#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 003 - Music Behind the Wall

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. There is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). It still bears mentioning every time, that your comments, criticism, and suggestions are most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 003, where we are talking, at some length, about Classical Music in the GDR, who some of its great conductors where (with some of my favorite recordings), what it meant to be an artist growing up in the GDR... and we touch on some GDR composers that have become completely forgotten:

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Critic’s Notebook: Schoenberg’s Birthday Gift at the Musikverein

A.Schoenberg, Gurre-Lieder E.P.Salonen, Philharmonia Signum

The Big 150: Arnold Goes Romantic

Schoenberg’s Birthday, on September 13th, was celebrated in style at the Musikverein with a performance – two performances, to be precise – of his Gurre-Lieder. If, somehow, you have not heard this grand romantic cantata, imagine a mature Mahler to have written a sequel to Das klagende Lied. The only problems with it are that it’s expensive to mount, what with a massive orchestra of some 150 musicians, four (!) choruses, and six soloists… and that Schoenberg’s name is attached to it, which keeps people away, no matter what’s actually being played. Someone has got to have a birthday, for a presenter or venue to bother with Gurre-Lieder.

Venue and orchestra have form. When the work was premiered 101 years ago, that took place in the Musikverein. (The Konzerthaus was still being built.) And the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, performing their first, but somehow not their official inaugural, concert with Petr Popelka as their reigning chief conductor, was the performing body (under a different name). Fitting then, but not necessarily suitable. The Musikverein is too small for the Gurre-Lieder. While it is still possible – and only just– to squeeze all the participating musicians on stage and balcony, it is not possible to keep the acoustic from collapsing unto itself. It’s understandable that the Musikverein wished to celebrate Schoenberg with the one romantic “event composition” his oeuvre has to offer, but it’s a musically selfish move; the work demands to be performed across the street, in the essentially purpose-built Great Hall of the Konzerthaus.

Perhaps the grumbling over the location would have been less pronounced, had the performance been more successful. Yes, the cast was great. Only Michael Weinius (already stepping in for a colleague and announced as under the weather) was not entirely convincing in this fiendishly difficult part – but early on he still did very well, starting out relaxed rather than belting (perhaps because the announcement freed him of proving a point?) and sounding rather pleasant. The rest, was what you might wish for, in such a hyper-late-romantic banger… assuming you heard them over the creaking and screeching orchestra: The highly pregnant Vera-Lotte Boecker was a radiant, soaring, rich Tove (Waldemar’s love); Sasha Cooke a controlled, sonorous Wood dove, fresh and with beauty of timbre that easily flattering any of the pigeons in my neighborhood. In the second half, Gerhard Siegel (as Klaus the Jester), a character-tenor that screams “Mime” the second he opens his mouth, was able to get above the orchestra surprisingly often, ditto Florian Boesch, whose Peasant had the easiest time being heard, given the reduced orchestral passages that he sings along to. And Angela Denoke, as the (amped) speaker, did a whole lot more than just speaking in this part: She gave voice to the lyrical element of her Sprechgesang.

So yes, the VSO, under Popelka (who has impressed me on the occasions I have heard him previously), did well but also did not have their finest hour. If the constantly excessive noise levels, right from the beginning, can still be blamed on Schoenberg, the slew of wobbly entries, off-kilter harmonics, shrill woodwinds, the nervous energy… all that was less than ideal. Most of it was lost in the general sense of euphoria, such a grand work can elicit live, but not entirely. And come the entry of the choruses, the music became something more akin to white noise. Musically pointless, but perhaps emotionally still of value. The Gurre-Lieder being a work that overpromises and underdelivers, needs more of a performance to truly thrill – and most of all a different venue^*.

^*Apparently, that is where the performance had been planned to take place, until the VSO changed its mind (not to say reneged on a done deal) and went for the pre-inaugural concert at the Gurre-Lieder’s birthplace.

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Pollini Struggles in London

We welcome this review by guest contributor Martin Fraenkel, from the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Chopin, Nocturnes, M. Pollini (DG, 2006)

Maurizio Pollini’s only 2016 London piano recital took place on Wednesday at the Royal Festival Hall. Originally scheduled a week earlier, the concert was postponed due to the performer's ill health. Once, Pollini's commanding stage presence demanded respect and expectation, quite apart from the unrelenting brilliance of his technique. Now appearing older than his 74 years, he rather shuffled onto the stage, slightly stooped, and the impact was not quite the same. The sense that time is catching up with the great postwar generation of European musicians was heightened by Pollini’s unscheduled decision to start the concert with Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19. Written following the death of Schoenberg’s mentor, Mahler, Pollini dedicated them to the memory of the late Pierre Boulez. Stark, essential, and lasting in total five minutes, the effect was profound.

The scheduled Schumann Allegro, op. 8, and Fantasie, op. 17, filled the first half. The impact of this passionate romanticism seemed strangely misplaced after the Schoenberg. Pollini’s well-drawn melodic lines provided some tender moments, especially in the third movement of the Fantasie. The at-times fiendishly difficult fast passages, however, rather revealed the declining powers of Pollini’s finger work. The sense that he was straining to the limit was only emphasized by his rather audible singing which broke out intermittently. One began to fear what might happen in the Fantasie’s second movement, described in Harriet Smith’s program note as a “real graveyard for pianists” and not for the “faint of heart.” In the event, Pollini hung on gamely, if no longer imperiously.

Other Reviews: Andrew Clements, Maurizio Pollini review – glimpses of greatness amid the gloom (The Guardian, March 3) Michael Church, Maurizio Pollini, Royal Festival Hall, classical review: Exquisitely wrought and flawlessly delivered (The Independent, March 3)

The second half was dedicated to Chopin, with whom Pollini has always been closely associated. And indeed, the struggles of the first half gave way to deep exploration of the highest order. A steady rendering of the op. 60 Barcarolle was followed by the evening’s highlight, the op. 55 nocturnes. The link between Schoenberg and Chopin is slender indeed, but Pollini again seemed most at ease seeking out the inner emotion which lurks beneath the outward simplicity of structure. This was followed by an intense Polonaise-Fantasie in A-flat major and an assured performance of the Scherzo No. 3, op. 39.

Two further Chopin encores ensued. With many members of London’s burgeoning expatriate Italian population among them, the audience was by now on its feet. One rather felt that this was a mark of a nation’s pride and gratitude, not so much for the evening but for a great career perhaps nearing its end.

Latest on Forbes: NSO, Eschenbach & Lang Lang hit Vienna

Backstage w/@NSOtweets in Vienna. Trunk for music if royalty or octogenarians come?#over… https://t.co/vphYO3EqVM pic.twitter.com/aX0JNDALWR

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

Washington's National Symphony And Lang Lang In Vienna

...BA-Dam!! Christopher Rouse rips the score of his 1986 8- or 9-minute symphonic overture open with a loud, butts-from-seats-jolting chord before plinking and plonging away, harp-supported, and moving on with great gaiety in the woodwind section. The tuba engages in sounds that would make juveniles giggle; the neglected strings are allowed a word in, edgewise, here and there. Eventually the music works up an appetite and goes through more notes than the Cookie Monster through Oreos. Me want demisemiquaver!...

The full article on Forbes.com.

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.

American Ballet Theater, 1940s Ballet Triple-Bill

Xiomara Reyes (Cowgirl) and cast, Rodeo, American Ballet Theater
Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, heard as a concert work, did not really mean much to me until I saw Martha Graham's choreography live. The same is now true of Copland's Rodeo, thanks to a rare performance of Agnes de Mille's original choreography, from 1942, by American Ballet Theater in the latest of the group's periodic visits here, seen last night in the Kennedy Center Opera House in a triple-bill of ballets from the 1940s. It was another reminder that the separation of ballet music from its choreography robs the listener of a large part of its meaning.

De Mille created a vocabulary of movements for her cowboy characters: they ride horses and are thrown from them, they square dance, they mosey around bow-legged. With its bright colors -- not sure how many cowboys favor this palette from pink to salmon to peach (costumes by Santo Loquasto) -- and glowing sunset backgrounds (scenery by Oliver Smith, lighting by Thomas R. Skelton), it has the feel of an idealistic Hollywood blockbuster. There is no hint of grit or lawlessness in this version of the American West. As the Cowgirl, which de Mille herself created, Xiomara Reyes was a spunky bundle of tomboy cuteness, slapping the men like a pal, thumbing her nose, pulling up her britches. (Reyes will reportedly retire from the company later this year, so it was a special delight to see her in this role before she does.) The Cowgirl falls for the Head Wrangler (a sturdy Roman Zhurbin), whose head is instead turned by the more conventional Ranch Owner's Daughter of Lauren Post, demure in her pretty dress. Down in the dumps at the Head Wrangler's obliviousness, the Cowgirl is cheered up by the handsome, slightly dopey Champion Roper of James Whiteside, who warms to her himself, after delivering a winsome tap solo in cowboy boots.

The company found a fine companion piece for Rodeo in Antony Tudor's Pillar of Fire, premiered in 1942. Set to the string orchestra arrangement of Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, the story also seems to be set in middle America. Gillian Murphy brought a compelling look of constraint and tension -- all frozen jaggedness --to the sexually repressed Hagar, a middle sister between the prim, maternal Eldest Sister of Stella Abrera and the obnoxious flirt of Cassandra Trenary's Youngest Sister. When the little sister comes between Hagar and her last chance at happiness, the steadfast Friend of Alexandre Hammoudi, she has an ill-advised liaison with the sebaceous Young Man from the House Opposite of Marcelo Gomes. Her pregnancy implied but not overtly shown, she is reconciled with the Friend, who accepts and forgives Hagar as they walk through a transfigured night (this is the tie-in with Richard Dehmel's poem Zwei Menschen, which is the story told by Schoeberg's gorgeous score.)

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, A sparkling start to American Ballet Theatre’s D.C. engagement (Washington Post, March 26)

The only slight disappointment was the company's revival of George Balanchine's Theme and Variations, set to the last movement of Tchaikovsky's third orchestral suite, from 1947. Balanchine later set this choreography as the final act of Suite, a setting of Tchaikovsky's complete suite, but it is the variations seen here that are the meat of the music and the dance. Isabella Boylston and Daniil Simkin made a lovely couple, alternating in duo or solo scenes with the corps and especially in the extended pas de deux (with a fine violin solo from concertmaster Oleg Rylatko), although Simkin was a little stiff, not quite steady in the spins, and a little knee-buckled in lifts, especially at the end. The women of the corps did especially beautiful work, especially in their arm-linked groups of three to the woodwind variation. Conductor Ormsby Wilkins seemed to take the finale at a pace that felt too fast for both dancers and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.

This triple-bill repeats tonight only. The company also dances Frederick Ashton's choreography to Prokofiev's Cinderella (March 26 to 29), with the chance to see Gillian Murphy and James Whiteside again as Cinderella and the Prince, on Thursday night only.

Best Recordings of 2014 (#5)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2014 (published in whole on Forbes.com). My lists for the previous years: 2013, 2012, 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 5 - New Release

Johann Strauss II & Bros., Polkas and Waltzes, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck (conductor), WS005

J.Strauss II & Bros., Polkas & Waltzes M.Honeck / VSO (WS)

Waltzing with the Birds

The fifth release of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s is also their first interesting new release, after two historic gems (Celibidache, Giulini) and twice Mahler with Fabio Luisi. In fact it’s more than interesting, it’s absolutely, positively delightful: Manfred Honeck performs an ostensibly light program of Strauss Polkas and Waltzes (mostly Johann, but also four by his brothers Eduard and Josef). The result is slightly more wistful, and sometimes more rustic than one might expect, and bird-whistles (as per the score) are liberally included. Manfred Honeck, forced to learn the dreadfully uncool zither when he was a teen, has a knack for the rhythms that allows him a never-facile ease that reminds of me Carlos Kleiber conducting Strauss.

# 5 – Reissue

Arnold Schoenberg, Complete Songs, C.Barainsky, M.Diener (sopranos), C.Mayer (contralto), M.Schäfer (tenor), K.Jarnot (baritone), U.Liska (piano), Capriccio 7120

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Angela Hewitt, David Zinman with NSO

Great Symphonies, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, D. Zinman (Sony, 2014)

This summer David Zinman retired as music director of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. Before the birth of Ionarts, we enjoyed listening to him conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and were sorry to see him leave Charm City, but thanks to his series of recordings from Zurich, now available in a box set from Sony, we have kept in touch with his work. So it was a homecoming, in a sense, when the American conductor took the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra last night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, for the first time since 2009. The skilfully arranged program focused again on classics of the early 20th century: after Webern and Schoenberg last time, here it was Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, paired with Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, from which it is not too distant, in time or character. Unfortunately, many listeners who would have benefited from the lesson Zinman offered probably saw the name of Schoenberg and stayed home.

Mozart, Piano Concerti 22/24, A. Hewitt, National Arts Centre Orchestra, H. Lintu (released on July 8, 2014) Hyperion CDA68049 | 63'20" Mozart, Piano Concerti 18/22, Ronald Brautigam, Die Kölner Akademie, M. A. Willens (released on April 29, 2014) BIS-2044 | 59'01"

The scholar Carl Dahlhaus noted, in his book Schoenberg and the New Music, that Schoenberg's op. 16, composed in 1909, is one of the pieces that "divides the New Music from the nineteenth century." However, it is also "bound up with the tradition of programme music, the very tradition that was the quickest to become obsolete in the twentieth century and which fell into disrepute as representing all that was bad in the nineteenth century," an element that marks a continuity in this program between Schoenberg and Richard Strauss. Zinman conducts with a no-nonsense and authoritative beat that is such a breath of fresh air by comparison to Christophe Eschenbach, and Zinman left no fat on the bone in his approach to this Schoenberg, either in the barbaric march-like qualities of the first movement or the solo cello- and celesta-marked aura of nostalgia in the second.

Here is a primer of the possibilities of a large orchestra and a much broader understanding of what is "acceptable" in terms of dissonance. As Dahlhaus put it, before Schoenberg arrived at the ordering concept of the twelve-tone system, Schoenberg's music was informed by two ideas: "the difference between consonance and dissonance is one of degree, not of kind," and "tonality is not a natural law of music but merely a formal principle." The third movement is associated with Schoenberg's coinage of the term "Klangfarbenmelodie" (see Dahlhaus's book for an assessment of what Schoenberg meant), and here the floating orchestral colors smoldered inside their slowly changing static state, capped by shocking climaxes in the final two movements. As to what story the work might be telling, Schoenberg chose to remove the programmatic titles added to the movements at the time of the work's publication. Dahlhaus observed that Schoenberg's decision was unequivocal: "Extramusical premisses did indeed exist, but he did not 'give them away'; they did not belong to the work itself, merely to the circumstances of its creation, which were the private concern of the composer."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Workmanlike NSO, Zinman offer a blurred look back at Central Europe (Washington Post, October 10)

With that in one's ears, it was easy to draw connections to Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra on the second half, again propelled by the urgency of Zinman's incisive gestures. The performance was good, with a lush solo string ensemble and a nice mixture of orchestra with the imposing organ, and twittering piccolos in dialogue with the raucous E-flat clarinet later. Zinman guided the climaxes of sound, especially with the midnight ringing of the massive chime, which the player had to ascend a ladder to strike. (This dramatic moment made quite an impression on Miss Ionarts, who made her debut as an attendee at an NSO subscription concert.)

In the middle, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 (E-flat major, K. 482) was disappointing, not because it is not an ingenious and eminently likable piece, which it certainly is, but because the soloist, Angela Hewitt, and the orchestra were too often at odds. Hewitt is a gifted recitalist, where she has the freedom to shape each phrase in minute detail exactly to her liking; straitjacketed by an orchestra accompanying her, her performance often felt rushed and a little jumbled, except when she was playing completely by herself. The second movement featured her best playing, as well as excellent turns by the orchestral musicians in the section for wind ensemble and the funny flute-bassoon duet -- this is the first Mozart concerto to feature clarinets in the orchestration, and the use of the winds is extraordinary. Hewitt's cycle of the Mozart concerti has not become a favorite, either, possibly because it is in competition with the always surprising and endearing cycle by Ronald Brautigam on pianoforte -- both soloists released their versions of no. 22 this year within a couple months of each other.

This concert repeats tonight and tomorrow (October 10 and 11, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Hilary Hahn Presented by WPA[S]

In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, H. Hahn, C. Smythe (DG, 2013) Telemann, Twelve Fantasies for Solo Violin, A. Hadelich (Naxos, 2009)

One of the strangest press releases I have ever received arrived earlier this month. "Announcing a refreshed brand," it began, for Washington Performing Arts Society, changes that consisted of the removal of the last word of its name and a new logo. It was accompanied by news about the 2014-2015 season, during which disappointing trends will continue, sad to say: more crossover, more jazz, more novice performers. In the early years of these pages, I wanted to review pretty much everything on the WPAS Classical series. Fewer concerts have made the cut for me in the last season or two, and it looks that will only be getting worse.

Happily, there are still concerts that will make the cut: Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in Monteverdi's Orfeo; pianists Evgeny Kissin, András Schiff, Paul Lewis, Stephen Hough; among younger artists, pianists Beatrice Rana and Igor Levit; and an exciting premiere will be featured in Sila: The Breath of the World, by John Luther Adams, "for multiple choirs of woodwinds, brass, percussion and voices, to be performed in a large outdoor space (location TBA)." Still, it was hard not to see the grandstanding of WPA's president and CEO, Jenny Bilfield -- featured in a fawning bit of promo-"journalism" in Strathmore's glossy program magazine (apparently written before the organization's name change) -- as emblematic of the "refreshed brand": the focus on all the wrong things.

The current season neared its end on Wednesday night, with the latest recital by violinist Hilary Hahn, presented by WPA[S] in the Music Center at Strathmore. Hahn, who hails from Baltimore, could probably move enough tickets under most circumstances, and some of her performances, like those heard recently with the Philadelphia Orchestra here and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Munich in 2013, have been worthwhile. Sadly, not this one, which had an unfortunate combination of mediocre programming and lackluster finishing. Hahn had one particularly shining moment, a radiant but understated rendition of the sixth of Telemann's solo fantasies (E minor, TWV 40:19). It was, perhaps not coincidentally, the first piece Hahn played from memory on this concert, and it seemed to be something pondered more deeply by her than the music on the first half. Hahn's restrained vibrato gives her tone a blissfully pure quality, heard to beautiful effect in this piece, where she did not have to compete with any other sound. The first, second, and fourth movements, more contrapuntal, had all the voices sensitively defined and phrased so they could be easily unpacked by the ear, although with a cooler approach than the more viscerally intense interpretation of Augustin Hadelich, whose recording for Naxos from a few years ago is a delight. Hahn's Siciliana was graceful but with an edge that seemed to trade on associations with a folk fiddler's sort of sound, taking the chords strictly in rhythm, often little more than understated grace notes (the one movement where Hahn's interpretation beat out Hadelich's to my ears).

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Anton Webern, Langsamer Satz, and the Belcea Quartet

…Krzysztof Chorzelski, the violist of the Belcea Quartet bemoans at the Dinner after their performance in the Mozart Saal that he missed the Camerata Salzburg with Philippe Herreweghe performing Beethoven and Chopin the night they were giving their first of their two Purcell-Haydn-Britten recitals. “If I had known, I would have gone to that concert instead” he laughs. “It’s so frustrating to play String Quartet all the time and miss concerts like that.” If he had arrived a day earlier, taken a little more time, we suggest, he could have caught the first performance without playing hookey from his own gig. “I think that’s what we’re planning to do in the future, actually”, he responds in earnest. And follows up eagerly: “Is there something we shouldn’t miss on the night we arrive next time?”

We excitedly tell Chorzelski about the Freiburger Barockorchester and their titillating all-Schumann Concerto nights with Alexander Melnikov, Isabelle Faust, and Jean-Guihen Queyras and his eyes light up. “Nice. What a fantastic lineup. What a fantastic thing to play all the concertos. Is it on the 24th, or 25th?” It takes a while until we realize that we’re talking April, while the Belcea Quartet next date with Piotr Anderszewski (Webern, Beethoven, Shostakovich) is already this month. The concert they will miss instead is the first of the two San Francisco Symphony performances. Chorzelski knows about it already: “Ah, the one with Julia Fischer playing Prokofiev.” That’s quality stuff, but the hidden gem of interest could well be the Charles Ives “Concord Sonata”, orchestrated. (Well, one movement at least.) “Oh my God! That’s amazing. I heard the Concord Sonata once live, with Pierre-Laurent Aimard…” With or without the…” “With the flute, yes! Wow, it’s a fantastic idea.”


The idea was to talk about Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz, but now we’re solidly side-tracked on Ives. I confess to never quite having …

Continue here, at the Konzerthaus Magazin.

Why Steven Isserlis Waggled His Wig

With your ailing moderator having taken to bed last night, we thank Friend of Ionarts Robert 'Mecki' Pohl for the following thoughts on the Thursday evening concert by the National Symphony Orchestra.

S. Isserlis, Why Handel Waggled His Wig (Faber, 2006)

With Mr. Ionarts himself under the weather and out of the picture, it falls to me to write about the latest National Symphony Orchestra concert. The first piece on the program, Haydn's Symphony No. 72 was entirely new to me. It was also new to the NSO, having never been played before in any of their previous 12,121 concerts. Which is a pity, as it is, as so much of Haydn, full of surprises. One reason why it is so rarely played is that the horn parts are (according to conductor Christoph Eschenbach) “tremendously difficult” - and there are four of them, to boot. The second movement featured a lovely duet between the first violin and the flute, and just to show that this was not some kind of fluke, the final movement, a theme and variations, had each variation played by a different instrument: first the flute, then cello, violin, and finally, and most impressively, bass. After another variation that featured, once again, the horns, the theme reappeared, and the piece was over.

The second piece, in contrast, featured old friends. Both Steven Isserlis, whom I have heard many times over the last fifteen years, and the Schumann cello concerto, which I have listened to countless times. Once again, both came through. Isserlis, who writes that Schumann invites you into his inner life as no other composer does, invited us to join him, with great sweeping gestures of his arms as he finished another of the phrases. Isserlis is also one of the all-time great musical salesmen: he could sell Khachaturian to the Azeris. And there was no doubt that the audience was buying. The NSO, for its part, ably supported the cellist. (I believe that's the term; frankly, I barely noticed them, as my attention went entirely to the cellist. It is thus that the amateur is differentiated from the professional.)

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, NSO offers unusual Haydn and Brahms, plus cellist Steven Isserlis in Schumann concerto (Washington Post, February 7) Steven Isserlis, What is it like to come from an intensely musical family? (New Statesman, February 6) Peter Aspden, Cellist Steven Isserlis on his pianist grandfather and his compositions (Financial Times, January 10)

The final piece, Brahms's first Piano Quartet (op. 25) is one of my favorites. As orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg, it was new to me. The first movement was pretty much as expected: Though interesting to hear the familiar notes played by unfamiliar instruments, it did not go much beyond that either. I also would have liked to hear more urgency in the first tutti statement of the theme, though Eschenbach brought out the languid and musical side of the movement quite beautifully.

In the second movement, the trumpets came in with the theme, and it was a revelation, as if this was what Brahms was really after. From there, the piece grew in leaps and bounds, and soon it was as if one was listening to a long-lost Brahms symphony.
It was the final Rondo all Zingarese where Schoenberg really went to town. The orchestra -- which had grown over the last two pieces -- now filled the whole stage, and the music became all-enveloping. Xylophones, glockenspiels, snare drums, and cymbals added textures and colors that Brahms wouldn't have dreamed of. One expected the Kennedy Center organ to burst in at any moment. Thus did Schoenberg drag Brahms out of the nineteenth century fully into the twentieth century.

This concert repeats tonight and Saturday evening (February 7 and 8, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Dip Your Ears, No. 146 (Christine Schäfer Sings SchoenBerg)

Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, String Quartet no.2, Langsamer Satz, Largo desolato, Petersen Quartett & Christine Schäfer Capriccio

This is a CD that elicits raves and frustration. The excellent Petersen Quartet teams up with the sublime Christine Schäfer and present us Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet op.10 (for two violins, viola, cello and soprano), Anton Webern’s heavenly Langsamer Satz, and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite with the “secret part for voice” that was found out to exist some time in the late 70s. It’d be a dream of a CD if you appreciate the tamer, romantic reaches of the Second Viennese School. Except that for some reason Phoenix Edition (the unofficial successor to Capriccio) decided that they would not record the complete Lyric Suite, but only the “Largo desolato” that contains the vocal part.

Normally I’d try to view this not as an incomplete CD with the first five movements of the Lyric Suite missing, but as a CD which throws that last movement in as a bonus. But with a running time of 47 minutes, that’s a little difficult. I don’t usually mind CDs with a short run-time, either. There is no point in squeezing extra material onto a finished product for the sake of playing-time. But the two issues in combination, and seeing how the rest of the Lyric Suite would have brought this recording up to a good hour of music, it’s difficult not to feel a little cheated. Especially since the playing and especially the singing is so excellent throughout, that the CD really ought to be heard by anyone who loves the Berg and Schoenberg pieces.

Schoenberg’s Second Quartet (op.10) is easily digestible stuff when compared to his Third – its chromatic intensity veering much more towards the romantic idiom than the modernist. Little wonder then, that it’s the most commonly recorded of Schoenberg’s five string quartets. Born out domestic crisis (Gustav Mahler had left for America and Schoenberg’s wife Mathilde associated all-too closely with their common friend, the painter Richard Gerstl, who consequently killed himself), he composed the four movements between March 1907 and July 1908. The strained tonality (f-sharp minor, C-major, a-minor, d-minor, e-flat minor) makes for a feeling of faint harmonic familiarity throughout, even as the tonal relationships begin to dissolve. That’s particularly notable when Schoenberg adds the voice to his string quartet, the first time that the traditional boundaries of the string quartet had been thus expanded. Two poems by Stefan George – “Litany” and “Rapture” – form movements three and four.

Previously published on WETA. See also "Second Viennoiserie (12.7.11)

John Adams Residency, Day 3

Adams, Son of Chamber Symphony, ICE, J. Adams (2011) [REVIEW]

John Adams has not done himself any favors during his residency this week at the Library of Congress. In his programming of the first three concerts, he has put his own music up against the titans of the 20th century: Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáček for Road Movies, and last night it was Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg sandwiching his Son of Chamber Symphony. On one hand, as Adams himself acknowledged, only a fool would give himself that kind of competition, but on the other hand setting a high bar made the overall result of these concerts that much better.

Adams has been particularly blessed in his choice of performers, especially Jennifer Koh and last night's featured group, the International Contemporary Ensemble. Adams did the honors at the podium, but frankly these expert musicians could likely have done just as well in this repertoire without a conductor. They turned in thrilling accounts of two gigantic masterpieces of the modern period, beginning with Stravinsky's Grande Suite, the music for L'Histoire du Soldat. It is in many ways the preferable way to listen to this work, without the possibly silly story of the devil and the soldier, as in the last performance of the work under review. Certainly, this was a superior performance musically, too, with the fine violinist Jennifer Curtis taming the demanding solo part in the "Trois Danses" movement, the mesmerizing pairing of clarinet and bassoon in the "Pastorale," and a careful attention to balance and the scope of the room's acoustic throughout. The acerbic triumph of the march movements was rendered with plenty of clatter, right down to the chilling all-percussion conclusion.

Schoenberg's first Kammersymphonie (op. 9), which featured on the notorious Skandalkonzert on March 31, 1913, in Vienna, was the other giant in the room. It is hard to imagine this often urbane, even harmonically lush work causing protests or a brawl -- Alban Berg's Altenberg-Lieder were apparently the straw that broke the camel's back -- because now one admires it principally for its range of textures, harmony, tempo, and character and for the symphonic scope that Schoenberg achieved with just fifteen solo instruments and no percussion. Its principal theme -- a series of rising fourths that often resolve into (gasp!) a major chord -- these days always sounds like perhaps the most famous appropriation of quartal writing, the theme for the television series Star Trek by Alexander Courage.

My estimation of the Adams work featured here, Son of Chamber Symphony, has not changed much since I reviewed the recording made by John Adams and the ICE a few years ago. My reservations were brought into relief here by the juxtaposition with the Schoenberg, which Adams acknowledged was the inspiration for his two chamber symphonies. The Adams is a virtuosic tour de force, which the ICE nails firmly on the head in an often brain-spinning way, but it achieves much less in terms of color and variation. Lots of noodling around, lots of accents that shift the sense of meter (Stravinsky's influence is more important there), and a seemingly breathless continuity in the outer movements. It is thrilling to hear in a performance this good, but like a meringue it ends up leaving one with little substance or nourishment.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Composer John Adams leads an evening of music for the mind, if not the heart (Washington Post, May 27)

Even less impressive was the new work, La forma dello spazio by Canadian composer Zosha di Castri (b. 1985), a trifle of less than ten minutes that played around with the performance space, I guess, by having the clarinetist and flutist placed at the back of the auditorium. Clusters of various kinds arose at the front and were taken up behind the listener, with some instrumental effects (plucked piano, a credit card used on the cello's strings, air blown through the flute tonelessly, a rattle of some kind attached to the pianist's ankle) layered on top of them. Some hair-raising microtonal sounds and glissandi were mildly interesting, and there was an early entrance by the violinist (corrected by Adams, although it didn't really make any difference), but in the one end one wondered exactly what Adams heard in the piece to champion it in this way.

'Black Gigantic Butterflies'

Charles T. Downey, 21st Century Consort’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ lacked only an audience
Washington Post, February 25, 2013

Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire (German and English versions), L. Shelton, Da Capo Chamber Players

One of the most influential works of modern music celebrated its centenary this season. Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” an unforgettable atonal song cycle that premiered in October 1912, shattered conventions about how composers treat the human voice. The 21st Century Consort marked the occasion with a performance of the work Saturday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, for a regrettably small audience.

Soprano Lucy Shelton, who made an excellent recording of the work 20 years ago, gave an authoritative, engaging, even fun rendition of the vocal part, entirely from memory and aided by a microphone. In Schoenberg’s signature Sprechstimme, a rhythmically notated form of recitation, Shelton purred, pattered, hissed, hooted, screamed and growled her way through 21 symbolist poems by Albert Giraud with polished German diction, in a translation by Otto Erich Hartleben. [Continue reading]

21st Century Consort
Arnold Schoenberg, Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'"), op. 21 (Andrew Porter's English translation)
Bruce MacCombie (1943-2012), Elegy
Stephen Albert (1941-1992), To Wake the Dead
Smithsonian American Art Museum

SEE ALSO:
Paul Mathews, ‘Pierrot lunaire’: A spry centenarian (Washington Post, March 30)

Anne Midgette, Music review: Eighth Blackbird at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, April 4)

Best Recordings of 2012 (#1 - 10)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 1 - New Release

H.Purcell et al., Dorothee Mields, Lautten Copagney Berlin,
Wolfgang Katschner, Carus 83371

H.Purcell, “Love’s Madness” D.Mields / W.Katschner / Lautten Copagney Berlin Carus

How much is early musicke allowed to rock? Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata do funky things, but the liberties they take receive frowny faces from the purists. Dorothee Mields and the Lautten Copagney don’t need to stray from the score to achieve the same and more. In this medley of songs by Purcell and contemporaries, all about the effects of love, Mields & Co. so dig into their instruments that they bring the house down and blow the cobwebs off decades of well behaved performance practice. Positively addictive and joy-giving, it was days before my CD player yielded to another disc.

# 1 – Reissue

D.Scarlatti, 19 Keyboard Sonatas, Sergei Babayan, Piano Classics 0024

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Best Recordings of 2012 (#3)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 3 - New Release

A.Schoenberg, L.v>Beethoven, J.Haydn, A.Berg, An die ferne Geliebte op.98, Adelaïde op.46, The Book of the Hanging Gardens op.15, Altenberg Lieder, 3 Songs
C.Gerhaher, G.Huber, Sony 1935432

Schoenberg, Beethoven, Haydn, Berg, "Ferne Geliebte C.Gerhaher, G.Huber Sony

The title suggests a Beethoven-focus, but “Ferne Geliebte” is really Christian Gerhaher’s achievement to get a major label to record Schoenberg’s song cycle “Hanging Gardens”. It’s a vote of confidence by Sony in the finest, certainly most natural living Lied-baritone to let him sing, so Gerhaher, “one of the last great, truly great song cycles, set to that incredibly fascinating not-love story by my far-and-away favorite poet, Stefan George” so Gerhaher himself. Bookended by heartbreakingly beautiful renditions of Beethoven’s best, An die ferne Geliebte, and Adelaïde, this is as perfectly presented a release of challenging beauty as I can imagine. An instant yes-love story. Berg and Haydn fill out the demanding and rewarding recital.

Note: It looks like the version available on Amazon.com is a CD-R on Demand, which is BS. Perhaps best get it from the UK or German outlet, instead.

# 3 – Reissue

D.Shostakovich, Six String Quartets, Jerusalem Quartet, Harmonia Mundi Gold 508392

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