You can hear the cries from across MTT Way, "Michael, come back. All is forgiven!" Michael Tilson Thomas' departure from the music directorship of the San Francisco Symphony (he's now Conductor Laureate) has never been more lamented than of late, in the wake of Esa-Pekka Salonen's announcement of what has become his bitter leave-taking of the Symphony.
But Tilson Thomas is a mega-musician who never goes away, literally or otherwise. Among the numerous ways his 80th birthday (December 21) is being celebrated is the new Pentatone release of a rich four-disc set of his compositions.
The conundrum for many composer-conductors is which of those designations will appear at the top of their legacies. There's the understandable, seemingly more august, composer category, which figures no less than Gustav Mahler, a legendarily great conductor, hewed to. Still, most of these all-around-great musicians are more likely to be remembered as conductors, if only because of the reach of the stick.
It's not a stretch to think that MTT, like his mentor Leonard Bernstein, will insist, passionately, "Both!"
One of a kind
Bernstein's ghost insinuates itself into many of MTT's compositions —conspicuously in the set's first item, "Agnegram," with the Symphony— but rarely has there been the least doubt that Tilson Thomas is a true original. It matters, of course, that, again like Bernstein, MTT the conductor has been a singularly gifted advocate of his own scores.
Another metric of his distinction is the roster of no-doubt-about-it celebrity artists who have joined him in compositional projects that linger potently in the memory. Musical collaborators featured on "Grace" have included Audra McDonald ("Sentimental Again"), Renee Fleming ("Poems of Emily Dickinson"), Thomas Hampson ("Whitman Songs"), and John Wilson ("Upon Further Reflection") among them.
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard joined MTT and the Symphony in the haunting "From the Diary of Anne Frank" —taking over the speaking role of the most famous victim of the German Holocaust. For a variety of reasons, mostly involving rights, some of the starrier collaborations are not reproduced on the "Grace" set, arguably chief among them "You Come Here Often?" with pianist Yuja Wang, who, owing as much to the pair's deep friendship, gratefully came here often.
Serious business
Most of the compositions collected in live recordings on these discs evince a seriousness of purpose as well as tone. Hard as it is to imagine "The Diary of Anne Frank" without the influence of Bernstein's "Kaddish" Symphony, there's a directness to the texts drawn from the famous diary.
It's ideally reflected in music that skillfully skirts the kind of bombast that many listeners (not including me) decried in the "Kaddish," with its composer-penned, god-bothered text exclaimed at the premiere by its first Narrator, Felicia Montelagre, herself now returned to center stage in Bradley Cooper's "Maestro" (with its own, Oscar-poor mixed critical and audience reception).
As memorable, and beautifully memorialized in "Grace," are the song cycles, to verse by Rainer Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. The seven Dickinson songs Fleming sings on this set are then augmented (in the immediately following track in this carefully programmed set) by Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?, " persuasively sung by Measha Brueggergosman-Lee.
If there was ever a time that MTT's sexuality was, like Berstein's, shrouded in mystery, it was before my time. It's germane to MTT's setting of the Walt Whitman poems, and it's not unlikely that his choice of poems by Rilke and Dickinson reflect new critical views of both poets' same-sexuality, which may come as surprises to the general audience.
Other music of darker color, if not with an excessively somber scoring, range from "Notturno," with Paula Robison and the New World Symphony. The Florida-based ensemble, accenting the exemplary music of young musicians, may well go down as one of MTT's finest creations, and its every appearance on this set matches spirit with instrumental brilliance.
Razzmatazz
If there's a conspicuous absence on this set, it's MTT's riotous, evening-length "The Thomashefskys," celebrating the lives and works of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, who emigrated from Ukraine to become stars of New York's Lower East Side Yiddish theater (but an assiduous hunter can find it on DVD). But when it comes to show music, "Grace" abounds.
The boldest example of the simpatico between Bernstein and MTT is the musical, "West Side Story." For my ticket money, there's no better recording of the great Broadway musical than the one by MTT and the Symphony, available only on the orchestra's house label.
That said, show music doesn't just color a great deal of the music on "Grace," it revels in it, and, for any listener otherwise disinclined to appreciate musical theater, elevates the genre, such as it needs it. Barely has "Grace" begun than Sasha Cooke and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet chime in with an ebullient "Not Everyone Thinks That I'm Beautiful."
Further enlivening the set at regular intervals are "Urban Legend" and "Symphony Cowgirl," both with Symphony musicians. You don't have to guess at the irresistible zest of "Snappy Patter."
Legacy
If MTT has shown us anything new, it's about his vitality. He's gone past all prognoses of imminent death from his terminal brain cancer, but the musical hits just keep on coming. He's guest-conducted elsewhere, as well as for the home team, recently opening the New York Philharmonic's new season with what was, from all accounts, a magisterial Mahler 5.
MTT is the kind of musician who never wanted to be placed in a box, something about which he now enjoys the last laugh at least when it comes to collected recordings. That said, "Grace" is a welcome tribute to his work as a composer. In December, Sony Classical will release an 80-disc box set of his complete recordings for Sony, CBS, and RCA.
Happy 80th; Michael, may you return to San Francisco often!
Michael Tilson Thomas, 'Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas,' four CDs and streaming, Pentatone.
www.pentatonemusic.com
www.michaeltilsonthomas.com
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