Seiji Ozawa and Mito Chamber Orchestra Finish First European Tour

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Seiji Ozawa and Mito Chamber Orchestra Finish First European Tour
Text by Yoshihisa Sasaki
Photographs by Michiharu Okubo

This article is translated from the August 1998 issue of "Ongaku no Tomo," one of Japan's most prestigious classical musical magazines. We thank Ongaku no Tomo Sha for their permission to reprint the article here in English translation.

The Mito Chamber Orchestra (MCO) was launched in 1990 in the city of Mito (Ibaraki Prefecture) in response to a proposal by Hidekazu Yoshida, director of the newly founded Art Tower Mito, as he wanted the new art museum/concert hall/theater complex to have its own orchestra. The group consists of Japanese musicians who are active domestically and worldwide as soloists and ensemble performers. After rehearsing intensively in the spring and fall, they give a total of eight regular concerts yearly (four in each season). Last June, the group -- under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, who also serves as the group's musical adviser -- successfully completed its first European tour, participating in Wiener Festwochen, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, among others. We closely followed the group on its tour and will report on it here:

Although Japan's soccer team made it to the World Cup in France, it was soon made aware of the difficulties of playing at the world level, and its challenge met quick failure. Just think how much harder it is to compete at the world's very top level. The same holds true in the world of music.

Making its first long-distance tour since its founding eight years ago, MCO toured Europe under the direction of Seiji Ozawa from the end of May to the beginning of June. The orchestra started its tour in Hamburg, from where it went to Vienna for Wiener Festwochen and to Florence for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, having been invited by both world-renowned festivals to perform there. MCO handily cleared the hurdles placed before it on the world's stage, and returned to Japan having left the impression -- no, having received the endorsement -- of being unmistakably the "world's best chamber orchestra." While I could have predicted that beforehand, I have never known a Japanese orchestra to have received such high acclaim.

The first group of MCO musicians from Japan landed in Hamburg, Germany's northernmost big city, on May 28. Two days later they were met up by the rest of the group. For more than 20 hours, then, they rehearsed intensively under Ozawa's scrupulous care, honing the program for the performance.

Musikhalle Grosser Saal in Hamburg

The tour made its start on June 2 at Musikhalle Grosser Saal in Hamburg, and wrapped up on June 7 in Florence. The whirlwind schedule also took in the cities of Zurich, Vienna, and Ludwigsburg. While the same program was basically performed at each venue, the pieces included were characterized by great variety: Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" (arr. Mahler), Takemitsu's "Umi e II (Toward the Sea II)," and Stravinsky's "Pulcinella Suite, " as well as Debussy's "Danse sacrée et danse profane" and Mozart's "Short Minuets with Contredanses" performed as encores.

Before the tour began, people were worried about the health of Seiji Ozawa, since exhaustion had forced him to cancel the direction of the opera "Pelleas et Melisande" at the beginning of May. But three weeks of rest and recuperation in Hawaii helped him to recover fully. At the end of May, before joining forces with his fellow MCO members, Ozawa led the Vienna Philharmonic on a tour of Vienna, London, Paris and other cities. He even directed a concert in Baden Baden, Germany, on May 29, taking no rest before meeting up with the rest of the group in Hamburg the following day.

Rehearsal, Tonhalle in Zurich

On the first day of rehearsals, Ozawa realized that the acoustics of the hall in Hamburg were not fully up to par. While rehearsing "Death and the Maiden" on May 31, then, he had the orchestra sit closely around him as they played, which had the effect of deepening the resonance. In its critique of MCO's performance of the piece on June 2, the newspaper, Die Welt, used the words "beautiful, tight, and expressive." Of course, the other two pieces went down well also, with the same newspaper finishing its critique by saying, "Applause resounded throughout the hall (how could it have been otherwise?)."

The following day, June 3, brought MCO to Zurich. There they were met by Hidekazu Yoshida, director general of ATM, and his wife, who gave strong words of encouragement to both Ozawa and the orchestra. Since Zurich is known for handing out particularly strict and stingy critiques, we wondered what kind of evaluation the group would receive. But Mario Gertels of the Tages Anzeiger praised MCO, saying "the ensemble left a truly fine impression."

Posters with
"Sold Out" stickers

MCO's concert in Vienna on the night of June 4 was both spirited and exciting. According to Ozawa, the performance became a reality through entreaties by Dr. Thomas Angyan, Generalsekretär of Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien, who said he would "leave a space open in the Wiener Festwochen and wait" for the group to come. The concert itself was extremely popular, having sold out months in advance. The Musikvereinsaal (home to the Vienna Philharmonic) was filled to capacity, with people even sitting above the stage.

With their performance, Ozawa and MCO completely met up to the expectations of the audience in Vienna. They captured the heart of the Viennese from the outset by playing "Death and the Maiden." For the ensemble's Vienna debut, Ozawa had intentionally included this piece by Schubert -- whose music, the Viennese feel, is key to gaining a keen insight into human nature -- and even placed it first on the program. That showed how earnest Ozawa was in taking up the gauntlet in Vienna, and was also a reflection of the pride and confidence of this world-class maestro, whose popularity in that city scales great heights.

The veteran members of MCO understood the significance of performing in that particular hall in Vienna. An unprecedented sense of tension ran through the ensemble before their performance of "Death and the Maiden," the first piece on the program. It was not tension in the sense of "uptight," but rather a kind of rounded exuberance or vitality stemming from the working up of the spirit. The performance was delicate, graceful and pregnant with suspense, demonstrating the kind of excitement that blazes from the inside outward. Once he set down his baton after the piece finished, Ozawa broke a smile and started laughing, making everyone in the ensemble smile as well. With momentum on their side, the two works in the second half were a piece of cake for MCO. The free flow of music simply captivated the audience.

June 4, Participation in Wiener Festwochen, Musikvereinsaal

One proof of that can be seen in a critique made by one of Vienna's representative newspapers. For instance, Franz Endler of the Kurier gave the group high marks, headlining his critique "Ensemble of Virtuosos Brings Joy and Tears to Packed Musikvereinsaal." He said that MCO's performance "persuaded us that Schubert composed on an international scale, being completely Viennese at the same time he was completely not, and showed how beautiful 'our' Schubert could be for string performers."

June 6, Theater im Forum in Ludwigsburg

After the curtain closed, a reception was held at the Imperial Hotel. ATM Director Yoshida gave his greeting to the attendees in German, saying that the long-held dream of "bringing up a top-quality chamber ensemble and showing them off in Europe" had finally come true. Fujio Mori, head of the Mito City Council, then gave a toast in the unabashed Mito fashion, saying that it was the job of the four Mito city councillors who had rushed to Vienna to "convey the reputation gained by the MCO here in Vienna to the people back home." Indeed, many local papers in Europe reporting on the MCO's tour mentioned how strongly the city of Mito supported art and culture. The Neue Züricher Zeitung, for example, wrote that "one percent of the city's budget is devoted to cultural purposes, making Art Tower Mito an important base for wonderful cultural activities." The name of Mito has thus become known worldwide.

The day after the Vienna concert, the group had a whole day off to spend in Vienna. Then, on June 6, they traveled to Ludwigsburg, a rustic resort city of 85,000 near Stuttgart in southern Germany. For 25 years now the city has held a top-class music festival, with concerts held in such venues as an old castle. MCO was invited to play on the second day of the festival this year. They did not play in the castle, but in the adjoining Theater im Forum, a modern, multipurpose hall. While the acoustics of the hall did not resound, the audience gave MCO a standing ovation. Each member of the ensemble was warmly given a rose, lily or other flower by the sponsors of the festival, showing their appreciation.

The next and final stop on the tour was Florence, on June 7. Beset by blackouts caused by terrible weather, the ensemble ended up by pulling off a fine performance partially in the dark. The venue for the concert was the Teatro Comunale, but the acoustics were not so good, perhaps because the borchestra pit had been covered up. Ozawa had to rearrange the musicians' seating to yield the best sound. During the rehearsal, all the lights in the concert hall went out, and the ceiling even began to leak from the rain. Even long-term Florence residents had never seen such a downpour, with the boutiques lining Florence's fashionable streets inundated by 10cm (4 inches) of water.

The skies finally cleared up by evening, though the concert had to be delayed by half an hour. All started well, but in the third movement of "Death and the Maiden," another blackout suddenly occurred. For a while the performance continued in pitch-dark circumstances, but Ozawa and MCO did not waver one second and continued playing until the end of the movement, spurring great applause. That was not the end of it. In the last piece of the second half, with about five minutes left in Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, the lights went off again. Still, the group kept on playing until the end without a hitch.

Altogether suffering four times from blackouts, the final performance on MCO's first European tour succeeded brilliantly. Indeed, nothing better could have been hoped for -- a legendary performance destined for the Guinness Book of World Records. The newspaper Cultura & Societa wrote that "Ozawa pulled off a perfect performance in the midst of darkness." It continued its accolade by saying, "Truly an unprecedented and rare concert, whose success was enabled by a sort of collective passion. It turned out to be one of the most audience-captivating performances ever in the history of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino."

June 7, Teatro Communale in Florence

After the concert, a reception party was given by the Comunale Friends Society at the magnificent Palazzo Cortini, a manor belonging to a count and countess. Halfway through the reception, Ozawa was bestowed a medal by the mayor of Florence, who appealed the ensemble to "start its tour in Florence the next time." Ozawa dispassionately summed up the tour as follows: "We played five times in five different halls, each having its own acoustics. That afforded me the chance to learn how capable and flexible everybody was. But aiming for the top level of performance is merely an extension of what we always do, so I do not feel that something special happened just because we had visited Europe. I foresaw that from the beginning. Mr. Yoshida is correct in his idea that the group built up its ability in Mito. The flower has only begun to bloom, so I would like to continue performing before appreciative audiences who understand the merit of chamber orchestras. Those performances will primarily be in Mito, of course, but I hope also to play throughout Japan, as well as in Europe, North America and Russia.

MCO has begun walking down the path of legendary chamber orchestras.

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