Critic’s Notebook: Budapest Festival Orchestra's Brahms Festival in Vienna

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Iván Fischers Budapester Brahms begeistert im Konzerthaus

J.Brahms, The Symphonies Fischer Iván / BFO Channel Classics

J.Brahms, The Symphonies G¨nter Wand / NDRSO RCA

J.Brahms, The Hungarian Dances Fischer Iván / BFO Philips

The Delight of Sheer Craftsmanship

The Budapest Festival Orchestra has a little Brahms Festival going on at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, where they play(ed) all four Symphonies, the major concertos, and a little stuffing and garnish around it all. On this, the third of four concerts last Thursday, they presented the Third Symphony and the Violin Concerto, embedded in two Hungarian Dances. It was a triumph of craftsmanship over showmanship.

In their unassuming way, the two Hungarian Dances, Nos. 17 (orchestrated by Dvořák) and 3 (by Brahms himself), almost stole the show. Relaxed and matter-of-factly on the outside, but lovingly painted in with all the Echt-faux Hungarian/Gypsy vibe, that Brahms so lovingly imbued it with. The orchestra produced that color in spades, with real fiddling, twirping, cooing, lively and colorful, and with lots of transparency amid the large orchestral apparatus. The third Dance wasn’t so much played, it was downright danced – all with a coy, knowing little smile around the orchestra’s collective lips.

Then there was Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider (he’s not going the full Stephen Bishop-Kovacevic on us, he’s merely restored his full last name to his artist’s biography, having felt bad dropping the first part out of career-considerations many years ago). Happily, he was playing the violin, not conducting. He played along with the tuttis before his entry – and when it came, it was as if notes simply poured forth from his instrument, in a nice, leathery tone. Fischer and Znaider both went for a nicely unsentimental, none-too-sweet tone yet for plenty romantic freedom: Flexible phrasing, liberal portamenti, all building on the dark sound of the orchestra. More buoyant than energetic, more flexible than suspenseful. Even the oboe, gifted the finest melody of the work, didn’t indulge and went for clear lyricism instead of schmaltz. After the imposing first movement, a part of the Viennese audience applauded. Shocking, I know. More shocking still: This was the third time this week this happened (all after movements that clearly demand applause, that is), and already the second time that the Vigilant Applause Police^™ did not hiss them down. Might things be changing for the better?

In the rhythmically tricky Third Symphony of Brahms, the Orchestra under Fischer Iván showed full command over the score. Without much of a fuss, they started in the Allegro con brio. The shifted pulse, that the second violins answer the first violins with, came to the fore beautifully – helped by the antiphonal seating, with the violins facing each other on either side of the orchestra. The double basses were happily plucking away amid the swinging rhythm or, when called upon, drove their colleagues on with furious strokes. Everything worked like clockwork, everything was solidly put together. There was no show, no smoke and mirrors. No radical tempi, no aggressively accentuated subsidiary melodic lines… but when a brass chorale entered, it did so on point, nicely blended in, and in nearly Wagnerian splendor. The fourth movement, before it comes to its relatively quiet close, built up such force, that the experience became a visceral, physical one – almost oppressively so. Finally a choral encore, as Fischer likes to do: A Brahms serenade (Abendständchen op.42/1) from the entire orchestra-as-amateur-choir. A lovely gesture about making music together – and touching, to boot.


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Critic’s Notebook: An Odd Liederabend from Goerne and Kissin

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Ein Liederabend, bei dem vieles auf der Strecke blieb

R. Schumann, Dichterliebe, Liederkreis M.Goerne, V.Ashkenazy Harmonia Mundi

J. Brahms, 4 Serious Songs, 4 Songs op.32 M.Goerne, C.Eschenbach Harmonia Mundi

A Walrus in Love

The trick to turn a Liederabend from a connoisseur’s event into a big-ticket item, appears to be the addition of a pianist superstar to the singer in question. At the Musikverein’s Golden Hall, on March 13th, the magic ingredient to bolster Matthias Goerne’s already considerable draw was Evgeny Kissin. It makes sense, too, because in theory it’s much more interesting to hear, what two veritable artists come up with, as part of their collaboration, rather than simply having a singer be followed by an accompanist. I mean, no one goes to a concert to hear Helmut Deutsch – and few singers form as organic a duo with their ivory-partner, as do/does GerhaherHuber (one word)™.

In practice, that didn’t quite work out on this occasion. For starters, the Golden Hall was decidedly not built for Lieder-recitals. When Lieder-singers hit the big-time, they almost invariably become the victim of their own success, location-wise. And yes, there were smile-inducing moments from Kissin, such as his brawny-pawed opening of Robert Schumann’s “Am Strand”. But for the most part, there seemed little input from him… or if there was, it didn’t appear to be picked up on by Goerne. (Certainly his understanding with Christoph Eschenbach as his pianist, for example, suggested more of a give and take, both, on record and live.)

Also: The whole evening was full of mannerisms galore. Goerne can barrel through a song and braw like a donkey. And a lot of fun it sometimes is. On this occasion, a red-faced Goerne danced as if on tippy-toes, contorting himself, and reminded vaguely of a lovelorn walrus. Much of Dichterliebe, for example, was purred in honeyed tones but mumbled in such nasal tones, that it had to be an interpretative choice. Albeit one I did not comprehend. Half the text was impossible to understand and sounded more French than German. This approach was interrupted occasionally, such as for the blistering “Die Rose, die Lilie”, or in stentorian turns for the last of the nine Brahms op.32 songs, “Wie bist du, meine Königin”. Here, Kissin, hunched over the keyboard as though he had forgotten his reading glasses at home, provided for tantalizing contrast with his tone, ringing out clear as a bell, and his lullaby-esque take on it.

But that was too little, too late. Too much text fell by the wayside. Whatever was left had a strangely impersonal quality about it and was – and this can’t just be blamed on Brahms – somewhat brittle and wearisome.

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Briefly Noted: Tetzlaff siblings play Brahms Double (CD of the Month)

Brahms, Double Concerto / Viotti / Dvořák, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Paavo Järvi (released on October 1, 2023) Ondine ODE1423-2 | 60'43"

Earlier this year, I singled out Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff's last recording with Lars Vogt. After the late pianist died last September, the Tetzlaff siblings recorded this program as a memorial to their dear friend in December. They turned to a piece they have played many times before, the Double Concerto of Brahms, as a tribute. The opening cadenza for cello, later joined by violin, is quiet and intimate, with a sense of plaint suitable to the tone of remembrance. The siblings do well in this unusual concerto, where the two instruments, after that opening cadenza, almost always play together, one finishing the thoughts of the other.

Brahms wrote this piece very late in life, for cellist Robert Hausmann and his old friend Joseph Joachim. At that point Brahms and Joachim were no longer on speaking terms, as Brahms had "gone with" (as Larry David put it) Joachim's ex-wife following their divorce. In a gesture of friendship, Brahms meant the piece as a reconciliation, even including a varied form of the F-A-E motif he had used in the movement of the collaborative sonata dedicated to Joachim 30 years earlier. The Tetzlaffs' rendition of the slow movement is especially free and elegiac. Järvi excels at keeping the musicians of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin together with the soloists, giving them room rhythmically and with careful dynamics. The third movement could perhaps be more daring from the soloists, but it has a fine seriousness about it.

Christian Tetzlaff ingeniously pairs the piece with something unexpected, Giovanni Battista Viotta's Violin Concerto No. 22, from the end of the 18th century. It is a piece that Brahms and Joachim both loved. Tetzlaff notes in his booklet comments that Brahms used it as a model for the Double Concerto, including the choice of key (A minor) and some motifs that are borrowed. Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann of the Viotti concerto as one of his "very special raptures," and by including it in the Double Concerto, it is a way to recall to Joachim one aspect of their early friendship through this music. The first movement may not much to speak of, other than some showy bits in the solo part, but the second movement is quite gorgeous, in addition to its significance in relation to the Brahms. The younger Tetzlaff gets her solo piece as well, an encore-like lagniappe of Dvořák's "Silent Woods," an Adagio arranged for cello and orchestra from From the Bohemian Forest.


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Karajan's Brahms. A Discographic Clarification (#HvK115)

► An Index of ionarts Discographies

Herbert von Karajan conducted - and recorded - Brahms a lot! And, by and large, always well. So it is only reasonable that newcomers would still wish to explore it. But which of his recordings? The 60s cycle? Or the one from the 70s, after all? Or even the one from the 80s? How many recordings did he make? And which ones are hiding behind which labels? This post, an addendum to my series of discographies, was inspired by the #HvK115 Project on Twitter, where TheSymphonist and I challenged ourselves to come up with 115* great Karajan recordings on the occasion of his 115th birthday, seeing that HvK is still often snubbed by the self-proclaimed cognoscenti. Turns out, the challenge was to keep it down to 115! Anyway, with regards to the Brahms (the 60s DG recordings were included in the #HvK115 list, although many others could have rightly been, too), this little post is meant to help you identify which release contains which cycle (or parts thereof). The performances, to the excent they can be sensibly lumped together, are listed in chronological order. Individual releases from the various cycles are included, too, so you know which ones you might already have and which performances are hiding behind which cover, if you're in the market for some Karajan-Brahms.

For orientation: Karajan has recorded the Brahms Symphonies as a cycle four times, all with the Berlin Philharmonic and for DG (or the DG-affiliated Unitel). Once in 1963/64, in the Jesus Christus Kirche, then live on video in 1973, in new recordings from the Philharmonie in 1978, and finally in digital recordings from the Philharmonie between 1986 and 88 (which is more or less identical with the Sony/Telemondia visual releases). Additionally, he recorded Brahms in the studio in London (Kingsway Hall) for EMI with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Sys. 1, 2 & 4) and in Vienna: A one-off from the Musikverein with Brahms' 2nd from 1949 and then two fabled recordings - Symphonies 1 and 3 - with Culshaw for Decca from the Sophiensaal. The rest consists of radio broadcasts throughout the years, most notoriously perhaps the 1943 (!) Brahms 1st with the Concertgebouw, which must have just loved to play under Karajan.

(Survey begins after the break, if you didn't land on this page directly)

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Briefly Noted: Olga Kern and Dalí Quartet

Brahms / Shostakovich, Piano Quintets, Olga Kern, Dalí Quartet (released on March 1, 2022) Delos DE3587 | 71'56"

It is good to see that Olga Kern is recording again. For her first disc since 2012, she has teamed up with the Dalí Quartet in two monuments of the piano quintet repertoire. The tracks were captured in 2019 in Norfolk, under the auspices of the Virginia Arts Festival, for whom Kern serves as director of chamber music. The Brahms selection, the Piano Quintet in F Minor, is a monument of the chamber music repertoire, but this rendition is too brash and forceful to hit the mark. Brahms was careful to note that three of the four movements are not to be taken too fast. Kern and the Dalí Quartet give the Scherzo a blistering air of excitement but rush through the other three movements and miss the wistful qualities of the music.

The other selection, Shostakovich's Piano Quintet in G Minor, makes for much better listening and mostly for the same reasons. The Lento first movement bristles with searing intensity, from both Kern and the quartet. The strings-only sections of the second movement are lush and contained, with Kern's rumbling octaves adding an air of distant menace. This quintet's Scherzo, a happy-go-lucky romp with plucky melodies that turn a little maniacal, could not be more different from the one composed by Brahms. Yearning string lines sing sweetly in the Intermezzo, accompanied by soft pizzicati or pulsed piano chords. Kern's bold touch at the keyboard propels the finale, which subsides to an understated finish.

Shostakovich composed the Piano Quintet just before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1940. Born and trained in Russia, Kern broke a year-long Twitter silence earlier this month to demand an end to the brutal Russian war in Ukraine. As she explained in her message, her grandfather was from Ukraine, and her family had a connection with Kharkov, one of many cities recently bombed. She also toured with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2019. Kern became an American citizen in 2016 and is now on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Her son, Vladislav Kern, is also a pianist who graduated from Juilliard's pre-college program in 2016. Mother and son have even performed together in recent years.

On ClassicsToday: Splendid Contemporary B-flat Major Brahms Concerto

Splendid Contemporary B-flat Major Brahms Concerto From Lars Vogt

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Together with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Lars Vogt–in his fifth year heading the orchestra across the shore from Newcastle–got to record the Brahms piano concertos for Ondine. Anyone who reads a chamber orchestra’s and Brahms’ name on the same CD cover and might briefly flinch, fearing undernourished, pseudo-historically informed performances with an economically expedient small band–conducted from the piano at that (another couple thousands in savings!)–need not worry... [continue reading]

Briefly Noted: Refined Brahms

Brahms, Violin Sonatas / C. Schumann, Romance No. 1, A. Ibragimova, C. Tiberghien (released on August 30, 2019) Hyperion CDA68200 | 71'06"

Both Russian-born violinist Alina Ibragimova and French pianist Cédric Tiberghien have impressed these ears in recital and on disc. Their recording and performing history as a duo goes back a decade, too, including discs devoted to Beethoven and Mozart. This year they have branched out into the Romantic period, first with a disc of French composers (Ysaye, Franck, Vierne, and Lili Boulanger) and now with the three violin sonatas of Brahms, officially released later this month.

Tiberghien's interpretation of Brahms has already struck me as on exactly the right wavelength, an assessment borne out by the transparency, smoldering burn, and rhythmic verve of his playing here. Ibragimova floats above the turbulence of the keyboard part with limpid tone, spot-on intonation, and impeccable awareness of contrapuntal interplay. In particular, the way that the two musicians let go together in the extended hemiola-complicated passages affords a suspended freedom from the barline that is just delightful.

There is force where force is needed, but always in balance between the two musicians so that neither has to over-compensate. The emotional vulnerability hidden in the violin sonatas, through references to some of the composer's intensely personal songs, comes across well. The program is capped by a lovely lagniappe, the first of Clara Schumann's Romances, op. 22. It is worth noting that Clara Schumann, who had received a manuscript copy of the first Brahms violin sonata from the composer in 1879, later told him “she wished the last movement to accompany her into the beyond.”

Dip Your Ears, No. 244 (Tempting Brahms 4th from Saraste & WDR)

J.Brahms, Sy.#4, Academic Festival Ovt, Tragic Ovt. J-P.Saraste / WDR SO (Profil Hänssler)

Jukka-Pekka Saraste (on Twitter) has just conducted his last concert as the chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra (with Mahler 5^th, Zimmermann’s Photoptosis and the Felix Weingartner arrangement of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge) where he succeeded Semyon Bychkov and will be succeeded by Cristian Măcelaru (on Twitter). Nine productive years seem to have just flown by. It might be recency bias, but towards the end, it felt, recordings were coming out left and right – including a cycle of the complete Beethoven Symphonies which, despite the accumulating cynicisms of life in a Beethoven-saturated market, was rather splendid (ClassicsToday: Mightily Superfluous Excellence: Saraste and Beethoven Cycle No. 176).

Also among the recordings was a set of the Brahms Symphonies. I have before me the Fourth, which, on its own, sounded pretty darn good on casual hearing. Good enough to merit a little comparison, and so out came two versions from favorite cycles: Simon Rattle’s—reviewed here: Dip Your Ears, No. 100 (Rattle and Brahms)—and Günter Wand’s 1996/97 live NDR set on RCA (his last of three cycles with that orchestra). Günter Wand’s magnificently unhurried way and cool-as-a-cucumber flow is something to behold, still. Ditto Rattle’s tension and the quality of playing. (Although I don’t think that rather broad Fourth is the absolute strong-point of a generally terrific set). In many ways Saraste sits between these two approaches: Nearly the bite of Rattle, but not quite. Nearly the impossibly effortless movement of Wand, but not quite.

That might sound like a bit of Vanilla neither-nor, but that’s not the case. With excellent sound a shade on the bright side, fine playing from all the instrument groups (all caught in good presence without any awkward spotlighting) and niftily chosen, lively tempos (not that being faster than Rattle and nimble Wand suggests breaking any speed-records), the result is actually subtly outstanding. A truly joyous Academic Festival Overture and a meaty Tragic Overture round the disc out very gratifyingly. If all the senses didn’t scream: No-one needs a 2X^th set of the Brahms symphonies, one might almost be tempted to find out how the rest of Saraste’s Brahms sounds!

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Briefly Noted: Brahms as Early Music

J. Brahms, Ein deutsches Requiem, C. Sampson, A. Morsch, Cappella Amsterdam, Orchestra of the 18th Century, D. Reuss (released on January 4, 2019) Glossa GCD921126 | 70'26"

The German Requiem is perhaps the greatest work in the oeuvre of Johannes Brahms, or at least my favorite. Completed in its final form in the wake of his mother's death, the piece reveals the normally reticent Brahms at his least guarded. In recent years, various conductors of historically informed performance ensembles have tried to get to the bottom of what the composer may have had in mind with the piece, by going back to the instruments of the period and following the metronome markings Brahms later attached to each movement. None of these versions has quite satisfied: John Eliot Gardiner, twice, with the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique (1991, 2012); Nikolaus Harnoncourt with the Vienna Philharmonic and Arnold Schoenberg Choir; or Philippe Herreweghe with La Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale.

Cappella Amsterdam and Daniel Reuss, a group growing in my admiration recently, have succeeded. The sound with the Orchestra of the 18th Century in this live recording is golden and balanced, with Reuss not slavishly following the metronome markings but taking the main lesson they seem to offer, that the slow movements not be too glacial and the fast not too frenetic. As stated in the liner notes, the markings as a whole indicate that this is music for meditation on its Biblical words, rather than for dramatic titillation. This seems like just the right approach for a composer who always plays his cards close to this chest, and the results agree. The incomparable Carolyn Sampson provides maternal consolation in the fifth movement, and German baritone André Morsch is both subtle and prophetic in the other solos.

The weight of the piece rests on the chorus, however, and the Cappella Amsterdam delivers the full range of dynamics with pure and balanced sound, nicely matched to the smaller punch of the orchestra. One moment in the first movement knocked me over the first time I listened to this disc. At Rehearsal E, Brahms suddenly leaves the alto section of the chorus alone at the return of the opening theme. Most conductors bring that line out by having the altos sing louder than Brahms indicate (piano). Reuss leaves his women's sound quiet, exposed almost like a single voice, a magical effect of emotional vulnerability.

Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Brahms From Dresden With Thielemann, Pollini, Batiashvili

…Maurizio Pollini has recorded the Brahms Piano Concertos before; first around 1980 with the Vienna Philharmonic (Karl Böhm conducting the First and Claudio Abbado the Second), then in the late 90s with the Berlin Philharmonic (Abbado conducting both). His granitic confidence still rings through in his latest batch of these concertos, but I’m not sure it amounts to as much as our expectations have us desire, given the high-powered ensemble at work here, which also involves the Dresden Staatskapelle and Christian Thielemann and further includes the violin concerto…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Brahms From Dresden With Thielemann, Pollini, Batiashvili

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Best Recordings of 2016

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2016 (published in whole on Forbes.com).

My lists for the previous years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 1 - New Release

F.Schubert, R. Schumann, J. Brahms, R. Wagner, “Rheinmädchen”, Pygmalion (vocal ensemble), Raphaël Pichon (director), Harmonia Mundi

Various, “Rheinmädchen”, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi

Transcriptions and original compositions for female chorus and a section of historical French horns are poured into an evocative, eclectic narrative of six chapters about “Rhinemaidens” on this release.

Where there are girls and horns (no wabbits), Wagner can’t be far behind and so a version of Wagner’s Rheingold overture for 24 female voices, harp, horn-quartet, and bass opens proceedings. We meander through the heartland of German romantic music — Schumann, Brahms, Schubert — sometimes acapella, sometimes via horn quartet, or solo. There’s a delicious cameo by Bernarda Fink in Schubert’s Ständchen (his version for mezzo, female chorus and harp).

It’s altogether sunny and transfixing and novel and really everything a CD recital should be....

# 1 – Reissue

Johann Sebastian Bach, The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080, André Isoir (organ), La Dolce Volta

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CD Reviews: Goerne and Eschenbach's Brahms / 'Dinorah'

Charles T. Downey, CD reviews: Eschenbach and Goerne take on somber Brahms
Washington Post, August 6

Brahms, Lieder und Gesänge, M. Goerne, C. Eschenbach (released on May 27, 2016) HMC 902174 | 55'49"

When the baritone Matthias Goerne has been a guest with the National Symphony Orchestra in recent years, he has performed fine lieder recitals with Christoph Eschenbach at the piano, a collaboration preserved on a series of recordings for Harmonia Mundi. The latest release is devoted to Johannes Brahms, and Goerne’s intense, almost overbearing approach works beautifully in these often gloomy songs.

Goerne’s voice, growling and dark-hued, fits aptly with the depressing and bitter “Lieder und Gesänge,” Op. 32, nine songs with poetry alternately by August von Platen and Georg Friedrich Daumer. Eschenbach doesn’t stint on the equally somber accompaniments, in which Brahms lingers often in the bass territory of the keyboard, as in the first track, “Wie rafft’ich mich auf,” and the poem’s repeated statements of “in der Nacht.” In the third song, von Platen’s narrator asks, “Und könnt’ich je / Zu düster sein?” (“And could I ever be too gloomy?”); one can imagine Brahms posing the same question, with a wry smile.

Five of Brahms’s Heinrich Heine songs, selected from the Op. 85 and Op. 96 sets, are something of a breath of fresh air, which is surprising given the ironic bitterness of much of Heine’s poetry. Goerne unfurls with unaffected tenderness the undulating phrases of “Sommerabend” and “Mondenschein,” songs Brahms paired through key choice and harmonic pattern. Eschenbach keeps pace with him at the keyboard, willing to stretch and pull the music wherever Goerne wants to go.

With the “Serious Songs” of Op. 121, composed the year before Brahms died, this disc becomes somber again. Brahms composed these songs on Bible texts with the approaching death of Clara Schumann, whom he had long secretly loved, weighing on his mind. In an informative booklet essay, Roman Hinke quotes a letter written by Brahms around this time: “The thought of losing her can terrify us no longer, not even me, the lonely man for whom there is all too little alive in the world.” The ineffable sweetness of the harmonies in the second stanza of “O Tod, wie bitter bist du” (“O death, how bitter you are”) and the tender sound Goerne coaxes from his top range in these phrases are a glorious, longing embrace of death. Brahms must have thought his own end could not be far off.

*****

Meyerbeer, Dinorah, ou le pardon de Ploërmel, P. Ciofi, E. Dupuis, P. Talbot, Deutsche Oper Berlin, E. Mazzola (released on May 13, 2016) cpo 555014-2 | 133'47"

If Giacomo Meyerbeer is remembered at all these days, it is for his grand operas, larger-than-life tragic works that profoundly influenced Richard Wagner. With this recent release on the CPO label, the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin has revived the most successful of Meyerbeer’s comic operas, “Dinorah, ou le pardon de Ploërmel,” premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1859.

The work’s three main roles are all cast well in this concert performance, recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2014. Italian soprano Patrizia Ciofi sounds a little faded and not exactly effortless on the many vocal acrobatics, but she brings a dramatic differentiation of vocal colors to the innocent girl Dinorah. When disaster strikes her father’s farm in the Breton village of Ploërmel, Dinorah goes mad, dancing with her own shadow in a famous scene in Act II. When she makes her entrance in the first act, it is to sing a lullaby to her goat, Bellah, whose appearances are heralded by the ringing of a small bell, always on F sharp.

Baritone Etienne Dupuis has a broad, refined tone as Hoël, the goatherd who was supposed to marry Dinorah but, worried that her father’s loss will leave her destitute, follows a magician who has promised to teach him the secret of obtaining a hidden treasure from the fairies that haunt the local gorge. The best of the trio is tenor Philippe Talbot, who brings a light, airy sound to the comic role of Corentin, a superstitious and cowardly bagpiper. The three are combined beautifully at the end of the first act in the delightful “Terzettino of the Bell,” which also features the goat’s bell and a wind machine.

Enrique Mazzola leads a compact, sharply drawn performance that, with about 20 minutes cut from spoken dialogue and faster tempos, fits on two discs instead of the three in the version recorded by James Judd and the Philharmonia Orchestra two decades ago. Particularly fine playing comes from the horns in the hunting music that introduces Act III, where there is a charming pastoral interlude, mostly unaccompanied and featuring a strong supporting cast. Ciofi, having guarded her vocal resources up to this point, cashes in on the pianissimo high-flying writing in the final scene, when Dinorah’s memory is restored and she joins the prayer of the villagers.

PREVIOUSLY:
Goerne's Die schöne Müllerin
Goerne's Winterreise

Fleming and Emerson Quartet's Austrian Evening

A. Berg, Lyric Suite / E. Wellesz, Five Sonnets, R. Fleming, Emerson Quartet (Decca, 2015)

Charles T. Downey, Renée Fleming, Emerson String Quartet present a rapturous recital of Austrian songs (Washington Post, June 3)

Renée Fleming will soon draw the curtain on her mainstream operatic career, as productions of “Der Rosenkavalier” at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera next season will be the American soprano’s last. On Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Fleming teamed up with the Emerson String Quartet to reprise pieces by Austrian composers Alban Berg and Egon Wellesz they recently recorded for Decca.

A musicologist and composition student of Arnold Schoenberg, Wellesz composed his “Five Sonnets” for soprano and string quartet in 1934, before the Nazi annexation of Austria forced him to flee to England. Set to selections from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets From the Portuguese,” these songs are strikingly dissonant and violent... [Continue reading]

Renée Fleming, soprano
Emerson String Quartet
Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Phillips Camerata Marks the Phillips Terquasquigenary

Stravinsky, Dumbarton Oaks Concerto (inter alia), Orchestra of St. Luke's, R. Craft

Charles T. Downey, Phillips Collection reproduces 1941 inaugural concert of weekly series (Washington Post, May 31)

The Phillips Collection presented its first public concert in 1941. On Sunday afternoon, the museum marked the 75th anniversary of its weekly concert series by reproducing the music played at that first concert, a program of pieces for two pianos. The Phillips Camerata, the venue’s resident ensemble, performed some of the pieces in the same format and others in expanded arrangements.

Pianists Audrey Andrist and Lisa Emenheiser played the ­two-piano pieces, and previous partnerships together, for the 21st Century Consort, gave them a solid ensemble footing. The daunting technical challenges of Saint-Saëns’s “Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, Op. 35,” were not exactly smooth in this performance, but the duo never played it safe, perhaps taking the funeral march variation a tad too fast to savor its harmonic vagaries... [Continue reading]

Phillips Camerata
With Audrey Andrist and Lisa Emenheiser, pianists
Phillips Collection

Michelle DeYoung, The Tone

Mahler, Das Klagende Lied, M. DeYoung (inter alii), San Francisco Symphony, M. Tilson Thomas (Sony, 1997)

Charles T. Downey, Michelle DeYoung’s big voice shakes the rafters in Terrace Theater (Washington Post, May 2)

Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung has a big voice, which she deployed to blazing effect in a recital Sunday afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presented by Vocal Arts D.C. One could complain, perhaps, about a lack of subtlety, but subtlety is not only about volume. While DeYoung shook the rafters at times, she revealed a love of reciting poetry in music, especially in German, which is the most important quality for a vocal recital.

A Brahms set was an ideal opening, with accompanist Kevin Murphy matching DeYoung ideally in tone and volume. This was big-boned Brahms, the bass-leaning piano parts setting the mood for DeYoung’s dark, intense sound... [Continue reading]

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Kevin Murphy, piano
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, 'Aida' at Wolf Trap (Ionarts, July 27, 2015)

---, Michelle DeYoung's Seductive Dalila (Ionarts, May 15, 2012)

Lugansky and Vänskä Devastating in Brahms

Beethoven, Symphonies, Minnesota Orchestra, O. Vänskä (BIS, 2009)

If we take this week's "trifecta of Russian piano virtuosos" in the classic, hippodromic sense of the word, it would be Denis Matsuev for Place and Daniil Trifonov for Show. The Win would go to the last to reach my ears, Nikolai Lugansky's devastating performance of the Brahms first piano concerto with Osmo Vänskä at the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra, heard on Saturday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The first movement of this concerto can be a little overbearing, and it was so in this performance, with the timpani overwhelming much of the first section of the orchestral exposition. A dark gloom settled over the orchestra in the second theme, winding down into the trumpets and timpani as Lugansky made his first wandering, subdued entrance. He and Vänskä were always in rhythmic unity, aiming together for a slow burn of this rather massive, shambling piece. At the recapitulation, preceded by rumbling octaves in the piano, Lugansky was implacable in tone, after which the piece subsided into murky depths in that long duet of the bass side of the keyboard and horn.

The climax of the piece is the slow movement, perhaps the most beautiful one Brahms ever composed, a portrait of Clara Schumann, smoldering with emotion that is bottled up, not allowed full expression except introspectively. A characteristic moment happens early in the Adagio (see the score below), in measures 12 to 13 of the orchestral introduction, where a powerful V chord looks lined up to resolve strongly to I, only to be turned away as V7 is suspended over a D pedal tone, which then has to pass through IV in second inversion before reaching its destination. This was exactly how Lugansky and the orchestra played it, more a glowing ember than a blazing fire. Lugansky tamed the finale's challenges with steely technical power, fast but not too much so, with only some of the piano's out-of-tune treble strings to cause complaint.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Vanska makes a muted NSO return with Brahms, but shines in Beethoven (Washington Post, March 18)

At the start of Beethoven's sixth symphony, which concluded the evening, Vänskä struck an impatient tone in what should be a genial first movement. His gestures, seeming to grate against the more restrained tempo, unsettled the ensemble unity in the first movement, especially in the sections dominated by sextuplets. The second movement, by contrast, had a serene, lilting quality, in which the careful layering of sounds, some more important than others, created a rushing or burbling effect. The woodwind players were flawless in rendering the magical moment of the three bird calls -- Nachtigall, Wachtel, Kukuk (nightingale, quail, and cuckoo) -- at the movement's end. The third movement felt fast but was delightfully light and soft, except that Vänskä allowed the string sound to engulf the woodwind melody at times in the trio. Celli and timpani rumbled in alternation effectively in the storm scene, followed by a sweet, gently paced finale, where Vänskä's restraint at the start paid off at the climax of the movement.

NSO Back from Europe

Liszt, Piano Concertos, J.-Y. Thibaudet, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, C. Dutoit (Decca, 1992)

The National Symphony Orchestra is back from a grueling European tour last month, although they may not have recovered yet. The group actually played its first post-tour program last week, but this week's program is the first to reach my ears since the ensemble's return. Heard last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Christoph Eschenbach conducted a truly puzzling program that opened with the world premiere of Tobias Picker's Opera without Words, commissioned by the NSO and given its world premiere at this performance.

I have not had the chance to hear much of Picker's music live, but I think of Picker more as an opera composer. This work, ostensibly a concerto for orchestra, did not do much to advance him in my estimation as an orchestral composer. One goes into such a piece expecting innovative orchestration, surprising uses of the instruments, and a range of styles and textures. In most of these expectations, it disappointed. There were solos for the string instruments, none all that remarkable, an extended one for the trombone; in the second movement, along with an odd bit for solo horn, there was a baffling passage for a single melodic line on the piano; the percussion was perhaps overly present, but aside from some lush moments in the fifth and final movement, little stood out in terms of orchestral color or form.

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet gave a generally fine performance of the solo part in Liszt's second piano concerto. The orchestra did not seem quite on the same intonation page with the piano at the opening of the piece, with its interwoven woodwind solos, but Thibaudet took all the work's flowing runs and thundering octaves in stride, with a few minor exceptions. The work feels like such a hodgepodge: hints of a Tchaikovsky ballet score in the first big orchestral interlude; harmonic and melodic turns that nuzzle up to the edge of jazzy Gershwin; a devilish scherzo that morphs into a pompous march; an elfin dance finale. In the second movement, we suddenly wake up and find ourselves in a cello sonata for a short time, which was a particularly lovely moment in this performance.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Picker premiere leads NSO’s packed program (Washington Post, March 11)

It has been a very Brahms year so far, with recent reviews of the composer's fourth symphony, first symphony, and German Requiem. Christoph Eschenbach's way with the first symphony did not give me much hope that his interpretation of the third symphony would be my cup of tea. Indeed, right from the opening bars, with an affected swell of a crescendo, it seemed overblown. The orchestra, following his lead, blasted (brass) and oozed (strings) their way through this most charming of symphonies, a piece easily marred by most kinds of excess. Much of the first movement felt rushed, leading to clipped endings of phrases, and parts of it were mannered, with sudden changes in tempo or dynamic that did not seem justified. The second movement was schmaltzy and overly slow, and the third movement, with its ardent opening cello melody, was overdone by stretching and overplaying, although the return of that main melody, now in the horn, was gorgeous. More distortions of tempo filled the finale, on top of which three of the composer's Hungarian Dances was just overkill.

This concert repeats on Saturday night only.

Stenz Leads Excellent 'German Requiem'

Schoenberg, Gurrelieder, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, M. Stenz (Hyperion, 2015)

Charles T. Downey, Chorus on high in Brahms work at Strathmore
Washington Post, March 7

As music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop’s greatest strength is not necessarily a certain swath of music from the classical and romantic core. The ensemble’s new principal guest conductor, Markus Stenz, has built a reputation in those areas. After a concert devoted to Mozart in October, Stenz led a vivid and moving account of the “German Requiem” of Johannes Brahms in the Music Center at Strathmore on Saturday evening.

This piece is driven by the chorus, which sings in all seven movements, and Stenz took advantage of the fine University of Maryland Concert Choir that he had seated above the stage... [Continue reading]

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
University of Maryland Concert Choir
With Markus Stenz, conductor
Music Center at Strathmore

SEE ALSO:
Tim Smith, Markus Stenz leads BSO, UM Concert Choir, stellar soloists in 'German Requiem' (Baltimore Sun, March 8)

Latest on Forbes: NSO, Eschenbach & Lang Lang hit Vienna

Backstage w/@NSOtweets in Vienna. Trunk for music if royalty or octogenarians come?#over… https://t.co/vphYO3EqVM pic.twitter.com/aX0JNDALWR

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) February 10, 2016

Washington's National Symphony And Lang Lang In Vienna

...BA-Dam!! Christopher Rouse rips the score of his 1986 8- or 9-minute symphonic overture open with a loud, butts-from-seats-jolting chord before plinking and plonging away, harp-supported, and moving on with great gaiety in the woodwind section. The tuba engages in sounds that would make juveniles giggle; the neglected strings are allowed a word in, edgewise, here and there. Eventually the music works up an appetite and goes through more notes than the Cookie Monster through Oreos. Me want demisemiquaver!...

The full article on Forbes.com.

David Daniels Broadens His Horizons

Handel, Oratorio Arias, D. Daniels, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, J. Nelson (Virgin Classics, 2002)

Countertenors have a limited repertory, because the voice part was just not a solo option for composers in many historical periods. This does not prevent them from trying to claim music created for other voice types, as David Daniels showed in his recital debut at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presented by Vocal Arts D.C. on Sunday afternoon. His voice was not in top shape, with some raggedness at the ends of phrases and shrillness on the top notes -- coughing seemed to indicate he was recovering from something -- which did little to relieve the impression that much of the music he sang was just not meant for this kind of voice. It was still beautiful to hear, as Daniels is a consummate musician with a sure musical taste and a dynamic stage presence.

Beethoven's mini-song cycle Adelaide was a case in point, music composed for a higher voice that tested Daniels at the top of his tessitura. He made most of it work quite beautifully, with a pretty sense of melodic line, but the same problems came to the fore in a set of songs by Reynaldo Hahn. In Hahn's lifetime countertenors were around, singing in church choirs, but that was a tradition with which Hahn had limited contact. A countertenor at the top of his range just does not have the same effect of sound as a soprano or tenor, which came across at the end of Hahn's Paysage, for example. Accompanist Martin Katz, not a finesse pianist, at times almost covered Daniels with forceful playing, making the largely unaccompanied Chanson au bord de la fontaine, a sort of neo-medieval planctus, the highlight of the set, as it featured the quiet beauty Daniels can achieve.

The most incongruous choice was a set of songs by Brahms, who likely would have rolled over in his grave at the sound of a countertenor singing his music. Here Katz was more in his element, giving a beefy sound at the keyboard in these songs, so often predominantly in the lower half of the instrument. High notes were again an issue, as at the climax of Auf dem See, but it was the sounds Brahms likely had in mind at the bottom end that did not match with the countertenor tessitura. Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen is a magnificently gloomy song, with the piano brooding in the bass end in a way that put the spindly countertenor sound in a bad light, and it was almost certainly not what Brahms was thinking of in O wüsst' ich doch either. The best effect came in the lusty folk song set by Brahms, Mein Mädel hat einen Rosenmund, with its eye-winking "Du la la la" refrain.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Daniels, Katz show music is more than mere beauty (Washington Post, February 1) Alex Baker, Blackberry Winner (Parterre Box, February 3)

Not surprisingly, Daniels was most at ease in Baroque music, the bread and butter of all countertenors. Henry Purcell actually knew the countertenor voice and wrote for it, and the breezy melody of Music for a While just sat beautifully in Daniels's compass. Both Katz and Daniels showed a crazy bravado in the kooky I'll Sail upon the Dog Star, and Daniels's gifts at dramatic recitative, combining musical sense and dramatic immediacy, were featured in Sweeter than Roses. While Daniels has not put much on record in recent years, we have always admired his work on stage in Handel and Vivaldi operas. No surprise, then, that he had his best moment in Dove sei, amato bene, an aria from Handel's Rodelinda for Bertarido, a role created by the castrato Senesino. A final set of American folk songs, in saccharine arrangements by Steven Mark Kohn, was mostly just a lightweight lead-in to two encores, Poulenc's tricky La Belle Jeunesse and Alec Wilder's Blackberry Winter, a sentimental favorite of Vocal Arts founder Gerald Perman, to whom Daniels dedicated it.

The next recital in the Vocal Arts D.C. series features tenor Javier Camarena (March 24), in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.