Thoughts on Thoughts About Klaus Mäkelä

A Word or Two on the (Negative) Reaction to Klaus Mäkelä’s Appointment in Chicago

The Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä is 28 and has just been named the next Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, starting with the 2027/28 season. When he does, the current MD, Riccardo Muti, will be 86. As classical music knows all too well, there’s nothing wrong with old age per se, but a bit of young blood surely can’t hurt. You would think.

However, there has been considerable opining, grumbling, and bloviating, following this announcement, mostly because Klaus Mäkelä, who is currently the chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and music director of the Orchestre de Paris, will also take on the role of chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2027. “Too young!” are the cries. “Too hyped!” goes the faux indignation on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s behalf. “Spread too thin”, weigh in the armchair experts. And, as a most tediously predictable sideshow, every 5th comment on social media will invariably be: “Not a woman! Shame. Shame!” (A different topic for another day.)

The aggregator/master click-baiter Norman Lebrecht goes all insinuation and pessimism in “Chicago Ends up Second City, Maybe Third”, the usual hodge-podge of three snarky, substance-less sentences and four lazy quotes. He refers to the conductor in question as “frequent-flier Klaus Mäkelä”. Newsflash: Every conductor is a frequent flier, these days; the slight comes out only when convenient. Then comes the original content: “Chicago is going to have to get used to waiting in line for its music director. They won’t like that. With Riccardo Muti (pictured), Chicago had bragging rights. Now it has to beg and borrow its shared time, like a telephone user in distant memory.”

Says who? Sharing a conductor with another orchestra isn’t new. Not for any orchestra, and certainly not for the Chicago Symphony. Throughout his time as Chicago’s music director, the orchestra somehow survived George Solti also being music director at Covent Garden, of the Orchestre de Paris, and principal conductor of the London Philharmonic. Daniel Barenboim was the head of the Berlin State Opera (a more labor-intensive task than being the music director of a philharmonic orchestra) for all but the first year of his Chicago tenure. Double tenures are not unusual, they are the norm and have been, for well over half a century. Mariss Jansons was never head of the Concertgebouw (RCO) without also being the music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haitink was head of the LPO for twelve years, allawhile running...

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Remember the Blogroll?

Ionarts was born during the golden age of blogging, in the millennium's first decade. The subsequent rise of social media proved the demise of blogging, as mini-posts on Facebook, Twitter, and soon a multiplicity of such apps pushed longer-form writing aside. It may be time to reconsider that shift.

One much-admired writer who has ultimately decided to eschew social media, first Facebook and now Twitter and (I think) everything else, is Alex Ross, the classical music critic of The New Yorker. I have missed Alex's wry commentary on the site now known as "X," although I still always read his articles in the magazine. I noted this summer that, instead of feeding the social media noise, Alex has continued to post more-or-less regular (if not daily) items on his old blog, The Rest Is Noise.

Once I realized that, I began to check his site periodically, which made me nostalgic for the era of Ye Olde Blogge. During a look-in yesterday, Alex's excellent post on critic Olin Downes was in the top position. Comparing Downes with a contemporary voice, Virgil Thomson, Alex notes:

[Thomson] cannily shifted with the political tides, switching from New Deal-ish writings in the thirties to a sterner, anti-populist line after 1945. He spoke unswervingly for an élite musical community and mocked crowd-pleasing musicians such as Toscanini, Heifetz, and Horowitz. Downes, it might be said, was a lesser critic but a better musical citizen.

A discontinued feature known as the Blogroll is back in this site's right column, headed by none other than Alex's site. If you know of other active blogs, new or veterans, please suggest them in the comments section. The main activity of the old Ionarts, publishing performance reviews and a concert calendar for the Washington area, has moved to and remains at Washington Classical Review, which you should be reading every day. Check here periodically for reviews of new recordings and links to published articles in other places. Please join me in going to read things directly, and circumvent the irritating social media middlemen.

Alain Altinoglu in Rubbish Liszt and Crusading Prokofiev

Vienna, February 26, 2019; Musikverein—Liszt’s tone poem From the Cradle to the Grave is bound be one of those works that we will spasmodically “rediscover”, revive, hype, and – briefly – praise before forgetting again… because it really isn’t all that great. (Also see point 8 of David Hurwitz' “Classical Music’s Ten Dirtiest Secrets”.) It fails to deliver on what it sets out to do: It does *not* tell a story. It merely delivers episodes. That generic life that Liszt describes has little obvious development to it, nor even a particularly convincing end. Cradle to Grave (like the Faust Symphony) also lies awkwardly for the strings, which creates a unique, dark sound that does not project well – a color that does, however, befit the low woodwinds.

COMPOSER, WORK PERFORMERS LABEL

Not entirely surprisingly, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed this tone poem for the first time in its 100-year history in a series of three concerts last February at the Musikverein… and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were another 100 years before it was performed again. Maybe Alain Altinoglu ‘lost the long line’—that canard of a complaint where you never know whether listener or performer deserves the lion’s share of the blame—but he couldn’t have blamed much: Only a magician could have kept the audience from losing track and Altinoglu is not a magician. It’s no fun to blame the composer for a performance that fails to spark because often it’s routine playing, lack of comprehension or articulation or a mix thereof that is at work. Here it might just have merit. All the same, one ought to be thankful for these periodic revivals. It’s still better than routine and same-old-same-old. Aside, every so often, a gem is among them, and the rest of the time it’s good to dismiss something on experience, not hearsay.

This concert’s de-facto overture made programming sense in light of the Liszt Piano Concerto No.2 that was put on for Denis Matsuev to fill the obligatory romantic-concerto slot of the concert with: A showman for a show concerto, plushly pushing the notes through their course; high-end luxury monochrome plodding through the work’s single movement. Happily, the fan-club was in place, setting off a ferociously banged Hall of the Mountain King transcription encore.

Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky to the rescue in the second half! A half that felt as if surgically decoupled from the first. Not that some of the ills the plague the classical music scene didn’t also rear their heads here. To assure the money stays in the family, Altinoglu had his wife—Nora Gubisch—hired to perform the short solo mezzo part of the piece. The saving grace on this act of common nepotism was that she is easy on the ears and did well, with a hollow-low, sepia-toned atmospheric voice. But the look is never, never good. Nevsky is a rousing work with a fun parody of Orff for the crusading Teutons and lots of musical rah-rah-ing. That the audience got loudness in lieu of raw energy was never really a detraction; the winds only slightly off in the trickiest passages. The Singverein aided and abetted the orchestra with rousing Russian and only very occasional missed cues.

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News: Alain Altinoglu (1975) has just been named the new Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (hr-Sinfonieorchester, in German). He will begin he tenure starting with the 21/20 season. He will succeed Andrés Orozco-Estrada who is in turn coming to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

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Dina Ugorskaja, A Farewell

Dina Ugorskaja, Photo © Ilja Kukuj

There was a darkness in the playing of pianist Dina Ugorskaja’s, these last few years, that made her interpretations of Schubert, Bach, and Beethoven and the likes fearsomely beautiful, harrowing, even menacing. It is hard not to look back on this now, and think that Dina Ugorskaja – daughter of Anatol Ugorsky – wasn’t impelled to darkness by her struggle with cancer. A struggle she lost on September 17^th, succumbing to the illness at her home in Munich at the age of 46.

Dina Ugorskaja was born in then-Leningrad, to an artistic musicologist mother and her quirky pianist father. Anatol was also her principal piano teacher; his own career ivory-blocked by the Soviet powers-that-be as he was deemed a political liability. While he, an Enescu Prize-Winner, was sent to play for school children in the vast industrial Soviet hinterlands or played at private soirées, Dina was somehow allowed to study composition and piano at the Leningrad Conservatory. She gave her concert debut as a pianist and as a composer in Leningrad, but eventually anti-Semitic threats compelled the family to flee to Berlin in 1990. There they lived on the outskirts of town, alive and unthreatened but poor and their talents unrecognized. Eventually friends pushed the re-discovery of Anatol Ugorsky’s genius, resulting in his recording of the Diabelli Variations (and many subsequent ones) for Deutsche Grammophon. Dina, meanwhile, went to study at the conservatory in Detmold from which she graduated and where she subsequently also taught piano.

She slowly, deliberately built her career – scrutinizing her own each and every step along the way. Recitals and recordings long remained insider tips, even as the German doyenne of music critics, Eleonore Büning, raved about her Beethoven as early as 2012… and rightly so. When I recommended colleague Damian Thompson that he give Dina Ugorskaja’s late Beethoven sonatas a listen, he responded by taking the words out of my pen: “Ugorskaya in Op 110 is sensational. Such detail in the darkness because she relies on phenomenal finger-control rather than pedal. And she achieves pathos in the recitative, arioso and fugues without rubato, so there’s a hymn-like quality. Glad she heads for ffff in the repeated chords. And because her left hand is so awesome, we get the full encircling of the world in the final bars. Desert island choice. Thanks!” The release and reception of her Well-Tempered Clavier (Forbes.com review) in 2016 brought some much deserved wider publicity; that same year the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts made her a professor. And a recital in Munich, where she substituted on short notice, brought more late recognition from astounded critics in the audience.

Fortunately, I had been there (Forbes.com review). To paraphrase myself: “After presenting tantalizing late Schumann and sublime Scriabin, it was late Franz Schubert – namely the Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D 960 – that turned out the program’s emotional center. Dina Ugorskaja’s playing in general and in this first movement in particular, evoked and underscored discomfiture among any listeners who think they know the work. No less here: Where there is a little oddity among the notes, it got explored with great curiosity. Where there’s a seldom noticed tension between lines, it got investigated. Amid such details, the pianist derailed Schubert’s sonata from conventions and re-established it as something fearsomely dark... For what it’s worth, the sonata – particularly the spectacularly ominous first movement, felt like the crucifixion of Christ, as interpreted as a Schubert sonata with overtones of Bulgakov. Trills in the far left hand were like salt in the wound – the first time around. Pricks of a needle then; finally like questions of existential importance… In fact, there was something about the recital of Dina Ugorskaja’s that suggested that substituting for the initially scheduled artist was, actually, some dark angel or Nazgûl who had swooped in, parenthetically given their version of Schubert to the crowd, only to take to the air immediately afterwards – off to eat a Hobbit or two.”

Just this April we had still conversed about her partaking in a feature about artists and fashion for the German music magazine Crescendo. She was game and submitted a photo – her hair, post-chemotherapy, cropped short, her eyes wide open and quietly challenging – in which she is the very picture of strength and fragility, humility and determination. It’s a wonderful depiction to remember her by.

Two years ago, as part of reviewing her recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier for Forbes.com, I unwittingly wrote what now seems like a fitting epitaph:

There’s ego [in her interpretation], alright… or rather: personality in the act of transcending ego. Dark clouds hover; a flittering sulfurously-silver light illuminates the music, and there is an intensity even among the often slow (though hardly ever relaxed) tempos. What initially came to mind was the title of William Wordsworth’s ode (via Finzi’s tone poem), which I always misremember as “Intimations of Mortality”. (When it is in fact “Intimations of Immortality”.) Even if my impression and the ode itself (rather than the sentiment of my misremembered title) are not directly correlated, the opening stanzas strike me as appropriate to quote:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Indeed, there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Blusey Tuesday: Charu Suri

Just a bit outside of our swim-lane, but why not post this, in anticipation of Indian American jazz pianist Charu Suri's Carnegie Hall debut. (December 20, Weill Recital Hall) Her brand of jazz, judging by a few other clips on her YouTube page, crosses over (in the best sense) to her Indian roots, too, which adds nice little flavor of fenugreek to the proceedings.

Teodor Currentzis steps down as Artistic Director of Perm Opera

Teodor Currentzis steps down from Opera position in Perm. In a rambling three-page letter* he cites “a thorough lack of comprehension, utter lack of engagement and sensitivity” on the part of the administration of the city of Perm as the main reason for him leaving “his paradise”. The rest of the letter is a mix of thanking companions, musing on whether he was ever fully understood by anyone and on how governmental agencies by are incapable of understanding anything at all. The information the letter contains – if much – is between the lines, decipherable by insiders. Financial and bureaucratic fetters appear to be shining through as the problems causing this move… which would make sense to sufficiently offend an artist who ostentatiously despises fetters of any kind into resigning.

The Athens-born Currentzis, something of the Jack White among conductors, had been Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre since 2011. This move will presumably not affect Currentzis’ work with his orchestra and chorus, musicAeterna, which he founded in 2004 in Novosibirsk (when he was Music Director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Orchestra) and which has resided at the Perm opera since 2011. If anything, it was done to focus more on his work with this ensemble. His work as artistic director of Perm’s International Diaghilev Festival, too, will remain unaffected. Not surprising, as this festival will extend to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris starting in 2021, giving him another foothold in the West. Currentzis is also the Chief Conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, where he just wrapped up his first season.

*So far the most comprehensible version I’ve come across is one translated into German by Natalia Breininger at Andreas Richter Cultural Consulting GmbH: Many thanks! Her source is the letter in the original, as published online by the Perm Opera house.

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Currentzis on ionarts & Forbes.com:

Dip Your Ears, No. 239 / Ionarts CD of the Month (Pathétique Heroin)
Favorite Recordings 2018: Mahler 6 (CDT)
Classical CD Of The Week: Not Everyone Does It Like That – Currentzis’ Così
The Currentzis Dances II & Ravel’s Wonderful Rubbish
Ionarts-at-Large: The Currentzis Dances (MPhil)
Best Recordings of 2011 (#3 – Weinberg/Passenger)

Sweet Jury Duty: Wrapping Up the Leopold Mozart Violin Competition

Augsburg, June 8, 2019, Leopold Mozart Violin Competition—After a week with five long days of trials, amounting to some 35 net hours of intense Mozart-, Paganini-, Bach-, and Mendelssohn-listening, the 10th Leopold Mozart Violin Competition is in the books. It will conclude tonight with the Prize Winners’ Concerts.

In yesterday’s finals, three candidates out of initially 24 in the first round and then a dozen in the second, got to play two concertos with the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra – the Bavarian RSO’s little sister symphony. One concerto had to be Mozart, the other a romantic concerto out of a list of the usual warhorses. As luck would have it... [continue reading on ClassicsToday]

And our official Critics' Prize Statement here. The winner took about a friendly quarter hour of pleasant consideration and discussion and a couple espressos to decide upon. Everyone had a vague idea of a favorite going in and very soon Simon Wiener emerged as the obvious consensus choice:

"It has been a pleasure to hear 24 talented young violinists perform at the Leopold Mozart Violin Competition. As the critics among the members of jury, we are privileged to bestow a Critics’ Prize to one participant.

Hearing the musicians we were faced with a fascinating variety of ways in which a performance can be persuasive and enlightening. Not all of these qualities are necessarily those that ensure success in a traditional competition situation. This is where the Leopold Mozart Competition comes in: its uniquely varied repertoire and the diverse composition of its jury open up opportunities by which musicians less conventionally suited to competitions can thrive. Honorary mention, as an exemplar of that approach, should be made of the semi-finalist Issei Kurihara, whose internality, quiet confidence, subtle touches, and distinct individuality did much to suggest great and intriguing depth.

Our choice for the Critics’ Prize also combines many qualities and great hopes that pricked our ears in special ways. His consummate passion for conversing through music, his musical and expressive intelligence, his unique approach to the composers and his choice of repertoire made him an easy choice to rally around. We look forward to hearing much more of him in the future as we confer the Critics’ Prize to Simon Wiener.
Congratulations!

And given that we made a special mention of Issei Kurihara, I might also point out that the performance of Hsin-Yu Shih (Taiwan, 1999), who did not make the second round by the smallest of margins, was suggestive of a very considerable musical personality. I hope to hear more of it; I thought she had well stood out of the crowd in her own way.

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The Road to the Finals: The Leopold Mozart Competition

Leopold Mozart Competition, Round 2 (Semi Finals)

Accompanists Hyun-Jung-Berger and Jose_Gallard are being poked in the ribs by jury-member Ulf Hölscher. Maybe

The first cut from 24 participants at the Leopold Mozart Competition down to twelve semi-finalists was severe but a reasonably harmonious and self-evident matter. The second cut that determined the three finalists out of those twelve participants was a more speckled affair. Differences were had. Opinions diverged. A multiplicity of tastes showed. Democracy ruled. Small arms fire ensued. That was—minus the small arms fire or indeed any kind of violence, which the gentle-spirited and collegial jury did not resort to on this occasion—the situation after the results were announced that Kaoru Oe (Japan, Toho College of Music; Keio University), Joshua Brown (USA, New England Conservatory) and Karisa Chiu (also USA, Curtis) were going to the finals. Simon Wiener (Switzerland, ZHdK in Zurich) was also announced to have received the special “Chamber Music Prize”. It comes with a cool € 1.500 attached to it which might at least somewhat temper the disappointment of not going on to the finals.

Incidentally, it’s not so much that the chosen finalists are particularly controversial choices. You don’t advance to the finals without having convinced most jury members of your qualities, even if they had other favorites. If anything, controversy reigned selectively as to who didn’t make it – or as to some who almost made it, while opinions were wildly divided on either a Yay or Nay side. Getting even that far isn’t easy, even for the jury. It’s not easy because the amount of listening – concentrated listening, ideally – is considerable: For starters, there were 24 first movements of the Mendelssohn D minor Piano Trio in two days to listen to; once in rehearsal, once in performance. (Then again, if the jury felt any semblance of self-pity, they only had to look onto the stage where Josè Gallardo and Hyun-Jung Berger played the work 24+ times; for each candidate, differently each time, and with all-out engagement each time.) For the works other than the mandatory Mendelssohn, neatly, it was up to the performers to choose solo or duo works to present themselves with. Any number of works, so long as they stayed under 50 minutes. (Not everyone did.) That is good for performers because presumably they know their strengths and can choose accordingly. And it’s good for jury members, who don’t have to listen to yet another monotonous onslaught of some same piece done over and over again.

Artistic and Executive Directors Linus Roth and Simon Pickel thank the accompanists (Ayumi Janke and Verena Louis in addition to the above-named) for their hard labor

But the duty to find and vote for three finalists also means, in essence, breaking nine young hearts. Not everyone takes it badly, not everyone takes it well. Most are sad and disappointed, to varying degrees. Some might feel a tinge of gratitude to have made it at least into the second round. Others still might even be offended or sulky. That, fortunately, a rarer (and worrisome) response. And as a jury member, if not all of your choices made it to the final (or none, as it were), you might feel that someone has been overlooked. Perhaps for not quite hitting all the buttons that one probably ought to, in a violin competition. Or perhaps they were well enough liked on average, but just not placed atop of enough of the jury member’s lists to make the leap. Often, this is where special prizes can come in to take the edge of the finality of the decision. The special prize for chamber music – on anecdotal evidence a very easy decision for the jury members to have made – is perhaps such a case.

The prize for the best interpretation of the contemporary composition might also have been such a prize – but the initial recipient flat-out refused to accept it, after he found out it came attached with the inconvenience of having to remain in town for three or four more days and having to play the work again (in the presence of the composer!) at the prize-winner’s concert. If the unfortunate lad had had one of those white angels sitting on his shoulders (or perhaps the red & black counterpart), I imagine it having whispered into his ear: “Careful, your character is showing!” On the upside, I think that every competition should, as a rule, have at least one minor scandal. The Chopin Competition had Argerich up in arms re Pogorelich. (Or, more recently, Yundi jetting off mid-competition to attend a wedding.) So let this be the salacious Leopold Mozart Competition scandal of 2019 that everyone will be talking 40 years from now. Or maybe not. Further special prizes – including the Critics’ Prize – will be given out and announced on the day of the finals.

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A Better Way of Judging Musicians? The Leopold Mozart Competition

Leopold Mozart Competition, Round 1

Eleven hours of listening to thirteen young violinists giving their utmost – eight net hours of Paganini’s Caprice No.24, Mozart’s Rondo in C major, a Bach solo Sonata excerpt, and a newly composed work by Elzbieta Sikora – may not sound like hard work. It probably isn’t. But about nine hours into it, it certainly feels like it. When you’re on your eleventh Caprice, which comes out to eleven themes and 121 Variations, it demands a call on all resources to resist the new-found familiarity with Paganini from breeding contempt. And contempt, while perfectly acceptable for fueling creative writing as a journalist, wouldn’t be helpful when sitting on a jury. In this case the jury of the tri-annual Leopold Mozart Competition in Augsburg, famous-ish for its inaugural winners Isabelle Faust and, in the following competition, Benjamin Schmid. (The latter also the jury’s president on this occasion.)

Actually, listening to the above basket of works beats listening to the Reger G minor Suite for Solo Viola 18 times in three days (an experiment in self-control I underwent at the 2008 ARD competition) or hearing Chopin’s F minor piano concerto nine times in two nights, as I did at the 2015 Chopin Competition finals. Not having to write about it also makes matters easier; there are only so many ways of describing the performance of the Adagio and Fugue of BWV 1001 before one is bound to repeat oneself. Just listening in, on the other hand, and trying to assess where a player’s at in their life and art: that can be a joy… only occasionally tempered by, let’s call it: “room to grow, artistically and stylistically.”

For anyone not keen on the kind of music-making competitions often foster, there’s good news: Happily, the Leopold Mozart Competition, under the artistic directorship of violinist, violin professor, and Mieczysław Weinberg-maven Linus Roth, is trying something rather novel. The question on the outset was: How to conduct a music competition in a manner that makes the results more musical, less technical, and less musico-political? In Augsburg that starts with getting rid of the perennial bane of competitions: No teacher-student relationships whatsoever. That’s not easy when you have a jury full of violin pedagogues. This is where another element of Roth’s re-thinking of a competition comes in. Don’t jam the jury full with violinists who judge violinists – competently but also very, very narrowly – on sheer technical merit. Bring in all kinds of ears and different ways of listening. Other musicians: Cellists (Christian Poltéra, Danjulo Ishizaka), violists (Nils Mönkemeyer). And, crucially, ears closer to the ground of an artist’s reality: concert hall directors (Wigmore Hall’s fabulous John Gilhooly) and agents (Sabine Frank of Harrison Parrot)… even journalists and music consultants (Anna Picard, Remy Franck et al.). And, because you can’t actually let just violin noobs do the judging of violinists, also some stand-out violin soloists and pedagogues in the form of Marco Rizzi, the aforementioned Benjamin Schmid, Friedemann Eichhorn, Ulf Hölscher, Liza Ferschtman, and Erik Schumann. A diverse bunch that is meant to result in a fuller type of picture of an artist making it through a competition’s round: A system that’s more generous to risk-taking and to personality over a monoculture of

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Saudi Arabia to Sponsor Teatro Della Scala and Sit on Board

Saudi Arabia to sponsor Milan Opera: @teatroallascala brings Saudi minister of culture on board of directors. "Win-win" says Intendant Alexander Pereira: We get $$$ and critics of our productions get dismembered and killed at the Saudi Consulate in Milan.https://t.co/GcmyEOJkYf pic.twitter.com/nwiyN8B4fk

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) March 6, 2019

War-Time Wilhelm Furtwängler: Questionable Greatness

The conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler’s art has so imbued itself into the collective conscious of the music-loving public that, to this day, 65 years after his death, the name still evokes greatness. Sure, there are factions – especially the Arturo Toscanini-loving types – that dispute Furtwängler’s greatness. Or those who suggest that for every moment of incandescence there were two of crud. And a modern listener might hear scratchy old recordings that are a far cry from today’s technical standards in terms of sound and performance and wonder what the big deal is. But even for those who cannot ascertain his dare-not-be-questioned ‘wondrous amazingness’ (and if you admit as much, be ready to be painted an ignoramus), the point is probably not to determine Furtwängler’s greatness in terms of what we can glean today from his art but by how lasting a legacy he has left. In fact, it’s perhaps even more amazing for that reputation to be so lasting in face of evidence that doesn’t always support it in ‘conventional ways’.

For decades this mythical reputation has lived off relatively few official releases (which weren’t always the best ones) and an enormous amount of semi-pirated gray-market imprints (which were often of disastrous technical quality). Eventually the Audite label took its painstaking restoration process and has opened much of the Furtwängler vault to potential listeners with their standard-setting releases and sets (especially notable the Complete RIAS recordings box). Now the Berlin Philharmonic, Furtwängler’s own band, gets in on it, too, and delivers what might be reasonably considered the definitive collection of the wartime recordings.

The set of 22 hybrid SACDs, striking a less marshal tone, is actually titled “The Radio Recordings 1939-1945” – and collects every surviving broadcast recording from that time – covering 21 concerts (partially, some) that Furtwängler gave in those years. The relatively good 77cm/s magnetic tape reels, which had been in Soviet custody until after the Cold War, were newly digitized on a custom tape machine of Radio Berlin-Brandenburg’s.

On paper, some of the most interesting ingredients are of course Furtwängler war time Beethoven symphonies: Complete performances of the Fourth (once with and once without an audience present), Fifth (twice), Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Symphonies. (There are also the Coriolan Overture and the Violin and Fourth Piano Concertos with longtime Berlin Philharmonic concert master Erich Röhn and Conrad Hansen as soloists, respectively.) There is some repertoire that has since fallen by the wayside, like Heinz Schubert’s Hymnic Concerto, Furtwängler’s own Symphonic Concerto (with Edwin Fischer as the pianist!), or Ernst Pepping’s Second Symphony. A complete Fifth and Ninth lure the Bruckner lover and Richard Strauss is well presented with tone poems and orchestrated songs. It’s also a pretty one-sided slice of the repertoire that the listener gets: Short pieces by Handel, Gluck and Mozart’s Symphony No.39 are the only earlier-than-romantic works and Ravel and Sibelius are the only non-Germanic entries.

As is typical of the coffee-table vanity sets of the Berlin Philharmonic’s own label, they are luxuriously packaged and shaped exactly so that they won’t fit into a single shelf – CD or book – of human devising. Previously, the CD/Blu-ray releases in that format have, after some time, been re-issued slightly less luxuriously but in conventionally shaped SACD boxes. Given the commemorative nature of this set, that might be less likely. The 180 page bilingual book is terrific, brimming with great photos and many excerpts from Furtwängler’s letters… especially to his record producers, which are telling especially when the conductor talks about his dissatisfaction with the end results.

Also among these excerpts is one snippet that shows that the Toscanini-Furtwängler rivalry was not just a figment of their respective follower’s imagination. Decrying to EMI their lack of interest in recording his performances, Furtwängler wrote them in May of 1953: “While in the past you had mentioned from time to time that I should record the IX. [Beethoven] symphony, I haven’t heard anything about that as of late. Instead I see the IX. Symphony of Toscanini’s praised beyond all measure (even in Germany) in a propagandistic way that stands in gross contrast to the quality of that record.” Furtwängler would be happy to know that he’s been the beneficiary of nearly as much propagandistic praise, since. Whether in gross contrast to the quality of the record, that is yours to decide.

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(More pictures below.)

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Record Label BIS Goes Green (You Had Me at "Turtles")

The Swedish record lable BIS, known for its pioneering work in publishing the complete works of Jean Sibelius, dedication to the SACD format, and home to the superb Bach Cantata Cycle under Masaaki Suzuki's, is now setting an example of ecologically conscious CD packaging. Later this month, a press release announced, the label's owner Robert von Bahr will release a Super Audio Compact Disc in an 'ecopak', a 100% recyclable sleeve made of certified cardboard, printed on with soy ink, gummed up eco-friendly glue and water-based varnish. Once they are through their inventory, all of BIS' recordings will use the new sleeves.

Alan Hovhaness, And God Created Great Whales, Concerto No. 8 for Orchestra, Anahid et al. D.Amos, Philharmonia Orchestra Cyrstal Records

In tune with the Zeitgeist, Bahr comments: “The use of plastic is doing enormous harm to the environment. No one can walk away from the pictures of whales, fish and turtles full of plastic without feeling horror.”

While it is safe to say that no BIS jewel-case has ever come in contact with a whale (the products have a considerable longevity and literal shelf life and are consumed in countries with robust recycling and garbage incinerator systems), there is something to be said for the symbolism of reducing the use of plastic and, down the line, potential waste. Aside there is a genuinely green aspect, after all: Although the sleeves cost about 20 percent more to make than a standard plastic CD jewel box, it weighs a third less. This reduces the energy used to ship the product and therefore transport costs, showing that good economic sense is usually also environmentally sound. Naturally, in this day and age, this is marketed in pseudo-scientific bright green colors as "reducing the carbon emissions associated with transport costs..." (surely "carbon dioxide emissions"?), underplaying the perfectly sound and actually ecolocial and economical energy-savings.

"Von Bahr is taking the loss", suggestes the press release, quoting the man himself: “If this helps the recording business move away from plastic packaging in favour of more ecological alternatives, I will be happy,” says the veteran record industry executive. "I have rarely been so inspired by anything. Everything about this is right - the need, the timing and the solution". Admirable, indeed, and with any luck, the public relations side-effect might even make up for some the projected losses when the sales of BIS’ first ecopak, namely a SACD of the Dutch composer Joel Bons' 2019 Music Composition Grawemeyer Award winning work 'Nomaden' - go through the roof. Whales, fish, turtles and consumers are cheering him on.

Recommended listening to reading this item is, quite naturally, Alan Hovhaness' "And God Created Great Whales" from 1970, for orchestra and the taped songs of whales (including humpback [timpani], bowhead [strings], and killer whales [sopranos]). Alas, not available on BIS records.

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In the News: A New Home For Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra

Previously, when the musicians of “The World’s Best Orchestra” – a.k.a. Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra – wanted to practice outside the scheduled orchestral rehearsals at the actual Concertgebouw (Amsterdam’s famous shoe-box 1888 concert hall), they had to find their own place to do it; often renting space nearby... [read the full item over on ClassicsToday]

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News: Osmo Vänskä to Step Down from Minnesota Orchestra Post

News: Osmo Vänskä Fixes Date to Step Down from Minnesota Orchestra Music Directorship in 2022

It’s hard to believe that Osmo Vänskä has helmed the Minnesota Orchestra for 16 years already, having started there in 2003. But the math works out. Yesterday it was announced at the Minnesota Orchestra’s annual meeting that he will leave his position of Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra in August of 2022… by which time it will have been 19 years for the Finish Maestro in the Twin Cities. Well, 17-plus, if you deduct the ugly 15 month lockout period in which the orchestra nearly managed to abolish itself, dealing with hard, inconvenient realities and (what seemed to be) an intransigent board.

The collaboration with Vänskä has put the Minnesota Orchestra internationally back on the map, after it had experienced something of a reputational slump in the Edo de Waart (1986–1995) and Eiji Oue (1995–2002) years. Before that, it had been led for forty years by a trio of podium greats, Dimitri Mitropoulos (1937–1949), Antal Doráti (1949–1960), and Stanisław Skrowaczewski (1960–1979). (Not to forget Eugene Ormandy in the pre-war years, 1931–1936.)

L.v.Beethoven, Complete Symphonies O.Vänskä / Minnesota O BIS US | UK | DE

Apart from touring, which is essential to spread the impressions of and for an orchestra beyond its natural habitat, the relationship with Swedish record label BIS was instrumental in the increased exposure. The well-regarded, well-curated audiophile label that had successfully recorded with Vänskä for years, continued to release one notable recording after another. A Beethoven Cycle early on in the orchestra-conductor relationship proved a milestone; one of the finest such achievements to-date, in a much overcrowded field. (The Fourth being one of my all-time favorite Beethoven recordings.) Recordings with Russian concert pianist Yevgeny Sudbin made ears perk. And a new, second cycle of the Sibelius Symphonies by Vänskä with his Minnesotans topped it off, not to universal (though considerable) acclaim perhaps, garnering plenty attention in the process. The team is currently engaged in recording a cycle of Mahler Symphonies which is scheduled to commence by or before the end of Mr. Vänskä’s tenure.

When he steps down, Osmo Vänskä will have been the longest-serving music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, along with founding director Emil Oberhoffer (1903–1922) and Skrowaczewski, who both also served for 19 years.

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Photo courtesy Minnesota Orchestra, © Travis Anderson

In the News: New SFS Music Director, Philip Glass, and Jeremy Denk

In the News:

Esa-Pekka Salonen - the Complete Sony Recordings Sony US | UK | DE

Top News surely the announcement that Esa-Pekka Salonen (as had been rumored) will succeed Michael Tilson-Thomas in San Francisco to be the San Francisco Symphony’s 10^th Music Director. It’s a logical appointment. A stellar conductor with a great reputation, interesting repertoire, and a real feel for the American – indeed Californian – way of being an MD… which is to suggest: naturally good at fundraising. For the very little it’s worth: I should have liked to see the slightly less splashy appointment of David Robertson… not so much because I think that would have been better for the SFS but simply because I want Robertson, whom I consider to be one of the most underrated conductors around, to be more in the limelight and with an orchestra of an international reputation to play with. After all, he’s at an age where one might consider that the once steeply ascendant conductor’s career has petered out, lest he pull a Günter Wand-like golden autumn. (Which would be fine, but I want him now.) Anyway, Salonen is certainly the safer choice and every bit as good (and certainly more glam-inducing) for the orchestra. Here’s the official announcement.

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P.Glass, Symphony No.11 D.R.Davies / Bruckner Orch. Linz Orange Mountain Music US | UK | DE

Next up: You must get intimations of mortality when a university names a program after you. Case in point Philip Glass and The New School’s College of Performing Arts, which announced today to engage in a landmark partnership with the Philip Glass Ensemble (PGE) and long-time PGE member, Lisa Bielawa (named inaugural Composer-in-Residence and Chief Curator), around the work of Philip Glas, to form a new learning and creative center. Because Glass’ works have been so neglected, the Philip Glass Institute will offer students, faculty, and the public the opportunity to immerse themselves in the work of Philip Glass, other important artists within his circle, and the work of the iconic Philip Glass Ensemble. Facetiousness aside, this is good news for the PGE, which is Glass’ legacy, and the future of which is thereby secured, independently of its namesake… erm, aliveness. Added the composer himself: “At the new PGI we can prioritize a curriculum which doesn’t require critical approval of any period or style...Young composers need to be true to their voices. ‘Coming up’ can be very independent, and this is what will be guiding our work at The New School.” The whole thing will launch on January 6^th at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium.

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Beethoven / Ligeti, op.111 / Etudes Jeremy Denk Warner US | UK | DE

Combining the topics of San Francisco and schools: Pianist (and once our blogging-colleague) Jeremy Denk has been announced to join the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As such, he will lead a piano studio beginning in the 2019-20 academic year, joining piano department instructors at SFCM such as Jon Nakamatsu and Garrick Ohlsson. How gratifying (if envy-inducing) to see Denk’s career – not only as a musician but also as a man of letters – blossom like the dickens: MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, Avery Fisher Prize, and most recently his being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences… and now a great job. Here’s to you, Jeremy, and hats off. Here’s the official announcement.

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This Just In: Vast Collection of 19th-Century Italian Opera Scores to Move to Wales

Opera Rara has announced the transfer of its Opera Rara Music Library to a new, permanent home at The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD). Support for this move comes from The Foyle Foundation, which provided a sizable grant (its biggest for a project in Wales) to enable the library, which is currently based in London, to be transferred to RWCMD where it will be known as The Foyle Opera Rara Collection.

The collection contains more than five thousand volumes, which makes it one of the largest and most comprehensive such collections of first and early editions of 19th-century Italian opera scores in Europe. It contains popular and many forgotten works by popular composers such as Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, as well as works by forgotten composers like Mayr, Mercadante, Pacini, Ponchielli, Leoncavallo and Mascagni. It also contains autograph manuscripts in the hands of Donizetti, Mercadante and Pacini.

The college's Principal, Prof. Helena Gaunt, is quoted in the press release as being “hugely grateful to the Foyle Foundation in allowing us to provide The Foyle Opera Rara Collection with its new home in Wales at the Royal Welsh College, which will be available for academic and public access later next year. This generous gift is an important confirmation of the College’s continuing development, and brings with it an extensive and high-quality collection of historical scores and research material relating to opera, which will benefit generations of students and staff here, as well as the international academic community in this field.”

More to the point for music lovers: the acquisition funding will allow Opera Rara to invest in a five-year plan continuing their work in bringing the best of these unfairly neglected operas back to life at the highest levels possible. Today (Wednesday, 21 November) marks the first hearing in 120 years of the original one-act version of Puccini’s first stage work Le Willis (later called Le Villi in its two-act form) at the Royal Festival Hall; Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Ermonela Jaho, Arsen Soghomonyan, Brian Mulligan and the Opera Rara Chorus.

The studio recording of Le Willis will be released in September 2019. In March 2019, Opera Rara will issue the world première recording of Donizetti’s L’Ange de Nisida – the company’s 25^th Donizetti title! On 8 June, Opera Rara will present a concert performance, following a studio recording, of the rarely heard Il Paria, also by Donizetti, at the Barbican. The Britten Sinfonia will perform under Sir Mark Elder.

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Andrés Orozco-Estrada new Chief Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra

The Vienna Symphony Names Its New Chief Conductor

The Vienna Symphony Orchestra has just announced that the successor to Philippe Jordan will be the Columbian-born Andrés Orozco-Estrada (*1977). He will officially start his tenure with the 2021/22 season while working closely with the orchestra in the 2020/21 season as the 'Chief Conductor Designate'. Onward to the article on Forbes: The Vienna Symphony Names Its New Chief Conductor.

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