Forbes Classical CD of the Week: Max Bruch, Suite on Russian Folk Melodies, Serenade on Swedish Melodies, Swedish Dances

…The folk dances that Bruch works off become buoyant pieces (only very occasionally a bit heavy-footed in the First Orchestral Suite of Swedish Dances) and throughout Bruch applies a light and dainty touch which – if you have given Bruch’s more grandiose efforts like “Odysseus” a try and reeled – is his saving grace. Not aiming quite so high apparently freed him and the music from overwrought pathos to everyone’s benefit…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Swedish Hobbits Dancing To Bruch (NOV 9, 2016)

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#morninglistening: Itzhak Perlman, Bruch & Mendelssohn

#morninglistening to Itzhak on @WarnerClassics in #Bruch w/@LondonSymphony under Previn. ☆… http://t.co/9p8cZtrTwf pic.twitter.com/Lb6EACWguW

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 3, 2015

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Vilde Frang Debuts with the NSO

Nielsen / Tchaikovsky, Violin Concertos, V. Frang, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, E.G. Jensen (Warner Classics, 2012)

We had been following Vilde Frang on disc and streaming audio when we first heard her live, with her mentor, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and the Camerata Salzburg in 2008. The young Norwegian violinist had been announced at one point for the tour with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic last season, hosted here by Washington Performing Arts, but the first chance to hear her in a solo concerto came last night, in a concert with the National Symphony Orchestra. She should have been playing Carl Nielsen's violin concerto, which she has recorded so beautifully for Warner Classics, but instead she played Bruch's first concerto, last heard just in 2011 with Joshua Bell. The piece was sandwiched between Stravinsky's charming suite from the ballet music for Pulcinella, last heard from the NSO in 1993, and Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony (unreviewed).

Juraj Valčuha, Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, chose lovely tempi in the Stravinsky, a piece that is a modern reworking of 18th-century music, usually considered the beginning of the composer's neoclassical period. The concertino, comprised of the principal string players, had a delicate, chamber music sound, featured prominently in the gently paced opening movement. The oboe solo lilted beautifully in the second movement, all guided by the confident gestures of Valčuha, albeit with some questionably violent accents insisted on here and there. The Tarantella was rollicking in its off-beat shifts, and the boisterous trombone solo in the Vivo movement was a hoot, the whole thing sounding like Baroque dance music hybridized with Offenbach.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Conductor Juraj Valcuha takes NSO program to a near-slog (Washington Post, February 6)

Frang has most impressed me with the trance-like sound of her pianissimo tone, which served her well in the concerto's opening exchanges between soloist and orchestra. She played the faster sections of the first movement with a free sense of rubato, her vibrato-heavy left hand producing a rich throaty sound. Valčuha helped to control the orchestral volume to suit the smaller scope of his soloist's tone, giving the musicians their head in the lush, full-bodied tutti sections, producing outbursts of sound. Occasionally, especially in the Adagio, Frang's vibrato was so heavy that the intonation erred a little too far south, but the pyrotechnics of the Finale, a few minor intonation issues aside, were impressive. This was not an earth-shattering debut, but Frang more than proved her worthiness to receive another invitation. Please, NSO, let it be Nielsen next time.

This concert repeats tonight and tomorrow, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

NSO Opens Its New Season

See my review of the season opening gala concert from the National Symphony Orchestra:

National Symphony Orchestra’s Season-Opening Gala Performance (The Washingtonian, September 27):

Bruch / Mendelssohn / Mozart, Violin Concertos, J. Bell, ASMF, N. Marriner / English Chamber Orchestra, P. Maag

In cultural terms, the bad economic climate has spared Washington, which has lost neither its opera company nor its most important local orchestra, both now permanently associated with the Kennedy Center. The National Symphony Orchestra, in fact, ended up with a new music director, Christoph Eschenbach, who led a remarkably good debut season last year. The continued generosity of local patrons of the arts has made possible the extension of Eschenbach’s contract with the NSO, for two more years, at least through the 2014-15 season. David Rubinstein, the chairman of the Kennedy Center, has also donated a large sum of money to purchase and install a new theater organ in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The old organ, one of the most notoriously bad and unreliable instruments in the city, will be replaced some time next year. Both of these announcements were the centerpiece of Sunday night's NSO season-opening gala performance, in celebration of both the NSO’s 80th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy Center.

Musical stars were on hand to mark the event and dazzle the high-powered audience. The evening started with violinist Joshua Bell, who played the latest of umpteen performances of Max Bruch’s jewel-like first violin concerto. (This past week alone, he has performed the piece at season openers and gala performances in Colorado and Dallas, all part of the jet-setting schedule of a performer at Bell’s level.) It’s a piece of angelic sweetness, Bell’s specialty. He excelled at the tender themes of the first and second movements, drawing them out with an attention to arching line and purity of intonation and tone color. At the podium, Eschenbach kept the level of the orchestra carefully calibrated to Bell’s sound, never covering him, but also giving a much-needed energy boost to the fast concluding movement. Gasps of excitement filled the auditorium when Bell announced that he would play one of his most famous encores, the “Meditation” from Massenet’s Thaïs. The piece is a syrupy concoction that is played so often and so poorly -- not here. Bell gave a performance that was light on the sugar but filled with a tender nostalgia. [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette, With much to celebrate, NSO does just that (Washington Post, September 27)

Prima Trio at Dumbarton Oaks

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Youthful earnestness and energy were in abundance for the latest concert in the Friends of Music series at Dumbarton Oaks. The members of the Prima Trio, heard on Monday evening, are in different stages of graduate school and early professional careers. A win at the 2007 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, where they received the Grand Prize and Gold Medal, has launched them into a fairly intense schedule of performing. As a chamber ensemble they have chosen difficult terrain: the combination of violin (David Bogorad), clarinet (Boris Allakhverdyan), and piano (Anastasia Dedik) -- even with the violinist also playing viola as an alternative -- has at best a limited repertoire. The Verdehr Trio, who still teach at my alma mater, Michigan State University, have played it all so many times that they have commissioned a couple hundred new pieces just to keep things interesting.

The main appeal of a concert by this type of ensemble is the chance to hear music that does not get played all that often. Frankly, some of the composers who were announced for this concert were of greater interest than what ended up on the program. So there was no Lotti, Schumann, or Ives, and saddest of all, no Milhaud Suite (you can listen to some sound clips on the group's Web site), but what the group did play was performed with verve and a balanced sense of ensemble. The "Kegelstatt" trio (E-flat major, K. 498) had an amiable, playful sound that recalled the piece's origins, music intended for the composer to play with his friends at the regular parties held in the home of Gottfried von Jacquin. Khachaturian's Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano had a sultry first movement with echoes of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, but a tasteful performance was not enough to make this work anything more than the folksy and repetitive pablum it is.

More memorable were the selections from Max Bruch's Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, op. 83, and Stravinsky's arrangement for clarinet, violin, and piano of his music for L'Histoire du Soldat. The Bruch is a major work, with equal roles for the viola and clarinet, as well as a demanding part for the pianist: this was a good performance, but with just enough problems of intonation and slight blemishes in the piano to keep it from being a great one. It had a much more interesting use of folk elements, in the gypsy-influenced fifth movement, and a joky, Mendelssohnian romp in the seventh. The Prima Trio gave the Stravinsky a plucky first movement, striking a solid tempo risoluto, with a style that was more bubbly than biting until the concluding Devil's Dance. The program would have been stronger without the Khachaturian (as well as largely unnecessary narration from Bogorad) and a full performance of either the Bruch or Stravinsky (or both) instead. Desserts included a final selection of Peter Schickele's Serenade for Three, an indulgence in Stravinsky-esque rhythmic drive, an obsession with melodic patterns reminiscent of Philip Glass, Copland-like misty harmony, and glib references to American popular music, as well as a substantial encore, the Autumn part of Astor Piazzola's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

The final concert on the Friends of Music series at Dumbarton Oaks will feature violinist David Grimal and pianist Georges Pludermacher (April 15 and 16), in a program of composers from eastern Europe.

Pure Beauty First, Then Rage and Remembrance

It is a good season in the Washington/Baltimore area for violin lovers. We had old all-star Perlman two weeks ago, and many of the elite players will grace the local stages over the next months. Julia Fischer, Arabella Steinbacher (you may not have heard of her yet, but even if you miss her concerts at the Châteauville Foundation Maazel Theatre House, Castleton Farms on October 9th, or on October 18th at the Library of Congress you will soon!), Hilary Hahn, Midori, and Vadim Repin will make the music lover’s mouth (ears?) water. Joshua Bell will also be here – worthy of mention in particular for the Corigliano Violin Concerto that he’ll present with Marin Alsop in Baltimore on June 15th.

Thursday at the Kennedy Center’s (once again sparsely filled) Concert Hall Nikolaj Znaider had his turn. He too may not be on everyone’s radar screen yet, but he is right up there with the Repins, Vengeroffs, and Hahns of his generation of players. He just released a Beethoven and Mendelssohn concerto recording with Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic (of all combos) that has earned kind words from critics (including Tim Page) – and under Leonard Slatkin’s baton the NSO and Znaider presented another staple Romantic violin concerto: Max Bruch’s.

The Bruch concerto is one of those that may get a “oh… haven’t we heard that a few too many times already” questioning look from the hardened and more cynical concert-goers, but actualy: No. We haven’t heard it too many times yet – at least not when it is played very well. Suffice it to say that I would willingly hear it a few more times this week, the way it was presented on Thursday night. Steady but searching, ‘looking around’ was the first entry. Phenomenal the transition from the first note of the second short entry played with gusto to the flittering tail it dragged behind it. The third entry finally gets things under way in the music, and the way Znaider jumped at the notes without the playing becoming crass or vulgar was a delight. He’s not got the big tone that is Vengeroff’s, nor the stunning color palette of Repin – perhaps not even the rock-solid intonation of Akiko Suwanai - but he has bucket-loads of elegance (never mind the odd metaphor there) and a refined tone that allowed him to shine, seemingly without effort. The way he plays any one note, elicits different tones, and lets it wander through the hall is so noticeable that it borders on a miracle that it never sounded artificial, mannered, or self-conscious. Interestingly (and thankfully) he never crossed that line. That his extremely soft touches (he plays one of the most confident pianissimos I’ve heard) that emerged out of nowhere were able to impress as much as they did was in good part the achievement of Slatkin, who had the NSO tightly controlled during those moments. It more than made up for the occasional orchestral thumping in the animated sections.

Znaider, who must be upwards of 6’4", towered over the orchestra. With his extra-long suit-frock and the stiff upper torso, he looked like a European schoolmaster ca. 1870… ready to give the first bench of violinists twenty clicks with the bow-cum-ruler. It belied the flexibility of individual phrases but suited the refreshingly angular structure in which all of the music, especially the Adagio, was placed. Instead of turning the work into a hyper-Romantic piece of mush, he trusted Bruch’s written instructions – a.k.a. the score. I’ve heard the piece pulled around enough to have gotten motion sickness – with Znaider it was a clean ride.

All this may sound overly effusive – but I suppose that isn’t entirely inappropriate for a performance that was simply very good and sounded ‘right’. The Bruch violin concert itself needs no additional comment except that its very popularity and fame obscures the fact that Bruch wrote two more violin concertos that are hardly of lesser quality and should be heard far more often.

J.Corigliano, Of Rage and Remembrance, Leonardo Slatkin / NSO RCA

Corigliano is one of the great American composers of the younger generation (40s – 60s) who knows how to combine popular appeal with the highbrow mandate. Famous for his Red Violin concerto, his Symphony No. 1 (“on A”) is only marginally less popular. Better known under its title Of Rage and Remembrance, its ‘popularity’ may not best be measured by a conservative audience’s reaction to Corigliano’s musical statement about the horrors and helplessness when being faced with AIDS among friends, but instead the fact that it has received nearly 800 performances since its premiere under Barenboim in Chicago in 1990. Leonard Slatkin, who pointed this out in his appropriately brief remarks before the performance, is a champion of Corigliano’s and it comes as a surprise that this was only the second performance of the symphony with the NSO.

It may also have been titled “Of Anger and Tearful Exhaustion”; it plays well with emotions and orchestral color. The unisono A of the opening elicits a sound from the string section that you will not likely have heard before. Fits from the timpani interrupt in a brutal way that would have done Mahler proud. The sound veers between the edged, abrasive, bombastic, and the hauntingly melodious and calm. Especially intriguing is the piano’s reoccurring Godowsky transcription of Albéniz’s melancholic Tango that evokes a pianist ‘in the apartment next door’, courtesy of Lambert Orkis who played from off stage. If I didn’t know before why Robert R. Reilly so cherishes Corigliano, I certainly do now. It’s an effectual symphony without being cheap; it’s impressive but not gratuitous. Most importantly, it contains emotional and spiritual truth.

I really hate to have to say that it was ‘risky’ or ‘gutsy’ to program the work last, without some Mozart or Tchaikovsky to follow – because that would then not give people the incentive to stay and hear it out. Indeed, if an audience cannot appreciate a work like this: music with a pulse about as close to the heart (and stomach) as it gets, I cannot appreciate the audience. People who run at the first hint of dissonance are not capable of appreciating the greater beauty of classical music. (And I am not talking about modernist works here, at all. Run to the hills at a Lee Hoiby sighting, if you so desire… but with this symphony??)

This (patronizing?) rant having been aired, I am happy to say that only a limited number of audience members left after the first half, and fewer yet during the movements. It seemed to have grabbed many of the listeners just enough at an earthy, intrinsically emotional level to pull their souls into their seats, even if their ears were already half-way to the exits. And I must say that this symphony is music (the second movement Tarantella, especially) that grabs you by the [pardon me] balls and if it doesn’t, you ain’t got any. The more plaintive third movement (Chaconne: Giulio’s Song) allowed cellists David Hardy and Glenn Garlick to shine in extensive solo and duo passages. The symphony continues in high style during the Epilogue, becoming threatening and soothing in turn. If you are not scared of a Shostakovich symphony, you’ll enjoy every bit of this one. Apparently Slatkin’s enthusiasm for the work fell on fruitful ground with the players because they seemed to willingly play the heck out of it in front of an audience that contained its creator. Still, the audience was split into those who rushed out after meager applause and those who tried to make up for that with boisterous roars of ‘bravo’.

The concerto and symphony were preceded by a full-bodied, energetic but unspectacular Brahms Tragic Overture, wherein the brass did better than in last week’s Dvořák. I know some Ionarts readers went to see the last performance of the NSO on account of our recommendation of Truls Mørk’s Elgar (and that alone); they would do well to do so again, this time for the Bruch and the Corigliano, either of which would earn the recommendation on its own merits. Ionarts is not getting soft on the NSO (there will be plenty of clunkers to come, I am sure) – this concert just happens to be rather good, too. Repeat performances will take place today at 1.30PM and tomorrow, Saturday, at 8PM. There’s plenty of room everywhere in the hall to accommodate all willing to come.

Read Tim Page's similarly enthusiastic review in the Washington Post here.