Archive for January 9th, 2014

The Ziering-Conlon Initiative at the Colburn School

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

By James Conlon

As readers of Musical America may know, I have long been an advocate for the works of composers whose lives and musical legacies were damaged through their suppression by the Third Reich.  Last month this mission experienced a moment of great promise with the announcement of a gift of $1 million from Los Angeles philanthropist Marilyn Ziering to establish The Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at The Colburn School.  I am as much honored by this gift as thrilled to collaborate with a first-rate conservatory. Marilyn Ziering’s generosity and commitment to this cause has made me even more determined to bring the music and personal histories of these composers into greater focus for an emerging generation of musicians.

The name “Recovered Voices” may be familiar to some.  This is the term we have used at LA Opera (and subsequently elsewhere) for the works I have programmed by Viktor Ullmann, Alexander Zemlinsky, Walter Braunfels, Franz Schreker and others.  At the Ravinia Festival, we have used the term “Breaking the Silence.”  Mrs. Ziering is particularly keen on the name “Recovered Voices” (having generously underwritten a large portion of LA Opera’s productions), hence its use in connection with L.A.’s Colburn School.

This Initiative reflects the commitment of one of America’s great conservatories to examine the so-called canon—or what we think of as the canon—with eyes and ears open to a different, more complete version of music from the first half of the twentieth century.  For the young artists of The Colburn Conservatory, many of these composers will not remain vague names; they will become fully fleshed-out individuals whose works will be heard, analyzed and evaluated in the same way we have previously heard, analyzed and evaluated the music of other, more fortunate, composers of the era.

The Colburn School has invited me to teach a course one semester each year. It will be offered as an elective to all students and opened to members of the public as well. Thus, both practicing musicians and music lovers can become familiar with an important body of works, which have remained in comparative obscurity since the Second World War.

The School will invite scholars from around the country and the world to convene on campus, starting in August 2014, to discuss the latest research into these composers and their era and to consider wider questions of their history, context and reception.  During the summer of 2015, the School will host a competition for young musicians from across the country to perform chamber music by “Recovered Voices” composers.

In the course of the semester, I hope to inspire students to include some of this music on their recital programs alongside, not separated from, more established works.  My belief is that the students will carry this music with them into the future. Through trial and error, we expect to develop a curriculum that can inspire other conservatories and universities.

Much of this music will find its place in the repertory, but not before the next generation of musicians becomes acquainted with it, and that is the purpose of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative at the ColburnSchool in Los Angeles.

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Philly sans Yannick

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

by Sedgwick Clark

The Philadelphia Orchestra had the reputation in the Ormandy days of a well-oiled machine that played in a predictably beautiful, glossy manner no matter the maestro. Ormandy’s successor, Riccardo Muti, sought to change the corporate Philadelphia Sound into a “composer’s sound” (and now he’s saying that again about his current American orchestra, Chicago). To my ears, the result was a recognizable Muti Sound, evident in his conducting of the New York and Vienna philharmonics, as well: emphasis of high frequencies, reduction of lows, de-emphasis of strings, rather grainy textures, and, above all, strait-jacketed rhythmic control. Muti’s successor, and an Ormandy admirer, Wolfgang Sawallisch, gloriously restored the old Philadelphia Sound. His successor, Christoph Eschenbach, retained his own haphazard, Germanic sound, and Charles Dutoit gave the orchestra a glistening Franco-Russian accent.

The orchestra’s new music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, has by all reports captured the Philly audiences’ hearts, and I’ve blogged approvingly twice about his Philly concerts at Carnegie Hall (10/25/2012 and 2/28/2013). He’s an exciting guy, and I was looking forward to hearing what he would do with a pair of Philadelphia specialties at Carnegie Hall on December 6. But a sinus-related illness prevented him from travelling. In his stead, the orchestra snagged Michael Tilson Thomas, who elicited unfailingly excellent playing. Hélène Grimaud was scheduled for Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with YN-S but switched to No. 1 with MTT. She turned in a strong, relatively straightforward interpretation—far preferable to her exceedingly lethargic recording with Kurt Sanderling for Teldec several years ago. Thomas’s accompaniment, like much of his work these days (see my blog, “Whatever Happened to MTT,” 11/15/13), was overly refined for such a stern piece, especially in the turbulent opening movement. His tempos for Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique were well chosen and the playing beautiful, but the music’s delirium was kept on too short a leash for my taste (and where were those deliberately vulgar blats of the lower brass in the Marche to the Scaffold?). Inclusion of the first- and fourth-movement repeats was welcome, but I missed the cornet in the second movement—“apparently added to [the manuscript] at some point after the completion of the symphony,” writes Edward T. Cone, editor of the Norton Critical Score—which adds such color and vivacity to Colin Davis’s recordings.

Ligeti in the Lake

Last week I tuned into the middle of a 1946 noir film called Lady in the Lake on TCM. Robert Montgomery stars as the detective Philip Marlowe and also directed. Interestingly, the music score is a cappella choral vocalise, composed by Maurice Goldman, who, according to IMDb.com, is credited only as “Choral Director.” At about 68 minutes into the film, Marlowe leaves the murdered Florence Elmore’s parents’ home, gets into his car, and starts driving. The background music wells up, and darned if it doesn’t sound strikingly similar to the Kyrie from Ligeti’s Requiem (1963-65), which Stanley Kubrick used in 2001 to underscore the appearance of the monolith.

One of my consultant film experts says that Lady in the Lake was popular internationally. I wonder if Ligeti’s yen for the macabre extended to Hollywood noir?

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On Wenlock Edge with MPhil

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, England

By ANDREW POWELL
Published: January 9, 2014

MUNICH — Sullen, virile, often disembodied voices speak bluntly in Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge (1909). They are lost and living British Empire soldiers. Their plights, in six Housman texts, shape the 22-minute song cycle and its mildly chromatic “atmospheric effects,” resulting in music of stimulating directness — and French touches: counsel from Ravel pushed VW past expressive block in setting the words and precedent of Fauré helped determine the choice of tenor and piano quintet scoring.

This inimitable work is, inevitably, awkward to program, but musicians of the Munich Philharmonic found a way Dec. 15 on one of their nine intrepid Kammerkonzerte this season in the red and gold finery of the Künstlerhaus here on Lenbachplatz, drafting pianist Paul Rivinius and tenor Mark Padmore (who recorded On Wenlock Edge in 2007 and again this year). Songs by Britten and Ravel and the French composer’s F-Major String Quartet (1903) offered context.

The long Shropshire cliff of Vaughan Williams’s title is swept with a storm in the first song, as the speaker imagines himself in the steps of a Roman warrior. Padmore (52) hurled his lyric tenor into the maelstrom of sound here, buffeted but not trounced by the accompaniment. For Is My Team Ploughing? he deployed sweet head tones and dark shadings to sketch two soldier friends, one of them dead, conversing about shared work and a shared girl. The seven-stanza fifth song, Bredon Hill, provides backbone for the cycle, lamenting a fiancée’s death against the illusory background of Worcestershire church bells. Padmore traced its lines with somber resignation.

Julian Shevlin, Simon Fordham, Julia Rebekka Adler and Sissy Schmidhuber mustered tight ensemble in the Ravel quartet. Like dedicated chamber musicians, they had evidently established a mutual view of the score and were able to realize its tricky harmonies and shifting tone colors while throwing measured amounts of light on its textures. The wandering and somewhat Debussian third movement, Très lent, had more shape than is usual, without loss of refinement, and the concluding Vif et agité came across as marked. (One of the orchestra’s three concertmasters, Shevlin gave an eloquent account of Walton’s Violin Concerto nineteen months ago when Ivor Bolton conducted.)

Each half of the concert opened with a song cycle: Britten’s ample Winter Words (1953) and Ravel’s Cinq mélodies populaires grecques (1906). Though not quite warmed up for the Britten, Padmore made wily use of top notes and his gift for floating a phrase, lighting the words with imagination. His timbre in this music turned coarse when pressured, however, and he applied pressure often. The mélodies found him just as effective in French. Rivinius played with lively confidence, an equal partner.

This annual Sunday matinée concert series began in 2007 during Christian Thielemann’s tenure as Generalmusikdirektor. Initially held at the Jewish Museum, the events were relocated for better acoustics four seasons ago. The musicians themselves choose the programs, eyeing adventure: Rezsö Kókai’s Quartettino and Franz Krommer’s B-flat Bassoon Quartet, for instance, feature at a concert next month. Silvia Hauer and Anja Harteros, at other Munich Philharmonic Kammerkonzerte this season, will sing music for voice and ensemble: Hindemith’s Unheimliche Aufforderung, Fauré’s cycle La bonne chanson and Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle — the last two scored, like On Wenlock Edge, for piano quintet accompaniment.

Photo © Paul Hodgkinson

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Bretz’s Dutchman, Alas Miked
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Producing Effective Conductor Videos

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

By: Edna Landau

When it comes to producing performance videos, conductors would seem to be at a greater disadvantage than other artists. Every process that is central to the advancement of their careers, such as applications for music directorships, orchestra staff positions, training programs or competitions depends on the submission of sample performance videos. Yet most professional orchestras in the U.S. forbid the recording of rehearsals and performances that would provide these conductors with the footage they need. There have been occasional instances when some orchestras’ playing committees have assisted a conductor in securing a waiver to allow a recording for the sole purpose of helping them to advance professionally or gain employment. More often, the only way for conductors to circumvent this problem is to try to record performances that they lead with college or conservatory, festival, youth or training orchestras. Some conductors have put together pickup groups consisting of professional musicians familiar to them and with whom they have a good rapport. There is no reason why these recordings should be inferior in quality, from a production standpoint, to what  might be achieved with a professional orchestra. Yet I have noticed great variety in the videos that I have been asked to review by conductors who are applying for conducting programs or auditions with an orchestra. This prompted me to consult with a few colleagues, two of whom work at orchestras which recently concluded a round of assistant conductor auditions.  I am happy to share their advice with our readers.

Evans Mirageas, Vice President for Artistic Planning at the Atlanta Symphony, stressed the importance of shooting the video from the back of the orchestra with a full frontal view, close enough to frame the conductor so that their gestures can be seen clearly, but also leaving enough “middle distance” so that one can see the players’ reactions. Lighting should be good and the image needs to be clear. Audio should be of the highest possible quality and the microphone should be judiciously placed so as to yield the best balance in sound. I asked Edward Yim, Vice President, Artistic Planning, for the New York Philharmonic about the length and variety of excerpts they like to be offered and specifically what they look for. He told me that they like to be offered whole movements, when possible, of contrasting works and that they look for a clear beat, effective use of both hands, expressiveness, musical imagination and a real connection with the orchestra. This includes the ability to get a certain sound out of the orchestra. Essentially, they are looking for a conductor who can make the notes come to life.

Should conductors submit rehearsal footage along with performance excerpts? This may vary from orchestra to orchestra. The Atlanta Symphony likes to see both. They value the opportunity to witness the conductor’s communication skills in rehearsal and their ability to effectively bring across their ideas in performance. I spoke to Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, which organizes and presents the biennial Bruno Walter National Conducting Preview. He would counsel conductors who are asked to provide rehearsal segments to be sure to show something that demonstrates that they improved the results. He also advises that performance samples be long enough so that the viewer can discern the conductor’s grasp of the form and architecture of the piece. He and his colleagues find it extremely helpful if the dvd or video file is clearly labeled to enable easy navigation through the selections.

In my opinion, most conductors would be well advised to show their video samples to a teacher or mentor before submitting them. They might point out instances when the conductor may be looking into the score at critical moments, such as changes in tempo and dynamics, or major cues, and not providing the musicians with the eye contact they require. They also possess the objectivity to steer the conductor away from a segment in which they may come across as being overly transported by the music, at the expense of providing musical direction to the orchestra. In such cases, the conductor might be able to select other excerpts which give more positive evidence of their connection with the musicians. Such input can be invaluable in helping a young conductor put their best foot forward. .

© Edna Landau 2014

 

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