NSO Tour Prep, Part 2

The historic snowfall last weekend paralyzed Washington, and it has thrown a wrench into Christoph Eschenbach's preparation of the National Symphony Orchestra for its upcoming European tour. Last week's program of Rouse, Dvořák, and Brahms as orchestrated by Schoenberg ended up receiving only a single performance on Thursday instead of the expected three. The prolonged snow clean-up also forced the NSO to cancel its rehearsal on Monday, which they are making up today, but the uncertainty had an impact on the orchestra's sound and sense of security in its second of three tour programs, heard last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The main course of each concert will be a chestnut symphony: the Brahms first symphony (heard on tonight's program) or Beethoven's seventh symphony (heard on Thursday and again tonight), with Schoenberg's slightly odd orchestration of the Brahms first piano quartet as an alternative in some cases. The Beethoven was in decidedly rough shape last night, especially the outer movements, with some uncertainty of tempo and some sloppy coordination in the violin sections. (My kingdom for a unified pizzicato chord.) Eschenbach seemed to want the most brash, raw sound possible at points, and the strings, especially the violins, responded with outright hacking attacks. The winds were often pushed into quite dicey intonation, and the horns were like bulls in the proverbial china shop, and not in a good way. The inner movements felt the most secure, the funeral march kept in strict military step and an ultra-tight Presto in the third movement.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Eschenbach, NSO prepare European repertory for European tour (Washington Post, January 29)

Most of the concerts on the NSO tour will feature cellist Daniel Müller-Schott or pianist Lang Lang in a beloved concerto (Dvořák for cello, Grieg for piano). In only the first concert of the tour, Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony (B minor, D. 759) takes the concerto slot and is never heard again. This is a shame based on how the musicians played it last night. The cello section gave the first movement's famous second theme -- the one that music students remember for their "Drop the Needle" tests as sung to the words "This is the symphony that Schu-u-ubert never finished" -- a character so subdued and unaffected that it was instantly winning. Again, Eschenbach brought out oddities, emphasizing swells in accompanying figures in ways that seemed unnecessary. His tempo choice for the second movement seemed a little sluggish, the gestures dipped in molasses, making those mystery modulations toward the end hard to pull off, little more than just soft. Traffic nightmares made me too late for the overture to Weber's Der Freischütz, a rather middling alternative to Rouse's concert-opening corker Phaethon.

Two other versions of the NSO European tour repertory will be performed tonight and Saturday, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Heidi Melton Returns with Strauss

Schoenberg, Gurrelieder, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, M. Stenz (Hyperion, 2015)

Markus Stenz, the former Kapellmeister of the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, whom we have reviewed in Europe up to this point, will be Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra beginning next season. His tenure got a jump start with this week's concerts, on a German Romantic theme, heard on Saturday night in the Music Center at Strathmore. In the opener, the overture to Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, Stenz displayed forceful ideas but not always a clear beat -- at one point, he seemed to mark the beat with lunges of his chest -- that the musicians seemed not always to understand, judging by some ensemble problems. The Romantic contrasts of loud and soft were appropriately dramatic, although the most outrageous coughing was timed perfectly for the softest moment of the piece. Really, people, cough during the loud parts.

The main attraction was Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, marking the return of American dramatic soprano Heidi Melton, who made quite a splash on the BSO's Wagner program two years ago. Melton's German remains beautiful, after training in opera houses in Germany, but her voice, while powerful, is not yet fully reliable at the top of her range. The first high note of the set, the G-flat in Frühling, was on the edge of control and intonation above the staff faltered in places, especially in the first song. The music just did not always seem to be securely in Melton's brain, and worry can lead to vocal uncertainty: while her chest voice was robust and luscious, the top notes could be spotty, like the little sixteenth-note figures up to G or F-sharp in September. Still, when it comes right down to it, much of these songs' impact comes down to the last quartrain of the third song, Beim Schlafengehen, and Melton had the vocal power for her "unfettered soul" to soar freely, as well as the shimmering pianissimo for the final song. The orchestral contributions were all fine, with Stenz holding back the full force of the score at times, and especially fine solos from the concertmaster, Jonathan Carney, the principal horn, and the paired flutes and piccolos of the lark-song at the end. Strained ovations earned a lovely encore, Strauss's song Cäcilie.

Other Reviews: Simon Chin, Soprano Heidi Melton shows promise in Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ program (Washington Post, May 25) Tim Smith, BSO offers hearty night of German classics with Markus Stenz, Heidi Melton (Baltimore Sun, May 22)

The symphonies of Schumann often leave me disappointed, as did recent performances of the first symphony and the third symphony. The second symphony, though, has a place in my heart, especially its perfectly constructed slow movement, and Stenz knew what to do with the composer's less than successful orchestration, making broad adjustments to the balances to bring out colors hidden by unwise scoring. The development section of the first movement had an urgent, agitated, but soft style, with a beautifully paced pedal point preparing the recapitulation. The scherzo was well drilled, in spite of a rather fast tempo and some oddly mannered distortions of tempo, and the slow movement was ardent and longing, with only the fugato section weirdly etiolated by an artificially soft dynamic. The fourth movement was also quite fast, and Stenz carefully brought out Schumann's reference to the slow movement's theme and the trumpet's octave motif from all the way back in the slow introduction to the first movement. With Schumann like this, there are great hopes for Stenz's time with the orchestra.

Mariinsky Ballet's 'Rite of Spring'

Everyone knows about the debacle caused by The Rite of Spring. In spite of having caused a riot, the score quickly became not only accepted but beloved, with a section even used by Walt Disney in Fantasia less than thirty years after the controversial Paris premiere. The uproar was caused not only by the music, which was hard for the musicians to understand and reportedly not played very well, but by the daring choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. Although we have the score, we do not have the choreography, which was performed as Nijinsky created it for fewer than ten performances and then lost. What we do have is a scholarly reconstruction, by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, premiered by the Joffrey Ballet back in 1987. True, this version is far from perfect: dance historian Jennifer Homans, in her book Apollo's Angels, dismisses it as "American postmodern dance masquerading as a seminal modernist work." Even so, the Mariinsky Ballet leads off its current program at the Kennedy Center Opera House, seen on Tuesday night, with it.

Vaslav Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose, 1911

While the reconstruction may be a "travesty," as Homans put it, "a radical and shocking dance rendered tame and kitschy, a souvenir from an exotic past," it is the closest we are going to get to one of the most significant artistic achievements of the 20th century. (The choreography for Debussy's Jeux is also on my wishlist.) The experience of watching it live, with the music performed by an expanded Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, brought home the raw power of the work -- dance, music, artistic designs -- in a way that was not clear to me before. The music, conducted here by Gavriel Heine, was not always in top form and neither was the dancing, but when you see the movements -- or, at least, Hodson and Archer's most educated guess at the movements -- line up with the music, it makes sense in a way it did not before. A few striking moments will suffice as explanation. The stillness and then ecstatic writhing of the tribesmen incited by the music that accompanies the Cortège du Sage is followed by the agonized lowering of the Sage's body to the ground as he kisses the earth (L'Adoration de la Terre). The night vigil of the Cercles mystérieux des adolescentes reveals the selection of the Chosen One, standing in the center as if planted in the ground, danced here in the final scenes with crazed agitation, all flying braids and anguished shudders, by Daria Pavlenko.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Mariinsky Ballet’s lush, bright and visually spectacular ‘Rite of Spring’ (Washington Post, January 29) ---, Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Rite of Spring’: Ode to the human savage, still untamed (Washington Post, January 23) Alastair Macaulay, Tweaking an Illustrious Tradition to Incorporate Western Notions (New York Times, January 26) ---, An Age-Old Romantic Introduction, With Revitalizing Touches (New York Times, January 19) Gia Kourlas, Young Performers Spreading Their Wings (New York Times, January 23)

It was hard to imagine anything following such a performance, but the Mariinsky pulled some surprises out of their bag of tricks, with a middle act of two short but celebrated Michel Fokine choreographies. The first, Le spectre de la rose, was created by Vaslav Nijinsky, as the spirit of a rose brought home by a young woman returning from her first ball, made memorable by the bepetaled dancer's triumphant entrance and exit (costumes designed by Léon Bakst), both made by leaps through large windows. Vladimir Shklyarov, last seen in the Mariinsky Romeo and Juliet, was androgynous in the title role, both strong and delicate as, unseen but smelled and remembered by the girl, he wafted the lovely Kristina Shapran around the stage, to Berlioz's orchestration of Carl Maria von Weber's Invitation to the Dance. This paired elegantly with Fokine's solo choreography The Swan, set to Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne, with Ulyana Lopatkina, trembling en pointe and with undulating, graceful arms, taking the role created by Anna Pavlova.

The final act was given over to Paquita Grand Pas, a lengthy divertissement by Marius Petipa inserted into Paquita. Set to largely undistinguished music by Ludwig Minkus, it ran the risk of anticlimax, and indeed many empty seats were left after second intermission. For the energetic Pas de Trois, the variation of Kristina Shapran (a dancer to watch), and the lovely return of Ulyana Lopatkina, it was worth the wait.

This program repeats all week at the Kennedy Center Opera House, through February 1, but with different casts.

Ionarts-at-Large: Two Concertos for the Price of One!

Kirill Gerstein & James Gaffigan in Vienna

If the Konzerthaus presents the cream of the crop among orchestras in its own orchestral cycle, the Jeunesse concert organizer—active in all of Austria but incidentally based out of the Konzerthaus—brings that second tier that has less clout with the finicky Viennese concert-goers but means no necessary decrease in quality and often a considerable increase in programming-finesse. Orchestras like the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra (on October 18^th with Markus Stenz and Vilde Frang in the Korngold Violin Concerto) or, on this occasion, Gürzenich Orchestra (where Markus Stenz is music director until 2015) under its principal guest conductor James Gaffigan (on Twitter) with pianist Kirill Gerstein (who only recently knocked out a stunning Enoch Arden together with Bruno Ganz at the Konzerthaus).

The program featured to Piano Concertos-by-another-name: Richard Strauss’ difficult Burleske and Carl Maria von Weber’s bravura-pianistic (= more-difficult-sounding-than-it-is) Konzertstück. These right-before-and-right-after intermission works were bracketed by Schumann’s Genoveva Overture and his Fourth Symphony. A string of influences—Schumann influences Weber, Weber influences Strauss—and topical relations—Genoveva sees her lover part and return; ditto the dame in the Konzertstück—gave the arrangement a bit of appreciated dramaturgical backbone. Add to that that both concertos were rebellious, because-no-one-likes-them favorites of Glenn Gould which he both recorded.

R.Strauss, Burleske et al., M.Argerich / C.Abbado / BPh Sony C.M.v.Weber, Konzertztück et al., M.Pletnev / RNO DG F.Liszt, R.Schumann, O.Knussen, Sonata in B-minor et al., K.Gerstein Myrios

The Konzertstück sounds like it must be lovely for audience (evidently) and the performers (surmisedly) alike. As Gerstein pointed out during a pre-concert chat about the new, cleaned-up edition of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, all the big pianists of bygone days used to have the Konzertstück ready to pull out at every opportune moment that called for a little dainty flash and a bang. “But have you ever heard it live?” Indeed, I had not. Now I have. And you can really hear the story, to the point of almost-cringe-worthy, when the march-music of the returning crusaders sounds rather like a cheap toy punched out of tin: ‘Obvious’ at least, if not outright cheap.

Before it got there, the Genoveva Overture had to be sat through which the Gürzenich and Gaffigan made a distinctively pleasant affair. Because James Gaffigan is younger than I (if not by much), I think of him as “disgustingly young”—that coquettish-envious compliment I pull out reflexively at these occasions. Turns out he isn’t all that young anymore, though he was, when I was first impressed with him stepping in for an indisposed James Conlon with the Munich Philharmonic in 2009. Fastidious and with a clear and elegant beat, a confident and assured demeanor, he looks like nothing comes more naturally to him than conducting. (What a contrast!)

Kirill Gerstein (on Twitter) takes the Strauss-Anniversary quite seriously. First Enoch Arden, now the Burleske, neither standard repertoire works he can expect to play every season. All that despite Gerstein not even being a Straussian: “I just happen to find something in these pieces… and of course to be able to do Enoch Arden with someone Ganz, why wouldn’t you!” From his sensitive playing, alongside and with a well-balanced orchestra, one could never have told that he isn’t a particular Strauss-appréciateur. The work has some regularly occurring Straussianisms, but relatively few, actually, for a composer with such a recognizable idiom. Perhaps that contributes to its middling popularity and also to why it is so refreshing to hear when it does pop up on the menu. As if to pay homage to Gould, who happily embraced the work, Gerstein happily hummed along; more in tune than the Canadian master, but still to arguable benefit of the presentation. His liberal rubato let Strauss breathe, traded the music back and forth with the orchestra, all of which suited the piece well (as did the excellent piano/pianissimo solo passages) and gave it a more understated tone, rather than hearing it banged out, all athletically.

To have another symphony after these three works, which so far (if unwittingly) celebrated brevity, struck as a bit much at first. Still, it had to be done, and so the ears readied themselves for a Schuman Fourth Symphony: Shaped with oceanic movements, cohesive enough without setting new records, sounding good without sounding great, it was the kind of performance above-average enough to give the listener-with-pen neither chance to criticize nor the opportunity to trip over him or herself with joyous raving. In short: Critic’s Hell!

The swift tempi after the gorgeous-but-portentous opening were invigorating, the vigor and momentum of it uplifting, the concertmistress elegant and gorgeous-toned, with a darkish weightlessness to her playing, perfectly nimble and on-pitch. The brass was sure-footed and never blared, even in the loud bits. The zip of the finale was catchy, the whole symphony feeling much shorter than it actually is. Some achievement for a finale that is perpetually finishing up: much like a guest in the door forever saying “I must really go home now”. (Or the Duddley Moore Beethoven joke.) As it turned out, the performance was a good many notches above average, after all. Which in the case of any partnership, musical or otherwise, should be the stated aim: A few notches above average. Everything else (more) would be indecent to ask for and must simply be enjoyed when it occurs.

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Dip Your Ears, No. 184 (Colin Davis from the Wolf’s Glen)

C.M.v.Weber, Der Freischütz Sir C.Davis / LSO / C.Brewer, S.Matthews, S.O’Neill, L.Woldt LSO Live SACDs

High Resolution Thunder

Colin Davis’ last recording was, fittingly, the Berlioz Grande Messe des morts. His last release, however, was Weber’s Der Freischütz, and that’s fitting too, because it’s frankly a much more interesting recording than the total dud that is the Berlioz. In fact, with Sally Matthews as Ännchen and Christine Brewer as Agathe, the girls’ cast is as good as it gets these days. Lars Woldt adds dark luster as Kaspar, Simon O’Neill healthy, youthful naïveté as Max, and the orchestra plays passionately and with unusual warmth and presence. Davis is jaunty in the rustic bits and deliciously dark in the spine-chilling parts. The omitted German dialogue won’t be missed by anyone who’s in it for the music. 

Charles’ review of this Der Freischütz can be read here.