On Forbes: Boston Symphony Orchestra & Andris Nelsons in Vienna

Boston Symphony's Gift To Mahler In Vienna

…As always with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in combination with Andris Nelsons, expectations are extremely high – even or especially after they were somewhat disappointing when I heard them last summer at Grafenegg. (Forbes review here.) The opening, especially that cor anglais (courtesy Robert Sheena) gorgeously emerging with lots of personality from a sweet swell of strings, was most auspicious. Not just for the coherence and sweep, but especially for the well-shaped many little climaxes that didn’t overly tax the acoustic of the Golden Hall which might be famous but is hardly a natural fit for the really big romantic repertoire. Many – most – visiting orchestras struggle, but the BSO this night kept it perfectly within the limits. Overly picky ears might have pointed to peaks of volume reached in the third movement (Rondo-Burleske), as going to the limit of what the hall can comfortably handle. But then again this movement, “very defiant”, is not primarily meant to be comfortable.

Off to hear the @BostonSymphony & @andris_nelsons at the @Musikverein in a touch of #Mahler. pic.twitter.com/YzONJ8YenL

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) May 10, 2016

Hungry Bears and Blauer Portugieser

What distinguishes the Ninth Symphony from its ten siblings – making it unique in that sense among Mahler’s symphonies – is its sense of calm and contentment. Granted, there’s still a good deal of the usual Angst and those twisted question marks in the first movement, where hints of music-on-the-edge-of-the seat (foreshadowing the Tenth Symphony) pop up to screaming…

Continued at Forbes.com


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#morninglistening: DSCH from Boston

#morninglistening to #Shostakovich w/@andris_nelsons + @bostonsymphony on @dgclassics#cl… https://t.co/ka7bXLGvvW pic.twitter.com/ttqSU0H8CZ

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) November 16, 2015

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Recommended Recordings: "Boston Symphony @ Grafenegg / Forbes.com"

...It’s almost impossible to ruin this work, and the Boston Symphony certainly didn’t, getting plenty, if slightly lukewarm applause. But this wasn’t “Boston-Symphony-Good”, some of which the band had apparently shown in their Salzburg performances – and which needs to be “Knock-Your-Socks-Off Good”… it was merely an afterthought. Pity, really. Perhaps the orchestra was tired, at the back end of their tour, or Andris Nelsons distracted by negotiations to succeed Riccardo Chailly as next music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Full review on Forbes.com.



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Elections in Berlin: No News is Some News

The idea that the @BerlinPhil 's due diligence when deciding about their next decades is "failure" is patently absurd jorno-speak. Why rush?

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) May 14, 2015

The Berlin Philharmonic votes, but comes to no result... and may not, for up to a year.

“We must continue this process and this election. That will have to take place within one year. We are very confident that we will come to a decision then. The process of this election will be continued, and the orchestra assembly will meet regularly, but we will take the time that is necessary. That can last one year.”

From the press release:

Voting for Chief Conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker Brings No Results
The voting for the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker brought no results today.

Orchestra Board member Peter Riegelbauer said: “After an orchestra assembly which lasted 11 hours, we have unfortunately come to no decision. There were positive and lively discussions and several rounds of voting, but unfortunately we were unable to agree on a conductor.”

123 members of the orchestra who were eligible to vote were present.
Riegelbauer continued: “We must continue this process and this election. That will have to take place within one year. We are very confident that we will come to a decision then. The process of this election will be continued, and the orchestra assembly will meet regularly, but we will take the time that is necessary. That can last one year.”

The mood during the assembly was described by all participants as very constructive, cooperative and friendly.
May 11, 2015

I reckon the last sentence means there were yelling-matches but no fist-fights.

Continue to speculate, meanwhile, with my horse-racing odds:

The Berlin Philharmonic's Next Conductor: The Odds And Ends

The speculation has been running high for months, reaching fever-pitch in the days before May 11th: Who will be the new music director of the Berlin Philharmonic?!

It’s a smaller community that cares so much, than, say: the entire catholic world when the pope gets elected, but it feels a bit like that: The orchestra gets together and – this being fairly unique in the world of classical music – votes on who will lead them in the years to come. Not the least because the other most prestigious orchestra, the sloppy, occasionally inspired Vienna Philharmonic, has no permanent conductor, this position is arguably the most prestigious orchestral conducting job to have. Only the plume of smoke coming out of Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonic Hall will be missing, to give the full Vatican feeling.

Apparently betting isn’t prevalent enough in this cultural niche; otherwise Ladbrokes would give quotes on the different candidates. It might look something like this:

15/2 Daniel Barenboim (1942; pining for that job for decades now, but too old)....

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

On Forbes: The Berlin Philharmonic's Next Conductor: The Odds And Ends

The Berlin Philharmonic's Next Conductor: The Odds And Ends

The speculation has been running high for months, reaching fever-pitch in the days before May 11th: Who will be the new music director of the Berlin Philharmonic?!

It’s a smaller community that cares so much, than, say: the entire catholic world when the pope gets elected, but it feels a bit like that: The orchestra gets together and – this being fairly unique in the world of classical music – votes on who will lead them in the years to come. Not the least because the other most prestigious orchestra, the sloppy, occasionally inspired Vienna Philharmonic, has no permanent conductor, this position is arguably the most prestigious orchestral conducting job to have. Only the plume of smoke coming out of Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonic Hall will be missing, to give the full Vatican feeling.

Apparently betting isn’t prevalent enough in this cultural niche; otherwise Ladbrokes would give quotes on the different candidates. It might look something like this:

15/2 Daniel Barenboim (1942; pining for that job for decades now, but too old)....

"Ionarts: Mariss Jansons renews contract with Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra through 202… http://t.co/TzeEDmVpil pic.twitter.com/wANq78Fr8i — Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) May 8, 2015

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

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On Forbes: Shostakovich Unites Boston Symphony Orchestra And Deutsche Grammophon

Shostakovich Unites Boston Symphony Orchestra And Deutsche Grammophon

...The BSO started their own label, but that hasn't quite taken off yet. And now they are led by one of the most promising and coveted conductors of his generation, the third musketeer next to Dudamel and Nézet-Séguin… Andris Nelsons.

Mark Volpe, Managing Director Boston Symphony Orchestra, could not disclose the confidential financial terms of the Boston Symphony’s agreement with DG, but did mention in an e-mail “that it is a licensing agreement in which the BSO retains ownership and control of the master recordings and licenses them to DG for marketing and distribution.” He further commented...

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

Andris Nelsons, photo (detail) courtesy Boston Symphony, © Marco-Borggreve

Dip Your Ears, No. 166 (Nelsons’ Instant Classic Dvořák)

Antonín Dvořák, Symphony No.9, Heldenlied Andris Nelsons / BRSO BR Klassik

Old World New World

Late 2010, Andris Nelsons, incoming Music Director of the Boston Symphony but also loved, courted, and groomed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, performed a program of Charles Ives, John Adams, and Igor Stravinsky in Munich—capped, almost incongruously, with Dvořák’s Ninth (review here). Nicely accentuated, tastefully exaggerated with exalted exclamation points, it hit all the right buttons with the audience then. It’s even better on record! With lashings of Wagner in the first movement, unsentimental beauty in the Largo, Beethoven 9^th analogies brought out fully in the Scherzo, and all the pre-echoes of Jaws (and Star Wars) in the Finale, it’s just about a modern classic. Ingenious coupling with Dvořák’s rarely played last tone poem “Hero’s Song”.

Made possible by Listen Music Magazine.

Ionarts-at-Large: Grazioso Indeed! Nelsons with the BRSO

Andris Nelsons may have signed on in Boston as the new MD—and Mariss Jansons may have renewed his contract with the BRSO through 2016, but the courtship between the orchestra and Nelsons, the Jansons protégé, continues right on. Only the consummation has been postponed. (Aside: in this day and age, no maestro is expected to be monogamous… going steady with two, even three orchestral bodies a conductor enjoys working with, is not only not unusual, but the new norm. O tempora, o mores!)

Andris Nelsons has so far avoided being perceived as having any specialty composers—which is to say he’s not yet been boxed and ticked in repertoire to which he might then be confined. Except perhaps very broadly the swath of mainstream romantic repertoire, seeing how he’s easy on the classical period (“I’m still afraid of Mozart”, he wisely said a few years back), and easier still on baroque. But if he continues to conduct Wagner as he did on this occasion, or Lohengrin in Bayreuth (review), he might get pigeonholed yet. At least it would be fitting if it were Wagner, seeing how Wagner is where Nelsons’ career started, when his parents took the six-year old to see Tannhäuser at the Riga opera house. The house that so influenced one-time music director Wagner, to whom Nelsons would become a successor twenty years after that Tannhäuser incident.

A.Dvořák, Sy.9, Heldenlied op.111, A.Nelsons / BRSO BR Klassik R.Wagner, Wesendonck Lieder et al., T.Dausgaard / Swödisch CO / Nina Stemme BIS

Perhaps there was something of that first-exposure boyish excitement in Nelsons Tannhäuser Overture & Bacchanal this Thursday, June 13^th, when he lead the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in what was a suave and seductive, seamless and smooth (and a few more alliterative adjectives, surely) performance. With all of Nelsons felt phrasing and his playing slow and loose with the tempi, his interpretations at their best are always inconspicuous, and so it was here, while he got the BRSO to radiate a warm Wagnerian glow for which the band isn’t generally known.

Also not known for a particularly warm glow is soprano Angela Denoke, who tends to be more on the rigorous, unyielding side (very German, in some ways). But what a supreme dramatist and singer, whether as Salome (Bavarian State Opera) or Emilia Marty (Salzburg Festival, Věc Makropulos) or Marie (BRSO, Fragments / BStOp Festival, Wozzeck). In Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder (a.k.a. the WesenDonckaDonks, to Wagner at least)—from which Nelsons extracted charming levity—Denoke impressed with her amazingly concentrated, controlled voice, dark-dark hues, and natural and unstrained delivery. Her painstakingly enunciated text made every word audible. (Contrasting to an average performance, where nary a word is discernable). Immediately the imagination beckoned Denoke as Isolde… perhaps in a concert performance, in a small, intimate venue, with a conductor who can do pianissimo as well as Nelsons. The final song, “Träume” had all the above qualities, but added to it tenderness (unexpected, doubly welcome), and a soft luster that was beautiful—cough—to the—cough—very—cough—last, hushed—cough—note. (I don’t usually want to smite fellow a-musical emphysematous concert-goers, but I will make exceptions as needed.)

After this, Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony was a mere bonus; an elaborate encore—appreciated, but not necessary. Dark-genial-jovial in the first movement, Nelsons kept entertaining at a very high level—even through the second movement, a strange beast shaking its all-out romantic chains like a Bohemian Beethoven-Brahms-Wagner chimera, shackled in the slowest movement of a symphonic dungeon. The first violins’ ensemble work was a delight in the third movement… a lyrical up-beat summer’s joy of an Allegretto. Grazioso indeed! And in the finale, Nelsons showed himself unafraid of the Hoppity-Hop cliché that lurks between the lines. A happy night out, showing that Nelsons can breathe life even into the most old-fashioned kind of programming.

Ionarts-at-Large: BRSO Season Opening Concerts

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s courtship (perhaps already engagement period) of the wonderfully, sharply musical Andris Nelsons, currently Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, continues: In 2012/13 by handing him the season opener and letting him play with the BR’s unequaled chorus in a very smart program of Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, and—treasure of treasures—Joseph Haydn.

Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, Strauss’ Metamorphosen for string orchestra, and Haydn’s Missa in angustiis, better known as the Nelson Mass, are three different takes on war. The uplifting Haydn mass reminds us to be grateful, after a first half that reminded us to be mindful, vigilant, humble, and never forget.

In front of a German audience, more so than anywhere else, A Survivor from Warsaw for chorus, speaker, and orchestra, sounds like an accusation and a warning that has not been tempered by history—if a speck of time like 60, 70 years could at all be considered history. The rightly hesitant applause afterwards was therefore telling and gratifying, as was Gerald Finley’s

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Bayreuth 2012: Lohengrin, a Rat’s Tale About Humanity

“Three years may be the acid test for a production” says Hans Neuenfels about the 2012 performances of his Lohengrin in Bayreuth. That’s quite a reasonable statement in Bayreuth, where it is possible, up to a point, to continue fine tuning a production from inception to the end of its run. If it still – or especially – works, even after the cast has changed, it might be considered a success.

And Neuenfels’ Lohengrin is a success. For starters in its musical manifestation in 2012, with a good cast headed now by Klaus Florian Vogt’s Lohengrin, and utterly compelling, sensitive music-making from the pit, where Andris Nelsons held the reins of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Visually – “it’s the one with the rats” – the production is compelling and gorgeous (unless you suffer from acute musophobia), dramatically it makes wonderful sense, and the craftsmanship of every of its aspects is top notch. It doesn’t rival Stefan Herheim’s Parsifal for profundity (part of which lies in the nature of the respective operas), but it’s one of those productions that anyone who has seen it, shan’t be forgotten for a very long time.

The chorus of rats – large brown ones for the Brabantians, smaller white ones for the women’s chorus, and adorable little pink ones as flower girls and ring bearers – is the easy hook for those detractors who like superficial deviance from an expected norm to distract them. But they serve several purposes: They’re a good looking and diverting bunch of rodents. They make an accessible point about crowd- and collective behavior. And they make blocking of the chorus spectacularly successful: There’s not one awkward moment of parading choruses shifting uneasily onto and off stage – which is saying something about a Lohengrin production. Perhaps best of all, the chorus is obviously having a blast in their costumes, and such enthusiasm always helps.

When the rats finally shed their exterior and take human form (King Heinrich, a mild sufferer of musophobia himself, is now no longer disgusted by the crawling, clawing masses) they exemplify a general convergence to humanity: The rats upward from a lowly existence, Lohengrin human-ward from his lofty, god-like standing. The latter is touchingly illustrated when Vogt’s Lohengrin walks towards the audience in his final scene, rather than taking the next swan down the river Scheldt. One minor blooper of sorts: When Lohengrin reveals his name, the now humanoid Brabantians seem to have already guessed it, because they stand at attention wearing belts that brandish a big “L”. Perhaps they rashly assumed his name was “Ladislav” or “Leroy” and got lucky, except not lucky enough, since Lohengrin of course cedes all warring activities to Gottfried, who then climbs out of a large egg, looking half way like a bird fetus, and feeds the ex-rats with bits of his umbilical cord. (The latter being one of the production’s more obscure metaphors).

Whatever Neuenfels doesn’t say through directing his singers, Reinhard von der Thannen says through his impeccably aesthetic sets and costumes which are a pillar of this production’s (visual) magnificence. The black-swan/white-swan gowns for Ortrud and Elsa in Act II are one example, the sharp delineation between Ortrud/Telramund and Elsa/Lohengrin another, or perhaps most poignant in the last scene, where Ortrud, like a crazed Ophelia, wills herself a Queen against all realities by donning Elsa’s white, with a costume of plumes (but upside down), a white copy of Heinrich’s scissor-cut paper crown, and expressively smeared makeup. To complementary dress effect, Elsa appears in mourning-black.

Samuel Youn, in his third year as the Herald, managed to deliver the solid dramatic presence on stage he had lacked in the Dutchman, and rang out his part with clarity and brawn. The young Wilhelm Schwinghammer was the ARD Competition third prize winner just three years ago, and showed more promise than readiness then. Boy, how they grow up. Now he walked on stage as a sonorous Heinrich the Fowler, and filled the shoes of Georg Zeppenfeld, the production’s previous Heinrich, hitchlessly, and very impressively. Thomas J. Mayer, whom I found mildly lacking was Wotan/Wanderer in Munich’s Ring (Walküre/Siegfried), displayed a non-committal sounding voice that didn’t always definitively settle on a tone, but was helped by his dramatic abilities—much like Susan Maclean’s ultimately gripping Ortrud which started on the feeble side before reaching operating temperature.

Annette Dasch struggled for her Elsa to break through to the audience, but she did that commendably, helped by the keen support from Nelsons. Dramatically at least, it’s better when Elsa is on the weak side and partnered with a Lohengrin like Klaus Florian Vogt’s, than when even a fine Lohengrin like Jonas Kaufmann’s is out-sung by his Elsa, as the latter was by Anja Harteros in Richard Jones’ Lohengrin from the Munich Opera. Vogt, whose acquired taste of a glass-bell like voice is becoming increasingly accepted, appreciated, and loved, was made for roles like Lohengrin. Already in the 2006 Lenhoff’-Braunfels Baden-Baden production under Nagano he showed how the introverted Wagner characters are right up his alley, and how his uncanny ability to have the chorister-flavored voice float above the orchestra’s emissions rather than powering straight through them, enables him to imbue these roles with a great lyrical quality. On top of that he brought real force to the table, which led to the most enthusiastic reception of any artist in the whole fifth week of the Festival.

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Ionarts-at-Large: Birmingham in Amsterdam

Neither the opportunity to hear Andris Nelsons—that very excellent and even more promising conductor of the 30+ generation, nor the chance to hear Nikolai Lugansky—among the most sensitive and least flashy of current Russian pianists should be missed. Nor would it be wise to pass on the City of Birmingham Orchestra—ever since the days of Simon Rattle one of England’s finest—stopping by the Concertgebouw. It was a welcome opportunity to spend an otherwise unoccupied night in the city I’ll never be friends with: icky, sticky Amsterdam.

On the bill were Mahler’s First Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto; a program that seems to announce: “Subtleties are kindly asked to wait outside the hall for the duration of this concert.” Lugansky, alas, did not quite play along: the unfazed mellifluousness of his opening bars, with casual elegance and introspection, suggested an alternative take to this hollering barnstormer of a concerto.

Rachmaninoff / Tchaik., PCs 3 & 1, M.Argerich / Chailly, Kondrashin / Berlin RSO, BRSO Philips

G.Mahler, Symphony No.1, S.Rattle / CoBSO EMI

The impression didn’t last long, though, as the orchestral colors became garish and the players ever louder. Not that there weren’t fine moments amid the wild and sloppy performance, just not enough to overcome a numbing sameness and an occasionally drowned out soloist. The immediate and unanimous standing ovations, I was told, are every bit as meaningless with a Concertgebouw crowd as they are in the Kennedy Center. Only that instead of people reaching for their car-keys, it’s audience members eyeing the (limited) free drinks at intermission.

The Mahler, rigorous, rough-hewn, and middle-of-the-road, went along similar lines. Enjoyable under different circumstances (especially the fact that the double bass solo on Frere Jacques was, for once, not pitch-perfect but suitably off-color), I found it baffling why this performance needed to be aired in Amsterdam of all places, a city possibly more saturated with high quality Mahler in this anniversary year than any other. With neither technical brilliance nor any discernable interpretive stance, it was devoid of statement and devoid of wonder. Not that bringing owls to Athens hasn’t some merit. But if so, they must be spectacular eagle owls. This one was a burrowing owl. Not a concert that could possibly dent Nelsons’ or Lugansky’s reputation, but a considerable disappointment given the top-notch ingredients.