Briefly Noted: Christmas in the Pandemic Summer

Christmas Carols, SWR Vokalensemble, M. Creed (released on August 10, 2020) SWR Classic SWR19094CD | 59'10"

How keenly music's absence is felt during the pandemic struck me recently listening to this little disc. It is nothing spectacular in terms of programming: an hour's worth of English Christmas carols. The singing is excellent, done in beautiful sound by the SWR Vokalensemble, about thirty voices in size, under the direction of Marcus Creed.

A German choir stealing the lunch of their British colleagues is fair payback for the perennial "Christmas Around the World" programs heard every year, and the English pronunciation here is impeccable. A tribute, this, to the teaching of their English-born director, an alumnus of both King's College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford, whose tenure with this distinguished radio choir ended this summer.

The group's women sound better on their own (in Emily Elizabeth Poston's rich Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, for example) than the men, who are featured less. The same applies in solo voices heard, although on this account the more demanding writing, as in The Fayrfax Carol of Thomas Adès, taxes both equally. The echo quartet in Britten's gorgeous A Hymn to the Virgin, happily, is top-notch. The effect of this simple but effective carol service is a sweet reminiscence of the days before coronavirus (the recording was captured in the fall of 2018). Sadly, it is also a bitter reminder that we may spend a bleak Christmas without "the playing of the merry organ" or "sweet singing in the choir," in the nostalgic words of the The Holly and the Ivy.

Delightful Mozart and Britten @ Konzerthaus Berlin

Berlin, Konzerthaus, March 2nd, 2014

If bright and airy and light and elegant are high on your list of qualities for what makes a concert hall beautiful, then Berlin’s Konzerthaus must be one of the most beautiful concert halls. Big enough to be sort of impressive; small enough to be intimate and versatile, and with 14 impressive chandeliers to take care of the splendid illumination.

Britten, Les illuminations et al. Sandrine Piau Northern Sinfonia, T.Zehetmair NMC US | UK | DE

Paul McCreesh, whose looks would not be out of place as a baddie in a Guy Ritchie film, led the Konzerthaus Orchestra – a smallish 34-head strong division thereof – in a buoyant and feathery rendition of one of the earliest masterpieces among Mozart’s Symphonies: K.201. The Andante, which can get long, quick, was lively enough and coy and the furiously shivering little finale was full of kick.

British and light in form (though hardly in content) and very fitting was Britten’s Les illumiations for high voice and string orchestra with Sandrine Piau as the soloist. She knew how to employ Rimbaud’s dramatic, quick-fire musical poem, including the high-wire acts and long stretches of pianissimo, to maximum enchanting effect. Her voice had an open, never nasal sound about it, with elegance and gorgeous substance. The cell phone boogie in the final poem, “Departure”, didn’t fit… but that, too, was overcome with style.

No other work so stands for “Mozart” to as many people as does the “Great” G-minor Symphony K.550. It is a constant tightrope-walk between cliché and trying too hard to avoid the cliché. And then there’s perhaps the danger of overthinking it. Better just to trust the music and play the hell out of it with a light touch and a lot of energy. Which is exactly what the Konzerthaus Orchestra under McCreesh did.

The natural horns were perhaps a tad outside the comfort zone (theirs and mine), but also warmed up from the earlier Mozart, where the infelicities had been still more notable. They certainly had character; much like Fozzie Bear in Harry Belafonte’s Muppet version of the Banana-Song. Sounds like a quibble but was part of a never-sagging delight all the way to the spirited Allegro assai finale.

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American Ballet Theater: New Choreography at Kennedy Center

Blain Hoven and Daniil Simkin, Serenade after Plato's Symposium, American Ballet Theater (photo by Rosalie Connor)
American Ballet Theater has taken over the Kennedy Center Opera House this week, offering a smorgasbord of new ballets. The first program, seen on Wednesday night, was a combination of three choreographies from the last decade, plus a Jerome Robbins classic from 1976. The second night cast included some of the company's best dancers -- meaning that the usual vocal group of Misty Copeland followers was in the audience -- and some new discoveries.

The best part of the Leonard Bernstein anniversary celebrations, otherwise a seemingly endless sequence of celebrated mediocrities, arrived unexpectedly with Serenade after Plato's Symposium, perhaps Alexei Ratmansky's most important work to date, premiered by ABT in 2016. The music is Bernstein's, a rather gorgeous five-movement violin concerto premiered in Venice in 1954, setting to music the seven speakers of Plato's Symposium, invited to extol the virtues of love. Seven men, mostly from the group of rising soloists, brought this evening of conversation and intense philosophical argument to life, with Hee Seo taking the startling single female role, entering in a starkly lit rectangular opening in the rear curtain. Violin soloist Kobi Malkin struggled with intonation on the numerous double-stops of the solo part, but the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra supported him ably.

The Robbins piece, Other Dances, was originally a vehicle for Mikhail Baryshnikov, but it was the woman of the pairing, Sarah Lane, who most stood out for the grace and buoyancy of her movements. Emily Wong played the selection of Chopin pieces, four mazurkas and a concluding, spirited waltz, at a piano on stage.

Other Reviews: Alastair Macaulay, Review: In Gala, American Ballet Theater Is Open to Debate (New York Times, May 17, 2016) ---, A Big House, Big Names, New Twists (New York Times, May 25, 2011) Gia Kourlas, Review: At American Ballet Theater, Mostly Millepied (New York Times, October 26, 2017)

The most recent piece, premiered just last fall, was the spirited I Feel the Earth Move, with choreography by Benjamin Millepied set to music by Philip Glass. Stage hands cleared away all of the curtains and scrims from the stage, revealing the catwalks and bare walls, as well as the lighting instruments above. Danced to a rather loud recording, this ballet was hyperactive, seemingly in constant motion, perhaps an expression of individual freedom against repression, represented by the female corps, which appeared marching in step, bandannas over some of their faces.

Christopher Wheeldon's story ballets have not been my cup of tea for the most part, but this more abstract short choreography had greater appeal. Barbara Bilach took the solo part of Benjamin Britten's Diversions for Piano (left hand) and Orchestra, again conducted with abundant energy by Ormsby Wilkins. It was another beautiful score to discover, brought to life by dance, made better by it as the Bernstein had been earlier. The variations form worked elegantly for dance, as Wheeldon has crafted pairs, solos, and group numbers for each brief movement. Misty Copeland finally appeared on stage, for a time-stopping solo in the fourth variation ("Rubato"). Her pairing in the exquisite pas de deux for the tenth variation ("Adagio"), with Cory Stearns stepping in for Gray Davis, was the highlight of the evening, muscularity merged with poetry.

American Ballet Theater performs Whipped Cream, with a forgotten ballet score by Richard Strauss, tonight through February 4.

Elbphilharmonie: Opening Concert as a Spotify Playlist

Here's a @Spotify playlist replicating the @elbphilharmonie's opening concert "Time Becomes Space", excluding Rihm. https://t.co/TFjYXsEN75 pic.twitter.com/7qY6JZ5lgt

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) January 16, 2017

Briefly Noted: Gerhaher's Burr

FolksLied (folk song arrangements by Haydn, Beethoven, Britten), C. Gerhaher, A. Barachovsky, S. Klinger, G. Huber (released on March 11, 2016) BR-Klassik 900131 | 53'33"

Christian Gerhaher continues to surprise. The German baritone, an Ionarts favorite for his authoritative renditions of Lieder, has released this new live recording of a recital of folk song arrangements by Haydn, Britten, and Beethoven, unfortunately with applause kept after some tracks. As the booklet essay by Bernhard Neuhoff acknowledges, the concept of just what we mean when we say "folk song" is a complicated matter. The difference between a living folk song and the version of that music when written down like an art song is akin to that between a butterfly on the wind and the dead specimen carefully pinned and mounted by a lepidopterist. Some of the tunes set by these composers were modified or outright composed by those who "collected" them.

The macaronic title of the disc, FolksLied refers to the fact that all of the folk tunes heard here are from the British Isles, set by German, Austrian, and English composers, some with German texts and some in English and other insular dialects. Haydn's Schottische und Walisische Lieder and Beethoven's 25 Schottische Lieder, op. 108, are for voice accompanied by piano trio. Gerhaher and his usual collaborator, pianist Gerold Huber, are joined by cellist Sebastian Klinger and violinist Anton Barachovsky, both principal musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haydn composed his Scottish and Welsh songs working from the tunes only, without the original words, and here Gerhaher has followed tenor Fritz Wunderlich in singing them to German texts published in 1927 by Bernhard Engelke, poems that had nothing to do with the original tunes, many by nature poet Hermann Löns.

Gerhaher digs most deeply into the settings by Britten, which have the most interesting harmonic palette, after singing quite lightly in the Haydn songs. In his program note, Gerhaher admits that he was trying to imitate the sound of Wunderlich in those songs, as an acknowledgment of his debt to that earlier singer. Gerhaher's English pronunciation is quite good in the Beethoven and Britten songs, having particular fun in the drinking song "Come fill, my good fellow," where it sound likes someone has added a faint descant voice (not credited). Gerhaher even attempts the Scots dialect of Robert Burns's "Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes" in the Britten setting, down to the evocatively guttural R's (embedded below). As mentioned before, the whole Ionarts household went with my parents last summer back to Stirling, at the cusp of the Scottish Highlands, where the trail of genealogical research ended with our earliest Downey ancestors in the 16th century. Like the architecture that still stands in Stirling where those first Downeys walked, these Scottish songs make me dream of the land they left behind.

Britten's 'Lucretia' at Wolf Trap

J’Nai Bridges (Lucretia, on right in blue) and River Rogers (Child) in The Rape of Lucretia (photo courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera)

With many operas produced by Wolf Trap Opera Company, it is a matter of shoehorning the work into the confines of the Barns and its tiny orchestra pit. Benjamin Britten's chamber operas, a series of works for small theaters, are perfectly suited to the venue. The first of them, The Rape of Lucretia, opens the summer season at Wolf Trap, seen in its opening night on Friday. All the major elements of staging, casting, and musical performance came together admirably, in a production that impressed in many ways, while not ultimately solving the work's basic dramatic problems. (Spoilers to follow.)

As noted in my preview article, Mary Beard discusses the story of Lucretia in some detail in her informative book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. The events, which supposedly took place in the sixth century B.C., were not recorded by Livy in Ab urbe condita until the first century B.C. The virtuous Lucretia, wife of the Roman nobleman Collatinus, was raped by Tarquinius Sextus, the son of the last Etruscan king to rule Rome. Not able to suffer the shame, she commits suicide, and Collatinus and his friend, Junius Brutus, brandish the bloody knife as they rally the Romans to rise up and overthrow the Tarquins. Not coincidentally, Collatinus and Brutus (the ancestor of the Brutus who took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar) are elected the first consuls of the new Roman republic.

Mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges brought dignity and a strong vocal presence to the title role, equal parts virginal lightness and tragic weight. In the wonderful women's ensemble scenes, which are the best parts of this opera, she was supported by the flighty high soprano of Amy Owens as Lucia and the steady maternal sound of Sarah Larsen as Bianca, her nurse. Will Liverman captured the transformation of Tarquinius from patrician soldier into bestial attacker, and Shea Owens stepped into the role of Junius (Brutus) effectively on only a week's notice. Christian Zaremba had the largest sound, just slightly unfocused here and there, as Collatinus, tall and noble of bearing. The framing of the story in Christian terms is an unfortunate relic of librettist Ronald Duncan's choice of source, André Obey's modern French play Le Viol de Lucrèce. Here, the Male Chorus, sung with moral force by tenor Brenton Ryan, and Female Chorus of powerhouse soprano Kerriann Otaño related the story to each other as part of what seemed like a confession, due to Kara Harmon's costuming of the characters as Catholic priest and modern lay woman.

Other Reviews: Philip Kennicott and Anne Midgette, A powerful opera about a horrible subject (Washington Post, June 12)

Louisa Muller's staging was simple and dramatically effective, with Erhard Rom's set evoking the marble and rusticated stone of a Roman setting, while the costumes of the soldiers suggested a modern American present. The rotating set platform, a first in Barns history, alternated between an outdoor scene with a staircase and an interior room, put to most effective use during the disturbing rape scene, where stagehands rotated the set at a dizzying rate. (The company asked counselors from the Fairfax County Rape Crisis Center to be on hand in the lobby, in case audience members had traumatic memories triggered by the story.) Craig Kier, whom we last saw at the podium in the University of Maryland production of Marc Blitzstein's Regina, again did not seem to have enough control over balances, with the sound of both singers and orchestra becoming overbearing at times.

Two aspects of Muller's directorial concept went unexplained until the final scene. She has added a supernumerary character, the daughter of Lucretia, played by the adorable and affecting River Rogers. Adding characters without any lines to a libretto that does not include them is a perilous business, as eventually a viewer will wonder why a major character is unable to speak. One also wonders why the Female Chorus, an angry woman with a nose ring, a smoking habit, and issues to resolve, is going to confession with the Male Chorus. In the final scene, Muller seems to want us to understand -- because the girl takes her dead mother's necklace, the same one around the neck of the Female Chorus -- that the Female Chorus is the daughter of the raped woman, all grown up.

This production runs through June 18, in the Barns at Wolf Trap.

Britten's 'Rape of Lucretia' Coming to Wolf Trap

Giulio Romano, Tarquin and Lucretia, 1536, fresco panel in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua
In her fascinating book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, historian Mary Beard traces how a culture so staunchly opposed to the idea of kings could have ended up an imperial state. In its early years, Rome was ruled by a series of kings, something written about by early Roman historians but only accepted by modern historians after the discovery of an inscription, containing the word "RECEI," under some black stone in the Roman Forum in 1899. Livy, in his history Ab urbe condita, wrote of a series of six monarchs after the legendary founding of the city under Romulus and Remus. The last of them, Tarquinius Superbus, was a "paranoid autocrat," as Beard writes, "who ruthlessly eliminated his rivals, and a cruel exploiter of the Roman people, forcing them to labor on his fanatical building projects. But the awful breaking point came, as such breaking points did more than once in Roman history, with a rape -- this time the rape of the virtuous Lucretia by one of [the] king's sons (p. 93)." Beard later goes on:

This rape is almost certainly as mythic as the rape of the Sabines: assaults on women symbolically marking the beginning and the end of the regal period. [...] But mythic or not, for the rest of the Roman time the rape of Lucretia marked a turning point in politics, and its morality was debated. The theme has been replayed and reimagined in Western culture almost ever since, from Botticelli, through Titian and Shakespeare, to Benjamin Britten; Lucretia even has her own small part in Judy Chicago's feminist installation The Dinner Party, among some 1,000 heroines of world history. [...]

This was seen as a fundamentally political moment, for in the [Livy] story it leads directly to the expulsion of the kings and the start of the free Republic. As soon as Lucretia stabbed herself, Lucius Junius Brutus -- who had accompanied her husband to the scene --took the dagger from her body and, while her family was too distressed to speak, vowed to rid Rome of kings for ever. This was, of course, partly a retrospective prophecy, for the Brutus who in 44 BCE led the coup against Julius Caesar for his kingly ambitions claimed descent from this Brutus. After ensuring the support of the army and the people, who were appalled by the rape and fed up with laboring on the drain [the Cloaca Maxima], Lucius Junius Brutus forced Tarquin and his sons into exile (pp. 121-23).

Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, I. Bostridge, S. Gritton, A. Kirchschlager, Aldeburgh Festival, O. Knussen (released on February 5, 2013) Virgin 50999 60267221 | 105'33"

The Benjamin Britten work mentioned by Beard is the English composer's opera The Rape of Lucretia, which Wolf Trap Opera will perform later this month (June 10, 12, 15, and 18). Readers of these pages are no strangers to the work as we have reviewed recordings, DVDs, and live performances of this work (Castleton Festival and Peabody Chamber Opera, both in 2007). Its proportions, as one of Britten's "chamber operas," are ideal for the Barns, and it is an affecting work, too rarely staged, that always makes a dramatic impact.

The only weird part of the opera is the Christian-tinged frame narrative, told by a Male and Female Chorus in an introduction and epilogue. Livy was not the primary source of librettist Ronad Duncan, who based his text on a modern French play, André Obey's Le Viol de Lucrèce (adapted separately in English by Thornton Wilder), itself based on Shakespeare's adaptation, The Rape of Lucrece. In the opera the virtuous wife Lucretia's suffering and suicide, following her rape at the hands of Sextus Tarquinius, is related through the prism of the redemption offered by Jesus Christ.

Production starts at 03:45 --

Tara Erraught Sings Ireland

Charles T. Downey, Audience can’t help but show its appreciation for Irish song and opera
Washington Post, May 25

The Kennedy Center’s Ireland 100 festival continued Monday evening with a performance by Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, who provided the substance of a recital of Irish song and opera in the Terrace Theater, supplemented by tenor Anthony Kearns in some lighter fare.

Erraught may be familiar to D.C. audiences from her charming Washington National Opera debut last year in Rossini’s “Cinderella.” She brought similar vocal fireworks to “Non v’e donna sulla terra,” an aria from “Falstaff,” an Italian opera by Irish composer Michael William Balfe (1808-1870). The musical style is pure Rossini, whom the composer, also an opera singer, was close to in Paris, but it’s filtered through an Irish lens... [Continue reading]

Tara Erraught (mezzo-soprano) and Anthony Kearns (tenor)
Ireland 100 Festival
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, Mezzos alternate to fine effect in D.C. (Classical Voice North America, May 13, 2015)

La Piau Goes to Washington

Après un rêve, S. Piau, S. Manoff (Naïve, 2011)

Charles T. Downey, French soprano Sandrine Piau makes stunning D.C. debut
Washington Post, February 9

Sandrine Piau made her long overdue Washington debut on Sunday afternoon, and the Phillips Collection, celebrating its 75th anniversary season, got the glory. The French soprano’s excellent program of 19th-century songs, superbly accompanied by pianist Susan Manoff, was the latest sign of the ascendancy of the Phillips concert series, which has become one of the strongest in the city.

Manoff and Piau recorded many of these songs on their 2011 CD, “Après un rêve.” The qualities that set Piau’s voice apart on disc were, if anything, more pronounced live... [Continue reading]

Sandrine Piau (soprano) and Susan Manoff (piano)
Phillips Collection

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Briefly Noted: Sandrine Piau (Ionarts, November 1, 2011)

Alban Gerhardt @ LoC

Britten, Cello Symphony / Cello Sonata, Cello Suites, A. Gerhardt, S. Osborne, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, A. Manze (Hyperion, 2013)

Charles T. Downey, For cellist Alban Gerhardt, a strong start but a weak second half (Washington Post, January 18)

Many themes unified the concert that German cellist Alban Gerhardt played Saturday at the Library of Congress. All of the music he performed was from the 20th century, most of the composers were American and many of the pieces were composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. The choices were to Gerhardt’s credit, but as in his last appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in June, the results were mixed.

Two excellent sonatas filled the first half, beginning with Cello Sonata, Op. 6, by the young Samuel Barber. Gerhardt filled the Coolidge Auditorium with an ardent tone, especially on the high strings, slashing upward on the first movement’s main theme but infusing the second theme with Brahmsian tenderness... [Continue reading]

Alban Gerhardt (cello)
Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, C Major Is C Major Is C Major? (Ionarts, June 18, 2015)

Best Recordings of 2014 (#9)

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.

# 9 - New Release

Mieczysław Weinberg / Benjamin Britten, Violin Concertos, Linus Roth (violin), Mihkel Kütson (conductor), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Challenge SACD 72627

M.Weinberg / B.Britten, Violin Concertos L.Roth / M.Kütson / DSO Berlin (Challenge SACD)

Linus Roth’s concerto disc to follow up the complete Mieczysław Weinberg Violin Sonatas has critics raving. It became a Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice with David Fanning comparing Roth favorably to Lenoid Kogan and Maxim Vengerov, extolling the subtlety, range of color, imagination and summing it up: “In short: an outstanding disc.” In the Financial Times Andrew Clark hones in on the Britten, which he writes “has never sounded so soft, sensuous or soul-bearing—and [this disc] reveals its stature like no other.” Graham Rickson from the artsdesk.com fawns “if any performer can popularize the [Weinberg concerto] it has to be the phenomenal Linus Roth, whose unflagging energy makes this CD one of the best concerto discs in years… [The Britten is] helped by gloriously rich, dark-toned orchestral playing… Unmissable, and recorded in sensational sound too.” I would love to say much the same about the performances (only so much: the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (formerly RIAS) under Mihkel Kütson does play the hell out of both works!), but must recuse myself, having written the liner notes. Instead I limit myself to praising the composer, who has been experiencing one of the most deserving and enduring re-discoveries over the last 15 years.

# 9 – Reissue

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No.2 (1877 version), Carlo Maria Giulini (conductor), Vienna Symphony Orchestra, (Wiener Symphoniker)

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Matthew Rose @ Vocal Arts D.C.

Schubert, Winterreise, M. Rose, G. Matthewman (Stone Records, 2013)

Matthew Rose's voice continues to grow, after first striking me as a little gruff and unrounded. The British bass, whose Leporello was one of the best parts of a Don Giovanni at Santa Fe in 2009, opened the Vocal Arts D.C. season on Sunday afternoon, with a lightly attended recital in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The program had a first half of unexpected music that brought out Rose's strengths, and a second half given over to Schubert's final song set, Schwanengesang (D. 957). It is a powerful voice, and Rose still tends in some cases to hurl it at the music, meaning that there was occasional imprecision of pitch, especially at loud dynamics, but also some truly thrilling listening.

Two longer Purcell songs featured Rose's excellent English diction, with the gloomy recitative of Job's Curse and the depression of the spurned lover in Let the Dreadful Engines of Eternal Will playing well to the dark side of Rose's timbre, especially at the low end. The latter song, on a poem by Thomas D'Urfey, has its silly moments, too, which suited the more buffo side of the voice. Rose and his accompanist, Vlad Iftinca (heard earlier this year with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong), performed these two songs in arrangements by Benjamin Britten, and the modernizing details of the piano part especially added to the appeal. A long song by Carl Loewe, a rambling ballad on an episode from the life of Scottish nobleman Archibald Douglas, was a pleasing curiosity, revealing the reasons why so many composers revered Loewe, whose work is mostly forgotten today.

Other Reviews: Simon Chin, From promising UK singer Matthew Rose, inconsistent recital at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, October 21)

A gentler tone came through in some of the songs of the Schwanengesang set, starting with the opening song, Liebesbotschaft. Here the piano's murmuring brook echoed the singer's line endings, and Iftinca created a stark death-knell accompaniment in Kriegers Ahnung. Rose put the blustery power of his voice -- heard to great effect as Bottom in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Metropolitan Opera and as Shadow in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at Glyndebourne -- to good use here, too. The cathartic crescendi and full-throated outbursts were effective in songs like Aufenthalt and In der Ferne but out of place in others, like Ständchen, where the lack of a truly purring legato was most felt. This set is not really a song cycle, in the sense that Winterreise, which Rose has just recorded, is -- some songs, like the silly ditty of Das Fischermädchen, stick out like sore thumbs. Rose could not quite make these pieces work as part of the group, none more so than the final song, Die Taubenpost, appended to the set by Schubert's publisher. Rose would have done better to omit it, ending the evening on the most chilling and fog-benighted performance of Der Doppelgänger I have ever heard, a grim expression of Heinrich Heine's self-loathing that understandably appealed to the dying Schubert.

The next recital presented by Vocal Arts D.C. will feature soprano Pretty Yende (November 6, 7:30 pm), at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Chamber Symphonies in Fairfax

Charles T. Downey, Concert review: Fairfax Symphony Orchestra balances the sweet and astringent
Washington Post, January 20, 2014

Britten, Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings (inter alia), I. Bostridge, Berlin Philharmonic, S. Rattle (2005)

The Washington area has so many regional orchestras that the enterprising ensembles among them would do well to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Christopher Zimmerman, the music director of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, has been doing just that with his alluring choice of repertoire. The group’s latest concert, on Saturday night at George Mason University, brought together four pieces that I have not heard from a local orchestra in at least a decade.

A mirrorlike arrangement of the pieces embedded two more serious works between lighter ones, by Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten, both of which recycle and preserve music written early in each composer’s career. Elgar’s “Serenade in E Minor” was a mellow experience, the outer movements gently rolling and the middle slow movement tender, the juicy dissonances drawn out sweetly. Britten’s “Simple Symphony” was just as pleasing, each movement like a bite-size petit four, here tart and there chocolate-smooth. [Continue reading]

Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Music by Elgar, Britten, Shostakovich
George Mason University, Harris Theater

'Albert Herring' at University of Maryland

Charles T. Downey, Charming take on Benjamin Britten’s ‘Albert Herring’ from Maryland Opera Studio (Washington Post, November 25, 2013)

Britten, Albert Herring, P. Pears, English Chamber Orchestra, B. Britten

What better way to spend the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, which fell on Friday, than listening to one of his operas? They are the height of the British composer’s achievement, although “Albert Herring” is somewhere down the list of his best works. It received a charming production by the Maryland Opera Studio at the Clarice Smith Center, directed by Kasi Campbell, with a cast, like most fielded by collegiate companies, that was varied but earnest.

“Writing in a language with no operatic tradition to speak of,” tenor Ian Bostridge noted of Britten this week, “he wrote the only substantial body of operatic work since 1945 which is regularly revived and appreciated around the world.” The success has to do with Britten’s ability to set English words to music, his choice of excellent literary sources and a melodic and harmonic sensibility that is, for the 20th century, more alluring than off-putting. [Continue reading]

B. Britten, Albert Herring
Maryland Opera Studio (continues through November 26)
Clarice Smith Center

Previous productions:
Santa Fe Opera (2010)
Castleton Festival (2009)
Catholic University (2005)

YouTube: Glyndebourne (where the opera was premiered, in 1947)

In Brief: Happy 100th Britten Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.) Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• Graeme Jenkins leads a performance of Britten's Peter Grimes at the Wiener Staatsoper, starring Herbert Lippert and Gun-Brit Barkmin. [ORF]


• Jan Latham-Koenig conducts Billy Budd at the Göteborg Opera, starring Mathias Zachariassen (Vere), Joa Helgesson (Billy), and Clive Bayley (Claggart). [RTBF]


• Britten's War Requiem with soprano Sabina Cvilak, tenor Allan Clayton, and baritone Roderick Williams, plus the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Semyon Bychkov. [RTBF]


• From last June's Aldeburgh Festival, soprano Emma Bell joins Marc Elder and the Hallé Orchestra for music by Britten, plus the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's A Tribute. [France Musique]


• From last July's Aix-en-Provence Festival, tenor Ian Bostridge, Gianandrea Noseda, and the London Symphony Orchestra perform music by Britten and Shostakovich. [France Musique]


• From last summer's Proms, trumpeter Alison Balsom and the Camerata Ireland perform music by Britten and his contemporaries. [France Musique]


• The SWR Vocal Ensemble performs music by Britten, Brahms, and Hindemith, recorded in the Speyer Dreifaltigkeitskirche as part of the Schwetzingen Festival. [France Musique]


• Listen to Benjamin Britten conduct Mahler's fourth symphony, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and other works in Suffolk and Snape Maltings. ORF]


• Tenor Robin Tritschler and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform music by Britten, Poulenc, and Satie, recorded last May at Hoddinot Hall in Cardiff. [France Musique]

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Never Put Schumann after Shostakovich

Shostakovich, Cello Sonata No. 1, S. Gabetta, Munich Philharmonic, L. Maazel (2012) Schumann, Violin Concerto / Cello Concerto (arr.), J. Storgårds (soloist), Tampere Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (1996)

The debut of John Storgårds, Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic and new Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2011 made his return to the group's podium this week an event we wanted to hear. True to form, the Finnish conductor brought a mostly exciting program and a driven, almost harried beat to the concert heard on Friday night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, to which the NSO musicians responded with gusto. That some sections, particularly the violins, sounded as if they were knocked off their normal stride was a sign that the customary or the routine had no place in this performance, which often leads to compelling listening.

One of the hallmarks of the Christoph Eschenbach era at the NSO, the programming of great pieces for the first time in the orchestra's history, was again in evidence, with the belated debut of Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge (op. 10, from 1937). It is a daring and precocious piece, last heard from the chamber orchestra A Far Cry last year, with each variation a free-standing miniature in a new mimicked style -- with each one, the 20-something Britten seems to say, "Look what else I can do!" This performance, not the most polished perhaps, highlighted each of these styles with brashness (the March, the Moto Perpetuo, the forceful Funeral March) or luscious sound quality (the Adagio, the fine Romance) or delight in rhythm (the Bourrée classique, with its Paganini-ish solo by concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef, and the Viennese waltz, filtered through several different types of nostalgia).

Cellist Sol Gabetta certainly had moxie to come to Washington with Shostakovich's first cello concerto (E-flat major, op. 107), a piece written for former NSO music director and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. (Heinrich Schiff was the last to do so, in 2007.) We had to miss Gabetta's NSO debut in 2008, which included the farewell concert for departing music director Leonard Slatkin, but she had a pleasing way with this rather sardonic piece, biting into the crunchy rhythms of the first movement with weight, if not always that extra degree of snarl high on the A string at the climaxes. Storgårds and the NSO gave an appropriate roughness to the orchestral part in the first movement, going with Gabetta in a sort of choked-up sound in the lyrical second movement, which felt a little caught in the throat emotionally, with little happy moments sounding as if from a music box toward the end. The horn solos, the only brass sound in the unusual orchestration, were rather fine, and many other remarkable moments shone, like the grotesque low woodwind sounds in the first movement and the celesta solo that mirrored the near-flawless harmonics from Gabetta in the second movement. Gabetta did not quite hold my ear captivated over the course of the very long cadenza that leads to the finale, which was not as compelling as it should be, and it felt like she hit her dynamic ceiling in the third movement when there was still room to soar.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, John Storgards leads NSO in fine tribute to Benjamin Britten (Washington Post, November 8) Felix Stephan, Cellistin Sol Gabetta ist eine virtuose Managerin (Berliner Morgenpost, October 23) David Kettle, Classical review: RSNO, Edinburgh (The Scotsman, October 14)

Storgårds probably should have violated the rules of the symphonic programming manual (overture, concerto, symphony -- always in that order) and finished the program with the Shostakovich, since putting Schumann's first symphony (B-flat major, "Spring") after it was an inevitable disappointment. Not that the performance was not full of surprises, because Storgårds's tendency toward fast and incisive tempi and attacks made it so. The lovely pastoral introduction was followed by a snappy and forceful Allegro molto vivace, with a nice build-up to the recapitulation and the bloom of the brass section, not heard throughout the first half, had an extra oomph to it. The second movement was far from the slow side of Larghetto but remained a little dull, the fault largely of the score, with the over-agitated third movement becoming the piece's high point -- fast but still smooth -- with the finale feeling still a little rough around the edges.

This performance will be repeated tonight (November 9, 8 pm) in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. ADDENDUM: If you go tonight, applaud vigorously after the concerto, because Gabetta apparently had an encore ready to go, which we did not hear on Friday.

The Met's 'Midsummer Night's Dream'

The Metropolitan Opera did not get around to staging my favorite opera by Benjamin Britten, A Midsummer Night's Dream, until 1996. I did not get to see it then, or when it was revived in 2002. For the composer's centenary, the company returned to this colorful production, directed by Tim Albery with sets and costumes by Antony McDonald, this season. It was well worth the trek up to Manhattan for this past Saturday's matinee, only the second time we have reviewed this opera, after a charming staging at Wolf Trap in 2010. It is not really an opera for small children, although the large number of them in the audience for this performance likely had no awareness of the disturbing undercurrent of this work for Britten -- the interest of Oberon, the "King of Shadows" as Puck names him, in a changeling boy that his queen, Tytania, tries unsuccessfully to keep from him. Britten likely saw in the character his own attraction to boys, possibly never realized. The end of Act I, when Oberon leads the boy offstage, after putting Tytania out of commission, is a chilling moment.

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Emerson Quartet: Tan, Rested, Ready?

Journeys, Emerson Quartet Beethoven, String Quartets, Emerson Quartet

A string quartet, especially one that has been around as long as the Emerson Quartet, operates according to a delicate chemistry. Change one part of the equation, as the Emerson did when cellist David Finckel left last season, and the balance will be upset. While the group's farewell concert last spring was an unforgettable moment in my listening life, the first time hearing the quartet's new formation, on the Fortas Chamber Music Concert series at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Wednesday night, was not exactly that. This is hardly a surprise, as it may take all or a large part of the season for the new cellist, Paul Watkins, to settle in comfortably.

Mendelssohn's F minor quartet, op. 80, revealed some of this discomfort, with some intonation issues heard from Watkins, as well as from Philip Setzer on first violin in the the concert's first half. Not that the experience was bad, as Mendelssohn's first movement was stirred up as it should be, but the second movement, not as fast as one might like, did not really build on that tension. Likewise, the third movement did not quite feel Adagio enough, which robbed the music of much of its tenderness, but this is not unusual for the Emersons, whose performances often sound a little overly clinical. Certainly the fourth-movement finale was a tour de force of steely technique all around. Watkins seemed to blend into the texture more than his predecessor, although at times he disappeared a little too much.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Revised Emerson plays with fresh vitality (Washington Post, October 4)

The most encouraging part of the evening was the middle piece, Benjamin Britten's third string quartet, op. 94. This was not because of the coincidence with the composer's anniversary year, which was nice, but because the Emersons have not yet recorded the composer's three string quartets, and on the basis of this performance, they will do that well. The tempos felt just right, with all of the parts featured beautifully in solo and duet moments, with the exception of some dicey moments high on the E string for Setzer. The Shostakovich-like qualities of the second and fourth movements, in particular, hit the group right in their wheelhouse, all growling energy and grotesque effects. Eugene Drucker was in the first violinist seat for the second half, devoted to Beethoven's ingenious C major quartet, op. 59/3, one of the "Razumovsky" quartets. Drucker's warmer, quieter sound set the tone for a performance that was turned inward, especially the gently rocking serenade of the second movement, not really a slow movement but with the pizzicato cello accompanying the singing of the upper three instruments. The third movement was bathed in honeyed tone, the warmest and most legato sound from the ensemble all evening, with a contrasting but not overly boisterous trio, and the concluding fugue was a marvel of speed and athleticism.

The Emerson Quartet's regular series, sponsored by the Smithsonian Resident Associates at the National Museum of Natural History, begins on November 3 (a program that includes Britten's second quartet). Hopefully, the shutdown of the Federal government, which has shuttered the Smithsonian Museums, will be resolved by then.

Christine Brewer, the Last Rose of Summer

Wagner, Wesendonck-Lieder / Britten, Cabaret Songs, C. Brewer, R. Vignoles (live at Wigmore Hall) [MP3]

At the end of my week at Santa Fe Opera was the first of a series of song recitals, presented by the company at the Lensic Center in downtown Santa Fe. Heard on Sunday afternoon, this concert featured soprano Christine Brewer, who was marking the birth anniversaries of Richard Wagner (200) and Benjamin Britten (100). She did this with a program that was close to the first Brewer recital reviewed at Ionarts, in 2005 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. This time around, her accompanist was Joseph Illick, Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Concert Association and Music Director of Fort Worth Opera.

Representing Wagner were the Wesendonck-Lieder, inspired by and dedicated to Mathilde Wesendonck, the infatuation that put an end to Wagner's first marriage. Brewer gave the first song a luscious legato smoothness, able to open up the powerful side of her voice to fill the hall quite amply without overpowering the listener. There was at times a raspy burr at the top, minimal but there, but when the explosions of the second and fourth songs are, well, that explosive, it thrills the ear. The third song, Im Treibhaus, with its mysterious, rocking motif in the piano, was enigmatic and heated, the German diction clear and simple, as if recited poetry. Illick supported his partner ably at the piano, with transparency and solidity as needed. He rounded out the Wagner half with two of Liszt's arrangements of Wagner opera excerpts, introducing them with charming and insightful explanations. Some of the more virtuosic passages of the "Spinning Song" from The Flying Dutchman stretched Illick's technique just a bit, but the "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde was sensitively rendered. As soon as he played it, however, one regretted that Brewer had not programmed the actual "Liebestod."

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Castleton Festival Closer

Charles T. Downey, Castleton Festival offers excellent tribute for Benjamin Britten centenary
Washington Post, July 29, 2013

J. Bridcut, Britten's Children

What to make of the Benjamin Britten centenary? The final concert program of the Castleton Festival, heard Saturday night, offered an excellent tribute to the British composer. How does one square one’s admiration for the beauty of Britten’s music with a clearer understanding, thanks to a well-researched and not sensationalized book by John Bridcut, of Britten’s attraction to teenage boys? [Continue reading]

Castleton Festival Orchestra
Music by Britten, Tchaikovsky
Castleton Festival

Of his song cycle Les Illuminations, Britten wrote to a performer that the eighth song, Parade, "should be made to sound creepy, evil, dirty, and really desperate." Because of the text's listing of various kinds of men, Philip Brett once wrote that this song depicts "cruising."

W. H. Auden, Rimbaud
The nights, the railway-arches, the bad sky,
His horrible companions did not know it;
But in that child the rhetorician’s lie
Burst like a pipe: the cold had made a poet.
Drinks bought him by his weak and lyric friend
His senses systematically deranged,
To all accustomed nonsense put an end;
Till he from the lyre and weakness was estranged.
Verse was a special illness of the ear;
Integrity was not enough; that seemed
The hell of childhood: he must try again.
Now, galloping through Africa, he dreamed
Of a new self, the son, the engineer,
His truth acceptable to lying men.