By: Edna Landau
On the occasion of the Thanksgiving holiday, I would like to offer my thanks to Musical America, all our devoted readers, our sponsors, and those who have sent in their interesting and thought-provoking questions. (I look forward to hearing from more of you!) Happy Thanksgiving to all.
“Ask Edna” will return to a regular weekly schedule next Thursday, December 1.
by Sedgwick Clark
I’ve had cymbals and triangles on the brain. I was obsessed with them the other day because I had just heard the New York Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink play Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony. The climax of the slow movement was punctuated by fortissimo cymbal and triangle (I’ll spare you talk about editions and how he intermingled Haas instrumental details with the purported use of Nowak), and the players assaulted the ear with unrestrained vengeance—crude, brittle, monochromatic, as sensuous as the screech of the subway downstairs. The players only did what most percussionists do when confronted with an ff sign, which is to create as much noise as possible until the conductor says to cool it. I hasten to add that in all other respects the performance was admirable and the audience gratifyingly silent. But why Haitink allowed the artillery to blast away with such violence at a moment of such transfigured release escapes me still.
The Mariinsky cymbals at the orchestra’s Carnegie Hall Tchaikovsky festival, which I rhapsodized about last week are still shimmering in my ears. Like the Curtis Institute of Music triangle in Rossini’s Overture to La gazza ladra back in February 1984 at the same venue, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that hauntingly musical sound. And from cymbals, no less!
Is it the player, the conductor, the instrument, or the hall who/that bears the most responsibility? I’d bet on the conductor. Leading the Mariinsky, as we all know, was Valery Gergiev, and at the head of Curtis’s student orchestra was Sergiu Celibidache, age 72, making his American debut. John Rockwell in the Times called the concert “about as revelatory an experience, both thrilling and thought-provoking, as this writer has encountered in 25 years of regular concert-going.” Googling John’s review last night, I see that he even referred approvingly to “the tiny ping of the triangle.” Celi, who was known to rehearse details without end, must have worked with his young player for hours, explaining patiently why less is infinitely more. That feathery ping resounded in Carnegie’s pre-renovation acoustic with unearthly beauty and color, a philosophical statement on its own.
Koussy and Springsteen
Note to the cynics among us: Did you see in MusicalAmerica.com (11/23) that Serge Koussevitzky’s 1940 recording of Roy Harris’s Third Symphony was selected along with Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run for the 2012 Grammy Hall of Fame? Yes, there’s only one classical entry out of 25, but someone picked a great one.
Looking Forward
My week’s scheduled concerts:
11/29 Metropolitan Opera House. Metropolitan Opera/Yannick Nézet-Seguin; Jonas Kaufmann (Faust), René Pape (Méphistophélès), Marina Poplavskaya (Marguerite). Gounod: Faust.
By James Jorden
Now that it has become apparent that Robert Lepage’s production of the Ring at the Met is a fiasco (too soon? Nah.)… well, anyway, since arguably the production is a dreary, unworkable, overpriced mess whose primary (perhaps only) virtue is that it actually hasn’t killed anyone yet, and since, let’s face it, the Machinecentric show turned out to be so mind-bogglingly expensive (all those Sunday tech rehearsals with stagehands being paid, no doubt, in solid platinum ingots!), something has to be done. In this article, I intend to propose that “something.” (more…)
by Sedgwick Clark
One would have cough thought it a TB ward in February. But, no, it was Carnegie Hall’s opening cough night in October. Yo-Yo Ma’s pianississimos in Tchaikovsky’s Andante cough cough cantabile took the breath away from the non-coughers at Carnegie Hall’s opening night (10/5). Too bad the coughers couldn’t hold their breaths because they missed some truly ravishing playing by the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev as well.
Traditionally, Russian orchestras have been praised for their excitement but rarely for refinement. My previous concert encounters with the frequently under-rehearsed Mariinsky had left me unprepared for its virtuosic ensemble, perfect sectional balances, and sheer tonal luxuriousness. Not a coarse bar to be heard in this welcome Tchaikovsky festival. Even the cymbal player avoided shattering ears, eliciting striking color and shimmer from his dangerous instrument.
The festival included Tchaikovsky’s six numbered symphonies, Rococo Variations with Ma, and the First Piano Concerto with the latest Tchaikovsky Competition winner, 20-year-old Daniil Trifonov, who emphasized melodic detail over structural rigor, caressing the keys with generous, colorful tone; Gergiev’s accompaniment never overbalanced him. Of the Tchaikovsky symphonies I heard, Nos. 3 and 4 favored luminous sonority and plush attacks over searing intensity.
Scheherazade and Shostakovich’s First Symphony were festival interlopers. The Rimsky used to turn up each season, but it’s played relatively rarely these days. Gergiev was content to revel in the score’s sensuous glories, especially in a seductively broad third-movement, but the finale’s turbulent shipwreck fell short of Witold Rowicki and the Warsaw Philharmonic’s memorable maelstrom at Carnegie in January 1974. The Shostakovich, which in lesser hands can fall apart structurally, turned out to be my favorite of Gergiev’s performances. The second-movement scherzo, especially, was thrillingly precise.
I have to go back to November 1973 at Carnegie for the most unforgettable Tchaikovsky performance I’ve ever heard: a hair-raising Francesca da Rimini during several concerts of Russian music with the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Philharmonic under Gennady Rozhdestvensky. (Fairness report: In 2005 Gergiev and Mariinsky played a helluva Francesca in Carnegie too.) Also on that series was the fastest Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmilla Overture one could possibly imagine, with every hemidemisemiquaver astonishingly in place, and Tchaik’s Fifth. In my mind’s eye I can still see the timpanist marking the march tempo of the finale’s coda, showily brandishing his sticks in the air as the music strode to its triumphant conclusion. Whatever happened to such joy and flair in music-making?
The unique character and commitment of the Mravinsky-trained Leningraders was simply overwhelming. No orchestra today matches that style of playing—certainly not the current internationalized version that now exists under the St. Petersburg name—and I doubt we’ll hear its like ever again. Get the electrifying Deutsche Grammophon recordings made in London on tour in 1960 of Rozhdestvensky in Francesca and Mravinsky in the last three Tchaikovsky symphonies. Imagine the intensity level ratcheted up tenfold, and you’ll have an idea of what I heard that evening.
Anecdote time: The fall in 1973 when the Leningrad played, I had a brief stint with the firm handling Carnegie Hall’s p.r., and I was involved in a Times photo shoot of Rozhdestvensky for a feature in Arts & Leisure. One of my colleagues offered the conductor a comb before the photo was taken. He ran the tines over his bald pate, smiled broadly, and said, “It’s for my brains.”
Haitink at the Phil
Bernard Haitink led the New York Philharmonic last week for the first time since 1978. Zachary Woolfe spent three-quarters of his Times review castigating the orchestra for its conservative programming this season, exemplified by Haitink’s selection of Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote and Beethoven’s “Pastorale” Symphony. Zack is correct about the overall programming, but the trend is epidemic throughout the world’s orchestras, even in San Francisco, if they wish to stay in business. He was also correct in judging the performances to be “eloquent” and “enjoyable.” I heard the Tuesday performance (11/15) and particularly warmed to the performances of the orchestra’s Principal Cellist Carter Brey and Principal Violist Cynthia Phelps in the Strauss.
But, to come full circle, I bring up this concert to point out that the audience was uncommonly quiet and respectful, which I expect at Carnegie but not at Lincoln Center. I’ve not been to a Tuesday concert at the Philharmonic in years, choosing to attend on Thursday nights despite the noisier audience. The orchestra players seemed relaxed and enjoying themselves. It showed in their music-making.
Haitink, who was Musical America’s Musician of the Year in 2007, leads more standard repertory for the second of his two programs with the Phil this season: Haydn’s “Miracle” Symphony and Bruckner’s Seventh. Let’s hope he is invited back soon.
Looking Forward
My week’s scheduled concerts:
11/18 Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic/Bernard Haitink. Haydn: Symphony No. 96 (“Miracle”). Bruckner: Symphony No. 7. (Also 11/19.)
11/19 Carnegie Hall. Baltimore Symphony/Marin Alsop; Caroline Dhavernas, Speaker (Joan of Arc); Ronald Guttman, Speaker (Brother Dominic); other soloists; various choruses. Honegger: Joan of Arc at the Stake.
By: Edna Landau
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
Dear Edna:
I am in my last year of an undergraduate program at a conservatory in the U.S. where I have formed a string quartet with fellow students. We have only been playing together for less than a year but we have hopes to stay together after graduation. Meanwhile, our biggest challenge is to find places to perform. There are churches and even one or two art galleries in the area where we believe we could give concerts but we would not receive a fee. This doesn’t particularly bother us but we have been advised that we should never play for free. Do you agree with this approach?—Michael B.
Dear Michael:
While I understand that whoever advised you wanted to ensure that your group would not be taken for granted, it is common for ensembles who are just starting out to occasionally play for free in order to build up a fan base and gain performing experience. Performing for a public that is not familiar with you, as opposed to school where the audience is composed of friends and teachers, is a valuable and essential experience. You have to give a little extra to connect with such an audience and their reaction will be true and unbiased. These types of concerts provide important opportunities to run through repertoire that you wish to polish and maybe even perform at a competition. Whenever you play a free concert, be sure to ask the venue whether they have a mailing list to whom they might send an announcement of your concert. You will also want to have a sign in book somewhere near the entrance that encourages members of the audience to join your mailing list by submitting their e-mail address. Should you wish to encourage voluntary donations, you can put a basket and sign next to the book. You might also want to put a sentence in your program to the effect that you are grateful to each member of the audience for coming and should they wish to support your group with a voluntary donation, it would be greatly appreciated. You might accompany this with an invitation to come backstage to meet all of you following the concert. The key point is that playing a free concert doesn’t seem like an imposition when it affords you opportunities to get the name of your quartet known and maybe even to generate some publicity. The venue that is hosting you may have some connections to the press and might be able to get some advance coverage of your upcoming appearance. While this type of performance is unlikely to be reviewed, it is possible that you or the venue know some bloggers who write about arts events and would be willing to come and share their reactions on their blog. If the venue is willing to allow you to make a video of your concert, and assuming you can do so without undertaking a major financial commitment, this could be a real plus, especially if you are lacking any exposure on YouTube. Finally, be sure to take the time to invite any people who might prove useful to you in the future and who will spread the word in the arts community about your group and its potential for a promising future. Once you consider all of these possible benefits to be gained from one concert, playing for free doesn’t seem at all like a compromise.
I would love to have YOUR question! Please write Ask Edna.
© Edna Landau 2011
By: Edna Landau
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
A few nights ago, I attended a musical evening of sorts—not at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center but at Carolines Comedy Club in New York City. Intrigued by the advertisements I heard on radio station WQXR for its Classical Comedy Contest, I bought two tickets, figuring that a lighthearted evening is always welcome. The sizable club was filled to the rafters and the sense of occasion was enhanced by my first glimpse of the judges who included Robert Klein, Deborah Voigt, Peter Schickele and Charles Hamlen. WQXR’s Elliott Forrest, whose idea this was, proved to be a captivating and amusing host and was proud to introduce two members of the late Victor Borge’s family who were in the audience. What followed was a smorgasbord of eight comic acts, all including live music, ranging from a recorder virtuoso playing on five instruments simultaneously to a duo of “cranial percussionists” and a singer, somewhat reminiscent of the great Anna Russell, attempting to sing O Mio Babbino Caro while her pianist kept modulating upwards at regular intervals. The audience loved every minute and the judges even got into the act with their witty reactions. The winner was Igor Lipinski, a gifted pianist who gave a sensitive performance of a Bach fugue while simultaneously reciting the order of a deck of cards which had been shuffled and was visible to the audience, but not to him. My own personal favorite was Gabor Vosteen, the recorder player. With instruments coming out of his mouth and nose simultaneously, he amazed us with perfectly balanced chords and even a section from Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, played both musically and flawlessly. I read on his website that he decided to embark on this type of antic when he wanted to form a recorder ensemble and no one wanted to play with him. He studied recorder at the Hochschule for Music and Theater in Hannover, Germany, but wanted to go beyond playing to making an audience laugh. He attended circus school in Budapest and has training as a mime. As someone who regularly talks to students about finding their own unique path, I was delighted to encounter Mr. Vosteen who was one of eight finalists in this competition that attracted eighty applicants.
This delightful evening got me thinking that fun and joy are words not often associated with musical performances. That is truly a shame. At a recent concert on Halloween at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Brooklyn Rider topped off a substantial and thought-provoking program with an encore, their free-fantasy adaptation of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” dressed in suitable costumes. It was a pleasure seeing artists taking a risk in a serious concert venue and allowing themselves to let their hair down, to the genuine delight of their audience and seemingly, even the New York Times critic. I am not suggesting that artists should engage in comedy routines as part of serious recitals but there are often moments when a witty comment from the stage or an imaginative encore can go a long way to charming an audience and breaking down the barriers that too often exist between performer and listener. One memorable moment for me was when I first heard Itzhak Perlman introduce a short work by Ferdinand Ries as one of his favorite “Reese’s Pieces.” As much admired for his superb artistry as for his humanity and joyful music making, this universally beloved artist should serve as a reminder that we must be personally engaged with our audiences and not take ourselves quite so seriously.
I would love to have YOUR question! Please write Ask Edna.
© Edna Landau 2011
by Sedgwick Clark
Lang Lang got the flowers, but a blistering Shostakovich Tenth Symphony dominated the Philadelphia Orchestra’s first Carnegie Hall concert this season under Charles Dutoit (10/25). It’s his fourth and final season as the orchestra’s interim “chief conductor,” between the unfortunate five-year tenure of Christoph Eschenbach and Philly’s music director-designate, the 35-year-old French Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Having conducted the ensemble regularly for three decades now, Dutoit knows how to get the best from these players, as European critics affirmed repeatedly during the ensemble’s summer tour of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Britain. Some expressed surprise that an orchestra with its financial duress could play so superbly. Perhaps they had taken seriously Gramophone magazine’s ludicrous dismissal of the Philadelphians in its December 2008 rating of “the world’s best orchestras.”
Dutoit has always been at his best in Shostakovich, moving the music along judiciously and avoiding post-Testimony point making. The desolate end of the Tenth’s opening movement can seem interminable, for example, but here the composer’s gravitas registered without dragging. The Swiss conductor was equally adept in the first half’s lovely Fauré Pavane, Op. 50, and the crisp, reduced-forces accompaniment to Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, with Lang Lang a capable soloist. From the viewpoint of one who hears the Philadelphians each year in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Dutoit deserves all possible laurels from the orchestra.
Hearing these musicians under Dutoit on their home turf, as I did 13 months ago, is no less impressive. In a dynamite performance of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony in the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall, the absolute unanimity and tonal resonance of fortissimo Philadelphia pizzicatos was an awesome experience, and the depth and power of the lower strings when they entered in the Shostakovich’s third-movement Allegro was staggering.
What is most important to report, however, is that the acoustics of Verizon Hall now seem worthy of the Fabulous Philadelphians. Yes, this is the same hall that received mixed reviews on its official opening night, ten years ago, on December 16, 2001. Some thought it lacked resonance; others wrote that the sound was coarse. Even acoustician Russell Johnson said in a press conference the day before, “The hall is not ready to open.” The late acoustician’s design philosophy allows a hall’s sound to be “tuned” for varieties of repertoire, and he was at a performance of the Mahler Fifth under Simon Rattle that I attended in Verizon a year later. When I opined that the strings sounded richer, Johnson agreed hesitantly but said there were still improvements to be made.
Shostakovich’s pile-driving opening bars in the Fourth last October made instantly evident that improvements had been made. The winds, brass, and percussion had retained the remarkable clarity and presence I had noted at the hall’s opening night, and the strings were now in proper focus and balance. Moreover, the resonance was quite sufficient to display the famed “Philadelphia Sound,” which the orchestra’s prior home, the deadly dry Academy of Music, could never do.
Verizon Hall deserves a rehearing from all those critics who were negative on opening night.
Looking Forward
My week’s scheduled concerts:
11/10 Kaplan Penthouse. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Harbison: Six American Painters for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello. Schnittke: Piano Quartet. Kurtág: Hommage á Robert Schumann for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, Op. 15d. Penderecki: String Trio. Harbison: Songs America Loves to Sing for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, and Piano (2004).
11/15 Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic/Bernard Haitink; Carter Brey, cello; Cynthia Phelps, viola. R. Strauss: Don Quixote. Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”). (Also 11/10, 11, 12.)
by James Jorden
“I’ve almost come to the conclusion that this Mr. Hitler isn’t a Christian,” muses merry murderess Abby Brewster early in the first act of Arsenic and Old Lace, and to tell the truth I’m beginning to think I’m almost as far behind the curve as she was. Recent new productions at the Met suggest strongly that Peter Gelb either doesn’t quite know what he’s doing or else, if he does know, has some wildly inappropriate ideas about what music drama is supposed to be. (more…)
by Sedgwick Clark
Leonard Bernstein is one of the few artists whose recordings have continued to sell after his death, and last fall Sony Classical reissued a “limited edition” set of the conductor’s 1950s-70s symphony recordings, most with the New York Philharmonic. But it sold out before I could rehear the CDs, and this write-up has been sitting in my computer awaiting a second run, which is now at hand again to beguile the Christmas gift crowd.
Many of these recordings are my favorites of the works, and those happy with a classy coffee-table presentation need look no further. It’s a beautiful looking design, to be sure, but an utterly impractical fit in a CD collection. The box is LP size and two and a half inches thick. One must lay the box flat and remove the top to get to the CDs. A plastic divider holds four stacks of the 60 CDs, each encased in a cardboard sleeve. Without long fingernails, one must often resort to an implement to pry the bottom-most CD from the holder. For three months while I spot-checked the discs, the box shuttled from room to room in fruitless search for a home. I was tempted to discard the box and file the discs on my conventional CD shelf, but the spine copy is infinitesimal, with titles of the works too dark to be read without klieg lights and a magnifying glass. The 32-page b&w booklet with two adoring tri-lingual tributes to Bernstein and a mixture of familiar and rare photos has no notes on the symphonies; no texts and translations for choral works. Nor is recording info as specific as in earlier CD releases.
Nevertheless, these are Bernstein recordings, and in general I prefer these more spontaneous Columbia/CBS recordings now on Sony Classical to the later, more carefully coiffed Deutsche Grammophon ones, usually with the Vienna Philharmonic, which many see as his “mature” statements. Tempos are broader on DG—sometimes egregiously so—and often preferred by European critics. DG has released most or all of them in smaller, more manageable bargain sets, but the only ones I can recommend unreservedly are the American and Haydn sets, the latter containing an irresistible “Oxford.”
My Sony picks:
Beethoven: Exciting and unpredictable. I prefer Bernstein’s “smaller” symphony performances, especially Nos. 1 and 2, over the uneven-numbered later ones, where he is concerned with making Big Statements. I found the DG remakes cautious and overly refined, an opinion reaffirmed after rehearing the recently reissued CD set.
Bizet: Symphony in C. Less than immaculate ensemble, but what joie de vivre!
Copland: Organ Symphony and Third Symphony. His Copland is indispensable.
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9. An exciting “New World.” Avoid the bloated DG.
Harris: Third Symphony. Also indispensable, as most of his American rep is.
Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 82-88, 93-104. The staff of life. Also available in a handy set of all his Haydn for the label.
Hindemith: Symphony in E-flat. Revivified Hindemith! (Also get his recording with Isaac Stern of the Violin Concerto—gorgeous melodies, sparkling wit, my favorite Stern recording.)
Ives: Symphony No. 2. The height of Ivesian Americana, superb on all counts. Avoid the sleepy DG.
Liszt: A Faust Symphony. Romantic drama with tumultuous conviction.
Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-9. Yes, we know that others championed Mahler first, but these are the recordings that brought about the Mahler Boom. Some, such as the Third and Seventh, are still unsurpassed, even by Bernstein.
Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5. Peerless performances of the life-affirming “Sinfonia espansiva” and the profound, wartime Fifth.
Prokofiev: Classical Symphony. The New Yorkers sound downright tipsy in this jolly, Haydnesque interpretation.
Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3. Schumann was in marital bliss when he wrote his “Spring” Symphony, and no one captures the music’s unbounded joy like Bernstein. The “Rhenish” is equally vital.
William Schuman: Symphonies Nos. 3, 5, and 8. The rip-snorting Third is one of the great American symphonies, incomparably rendered here by Schuman’s most galvanic interpreter. Far superior to his DG remake of 25 years later.
Shostakovich: All of Bernstein’s Shostakovich CDs have good points, but the Fifth is one of his half-dozen greatest recordings, taped at Boston’s Symphony Hall on the way home from the Philharmonic’s famous Soviet tour in 1959. For me, it has no competition.
Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1-7. Big, broadly paced, and hyper-emotional—right from the Russian tradition. Numbers 5 and 7, in particular, are immensely powerful.
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4. A searingly intense interpretation of this explosive 20th-century masterpiece.
By: Edna Landau
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
Dear Edna:
My career is evenly divided between an active performing career and commissions for original compositions. My guiding rule over the years has been to never turn down work, regardless of budget and timeframe, unless it was absolutely impossible to fit it in. This year, however, it became clear that I am more of a perfectionist than I used to be and projects take somewhat more time to come into shape. I need to find a way to space out my workload a little more evenly, which may mean turning down or postponing more projects. And so I wonder – is there a polite way to turn down or postpone work (concerts, commissions, smaller projects) when you’re clearly over-committed during a period, but to do it in such a way so as not to jeopardize the relationship for the future? Are there good battle strategies for this? Thank you so much! –Caffeine Doolittle
Dear C.D.:
Let me begin by saying that you are the clear frontrunner to date for the “Ask Edna” creative alias competition!
It is truly a pleasure to receive a question from someone who has more professional opportunities than they can handle. Usually, people write to me when they have too few and are wondering about the long-term viability of their career. My answer to you is simple and straightforward. Honesty is the best policy and humility goes a long way. People who are approaching you may not realize how busy you are. You will want to stress from the outset how much their offer means to you and how you wish you could accept it. You might want to give them an idea of the volume and scope of projects with which you are involved without seeming egotistical. You might also mention when you were first approached about those projects so that they can get an idea of how much lead time you might need to fulfill their request in the future. In the case of concert requests, you can explain that you try to plan your season in blocks, with different time periods reserved for different types of concertizing. They will be flattered if you suggest a particular date or time period to them for one season later, explaining that you want to make sure to include them in that season and will use their date as an anchor for a period devoted to similar concert dates. If you already have dates slotted in for that season, give them as many choices as you can. They will appreciate your flexibility. You might also endear yourself to them if you offer to perform for the same fee you were receiving in the current season, even if there should subsequently be an increase in your fee. If the request is of a more substantial nature, such as a new commissioned work, the commissioning party will undoubtedly be appreciative if you set up a timeline with them, beginning with the date by which you think the piece could be ready and then working backwards to set up target dates for discussion of aspects of the work that might need to be addressed. With this kind of approach, there is little chance that you will jeopardize any relationships for the future – quite the contrary. Those wishing to work with you or present you will sense your genuine enthusiasm for collaborating with them and will respect the professionalism and care with which you make commitments and stick to them.
I would love to have YOUR question! Please write Ask Edna.
© Edna Landau 2011