Musical America Blogs

By Sedgwick Clark

The critics’ darling series “Spring for Music” had four good years of thoughtful, sometimes innovative programs played by first-rate American orchestras from the provinces for a mere $25 a ticket in Carnegie Hall, no less. But none of our country’s billionaires or blue-chip companies was willing to chip in a couple mils for another season.

“This began as a three-year experiment which stretched into four fully funded years,” explained publicist Mary Lou Falcone, one of the series founders, along with David Foster, president of Opus 3 management, who had the original idea, and Tom Morris, artistic director of the Ojai Festival and consultant to various orchestras. “The challenge was sustainability and the need ultimately for an umbrella organization to shepherd this forward. We looked, we explored, and the right organization did not surface. The fact of life is that each organization has its priorities, driven by its own original ideas.”

In the 1970s and early ’80s unpopular oil and tobacco companies supported the non-profit arts to curry favor with the presupposed politically-liberal arts audience. Then they changed their minds. Greed became good, and now the big bucks are earmarked for company shareholders and politicians. What’s to say?

Seattle Symphony/Ludovic Morlot

I already weighed in on Christopher Rouse’s Requiem, with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert (5/5), two weeks ago. The second SfM orchestra was the Seattle Symphony, conducted by Ludovic Morlot in his third season as music director (5/6). The concert began with a programming coup: the New York premiere of John Luther Adams’s Become Ocean, which had won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music only a month before. Forty-two minutes of undulation proved to be one of the audience hits of the four out of six SfM concerts I heard this season. In his excellent notes, Paul Schiavo quotes the Pulitzer committee’s citation, which calls it “a haunting orchestral work that suggests a relentless tidal surge, evoking thoughts of melting polar ice and rising sea levels.” Okay; a bit fanciful, perhaps, but okay. I found wisps of Debussy’s La Mer and Ligeti’s Atmosphères inescapable.

Adams’s briny minimalism was paired well with Varèse’s Déserts (without the electronic music interludes) and La Mer. Those who recall Pierre Boulez’s performances when he was the New York Philharmonic’s music director, however, may have found comparisons wanting. I thought Seattle’s Varèse was pretty tepid, especially the timpani, and the La Mer and Fêtes (encore) soggy.

Meanwhile, the Seattle Symphony has released the first three CDs of its own recording label, all conducted by music director Ludovic Morlot and recorded live in concert at Benaroya Hall: an all-Dutilleux CD of Symphony No. 1, Tout un monde lointain, and The Shadows of time. A second CD of three works by Ravel and Saint-Saën’s Organ Symphony. And a third CD of Ives’s Symphony No. 2, Carter’s Instances, and Gershwin’s An American in Paris.

Rochester Philharmonic/Michael Christie

Did I really need to hear a concert performance of Howard Hanson’s sole opera, Merry Mount, I wondered? Not long into the piece I thought, “My god, this is gorgeous!” And by the end I was ready to organize a Hanson revival.

Of all the major American composers of the last century, Hanson (1896-1981) seems the most forgotten. Born of Swedish émigrés, his music was resolutely tonal in a century of dissonance. He was dubbed “the American Sibelius.” In 1924, still in his twenties, he was named director of the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. He stayed for 40 years, during which there came to be known the “Eastman Sound,” which in reality was the “Hanson Sound.” In 1925, he established an annual festival devoted to American classical music. During the 1950s and early ’60s, he recorded many of those works—his and others’—for Mercury Living Presence. His most enduring work is his Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”), commissioned in 1930 by Serge Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony. Hanson recorded the “Romantic” three times commercially—for RCA, Columbia, and Mercury—and the New York Philharmonic released a 1946 composer-conducted live broadcast in a ten-CD set of American music.

Given their close proximity of creation, there’s a lot of the “Romantic” in Merry Mount, especially in the last scene of Act II and Act III. Hanson’s depiction of Indians may be more Polovtsian than 17th-century New England, but it’s so good natured that only the terminally politically correct will blanch. Sure, it’s dated and naïve, but none of today’s neo-Romantics would—or could—wallow in such luscious harmonies and melodic beauty. The real problem with Merry Mount is that its protagonist, the Puritan preacher Wrestling Bradford, is such a cad. The fact that Lucifer is always just around the corner doesn’t make him any more appealing. The work was commissioned and staged by the Metropolitan Opera in 1934. It received nine performances, one of which still holds the Met record of 50 curtain calls, but critics were lukewarm, and it was never revived by the company. Kathryn Judd’s notes set the scene: “Full of Puritanical hellfire and brimstone, the quintessentially American story centers on the conflict between religious fanatics and hedonistic, free-thinking cavaliers, exploring the age-old dichotomies between piety and desire, restraint and excess—and exposing the dire consequences of repression.”

The large cast sang well, for the most part, but the real stars of this concert were the Rochester Philharmonic, which not surprisingly played Hanson to the manner born, and conductor Michael Christie. His brief stint as music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic some time ago was not encouraging, but his conducting on this evening revealed total emotional conviction, natural long-line phrasing, and mastery of orchestral color. Rochester may have found its new music director.

A resounding “yes” to a Hanson revival!

Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival Chorus/James Conlon

We may smile at Merry Mount’s evocations of kinky reborn Southern televangelists, but R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses is no laughing matter. It is difficult to imagine a more persuasive performance of Moses than that of the Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival Chorus under the committed leadership of James Conlon, music director of Cincinnati’s 141-year-old May Festival since 1979, on May 9th.

Conlon and the fine Festival Chorus, directed by Robert Porco, who celebrates his 25th year in that position, were joined by four extraordinary vocal soloists who sang their dramatic hearts out, full throttle: soprano Latonia Moore (Miriam), mezzo Ronnita Nicole Miller (The Voice of Israel), tenor Rodrick Dixon (Moses), and baritone Donnie Ray Albert (The Voice of God and The Word).

All I had heard previously of  Dett’s music was Percy Grainger’s ancient recording of the catchy little Juba: Dance. Young Nathaniel (1882-1943) began formal lessons early and in 1908 graduated in piano and composition studies from Oberlin College. He had a distinguished career as a teacher and choral director, pursuing further studies at many universities during summers. In 1932 he earned his master’s degree from Eastman; his graduation thesis was the composition of The Ordering of Moses. He also studied in France with Nadia Boulanger and at Harvard. His style combined the music of the European Romantics, such as Dvořák, with that of the American spiritual.

The Ordering of Moses received its premiere at the 1937 Cincinnati May Festival. Eugene Goossens conducted a chorus of 350 and a quartet of noted oratorio and operatic singers. It was, writes Richard E. Rodda in his program note, Dett’s “most ambitious creative effort,  . . . formed around iconic episodes of the biblical Exodus—the lament of the Israelites held captive in Egypt, the divine calling (“ordering”) of Moses, the parting of the Red Sea and the pursuit by the Egyptians, and the rejoicing of the freed Israelites—with a text he drew from the books of Exodus and Lamentations and the words of traditional spirituals, most notably “Go Down, Moses,” whose melody recurs as a motto throughout the work. . . . The event was Dett’s greatest triumph.”

The 1937 performance was broadcast live nationwide on NBC radio, but under controversial circumstances: About three-quarters into the work, the music was interrupted by the announcer, saying, “We are sorry indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but due to previous commitments, we are unable to remain for the closing moments of this excellent performance.” The reason for the interruption remains a mystery, but conjecture has it that the network response was due to callers objecting to the broadcast of a work by a black composer—and the heresy, I would guess, of a work that combined European classical music with spirituals.

The original acetates of the broadcast still exist, and Conlon chose to have that 1937 introduction precede his performance. Moreover, at exactly the moment the music was cut off, the broadcast announcement was inserted. Some audience members in post-concert conversation objected, but I felt it added to the historical nature of the work’s genesis and self-evident triumph 77 years later.

There was no question about the Spring for Music performance. A large, diversified audience roared its approval at the work’s conclusion and simply wouldn’t leave. After several curtain calls, Conlon turned to the cheering crowd and said that it’s a tradition for the orchestra, chorus, and audience to sing Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus at the close of each May Festival. He launched into the music, and I daresay there were few dry eyes in Carnegie Hall.

The concert began with an expert performance of John Adams’s half-hour Harmonium, on texts by John Donne and Emily Dickinson. It’s an attractive work, and on another occasion it would certainly not be so overwhelmed by the rest of the program.

For the Spring for Music Record

I missed two of this year’s Spring for Music concerts. The first, on May 8th, by the Winnipeg Symphony under Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate, was a program of music by Canadian composers R. Murray Schafer, Derek Charke, and Vincent Ho. The second, on May 10th, by the Pittsburgh Symphony under Music Director Manfred Honeck, was a program of music by Bruckner, Poulenc, James MacMillan, and a presentation of Mozart’s Requiem, billed as “Mozart’s Death in Words and Music.”

By Sedgwick Clark

New York Philharmonic/Christoph von Dohnányi; Paul Lewis, piano, April 10—If you like your Brahms Germanic, the British pianist Paul Lewis is not your cup of schlag. He has been praised for his Schubert and Beethoven performances in small venues hereabouts and on Harmonia Mundi recordings, but this was his first appearance with the Philharmonic in the 2700-seat Avery Fisher Hall. Moments after his first entry in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, PK wrote a demanding note of frustration to me: “Why am I here??? This is precious and stultifying—his playing is twee.”

I know what she was talking about, but I found Lewis’s shaping of notes perceptive and musical (her favorite descriptive word when she likes an artist), and he really tried for a massive sound in all the big moments, even if his tone lacked the weight PK desired. The Philharmonic’s playing was surprisingly scrappy. An impeccably played, comfortably paced, unfussy Schumann Second Symphony after intermission left no doubt where Dohnányi spent his rehearsal time.

Richard Goode, piano, May 1—This was the esteemed American pianist’s first Carnegie Hall recital since retiring last summer from his 14-year co-artistic direction with Mitsuko Uchida of the Marlboro Music School and Festival. The centerpiece of the recital was as satisfying a Schumann Davidsbündlertänze as one could imagine, never allowing the music to seem overstressed and repetitive. Moreover, the composer’s trademark compositional moods of the introverted Eusebius and impetuous Florestan appeared natural rather than contrived.

Goode’s attractive Carnegie Hall program began with four selections from the ten pieces of Janáček’s On the Overgrown Path, Book I. I’ve listened over and over to this inimitable composer’s piano music, hoping to be as entranced as I am with his orchestral and operatic works. I’ll keep trying.

Many years ago, Goode played a duo concert of French music with soprano Dawn Upshaw. I recall his accompaniments and solo performances as being magical. On this occasion, however, his playing of Debussy’s Préludes, Book I, after intermission, was disconcertingly brisk and monochromatic, devoid of mist or mystery. Perhaps he was hewing to the metronome marks, I don’t know, but this wasn’t the Debussy I love.

The Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Lisa Batiashvili, violin, May 2—If ever an orchestra and a piece of music were made for each other, it is the Philadelphians and Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Nézet-Séguin’s tempo was perfect and the players’ incomparable legato breathtaking. I want never to hear this piece by anyone else again.

Bartók’s early two-movement Violin Concerto (1907-08) is as rarely played as Barber’s Adagio is ubiquitous. The Straussian first movement is the most nakedly beautiful music the Hungarian ever composed, a love letter to a young violinist, Stefi Geyer, with whom he was smitten. The relationship was short-lived, writes Paul Griffiths in his insightful program note: “[B]y September 1907, they were already at loggerheads over the question of Bartók’s atheism. In 1911, he salvaged the first movement of the concerto for a new work, Two Portraits, with a different finale, after which the original score remained with Geyer.” It only came to light after her death in 1956, and “was at last heard on May 30, 1958, with Paul Sacher conducting and Hansheinz Schneeberger as soloist, breaking its silence of more than half a century.” Isaac Stern and the Philadelphia under Eugene Ormandy introduced the work in America and made its first recording—an excellent one—in 1961. Ormandy also made a fine recording of the Two Portraits in 1964 with the orchestra’s concertmaster, Anshel Brusilow, as soloist. Lisa Batiashvili’s rapturous performance with this new generation of Philadelphians—half a century later—may be the best of all.

Nézet-Séguin is clearly a Bruckner conductor to watch. His admirably cohesive yet always expressive interpretation of the Austrian composer’s Ninth Symphony never lost sight of the final bars in his broadly paced (64 minutes) performance. I was troubled once again, however, by an occasional coarsening of the strings and uncomfortably glaring brass in loud passages (cf., my February 2 blog regarding the Dvořák Sixth). The sumptuous Philadelphia, of all orchestras that play in Carnegie, has no difficulty filling the hall with glorious sound, as it demonstrated in a downright plush Beethoven “Eroica” three weeks after that unfortunate Dvořák performance. Last month I heard the orchestra on its home ground, Verizon Hall, and it was clear that the string balance has not been solved in all locations, by all conductors. I’m no acoustician, but my guess is that N-S is asking for more sound from the strings, which subliminally causes the brass to blow louder. This may produce good results in Verizon, but not in Carnegie.

Alec Baldwin Hissed at New York Philharmonic Concert

New York’s perennial bad boy Alec Baldwin was hissed last night, May 15, at a New York Philharmonic concert just before Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink walked onstage to conduct Mahler’s Third Symphony. The mild reaction began as soon as he mentioned his name during his usual pre-recorded, pre-concert announcement (“Good evening, this is Alec Baldwin . . .”) requesting Philharmonic audience members to please turn off their cell phones. The award-winning actor, classical-music lover, ardent supporter of the arts, New York Philharmonic board member, and announcer of the orchestra’s radio broadcasts has been in the news this week for riding his bicycle the wrong way on Fifth Avenue and then arguing with a police officer and being arrested.

The concert was excellent.

Looking Forward

My week’s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted):

5/15 Avery Fisher Hall at 7:30. New York Philharmonic/Bernard Haitink; Bernarda Fink, mezzo; Women of the New York Choral Artists; Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Mahler: Symphony No. 3.

5/16 Carnegie Hall. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons. John Adams: Slonimsky’s Earbox. R. Strauss: Don Juan. Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique.

5/17 Carnegie Hall. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons; Mitsuko Uchida, piano. Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5.

5/18 Carnegie Hall at 2:00. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons; Gil Shaham, violin. Ligeti: Atmosphères. Berg: Violin Concerto. Brahms: Symphony No. 2.