Critic’s Notebook: Manfred Honeck Scintillating with the VSO; Kavakos brooding in Korngold

Also published in Die Presse: Dirigent Manfred Honeck ließ im Musikverein die Funken sprühen

E.W.Korngold (& Barber) Violin Concerto(s) Gil Shaham / A.Previn / LSO DG (1994) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphonies 5 & 7 M.Honeck / Pittsburg SO Reference SACD (2015) US | UK | DE

Exuberance and Musical Joy with Manfred Honeck

The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, inspired-sounding, under the West-Austrian maestro from Pittsburgh

There aren’t many conductors who make you think: No matter what, where, or with whom – I need to be there and hear them. Manfred Honeck – who, over the past 17 years, has turned the fine Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra into one of the world’s most interesting ensembles – is one of them. Saturday night’s concert with the Vienna Symphony at the Musikverein offered ample reasons why.

Perhaps not quite yet in the Austrian premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Frozen Dreams, a joint commission by Pittsburgh, the Vienna Symphony, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (alias dictus Musikverein) – where one’s ears were primarily busy just taking in the new music. Soundscapes (a bowed gong, singing glasses, eventually the string sections) gently crept forward, pushing against the rustling restlessness of the hall. A wry smile, recalling Alfred Schnittke, underlies the piece when Auerbach lets familiar-sounding tunes dart through the abstract tectonics of her musical landscape – or when she just brusquely wipes away those friendly gestures with a broad orchestral swipe.

Perhaps also still not quite in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto: Not here, simply because the soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, was squarely at the center of it all. It’s pretty safe to say that this concerto has arrived in the repertoire: this was already the fourth time it’s been heard in Vienna this season, and thrice with major performers. In February with the Tonkünstler and Simone Lamsma and in May with the VSO (!) and Renaud Capuçon.

Kavakos, by nature not a grandstanding, overwrought kind of soloist, is perfectly suited to this music that straddles the concert hall and Hollywood. Full-bodied and penetrating, charged with inner tension, and – despite a surprisingly broad and heavy vibrato – never soupy, he set the tone for the performance. That even an intonation-animal like him brushes up against the limits of ambiguity in the tricky Andante shows that Korngold offers his performers beauty, but not ease. (Capuçon and Lamsma were cleaner, more distict here, though neither brought anything like his expressiveness to the work.) The finale buzzed and hummed with energy. After that, his encore – the Bach "Loure" from Partita No.3 in E major, abstract and played right at the edge – felt like a glass of ice water.

Finally, in the Beethoven, Honeck’s influence came into focus. There was so much to discover and enjoy in this Seventh Symphony, for all its familiarity. It started with the fundamentals: articulation, phrasing. The crescendos were organic. Even at breakneck speed, there was never haste; never panic over bungled notes. Never lost in minutiae, he kept the momentum flowing just right. Sparks flew with intensity.

P.S.: This merits a little rant: The VSO is bloody lucky to have Honeck return to them regularly (he will be back in October with Anne-Sofie Mutter!); the Vienna Phil insane for not trying to tie him to the orchestra of which he was a violist-member for ten years. Is it, because his brother Rainer is their concert-master? Something is decidedly amiss when the Vienna Phil evidently avoids a conductor who, on paper, would be a perfect fit, one who is among the best regarded, most exciting maestros of our time, and who has such ample feeling for the 'Viennese style'. He should have been conducting the bloody New Year's concert oodles of times by now, instead the orchestras he has conducted at the Musikverein include the Pittsburgh and Munich Philharmonics, the Vienna Symphony, the Webern SO, a bloody student orchestra, the Jeunesse Youth Orchestra, the Swedish RSO, the MDRSO, and the ORF-RSO... but not the Vienna Phil. Anyone suggesting that anything but politicking and shady Viennese machinations are the reson for this, does not know this snake-put of a town well enough, methinks.
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Critic’s Notebook: The VSO, Petr Popelka, Renaud Capuçon in LvB, Strauss/Strauß & Korngold

Also published in Die Presse: Konzerthaus: Die Symphoniker wissen, wie Schlagobers klingen muss

E.W.Korngold (& LvB) Violin Concerto(s) R. Capuçon / Y.Nézet-Séguin / Rotterdam PO Virgin/Erato (2009) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Rosenkavalier-Suite et al. H.Blomstedt / J.Y.Thibaudet / Gewandhaus Decca (2005) US | UK | DE

Viennese Double Cream, Manifest in Music

The Vienna Symphony Orchestra, under their chief conductor, show their spirited side again.

Hearing Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture live is a rare pleasure: late, brisk, and genial Beethoven, in a nutshell — sparkling and, especially under chief conductor Petr Popelka, played with the requisite vitality by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening. What a difference a conductor makes, compared to the previous outing of flat-out-boredom!

That refined opening was followed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto — a work that, after a few decades of raised eyebrows, has now rightly claimed its spot in the standard repertoire. Its mix of luscious sweep and taut structure places it not far behind the most beloved examples of the genre. But both soloist and orchestra are called upon to respect those boundaries in either direction — lest the piece lose form, focus, or character.

Renaud Capuçon, a fundamentally solid and sound violinist, seemed unsure of which interpretive path to take and wrestled with the first two movements more than expected. The orchestra, by contrast, was in fine form — clear, nuanced, with that seasoned self-possession one hopes for. By the time the more assured third movement came around, Capuçon had managed to pull things together. His encore, Massenet’s Méditation (with harpist Volker Kempf), was a direct hit in the crowd-pleaser department, sappy, served on a bed of cold calcuation.

The kinship between Josef Strauss’s Dynamiden Waltz and Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier Waltzes may be obvious on paper, but by the time the latter shows up — so much other music has gone by, you’ve nearly forgotten the Josef. Overflowing, teetering on Salome-esque wildness, Popelka led it like a freshly stretched rubber band. Go figure: it can be done!

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Critic’s Notebook: The Tonkünstler, Fabien Gabel, and Simone Lamsma in a Viennese-as-it-gets Evening

Also published in Die Presse: Romantik ohne Kitsch: Ein perfekter Wiener Abend im Musikverein

R.Strauss Compl.Schlagobers-Suite N.Järvi/Detroit SO Chandos (2015) US | UK | DE

E.W.Korngold (& Barber) Violin Concerto(s) Gil Shaham / A.Previn / LSO DG (1994) US | UK | DE

A Perfectly Viennese Evening

February 15^th, 2025: The Tonkünstler Orchestra offered a night as Viennese — and sugary — as they come.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Tales of Strauss, a piano fantasy turned orchestral suite, is a delectable stroll through the Strauss family’s waltz garden. Played here by the Tonkünstler Orchestra at the Musikverein, it came in a lush orchestration — not by the composer himself, but with his approval. There were knowing smiles and gently nodding heads in the audience whenever a particularly familiar motif peeked through. If that doesn’t make your soul smile and chase away the day’s worries, you're in trouble.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto is no less Viennese at heart — even if the surface sheen might conjure Hollywood.After all: John Williams and his ilk all studied at the feet of the master (when they did not outright plagiarize him). Simone Lamsma played it in fine style, full-bodied and just a touch bristly: none too sweet — just enough to savor the heady tone without drowning in kitsch. The orchestra, under Fabien Gabel, surrounded her with lush romanticism — supportive but never smothering. That the audience responded with enthusiasm is no surprise: Op. 35 is one of the great underappreciated violin concertos of the 20th century — alongside, arguably, Samuel Barber’s and Wolf-Ferrari’s.

Finally, the bit the other Strauss — Richard — came up with, when he reached into the Viennese pastry box: His rarely performed but utterly charming Schlagobers Suite. The politely winking exoticism of the Coffee Dance leads to a nested romance for violin and orchestra, which concertmaster Lieke te Winkel navigated beautifully: Two Dutch soloists in one night! Echoes of the Rosenkavalier glimmer along the edges of this otherwise heavy, calorie-rich whipped-cream waltz. That the orchestra made it through the entire sugar-drenched program in such strong form — and without indigestion — is heartening, since Gabel is the Tonkünstler’s chief-conductor-designate.

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Critic’s Notebook: Vienna Symphony Back in Form under Petr Popelka

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Konzerthaus: Die Symphoniker wissen, wie Schlagobers klingen muss

L.v.Beethoven, Overtures C.Abbado / WPhil DG

Korngold *(+ Barber), Violin Concertos G.Shaham, A.Previn, LSO DG

Richard Strauss, Rosenkavalier Suite et al. A.Previn / WPhil DG

The Vienna Symphony, under their chief conductor, back in buoyant form

Beethoven’s overture for the Consecration of the House is one of those pieces you rarely catch live — and all the more welcome for it. After all, it's late Beethoven, yet breezy, pretty chipper, gratifyingly succinct, and most importantly, on Saturday evening, it was played with exactly the kind of vitality it needs by the Vienna Symphony under their boss, Petr Popelka. That seemed necessary, after last week's deadly boring outing.

That elegant opener was followed by Korngold’s Violin Concerto. Long sniffed at, the piece has — justly — found its place in the core repertoire. Its combination of lush rhapsodic and lively bite puts it just behind the genre’s most beloved entries. Still, it requires both soloist and orchestra to tread a fine line: too much in either direction, and it risks sounding sappy or aimless.

Renaud Capuçon, ever the solid violinist, seemed a bit unsure on the interpretive front — especially in the first two movements, which gave him more trouble than expected. The orchestra, however, played with clarity and nuance, bringing its signature composure to the table. But of course Capuçon has the sufficient je ne sais quoi, the commanding presence and enough routine, and that air of being above small matters in general, that he can still score with the audience. An improved third movement didn't hurt, either and his encore—Massenet’s Méditation, with harpist Volker Kempf hit the populist bullseye.

The connections between Josef Strauss’ Dynamiden Waltz and the 'Rosenkavalier-Waltz from Richard Strauss’ opera (played as part of the Suite) may be obvious on paper or to Popelka (who cleverly programmed these pieces on the second half), but by the time the latter appears, you’ve long since forgotten the former. That's not the least because Popelka led the 'Richard' with an exuberance that would have befit Salome, gripping, and flexible like a juvenile rubber band. See? It can be done.


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Briefly Noted: A Trio of 20th-century Piano Trios

Montsalvatge / Tailleferre / Korngold, Piano Trios, Andrist-Stern-Honigberg Trio (released on August 4, 2023) Centaur CRC4037 | 57'11"

Audrey Andrist has been a long-time fixture at Washington-area concerts, particularly in contemporary repertoire. The Canadian-born pianist plays often with her husband, violinist James Stern, as a duo and, with National Symphony Orchestra cellist Steven Honigberg, as the anchor of a rather fine piano trio.

While beautifully played, the new disc from the Andrist-Stern-Honigberg Trio, released by Centaur Records, is of interest primarily because of its intriguing combination of music. First is the Piano Trio by Xavier Montsalvatge, dating from the 1980s, when the Catalan composer was in his 70s. This suave, refined work, infused with jazz and folk elements, feels like a love letter to Spain. Its first movement is a "Balada a Dulcinea," infused with tender sweetness for Don Quixote's imagined sweetheart, followed by a "Diálogo con Mompou," referring to another composer, Montsalvatge's contemporary from Barcelona.

Adding to the recent rediscovery of Germaine Tailleferre's piano music is her Piano Trio, composed during World War I, when it went unnoticed and unpublished. The French composer took the piece up again in 1978, when she was in her 80s, and the revised version is a mixture of early and late styles, as she wrote a new second movement and added a fourth-movement finale. With each of the four movements clocking in at a balanced three minutes each, the piece has a pleasing unity.

Erich Korngold composed the final Piano Trio on this disc, the longest of the three works, when he was only twelve years old. The piece was among the fruit of his tutelage with Zemlinsky, study recommended by Gustav Mahler, who had heard a cantata the boy had written. A child prodigy, Korngold had already had a ballet score performed professionally in Vienna, and Artur Schnabel was performing his piano sonata around Europe. This trio is a tour de force for the pianist, and Andrist rises to the occasion, especially in the rollicking Scherzo, an hommage to the Viennese waltz redolent of both Strauss and Mahler.

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

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

Ionarts in Santa Fe: Angela Meade

The Festival of Song series from Performance Santa Fe continued on Sunday afternoon. Although she is not featured on the Santa Fe Opera season this summer, soprano Angela Meade is in town, and her recital at the Santa Fe Scottish Rite Center was an affair not to be missed. Since Meade is not singing opera here this year, series director and accompanist Joe Illick allowed as how she could sing some opera arias along with the art songs.

Meade's is not a voice naturally suited to the more rarefied demands of art song. Two simple and slow songs by Bellini, Vaga luna and Ma rendi pur contento, were pretty but bordering on nondescript. In other cases, like Strauss's Zueignung, she just did not need the sort of vocal power applied to the music. These were only minor flaws in what was an intense, almost overwhelming recital that reinforced the preeminence of this extraordinarily gifted soprano. Meade brought subtlety to Liszt's song Oh! quand je dors, with a pearly control of her diminuendo and a longing turn of phrase in the memorable final phrase. At the keyboard Illick was right on the money in following Meade's twists and turns of rubato, and his left hand provided plenty of dynamic drive in larger songs like Liszt's Enfant, si j'étais roi.

In songs and especially opera arias where more squillo was needed, Meade excelled, the power of her voice and plenteous breath support like a thrilling electric surge. The restlessness of Strauss's Cäcilie, the soaring high parts of Korngold's Mariettas Lied, the soaring conclusion of Strauss's Zueignung -- all hit the right mark. When composers drew on the strengths of a voice like hers, it was the best of all, as in the intense crescendo and diminuendo at the opening of Pace, pace, mio Dio, from Verdi's La forza del destino, and especially the shrieked curses at the end of that piece ("Maledizione!"). Ebben?...Ne andrò lontana from Catalani's La Wally, music used to such memorable effect in Jean-Jacques Beineix's crazy 80s film Diva, made for an equally exciting conclusion. Most sopranos who sing Victor Herbert's Art Is Calling for Me (I Want to Be a Prima Donna) as an encore would get an Ionarts Eye-Roll Award, but Meade has earned it.

The next concert in the Festival of Song series will feature soprano Leah Crocetto (August 4, 4 pm), sadly after my departure from Santa Fe.

CD Reviews: Gilbert Champions Rouse / Fairyland of Songs

C. Rouse, Symphonies 3-4 (inter alia), New York Philharmonic, A. Gilbert (released on May 13, 2016) Dacapo 8.226110 | 76'15" [NY Phil Watch & Listen] "Schöne Welt..." (Schubert / Schreker / Korngold), A. Schwanewilms, C. Spencer (released on May 13, 2016) Capriccio C5233 | 63'40"

Charles T. Downey, CD reviews: A modern symphonic master
Washington Post, July 29

Next year, Alan Gilbert will step down as music director of the New York Philharmonic, which is a shame, not least for the way he has excelled at programming contemporary music. This disc features four new pieces by Christopher Rouse, three of which Gilbert premiered with the Philharmonic. These are high-quality live recordings, like those available on the orchestra’s “Watch & Listen” web streaming feature, which offers many of its recent concerts online.

Rouse composed his first two symphonies in 1986 and 1994, and didn’t return to the genre for more than 20 years. In 2011, he completed the Third Symphony, a “rewrite” of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony. Gilbert and his players dig into the first movement’s crisp rhythms and militaristic edge with biting attacks. The last minute of the movement is particularly thrilling, playing to the group’s forte, a crashing full-orchestra sound, while some of the smaller vignettes in the second movement’s theme and variations are less effective.

Rouse has said that he had “a particular meaning in mind” when he composed his Fourth Symphony, from 2013, but he prefers to keep it to himself. The titles of the two movements, “Felice” and “Doloroso,” point to something like mania and depression, borne out in the jaunty rollick of the first movement that collapses, without a pause, into the forlorn, weighted-down gestures of the second. Both of these symphonies constitute yet more examples of Rouse’s supremacy among living American composers in terms of melodic invention and calculated use of the orchestra. Happily, Rouse’s symphonic renaissance will continue, as Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra are set to premiere the Fifth Symphony in 2017.

In both of the one-movement works that round out the disc, Rouse broadens the sonic landscape with a large battery of instruments filled with more exotic colors. In “Odna Zhizn,” he overlays dissonant themes derived from names in a Russian friend’s life to chaotic and bewildering effect. “Prospero’s Rooms” contains some of the musical ideas Rouse sketched for an operatic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” Given this work’s musical and literary creepiness, reminiscent in some ways of Bartók’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle,” if Rouse still wants to write an opera, companies should be commissioning him.

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The Sounds of Korngold

Discographies on ionarts: Bach Organ Cycles | Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycles I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX | Beethoven Symphony Cycles Index | Beethoven String Quartet Cycles | Bruckner Symphony Cycles | Dvořák Symphony Cycles | Shostakovich Symphony Cycles | Sibelius Symphony Cycles | Mozart Keyboard Sonata Cycles

Today is Korngold's 119^th Birthday, so to go along with the birthday tribute over on Forbes.com as well as the chapter in Surprised by Beauty 2, I’ve put together a list of what I think are essential (and non-essential, but beautiful) Korngold works – and my favorite recordings thereof:

Let’s start with the perennial favorite (and favorite to sneer at):

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Das Wunder der Heliane & Sock Monkeys

This post, originally published on WETA’s blog on September 15th, 2007, has been resuscitated to go along with upcoming Korngold-posts on ionarts and Forbes.com that honor the composer’s 119th birthday.

Korngold, Das Wunder der Heliane, Berlin RSO / J.Mauceri / Soloists Decca 829402

“Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s three act opera Das Wunder der Heliane is arguably the composer’s greatest work.” This is the opening line of Brendan G. Carroll’s extensive and helpful liner notes to the only recording of this opera – just re-released on Decca/Philips’ budget “Classic Opera” series. (A series distinguished by the very laudable inclusion of such texts and the libretti!) The German translation of the text goes even further and declares it “without a doubt the composer’s greatest work”.

That’s saying quite a bit about a work that has never been much more than a side note in the history of German 20th century opera and one that – apart from the immediate aftermath of its hailed 1927 premiere – could probably be considered a failure.

And yet, hearing the work one is bound to agree with the Korngold Society President, his eager translator, and Korngold himself, too, who thought Heliane his finest work. Never before and never thereafter has the Zemlinsky-student Korngold (1897 – 1957) achieved the profundity he reaches in his fourth (of five) opera. There are many touches that remind of Richard Strauss’ Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), and Die ägyptische Helena (1928).

The Wunderkind years produced marvelous (if slight) chamber and orchestral pieces which had him hailed as the next great composer, a titan on par with Mozart or Beethoven. Of course it didn’t quite turn out like that – and he ended up writing film music for Hollywood. Much regarded then and now famous-again scores such as “Captain Blood”, “The Sea Hawk”, and “The Adventures of Robin Hood”. Lovely stuff but, well… still film music when all is said, told, and listened to.

His well known, if not often performed, opera Die Tote Stadt (1920) is full of loveliness, of course, but not so much a better work than Heliane as it is an ‘easier’ one. The former has the catchier tunes, the greater hits (“Mariettas’ Lied” – the duet cum Soprano aria – most notably), and a longer successful run in opera houses around the world. But Heliane, more taxing and demanding with its polytonal harmony and more ambitious than sweet, strikes as a much more satisfying and deeper work.

When it came out, however, it was immediately embroiled in the culture war of the time in which young Korngold was pitched (not the least by his father, a prominent Viennese music critic) against more modern composers. And compared to Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová (1922), Schoenberg’s Erwartung (1924), Berg’sWozzek (1925), Hindemith’s Cardillac (1926), Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (1927), and especially Ernst Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf (1927), Korngold’s opera does seem hopelessly (now: charmingly) outdated. Even if it is none the less wonderful for it, it is harmonically less daring even (or elegantly elusive) than Franz Schreker’s sublime Die Gezeichneten (available on DVD in a tremendous and disturbing production from Salzburg) or Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande – notably operas from 1902 and 1911, respectively. More French, but also similar, is the 1907 opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue by Paul Dukas (more of which in another post). The similarity with the latter is not too surprising: Korngold, coy or blunt, said he’d copied from no other opera as much as Dukas’.

Das Wunder der Heliane is not only a victim of the musico-political (and then political – as it was considered Entartete Kunst and banned under the Nazis) fights of its day. It is also hampered by a modest libretto and odd story. Not speaking German is no disadvantage to the enjoyment of this opera! Heliane offers a rich score, thick with eroticism, busy and shrill at times, luscious and elegant elsewhere… and three hours of that.

Why Sock Monkeys?

When this post was originally written (for WETA 90.9), it served as a tie in with a concert of the National Symphony Orchestra and Renée Fleming, in which she was going to sing the “Ich geh’ zu Ihm” aria from the above work, along with other rarities such as an aria from Korngold’s last, even less known opera, Die Kathrin:

…Add to that Mozart, Suppé, Waltz-Strauss, and music from Strauss’ second (justly unknown) opera, Die Feuersnot (“Fire Famine”).

It’s a curiously interesting program – looking a little like a hodgepodge of music, but an attractive one. The center of gravity of the concert meanwhile is Liszt’s First Piano Concerto. Soloist – I’m not making this up – “Peng Peng”. China’s latest-latest, 14-year old ivory smashing prodigy. Type “Peng Peng” into Google and you’ll find he’s already replaced “Peng Peng Bears & Sock Monkeys©” from the top position. (I’m not making that up, either.) I don’t know if you feel like you can’t miss our-all-favorite Renée (ever charming in concert, if you’ve seen her in either of the last two seasons) or Peng Peng Gong. But you definitely shouldn’t miss Korngold.

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A small survey of Korngold recordings can be found here: The Sounds of Korngold.
An essay on Korngold and his father can be found here on Forbes.com on May 29^th

Use of Sock Monkey picture kindly tolerated by Peng Peng, the Sock Monkey artist lady.

BRSO Brings Mahler 5

Charles T. Downey, Kennedy Center’s New Music Series Is Bates’s Jukebox
Classical Voice North America, April 14

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One day, Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra will play in the hall it deserves. When it does, a statue of conductor Mariss Jansons in or in front of the hall would not be out of place. The Riga-born conductor doubled down on his commitment to the Bavarians, whom he has led since 2003, and their quest for a new venue, by resigning from his other music directorship, at Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, last year. He even pledged $270,000 of his own money, the proceeds of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, as starter cash for the fund to build the orchestra a new auditorium.

The news came earlier this year that Munich will indeed build the BRSO a new home in time for Jansons and his orchestra to take a victory lap on its North American tour...

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Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
North American Tour
With Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

SEE ALSO:
Christophe Huss, Mariss Jansons, l’affiche tombée du ciel (Le Devoir, April 14)

Anne Midgette, How a great orchestra started its U.S. tour: Carefully. (Washington Post, April 13)

Robert R. Reilly, Bavarian RSO Opens North American Tour (Ionarts, April 13)

Charles T. Downey, Concertgebouw Returns, This Time with Mahler (Ionarts, February 5, 2008)

Bavarian RSO Opens North American Tour

PICTURE OF MARISS JANSONS © ASTRID ACKERMANN

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

According to the Playbill program notes for the April 12, 2016, concert at the Kennedy Center, the Washington Performing Arts organization has not sponsored the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra here since 2003. From the caliber of playing on display in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, that has been our substantial loss. Under conductor Mariss Jansons, the level of orchestral execution in all departments was superlative. They are welcome in my town anytime.

First, a side note on concert programming. I sometimes wonder if there is not a secret, worldwide, Spectre-like organization of programmers who meet to plot the frequent repetition of repertory. Less than a year ago, I heard the Mahler Fifth with the NSO, and less than two years ago I heard the Korngold Violin Concerto, also with the NSO. I’m not complaining in either case, as violinist Gil Shaham gave the Korngold a beautiful performance and Christoph Eschenbach’s Mahler is always worth hearing. It makes you wonder though, doesn’t it?

In fact, last year’s Mahler Fifth was paired with the Sibelius Violin Concerto, played by tonight’s soloist in the Korngold, Leonidas Kavakos. The time I had heard Kavakos before that was in a program in Ljubljana with the Prokofiev Second Violin Concerto, which was coupled with (guess what?) Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Are you beginning to see the global dimensions of this? If it happens again, I’m calling Interpol.

And now a note on the program. I think it makes good sense to put the Korngold and Mahler together because they both come from the same Viennese milieu – albeit one via Hollywood, the other not. Both inhabit the First Viennese School, though from Korngold one could not imagine the Second Viennese School, while from Mahler, one could. Also, it was interesting to hear the Korngold first because, listening to the Mahler afterwards, I exclaimed to myself several times, “aha, Korngold had obviously heard that.” Then there is the historical association: Korngold, who as a youth had met Mahler, dedicated his Violin Concerto to Mahler’s widow, Alma.

Be that as it may, it was a pleasure to hear Kavakos in the Korngold, though my first impression — one of warmth rather than brilliance — was that his razor sharpness and intonation were slightly off from what I had heard before. The tone soon improved, however, and by the last movement he was blazing away with complete confidence. He had great partners in Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which played with crystal clarity, precision, and energy. Though most of the themes in the concerto came from Korngold’s brilliant movie scores, no one indulged in any Hollywood sentimentality. This is not to say there was any beauty lacking — the glorious sound of the orchestra was like walking into the Golden Screen. The enthusiasm of the audience impelled Kavakos to offer a charming encore, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, composed by Francisco Tárrega for guitar, transcribed for violin by Ruggiero Ricci. You can hear a much younger Kavakos playing it here.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, How a great orchestra started its U.S. tour: Carefully. (Washington Post, April 13)

The performance of the Mahler Fifth Symphony was blistering. Let me put it this way: if Mahler were Beethoven, this is exactly how he should be played. And further, I mean Beethoven not as Bruno Walter would play him, but more like Arturo Toscanini or René Leibowitz would. It was thrilling, but was it Mahler? There were no emotional or psychological epiphanies provided, but there were musical ones aplenty. Jansons’ attitude toward this work seems to be to take it simply as a tremendously exciting piece of music and not as an emotional freight train. I have heard this work so often that there is very little that can make me sit up and take notice. Because of Jansons’ highly energized approach and the brilliant playing of the BRSO, I was on high alert for most of the evening. Jansons did not stop to smell the daisies; he propelled the performance up and down the mountainsides, and had his massive orchestra turning on a pin, like Alpine chamois. It was breathtaking. The Adagietto was the movement that benefited least from Jansons’ approach. Anyone expecting to take a warm bath in it would have been disappointed. It had beauty, yes, but warmth, not much.

While not terribly emotive, the performance was nonetheless visceral in its impact. If you wonder what Mahler meant when he marked the score “like a whirlwind” or “Moving Stormily, With the Greatest Vehemence,” Jansons provided a very compelling answer. Of course, there are many ways of doing this symphony, as Klaus Tennstedt and others have brilliantly shown. But Jansons has clearly demonstrated that this is one of them.

It hardly need be said that every department of the BRSO covered itself in glory — what a deep, gorgeous sound! The strings were exceptional, the brass outstanding, but so were the winds, and the timpani…

I have decided not to call Interpol after all.

Second Opinion: Playing with Mermaids: Conlon and the NSO

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center..

The only disappointing thing about the evening of Thursday, April 10, 2014 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall was that it was not full. When the National Symphony Orchestra chooses such interesting repertory as it did for this concert under conductor James Conlon, the musical idealist imagines the place full to the rafters.

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Conlon and 'The Mermaid'

A. Zemlinsky, Die Seejungfrau, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, J. Conlon (EMI, 1997)

James Conlon's stint with the National Symphony Orchestra last week was one of my Top Ten concert picks for the month. There were other assignments in the way for the first two performances, but as noted on Saturday, there was no way I was going to miss the chance to hear Conlon conduct Alexander Zemlinsky's tone poem Die Seejungfrau, at the last performance on Saturday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The program was inverted from the usual order of a symphony concert, with the major Zemlinsky work performed first, followed by the concerto and the short piece that would usually be a concert-opener. At the outset, Conlon took microphone in hand and gave a savant and convincing introduction to Die Seejungfrau, speculating that Zemlinsky saw himself in the mermaid and the beautiful and inaccessible Alma Schindler, with whom he was in love, as the unapproachable prince. Alma Schindler -- later Mahler, Gropius, finally Werfel -- provided the common thread of the program, too, as she was the dedicatee of Korngold's violin concerto on the second half, composed when both Korngold and Alma lived in Los Angeles in the 1940s.

Die Seejungfrau is in three movements, which are not identified with elements of the story but correspond roughly as follows: the little mermaid's life in the sea and first encounter with the prince; the spell that transforms her into a human and her attempt to get the prince to marry her; and her ultimate embrace of death, because she will not accept the Mer-Witch's offer to kill the prince and be returned herself to the sea. The first movement evokes the deep rolling of the sea, with static motifs, including deep harp notes, layered on top of groaning bass instruments, leading to huge tidal swells of sound. Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef was mercurial and passionate in the violin solos of the little mermaid, numerous enough to make the work almost a sort of violin concerto. Conlon gave the work a decisive pacing, which added gritty excitement to the faster passages. A rollicking horn theme signifies the prince and his men, and a passage of music in the second movement, excised from the score after the work's premiere, has been put back into the score, recovered from the holograph score in the Library of Congress, heard for the first time in the United States in these performances.

As Conlon noted, the second movement has a number of waltzes in it, and the solo violin gets swept up in one of them. If you only know this story from the sanitized Disney movie version, Andersen's mermaid suffers terrible searing pain every time she walks on her magical legs. The Mer-Witch tells her that she will move more gracefully than any human but with this terrible pain, which she endures quite happily for the chance to please the prince. The stakes in the Andersen story are deadly: if a human does not marry her, thereby sharing his immortal soul with her, the soulless mermaid will dissolve into the sea foam. The mermaid's family strikes another pact with the Mer-Witch, trading their hair for an enchanted blade: if the mermaid kills the prince with it, her fish's tail will return and she can go back to the sea. Selflessly, the mermaid throws the knife into the sea, giving up her life, but she joins spirits in the air, who can earn a soul by performing acts to help the living. Zemlinsky's has its eeriest effects in the third movement, including the return of the menacing deep sea music from the opening of the piece, with radiant string strings lifting up the violin solo, with harp twinkles and muted brass, quite ethereal. It is a score that should be on every conductor's To Do list.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, NSO concert stuffed with Romantic music by Zemlinsky, Korngold and Brahms (Washington Post, April 11) Terry Ponick, NSO, James Conlon highlight 20th century’s missing masterpieces (Communities Digital News, April 11) Jesse Hamlin, James Conlon leads musical revival of Nazi-banned composers (San Francisco Chronicle, April 9)

Gil Shaham has been specializing in 20th-century violin concertos, and here he was the soloist for the sugary Korngold concerto. Shaham's tone is often beautiful and his phrasing sensitive, when the sound of the orchestra does not push him too far and the writing is not too high on the E string or otherwise demanding, so the delicate parts of this concerto were lovely, often colored by the celesta, seated right in front of Conlon's podium in this performance. In recent years, though, elements of Shaham's playing have unraveled a bit, and there were some hairy flautando notes here, iffy intonation, and slightly sketchy double-stops -- not enough to make the performance disastrous by any means, but dulling some of its shine. After these two large works, the Brahms "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" were probably unnecessary, especially since it was last heard from the NSO only in 2009, but it offered another chance for the NSO musicians to shine, especially the contraforte player Lewis Lipnick, whose line was given special prominence in the theme and several variations. Conlon kept most of the piece moving along, with a minimum of oozy sentiment to the rubato, making the minore variation (no. 4) legato and smoldering.

The NSO season continues next week, with guest conductor Cornelius Meister leading performances of overly familiar Mendelssohn and Mozart, plus Prokofiev's third piano concerto, with Nikolai Lugansky as soloist (April 17 to 19).

Philadelphia Orchestra

Hilary Hahn: A Portrait (excerpts of Korngold concerto) (DG, 2007) Bruckner, Symphony No. 7, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, Y. Nézet-Séguin (Atma, 2007)

The Philadelphia Orchestra has survived the past few years of financial and leadership crises, but not without some damage to that venerable institution's reputation. Hopes are high that the tenure of the orchestra's new music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, inaugurated this year, will stabilize the orchestra, the board, the subscribers and donors. Every great city deserves a great orchestra, and the city of Philadelphia should do all it can to shore up its ensemble, one of the best in the country, and keep it from falling into ruin. We had our annual chance to listen to the Philadelphians in their annual visit hosted by Washington Performing Arts Society, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Wednesday night. It was a bittersweet moment to be savored, since the orchestra is not on the WPAS schedule next season.

The opener was a bonbon impossible not to like, the sweet, rambunctious violin concerto by Erich Korngold, the Austrian Wunderkind turned Hollywood glitzmeister. It is a concerto beautifully suited to the elegant simplicity of tone from American violinist Hilary Hahn, who also played it in Munich recently. While Hahn gave ample agitation to the wilder parlando parts of the first movement, it was that clean ribbon of sound she produces on long lyrical lines that made the performance so good. Some of the highest parts of the E string came off slightly pinched, even though Nézet-Séguin went overboard holding down the orchestra to accommodate Hahn's sometimes modest sound, especially in the fragile second movement with its murky veils of orchestral sound.

The freewheeling jig of the third movement, a sort of refined hoedown, was fired by athletic energy from both soloist and orchestra. The swashbuckling hero moments in the score have their echoes in the scores of American film composers, as do the often overused touches of celesta (and gong, tubular bell, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone) in the first movement. (The "Hollywood label" is not attached because of highbrow snobbery, since Korngold literally borrowed sections of the concerto from his film scores.) For her encore, Hahn chose not to go with one of the pieces from her Encores Project but with an oldie but a goodie, the gigue from Bach's third partita (E Major, BWV 1006), in just the right spirit to follow Korngold's dance-like third movement.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, At Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Orchestra’s new leader turns up the volume (Washington Post, May 3) Emily Cary, Visionary violinist Hilary Hahn and the Philadelphia Orchestra together again (Washington Examiner, April 30) Jens F. Laurson, Ionarts-at-Large: Dallas SO and @violincase in Munich (Ionarts, March 21) Dutoit in Philadelphia: 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 Yannick Nézet-Séguin: Leipzig (2011) | Interview (2010) Salzburg Festival (2010) | NSO (2008)

If Nézet-Séguin wanted to make a show of confidence in his bid to maintain the Philadelphia Orchestra's legacy, programming Bruckner's seventh symphony (E major, WAB 107) was one way to do it. We last heard the piece from Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra just last year, but it is one of the most often heard of the Austrian composer's symphonies. Many elements of this performance were in just the right place, like the spectacular power of the orchestra's brass section (including the four Wagner tubas) and Nézet-Séguin's insistence on real delicacy of sound in the soft moments. While this attention to sonic detail made the high points of the score, those blossoming crescendos of massive sound, more effective, some of this focus on the small parts -- right from the beginning with an arching, longing opening statement from the cellos -- took away from the overall picture of this long work (not unlike Nézet-Séguin's recording of this symphony with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal). The big climaxes often seemed to fall victim to micromanagement, like the glorious Wagnerian "Rheingold" moment in the last thirty bars of the first movement: one long crescendo on a single unchanging E major (extended) chord, beginning with the E pedal point at Rehearsal W ("Sehr feierlich") and really getting going when the harmony resolves to E major (with just minor movement) at Rehearsal X ("Sehr ruhig").

Another example was the extensive second movement, with the opening statement of its main theme and many other details all stretched out, in a way that deflated the overall power of the movement. The performance had many admirable parts but did not add up to something as emotionally thrilling as it could have been. The final climax, a crescendo up to fff, was not as cataclysmic as possible: even though Nézet-Séguin did include the cymbal crash and triangle roll, added by Bruckner late in the rehearsal process on a piece of paper pasted onto the score (at Rehearsal W), it did not seem all that loud. (The effect is much the same on his OMM recording.) Likewise, the third movement did not seem quite as fast as "Sehr schnell," as Nézet-Séguin seemed to go for a stronger etching of the various motifs, in stark contrast to the soupy strings of the trio. The fourth movement was perhaps the most satisfying, at a tempo that did not feel too fast, with imperious orchestral unisons and long pauses where they were called for. Still, to stretch out a long Bruckner symphony without achieving the overall sweep needed does nothing to help this sort of work.