Tchaikovsky, Byron and melancholy at La Maison

La Maison Symphonique took another walloping Wednesday night, though Gennady Rozhdestvensky was seen to apply the baton in a peaceable manner. He is a small man who moves carefully and eschews the podium to prod the air directly above the violins with a long, old-fashioned stick. And Rozhdestvensky is known for unfamiliar works of familiar composers; this night, that meant Tchaikovsky’s symphony after Byron’s poem.

Manfred the poem smells of autobiography: Its Faustian hero wanders the Alps tortured by guilt and yearning for his beloved. He meets a fairy, harasses the locals and finally dies in a superlatively aristocratic bloodless suicide (a secret passed on by breeding) rather than bow to anyone, even God; his last act is to taunt a priest. This, written after Byron fled to Switzerland from marriage and accusations of incest with his half-sister …

And Manfred the symphony exists because Tchaikovsky was goaded into it. He refused at first because its programmatic detail left him “completely cold” but was pursued, unfortunately, and eventually wrote most of the piece while visiting a dying friend in Switzerland.

So Manfred exists only because of obligation and death — but it isn’t quite as painful to hear as it was to write.

The first movement is tolerable while the other three drag on prettily and occa- sionally with great noise. Rozhdestvensky and the OSM played attentively and with love, but too leisurely. The first movement is marked “gloomy” and that’s how they took the whole thing, sometimes making discoveries, like the unusually menacing introduction of the bacchanal theme in the fourth movement.

In a letter of 1888, Tchaikovsky judged Manfred “an abominable piece, and I loathe it deeply, with the exception of the first movement alone.” Insecure though he was, he retained more warmth for his first Piano Concerto, performed for us with Viktoria Postnikova.

I didn’t expect acrobatics — this couple has played together for more than 40 years — but I was surprised that it was Rozhdestvensky riding the brakes while Postnikova careened (sometimes heavily) on the keyboard. Her solo introduction of the Allegro con spirito theme was electric, but its repetition lacked some essential virtuosity because the orchestra had slowed to an unimpressive patter. This careful tendency brought out minor instrumental parts with lovely effect and suited the quiet second movement best, but it cost the concerto too much wildness before they found a balance in the thunderous finale.