Musical America Blogs

ON UNSELFCONSCIOUS STUPIDITY, LOVING MUSIC BY HATING IT

November 5th, 2013

by Albert Innaurato

On Saturday evening, YannickNezet-Seguin conducted The Philadelphia Orchestra in a stunning, almost unbelievably thrilling account of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, written for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941. It seemed the most modern and challenging work on a program containing two world premieres. Yannick (as he introduces himself to audiences) had an amazing grasp of this piece — surprising phrases, agogic mastery, finding the sting in no longer familiar modulations, all floating along on a magic carpet of inevitability. It was feverish, reckless, and the orchestra responded with astounding virtuosity.

I was not raised to value composer Rachmaninoff; at a master class, my heart bleeding into Busoni, the “master” hit me on the back of the head and screamed, “raus, du… du… Rachmaninoff spieler!”, words to wound a young man’s soul. But I was astounded by the piece, thanks to Yannick’s insight and fire.

After this concert there was a round table with Yannick and the two composers the orchestra had commissioned to write virtuoso concerti for principles. These were Behzad Ranjbaran, whose Flute Concerto, spectacularly played by Jeffrey Khaner; and David Ludwig, whose Bassoon Concerto was gorgeously sung by Daniel Matsukawa (Ludwig described himself as a “lover of Italian opera”). This concerto has a title, Pictures From the Floating World, and many quotes from Debussy piano pieces.

An older man put up his hand and effusively congratulated both composers for not being “navel gazers” but for “communicating with the audience”. “None of this atonal stuff“, he said.

Yannick, with great charm, said “but atonal music, you know, can communicate, and can be quite beautiful”, and quickly changed the subject.

I thought the questioner was a bigoted idiot and I see the same mentality on the ‘Net all the time. Mr. Ranjbaran’s work alternated lush orchestration with “Persian” effects for harp (imitating running water), the flute circling ’round (I’d have been more impressed had I not heard these effects and others he used in Ethnomusicology 101 45 years ago). Built on the alteration of augmented seconds and perfect fifths, the harmonic language as opposed to cultural allusion seemed thin for a thirty minute piece, and for once the complaint that it sounded like movie music seemed justified (did our questioner day dream or even nod off during, thrilled not to be rudely awakened by a surprise?). Mr. Ludwig’s work was shorter and modestly tuneful (thank you, Claude) but there was a lovely movement that for all the world sounded like Sam Barber’s quietly melancholy meditations leading to a long scale that was a recurring motive in the piece but in that section provided an effective punctuation. Mr. Ludwig is the grandson of Rudolf Serkin and teaches at Curtis. I suspect he knows his Barber.

Having heard these sort of discussions in Europe, the man’s question struck me as profoundly yet proudly ignorant. Does he know what “atonal” means? What works exactly did he have in mind? If one removed the name Schoenberg or Carter or Boulez or Berg from a piece would he actually enjoy it? Would he hear surprising tunes, interesting harmonies, arresting sounds and a distinctiveness these new pieces seemed to lack, and want to listen again immediately? Now, I don’t want to be unfair to the commissions, they should be heard again, with different conductors and soloists; secrets may open up. They got big applause, but was that relief that they weren’t “worse”, or enthusiasm for local soloists and not that the pieces themselves had got the audience thinking, their minds racing, their emotions fully involved?

American “serious music” culture is very stupid. It’s all TV now; we look to be palliated and reassured not stimulated, profoundly moved, disturbed. There’s nothing wrong with being enraged or puzzled by an art work. But I think there’s a great deal wrong with wanting it to be essentially a warm bath to which one plans tomorrow’s brunch.

Well, I’m a snob and hadn’t paid for my ticket; these good people should be allowed their soul deafness. But I’m glad I’ve seen works that were hated, that inspired heated discussion, that were booed, that divided an audience. I disliked some of them too, but I left the hall feeling I had had a unique experience, an evening different from all other evenings, an escape from Law and Order reruns or yet another proficient but standard go through of a war horse. One should go to art to have one’s life changed, if only a bit, to be forced to see the dark streets and one fellow human beings a little differently afterwards, to have one’s brain buzzing. I am afraid we’ve lost that desire in “fecund America today”, and with it, the determination to fight for the survival of those endangered arts we think we love.

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BR Chor’s Humorless Rossini

November 2nd, 2013

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks

By ANDREW POWELL
Published: November 2, 2013

MUNICH — Can music be sincere and ironic at the same time? Ask Peter Dijkstra, the artistic leader of the BR Chor who last weekend (Oct. 26) led Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle as billed. Solemnly. The result sounded not much like Rossini. Nobody smiled, and the musicians looked tense on the stage of the Prinz-Regenten-Theater, even as they sang and played expertly.

But perhaps the composer was smiling, wherever he is. The famously social 71-year-old used the tuneful giddy Mass — his only complete setting of the Ordinary — to demand admission to Paradise, describing for God its ingredients: “[un] peu de science, un peu de coeur.” The year was 1863 and Paris was digesting Darwin’s De l’origine des espèces, ou Des lois du progrès chez les êtres organizés, in its first French edition. Rossini may have viewed his demand as only natural. Ditto his casting stipulation: “chanteurs des trois sexes – hommes, femmes et castrats.”

If Dijkstra’s straight face precluded irony, and with it a few musical plaisanteries, at least he secured a tidy performance. His choristers, forty strong, mustered volume sparingly, reveling most of the time in transparent textures, soft floated tones and expressive accents. The evening burst into life in their spry counterpoint for Cum Sancto Spiritu, but choral virtuosity was just as apparent in Rossini’s contrasted, wistful Sanctus.

BR Chor members could have been assigned as quartet soloists, as the composer planned. Instead, BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk) hired glamorous outsiders. Regula Mühlemann and (mezzo-soprano) Anke Vondung paired exquisitely in the soprano and alto duet Qui tollis peccata mundi. Mühlemann’s sweet, light sound and the charm of her phrasing added luster to the Thomas Aquinas hymn, O salutaris hostia, interpolated after the Sanctus by Rossini (in 1867) to press musically his case for an agreeable afterlife. Vondung attuned herself to all colleagues, singing with dynamic sensitivity and great poise. She even adjusted neatly to the sudden weight of the Agnus Dei, pleading earnestly for mercy and peace against the score’s quirky aura of melodrama.

Eric Cutler and (baritone) Michael Volle made heavy work of the tenor and bass solo parts. Cutler, alarmingly, bellowed through the Domine Deus, but he brought finesse to the ensembles. Performing on a break from a run of Les vêpres siciliennes in London, Volle brightly characterized his words.

Mordant musical wit in the Petite messe solennelle mirrors Rossini’s droll remarks in its dédicace to God and on the manuscript’s flyleaf. In a skillful reading, particularly one using the original scoring for two pianos and harmonium, as on this occasion, a thread of humor helps link the incongruous styles and moods of the individual sections, ranging as they do from jaunty to buffo to melodramatic to properly solemn.

Dijkstra erred anyway on the side of objectivity, also slowness, and passive accompaniment from the duo pianists belabored his approach. Andreas Groethuysen (principal) and Yaara Tal (second piano) hovered below the music’s surface much of the time. The bubbly rhythmic figurations in the Kyrie passed by unremarkably. The instrumental Offertorio, waggishly labeled Prélude religieux lest anyone find it misplaced, lacked shape and in fact dragged. Groethuysen faltered technically now and then as well.

In a nod to the Verdi bicentennial, Dijkstra began the concert with the unaccompanied, seldom-heard Pater noster (O Padre nostro che ne’ cieli stai) of 1878, sung mellifluously in clear Italian with restrained power. Here his straightforwardness paid off. (Mariss Jansons is chief conductor of the BR Chor.)

Photo © Johannes Rodach

Tags: Andreas Groethuysen, Anke Vondung, Bayerischer Rundfunk, BR Chor, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eric Cutler, Giuseppe Verdi, Max Hanft, Michael Volle, München, Munich, Pater noster, Peter Dijkstra, Petite messe solennelle, Prinz-Regenten-Theater, Regula Mühlemann, Review, Rossini, Yaara Tal
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Benjamin and Aimard

November 2nd, 2013

George Benjamin

By ANDREW POWELL
Published: November 2, 2013

MUNICH — George Benjamin programmed strongly around his own Duet in a welcome conducting engagement Oct. 21 with the Bavarian State Orchestra. Alas, doing so overshadowed the subtle 2008 composition in its local premiere, even with dedicatee Pierre-Laurent Aimard as persuasive soloist.

One of only three works published by Benjamin since 2007, Duet in the composer’s words is “an encounter between two equal partners,” piano and orchestra. Call it not a concerto. Now gently, now forcefully, the 14-minute piece pits harmonic qualities of the solo instrument against “legato capacities” of the strings and winds. In a kind of dare, the composer has fashioned music for “compatible areas,” dividing “the piano into … registers with timbral equivalents in the orchestra.” The harp is prominent. There are no violins. Written with scrupulous attention to dynamics, Duet emerges as an eloquent, mostly restrained, balancing act in myriad sonorities gleaned from austere material. It received a careful performance.

The National Theater Akademiekonzert opened with Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, written exactly a hundred years earlier. This, it turned out, supplied a related palette of tints and surface effects, and the conductor’s bare, crystalline, somewhat dawdling traversal — almost a dissection — made it seem like his property. Fascinating! Next came a clangorous, iridescent reading of Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques (1956), again with Aimard, supported by tight, bright woodwinds and driven by gleeful interaction between Benjamin and the fluent, unflappable pianist from Lyon.

Duet followed after the break, and then came Janáček’s festive Sinfonietta (1926). Here the orchestra’s brass section took the chance to sing its own praises, and Benjamin dutifully pointed the various Moravian dance rhythms. The conductor’s meticulous manner seemed to rub off in excellent playing on this night. Aimard himself was on confident, animated form.

Photo © Matthew Lloyd

Tags: Bavarian State Orchestra, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, George Benjamin, Leoš Janáček, Messiaen, München, Munich, National Theater, Nationaltheater, Oiseaux exotiques, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Rapsodie espagnole, Ravel, Review, Sinfonietta
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Shostakovich October

October 31st, 2013

by Sedgwick Clark

It’s amazing, really. This month New York has been graced by a veritable deluge of Shostakovich. I remember when the Fifth Symphony was all we could hope to hear with any frequency. These days, I can barely stand to hear it because of the unbearably “meaningful,” post-Testimony manner in which most conductors distend the finale. My first exposure to the Fifth was Bernstein’s 1959 New York Philharmonic recording, made immediately following the orchestra’s return from its Soviet Russian tour. Bernstein tears through the finale like a bat out of hell (this was long before his meaningful, slow-is-profound period began in the 1970s), and all other interpretations appear schleppy to me. Shostakovich was in the audience for the Moscow performance and wrote to a young Russian conductor a year later: “I was very taken with the performance of my Fifth Symphony by the talented Leonard Bernstein. I liked it that he played the end of the finale significantly faster than is customary.” (Quoted from Laurel E. Fay’s Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford), page 309, note 83, in which she sorts out this most controversial of Shosta Sym questions.) Happily, the Fifth wasn’t played this month.

Free association: Before I go on with the Shostakovich works that were performed this month, I must alert readers to a DVD of a Bernstein/London Symphony Orchestra performance of the Fifth from December 1966—an incredibly exciting example of his impassioned music-making at its zenith—on the Idéale Audience label, released by EuroArts. For those who never saw Bernstein conduct live (“Ah, youth!”), this video is a must. The film quality shows its age, but who cares? The BBC also filmed a two-hour rehearsal to go with the concert performance, and an extremely disappointing five-minute snippet of perhaps that morning’s only temperate moments is included. It’s nothing like the incendiary excerpts contained on Teldec’s first “Art of Conducting” video, now retrievable on UTube, in which an ill-tempered Bernstein savagely berates the LSO musicians for not committing themselves completely to the piece.

I wrote last week in this space of the welcome reprise of William Kentridge’s wild production of The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera and the Mariinsky Orchestra’s devastating performance of the Eighth Symphony and the soloist-challenged First Piano Concerto, all conducted by Valery Gergiev. I missed Semyon Bychkov’s performance of the Eleventh Symphony (“The Year 1905”) with the New York Philharmonic but was reliably informed that he didn’t allow it to drag and that the playing was excellent. Its most recent performance hereabouts was by the Houston Symphony under Hans Graf at a May 2012 Spring for Music concert at Carnegie Hall that failed, in my estimation, to raise the piece above the level of a politically calculated tub thumper. The Russian music authority Boris Schwarz told me that maybe one had to be Russian to recognize the work’s true stature.

Bernard Haitink led the London Symphony at Lincoln Center for welcome concerts on the 20th and 21st, headlined by the mid-Thirties’ Fourth and the composer’s final symphony, the Fifteenth (1971). Characteristically, the Dutch conductor let the composer’s notes speak for themselves, without stressing the element of menace that many expect in Shostakovich interpretations. As in his Chicago Symphony performance of the Fourth at Carnegie Hall in May 2008, this allowed the occasional lyricism of the score to peek through the composer’s symphonic tirade that younger conductors emphasize. Haitink’s London Philharmonic recording, available in his Decca set of the complete symphonies, times out longer than any other performance in the catalogue, and both the Chicago and LSO concerts were slower still. Some may have missed the greater energy of his recording, but the breadth of his pacing imparted undeniable reason to what I used to characterize as a musical enactment of a nervous breakdown.

In his Fifteenth, Shostakovich inserts quotes from Rossini’s William Tell (familiar in America as the Lone Ranger theme) in the first movement and the “fate” motive from Wagner’s Ring in the last. Not surprisingly, Haitink integrated these quotes, and briefer ones detailed by Christopher H. Gibbs in his excellent program notes, into the score’s fabric more than I’ve ever heard—and for the first time in any performance I’ve heard live there was no laughter when the brass chuckled the Tell motive. Both concerts were cannily paired with early and late Mozart piano concertos, the 9th and 27th, genially played by Emanuel Ax.

The final Shostakovich symphony to be played this month was the Ninth, by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under its 36-year-old music director, Pablo Heras-Cassado, at Carnegie Hall on 10/23. The neoclassical Ninth was a major disappointment to government officials, who had expected the country’s most prominent composer to come forth at the close of the Second World War with a rousing paean to Soviet supremacy. It’s not played often, which is too bad; divorced from the time of its composition, it’s an engaging mix of delight and disquietude that lights up any concert program when performed with as much effervescence as on this occasion.

Important tip: The Juilliard Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski will perform an all-Shostakovich concert at Alice Tully Hall on November 25. The program of early works includes selections from the film score to The New Babylon (1929) and the orchestral suite to Hypothetically Murdered (1931), and the First Symphony (1924-25). For those like your devoted blogger who have never even heard of the second work, Juilliard’s press release describes it as “drawn from the composer’s one and only venture into music hall entertainment with one of Soviet Russia’s biggest vaudeville and jazz celebrities in 1931. Buried in the Soviet Archives, it was reconstructed from a variety of scores and sketches of this “Light-Music Circus” combining comedy, slapstick, and politics in the dark Russian style of satire.”

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TO DIE FOR: THE MUSIC ONE CHOOSES AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT

October 31st, 2013

by Albert Innaurato

I visited my doctor yesterday. He looks like Santa Claus. He eyed me and said, “Yo!” (he’s from South Philly), “No trick or treats. You’re a fatty.” I thought of Luke 4:23, where The Nazarene is mocked, “Physician, heal thyself” (Cura te ipsum as the nuns used to scream at us after they had thrashed us without mercy.) Doctor Santa then gave me a flu shot, and I had visions of dying from it. I thought, “what music would one chose for one’s last moments alive?”

A number of people have mentioned the second movement of the Schubert Quintet. It is one of the most celestially beautiful pieces of music ever written in the West. It was written two months before he died, and shrugged off.

Schubert Quintet in C, Stern, Casals

But there is a lot of music one loves in a lifetime. Bela Bartok for example. He saved me from Johann Sebastian Bach. I was a hapless six year old fighting the Inventions, too stupid to count them. A new teacher suggested Bartok. And though rhythm was never my strong suit, in life or music, I fell in love. As the flu shot worked its way toward my throat to close it, I thought of this memorial to Bartok by Gyorgy Ligeti. This is early Ligeti, but throughout his career he composed beautiful and moving music. It is played here by the great pianist, Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Musica Ricercata number 9. Bela Bartok In memorium

But of course, if one wasn’t too out of it, one would want real Bartok. I’d ask to hear at least a movement from one of the six quartets. As I felt flu vaccine flood my lungs, I thought of Number Five. It uses elaborate Bulgarian rhythmic patterns (one might want a taste of the authentic as, with one’s dying eyes, one made out the white light — either The Eternal or the impatient orderly who wants to dispose of one’s body). The Adagio is strictly structured to have three subjects, one following another, ABC, then those subjects return. Not only does Bela invert the order in which they return but the subjects themselves. It’s sublime music to hear but also to count off as these small miracles of invention occur up to one’s final shut eye.

Bartok: Fifth Quartet, Adagio; Julliard Quartet

However, I was torn. The flu shot had entered my abdomen and pumpkin pie looked good. The Third Piano Concerto was written by a dying Bartok. Not Jewish, he’d fled to America to escape Fascism (funny that, today). The Piano Concerto was a birthday present for his wife; it’s a work of great beauty and the second movement is the last Bartok finished. (Tibor Serly completed the concerto). Dying, Bartok evokes the night sounds of his native Hungry, the universal spirit of late Beethoven, the famous Tristan chord. a homage to love in death perhaps as he thought of his wife, but unlike Wagner, Bartok resolves the chord on an affirmative C.

Bartok: 3rd Piano Concerto, Schiff, Rattle

I am not religious but Olivier Messiaen was devout. Perhaps, dying, one might want to bargain a bit just in case…? My belly was shaking — flu shot or pie? One piece in memory of Messiaen by Tristan Murail, one of his students (born 1947), might do. And, after all, Murail is part of a movement, which has an element of ghostliness in it, the “spectral” style. This is his beautiful homage to his master: Cloches d’adieu et un sourire (Bells of Farewell and a Smile), played by Marilyn Nonken

Murail: Cloches d’adieu et un sourire

But I would try to hear all of Visions de l’amen. In college, my only friend and I would play this two piano piece at parties, and then wonder why no one liked us. Wretched playing, maybe. It’s a wonderful piece, all about The Nazarene’s misfortunes and promises but wildly theatrical. That’s especially evident in this sweaty performance by Messiaen and another devout Catholic, the great Yvonne Loriod, with whom he was having an adulterous affair. This is No. 5, The Amen of the Angels, the Saints and the Songs of the birds — hey, there are worse things to think about when dying!

Messiaen – Visions de l’Amen no. V (Messiaen/Loriod)

If my dying moments stretched a bit, I would want to hear something by John Adams. Several composer pals agreed we were less fond of Nixon in China than the works he composed around the same time. My favorite is Harmonielehre. Arnold Schoenberg used the title for his book on music theory (lots of fun to read). I’d choose the second movement, The Amfortas Wound, a reference to Wagner’s Parsifal but a summation of music that Adams had loved. Especially striking is the way he works in the amazing 12 note chord Gustav Mahler uses in the Adagio of the Tenth Symphony he died writing. There is a combination of sorrow and mind-energy, which just perhaps survives cessation in this deficient dimension.

John Adams, Harmonielehre, Part 2, Barnett Newman

But the shoulder wound made by Dr. Santa’s needle had healed, and seeing if there were a Family Guy episode on, I realized that I might want to laugh at death. Maybe the dread secret is that it’s funny at the final second. This is something chirped by Nellie Melba in 1910 from a useless work by Massenet that always makes me laugh. Trick or Treat!

nellie melba massenet-Don cesra de Bazan “Sevillana”

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Oh, Canada!

October 31st, 2013

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.

Dear Law and Disorder:

I represent a performance group from Canada who will be touring the United States. Three of the members are Canadians, but two are not. I have applied for a P-1 visa. Because the group is from Canada, can they enter the US just with the approval notice or do they first have to go to the consulate and get actual visas in their passports?

There more to Canada than just poutine, health care, and HM The Queen on the currency. Canadians are also the only folks who are not required to have physical visas to enter the US.

Canadian artists must still file visa petitions with USCIS and be approved for either O or P visa classification. (Like artists from the rest of the world, Canadian artists cannot perform in the US as visitors—even for free!). However, once the visa petition has been approved, a Canadian artist does not have to go to a US Consulate, pay a visa application fee, and receive a physical visa in his or her passport. Instead, a Canadian artist can enter the US with only their passport and a copy of their USCIS visa approval notice. (Technically, a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer can verify the approval through the USCIS database and does not need a copy of the approval notice. However, for obvious reasons, do NOT rely on this. Artists should always bring a copy of the actual approval notice, as well as a copy of the visa petition itself, just in case.

This unique privilege only applies to Canadian citizens. It does NOT apply to Canadian permanent residents (aka “Canadian landed immigrants”) or anyone who just happens to be passing through Canada en route to the US.

So, in your case, if the three Canadian members of your group are Canadian citizens, then they can proceed directly to the airport or border-crossing and enter the US with only their passport and their visa approval notice. The other 2 members of your group will need to make an appointment at a US Consulate and go through the visa application and issuance process. Apply early…US Consulates in Canada are notoriously backed up!

_________________________________________________________________

For additional information and resources on this and other legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com

To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.

All questions on any topic related to legal and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously.

__________________________________________________________________

THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:

THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!

The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!

Tags: approval notice, Brian Taylor, canada, canadians, citizens, copy, Goldstein, passports, petitions, Tour, uscis, visa application, visa approval, visa petition, visas, visitor
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Valery the Variable

October 24th, 2013

By Sedgwick Clark

“He’s so variable.” That’s the first thing critics say about Valery Gergiev. He conducted his Mariinsky Orchestra three times at Carnegie Hall in an eight-day period early this month, interrupted by four Met performances (two on Saturday) and runouts to Newark and Washington, D.C. Even when he was busy at the Met, the orchestra was moonlighting under the leadership of Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Evidently, the man and his musicians never rest, to wit this link listing his next month and a half of concerts:

http://mariinsky.us/performances/valery-gergiev-performance-schedule/

Stravinsky
Each of the three Carnegie concerts was devoted to a single composer: Stravinsky (10/10), Shostakovich (10/11), and Rachmaninoff (10/15). Gergiev seems to me most unpredictable with his own orchestra, the Mariinsky, which by all reports is subject to his rehearsal and programming whims. His performing of Stravinsky’s first three ballets in order of composition was a great idea but in practice overly ambitious. The Firebird (complete) was best, right up with Boulez/New York Philharmonic (1975) and Dutoit/Montreal (1986) as the best I’ve heard in concert—dramatic, dynamic, gorgeously played, with a sparkling color palette. But Pétrouchka (1911 orchestration) was thickly textured, monochromatic, often too loud in quiet passages, and, most alarming, humorless. The Rite of Spring’s huge dynamic range was squashed, with the fat forte of the opening winds—Stravinsky’s “awakening of nature, the scratching, gnawing, wiggling of birds and beasts”—totally without mystery. The Mariinsky players were exhausted, and it showed in their spotty ensemble. When Gergiev returned to the stage for his second bow he turned to the audience, announced that it was Verdi’s 200th birthday, and proceeded to conduct an electrically charged overture to La Forza del destino! Who says they were tired?

Shostakovich
Gergiev’s shattering performance of Shostakovich’s wartime Eighth Symphony left me shell shocked. Only four times before have I been so emotionally wrung out in a concert hall: a Bernstein/NYPhil Mahler Ninth in September 1970, Colin Davis’s Beethoven Missa solemnis with the London Symphony two years ago this week, and Rostropovich’s Britten War Requiem in January 1979 and Shostakovich Eighth in April 1986, both with the Washington National Symphony.

It took me a couple of movements to get into Gergiev’s interpretation. It’s dicey to impose extra-musical interpretations onto symphonic works, but the confluence of Shostakovich’s life and the often pictorial episodes in his music are difficult to ignore. Whichever stance one takes—music as pure expression or a reflection of the composer’s experiences—Gergiev struck me as understated in the first movement climax. I fancifully imagine the Nazis marching into Russia at this point, which will seem overly literal to some. Rostropovich’s players peeled the paint off Carnegie’s walls with their fortississimos, and the sudden, gut-clutching plunge of tremolando strings from fff to sfpp, after 34 pages of ear-splitting onslaught, induced audible gasps from Rostropovich’s audience. (Perhaps Gergiev’s cozying up to Putin is a liability when measured against the sensibility of a man who grew up during the Stalin purges.) Gergiev’s brisk tempo in the second-movement Allegretto skated over its Mahlerian grotesquerie, but the mechanized power of the third movement had its full effect, climaxing with brutal timpani and the grinding dissonance of the first movement. Throughout Gergiev’s fourth-movement Largo, one could hear the proverbial pin drop. Woodwinds strike up a perky tune in the last movement, but optimism is short-lived and the violent attacks from the first movement return. The coda—a vision of the abyss—is one of most unsettling passages in all of music.

An interview with Shostakovich about his Eighth Symphony, quoted in Laurel E. Fay’s biography, Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford), was published a month before its premiere: “I can sum up the philosophical conception of my new work in three words: life is beautiful. Everything that is dark and gloomy will rot away, vanish, and the beautiful will triumph.” Huh? I doubt that anyone in Carnegie Hall’s audience would agree, for they sat through the work with uncommon attention. Gergiev stood still for half a minute after the final double bass pizzicatos had died away, and I felt as if everyone—performers and audience alike—had communed in the infinite.

Rachmaninoff
The 1954 edition of Grove prophesied that the music of Rachmaninoff would be forgotten. Not if performances like Gergiev’s are around. The knife-edged drama of the old Kondrashin recording remains my touchstone in the Symphonic Dances (1942), but Gergiev may have surpassed his fellow Russian in the nostalgic Lento assai in the third dance, luxuriating in Rachmaninoff’s luscious melodies to a degree that makes me glad he’s away from home so often.

Russian Rambo
Gergiev’s taste in pianists is not mine. Where once he trotted out the frenzied Russian-American Alexander Toradze, on this tour he brought the muscle-bound Russian Rambo Denis Matsuev to pummel Shostakovich’s early, delightful Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings. Loud and fast are the primary weapons in his arsenal. Oblivious to this work’s nose-thumbing Rossinian wit, this 1998 Tchaikovsky Competition winner plowed through the last-movement’s parodistic cadenza of beer hall songs and folk tunes with harried determination. Rarely have I felt myself at such odds with a soloist.

His take-no-prisoners view of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto eschewed lyricism, poetry, and tonal beauty, qualities well apparent in the composer’s own ancient recording. Matsuev doesn’t bang, really, he’s just repellently forceful, even when playing pianissimo, and he only plays notes instead of phrases. To no surprise, he opted for the heavy chordal cadenza in the first movement. The small cut in the finale (the Meno mosso two bars after 52 to the a tempo at 54) is often made and does no harm. Gergiev’s accompaniments were strong and supportive—some of his most reliable conducting in these three concerts. In December he performs the Shostakovich concerto in Paris with Daniil Trifonov, an impressive young competition winner with a notably colorful tonal palette; now that’s a performance I’d love to hear.

Gergiev at the Met
A final word on the two operas Gergiev conducted at the Met: Shostakovich’s The Nose and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. It’s always best to attend Gergiev performances toward the end of a run, whether at the Met or the Philharmonic. Nearly all the reviewers complained about slow tempos at the opening of Onegin; I caught his final performance (10/12) and couldn’t imagine more effective, naturally flowing tempos. The Nose (10/8) was even more fun than in its first go-around, two seasons ago. There aren’t any big tunes to whistle on the way home, but the production is a hoot. One wonders how Shostakovich’s political satire got through the censors.

Looking Forward
My week’s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted):
10/24 Zankel Hall at 7:00. Tetzlaff Quartet. Haydn: Quartet in C major, Op. 20, No. 2. Bartók: Quartet No. 4. Beethoven: Quartet in A minor, Op. 132.
10/26 Metropolitan Opera. Britten: Midsummer Night’s Dream. James Conlon (cond.); Kim, Wall, DeShong, Davies, Kaiser, Simpson, M. Rose, Costello.

Posted in Uncategorized, Why I Left Muncie | Comments Closed

Swings, Mimes and Flying Meteors: Parsifal in Poznán

October 24th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid

Whether Parsifal is a supremacist scripture or a mystic journey, we are used to seeing at least one appearance of the Holy Grail or Spear. Wagner, a man of the theater as much as a composer, left clear indications in his libretto about when and how these objects should be deployed in his “consecration” of the Festspielhaus stage in Bayreuth.

Danish directing team Hotel Pro Forma, whose new production of Parsifal premiered at the Poznán Opera, in western Poland, on October 18, sets out to spurn the notion of Art Religion and reframe the opera in more immediate, human terms. Despite some inspired touches, the concept goes so overboard as to obscure the story’s fundamental interpersonal relationships.

While Parsifal, dressed in a mod, eighties-style jumpsuit, his fingertips lacquered in white paint, is assigned a Doppelgänger who mimes his lines in sign language, Kundry—an unemotional, bourgeois apparition—is represented by a dancer in different guises. In the climatic seduction scene of the second act, the singers barely make eye contact. Instead, Kundry’s powers are implied with the dancer’s brief undulations in a leotard.

After the Pure Fool foresees redemption for her—Erlösung, Frevlerin, biet’ ich auch dir—a crucifix is erected in the background, draped with a white coat, while he stares into eternity. Upon the return of the warlock Klingsor, there is no spear. Instead, a giant meteor descends, crashing the metal skeleton of a non-descript house.

Presumably, this represents the magic garden which disappears when Parsifal waves the spear in the sign of the cross. Or is it just the power of the supernatural.

The disorienting visuals at times served to propel the action through what are arguably long-winded passages. Pro Forma Director Kirsten Dehlholm, staging Wagner for the first time, set the narration of the knight Gurnemanz during the first act to tableaux vivants such as the image of businessmen huddling on one side while modern women facing downstage gave the Hitler salute on the other.

One would have wished for more from the flower girls of the second act, here set in drab yellow dresses (costumes by Henrik Vibskov) above moderately interesting video projections.

Dehlholm takes a near surrealist approach to the character of Titurel, father of the wounded knight Amfortas, casting him as a black-faced, spandex-clad ghost from the very beginning (he is in fact still alive in the first act). The unveiling of the grail in the final scene is represented by extras hanging on swings above lowered stage platforms—a vision of innocence and new beginnings (with expert lighting by Jesper Kongshaug).

The production, despite its far-fetched symbolism, was not out of tune with the vicissitudes of the score, such as with a mass of people marching in darkness during the tolling bells of the final scene. The orchestra under recently-installed Music Director Gabriel Chmura, a surprisingly young group of musicians, struggled with the sustained, shimmering lines of the opening act only to improve steadily throughout the evening, bringing clear dramatic intention and vigorous energy to the score’s intricate melodic fabric.

In the cast, German tenor Thomas Mohr gave a polished, penetrating performance of Parsifal even as he lost himself in the sea of Regie. He was well-matched by the dark, resonant soprano Agnieszka Zwierko in the role of Kundry; one can forgive her at times harsh timbre and tendency to go flat in their heated exchange of the second act.

Mario Klein was a suitable Gurnemanz—although he at times struggled to end his lines audibly above the orchestra despite Chmura’s excellent balance—and Mark Morouse gave a touching enough account of Amfortas, trapped in a wheelchair until he is healed by a piece of asphalt (picked up by Hotel Pro Forma from the giant construction site that currently engulfs the center of Poznán). Jerzy Mechliński was a strong voiced Klingsor, shrouded enigmatically behind primitive, black make up, and Krzystof Bączyk made for an athletic Titurel—perplexing as it was to see him dressed in a unitard.

It is something of a milestone for the house to have staged Parsifal with an international cast and a production as unconventional as that of Hotel Pro Forma. Despite the direction’s admirable attempt of transforming an opera with potentially lethal ideology into a universal allegory, Dehlholm also found herself subject to its mythic weight—leading the audience down the road of her own bewilderment.

rebeccaschmid.info

Tags: Agnieszka Zwierko, Gabriel Chmura, Henrik Vibskov, Hotel Pro Forma, Jerzy Mechliński, Jesper Kongshaug, Kirsten Dehlholm, Krzystof Bączyk, Mark Morouse, parsifal, Poznán Opera, Thomas Mohr, wagner
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Closed

The Band That Stood Up To God…and Lost

October 24th, 2013

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.

Dear Law and Disorder

We recently has a situation where one of our groups showed up at a festival, but just before they were to go on stage, the police shut down the event due to an approaching electrical storm. The presenter had given the group a deposit for 50% prior to the event, but is refusing to pay the balance even though our booking agreements have a specific clause that says that, in the event of cancellation, except for Acts of God, the artist gets the full fee. The presenter signed the agreement. The band showed up and were ready, willing and able to perform. Aren’t they entitled to the full fee? They need this money to cover their costs for flying, driving, and internal costs. Isn’t the presenter supposed to get event insurance to cover these sorts of things?

When you say the band was “ready, willing and able to perform”, are you saying that, had the police not shut down the event, they would have performed anyway? In a lightning storm? Seriously? While I am solidly rooted in the “show must go on” tradition, you’re either representing the industry’s most desperate band or the most reckless—or both. Had lightning struck the stage, injuring either a band member or a member of the audience, the band would have been facing some significant lawsuits and liability for gross negligence.

An “Act of God” is an unexpected event or occurrence that is beyond the control of a party. If a party breaches a contract because of an “Act of God”, then the party is not liable. Concerts cancelled due to severe weather are among the most common “Acts of God.” The fact that, in this case, the police shut down the event as opposed to the actual hand of the almighty descending from the clouds and cancelling the event with a host of celestial trumpets does not change the fact that the presenter did not cause the lightning storm and had no choice but to cancel the event—literally, given that the police ordered the event to be closed. Thus, the presenter is not liable for the cancellation and the band is not entitled to the full fee. In fact, assuming the presenter let the band keep its 50% deposit, the band actually got more than it was entitled to.

As for whether or not the presenter was supposed to get event insurance to cover weather related cancellations, you seem to be under the impression that, had the presenter obtained such insurance, then the band would have been paid its full fee. Not necessarily. Unless your contract obligated the presenter to purchase an insurance policy and name the band as an additional insured, then the presenter’s event cancellation insurance policy would only have covered the presenter’s liabilities and expenses. As the presenter isn’t liable to pay the band its full fee, the insurance policy wouldn’t have paid it either. On the contrary, if the band regularly plays outdoor events and concerts, and wants to “ensure” that it losses are covered in the event a concert is cancelled to due weather, then the band should consider getting its own event cancellation insurance policy. Or you could always just pray.

_________________________________________________________________

For additional information and resources on this and other legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com

To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.

__________________________________________________________________

THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:

THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!

Tags: act of god, acts of god, Agreements, artist, booking agreement, breach, breaches, Brian Taylor, cancellation, cancellations, contract, Festival, Goldstein, insurance, Liable, losses, money
Posted in Acts of God, Agents, Artist Management, Arts Management, Contracts, Insurance, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Liability, Presenters, Touring, Venues | Comments Closed

A Master Concertmaster

October 24th, 2013

By: Edna Landau

Dear Edna:

I am a violinist with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from a major American conservatory. I have won top prizes in some competitions and have always expected that I would be able to attract management and enjoy a solo career. As of late, I have begun to have my doubts about that as it seems that managements are only interested in signing immediate moneymakers. I have been told that I stand a reasonable chance of winning a concertmaster position with a good level orchestra. I did serve as concertmaster in my conservatory orchestra but I am not sure that experience would suffice to qualify me for a professional concertmaster position. I have also regularly played chamber music but I am not sure how relevant that is. In addition, I am hesitant about going the concertmaster route for fear I would have very few solo opportunities in the future. What advice can you offer me? – H.P.

Dear H.P.:

Thank you for your fine question which gave me the opportunity to speak to two wonderful concertmasters: the eminent and greatly respected leader of the New York Philharmonic, Glenn Dicterow, now in his 34^th and final year with the orchestra (after the longest tenure of a concertmaster in the orchestra’s history), and the 29-year-old very well-liked concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Noah Bendix-Balgley, who joined the orchestra in 2011 with many solo accolades, including his title of Laureate from the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition. Both assured me that serving as concertmaster with an orchestra does not mean bidding farewell to solo and chamber music performances. A concertmaster is in the best position among orchestral players to negotiate for free time beyond what might be included in the general master contract. Furthermore, many orchestras, such as Pittsburgh, have relatively light summer seasons, thereby affording their players the opportunity to participate in summer festivals.

Glenn Dicterow reminisced with me about his young years as associate concertmaster, and then concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with whom he had made his solo debut at age 11 in the Tchaikovsky Concerto. Prior to assuming those positions, he had no experience playing in an orchestra — only chamber music. He had won numerous awards and competitions, and the assumption was that he would go the soloist route. However, he realized that he was not the type to thrive on living out of a suitcase and moving from city to city, never knowing what his concert schedule might look like from season to season. He was attracted to the stability that came with a secure orchestra job. He was also well aware that such great musicians as Gregor Piatigorsky, Alfred Wallenstein and Leonard Rose had all occupied first chair positions in orchestras. Once he became concertmaster in Los Angeles, he felt comfortable leading because of his frequent and regular chamber music activities. Noah Bendix-Balgley elaborated on this point with me. He explained that his experience playing first violin in quartets contributed greatly to his comfort level within the orchestra. He cited the visual cues, regular eye contact, having ears constantly tuned to what others are doing, and having the confidence and flexibility to adapt to them. He further explained that “playing chamber music makes you think for yourself, come up with a musical opinion and be able to defend it. These abilities are essential to a concertmaster as well. It’s just a different scale.”

I asked both gentlemen how much time they were able to devote to solo and chamber music repertoire and neither of them felt shortchanged. There are, of course, regular opportunities to play solo with their orchestras. In addition, they have had guest appearances with other orchestras and opportunities to participate in summer festivals. Mr. Dicterow has performed with his own string trio and piano trio over the years but he did admit to me that it can sometimes be challenging to match up dates offered by presenters with the open times in his New York Philharmonic schedule. Mr. Bendix-Balgley said that this drawback was more than compensated for by the many new connections he has made in the music world since joining the Pittsburgh Symphony as concertmaster and touring with them internationally. He has been introduced to institutions where he may someday want to teach or perform more actively, and he will explore those possibilities further when the time seems right.

I also asked both musicians about the qualities that characterize a successful concertmaster. Mr. Dicterow spoke of humility, the importance of positive thinking and respect for others, and the ability to play and think as a member of a team. He mentioned the public relations aspect of being able to convince others of the right way to do things and the esprit de corps to be a conduit between orchestra and conductor in a way that leads to unity. He added that solo moments should be so well prepared that they compare in quality to any guest artist visiting town. Mr. Bendix-Balgley also said that always being prepared and always sounding good are the first steps toward true leadership (advice he received from Alexander Kerr, former concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra). He added that he thinks of himself as a leader among equals. “There are 100 or so amazing musicians in the Pittsburgh Symphony and each has a different role. I try to appreciate that role and treat them all with respect.”

Last night, in the course of a public interview entitled “The Quintessential Concertmaster”, which was part of the Insights Series jointly presented by the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center, Mr. Dicterow spoke about the rich life he has enjoyed with the orchestra under the batons of four music directors: Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel and Alan Gilbert. His insight, humanity, sensitivity and sense of humor which contributed to making him a great leader on a personal level were all very much on display. He knows that he will greatly miss his friends and colleagues when he moves to California at the end of this season to more fully assume the position of Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music, at USC’s Thornton School of Music, but the chapter he is closing is a brilliant one indeed. He is truly leaving the New York Philharmonic at the top of his game and he will be very much missed. I hope that if you decide to pursue a position as concertmaster, you will experience some of the same joy and fulfillment that have characterized his journey to becoming one of the world’s most pre-eminent concertmasters.

Posted in Ask Edna, The Orchestral World, Uncategorized | Comments Closed

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