Nachrichten of provincial Linz. She applauded the “attractive contrasts” of the program, the “removal of cobwebs from the ‘Emperor Waltz,’ ” the “impressive Berg” and Salonen’s “total commitment” in the Mahler--which revealed the orchestra “in its element.”

Clearly, this is no Cinderella story. But it still could turn out to be an Ugly Duckling story. Things can, and probably will, get better with Messiaen’s “St. Francois”--in the sure-to-be-controversial staging of Peter Sellars--and in the more characteristic Debussy-Bartok-Stravinsky concert. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, in the perfectly intimate (800-seat) concert hall of the Mozarteum, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau offered an evening of enlightened nostalgia--an ode, if you will, to the Salzburg he first ennobled in a concert 41 years ago.

At 67, the great German baritone could be enjoying the leisure of a well-earned retirement. Undaunted by the passing years, he continues to give recitals and, occasionally, to make recordings. Salzburg will hear him three times this summer, in a series that also hosts such paragons as Margaret Price, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Nicolai Ghiaurov and Cheryl Studer.

It would be less than realistic to pretend that Fischer-Dieskau has discovered the fountain of vocal youth. His timbre, not particularly rich and resplendent even in his prime, is undeniably dry now, and the range has become patchy. He tends to run out of breath at the ends of long phrases and encounters fleeting pitch problems under stress.

All this matters, but it doesn’t matter much. His sound is still unique, and it remains the servant of an extraordinarily probing intellect.

Somewhat raucously accompanied by Hartmut Holl, Fischer-Dieskau explored Schubert’s “Schone Mullerin” cycle on Saturday with fierce concentration, canny use of Sprechgesang and an abiding concern for poetic truth. The experience must have been a revelation for the lucky students who were allotted special stage seats near the old master.