Boulez Pairs Mozart with Berg

Mozart, Gran Partita / Berg, Chamber Concerto, M. Uchida, C. Tetzlaff, Ensemble Intercontemporain, P. Boulez (released on November 11, 2008) Decca 478 0316 Online score: Mozart, Gran Partita, K. 361

Mozart's remarkable serenade for thirteen wind instruments (B-flat major, K. 361/370a), also known as the Gran Partita, is one of the greatest compositional achievements for wind ensemble (the Library of Congress has Mozart's holograph score in its collection -- view it online). All chamber orchestras and similar groups will assay it, like the wind players of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment did at the Library of Congress a couple years ago, and with so many recordings available, this recent one is certainly not needed. The Ensemble Intercontemporain plays well but, with its diet generally composed of contemporary music, sounds just a little uncomfortable here, especially the oboes, whose solo parts are so crucial. Anyone who already owns a recording of the work need not rush out to buy it, and for the Mozart, a version with historical instruments, especially the basset horns Mozart had in mind, is recommended. As he often does in his conducting Pierre Boulez keeps things moving, trimming some of the fat off a very familiar work, but also seems much more engaged by the Berg that rounds off the recording.

Mozart, Gran Partita, K. 361, holograph score, Library of Congress

The interest behind this pairing of works on the disc is more formal, in that Boulez, who does not normally go this far back into history [on disc, of course--Ed.], conducts the Gran Partita. In an interview with James Jolly in the liner notes, Boulez speaks briefly about the work, noting that what interests him is the varied use of the instruments to create unusual sonorities. This is one of Boulez's strengths, to shape a score through careful dynamic control section by section. Most of the interview, however, is given over to the Berg work, the Kammerkonzert für Klavier und Geige mit 13 Bläsern, a completely different use of thirteen wind instruments (here brass and woodwinds together) with guest spots for violin and piano. The work is an infamous example of Berg's fondness for complexity, with reference to historical forms, but here especially in numerological symbolism, other puzzles (the second movement's palindromic form), and allusions to all three names of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, himself), embedded in the work by use of tone rows and other recurring motifs.

This sort of repertory is much more Ensemble Intercontemporain's specialty -- in fact, Boulez has previously recorded the work with this ensemble, just with Pinchas Zukerman instead of Christian Tetzlaff and Daniel Barenboim instead of Mitsuko Uchida. Truth be told, the combination featured on this disc is to be preferred, as the work is allowed more room to breathe (the timing is a couple minutes longer than the earlier version), especially in the moody Adagio movement, with the "midnight" section at the middle of the palindrome, with its twelve low C#s tolling in the murky distance. In fact, one listener who heard one of the concerts of this program at the Salle Pleyel last March (the work was recorded at IRCAM the following weekend) reports that many people in the audience arrived after intermission -- that is, intentionally skipping the Mozart to get to the Berg. Since the reverse has been known to happen at National Symphony Orchestra concerts, what does that say about the divide between traditionalist and contemporary listeners?

80'18"