Critic’s Notebook: Olivier Latry and Shin-Young Lee

Olivier Latry & Shin-Young Lee, Stravinsky, Heller, Alain Trois danses (BNL, 2013) US | UK | DE

Olivier Latry, Transcriptions Midnight at Notre-Dame (DG SACD, 2004) US | UK | DE

Olivier Latry and Shin-Young Lee Dance the Night Away

Organ Dances at the Konzerthaus's Rieger instrument

While early music is otherwise running riot at the Konzerthaus – it is, after all, “Resonanzen” time – one might intuitively expect an organ recital to be part of the baroque proceedings. For a good two minutes, that was indeed the case on Tuesday evening in the Great Hall, when Olivier Latry, titular organist of Notre-Dame, and Shin-Young Lee brought the Rieger organ to life with an arrangement of Rameau’s Les Sauvages. But the Rieger organ is anything but a baroque instrument, and so the remainder of the evening was devoted to (ballet) music that, while not written for the organ, was at least composed at roughly the same time as the instrument itself came into life.

The programme ranged from Béla Bartók via Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla and Alexander Borodin to the main course and undisputed high point: an arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps. Not such a far-fetched idea, given that The Rite of Spring also exists in a wildly percussive four-hand piano version by the composer himself. But everything before the Stravinsky amounted to little more than preliminaries – with the Rameau (surprisingly) perhaps the least satisfying of the lot: The organ sounded thick and dense in the Les Sauvages (recycled in Les Indes galantes and inspired by Reameau observering six Mitchigamea chiefs dance before King Louis XV. in the Théâtre-Italien in 1725) and in this arrangement – or rather in Latry’s and Lee’s registration – it clattered like a fairground carousel.

The Bartók miniatures, small musical playthings from the Romanian Dances, were never intended by the composer to court broad appeal and were unlikely to have acquired it in Latry’s arrangement either. Interesting, at least, was how the “Bagpipe Players” sonatina recalled 16-bit computer music. Cleanly and securely played, but at times somewhat laborious and monochrome in sound – whether for four hands or two – Lever du jour, Danza ritual and the Polovtsian Dances were hardly more invigorating.

But then! Almost from the very first note, Lee and her husband made it clear in the Stravinsky where all that effort in selecting organ stops had gone. The work gleamed, lively and colourful. The impudent little figures Stravinsky scatters throughout were wonderfully realised by four hands – as was, with two, three or even four feet, the underlying, driving rhythm. Altogether, this sounded far more natural, more organic, than, say, a Bruckner symphony on the organ and it kind-of salvaged the evening.

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Critic’s Notebook: Barokksolistene and their Alehouse Sessions at the Konzerthaus

Bjarte Eike, Barokksolistene The Alehouse Sessions (Rubicon, 2017) US | UK | DE

Bjarte Eike, Barokksolistene The Image of Melancholie (BIS SACD, 2014) US | UK | DE

Jolly Musicke Till You Drop

Hip vibes at the Norwegian baroque hoedown

For the most part, the crowds pouring into the Konzerthaus on Thursday evening surged up the grand staircase straight into the Great Hall: Mahler’s Ninth, Rattle conducting! The high temple of music was calling. Those who took a turn a little further down the foyer, meanwhile, found considerably lighter fare waiting behind the doors of the Mozart-Saal. Nothing lowbrwo, mind you—Bjarte Eike and his Norwegian Barokksolistene are a superb early music outfit. But their motto (“It’s just old pop music”) already hints at the fact that the promised Alehouse Sessions probably aren't too darn serious.

This baroque watering hole promised Henry Purcell, English shanties, dance, ballads, and traditional tunes. You’d need to have known your Purcell pretty well, though, to pick him out from the charming tangle of virtuosity, comedy, and kitsch. The dramatically—even theatrically—conceived program, about ten years old now, cheerfully plops Purcell’s "Virgin Queen" next to a sea shanty with a Bach riff rising suddenly from the hand harmonica. Bass, percussion, and guitar solos are handled the way they’d be in a jazz club.

The result is less "classical" than when Berlin’s Lautten Compagney tackles similar material, and not as relentlessly dramatized as comparable projects from Ireland’s Heresy Records. It’s just a bunch of cool old dads in mildly hipster=casual carb, noticeably graying hair, beers in hand, having fun with the music and goofing around a good deal. Who could possibly be curmudgeon enough to hold that against them—even if the slow-motion fight scene staged at the end finally tipped this early-baroque hoedown definitively into slapstick territory. Well, if clap-alongs and audience participation were not your thing, then you might have felt a sense of mild vicarious embarrassement. As it was, everyone got the right turn at the Konzerthaus; the crowd in the reasonably well-filled Mozart-Saal positivley lapped it up and responded with enthusiasm to everything that was on offer. So much so, Barokksolistene could almost have forgone the plants in the audience, that goated the audience into the right responses.

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Critic’s Notebook: Force Majeure! Marianne Crebassa at the Musikverein

M. Crebassa / F. Say, "Secrets", French Songs (Erato, 2017) US | UK | DE

M. Crebassa / Glassberg, Orch. Ntl. du Capit. de Toulouse "Seguedilles", Spanish Songs (Erato, 2022) US | UK | DE

Force Majeure! A MET-voice in a MINI-space.

The French mezzo-soprano bewitched and trumpeted in her song recital – more impressively than moving

Anyone who experienced the young Marianne Crebassa – for instance at the Salzburg Festival, as Irene in Tamerlano (2012), Cecilio in Lucio Silla (2013), or in Marc-André Dalbavie’s Charlotte Salomon (2014), where she basically carried the entire opera single-handedly – knows her as a French mezzo starlet on the operatic firmament and one of the postively most charming stage presences around. On Wednesday evening, the Béziers-born singer made her way to the Musikverein with some mélodies, some Mahler, and pianist Alphonse Cemin.

She still has the presence – but the evening would have been more successful had she traded in her operatic voice for a more Lieder-suitable instrument. With her rather expansive vibrato, her darkly timbred tone was penetrating and mightily focused, occassionally even harsh. She was loud enough, for sure and sometimes almost overwhelming - and not in the best sense. On “¡Sereno!” in Jesús Guridi’s “Seis canciones Castellanas” it pressed you right back into your Brahms Hall seats. At the same time, those passages from Guridi where things got heated (esp. bullfight-related matters) and could thus absorb the vocal muscle-flexing thematically (“Llámale con el pañuelo” and for the last stanza of “Como quieres que adivine”) were also the best, indeed the outstandingly good moments of the evening. Damn, she has got character in that voice! But that evening she only brought one. Ravel, Debussy, and Mahler, however, suffered under the primordial force, the wooden-trumpet sound, and the none-too-distinct intelligibility.

Wholly enriching was Cemin’s contribution at the Bösendorfer: a beautifully gently drawn tempo in the transition of one of the Kindertotenlieder here; there, sensitive in tone and phrasing behind Crebassa’s steely onslaught; “pitter-pattering” in the introduction to “In diesem Wetter” and bell-like at the close of it. His “let’s-let-the-soloist-rest-a-bit” solistic contribution, usually more chore than pleasure in such evenings, was Ravel’s “La Puerta del vino”. Not only was it actually welcome, it also neatly set the mood for the Guridi.

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Critic’s Notebook: Marin Alsop, the RSO and Bruce Liu in "Program vs. Performance"

F. Chopin, "Winner of the 2021 Chopin Competition", Bruce Liu (DG, 2022) US | UK | DE

S. Prokofiev, The Symphonies Marin Alsop, OSESP (Naxos, 6CDs, 2021) US | UK | DE

Insipid Program, Inspired Orchestra

Under Marin Alsop's baton the proof of the music is in the listening.

On paper, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra’s program under Marin Alsop on Friday, February 27th, at the Musikverein was a rather incoherent hodgepodge, especially compared to the orchestra’s concert a week earlier under Ingo Metzmacher: A bit of Friedrich Cerha, honoring his 100th birthday. A Chopin concerto to showcase the second-most recent Chopin Competition winner, Bruce Liu (not to be mistaken for the most recent winner, U.S.American Eric Lu). And Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, because, presumably, returning chief conductor Marin Alsop wanted to present the suite she’d (very effectively!) assembled herself.

But what looks uninspired and conventional doesn’t necessarily have to sound that way — and after the aforementioned Prokofiev, no one will have been asking anymore whether the concert might not have been put together more elegantly or freshly, so rousing was this second half. Right from the opening, the suite convinced with exaggerated loud-soft contrasts. Even more: the RSO played passionately and with visible motivation, edgy (in the best sense) and with tension. It hummed and buzzed at such a tempo that no ballet dancer could have kept up, but to the ears it positively glittered and glistened.

The Chopin E-minor Concerto couldn’t, alas, compete with that, even though Canadian Liu played it classically and sensitively, with a calm, even touch. Nothing was romanticized – and neither was there an air of ostentatious cool. It was a sort-of middle-of-the-road-excellence, very fine in the moment, forgotten soon thereafter. As an encore, Liu chose something modern, witty, Hungarian. You’d think György Kurtág, given his hundredth birthday. Wrong: It was György Ligeti instead; a case of “close enough” perhaps – though it might be said that the latter’s Fanfares: Etude no.4 is rather more substantial than most Kurtág pieces for piano – and includes welcome hints of Rzewski, apart from light abstraction. Neither (to the surprise of no one) could the scraping and lyrical creaking of Cerha’s late work Three Movements for Orchestra that opened the concert compete with the Prokofiev. But! Those who stayed in the Golden Hall after the lengthy applause could still experience a programmatic bracket of sorts: Cerha's Six Postludes, played on the organ by Wolfgang Koger which (despite a few escape attempts on the part of some remainders who got cold feet) turned out a surprisingly sizeable amount from the curious crowd and a surprisingly gratifying experience.

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Critic’s Notebook: When Alban Berg is the Sweetener: Great Programming with Metzmacher

K. Weill, Der neue Orpheus et al. Carole Farley, M.Guttman, J.Serebrier (ASV, 1997) US | UK | DE

A. Berg, Lulu Suite, 3 Pieces D.Gatti, Concertgebouw (RCO Live, SACD, 2008) US | UK | DE

A Successful 20th-Century Miscellany

Ingo Metzmacher and the RSO Vienna deliver a colorful evening in which Alban Berg formed the romantic high point

Good programming is an art. It should be interesting, ideally challenging too, somehow hang together... and alienate as few audience members as possible. At the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, the audience-alienation factor plays a somewhat less important role. First, the orchestra a mandate to go exploring – and second, the audience is battle-hardened. Still, there’s always the temptation to jazz up "difficult" fare with a crowd-pleaser – to almost invariably unsatisfying results. Anyone who rushes to a concert for Tōru Takemitsu, or – as on Saturday evening, February 21st, at the Konzerthaus – for Friedrich Cerha or Kurt Weill, doesn’t want or need a Tchaikovsky piano concerto... and vice versa. Ingo Metzmacher has mastered the art of programming – which is why the evening's highlight was Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite.

A rather obvious bracket is Cerha and Lulu, since his orchestration of the third act established Cerha’s fame in the first place. Less obvious, however, is a cultural-historical factoid that might prove useful at the next pub quiz: Kurt Weill’s cantata Der neue Orpheus and Berg’s Lulu Suite were both brought into the world by Erich Kleiber. But before we got there, the other hundredth composer birthday of recent days was celebrated: Monumentum für Karl Prantl (1988) – in turn written by Cerha for Prantl’s 65th – rises up as a loud, brass-heavy cacophony that sweeps over you like a summer storm. There follows an orchestral whirring and swaying, Messiaen-esque meditations with grand string gestures and dabs of color from the organ. It has a certain sculptural quality but without the danger of therefore drifting towards populism or, for that matter, wider popularity.

Kurt Weill, in his cantata for soprano and violin written over 60 years earlier, isn’t really that either. You will certainly hear little from chameleon-composer Weill’s studies with Engelbert Humperdinck. But the soloists Alina Wunderlin and concertmaster Maighréad McCrann were able to distinguish themselves in this mixture of vaudeville, comedy, and "serious music." That just about proved irrelevant, though, because the Lulu Suite after intermission outshone everything. Once again Alina Wunderlin was allowed to step up, now in a glitter-black Lulu look, and she sang beguilingly agile, more intelligible than in the Weill, and with the right mixture of sensuality and edge, so that one didn’t think about tone rows but the protagonist’s fate instead. Metzmacher also drew remarkable things from the RSO: Whether the tavern atmosphere in the variations, the Tristan und Isolde-moments in the Adagio, or the death cry that bites into the Più lento like the nine-note chords in Mahler’s Tenth, everything was played with fervor and grand gesture.

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Critic’s Notebook: The Quinteto Astor Piazzolla in Vienna

A. Piazzolla, "The Late Masterpieces", Quinteto Tango Nuevo (American Clavé, 3CDs, 1993) US | UK | DE

A. Piazzolla, "Mi Buenos Aires Querido", Barenboim, Mederors, Console (Warner, 1996) US | UK | DE

Piazzolla by the Book

Music to fall in love with – but also a distinct lack of flair – characterized the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla's appearance

The first time you hear Astor Piazzolla's music – perhaps from recordings with his New Tango Quintet like "Tango: Zero Hour" or "Live in Vienna" – is a moment you are not likely to forget. (I remember mine, picking up the 3-CD box on American Clavé in the 2000 Penn Tower Record's world music section with its fancy, since deteriorated, foil cover.) The music imprints itself, opens worlds, becomes shorthand for "Argentina" and everything one associates with it. No wonder, then, that the Konzerthaus was packed for the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on Sunday evening. After all, the ensemble, founded six years after Piazzolla's death, claims to "reproduce the old master's music as he would sound today." And what exactly does that sound like?

The five marched onto the stage of the Großer Saal, punctual, all in their tango-uniform: Prussian blue suits, light blue shirts, steel blue ties - with a hint of fashion-savvy civil servants about them. Without much ado, lickety-split, the knocked out one terrific Piazzolla piece after another with surprising mechanical precision – working their way from the lesser to the better known ("Oblivion", "Libertango"). Was this Argentine understatement? Nor was there any trace of communication at first; only about two thirds in, after "Contrabajísimo" (with a wobbly double bass solo) were the members of the band introduced, just with their names mumbled, apart from a generic "what a pleasure to play in this beautiful hall". Then it was briskly back to business and onward with the music.

The electric guitar got somewhat lost in the quintet. The piano was the driving force and occasionally a bit muddy. The violin mostly drew attention only through its characteristic rasping sounds. The bandoneon dominated, as might have been expected. Nothing was bad - but all told, everything remained pallid. Was it supposed to sound like this? Not that there wasn't some steam generated here and there – but it dissipated immediately. Was it the too-large room? The Viennese audience even, which though enthusiastic, listened very well-behaved and politely? A hint of rankinling disappointed appeared to be lingering, even after three encores. Then again: one cannot not let oneself be thrilled by this music.

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Critic’s Notebook: Pannon Philharmonic from Pécs at Vienna’s Musikverein

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Von wegen Touristenfallenkonzert! Eine überraschende Stichprobe im Wiener Musikverein

C. Debussy Images, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Printemps P.Boulez, Cleveland (DG, 1992) US | UK | DE

W.A. Mozart Concerto for Flute & Harp F.P, Orch.18thCt, Hünteler, Storck (Philips, 1996) US | UK | DE

Tourist Concert – but First-Class!

A musical calling card from Pécs worth hearing, at the Musikverein

There’s that old joke where a tourist in New York asks a taxi driver, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The answer of course being: “Practice, practice, practice!” These days, it is perhaps a bit easier. Certainly anyone wanting to get on stage of the Musikverein needs, first and foremost, a plush enouhg checking account. Though, of course, it does help if one has practiced as well. Seasoned Viennese concertgoers won’t likely stray into performances by (to take examples from the upcoming schedule) the doctors’ orchestra (better to see the dentist directly), the SchlossCapelle (Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on permanent loop), or the occasional youth orchestra itching to say it once played the famed Golden Hall. Tourists, however, will end up filling the seats. And perhaps a few local concert-novices, too. Either way, those, too (or especially?!) ought to be given a good first impression.

So how about a little spot check?! And why not pick a concert by the “Pannon Philharmonic”? Sounds Hungarian (it is!) - and the experiences with Hungarian orchestras has been pretty great, lately. The “Pannon Filharmonikusok” hail from Pécs, the university town and episcopal seat in southwest Hungary that musically serves the part of the conuntry below Laka Balaton to the Croation border, about five hours by car from Vienna. The orchestra, founded by the Viennese Johann Georg Lickl, has 115 years under its belt and boasts of playing at home in Hungary’s best acoustic: the Kodály Center, opened in 2010. That’s an attraction – as is the fact that Pécs lies just 30 kilometers north of Villány, Hungary’s finest red-wine region.

As part of the “Music of the Masters” concert series organized by the “Volksbildungskreis” (a charmingly old-fashioned, still-plucky relic of bourgeois self-improvement), the orchestra has been appearing at the Musikverein regularly for a couple years now. Saturday night brought a program understandably geared toward popularity for such a series – a set of classical “greatest hits”: Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, and in between the lovely Mozart concerto for flute and harp.

Ionarts recommended recording of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique

“If we fall asleep during the Debussy,” joked one cellist, “it’ll be because of the Wiener Schnitzel we were served right after arriving.” No one in the orchestra fell asleep, at least. Nor, presumably, anyone in the audience – because this was no tourist-trap concert at all. What was delivered here was genuinely good: far beyond merely exceeding low expectations. Led in the Debussy by a first-rate flute, cushioned by a homogeneous, flexible string sound, the orchestra under chief conductor Gergely Kessekyák presented itself as romantic, clean, charming – indeed, unreasonably good. Nor did the orchestra put a foot wrong in the Berlioz (one wobble of the entire evening), playing with joy rather than routine. Mozart, wedged between the French Romantics, was somewhat overpowered and lost in the middle but not poorly played for all that. Viennese audiences may still stay away – but for the Volksbildungskreis and stray tourists, this orchestra is a real boon.

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Critic’s Notebook: Martynas Levickis and the Accordion Take Center Stage at the Schubert-Saal

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Akkordeon zu Mittag: Kleiner Seelenjubel für zwischendurch

Martynas Levickis Autograph Bach, Glass, Angelis, Levickis (Accentus, 2023) US | UK | DE

Astor Piazzolla Aconcagua, Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas Martynas Levickis (Accentus, 2021) US | UK | DE

Squeeze It, Baby!

Accordion lunchtime concert in the Schubert Hall – a small dose of sunshine to go

In the classical world, the accordion suffers from a certain lack of pull. Poeple do not, as a rule, flood concert halls to hear the accordion. Outside those hallowed halls, the instrument first patented (if not quite invented) in Vienna is actually reasonably popular – from olde-times sailor captains wheezing away on piers of Europe to Weird Al, Oktoberfest oompah bands, the proud culture of the Styrian harmonica etc... I mean, it's the official instrument of San Francisco, for Pete's sake! It’s a pity, then, that the accordion leads such a shadow existence in classical venues, for concerts featuring one (or, better yet, two) accordions tend to be reliably, even disproportionately, satisfying. Wednesday lunchtime at the Konzerthaus was no exception. And if one must lead a shadow existence, there are worse places to do so than the Schubert Hall, sunlit and bright even in January.

There, Lithuanian accordionist Martynas Levickis – something of a superstar in the compact world of accordionists – offered a lunchtime recital that guided listeners through some 500 years of music. That only two of the works on the programme were originally written for the instrument did nothing to diminish the experience, though it may help explain the accordion’s perennial struggle for classical credibility. After all, who really knows the concertos written for it by Louise Reisner (solo), Niels Viggo Bentzon, Sofia Gubaidulina, or Erkki-Sven Tüür? Accordingly, Renaissance music arrived instead in the form of a melancholy Greensleeves. A chorale-like somber-sounding Scarlatti followed, then a Bach that was all quicksilver brightness. Mozart’s Andante for mechanical organ – a piece containing far more than mere robotic doodling – was brought vividly to life by Levickis. Remarkable, what can be achieved with dynamics alone: from mouse-like tiptoeing to puff-cheeked thunder. One hardly missed the lack of registers that, say, an organ can deploy.

A Chopin waltz introduced a hint of nostalgia, redolent of old films, courtesy of the lavishly expansive rubato. Mahler’s Adagietto chimed neatly with the Visconti focus currently at the Vienna Film Museum (Death in Venice runs once more on February 22nd), sounding atmospheric without tipping into sentimentality. And with Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a Piazzolla encore (“he didn’t like the accordion, but then, he’s not here today”), plus two of his own works, the concert ended on a couple of genuine crowd-pleasers.

As after every accordion concert, the inescapable thought lingered: one really ought to listen to far more accordion concerts whenever the opportunity arises.

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