Briefly Noted: Tetzlaff siblings play Brahms Double (CD of the Month)

Brahms, Double Concerto / Viotti / Dvořák, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Paavo Järvi (released on October 1, 2023) Ondine ODE1423-2 | 60'43"

Earlier this year, I singled out Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff's last recording with Lars Vogt. After the late pianist died last September, the Tetzlaff siblings recorded this program as a memorial to their dear friend in December. They turned to a piece they have played many times before, the Double Concerto of Brahms, as a tribute. The opening cadenza for cello, later joined by violin, is quiet and intimate, with a sense of plaint suitable to the tone of remembrance. The siblings do well in this unusual concerto, where the two instruments, after that opening cadenza, almost always play together, one finishing the thoughts of the other.

Brahms wrote this piece very late in life, for cellist Robert Hausmann and his old friend Joseph Joachim. At that point Brahms and Joachim were no longer on speaking terms, as Brahms had "gone with" (as Larry David put it) Joachim's ex-wife following their divorce. In a gesture of friendship, Brahms meant the piece as a reconciliation, even including a varied form of the F-A-E motif he had used in the movement of the collaborative sonata dedicated to Joachim 30 years earlier. The Tetzlaffs' rendition of the slow movement is especially free and elegiac. Järvi excels at keeping the musicians of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin together with the soloists, giving them room rhythmically and with careful dynamics. The third movement could perhaps be more daring from the soloists, but it has a fine seriousness about it.

Christian Tetzlaff ingeniously pairs the piece with something unexpected, Giovanni Battista Viotta's Violin Concerto No. 22, from the end of the 18th century. It is a piece that Brahms and Joachim both loved. Tetzlaff notes in his booklet comments that Brahms used it as a model for the Double Concerto, including the choice of key (A minor) and some motifs that are borrowed. Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann of the Viotti concerto as one of his "very special raptures," and by including it in the Double Concerto, it is a way to recall to Joachim one aspect of their early friendship through this music. The first movement may not much to speak of, other than some showy bits in the solo part, but the second movement is quite gorgeous, in addition to its significance in relation to the Brahms. The younger Tetzlaff gets her solo piece as well, an encore-like lagniappe of Dvořák's "Silent Woods," an Adagio arranged for cello and orchestra from From the Bohemian Forest.


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Briefly Noted: Andsnes champions Dvořák

Dvořák, Poetic Tone Pictures, Leif Ove Andsnes (released on October 28, 2022) Sony 886449916887 | 56'10"

The last local appearance by Leif Ove Andsnes had been in 2017, a striking duet recital with Marc-André Hamelin. Happily for those like me starved for his stylish playing, Washington Performing Arts brought him back to the Kennedy Center for a stupendous solo concert last month. (Although unreviewed in Washington, the program was the same as his Chicago recital, reviewed by my colleague Lawrence Johnson.) Here in Washington, Andsnes ran the first half all together with no applause: he did not need to ask the audience not to applaud, but the unfamiliarity of the music and his command of attention kept the house quiet. For me the highlight of the evening was an astounding reading of Beethoven's Op. 110, full of technical wizardry and a witty approach to the quotation of silly folk songs and the self-mocking of the concluding fugue, a gesture recalled by Verdi in the finale to his opera Falstaff.

Andsnes's touring program closed with this forgotten set of character pieces by Dvořák, which the Norwegian pianist recorded in 2021. Op. 85, which runs to almost an hour, was a bit much to hear in a single sitting, but as usual Andsnes made a strong case for its revival. Dvořák wrote this collection over the course of several weeks on summer vacation in 1889, three years before he came to the United States. Andsnes came to know the pieces when he studied with a Czech teacher, as well as through a recording by Radoslav Kvapil. The pause in his concertizing during the Covid-19 lockdowns gave Andsnes the chance to study the set in detail, leading to this recording and the live performances on tour. Andsnes hits an ideal balance between the maudlin sentimentality of the simpler, slower pieces ("Twilight Way" and "In the Old Castle," among others) and the fierce virtuosity also required. Highlights include the fun starts and stops of "Toying" and especially the tipsy, spinning runs of "Bacchanalia," which Andsnes has likened to "a Scarlatti sonata gone mad." Folk touches come into play delightfully in "Peasant Ballad" and "Furiant."

On ClassicsToday: The Cleveland Orchestra's Rusalka from 2008 Salzburg

The Cleveland Rusalka That Made Salzburg Gasp

by Jens F. Laurson

When the Cleveland Orchestra performed Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Salzburg Festival in 2008, the reception was rapturous. “That’s how an orchestra should play opera!” was the consensus, formed as it was coincidentally during a year in which the Vienna Philharmonic delivered particularly sloppy performances. (Since... Continue Reading

Ionarts review of the 2008 live performance here.

On ClassicsToday: Rusalka at Theater an der Wien (Review & Production Photos)

Between Thursday, September 19th and September 30th, the Theater and der Wien put on Rusalka, conducted by David Afkham and directed by Amélie Niermeyer. The ClassicsToday review is (finally) up.Production Details on the TadW's website.

ClassicsToday: Rusalka Gets Wet Feet In Vienna

More pictures from the production below.

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Ionarts-at-Large: The Hagen Quartett in Shostakovich, Dvořák and Schubert

DSCH, String Quartets 4, 11, 14 Hagen Quartet DG

A.Dvorak, Cypresses, "American Quartet + Kodaly, String Quartet No.2 Hagen Quartet DG

Schubert, Trout Quintet, Death & the Maiden Quartet Hagen Quartet + James Levine & Alois Posch DG

Hagen Quartett Reviews on ionarts: Notes from the 2013 Schubertiade ( 7 ) • Hagen Quartett II Notes from the 2012 Salzburg Festival ( 4 ) Dip Your Ears, Addendum 48b (X-Ray Beethoven) [2005]

The Hagen Quartet increasingly seems like a holdover from a bygone time where classical superstars were fewer but bigger, about four record companies ruled the classical high seas, recording contracts were naturally exclusive, and new releases a real event. Itzhak Perlman, Misha Maisky, the Emerson Quartet, Martha Argerich – to mention three still-active acts, are representatives of this age of mythic musical dinosaurs… and the Hagen Quartet belongs, too. They once set the standard for hyper-precise perfection; a sort-of Pierre Boulez of String Quartets.

There have been several crops of string quartets who have since equaled these technical standards to the point where they alone are no longer all that noteworthy. The Hagen Quartet’s UPC of über-perfection that not even the similarly pioneering Alban Berg and Emerson Quartet could rival is therefore no more – also because the quartet’s ability has declined not only in relative but also absolute terms. No one is cheating age, and the first violinist of the ensemble, Lukas Hagen, least of them – having been the quartet’s weak point in the last half decade or so.

That should be put to the test in their recital on Saturday, March 2^nd, at the Mozart Hall of Vienna’s Konzerthaus, seeing that Shostakovich’s Fourth String Quartet was first on the bill. The sublime hall – one of the best for chamber music (with a capacity of 700, fine acoustics and bright blue and beautiful interior) – was filled to the brim, with extra chairs put on stage to accommodate the demand: The result of the Hagen Quartet have built themselves a following with regular appearances and their own cycle of concerts over the course of well more than a decade.

The Shostakovich started out with Lukas Hagen’s fittingly dark, matt, husky tone and enormous pressure he put on the notes in the introductory quartet. He did just fine for a movement and more before being notably squeezed to the edge of his increasingly small comfort zone in the Andantino. Clemens Hagen, still an anchor for the foursome (a brief flat moment in the Schubert aside), shone with moments of his singularly light-yet-resonant tone. For three movements the interpretation was a bit like excellent painting by numbers, more beautiful than intense, but the accumulating energy of the finale – if not boisterous at least insistent – amounted to something.

What the subsequent four movements of Dvořák’s Cypresses Quartet and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden showed, was that the once trademark transparency and inner glow has given way to a denser, thicker sound, more sonorous and ‘woodier’. That didn’t necessarily suit the Dvořák (largely low-energy pieces that are admittedly difficult to pull off with any great panache), where “I Know that My Love to Thee”, “Death Reigns in Many a Human Breast”, “The Old Letter in My Book” and “Thou Only, Dear One” (plus “Thou Only, Dear One” as an encore after the Schubert) never came across as more than a musical afterthought – a long lull between Shostakovich and Schumann, achingly sincere at best and insufficiently endowed with life and spark.

Lukas Hagen, with his intonation softening and too often falling back onto a forced and congested sound, gently, subtly squeaked in distress like a Maiden might, faced with death. The middle voices, Rainer Schmidt, violin, and Veronika Hagen, viola, were on the passive side – not breathy nor hollow as one might wish in the Schubert Quaret’s second movement, but with tenderness and gentle detail. The playing was altogether short of a distinct ‘interpretation’ or, to spin it positively, free of excessive fingerprints. The Hagen Quartet aren’t spinning their

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Dip Your Ears, No. 225 (Dvořák’s Works for Violin & Piano)

Antonín Dvořák, Works for Piano and Violin Ivan Zenaty (violin), Igor Ardasev (piano) Audite SACD

Dvořák’s works for violin and piano are not as widely known or regularly performed as you might think, given the A-list popularity of the composer and the popular and mainstream instrumental combination. Presumably that’s due to the lack of a body of major works to drive the interest: A handful of strong sonatas, perhaps, might have done the trick. In fact, there is only one Violin Sonata proper of Dvořák’s, and that’s not the strongest work among the lot. Jaroslav Smolka’s superb liner notes don’t pretend otherwise: without particular architectural grandeur, a heightened sense of innovative contrasts, violinistic virtuosity or dramatic tension, this dreamy-lyrical work lacks in ambition what it offers in lovely music... but such lovely music!

Ivan Zenaty (violin) and Igor Ardasev (piano) perform these pieces charmingly without overdoing it on the sugar. The Sonatina op.100, written for his children, fits in with its aim at home music-making and lack of a ‘grand concertant’ ambition. But it’s a tuneful and memorable thing and fills a very entertaining 20 minutes with that popular American-Czech idiom of Dvořák’s that he also used in works like the “American” Quartet and “From the New Worl” Symphony. The catchy Romantic Pieces op.75/1 are given a bit of an edge and could benefit from a bit more bloom. The fairly popular Mazurek op.49, here in its piano-and-violin original, wouldn’t be harmed if the piano’s part were taken with greater brilliance and less accompanying decorum. The sound on this 2006 high-resolution recording is very good and neutral, perhaps favoring the violin a bit over the piano. Low-key splendor, all in all.

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On ClassicsToday: Rostropovich, Cellist of the Century?

Big Boxes: Rostropovich On Warner

by Jens F. Laurson

After lavish and huge boxed sets for Maria Callas and Itzhak Perlman, Warner Classics–drawing on its combined EMI Classics, Warner, and Erato back-catalogues–set its sights on Mstislav Rostropovich. The result is a still luxuriant 40-CD box with the same quality documentation (a 200-page... Continue Reading

Rostropovich & Ozawa: Dvorak Cello Concerto. Excerpt

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Lintu, Hewitt return to the BSO

Conductor Hannu Lintu

Hannu Lintu is not concerned much with subtlety. The Finnish conductor, who last appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2013, tends toward out-sized, expressive gestures. In his latest program with the band from Charm City, heard on Saturday night in the Music Center at Strathmore, broad strokes most suited him, especially in a hard-lined performance of Dvořák's eighth symphony.

The high point of the evening was a performance of Cantus Arcticus by the late Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. The piece was composed in the 1970s, and it feels like it, in an Age of Aquarius kind of way. Its principal gesture, incorporating slightly manipulated recordings of birds taken by the composer in the Arctic Circle, was nothing new, going back to Respighi's Pines of Rome and to countless compositions before the advent of recording. Most bird calls are atonal, of course, and consist essentially of clusters, which Rautavaara captures in the instrumental writing for paired flutes and paired trumpets. Nothing much happens over the course of twenty minutes, but the atmospheric effect of the piece is quite pleasing.

Angela Hewitt's last concerto appearance in the area was an underwhelming Mozart concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2014. Results were better this time around in Beethoven's first concerto, heard just earlier this month from Emanuel Ax and the NSO. Hewitt dialed back the tempo of the first movement especially, creating a mellow feel, even in the extended cadenza, conceived more as gentle spirals than violent zig-zags. The second movement was expressive and the best coordinated of the three between Lintu and Hewitt, with a peppy finale to tie things up. The staid crowd did not cheer loudly enough to warrant the encore Hewitt reportedly played at other performances.

Lintu's Sibelius has been much to my liking over the years, and the Rautavaara had many of the same qualities. His Dvořák, by contrast, felt strident and forced, especially the berserk drive of the finale. It was crack ensemble playing, held together by Lintu's fastidious and severe pacing, but it felt breathless and harried, and not in a good way. Impressive, certainly, but somehow too impatient.

NSO Program 2: Shakespeare at the Symphony (2/3)

Charles T. Downey, Valčuha shows a deft touch with NSO
Washington Classical Review, October 7

NSO Semi-Pops

Weill, Die Sieben Todsünden (inter alia), L. Lenya

Charles T. Downey, From the NSO, a pops concert that fizzled
Washington Post, April 29

Pops concerts can be a lot of fun, but it is best to market them clearly as such. Thursday night’s concert by the National Symphony Orchestra was a pops concert in all but name, provoking a few grumbles at intermission and afterward about programming that was decidedly lightweight. It fell to American conductor James Gaffigan, last at the podium of the NSO in 2012, to conduct this somewhat underwhelming evening, and he did so capably but without distinction.

Ravel’s “La Valse” was the climax, a work that seemed overplayed and indeed was last heard from the NSO in 2014... [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
With Storm Large, Hudson Shad
Kennedy Center Concert House

SEE ALSO:
jfl, Ionarts at Large: Two Concertos for the Price of One!

Charles T. Downey, BSO and Lise de la Salle (Ionarts, February 18, 2012)

---, Gaffigan Keeps It Nice (Ionarts, January 20, 2012)

Michael Lodico, Weill and Ravel at the Castleton Festival (Ionarts, July 18, 2011)

Takács Quartet @ KC

Franck, Piano Quintet / Debussy, String Quartet, M.-A. Hamelin, Takács Quartet (Hyperion, 2016)

We used to hear the Takács Quartet more frequently in the Washington area. As long as they come back to these parts every year or two, Ionarts can probably survive. The most recent chance to hear them was on Wednesday evening, presented again by the Fortas Chamber Music Series at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. In between we remain on the life support of recordings, which the group continues to release at the rate of one or two each year. Although the two founding members, second violinist Károly Schranz and cellist András Féjer, are not getting any younger, the quartet adds to its discography at a dizzying pace, always hungry for new vistas in the repertoire. The next disc, available next month, combines music by Franck and Debussy.

Something about the opening work on this program, Dvořák's 14th string quartet (A-flat major, op. 105), just did not sit right. The first movement is somewhat episodic, and the many stops and starts did not always sound unified. The scherzo, with its furiant-like hemiola shifts, was light and even more relaxed in tempo in the trio, but by the third movement there was the sense that maybe the golden era of the Takács had come and gone, with intonation issues cropping up and the feeling that the work had not been fully digested. Happily, what followed this less than polished rendition showed it was only a fluke, a rare example of the Takács missing the target and not a sign of general decline.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, The dependable artistry of Takács Quartet (Washington Post, April 22)

In the rest of the evening's selections, the group was back in their accustomed sweet spot, beginning with Webern's youthful, tragic Langsamer Satz from 1905. The piece is labeled "in E-flat major," which should be enough to signal that it is not the Webern you might expect. The Takács teased out the carefully layered voices and lush harmonies, always clearly putting one in the foreground over the others, balanced even in the loudest sections.

The third of Beethoven's "Razumovsky" quartets (C major, op. 59/3) was even more winning, from the enigmatic opening chords, which proceed by sneaky chromatic shifts from an F# fully diminished seventh chord to C major. The fast section was chatty and charming, mercurial but not overly fast, and the drawn-out setup of the recapitulation was excellent, as was first violinist Edward Dusinberre on the little cadenza moment. All in all, an eye-twinkler of a piece, followed by wonderful, warm viola solos in the slow movement, with the cello staying extra-soft on the pizzicato accompaniment. This movement's restraint and dark quality are so Takács, and no one does this melancholy tone better. The Menuetto was a contrast, ultra-genial in nature, with the first violin's ornamented lines in the trio not overshadowing the melody. The concluding fugal finale was fun and fleet, the wry side of the Takács sound.

Briefly Noted: Quatuor Thymos

Dvořák, Piano Quintet (inter alia), A. Kučerová, Quatuor Thymos, C. Eschenbach (Avie, 2011)

In the midst of the National Symphony Orchestra's preparations for their European tour next month, Christoph Eschenbach is bringing back one of his regular chamber collaborators, the Paris-based Quatuor Thymos. In a concert on the Fortas series this evening, the quartet will perform Schubert's Rosamunde Quartet, recorded on their 2009 disc for the Calliope label, the same composer's Trout Quintet, with Eschenbach and double bassist Yann Dubost, plus a recent string quartet by Olivier Dejours (no. 17, "A Winter's Tale"). Having missed the group's last appearance here, in 2012 at the Kennedy Center, I am glad that the snow from this weekend's blizzard will be cleared away in time. (Their performance of the same program in North Carolina last night was canceled because of the weather.)

The group's second disc, released on the Avie label in 2011, is devoted to the music of Antonín Dvořák. Eschenbach accompanies Slovak soprano Adriana Kučerová in the composer's Love Songs, op. 83, a rendition of some charms but not likely to displace Bernarda Fink (Harmonia Mundi) or Martina Jankova (Supraphon). This selection goes nicely with five movements from Cypresses, Dvořák's arrangement for string quartet of two-thirds of his song set of that name, a piece that is quite pretty played by string quartet. The Thymos Quartet shows off its expressive capabilities in them, but its real mettle is revealed in the A major piano quintet, op. 81, with Eschenbach on the stormy piano part. The piece is one of the gems of the chamber music repertory, and not only just piano quintets, recorded in several excellent versions. Again, the expressive parts of the piece are quite lovely in this rendition, like the mournful "Dumka" second movement, but the playing loses some of its polish in accuracy and intonation at the more strident parts, like the conclusion of the first movement and the intervening sections of the slow movement. Eschenbach, much as he does at the podium of the NSO, looks for extremes of dynamics and expressive rubato, glossing over some of the details in the Furiant movement, and the Thymos musicians are happy enough to go along with him.

NSO Prepares for European Tour

Rouse, Phaeton, Houston Symphony, C. Eschenbach (Telarc, 2006)

Since Christoph Eschenbach came to the National Symphony Orchestra, he has made only one recording, a disappointment. The thing that has panned out is that Eschenbach has led the ensemble on two international tours, with another European tour planned for next month. They will be playing twelve concerts in eleven cities, with stops in Spain, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and Poland. The programs include more music than they can possibly play on two programs this week and next week, but the first glimpse on Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall was encouraging.

Some of the tour cities will be treated to Christopher Rouse's barnstorming mini-tone poem Phaethon, which makes quite an arc across the sky as a concert opener. This is the first time the NSO has played the piece, and it did not sound yet quite as rhythmically tight across the ensemble as it needs to be. The musicians played it with great verve and attention to its vivid details: burbling woodwinds (what sounded like a slide whistle may have been the flexatone?), kooky muted brass, the dull bark of an ostinato tuba line. A berserk French horn call, played with exceptional force, signaled the high-flying disaster that befalls the title character, with the full complement of six percussionists all walloping something, the climaxes marked by enormous hammer strikes (think Mahler's sixth symphony) and the swinging of a gigantic racket. It is a piece that should raise some eyebrows on the tour, just as it is meant to do.

Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott serves half the solo duties of the tour, with Lang Lang reprising his rendition of Grieg's piano concerto, heard in Washington in October. Müller-Schott, last heard here with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, did not do much with Dvořák's cello concerto. He had an ardent, never overbearing tone, lovely on the second theme of the first movement, although not as beautiful as the way it was introduced by the French horn solo in the orchestral exposition. His intonation was not always on target, in the development of the first movement, for example, but better in the second movement after he retuned his strings. In the slow movement, the interlude with the horns was excellent, and Müller-Schott had a lovely cadenza moment with the solo flute. He was freer with rubato in the third movement, alternately mischievous and soupy, but the overall effect was oddly underwhelming especially by comparison to the last time the NSO performed it, with Yo-Yo Ma in 2014.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, NSO anticipates upcoming tour with Central European program (Washington Post, January 22)

The choice of Arnold Schoenberg's vast orchestration of the first piano quartet (G minor, op. 25 -- last heard in 2014) seemed weird for a tour, but it has the virtue of putting to work at least some of the percussion crew you are hauling along for the Rouse piece. Schoenberg orchestrated in ways that probably would make Brahms roll over in his grave but are really fun: in the development section of the first movement, the little motifs traded back and forth appear in every conceivable instrument. Eschenbach took the second movement, where the Brahms magic really has to happen, a little too fast, but the tempo settled down a bit afterward, and the fairy-dust coda, with its healthy dose of triangle, was magical. The march section of the third movement is hilarious in Schoenberg's orchestration, not to mention the use of marimba -- in Brahms! -- and other absurd percussion in the finale.

This concert would have been repeated tonight and Saturday night, but the arrival of a blizzard in Washington has closed the Kennedy Center along with everything else.

Pop Star Pianist: Lang Lang with the NSO

Chopin, Scherzos / Tchaikovsky, The Seasons, Lang Lang (Sony, 2015)

The excitement was palpable at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall Thursday, with throngs of concertgoers crowding the stairs and lobbies leading to the Concert Hall. This sort of pre-concert commotion is an unusual occurrence for a National Symphony Orchestra subscription concert on a weeknight. Yet pianist Lang Lang, the evening’s featured guest, is not your usual piano soloist. Perhaps the closest thing classical music has to a pop star, the Chinese pianist has a loyal following, a social media presence, and all the trappings associated with stardom. In Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16, he delivered a muscular performance filled with moments of incredible speed, technique, and more than a bit of musical style.

It was fortunate that Lang Lang had Christoph Eschenbach on the podium. Eschenbach's sensitive accompaniment seemed to owe something to his experience as a keyboard soloist. The NSO was a willing partner for most of the concerto, allowing Lang Lang to plumb the piano's dynamic range, from a barely perceptible pianissimo in the third movement to a thunderous fortissimo that ended the concerto. The NSO and Eschenbach get credit also for carefully following Lang Lang during his frequent rubatos, which allowed the pianist to let loose his dazzling technique, particularly in the first movement's cadenza and later in a short cadenza in the finale, where Lang Lang's lightning-fast cross-hand work elicited gasps from the audience. It was in the first cadenza, though, that Lang Lang demonstrated that he can use his prodigious technique to create stylish interpretations. His coloring and voicing in the cadenza, allowing him to imitate the sound of a harp at times, displayed a depth of interpretation heard far less during earlier appearances in Washington.

As expected, the finale featured Lang Lang pushing the speed limit, displaying energy and feats of extreme pianism, culminating in a raucous ovation, which was rewarded with a memorable encore. Without having to concern himself with an orchestra, Lang Lang raced through Ernesto Lecuona’s Cuban Dance. That he played it faster than any dancer could manage to move mattered little. His hands seemed to go three times as quickly as they did in the Grieg.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, NSO offers chestnuts, and Lang Lang, in enjoyable evening (Washington Post, October 30)

With its copious exposed solo parts the Grieg highlighted the state of the NSO. In the second movement, for example, newly appointed principal horn Abel Pereira joined the ethereal string introduction midway, resulting in some of the most gorgeous orchestral playing of the evening. When the theme transferred to the flutes and clarinets, however, the sound quality diminished. Pereira’s gorgeous playing was on display in the night’s opening work, Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser and again in the closing work, the Symphony No. 8 in G major, op. 88, of Dvořák. While both pieces were dispatched with more precision than we're used to hearing from the NSO, neither compared to the musicality the orchestra and Eschenbach showed in the Grieg.

This concert repeats tonight and Saturday night, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Pavel Haas Quartet @ LoC

Smetana, String Quartets, Pavel Haas Quartet (Supraphon, 2015)

Charles T. Downey, Engaging new voice with Kennedy Center Chamber Players (Washington Post, October 20)

The members of the Pavel Haas Quartet have said in interviews that they do not think being Czech helps them play the music of Czech composers. Nevertheless, that is where this excellent string quartet has had its greatest triumphs on disc, for the Supraphon label. At a Friday night concert, the Library of Congress, not surprisingly, featured them in quartets by Bohuslav Martinu and Antonin Dvorak. Since the group had to cancel its last U.S. tour, in 2013, this was its first local appearance since 2008.

Since that concert, also at the Library of Congress, the group has gone through a couple of changes for second violin... [Continue reading]

Pavel Haas Quartet
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Jeremy Eichler, Pavel Haas Quartet makes local debut (Boston Globe, October 24)

Stefanie Lubkowski, Martinů’s music provides the highlight with Pavel Haas Quartet (Boston Classical Review, October 23)

Chloe Cutts, We do not believe in a Czech tradition of playing, says the Pavel Haas Quartet (The Strad, September 28)

Jamie Barton Returns to Vocal Arts

J. A. Hasse, Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra, J. Barton, Ars Lyrica Boston (2010)

Charles T. Downey, Vocal Arts D.C. celebrates 25th anniversary with fine performances (Washington Post, October 17)

Vocal Arts D.C. is celebrating its 25th anniversary in style. After a knockout season opener by Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton gave a well-rounded recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Thursday evening. The Georgia native’s voice continues to grow, and her musical sense of how to shape a phrase with sensitive rubato is expanding right along with it.

Barton’s big, juicy tone is matched now with an ability to float lighter high notes, heard right from the first striking phrase of Joaquín Turina’s “Homenaje a Lope de Vega,” Op. 90. In these three songs, mostly in the stark style of dramatic recitatives, Barton had the presence to hold musical attention... [Continue reading]

Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano) and Bradley Moore (piano)
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

PREVIOUSLY:
Mahler 4 with BSO (2015)
Menotti, The Last Savage, Santa Fe Opera (2011)
Vocal Arts Society debut (2009)
Monteverdi, Il Ritorno di Ulisse, Wolf Trap Opera (2009)

Martin Kasík at Czech Embassy

Martin Kasík had his Washington debut in 2000, garnering a fine review for his Young Concert Artists-sponsored recital at the Kennedy Center, the same year he also played at 92nd Street Y in New York. The Czech pianist came back for a recital at the Strathmore Mansion in 2006, which I am sorry to have missed, based on the beauty of his playing on Wednesday night at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, presented by the Embassy Series. In the intervening years, Kasík has become an exceptional musician and, judging by this video, a talented teacher, even though I do not understand a word of Czech.

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Wolfgang Rihm, Violin Concerto No.6 World Premiere

Poème du Peintre

Wolfgang Rihm is on—minimally—fire. He knocks out new, major works at a rate that it makes you wonder if anybody else is still composing at all, in Germany. A Horn Concerto in Lucerne, a Triple Concerto, the "Second" Piano Concerto (terrific, yet be reported on!) in Salzburg, and now his Sixth Violin Concerto*, written for and dedicated to Renaud Capuçon, performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra [on Twitter] under Philippe Jordan and played in their new “Fridays@7” concert series at the Wiener Konzerthaus.

W.Rihm (+A.Berg), Time Chant (+ VC), A.S.Mutter / J.Levine / CSO DG W.Rihm (+S.Currier), WORK_in_QUESTION (+Time Machines etc.), A.S.Mutter / NYPhil / M.Francis, A.Gilbert DG

That series is a stab at the short-form concert, aiming at about an hour’s length, without an intermission. So far that hour-thing has not quite worked out, as concert length is predictably, habitually underestimated… but whereas the first time around the concert was a whole work too long, this time it was just one movement too long. In any case, if that aimed-at-brevity weren’t laudable enough, the concert series also comes with booze and music at the optional long tail in the foyer downstairs, with a VSO band playing and/or soloists and the conductor performing in a reasonably relaxed atmosphere. On this occasion, the format meant that Schubert’s Fifth—part of the laudable Schubert Cycle of the VSO—was axed from the program also containing Dvořák’s Eight.

Having had a chance to watch the violin concerto come together throughout three rehearsals, it was enormous how much the work had developed by the time it hit the stage at prime time. Wolfgang Rihm took himself back for the first rehearsal, even though what he heard must have been a good deal from what he might have imagined. Only when orchestra and conductor had made the natural progress that occurs in rehearsal, did he more frequently interject, questioning stray notes that were either wrong in the printed score or the parts, and suggesting occasional interpretative adjustments. Repeated timpani notes toward the end of the concerto weren’t quite right to him. Helpfully, Jordan interpreted his request: “Oh, advancing like a steam engine?” Rihm, whose gigantic cranium makes him look like his own bobble-head figure, shook said head: “No—breathing, hovering, advancing. Like a thing, a being, like a creature.” Jordan: “Ok. One more time; this time more like a Thing!”

Just as Rihm has written the Piano Concerto specifically for and around Tzimon Barto, or violin concertos for the specific talents of Anne-Sophie Mutter and Carolin Widmann, Poème du Peintre is tailored to Renaud Capuçon. After the first rehearsal, the soloist suggested that it was really his language. It’s hard to say for me what that exactly is, not knowing Capuçon’s playing and style intimately enough. Perhaps it is the nervous, or rather: alert energy that is woven through the concert like a silver thread. The concerto’s name, “Painter’s Poem”, stems from the idea of composing a work that is to Max Beckmann’s portrait of Max Reger a concerto to portray Ysaÿe. Rihm and Capuçon both adore Ysaÿe (well beyond the—rightly—hailed solo violin sonatas), which might serve as the basis for the French violinist so taking to the work. The clichéd description of his performance, without any fear of saying something controvertible would be, and is: “totally committed”.

Other Reviews: Chanda VanderHart, Pleasing Rihm and Dvorak from Capuçon and the Symphoniker, but 'concept' falters (bachtrack, January 11, 2015)

The concerto begins tentatively. On the surface it is considerably less French than the Piano Concerto from Salzburg (with its overt Chopin references and subtle air of Debussy creeping in). It is less overtly romantic and also a good deal less intuitively comprehensible. That’s not to say that it doesn’t come around and enchant the willing listener. The orchestra, for much of the almost continuous violin part, engages in color and contrast work, breathing and heaving and rhythmically advancing things to a searing solo-part. The general tone is, a few eruptions apart, and in spite of the tenacious soloist, soft-hued; the dissonances plush and more feathered than in-your-face. Then, a bit more than half-way through the 17-some minute work, there are crackling, gnarling, brassy chord that would open the gates to Mordor in a movie. There comes a short moment where it feels like a famous quotation (that on-the-tip-of-the-tongue-feeling); melting away, off to the side, Schnittke-style. Perhaps it’s one of the many presumed Ysaÿe-references and the only one that pierced the level of my awareness—just not wholly. The claves’ click-click solo of the percussionist was meant as an impulse for the soloist to take and play off it, but it did not quite yet come across as presumably intended. At least not in this first performance. But with any optimism, the work will get a decent amount of repeat performances (if less likely so as the repertoire-suitable piano concerto) and claves and violin will forevermore work in perfect

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NSO Takes Up Rihm

W. Rihm, Dithyrambe (inter alia), Arditti Quartet, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (Kairos, 2009)

All of the coverage of Wolfgang Rihm's music in live performances here at Ionarts has come from our European correspondent. The German composer, born in Karlsruhe in 1952, is celebrated in Europe and much less known here in the U.S. In conservative Washington, the adjective of choice would likely tip over to unknown. So Christoph Eschenbach's co-commissioning of a new piano concerto from Rihm is significant, and this week's American premiere of the work, with the National Symphony Orchestra last night, reunited him with pianist Tzimon Barto, with whom he performed the world premiere at the Salzburg Festival last August.

The piece is a strange concerto by almost any measure of the genre, in two long movements with little overtly showy technical display from the keyboard -- what Rihm has called "virtuoso fodder," as quoted in Thomas May's informative program notes -- indeed few moments, until the end of the work, where the piano is not presented really as part of the orchestra. Although there is a lot of dialogue back and forth between orchestra and soloist in the score, there was never a sense that the piano was leading the piece. That being said, it was a relief to hear not just another concerto but something that had an unmistakable and often alluring individuality right from its soft, smoky opening.

The first movement often felt like a cross between cocktail piano and an austere, Webernesque pointillism, murky clouds of mostly strings for much of the movement that hovered around the piano's murmuring commentary, a tribute to Barto's "exquisite pianissimo," as Rihm put it. The writing is quite lush, with misty harp and little percussion or brass until a climax near the end. The second movement begins with the piano largely up in the treble half of its range, matched by more of the battery that Rihm pulls out of his back pocket. The movement is labeled a rondo, and without having studied the score in detail, a sense of a section of music returning was evident, although in a varied form each time, with a sort of cadenza before the final one, a nod to traditional form. In the end, though, it is the first movement's delicacy that wins out.

Other Articles: Robert Battey, Rihm’s Thorny Concerto Leaves Listener In Lurch (Classical Voice North America, January 20) Anne Midgette, Barto, Eschenbach make case for Rihm’s appealing concerto (Washington Post, January 16) ---, A modernist master’s Mozartean face: Rihm’s new piano concerto at the NSO (Washington Post, January 10) Tom Service, Wolfgang Rihm wins the Grawemeyer (The Guardian, December 2)

The rest of the program was of much less interest, both pieces -- Dvořák's Carnival Overture and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique -- having been performed by the NSO within the last five years. Eschenbach appeared to use the Dvořák as a test piece for his string section, with one of the candidates for the vacant associate concertmaster chair sitting as concertmaster -- Justine Lamb-Budge, concertmaster of the Canton Symphony Orchestra -- and the slapdash tempo of the opening sounded, well, a little slapdash. The candidate had a crack at several solos throughout the evening, all played beautifully, if without much bravura or flash.

Eschenbach's choice of nervous, racing tempi affected the Berlioz as well, giving an appropriately distracted quality to the first movement but also undercutting some of the effects, particularly in the fourth and fifth movements (like the col legno strikes in the Witches' Sabbath). In spite of a lovely duet between English horn and oboe in the Scène aux champs, the slow movement, given an overly indulgent rubato, was a little soporific. One particularly unpleasing detail was the sound of the tubular bells in the finale, which buzzed as if they were making something else resonate, but at a dissonant frequency. Hopefully, the NSO staff can figure out what was going on there and correct it for the subsequent performances.

This program repeats on Saturday evening only.

Czech Philharmonic Marks Velvet Revolution

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Smetana, Má vlast, Czech Philharmonic, K. Ančerl (Supraphon, re-released in 2009)

At the end of a U.S. tour that began in California, with a performance marking the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Czech Philharmonic played a tribute on November 17 for the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the student-led uprising which began on that day in 1989 and led to the election of Václav Havel as president of Czechoslovakia. After a concert in Fairfax on Friday and another at Carnegie Hall on Sunday afternoon, the musicians and their conductor, Jiří Bělohlávek, were back in the area, seated in the crossing of Washington National Cathedral.

Like many diplomatic events, the ceremony did not begin until some time after its 7 pm start time, and after the performance of the American and Czech national anthems, there were lengthy speeches, by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Czech Prime Minsiter Bohuslav Sobotka, among others. The music that was eventually offered -- the "Vltava" movement from Smetana's Má vlast and a repeat performance of Dvořák's ninth symphony -- had something much more eloquent to say about the ties between Czechs and Americans. If the characterization of the Dvořák as a "hymn to freedom" seemed a bit of a stretch, there was no doubt the two pieces represented Czech culture quite well -- the first evoking the river that flows through Bohemia, and the second premiered here in the United States.

Vltava, or Moldau as it is also known, featured the fluttering sound of the flutes and the silvery lightness of the strings, its principal melody charged with nostalgia and the tidal surges of the conclusion rising and falling beautifully. Bělohlávek gave the orchestra its head for the most part in the Dvořák, often indicating only downbeats, which created a few mis-coordinated spots between sections. The horn solos were sterling, as were the outdoorsy, not to say rustic, woodwinds. The Wagnerian brass were lush at the start of the slow movement, with a bucolic English horn solo, answered so delicately by the strings, and Bělohlávek did not overdo the rests that cut up the end of the movement, deepening the sense of memory, coming in starts. The third movement was sprightly and light, with those clear references to Beethoven's ninth symphony, and the energy was not allowed to flag at all in the triumphant finale, the various themes woven together effortlessly.