Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Bamberg's "Má vlast" -- Smetana At Home In Germany

A Wonderful Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve!

…The Bamberg Symphony was once the hard core of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague along with that latter’s orchestra’s last music director, Joseph Keilberth. They were exiled after World War II and found themselves in picturesque provincial Bamberg. Since then, they have been the world’s best orchestra by size of hometown, with a mission to spread their gift across greater Bavaria and beyond. The Czech/Bohemian root had been cut off during the cold war, but with their new chief conductor Jakub Hrůša, the link has been activated again. It’s only fitting that he would start the tenure with a recording of that most Czech pieces of music, Smetana’s Ma vlast, something he had already recorded some six years earlier with the Prague Philharmonia (Supraphon), a chamber-sized ensemble where he was chief conductor before Bamberg…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Bamberg's "Má vlast" -- Smetana At Home In Germany

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Forbes Classical CD of the Week

…The latter is very late-period Smetana, where mental trouble, probably due to syphilis, was already rearing its ugly head. It was written just a year before Smetana—long deaf by then—died in Prague’s Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum. The torn quality can remind, if faintly, of late Schumann—but the language firmly retains its Central European accent. The Talich Quartet’s warm, direct sound and rich acoustic add much to the immediacy of the music. The feeding frenzy of the third movement Allegro opening in that Second Quartet, for example, is an amazing witness to this,…

-> Classical CD of the Week: Classical CD Of The Week: Czech Please

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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.

Final Notes from the 2012 Salzburg Festival ( 16 )

Cleveland Orchestra • Franz Welser-Möst

The two Cleveland Orchestra concerts were not much less weird than that of the Berlin Philharmonic. Not by much, but a little. Mainly because Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is a more easily appreciated work than his Third Symphony, especially for people who had come primarily for Bedřich Smetana’s Má Vlast. Or at least two thirds of it, seeing how the set of symphonic poems was split between the first and second concert. (The second concert contained—half 0dd, half interesting—Lutosławski’s Concerto for Piano, “Má Vlast cont.”, and DSCH Sy.6.) The starting time of 9PM apparently indicated this year: “Danger, modern music may be performed”. Enough people got the hint, judging from the lot of empty seats in the Grosse Festspielhaus. A pity that not more (European) listeners would want to exploit the rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s most exalted orchestras—one of the few that can always compete with the elite orchestras of Europe.

They certainly showed up the Berlin Philharmonic in Lutosławski. Layer upon layer, each fitting exactly, Franz Welser-Möst constructed this Concerto with painstaking precision from which rose an irresistible pull. What I said about the work (and the performance, given that the BRSO is perhaps the European Orchestra that most resembles the Clevelander’s technical ability) in 2009, when Mariss Jansons conducted it in Munich, applies here, too:

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June Chamber Festival II

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

The annual June Chamber Festival at the Kreeger Museum comes to its conclusion this week. We managed to get there for the second of the three concerts, on Tuesday evening, and while the results from the American Chamber Players have improved from last year, the impression remains that the main draw of these concerts is the unusual repertoire and the beauty of the venue. Cellist Stephen Balderston had to withdraw from this year's concerts, following a shoulder surgery, but he was replaced quite ably by Israeli-born cellist Inbal Segev.

The evening opened with Mozart's Duo in G Major for violin and viola, K. 423, a piece recently noted in a disc of duo sonatas by Rachel Podger and Jane Rogers. It is a pleasing piece under most circumstances, only solo passages did reveal some infelicities in both soloists. It was paired with even less substantial fare, Kuhlau's Trio in G Major, op. 119, a piece interesting to hear if less interesting to hear again. The problem in this performance came from the fact that the work was created for two flutes and piano, requiring Segev to curtail her sound quite severely in this arrangement for flute, cello, and piano (by Nicholas Louis, as it turns out), so as not to overwhelm the generally fine playing of flutist Sara Stern. It worked in most places, but in others the two instruments were unbalanced. Pianist Anna Stoytcheva continued to be the most musical player in the group, with just one minor slip, expertly recovered, in the Kuhlau.

Other Reviews: Stephen Brookes, American Chamber Players’ soothing program comes with a punch (Washington Post, June 11, 2012) Charles T. Downey, June Chamber Festival at the Kreeger Museum (Washington Post, June 12, 2011)

The second half yielded far greater interest, beginning with an unusual trio for flute, viola, and cello by Albert Roussel (op. 40). The unexpected combination of instruments is outpaced by the work's musical eccentricities, with moods ranging from happy-go-lucky (the sunny first theme) to sultry (the sensuous second movement) and obsessive, with some truly odd passages, like the squeaky harmonics in the last movement. The evening concluded with Bedřich Smetana's Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 15, composed in response to the death of his eldest daughter, Bedřiška, in 1855. (It was a decade of tragedy for the composer, as he lost two younger daughters and eventually his wife in the same period.) The first movement had considerable heft, with themes steeped in tragic sadness, airy sweetness (Smetana once remarked that the ethereal second theme was related to a tune beloved of his daughter), and heroic resolution, while neither of the other two movement seems quite able to decide if it is a slow movement or something else. After many interesting formal diversions, however, the work comes to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion, with a heavy-handed funeral march and a surprise major resolution.

The June Chamber Festival at the Kreeger Museum concludes this Friday (June 15, 7:30 pm), when the American Chamber Players are joined by harpist Elizabeth Hainen, for music by Dvořák, Debussy, Donizetti, and Dohnányi.

Quatuor Diotima II: Romantic

(This article has been corrected since initial publication.)

G. Onslow, String Quartets, Quatuor Diotima L. Janáček, String Quartets, Quatuor Diotima

The Coolidge Auditorium, the venue hosting a generally excellent free concert series at the Library of Congress, is a beautiful, intimate hall. The acoustic is warm and resonant, but it also tends to reveal weaknesses in a performance by bringing them so directly to the ear. Such was the case with the second consecutive evening spent with the Quatuor Diotima here in Washington: after a concert of contemporary music at La Maison Française, the French string quartet with a flair for the fluorescent performed some 19th-century music at the Library of Congress. Romantic music is a sort of secondary interest for this group, most of whose recordings have focused on the music of living composers, and their performance was often beautiful for its understated qualities, focusing the ear on finely etched details, while it lacked true expressive power at the forte end of the dynamic spectrum.

It was good to hear a lesser Schubert string quartet opening this concert, the seventh quartet (D major, D. 94). It is not a work of exceptional merit like the composer's mature quartets, but it has flashes of inspiration, as in the second theme of the first movement, and shows an admirable grasp of the classical forms it uses -- quite remarkable when you realize Schubert was all of 14 years old when he composed it. The musicians seemed generally less comfortable in this sort of music, with first violinist Yun-Peng Zhao a little scratchy and small of tone when he was exposed in the high range: having to play through his glasses falling off his face at the end of the fourth movement was no help. The second movement benefited from a sweet, tender interpretative approach, while the Menuetto had a pleasing, rustic swagger and a pompous stateliness in the trio -- all of it over before you knew it. The fourth movement (Presto) was impressively energetic but not quite aligned across the ensemble in terms of intonation or rhythmic precision.

This was the latest in a series of performances of Beethoven's op. 131, one of the most strange and wonderful of the composer's late quartets -- heard recently from the Takács Quartet and the Emerson Quartet before that. The Diotima brought an irresistible suavity and subdued mystery to the opening fugue, not hammering any of the articulations, even soft-pedaling the second note of the subject, which sticks out like a sore thumb. Likewise, the recitative sections had the free feeling of improvisation, and the meaty variations and slow movement were treated with the ensemble's hallmark delicacy, subtlety, and warm intensity. Less felicitous were the renditions of the fast, more strident parts, various parts slightly akimbo in the fifth-movement Presto and rough dotted rhythms in the final movement. There was much to admire and set the mind to thought, but not quite an ideal performance.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Ambitious Quatuor Diotima can’t quite carry complex program (Washington Post, April 16)

The Diotima is going through a transitional personnel situation right now, appearing here in Washington for almost the first time with a new second violinist, Guillaume Latour. He is replacing Vanessa Szigeti, a relative of Joseph Szigeti who grew up in France (her father is second violinist in the Quatuor Enesco), who who was with the quartet for only about six months, herself replacing Naaman Sluchin, whom we heard on all of the group's previous visits (Szigeti's picture is still on the group's Web site). Perhaps the uncertainty of the situation undermined some of the group's confidence, which came out most in a still pleasing performance of Smetana's first quartet ("From My Life") -- in the fourth movement, there was a momentary loss of coordination between second violin and viola that started with a page turn. The first movement was passionately turbulent, led by the viola on its plangent triadic theme, and the second movement contrasted an earthy Polka with a more refined Viennese salon trio. The third movement highlighted the opposition of the cello solo, which opens the slow movement, and the upper three strings in close interplay. The fourth movement was a little too fast, which may have contributed to the coordination issue, but it ended with a dramatic return of the first movement's main theme.

The next free concerts at the Library of Congress will feature Juilliard Baroque (April 14, 8 pm) and Concerto Köln (April 20, 8 pm).

Twelve Days of Christmas: Slavic Heroes

Slavic Heroes, M. Kwiecień, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ł. Borowicz (released on January 10, 2012) HMW 906101 | 55'18"

We have witnessed Mariusz Kwiecień's appeal on stage before. The Polish baritone's new recital of opera arias, recorded back in 2009 with some touch-ups or additions made early last year, gives ample occasion to admire the smoothness and resonance of his voice, while the packaging, with photos of the open-collared singer, may be geared to a portion of the audience with other concerns. Most aria recitals of this sort are hardly worth recommending on musical terms, being aimed mostly at the rabid fans of individual singers. This disc, under the less than imaginative title Slavic Heroes, does offer many excerpts of operas one does not hear often in this part of the world and that are worth knowing. Besides the more obvious choices of Borodin's Prince Igor and Tchaikovsky (Mazeppa and Eugene Onegin, the latter title role being one of Kwiecień's recent successes), there are unexpected selections of Polish, Czech, and Russian operas. Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, Rachmaninoff's Aleko, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko are not exactly unknown quantities, but Smetana's Čertova stěna (The Devil's Wall) and Dvořák's The Cunning Peasant are off the beaten path, not to mention excerpts from three different operas by 19th-century Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko. While none of the Moniuszko selections sounds like much more than watered-down Donizetti or Verdi, the disc ends with another Polish composer, an excerpt of Karol Szymanowski's Król Roger, the title role of which Kwiecień will sing this summer at Santa Fe Opera. The Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Łukasz Borowicz, accompanies ably, although the balances sound a little artificial.

For Your Consideration: 'The Tree of Life'

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life has inspired critical raves -- not least, winning the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival -- and audience ire. The latter was enough of a concern that, when I saw it this past weekend, I experienced a first in my movie-going life: an employee of the theater announced, before the movie began, that the film had almost no dialogue and was "artsy" and that people should leave now if they wanted an exchange or a refund, and not after the film when they could not receive one. A few people in the theater did leave in the first hour or so, and the man next to me, obviously there because his girlfriend had chosen the movie, kept obsessively checking the time on his cell phone. The rapturous reviews of the film from some critics, claiming that the film is "a form of prayer" (Roger Ebert) or that Malick has taken us back to "a time when movies mattered" (Richard Corliss), are irresponsible in the sense that they do not take into account that this film, in spite of its considerable beauty, will annoy and frustrate many viewers. Rave and gush if you like, but at least make clear that you should not drag your boyfriend to it on date night.

Malick, a brilliant, intellectual man who studied philosophy and was a Rhodes Scholar, is the sort of filmmaker who makes difficult films. He apparently conceived this movie in the late 1970s but only began shooting it in the last decade, reportedly editing the film to a length of 3.5 hours and doing pre-screenings before deciding that he was unable to finish it in time for the 2010 Cannes Festival (some of the cut footage may be in this version of the trailer). As he completed it, at a length of 2.5 hours that feels much longer, it fails because it is essentially two movies. One is possibly autobiographical in some sense, about a boy growing up, as Malick did, in a rather strict Episcopalian household in Waco, Texas; the other is about the history of the universe, the conversation of characters in the film with the Creator, asking age-old human questions like, "Why did my brother have to die when he was only 19 years old?" There were even rumors that the cosmic story was originally planned as a completely separate film called The Voyage of Time: if true, Malick should have kept them separate.

The Texas part of the story is compelling because of the square-jawed, buzz-cut, unflinching performance of Brad Pitt as the father of the family of three boys. A failed classical musician -- at one point we see him playing Bach at the organ, and he regularly plays LPs during the family's dinners -- he now works for a plant in town, as an engineer, and is constantly in search of the next patent and a ticket to the wealth he covets around him. The character's failings as a father, as he terrorizes his sons for the least fault in their posture at the table, their yard work, their weakness, their failure to call him Sir, is uncomfortably recognizable to anyone who has been a father. He is strict and harsh because he believes that he is helping his children become strong, but he does not realize until it is too late how his overbearing insistence has damaged both his wife (the ethereal Jessica Chastain, whose feet metaphorically -- and, at least once, literally -- do not touch the ground) and his children, Jack (played for most of the film with ambivalent anger by Hunter McCracken), R.L. (a seraphic Laramie Eppler, who could easily be Brad Pitt's own son, so strong is the resemblance), and Steve (Tye Sheridan). Fiona Shaw and Sean Penn have largely inconsequential turns as the grandmother and adult version of Jack, respectively.

The problem is not the unusual narrative structure, with very little dialogue, lots of gorgeous but tangential imagery, and disembodied voice-overs. Malick used a similar process in The New World, and that movie had all of the narrative force that long sections of The Tree of Life lack. (The same cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, worked on both films.) The problem is that in including the story of cosmic history, in rather pretty but abstract imagery with ghostly music, in which corpuscles pulsing through veins become almost indistinguishable from strands of Hubble-imaged galaxies, Malick has shortchanged the human story. The first half-hour of the film was unbearable, as one could not get a handle on the Texas story and the camera strayed, beautifully and with expensive digital effects, through the story of creation and evolution, somehow mixed together, including the dinosaurs and their extinction. The middle part of the film was absolutely gripping, leading to a deadly final half-hour as the grief of the family -- one of the sons dies, in a not really explained way -- reaches an end steeped in metaphysical bathos on the shores of paradise.

Other Reviews: Roger Ebert | A. O. Scott | Los Angeles Times | Slate | Salon | The New Yorker TIME | Washington Post | Village Voice | Wall Street Journal | Movie Review Intelligence

According to critic Alex Ross, writer-director Terrence Malick is an "avid classical listener," and it shows in The Tree of Life. One of the most striking parts of his earlier film The New World was the use of the Rhine music from Wagner's Das Rheingold, and music has great import in this movie, too. The swirling Moldau music from Smetana's Ma Vlast makes a scene of happy children cavorting in a moment of light-hearted freedom; Couperin's Les Barricades Mistérieuses, a character piece from the 6e Ordre, runs through the film like a Leitmotif, played by the father at the piano and echoed by the middle son on the guitar; most of all, settings of the Requiem Mass (Berlioz's Grande messe des morts and Zbigniew Preisner's Lacrimosa, the latter composed for filmmaker and Preisner's collaborator Krzysztof Kieślowski), Holy Minimalist pieces by John Tavener and Henryk Górecki, and portions of Mahler's first symphony signify grief and the questioning of the great beyond. (See this complete list of the music used in the movie.)

In a sense Malick has created a film in the form of a transcendental symphony, following the model of Beethoven and Mahler. (My new favorite French film critic, Didier Péron, noted the same similarity in his review of The Tree of Life -- Malick, Symphonie n°5, May 17 -- for Libération.) The sprawling length, the gravity of tone, and the cosmic reach of the film all seem to recall it, but can it work in film format? One senses that the movie would not have nearly the same solemn scope without its score, and that even with it, it cannot quite grasp what it is reaching for. As Raymond Knapp put it, writing about another example of this kind of work, Carl Nielsen's Inextinguishable, "there is no evidence (so far) that the cosmos actually appreciates any of the symphonies that have been offered up to it."

Noseda Pumps up the Volume with the NSO

Beethoven, Piano Concertos / Sonatas (inter alia), R. Lupu, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Z. Mehta

Count on us to be in the hall for any performance by the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu: one has little idea what to expect from his playing, even from phrase to phrase. If the results are not always felicitous, you will at least be surprised -- which is no mean feat in works that are often very familiar -- and from time to time you will be intoxicated by the musical sensitivity. His performance with the National Symphony Orchestra last night was less on the intoxicating side than his most recent recitals in the area, in 2009 and 2010, but as with his performance of Beethoven's first concerto, reviewed by Jens in Munich last year, it was definitely worth hearing.

Part of the problem with Lupu's performance of Beethoven's third piano concerto was dashes of technical weakness, slips heard most prominently in the first movement. The phrasing, as usual, was impeccable, and the slow movement was reverential, with a bewildering array of gradations of soft and radiant in Lupu's tone (right from the startling piano-only opening bars -- revealing the unusual choice of E major for the second movement, a surprise after the C minor conclusion of the first). Another part of the problem was the somewhat contrary and very forceful approach of the evening's guest conductor, Gianandrea Noseda, in his NSO debut. There was a reoccurring tug of war between the orchestra, Noseda, and Lupu in the concerto: as the solo sections opened or closed, Lupu often conducted with his left hand, direction that principal cellist David Hardy was more focused on at times than Noseda's beat.

Noseda seemed intent on wringing out every possible decibel of urgency from the orchestra. Having apparently spent rehearsal instructing the players to hammer every sforzando and give every phrase equal, excessive force, he practically foamed at the mouth in his gestures, a whirlwind of grinding, slamming movements. This love of speed -- very little quarter was given to tempo flexibility -- and strength of tone recalled Noseda's connection to Valery Gergiev and his time apprenticing in Russia, but it made for some very loud and fairly empty-headed renditions of the other two pieces on the program. The overture to Smetana's The Kiss -- heard here for the first time from the NSO -- was assaulted to within an inch of its not very substantial life.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Conductor Gianandrea Noseda's NSO debut: A mixed performance (Washington Post, February 11, 2011) Andrew Patner, Skill on the podium and at the piano for CSO concert (Chicago Sun-Times, February 25, 2010)

By the second half, it was hardly a surprise that Noseda's take on Tchaikovsky's Manfred, a symphonic poem in four movements based on Lord Byron's poem, would be reminiscent of the shock-and-awe kind of Tchaikovsky heard from Lorin Maazel and others. It is a significant and arch-Romantic work, to be sure, but it does go on: all four of the movements, with the possible exception of the tender third, seem too long, and the bombast level is way over the top. One would be tempted to say that it is not heard all that often -- the NSO last played it in 1983 -- but we have reviewed performances under Yakov Kreizberg with the Munich Philharmonic in 2008 and Yuri Temirkanov with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2006. The opening theme, for bass clarinet and bassoons, was gloomy, the brass blared, the percussion walloped (one more deafening cymbal crash would have permanently damaged my hearing), and the strings oozed, with only the woodwinds a little outfoxed by the score's challenges, resulting in some oboe slips and some questionable tuning on those high chords. For all the fine effort put forward, it missed the mark.

This concert will be repeated this evening (February 12, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Pacifica Quartet @ Kreeger

Available at Amazon: Elliott Carter, String Quartets 1 and 5, Pacifica Quartet (released January 29, 2008) Naxos 8.559362

Last year the Kreeger Museum made our list of Five Favorite American Buildings, and on Saturday night a concert by the Pacifica Quartet provided another excellent excuse to spend some time in the house that Philip Johnson built. The Pacifica has recently released the first volume of a 2-CD set of the string quartets of Elliott Carter, and the almost-centenarian composer's latest, no. 5, was on the program. The "new vision" Carter has attributed to this work could be described as a postmodern program, with the four instruments not only playing a series of movements but, in a juxtaposed layer of interludes, commenting on each movement. At the same time, the score drives the players through merciless technical demands of all kinds, with very little that sounds like unity. Carter compared it to the process of a quartet rehearsing, that is, the sound of the fifth quartet is a string quartet preparing to play the fifth quartet.

Some time spent with the score confirms that what sounds like misalignment is what Carter intended. In the second movement (Giocoso) and the garrulous sixth movement (Presto scorrevole), when the four voices are actually playing together, they have complicated patterns that do not line up (sixteenths, triplets, fivelets, sevenlets). Expressive moments also abound in the murmuring clusters of the fourth movement (Lento espressivo) and especially the fractalized harmonics of the tenth movement (Adagio sereno). That was the most beautiful part of hearing the quartet live, the sound of those layered harmonics, mostly piano and pianissimo. The sound is memorable on disk, but in a hall, bouncing off stone, the metallic, slicing sound seemed to reprogram my ears, as if my atoms were being split and the particles flung wide across the universe.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Pacifica Quartet (Washington Post, April 14)

The two other selections provided interesting parallels, intended or not, to the theme of conversation. Mozart's K. 387 features a chromatic rising line in the second movement and a fugal subject in the last movement passed among the instruments. Although the cello of Brandon Vamos had a smooth tone in his second-movement solo moments, at other times his tendency to force the sound resulted in strident growls. Simin Ganatra's first violin seemed shallow-voiced at first in the third movement but deepened to a more singing quality. Far more suited to the Pacifica's strengths was the final work, Smetana's first string quartet (E minor, "From My Life"). In this piece, intended as a sort of autobiography, the four instruments, "as in a circle of friends, talk among themselves about what has oppressed me so significantly."

Here, as in the Carter, violist Masumi Per Rostad proved the most distinctive individual voice of the quartet (he also writes a sporadic online journal for Gramophone), playing the part taken by Antonín Dvořák when this quartet was first performed in Prague. The polka had a pleasing folk rubato, contrasted by a more Viennese trio, with a tang of tango in it. The third movement (Largo sostenuto) opened with an intense cello solo, followed by the thick, searing first violin. In another parallel with Carter, Smetana's fourth movement includes a summary of themes from the preceding movement, which came to an impossibly soft conclusion, leaving the audience in stunned silence.

The Pacifica Quartet will be back next month, with a concert dedicated to Elliott Carter at the Library of Congress (May 29, 8 pm), including the piano quintet.

Guarneri’s Penultimate Season

Arnold Steinhardt, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony (1998)

Thursday evening, the Kennedy Center Fortas Chamber Music series presented the esteemed Guarneri String Quartet in the Terrace Theater. Since the Guarneri Quartet has announced their retirement at the end of the 2008-2009 season, hearing the unparalleled group one last time must be at top of every music lover’s to-do list. The three founding members of the Guarneri are showing signs of age, of course, with the exception of cellist Peter Wiley who replaced David Soyer in 2001. However, once easing into a work, such as the melancholic first movement of Bartók’s Quartet No. 2 that opened the program, bit by bit the years rolled back and the Guarneri Quartet exhibited an inspiring vitality. After almost 45 years of strenuous touring (see first violinist Arnold Steinhardt’s 1998 book Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony), these musicians convey that their love affair with music, one that likely motivated them to master their art in the first place, has not faltered, yet only increased.

In addition to flawless accuracy and ensemble, the Guarneri excels by finding perfect musical equilibrium on various levels. One is first struck by the intensity of atmosphere created and, once attuned to it, may focus more closely on the detail beneath. This was especially true in the second movement (Allegro molto capriccioso) of the Bartók, featuring lively folk tunes. The outcome of such refined playing was that except for when the cellist was in its lower range, hearing individual instruments was seldom possible; they are a unit, an organism.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Guarneri String Quartet, Revisiting a Winner (Washington Post, January 12)

Haydn’s Quartet in D (op. 20, no. 4) opened with somewhat heavy vibrato, though it was sprightly when necessary and always fluent. The Scarlatti-like set of variations comprising the second movement (Un poco adagio e affettuoso) was most memorable as it allowed individuals to take a turn at the tune -- cellist Peter Wiley was most poetic. The chorale-like theme contains a dramatic 5-6 upward-motion crescendo that the quartet, keen to exploit dissonance, savored every time. After repeating the opening theme, a fitting coda rounds out the movement. The final movement was a true Presto.

The program ended with Smetana’s Quartet No. 1 in E Minor (“From My Life”), a biographical work written a decade before the composer’s death. during his deafness. The first two movements emit a youthful optimism, particularly the dance tunes of the second movement. The third movement refers to Smetana’s love for the girl who would later become his wife, and it featured first violinist Arnold Steinhardt playing the florid tune with absolute abandon. At one point in the movement after lush chords, the music paused after a hopeful upward motif, possibly representing a question, or marriage proposal, that was soon followed by more lush melody. The heroic final movement (Vivace – Meno presto – Moderato) was interrupted by a violin screech depicting the ringing heard in Smetana’s ears, a symptom of the tragic deafness to come. The atmosphere became hauntingly dark, and the work more and more distant, fading quietly away and ending with three plucks.

The Guarneri Quartet will present an all-Beethoven concert as a scholarship benefit at the University of Maryland next month (February 29, 8 pm).

Fischer, NSO Offer Czech Bouquet

Iván Fischer's second weekend of National Symphony Orchestra performances (see the review of last week's concerts with Nikolaj Znaider) featured a selection of his “favorites” and opened with a seldom-heard gem: Dvořák’s Notturno in B major for string orchestra, op. 40. Fully exploiting the warm disposition of that particular key, the strings gently rove over a pedal-point lasting a few minutes and finally resolve simply from V to I. The work then moves forward with pizzicati beneath to a generously drawn-out ending. This pleasurable work was a foreshadowing of the second half of the program to come.

Available at Amazon: Mozart, Flute Concertos and Concerto for Flute and Harp, Emmanuel Pahud, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado (1997)

Emmanuel Pahud, Berlin Philharmonic principal flute player since age 22, joined the NSO for the rest of the first half in Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1 (G major, K. 313). With a brassy, almost reed-like tone and fast, narrow vibrato, Pahud offered a multitude of detail in articulation and phrasing. The orchestra did an excellent job attempting to match the level of detail, fluency, and gesture in Pahud’s playing. Fischer, in the Q&A following the performance, perhaps but it best: “Most instrumentalists play on their instruments; Pahud’s flute is an extension of his heart.”

Fischer loaded the second half of the program with his “favorites” by interspersing picturesque tone poems from Smetana’s Má vlast (“My Country”), with a selection of Dvořák’s Moravian Duets (from folk poetry orchestrated by Tibor Gátay) with soprano Carolyn Betty and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor. Fischer described his programming scheme as being centered on waves: “As waves are very beautiful in music, I am keen to present contrast and unity in the form of waves.” Dvořák’s brief peasant duets were largely sad, yet always with striking beauty. Even the wedding song There on Our Roof had a very serious disposition. It was a pleasure to hear Betty’s excellent musicianship and color in her second annual appearance with the NSO and Fischer. O’Connor, though sometimes lagging behind Betty, was superb.

Photo of conductor Iván Fischer by Joost van Velsen, courtesy of Harrison/Parrott

One heard the churning and rustling of an entire ecosystem in Smetana’s tone poem From Bohemian Woods and Fields, which eventually turns into a polka. The bassoon “snore” in the tone poem Šárka was well done, while Vltava (also known by the Czech river’s German name, The Moldau, and last heard only this past April from the NSO) vividly depicted the river’s origins in the forest to its triumphant passage through Prague – the hunter’s horn, wedding feast, castle, and nymphs along the way are also a treat. You are encouraged to experience this unique and memorable program.

Further highlights of the extended post-concert Q&A included Fischer referring to audition committees as “the police” who care more about mistakes than feeling. Fischer desires “real artists with something to say…if there are two normal candidates and a crazy one, I always take the crazy one; the committee always takes the square one.” Fischer responded to a question about period instruments and his future Concertgebouw appearance leading the St. Matthew Passion of Bach by stating that “I love original instruments and work with them a lot, though they do not have an exclusive right to the music; the person is more important than the instrument.”

Other Reviews: Tim Page, Fischer's Recipe: Stir Vigorously With Baton (Washington Post, November 10)

After urging the audience not to cough at the most interesting points in works, charmingly implying that they might not be listening well, the artists fielded a question about the relevance of music criticism today. Pahud and Fischer agreed that good criticism does an important service for the community and noted that there is less space for it in today’s media. Fischer noted that in papers from the 1920s and 30s, essays discussing performances could be found. Pahud mentioned that there are many more people reading newspapers or online than are sitting in the concert halls. Fischer then noted that he finds critical reviews useful and not bothersome as musicians are always in discussion and disagree continuously.

This concert, without the AfterWords event featuring the artists, repeats this afternoon (November 9, 1:30 pm) and tomorrow evening (November 10, 8 pm).

Baltimore's Bartered Bride

In a week that has seen or will see new productions of Die Walküre and La Fille du Régiment at Washington National Opera and a Cavalleria Rusticana / I Pagliacci (review this weekend) coming to Fairfax from Virginia Opera, only a crazy person would also go to hear the latest production at Baltimore Opera, too. Well, I admit that I have a weakness for Czech opera, and Bedřich Smetana's Prodaná Nevěsta (The Bartered Bride) is a guilty pleasure worth a trip to Charm City (especially since the only time that the opera was mounted by WNO was in 1994). True, it may be described -- viciously -- as just a step or two above musical theater, but the music and story are light, airy fun, the perfect amuse-gueule before the tragic main course awaiting us next month in Janáček's Jenůfa from Washington National Opera.

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)

Created in Prague in 1866 and significantly revised over the following four years, the story of Bartered Bride (libretto by Karel Sabina) is set in a quirky little village in Bohemia. The worst thing that can happen here is that a young girl named Mařenka may not be able to marry the man she loves, Jeník, because her father has signed a contract arranging her marriage to Vašek. Even that misfortune is ultimately avoided, amid much drinking of beer, folk dancing, and a delightful circus. This jolly town is diametrically opposed to what would be its evil sister city, the hateful, claustrophobic Borough of Britten's Peter Grimes. In both villages, everyone knows everyone's business, but the difference is in what they do with that information.

In James McNamara's production for the first-ever performance of this work by Baltimore Opera, the plain, even drab sets (by Rheinhard Heinrich) consist of a wall and houses that expand or contract into the generally barren stage. The entire village is made of the same bland stone, covered with what look like either dead vines or the shadows of unseen trees. The only dash of color in the staging is during the slapstick Act III circus scene, complete with onstage banda, colored lights, flashy costumes, and a dog leaping through hoops. In a clever move, it is also the only time that the Czech language is supplanted by English (and likewise English by Czech in the supertitles, to comic effect), with the Texan twang of the ringmaster (Luke Grooms) and the Baltimore accent ("hon") of the Indian chief (Patrick Toomey). Here is an opera with an actual circus, instead of an opera transformed into a circus, like the American Opera Theater's Acis and Galatea earlier this year.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, BOC presents a lovely 'Bride' (Baltimore Sun, March 26) Sarah Hoover, Wild West Puts Spring In This 'Bride's' Step (Washington Post, March 30)

The singing was good, not least because of the presence of two genuine Czech singers from the roster of the Prague National Theater in the lead roles. Dana Burešová was a playful Mařenka, with slight intonation issues, especially in her low range. Her scene with Vašek, sung by the fine character tenor Doug Jones (almost stealing the show), was particularly well acted. Tenor Valentin Prolat was a little stiff as Jeník, with a dark, thick sound where he needed it but little dramatic or musical subtlety. Bass Gregory Frank was a well-sung caricature as the conniving marriage broker Kecal.

The best contribution from Prague was the National Theater's music director, Oliver von Dohnányi, who drove his orchestra and cast through a pleasingly animated performance, almost always keeping them together. The famous overture, with its restless contrapuntal main theme, was at the edge of too fast for the orchestra, who played heroically. The choral scenes had a full and happy sound, especially the famous Beer chorus ("Beer is a gift from heaven" -- yes, indeed!), although the choreography was stilted and unimaginative. Dancers attempted to enliven those scenes, with mixed success, although the music from the orchestra was always pleasing.

Two performances of The Bartered Bride remain, tonight (March 30, 8:15 pm) and Sunday afternoon (April 1, 3 pm), in the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore. Also, Bartered Bride was the first opera to be made into a film (rather than simply filmed on stage), Die Verkaufte Braut, directed by Max Ophüls in 1932, with Jarmila Novotna in the title role.

Bartered Bride in London

Charles Mackerras is conducting a production of Bedrich Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride this month, created in 1998 by the indefatigable Francesca Zambello, at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, through January 20. The reviews have been good this time around, beginning with Warwick Thompson (Sprightly 'Bartered Bride' Looks at High Price of Happiness, January 9) for Bloomberg News:

In Smetana's lively Czech comedy "The Bartered Bride," a young villager pretends to sell his fiancee for 10,000 crowns. She turns out to be a "bouncing Czech," however, and in the end the young man ends up with both the girl and the gold. The opera, in repertory at London's Royal Opera House through Jan. 20, examines the price we put on happiness and the value of human relationships. The other villagers don't mind that Jenik is bartering his bride -- until they learn of the high price. Their outraged reaction provides a great comic moment, one which neatly skewers their hypocrisy. There are many other well-observed moments in this beautifully clear production. Director Francesca Zambello and designer Alison Chitty set the story in and around a large village barn, sometime in the early 20th century. The costumes, mostly drab simple cottons, give the sense that poverty is only a short step away. Ten thousand crowns means security, safety and freedom.

Edward Seckerson was less than enthusiastic about the staging in his review (The Bartered Bride, Royal Opera House, London, January 11) for The Independent but lauds the musical performances, beginning with the conductor:

With Sir Charles Mackerras at the helm, Smetana's Bartered Bride not only has a spring in her step, she's several inches off the ground for much of the duration. Mackerras isn't just well-versed in the rhythms, the accents, the attitude of Czech music, it's part of his musical DNA. How rare it is to hear Smetana's racy violin figurations so deftly, so precisely placed, like whispered rumours, in the opening pages of the overture; how rare to feel the explosive vitality bubbling under, primed and ready; how refreshing to feel an orchestra and an audience enjoying itself because they feel confidant that they are in safe hands. If ever an overture raised one's expectations of the opera to come, this is it, right down to the wistful Dvorak-like reflection just before the breathless pay-off.

On this post, Jens already quoted from another review by Richard Fairman (The Bartered Bride, Royal Opera House, London, January 10) for the Financial Times. He also gives high praise to Mackerras and the singers but does not like the staging:

On the face of it Francesca Zambello's production (sung here in English) is true to the work. It is set in the Bohemian countryside, in period and in costume, and has a good sense of humour. And yet there is a brash showbiz slickness about it that soon starts to set one's teeth on edge. Do the chorus always have to be kitted out in matching poster-paint colours? Do the local harvest festivals really involve men dressed as haystacks with huge carrots as noses? "Now welcome to the West End stage our visitors all the way from Bohemia!", the production seems to shout. "You'll love them - they're really quaint."

The last review I read was by Rupert Christiansen (Long road to the fun and games, January 11) for The Telegraph:

"An evening of merriment and mayhem is guaranteed... a splendid first opera experience for kids," proclaims the publicity for this revival of Smetana's comedy. Encouraged by such pledges and some relatively modest pricing, there were a lot of children in the audience, but I doubt if they left the theatre feeling that the promise had been fulfilled. The Bartered Bride scarcely approaches the merriment of Little Britain or the mayhem of Harry Potter, and the plot is thin and silly: the oafish Jenik's refusal to tell his beloved Marenka why he is conniving with the marriage broker Kecal must rank as one of the daftest no-brainers in the operatic repertory.

Yes, there are some great tunes, some jolly dance sequences and fun and games in the last act when the circus comes to town. But the pace is pretty slow - with two intervals, the show lasts three hours and a quarter and the long stretches of recitative are deadly dull. Far better to take older kids to Billy Budd, I would have thought.

In that vein, the Royal Opera is hosting, of all things, a Bartered Bride Sing-a-long on January 20. It is aimed at students and costs £10. Someone in London needs to go to this and let us know just how many people, let alone kids, will be able to sing along with The Bartered Bride, even if it is being sung in English.

St. Petersburg on the Potomac

Having made quite a name for themselves over the last years, not the least through their now complete Shostakovich cycle on hyperion, the St. Petersburg String Quartet stopped by the National Gallery of Art in a program of Mendelssohn, Smetana, and – delightfully – Shostakovich. Mendelssohn’s quartet no. 2, op. 13, was recently presented in D.C. by the Pacifica Quartet (see Ionarts review) – but it’s a work one can’t hear often enough.

F. Mendelssohn, String Quartets, Talich Quartet

Founding member Alla Aranovskaya on first violin very much played first fiddle, taking leadership in (or, less charitably put: dominating) three works, reminding me of the Chilingirian Quartet. If the Mendelssohn started out quite nicely, it showed a few problems as it progressed, notably in Boris Vaynar’s occasionally unsteady viola playing or wherever Mme. Aranovskaya’s tone crossed the line from precise and steely to sour. Leonid Shukayev’s lucid playing was consistently beautiful and supportive.

It is good to see Mendelssohn’s quartets really take off (the Emerson gave a taste of it just this Thursday at the Strathmore Hall – as reviewed by Ionarts – because they are all exquisite. If I don’t dare claim that they are musically superior to Schumann’s or Brahms’s string quartets, I’ll at least point out that they are far, far easier to enjoy and also needn’t be played at near perfect levels to convince.

D. Shostakovich, Quartets 5, 7, and 9, St. Petersburg SQ4t

B. Smetana, String Quartets, Panocha Quartet

Is there something to or in Shostakovich (and Bartók) that makes performances of his quartets generally stand out and be played better than works of other composers? Just like I’ve hardly ever heard a bad or even mediocre performance of a Bartók quartet, I’ve yet to hear sub-par Shostakovich, even where the works around it were not played all that radiantly. It’s not a matter of not needing to play DSCH well for his music to be enjoyable; it seems difficult not to play it well. Does it demand (and get) more practice and concentration? Is there a sense among performers that Haydn can be played after a night out but that Shostakovich needs a bit of extra effort and alertness? Whatever the case, the St. Petersburgers were indeed a good notch above the Mendelssohn in their performance of the DSCH quartet no. 9. With its three Allegretto movements and an Andantino wedged in at second position, it sparkles with that rhythmical quality that, once you are seduced by it, will never let you sit still again during one of his chamber works.

Over sheer endless pedal points, Smetana’s first (of two) quartet (“From My Life”), in E minor, started the second half. Written eight years before the composer’s death in 1884, it already shows his bouts with deafness and perhaps even syphilis. The quartet’s depiction of ‘inner hearing’ – Smetana’s attempt to depict in music the sensation of deafness – got an eerie touch from the reverberant acoustic of the West Garden Court that, on the downside, was also responsible for the wash of sound that dominated most of the concert. The amiable performance of this quartet stuffed with musical references served the enjoyment of the audience well, much like the Mendelssohn.

Itzhak Perlman at Strathmore

This weekend I thought I'd get my violinist fix, and no 18 hours after seeing Hilary Hahn I was back in the Strathmore Hall to hear Itzhak Perlman in the first recital at that venue.

If I go to a concert, by the way, I do not want to hear a slew of inane speeches: Neale Perl (President of WPAS) bored me out of my mind with his list of every half-important donor and official that may or may not have been in the audience. Before him, Douglas M. Duncan, the Montgomery County Executive, tested my patience. Fortunately, the talking came to an end after what seemed like ten minutes, and Mr. Perlman walked out on stage with the help of his crutches and leg-braces. When he picks up the violin though, notions of frailty or restriction dissipate at once. I mention this, because in many ways this transformation is similar to the experience of seeing Thomas Quasthoff come on stage and then fill an entire opera house with his booming sound.

In Mozart's E minor violin sonata (KV 304), Messrs. Perlman and Rohan DeSilva performed amiably together, and especially DeSilva's confident playing was appealing as he felt no need for dynamic and volume limitations while playing next to his far more famous colleague.

The intro to Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata exposed a weakness in Perlman's playing that reinforced suspicions still lingering from the Mozart. Stability, the tightness of the vibrato and intonation were—under pressure, at least—less than we are used from the maestro. The piano playing continued to be faultless, even in the second movement's Andante con Variazioni, where the lengths can sometimes get to the accompanist. Perlman's performance was still impressive on many levels but posed the question of whether there is simply an unavoidable expiration date on violinists (or singers, for that matter), after which it becomes very difficult to make up with experience for lack of ease of technical execution and, simply, youth.

Meanwhile, coughing and cell phone discipline are not quite where they ought to be yet at Strathmore. Like on Saturday, I felt like Hans Castorp between movements… everyone hacked away at once.

The "North Bethesda Premiere" (so Perlman's remark) of Episodes for Violin and Piano by Ellen Taaffe Zwillich met with considerable enthusiasm, though Perlman's humorous telling them of how "Episode" had been tailored to his taste certainly helped. The work is more than a cut above the Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No. 1, that was Joan Tower's contribution the night before. While the 'lyrical episode' made me wonder at a few mute musical points, the 'rhythm episode' was a little marvel and delight that effectively showcased that Perlman's fingers still are fleet.

The two vignettes of Smetana's From the Homeland showed Perlman at his best, closing the program on a good note, topped only by the four encores: Kreisler "in the style of Pugnani," among other things, which led Perlman to observe that apparently "they were all dying for some piece of good old-fashioned Pugnani" back then. In his element with the encores, Perlman had the audience laugh, applaud, chuckle and then on their feet as one, a happy ending to a concert that may have forecast the near end of his performing career.

See also Joan Reinthaler, Intimate Perlman, Cavernous Strathmore (Washington Post, February 22).

Panocha Quartet at the Library of Congress

Last night, I happily went to a nice event in my neighborhood, the first of the free Concerts from the Library of Congress that I have been able to attend this season. The Panocha Quartet, from the Czech Republic, presented three pieces from the repertories for which they have become known: Haydn and two Czech composers, Smetana and Dvořák. This is appropriate since we are in the "Year of Czech Music," a year with important anniversaries for Janáček (b. 1854) and Dvořák (d. 1904). From here they will go to New York, where they will be performing two Janáček quartets at Zankel Hall this Friday, and András Schiff will join them for Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, op. 81.

The quartet took the stage of Coolidge Auditorium in matching black slacks, gray shirts, and maroon bowties. They created a restrained, delicate rendition of Haydn's String Quartet no. 2 in D Major (op. 33, no. 6), from the first group of pieces for this combination of instruments that the composer called quartets. The group's approach to Haydn took full advantage of their beautiful piano tone, which enhanced the contrasts of each movement, especially in the subdued solos for the violins in the Andante. By restrained, I do not mean to imply anything jejune in the Panocha's sound, because they had full volume available in the scherzo, a quick triple-meter romp that features nice outbursts from the cello (Jaroslav Kulhan) and a humorous longer-note ending for the viola (Miroslav Sehnoutka). The last movement, marked Allegretto, showed off the Panocha Quartet's remarkable virtuosity, especially the E-string purity and accuracy of the first violinist, who gave his name to the group, Jiří Panocha.

Available at Amazon: Smetana, String Quartets no. 1 and no. 2, Panocha Quartet

Dvořák, "Slavonic" String Quartet and Cypresses, Panocha Quartet

Of course, the Panocha Quartet is known for its renditions of Czech composers, and they ended the first half with Smetana's String Quartet no. 2 in D Minor, the briefer and lesser-known late quartet that followed the "From My Life" quartet in 1882 to 1883. (See David Hurwitz's brief review of the first two Smetana quartets, performed by the Panocha Quartet.) The four movements of this quartet are unified by their openings, which are all dramatic unisono melodies. The Panocha Quartet attacked the first movement unisono crisply and warmed it into a slow, luscious homophony, a sound which alternated with very turbulent moments. The second movement is a duple folksy dance with a warm viola melody, balanced by the Panocha's blindingly, buzzingly fast third movement, with its fugal entries. Here, the Panocha Quartet showed its full hand in terms of breadth of sound, which had been perhaps intentionally restrained in the Haydn. The only sound that seemed lacking was a full bass in some large textures, from the tone of cellist Jaroslav Kulhan.

At intermission, people checked the score of the Yankees-Red Sox game on their cell phones and generously shared the information with their neighbors. (I can't help but think that at least some of the empty seats in the auditorium had been reserved by baseball fans who decided to stay at home. Congratulations to Boston!) The program concluded with a substantial work, Dvořák's String Quartet in E♭ Major, op. 51, nicknamed the "Slavonic." This was a piece the quartet knew quite well, having recorded the complete chamber works of this composer. The first movement has a somewhat ametrical, folksy feel to it, which was played to great effect. However, it was in the second movement that the Panocha Quartet truly excelled. It is a gorgeous piece based on the Dumka, a mournful type of Czech folk tune. The first violin's elegiac melody was answered by an impossibly muted viola, over the mandolin-like pizzicato cello. Folk music returns in the fourth movement, Allegro assai, a rondo based on the Czech reel, the skočna, which again featured the extraordinarily fast and accurate playing of the Panocha Quartet.

Although I called out "Janáček" when the quartet took a second curtain call to acknowledge our applause, the second violinist announced, in heavily accented English, "waltz by Dvořák." They gave a tantalizing performance of one of that composer's Two Waltzes for String Quartet. (I mentioned discovering these pieces when they were played by the Bartók Quartet at the National Gallery last March, as reviewed on Ionarts.) It was a superlative musical amuse-gueule to end an evening of listening.