Ionarts-at-Large: First-time @ Munich's Isarphilharmonie with the Munich Philharmonic

For Munich having been 'my beat' for so long, it felt shocking that I had not yet been at the new, provisional “Isarphilharmonie” concert hall (bound to be a permanent fixture) that was built on a dime (30-some million Euros, a wild bargain), opened two years ago, and that is being accepted, even loved, by audiences and musicians, and necessary, of course, because the Gasteig – the Munich Phil’s home and BRSO’s secondary venue (for the big-ticket composers) had been closed for renovation and revamping (bound never to take place).

This Wednesday, September 20th, the opportunity presented itself to see and hear the place, with the Munich Philharmonic giving the German premiere of a new piano concerto by Thierry Escaich [pronounced, more or less: “ɛz-kɛsh”] and Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony. Escaich’s Etudes symphoniques for piano and orchestra (co-commissioned by the MPhil and the Czech Phil) operates in the post-Messiaenesque, marginally-spectralist, color-as-composition realm that offers more beauty than structure (the fourth movement, notably titled “Toccata”, apart), and with the pill of contemporaneousness generously hidden at the center of an exotically flavored musical marshmallow. Dreamy, suggestive, rhythmic, colorful: All the boxes are checked. Impressionist here, pointillist there. Replete with classical cadenzas. The subscription audience that decidedly did not come for this piece – they were probably just happy to escape the Octoberfest going on outside – really could not complain.

Seon-Jin Cho (2015 Chopin Competition winner; reviews of Chopin and Mozart here and here), Dima Slobodeniouk, and the Munich Philharmonic navigated deftly though the deliciously inoffensive score. The music may not probe its own existential question of “why”, much less attempt to answer it: it just is. And it is enjoyable. There shouldn’t be a greater compliment… even if the work eventually forgets to be over and might be better if only it were a little tighter.

The same applies, let’s be honest, to the Rachmaninov. Had the scheduled conductor, Semyon Bychkov led the charge, it would probably have been loud. With the calmly leading Slobodeniouk conducting this high-caloric piece, it was sensitive but not saccharine in the first movement, and that movement’s finale not milked but laid out almost matter-of-factly. The Scherzo, which could have been written by Prokofiev on one of his ‘classical’ days, zipped by nicely, and for much of the Adagio, where Rachmaninov enters Tchaikovsky-mode (not for the last time), Slobodeniouk (you just know his nickname has got to be “Slobo” among his sauna-buddies back home) managed to transform sugar into energy and, yes, loudness. But you can’t underplay Rachmaninov all the time, lest it sound silly. The sweetly carnivalesque-pompous finale showed the orchestra in good form in every section and with every exposed instrument: clarinet, flute, first violin, etc. Even Slobodeniouk couldn’t make the work feel short – but his to-the-point conducting was surreptitiously impressive. No small feat, in a work that, especially uncut, meanders enough to make the Amazon green with envy.

The hall, meanwhile, disappeared in the best sense, offering a neutral, neither dry nor wet acoustic experience, with the sound mixing well in the first and second third of the stalls. No Yasuhisa Toyota hyper-transparency. The looks of the black wood panelling are simple but pleasing and the integration with the old industrial building that serves as the auditorium in front of it is very well done. Only filing out is tedious, with exits existing only to one side. But for now, I am more interesting in getting into the place than getting out again.


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Pictures courtesy Munich Philharmonic, © Tobias Haase

Dip Your Ears, No. 234 (Gergiev's Early Bruckner Maturing)

A.Bruckner, Symphony No.1 Valery Gergiev, Munich Philharmonic MPhil 0008

Gergiev on ionarts Munich Phil on ionarts A.Bruckner on ionarts

When Valery Gergiev came to Munich as the new music director of the Philharmonic, he mentioned that he intended to conduct a lot of Bruckner. He might even have been explicit about it; if not it was the subtext: namely that he was going to use this opportunity to learn from the Munich Philharmonic and its nearly century-old Bruckner expertise. Good for Gergiev, a conductor with a steep learning curve, ready to adopt just about any idiom to within reasonable proficiency in just a few years. Not so good for Munich audiences, which were going to have to go through the growing pains of this process, and which now had three conductors without a real feel for (or interest in) Bruckner: Mariss Jansons, who for all the usual hype, is decidedly ill at ease with Bruckner. Kirill Petrenko, who hasn’t turned his attention to Bruckner yet – although if he does before he will be replaced by Vladimir Jurowski (also not a Brucknerian) one might reasonably expect magic. And Gergiev. Consider that, after decades of the likes of Jochum, Kubelik, Sawallisch, Celibidache and Thielemann in town.

The good news is that – like his Wagner and Mahler, which started leaving much to be desired and ended getting ever better – Gergiev’s Bruckner is also getting ever better. By the time he started his tenure with the Philharmonic with a Bruckner 7th, it was already well executed Bruckner, neither celebratory but certainly not butchered. Judging from subsequent performances and recordings, his initial tendency for garish colors, superficial structure, and loudness (not just in Bruckner) seems more under control and the ‘Brucknerish’ clerical ammunition isn’t all spent after by the end of the first movement. And now Gergiev is performing and recording a whole cycle of the Bruckner symphonies with the Munich Philharmonic at ‘Bruckner’s’ church in St. Florian which, shockingly, will be the orchestra’s first such complete cycle.

This 2017 recording of the First Symphony’s Linz version is part of that St. Florian cycle and much of the improvement shows: intermediate climaxes don’t tread on the larger structure anymore and the sections of the orchestra enter with greater precision… which isn’t that easy in the tubby atmosphere of the St. Florian Abbey Church. Acoustically the place is, frankly, a terrible place to listen to Bruckner (lest you sit up front), even if the total experience – soaking in the atmosphere and the local beer – is always special. And if the microphones are placed just right, one can catch the performances very decently. The result is slightly diffuse and brawny, with Bruckner’s First sounding more like Weber than Schubert, but there’s something to be said for giving this symphony heft and not making it sound undernourished. The tempi here make slight allowances to the acoustic in the outer movements but Gergiev doesn’t make that an excuse to slow down the Adagio any further – and ends up with a nicely flowing account thereof.

This may not be decidedly great Bruckner (Skrowaczewski, Jochum and Sawallisch are closer to that, in the First), but it’s good Bruckner by a great Bruckner orchestra and a good deal better than the uninvolving and brash Fourth from the same forces released a few years earlier.

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City of Munich and Munich Philharmonic Renew Valery Gergiev Amidst Many Critical Overtones

Valery Gergiev Stays In Munich, Extends Contract To 2025

So, Gergiev's contract as chief conductor of the MPhil gets extended until 2025. Big deal, huh?

Outsiders may think that the renewal of his contract should have been a slam-dunk; in fact, many onlookers had been surprised that Gergiev had chosen to make Munich his main orchestral base in the West. When he signed the contract, I suggested that those who wondered why the world famous wunder-maestro Gergiev had signed on with the widely considered provincial, second-tier Munich Philharmonic, look at a map: Munich is nice and central and has a great airport with excellent connections: It's a perfect base for international operations. Gergiev had been wanting a position with a central European orchestra; it’s where most of the classical music action is and the gig is one of the best-remunerated positions in the business. (See also ionarts: Valery Gergiev Signs Contract With Munich Philharmonic)

Apart from the issue as to why Gergiev signed in Munich, there is also the question of why Munich signed with Gergiev. The reason is the Munich Philharmonic's strange mixture of an inflated sense of self ("one of the greatest orchestras in the world") and a complete lack of self-esteem that expresses itself in the near-desperate way in which it needs to get the biggest possible name -- all other qualities being secondary at best -- out there to reinforce the self-image.

G.Mahler, Sy.2 V.Gergiev / MPhil MPhil

Where the Berlin Philharmonic are perfectly happy going with an internationally rather unknown quantity like Kirill Petrenko (granted an easy choice, when you know that he's as close to a Carlos Kleiber of our days as it gets), where the New York Philharmonic is happy to name someone with relatively little international stature like Jaap van Zweden as their next chief conductor, simply (presumably) because they are convinced of his ability, the Munich Philharmonic has a tendency (as do many orchestras!) to desperately match their perceived fame with the perceived fame of a conductor. It's usually a recipe for disaster or, at best, civilized boredom.

In that sense getting Gergiev was a coup for the orchestra. International attention. Recording projects. Reviews. The whole chalupa! So what if he is notorious unpunctual. He's got a drive to himself, he gets things done, he has connections. True, he is a bit much reliant on soloists in his circle (Matsuev again?!) but that circle also includes sheer blazing talent (Behzod Abduraimov and Denis Kozhukhin anyone? Or Trifonov?). Unfortunately for the Munich authorities, both musical and political, Gergiev attracts unwanted attention for his association with the Russian regime of Putin - a very good acquaintance of his from their St. Petersburg days and someone without whose support, tacit or explicit, Gergiev could never have achieved as much with the rebuilding of the Mariinsky Theater (institution, orchestra, everything). Guilty by association, Gergiev gets blamed for everything we (rightly, usually) don't like about the Russian government.

Och, verlegen sind die sicher. Sie können ja schlecht sagen: "Macht Euch nicht ins Hemd; das Ganze ist ein Kompromiss den wir halt des Ruhmes wegen gern eingehen." (Wenn Gergiev Resultate wie K.Petrenko erzielen würde, wärt Ihr nicht auch 'on board'?)

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) February 21, 2018

G.Mahler, Sy.4 V.Gergiev / MPhil MPhil

It is expected that he kowtow to journalists that drill him on his alleged or tacit support for the less savory aspects of Russian policy, but of course he won't. He knows that back at home, there's no separation of politics and arts... and while he doesn't get involved in Russian politics in the West, he cannot separate them abroad by distancing himself publically from them, either. It's not impossible that he supports these policies. It's much more likely that he doesn't particularly care; music, his own little art-empire and the people that work for are likely more important. Probably he just thinks that the Western journalists are so ignorant of the situation on the ground in Russia, that it's not worth bothering with them in the first place; they wouldn't understand. Perhaps he doesn't care that much altogether. It doesn't matter: He's made a scapegoat by the righteous set who are offended that Gergiev considers -- to radically reduce the issue to its essence -- Putin afar more important than them a-near.

Other, more sensitive and sensible journalists don't hone in as much on the political aspect - even if they are bothered by Gergiev's refusal to outright condemn Russian laws like the one that banned 'propagation of non-traditional forms of lifestyle', which hits close to home to many classical music journalists in Munich and beyond. (Not that it is in the least his job to comment on Russian policy, even if he's perceived a friend of some of Russia's powerful political leaders.) They are worried that Gergiev simply isn't all that great for the orchestra or the orchestra not that great with him; that his mastery of the Germanic core repertoire is not nearly at the level of the music he excels in. That the concerts are boring, thick-textured, under-rehearsed. That his leadership style, while it can be inspiring in the short run, is exhausting in the medium- and long-term. That's a good point; it's a point I tend to agree with. If Gergiev produced musical results akin to those of K.Petrenko, I don't think we would be having this discussion, even if he were Putin's backrub-buddy or if they played bridge with Bashar al-Assad and Recep Erdoğan. Still, for the Munich Philharmonic it is -- even for all the cynical and psychologically unhealthy aspects that are part of it -- probably a net benefit to have Gergiev at the head of the orchestra. And that's the point, apart from sharing the news, I am making in this piece for Forbes on which I hope you might click and better yet: enjoy.

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Forbes: Valery Gergiev Stays In Munich, Extends Contract To 2025

Latest on Forbes: Go Hear My Orchestra Tonight! (+ Gergiev in Munich)

Forbes: The Bavarian RSO hits N.America today, starting @kencen & finishing @carnegiehall: https://t.co/gdV630EOEK pic.twitter.com/Afv1ZvSF32

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) April 12, 2016

In Search Of A Home, Abroad: The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra In North America

...The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is said to be the bee's knees among orchestras, the cream of the crop. Mariss Jansons brings the band to North America for people between Chapel Hill and Montreal to hear for themselves...

The full article on Forbes.com.

Latest on @ForbesOpinion: @ValeryGergiev Starts Into Second Season In Munichhttps://t.co/h8Yq2HUs7d pic.twitter.com/Fd8AdeBnIc

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) April 9, 2016

Gergiev Starts Into Second Season In Munich

...For those who listened carefully, right off the bat (and again at the very end), two remarks were made that might be hints of a sea-change in the orchestra’s attitude; hinting perhaps at a point-zero of the Munich Philharmonic moving on from a considerably good but ultimately provincial orchestra of second rank to something more than that...

The full article on Forbes.com.

Ionarts-at-Large: Bruckner-Szymanowski with the Munich Philharmonic

It’s always a pleasure, in principle, to listen to the orchestra of my misspent youth, the Munich Philharmonic. Especially so, when the programming—often on the timid and conservative, occasionally even boring side—is exciting and the conductor one whom I have high expectations of. I last heard Thomas Dausgaard, whose excellent recordings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestras I have long cherished, with the Munich Philharmonic in 2012, which then cajoled me to expound on my concert-program (faux) synesthesia.

The Kurtág-Beethoven-Dvořák program back then was a winner, and so was ultimately the Bruckner-Szymanowski program that enveloped Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater in Bruckner’s Ave Maria (his sacred motet for seven unaccompanied voices and first big composition after finishing his  formal studies in Vienna) and Bruckner’s seldom-performed Second Symphony*: An attractive combination that manages to combine audience-safe familiarity with slightly-off-the-beaten-path beauty.

K.Szymanowski, Stabat Mater, Harnasie, E.Gardner / Chandos

The opening of the Ave Maria is an interesting show of the primacy of the chorus (Philharmonic Chorus Munich) over the orchestra, which just sits and listens to the short, three-to-four minute work. The unclean entry right off the bat aside, and granting a rather timid, not very confidence-inspiring sound in everything piano/pianissimo, and given the lazy coughing of the audience (apparently flu-season, not that it’s an excuse) it was a fine performance of a work that deserves more fine (and still better) performances. Hopefully before a more appreciative crowd, too.

From the Ave Maria, the orchestra went right into the Stabat Mater, attacca, a cute move that I like seeing used because it breaks the routine of habitual clapping (which only makes programs unduly long) and because it sometimes puts the work in more direct contrast or correlation. Mostly contrast, in this case, because in this performance the hushed pianissimo sounds of the Stabat Mater were rarer than the fortissimo-bursts that sounded as though orchestra, chorus and singers (especially baritone Adam Palka) were about to break out into a performance of Boris Godunov. Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, long in the planning but ultimately inspired by the untimely death of his niece (Berg’s Violin Concerto was similarly inspired a decade later), is a much more sparse, brittle work than the lush romanticism of the earlier The Love Songs of Hafiz, for example, and (aptly, given Szymanowski’s intent) much more Slavic; much less Viennese-romanticism sounding.

Induced by Palka’s singing and those intimations of Boris Godunov, I started wondering: What exactly makes for this unique, specific Slavic timbre in male voices? Is it just the language (Polish in this case, as the Dausgaard eschewed the ‘international’ Latin version of Szymanowski’s work in favor of his, Szymanowski’s, favored original) or the inflection and typical melodies of the music? Both? Or the training of the singers? Palka was in any case part of a vocal trio that struck me as decent if not particularly pleasing. There was Janina Baechle whose round timbre and slightly slurred notes makes for a lascivious, reedy mezzo… effectively projected to make herself heard even before an orchestra that cherished its fortissimo swells. Simona Šaturová jumped in at short notice to save the show; alas I didn’t particularly enjoy the brittle, hard sound or the way her voice and Baechle’s mixed. If I didn’t find this a particularly moving or even

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A Yuja Wang Dress Report, Prokofiev 2, and the Munich Philharmonic in Brahms

Back in May of this year: A nice day, an empty concert hall. And many—more than half of Munich’s Philharmonic Hall 2500 capacity, I’d guess—seat cushions staring at Yuja Wang devilling through the Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto—accompanied by the relative no-name conductor Michał Nesterowicz who replaced, to the best of his considerable ability—the late Lorin Maazel.

Mademoiselle Wang played the work a touch cool and subdued, despite near-ostentatious technical facility and ferocity… calm even in the most precarious moments. Perhaps the acoustic in the Philharmonic Hall—which I hadn’t experienced for some time—had something to do with the slight sense of détaché. All the Tees were crossed, all the Eyes were dotted and yet something was missing. (To have last heard the work with the new Munich Philharmonic Music Director Valery Gergiev the Mariinsky Orchestra and Denis Kozhukhin in the (literally) Great Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus—part of a Prokofiev marathon of all five piano concertos—might have contributed to that, too.)

There’s not a woman that goes on stage—or not very many, at least—that doesn’t spend considerable thought on the dress she will wear. I’ve met a conductor who will even carefully match her wardrobe to the composer she will perform: I reckon a little black dress (something short) for Anton Webern; something more random for John Cage, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she’ll don for Boulez later this year, also at the Konzerthaus.

COMPOSERNAME, WORK_in_QUESTION, Y.Wang / Simón Bolívar SO / G.Dudamel DG J.Brahms, Symphony No.1, G.Wand / MPhil Profil Hässler

Lecherous old goats like the well-known click-bait master (a master-baiter, you might say) Norman Lebrecht will of course suggest or feel that the likes of Yuja Wang dress only to attract old men. Then again, there are those who sense sexism behind everything (like said master-baiter, when the Berlin Philharmonic has again neglected to make a woman their chief conductor), and certainly behind writing about a woman’s dress. Well, put a fork in either of those types: when Yuja Wang goes on stage (ditto Frau Mutter or Renée Fleming), a dress report is mandatory.

Dress report: Full length midnight-purple gown, skin-tight, with a few sparkles; extraordinary conservative by her standards, with only a left shoulder asymmetrically exposed, and windows on the right side, at the height where a less lissome person’s love handles would be.

Encores came, and often they (or generally the smaller pieces) are the most fun Moments of Wang: Horowitz’s Carmen Fantasy was absurd as in: bloody amazing. Frivolous were the contrasts in Arcadi Volodos’ take on Mozart’s ‘Turkish March”—something that sounded like an inspired collaboration between Earl Wild and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Fun was being had.

I didn’t so much look forward to a Brahms First Symphony, to be honest… especially knowing so little about the conductor and so much about the orchestra’s occasional habit of not playing ball, when they are not lead by someone they greatly approve. I was proven wrong, but subtly. Michał Nesterowicz didn’t go in for individual fingerprints on the score, which is as likely a good thing as it is not. Nor, it seemed, for much personality. But all movements were performed with some vim and cohesion and morale and the whole symphony, broad and broadly enjoyable, confirmed that this is probably the greatest First Symphony ever written. (What’s the serious competition, anyway? Shostakovich I suppose… and anyone else?) The concert master was laying it on thick in his solo moments in the second movement, but did it well. A set of delicious piano pizzicatos stood out in the third movement. Nesterowicz ended it with plenty oomph and a lyrical stretch and in its unspectacular way, the whole thing had been really very good.

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On Forbes: Gergiev Starts Munich Tenure With Mahler

Gergiev Starts Munich Tenure With Mahler

On September 19^th, Valery Gergiev began his tenure as Music Director with the Munich Philharmonic – more than two and a half years after he signed his contract. If the occasion – a performance of Mahler’s grand Second Symphony – didn’t quite feel like the event it was, it was perhaps because his extensive presence (to the extent that the elusive, fast-paced Gergiev can be said to be truly present anywhere) with the city of Munich’s orchestra in the previous years: He had a number of guest appearances in town, conducting a complete Shostakovich cycle, for example, but also helping the orchestra out when their last music director, Lorin Maazel, died before the end of his scheduled tenure...

Full review on Forbes.com.

On Forbes: Munich Philharmonic Responds To Concert Hall Controversy

Munich Philharmonic Responds To Concert Hall Controversy

The concert hall debate in Munich has created waves in the classical music world: It was so important to Anne-Sophie Mutter that she took out her cell-phone during rehearsals for her Carnegie Hall performance of the Sibelius Concerto to comment on the issue. Even London, courtesy of Sir Simon Rattle—just this week appointed the new music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, has started a debate on its own, finding itself in a surprisingly similar position as Munich. In fact, in an interview with the BBC last month he said London and Munich were the two great cities in the world which did not have proper concert halls.

The decision to renege on promises to build a new hall—primarily to benefit the truly needy Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra)—in favor of revamping the hall of the somewhat needy Munich Philharmonic—but at a considerable cost for the musical life of Munich—has indeed created strong responses: All but a few solidly condemn the move–ever so slightly back-tracked upon since–by the Bavarian Prime Minister and Mayor of Munich. As Mutter stated, with a dash of hyperbole: “This city is about to ruin its international reputation in the world of music.” In a press conference Mariss Jansons added that he thinks “we were taken for a fool” and that “Bavaria has much to lose.”...

The extant concert hall, the Philharmonic Hall of the Gasteig, is now at the center of the musico-cultural attention of the city of Munich. This creates the opportunity to turn the Philharmonic Hall into an extraordinary space for classical music in Munich, and most especially one fit for decades to come.

Translated: Let’s... completely shift focus from the Needs of one orchestra to the Wants of this orchestra, painting it as something that would benefit Munich, rather than us—at the cost of most everyone else...

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

On Forbes: How Munich Throws Away its Cultural Capital

Munich Bungles Decision on New Concert Hall

The debate about a new concert hall for Munich, the wealthy and culturally rich capital of Bavaria, has been going on for at least a decade. At its center is the seemingly untenable situation that a city featuring five symphonic orchestras, three of which are world class (or nearly so, not counting the superb chamber orchestra) has zero suitable, acoustically decent halls.

Moreover, the unquestionably best of its orchestras, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO)—led by elite conductor Mariss Jansons, does not have a hall of its own. Currently, the BRSO splits its time between the smallish 1,200-seat Herkulessaal (restored and inaugurated only in 1953; comprehensive revamping prohibited by landmark protection laws) and the acoustically challenged, oversized 2,400-seat Philharmonic Hall at the Gasteig, an ambitious Social Democrat culture project as was typical in the ’80s.

...

The worst possible solution

What turns out more terrible than that fact itself is the handling of the issue on the part of the politicians. In 2013 the Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Conservative Union) made it the explicit goal of the government to get a new hall built. Seehofer, ever prone to change his mind, spoke with the mayor Dieter Reiter (Social Democrats) and city officials. Despite plenty of time and many proposals, no agreement was reached until Monday. And now that an agreement has allegedly been announced, it amounts to the worst possible solution: There will not be a new concert hall. Instead, the Philharmonic Hall will be gutted and intensively renovated—starting 2020.

...

Alternative proposals

One of the earlier concrete proposals—to the usual chorus of naysayers—was to build new hall with a capacity of 1,800 on the unused lot behind the Royal Stables (Marstall), right next to the opera. The idea was dropped when the space-constricted lot was deemed an insufficient improvement over the Herkulessaal. Another proposal looked at real estate in the museum quarters where the famous Pinakotheks are located; yet another looked at the Congress Hall on sitting on the museum island in the Isar River which served as a concert hall from 1954 until the late ’80s. A clash with the extant expansion plans of the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of science and technology, nixed that. Another looked at land that might be reclaimed from the central train station.

In response to the latest decision, Sepp Dürr, Parliamentarian for the Green Party, aptly tweeted: “Careful, @BRSO. Christian Democrats think tearing down Philharmonic Hall is the bee’s knees. In Bavaria, the dumbest solution is the most likely. #fail.”Critics of the decision, however, are not so kind: Munich music critic and author Klaus Kalchschmid, when asked about the latest concert-hall plans, did not mince words: “Utter bullsh*t, is what I think it is. Complete nonsense.” Commentary in all the papers has been equally scathing, if less colorful in print. Kalchschmid continues, “Why would you even consider a ‘solution’ that would capacity and create a bottleneck for years by closing one hall? It seems absurd. Especially when a commission, or so I understood it, had recently recommended the new building at the Finanzgarten [a centrally located 200.000 square foot plot, but currently something of a dead spot] was the preferred or even ideal solution. Why would they ever go back to the hoary idea of refitting the Philharmonic Hall and think it a solution?”.

...

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

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On Forbes: 11 Recordings To Remember Lorin Maazel By

“Aren’t you afraid I will kick the bucket?” When he was appointed as music director of the Munich Philharmonic starting in 2012/13—a mildly contentious appointment in the wake of Christian Thielemann being bungled out of town—Lorin Maazel told the audience at the press conference (to much laughter) that he had posed this pointed question to the musicians and officials who lured him to town. They weren’t, and he didn’t seem particularly worried, either. Fit, energetic, and with good genes—his father, as he often pointed out, lived to 106 and in fact passed on just in 2009—Lorin Maazel struck anyone who met him as having another decade or more in him. It turned out to be only...

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

Ionarts-at-Large: Enescu-Surprise and Mahler-Mediocrity

Enescu’s Symphonie concertante—his Cello Concerto by another name—is excellent programming (with an eye toward repeating the program in Bucharest for the George Enescu Festival) and wonderful music. The Munich Philharmonic’s crowd was drawn in by Mahler 1 (and a few ladies and boys perhaps because of the presence of Gautier Capuçon) and what they got was one of the most beautiful 20^th century cello concertos. If, that is, something written in 1901 can be called “20^th century” without misleading one’s expectations. Certainly its late romantic idiom that even the unadventurous subscription audience found agreeable is spiritually more at home in the 19^th century, post-Wagnerian, with hints of Saint-Saëns, somewhere between Brahms in tone and Korngold in sweep and grand gesture—which the orchestra brought out nicely under Semyon Bychkov. In good form, Capuçon played it with strong, concentrated, and slightly nasal—in the best sense—tone, focusing on the fleet passages more than sheer beauty of sound and variety of expression. Mistaking friendly applause for universal rapture, he felt compelled to give an encore.

G.Enescu, E.Dohnanyi, E.D'Albert, Cello Concertos, A.Gerhardt / C.Kalmar / BBC Scottish SO Hyperion

Somewhat like the Golden Gate Bridge is being perennially painted, Orchestras seem to have taken to Mahler in a never ending convulsion of cycles. Ending one means starting another. Understandable: Mahler draws audiences (for now), and it’s a lot easier to impress with that repertoire than something difficult like Haydn.

At least with the Munich Philharmonic, the Mahleria™ (Prokofiev) makes a good deal of sense: they are historically one of the three most important Mahler orchestras, having premiered three of his symphonies (No. 4, No.8, and Das Lied—more than any other orchestra). But they had elongated Mahler droughts under music directors Sergiu Celibidache and Christian Thielemann who believed in the power of Bruckner. Now the orchestra is making up for it, in this particular case with Mahler’s First. Tedium, sadly, reigned: Mahler turned to inoffensive entertainment, adding to the glut of Mahler without making it an exclamation mark. After a swiftly musical opening, the performance quickly went down into banality, charming but perfunctory even in the Klezmer bits, dotted with lots of individual mistakes and at its best (and also most effective) simply loud. Even discounting the fact that this was the first performance, otherwise known to the orchestra as “de-facto dress rehearsal”, that’s not enough, not even in Mahler.