This is a gift; an unqualified holiday gift to Baltimore from Maryland Public Television.
"Baltimore Symphony: The Tokyo Concert," which will air at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22 and 67), is not to be missed -- whether or not you are a classical music fan. It is a rare television event by local standards. The hour-long program captures about 40 brilliant minutes of music performed by the BSO at Tokyo's prestigious Suntory Hall during its recently concluded Far East tour.
At the time of the concert, Sun music critic Stephen Wigler said the BSO made a "quantum leap to a new level in the phenomenal performance of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2."
The symphony, Wigler wrote, "sounded as if its composer had not wasted a note. From the moment of its melancholy opening, one sensed palpable excitement. It was as if the audience knew the conductor and orchestra were playing 'in the zone,' with concentration, power and freedom that were impossible to resist."
Thanks to the MPT production, a video version of that performance is preserved for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders to see and hear.
If that's all "The Tokyo Concert" did, it would deserve praise. But tonight's program goes beyond that -- opening up the music in a way that makes it more accessible to TV viewers, and distilling the performance to moments of emotional vibrancy.
The first is the result of choices made by free-lance producers Phillip Byrd and Janet Shapiro, whom MPT hired to make "The Tokyo Concert."
There are four main performance segments: Copland's "El Salon Mexico," Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, Elgar's Cello Concerto and an arrangement of a Japanese folk song, which the BSO used as an encore. The Cello Concerto featured concert-hall superstar Yo-Yo Ma. Of the four, only the Copland selection is carried at full-length in the telecast.
But before each selection, we hear backstage interviews with BSO Music Director David Zinman, musician Jonathan Jenson or cellist Ma explaining the piece about to be played. They provide wonderful descriptions of the passions, moods and sentiments that the pieces are trying to articulate.
The hour's best moments happen where music meets camera work, editing, sound and mise-en-scene to lift your spirits emotionally to another place.
There's one such moment with Copland, another with Rachmaninoff.
Under the heading "credit where credit is due," it should be pointed out that concert footage comes directly from the NHK network (Japan Broadcasting Corp.), which telecast the concert and provided 90 minutes of its production on tape to MPT. Byrd and Shapiro merely decided on which 40 of those 90 minutes to use.
As great as the music is, this is not a flawless hour of television.
The opening and closing segments, which are supposed to give a sense of the tour itself, have a definite cut-and-paste feel.
The opening is especially problematic, with needless pictures and words from local and state officials, some of whom traveled to the Far East with the orchestra. MPT does get much of its money from the state, but if it wants to achieve the kind of first-class status in television that the BSO has achieved musically with this tour, it needs to avoid being used as a political tool.
Cut down the opening to montage and get us to the concert hall quicker. Forget the ersatz travelogue. "The Tokyo Concert" is a performance piece and, as such, it's too precious to compromise.