Hilary Hahn and Robert Levin

Charles T. Downey, Hahn and Levin strike sparks from Bach to Türk
Washington Classical Review, October 29

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Hilary Hahn, Again (Ionarts, April 21, 2016)

Alisa Weilerstein's Bach through a Romantic lens

Charles T. Downey, Alisa Weilerstein brings a bounty of Bach
Washington Classical Review, October 17

Antoine Tamestit Returns

Bach, Cello Suites 1/3/5 (arr. viola), A. Tamestit (Naïve, 2013) Bach, Partita No. 2 (arr. viola) / Ligeti, Sonata for Solo Viola, A. Tamestit (Naïve, 2007)

Charles T. Downey, Tamestit ably straddles the cello-music-on-viola gap at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, April 26)

The viola and the cello have the same tuning, an octave apart, but the transfer of one instrument’s music to the other is not without challenges. French violist Antoine Tamestit played both borrowed music and a modern masterwork in a Sunday evening recital presented by Washington Performing Arts. The event marked his return to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater more than a decade after his debut there.

Tamestit played two of the three solo cello suites of Bach he has recorded on the viola for the Naïve label. At times one misses the gravitas of the lower instrument, on the low notes of the C and G preludes, for example, or the folksy drone section of the C suite’s Gigue... [Continue reading]

Antoine Tamestit, viola (on 1672 "Mahler" Stradivarius viola)
Music by Bach, Ligeti
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
jfl, Ionarts at Large: Widmann's New Viola Concerto (Ionarts, March 15, 2016)

---, Ionarts at Large: BRSO Season Opening Concerts (Ionarts, October 7, 2012)

Tim Page, From Antoine Tamestit, Arresting Viola Voicings (Washington Post, November 25, 2003)

Hilary Hahn, Again

No season in Washington seems to go by without an appearance by violinist Hilary Hahn. She is a perennial favorite with area orchestras, and Washington Performing Arts presents her frequently in recital. It was not clear whether the empty parts of the Music Center at Strathmore, where WPA presented her on Tuesday night, were due to audience fatigue with Hahn or to an ongoing trend of declining audiences for the presenter.

There was nothing on the program that could be construed as ear candy for audiences: relatively obscure sonatas by Mozart and Copland, interspersed with half of a set of six new partitas by Spanish composer Antón García Abril (b. 1933). Abril was one of the composers commissioned by Hahn for her ill-fated — but Grammy award-winning — Encores project, and Washington Performing Arts ponied up the money to commission this further set of pieces from him for Hahn to play. (She will play the other three partitas in the set, again presented by WPA, on October 28, 2016.) The title of Partita is somewhat misleading, implying a set of dance movements, as in Bach's set of three. What Abril has created struck me more as fantasias, as each one consists of sections in various moods and characters; perhaps we are meant to understand an earlier meaning of the word partita, before it became associated with dance movements.

Abril emphasized double-stops in all three of the pieces heard in this concert, although he did not use them in the truly polyphonic way Bach did most memorably. For example, the meandering melody of the first partita had occasional double-stops providing a short of homophonic accompaniment, and in another section drones accompanied the tune. After a series of mostly unrelated sections, the first partita just faded away on a passage of repeating sixteenth notes. The second partita was more tart in harmonic flavor, with biting rhythms, and lasted only about half as long as the first one, not adding up to much. The third partita seemed closer in character to the first, with more introspective melodies and not all that polyphonic double-stops, leaving the impression of a set of possibly pretty but rather boring pieces. The less said about the composer's embarrassing, puerile program idea ("H-I-L-A-R-Y is for heart, immensity, love, art, reflexive, you," supposedly describing the six pieces), the better. This is one of those programmatic ideas that the composer, as Mahler did with some of his symphonic programs, should perhaps have kept to himself.

Other Reviews: Simon Chin, A lot riding on Hilary Hahn’s bow at Strathmore (Washington Post, April 21) Jesse Hamlin, Violinist Hilary Hahn to premiere Abril partita at Davies Hall (San Francisco Chronicle, April 20)

The Mozart sonata (G major, K. 379) was a showpiece for Hahn's partner at the keyboard, Cory Smythe, who had the most challenging music of the evening. He went for a super-delicate sound, so delicate that some of the filigree-thin notes did not really sound clearly. It is a fairly mediocre piece, and the response of both performers, to give it a more Romantic swooning sensibility, had mixed success. Copland's elegiac violin sonata, last heard live from James Ehnes, brought out the best of Hahn's tone, as she played it with an airy simplicity. Here at last, in the faster movements, was some of the dance that seemed lacking in the Abril pieces.

'Das Lied von der Erde' from San Francisco

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde, T. Hampson, S. Skelton, San Francisco Symphony, M. Tilson Thomas (SFS Media, 2008)

The San Francisco Symphony's last East Coast tour, in 2013, was canceled because of a strike by the musicians. Their last visit here, then, was in 2010, with an unusual program including obscure Liszt and Victor Kissine. Their appearance on Saturday afternoon, presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, returned more to the feel of their 2006 tour, when they gave heady, refined interpretations of Debussy's Jeux and the Adagio from Mahler's tenth symphony. The new program, combining Schubert's eighth symphony and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, was a calculated tour de force, intended not to shock and awe by its force but to seduce by its subtlety.

Music director Michael Tilson Thomas zealously watched over a most delicate rendition of the "Unfinished" Symphony, immediately hushing the low strings in the introduction to the first movement. With a restrained pace he took the tempo marking of “Allegro moderato” at face value, a moderation that extended into all musical areas. The cellos presented the famous B theme with consummate introspection, and after the development’s mysterious chords with rumbling bass, the recapitulation returned just as serenely, at precisely the same tempo as the one set at the outset. The second movement was just as rarefied, with the oboe solos striking just the right air of plangent longing, matched by strong contributions from clarinet, flute, and horn, all allowed to be limpid and graceful, never forced into shrillness.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, A renowned American orchestra shows its refinement (Washington Post, April 18) James R. Ostreich, A Mahler Mini-Festival in New York (New York Times, April 18) Anthony Tommasini, San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall (New York Times, April 14) Niels Swinkels, S.F. Symphony Plays from the Heart in Mahler, and Schubert (San Francisco Classical Voice, April 13) Joshua Kosman, Cooke, SF Symphony combine in intoxicating Mahler (San Francisco Chronicle, April 7)

The “lean in” ethos Tilson Thomas was after continued in an extraordinary, disembodied reading of Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” or at least part of it. In his Mahler cycle with San Francisco, Tilson Thomas recorded this piece, which allowed Mahler sneakily to circumvent having to write a fateful ninth symphony, with baritone and tenor. The New Zealand-born tenor Simon O’Neill had some force on the extroverted tenor arias, perhaps too much, not quite focused enough in tone, and rushing in some of the songs. Mahler’s orchestration is symphonic and can feel merciless in the tenor pieces, requiring some storminess in the singer, which O’Neill had to a degree, with some strain on the top notes.

If you are wondering why Tilson Thomas would trade out the baritone version of the cycle for the mezzo-soprano one, the answer could be that he had Sasha Cooke available. Tilson Thomas coaxed more exquisite sounds from the orchestra to envelop Cooke’s silky legato phrases, but under which she was never submerged. In “Von der Schönheit,” the orchestra turned on a dime, one minute floating ethereally, the next ranting through the interlude of boys galloping on their horses, and then sighing in the postlude with the yearning maiden. The sense of desolation in “Der Abschied” was overwhelming, the masterfully gloomy orchestration, the gorgeous flute and oboe solos. Oh, eternally Love-Life-drunk world indeed.

Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax Together Again

Beethoven, Cello Sonatas / Variations, Yo-Yo Ma, E. Ax (Sony Classical, 1987) Beethoven, Cello Sonatas 3/5, Yo-Yo Ma, E. Ax (remastered, 2013)

One's musical taste changes over the years. These days my "go to" choice for the Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano would be more along the lines of the historically informed version by Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin. When I was an undergraduate music major, however, my brand-new CD player wore out the shiny disc recorded by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, the one containing the third and fifth sonatas. That legendary pairing took the stage of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Wednesday evening, for a concert honoring the memory of Isaac Stern. It was the second half of a (more than) complete cycle of the Beethoven cello sonatas, begun by Isserlis and Levin last fall.

That first installment was in the smaller venue of the Terrace Theater, a space that could not possibly hold the audience amassed for Ma and Ax. This concert had the feeling of an event, and audience enthusiasm boiled over into some applause breaks in between movements, much to the performers' amusement and (so it seemed) pleasure. The time since they recorded these sonatas for Sony represents a lot of water under the bridge. Little surprise that how they play the works now is quite different, with perhaps more little slips and minor issues, especially on Ma's part, but more importantly interpretations that were quite different.

The fourth and fifth sonatas, paired by the composer as op. 102, are sublime works of Beethoven's late period. Both end with genial fugues — solemn counterpoint as a parting wink of the eye — in a way reminiscent of the op. 110 piano sonata. The performers stretched and pulled the Andante introduction of no. 4, to meditative and tender effect, with an equally rhapsodic handling of the Adagio introduction to the second movement. They applied the same rhythmic freedom to the opening of no. 5, while here the second movement had the tragic air of a funeral march, not lachrymose but steeped in tragedy, with the major-key B section like a sweet memory. The coda of this movement was the evening's most prayerful moment, sotto voce but laser-focused.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, partners in sublime (Washington Post, April 14)

As a lead-in to these accomplished pieces, the second sonata (op. 5/2) was hopelessly lightweight. The players did not exactly shortchange the piece, giving the slow first movement an introspective weightiness and plenty of rustling effects in the fast second movement. It runs long and tires on the ear, and Ma seemed inclined to add more visual flourishes to his bow strokes than was strictly necessary. It is no coincidence that both Isserlis-Levin and Ma-Ax chose to end with the third sonata, op. 69, the best of the bunch. Here the players chose a relaxed tempo for the first movement, making the contrast with the much faster and busy scherzo and finale that much more striking. Neither player overdid the agogic accents of the scherzo, so that it felt more lively than unsettled, and the fleet finale showed Ax's fingers still in excellent form. The Adagio from the third violin sonata of Brahms, in its arrangement for cello and piano, served as encore.

BRSO Brings Mahler 5

Charles T. Downey, Kennedy Center’s New Music Series Is Bates’s Jukebox
Classical Voice North America, April 14

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One day, Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra will play in the hall it deserves. When it does, a statue of conductor Mariss Jansons in or in front of the hall would not be out of place. The Riga-born conductor doubled down on his commitment to the Bavarians, whom he has led since 2003, and their quest for a new venue, by resigning from his other music directorship, at Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, last year. He even pledged $270,000 of his own money, the proceeds of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, as starter cash for the fund to build the orchestra a new auditorium.

The news came earlier this year that Munich will indeed build the BRSO a new home in time for Jansons and his orchestra to take a victory lap on its North American tour...

[Continue reading]

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
North American Tour
With Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

SEE ALSO:
Christophe Huss, Mariss Jansons, l’affiche tombée du ciel (Le Devoir, April 14)

Anne Midgette, How a great orchestra started its U.S. tour: Carefully. (Washington Post, April 13)

Robert R. Reilly, Bavarian RSO Opens North American Tour (Ionarts, April 13)

Charles T. Downey, Concertgebouw Returns, This Time with Mahler (Ionarts, February 5, 2008)

Bavarian RSO Opens North American Tour

PICTURE OF MARISS JANSONS © ASTRID ACKERMANN

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

According to the Playbill program notes for the April 12, 2016, concert at the Kennedy Center, the Washington Performing Arts organization has not sponsored the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra here since 2003. From the caliber of playing on display in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, that has been our substantial loss. Under conductor Mariss Jansons, the level of orchestral execution in all departments was superlative. They are welcome in my town anytime.

First, a side note on concert programming. I sometimes wonder if there is not a secret, worldwide, Spectre-like organization of programmers who meet to plot the frequent repetition of repertory. Less than a year ago, I heard the Mahler Fifth with the NSO, and less than two years ago I heard the Korngold Violin Concerto, also with the NSO. I’m not complaining in either case, as violinist Gil Shaham gave the Korngold a beautiful performance and Christoph Eschenbach’s Mahler is always worth hearing. It makes you wonder though, doesn’t it?

In fact, last year’s Mahler Fifth was paired with the Sibelius Violin Concerto, played by tonight’s soloist in the Korngold, Leonidas Kavakos. The time I had heard Kavakos before that was in a program in Ljubljana with the Prokofiev Second Violin Concerto, which was coupled with (guess what?) Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Are you beginning to see the global dimensions of this? If it happens again, I’m calling Interpol.

And now a note on the program. I think it makes good sense to put the Korngold and Mahler together because they both come from the same Viennese milieu – albeit one via Hollywood, the other not. Both inhabit the First Viennese School, though from Korngold one could not imagine the Second Viennese School, while from Mahler, one could. Also, it was interesting to hear the Korngold first because, listening to the Mahler afterwards, I exclaimed to myself several times, “aha, Korngold had obviously heard that.” Then there is the historical association: Korngold, who as a youth had met Mahler, dedicated his Violin Concerto to Mahler’s widow, Alma.

Be that as it may, it was a pleasure to hear Kavakos in the Korngold, though my first impression — one of warmth rather than brilliance — was that his razor sharpness and intonation were slightly off from what I had heard before. The tone soon improved, however, and by the last movement he was blazing away with complete confidence. He had great partners in Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which played with crystal clarity, precision, and energy. Though most of the themes in the concerto came from Korngold’s brilliant movie scores, no one indulged in any Hollywood sentimentality. This is not to say there was any beauty lacking — the glorious sound of the orchestra was like walking into the Golden Screen. The enthusiasm of the audience impelled Kavakos to offer a charming encore, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, composed by Francisco Tárrega for guitar, transcribed for violin by Ruggiero Ricci. You can hear a much younger Kavakos playing it here.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, How a great orchestra started its U.S. tour: Carefully. (Washington Post, April 13)

The performance of the Mahler Fifth Symphony was blistering. Let me put it this way: if Mahler were Beethoven, this is exactly how he should be played. And further, I mean Beethoven not as Bruno Walter would play him, but more like Arturo Toscanini or René Leibowitz would. It was thrilling, but was it Mahler? There were no emotional or psychological epiphanies provided, but there were musical ones aplenty. Jansons’ attitude toward this work seems to be to take it simply as a tremendously exciting piece of music and not as an emotional freight train. I have heard this work so often that there is very little that can make me sit up and take notice. Because of Jansons’ highly energized approach and the brilliant playing of the BRSO, I was on high alert for most of the evening. Jansons did not stop to smell the daisies; he propelled the performance up and down the mountainsides, and had his massive orchestra turning on a pin, like Alpine chamois. It was breathtaking. The Adagietto was the movement that benefited least from Jansons’ approach. Anyone expecting to take a warm bath in it would have been disappointed. It had beauty, yes, but warmth, not much.

While not terribly emotive, the performance was nonetheless visceral in its impact. If you wonder what Mahler meant when he marked the score “like a whirlwind” or “Moving Stormily, With the Greatest Vehemence,” Jansons provided a very compelling answer. Of course, there are many ways of doing this symphony, as Klaus Tennstedt and others have brilliantly shown. But Jansons has clearly demonstrated that this is one of them.

It hardly need be said that every department of the BRSO covered itself in glory — what a deep, gorgeous sound! The strings were exceptional, the brass outstanding, but so were the winds, and the timpani…

I have decided not to call Interpol after all.

James Galway, Still Going

James Galway, Celebrating 70: A Collection of Personal Favorites (Sony, 2009)

Charles T. Downey, James Galway still knows how to spin out a beautiful phrase (Washington Post, March 22)

Sir James Galway’s last visit to Washington, in 2013, was billed as a legacy tour. The Irish flutist, a legend by any measure, was still at the top of his game, and he had the audience eating out of his hand. On Sunday afternoon, Galway was back, presented again by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, and playing a platinum Nagahara flute he helped design. But this time around, the less-than-full house and increasing shortcomings in finger agility and tuning gave the impression of an artistic arc beginning its descent.

At 76, Galway still worked marvels in many pieces, not least in the outrageous variations of Giulio Briccialdi’s “Carnival of Venice,” where the complex writing gives the impression of the flute accompanying its own melody... [Continue reading]

James Galway, flute
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

PREVIOUSLY:
2013 | 2008 | 2006

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal

Honegger / Ibert, L'Aiglon, A.-C. Gillet, M. Barrard, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, K. Nagano (Decca, 2016)

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal embarked on a North American tour with a concert on Monday night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, presented by Washington Performing Arts. American-born conductor Kent Nagano, most familiar in these pages for his tenure in Munich and for his recordings, has led this Canadian ensemble since 2006 and just had his contract extended until 2020. In general, the group sounded best in its string sections, which were capable of diaphanous transparency and rhythmic incisiveness, with unrestrained, occasionally overbearing brass and woodwinds that had striking individuality, which is not to say ugliness. It was not a sound or a performance that earned extravagant praise, at least to these ears, although its reading of the final work on the concert, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, was full of unexpected surprises, which is not exactly easy to accomplish with such a familiar piece of music.

In the Stravinsky, those raucous woodwinds filled the score with wild colors, pushing their sound to the edge of what could still be called beautiful, right from the opening bassoon solo, where a tenuto clinging to the top notes of the melody filled the moment with sweet nostalgia. Nagano took his time with parts of the score, like the famous "Augurs of Spring," that too many other conductors drive past in an obsession with speed that does not necessarily take into account the movement of dancers. In many places, Nagano's shepherding of balances brought out parts of this dense score that had gone unnoticed in previous performances. The soft parts never bored, seemingly guided by an awareness of the story and what the dancers were depicting, allowing plenty of time for the old sage to be lowered to the ground to kiss the earth, for example. When the score was at its most manic, though, as in the manic Dance of the Earth and the Sacrificial Dance that conclude both parts of the ballet, Nagano and his musicians created a thrilling frenzy.

Other Reviews: Lawrence A. Johnson, Montreal Symphony makes a triumphant return to Chicago (Chicago Classical Review, March 19) Anthony Tommasini, Montreal Symphony Orchestra Performs With Panache (New York Times, March 17) Anne Midgette, Brilliant pianist leads orchestra’s return (Washington Post, March 15) David Rohde, Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center (D.C. Metro Theater Arts, March 15)

Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov always makes unexpected choices when he sits down at the keyboard. No surprise, then, that his rendition of the solo part of Prokofiev's punishing third piano concerto, last heard from Nikolai Lugansky, was strong on devilish virtuosity. He thundered and shrieked his way through the thickets of notes, delighting in the odd duets with the piccolo and castanets, although Nagano allowed the orchestra to cover the soloist too much in sound. Far too much work had gone into Trifonov's part for long sections of it not to be heard. Trifonov's sometimes odd approach made the slow movement enigmatic, at times baffling, followed by a ferocious finale, which Trifonov pushed faster and faster, to dazzling effect. He returned to one of his favorite encores, Rachmaninoff's inspired arrangement of a Bach gavotte, which he also played at his 2013 recital.

The only part of the concert that disappointed was a lackluster performance of Debussy's Jeux, a piece where one definitely missed the velvet touch of Charles Dutoit at the helm. The often overlooked twin of Rite of Spring, which was premiered by the Ballets Russes in the same year, it is a revolutionary piece that can be difficult to bring off the page, because it is so subtle in its subversion of traditional harmony. This was a performance that seemed neither rarefied nor singular, during which not much seemed to happen and so many distinctive colors passed by unnoticed. By the end, no matter what happens, the corpse of tonality lies dead on the floor, felled by countless artistically placed cuts.

Schiff's Last Sonatas

Schubert, Piano Sonata D. 960 (inter alia), A. Schiff (fortepiano) (ECM, 2015) Schubert, Piano Sonatas, A. Schiff (piano) (Decca, 2011)

There is something special about music composed at the end of a composer's life, whether he or she is aware of the approach of death or not. András Schiff has attempted to explore that autumnal quality, in a journey of three concerts begun last year, devoted to the last three piano sonatas of the four great Viennese composers, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. While I was forced to miss the second of these concerts, the final installment was presented by Washington Performing Arts on Wednesday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore, and cyclonic winds and flooding could not keep me away.

Each half of the program paired a less substantial last sonata (Haydn and Mozart) with two incomparable masterworks of the genre, Beethoven's op. 111 and Schubert's D. 960. Schiff's sometimes fussy manipulation of touch at the keyboard was ideally suited to the two smaller works, especially the filigree details of Haydn's Hob. XVI:52, sober wit enlivening themes like the grace-note-inflected bridge theme of the first movement, which can be too cute in other hands. Velvety runs and a puckish rapidity in the finale balanced a less successful slow movement, an overly slow tempo turning the piece to the soporific side. The slow movement of Mozart's K. 576 had the opposite effect, given a more transparent simplicity, surrounded by sweet-toned outer movements, full of carefully groomed sounds.

Scholar Lewis Lockwood noted that Beethoven, around the time he was composing the op. 111 sonata, wrote in his Conversation Book, "The moral law within us, and the starry heavens above us. Kant!!!" Lockwood goes on to observe, "It is just this spirit, of the mortal, vulnerable human being striving against the odds to hold his moral being steady in order to gather strength as an artist to strive toward the heavens -- it is this conjoining that we feel at the end of Opus 111 and in a few other moments in Beethoven's last works."

While Evgeny Kissin's performance of this sonata impressed me by the strength and daring of the fugal sections of the first movement and the polish of the trills section, Schiff went for angelic delicacy, growing softer and softer toward the sonata's conclusion. Schiff has rightly described the tendency to hear the dotted variation of the second movement as something akin to "boogie-woogie" as a banality, an anachronistic equation of the score with a style of music that would not be invented for another century. If Schiff's interpretation does not sound jazzy, as it did not, it is to his credit.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, A venerated pianist puts sonatas on a pedestal at Strathmore (Washington Post, February 26) Zachary Woolfe, Andras Schiff Deconstructs Sonatas (New York Times, November 1, 2015) Mark Swed, Pianist Andras Schiff mesmerizes with last sonatas of 4 composers (Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2015) Melinda Bargreen, Light as a feather, mighty as Beethoven — András Schiff enchants with piano sonatas (Seattle Times, October 13, 2015)

At the end of the piece, Schiff attempted to hold the audience in silence for a moment of reflection, but a listener somewhere in the hall, determined to show everyone that he knew what the end of op. 111 was, insisted on applauding. It was a rude gesture, to which Schiff responded testily, but performers sometimes go too far in trying to create these moments of profundity after the music has ended. (Christoph Eschenbach tends to to do this a lot with the National Symphony Orchestra, and it feels affected.) If a performance is that profound, the audience will hold itself silent.

There is likely a reason for Schiff's softer, darker approach to the Beethoven and to Schubert's D. 960. Two years ago, Schiff recorded this Schubert sonata and other music by Schubert on a fortepiano built by Franz Brodmann in Vienna in 1820 (a nice companion disc to Decca's re-released set of Schiff's earlier Schubert sonata cycle), as well as Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Bagatelles on the same instrument before that. Schiff, in his program notes on the Schubert ECM disc, described the fortepiano's "tender mellowness, its melancholic cantabilità," and it is just these qualities that he brought out most from the Bösendorfer on the Strathmore stage. He took all of Schubert's gradations of piano seriously, with playing that was exceedingly delicate and a little too mannered, but with exquisite layering of voices in the slow movement. An encore, the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations, finished off the evening.

Daniil Trifonov joins the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (March 14) for Prokofiev's third piano concerto, presented by Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Roomful of Teeth

Roomful of Teeth, Roomful of Teeth (New Amsterdam, 2012)

Charles T. Downey, Music by composer Caroline Shaw at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue (Washington Post, February 9)

American composer Caroline Shaw may be familiar more for collaborating with Kanye West than for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Washington Performing Arts provided the chance to listen to two of her pieces on Saturday night, in a concert by members of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), presented at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. Closing the balcony seating gave the impression of a fuller audience on the floor level, with more young faces making up for the desertion of the presenter’s normal audience.

“Partita for 8 Voices,” which won the Pulitzer in 2013, received its official Washington premiere, although Roomful of Teeth already had performed it at a private concert at Dumbarton Oaks in 2014. It is, to use Shaw’s words, “a simple piece,” ... [Continue reading]

Roomful of Teeth and ACME
Caroline Shaw, composer
Washington Performing Arts
Sixth and I Historic Synagogue

PREVIOUSLY:
Anne Midgette, Roomful of Teeth, a cappella (Washington Post, March 19, 2013)

ONF de Retour

Debussy, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, I. Huppert, Orchestre National de France, D. Gatti (Radio France, 2012) Debussy, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (inter alia), Orchestre National de France, D. Gatti (Sony Classics, 2012)

The last time that the Orchestre National de France was in Washington, at the Kennedy Center in 2008, the late Kurt Masur was at the podium. On that tour, the main course was delicious Bruckner, with a slightly odd Beethoven concerto with pianist David Fray. For their latest appearance, presented by Washington Performing Arts on Sunday afternoon in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Daniele Gatti reversed the concept, with a rather boring choice of symphony preceded by a devastating concerto.

Some cities on the tour heard Alexandre Tharaud play a Mozart concerto, which was probably nice enough, but in Washington it was violinist Julian Rachlin who offered a gloomy, mordant, utterly compelling rendition of Shostakovich's first violin concerto. He gave the solo part an intense but whispered tone in the first movement, with Gatti covering the dissonant string chords in a deep shadow, with glimmers of celesta shining through, the rumble of double bass pedal notes, colored with whoosh of the gong and growls of contrabassoon. It could be risky, trying to sustain the listener's interest over this extended movement, but Gatti and Rachlin did so, down to the last floating high note.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Biting Russian music from a French orchestra (Washington Post, February 1) Simon Chin, Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre National de France Perform Debussy, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky (Chin Up, February 1) Jeffrey Gantz, Daniele Gatti, Orchestre National de France shine in Tchaikovsky (Boston Globe, January 26) David Wright, Gatti, Orchestra National de France bring fresh insights to familiar music (The Classical Review, January 26) Natasha Gauthier, Violinist Julian Rachlin lets the audience share in his physical, mental performance (Ottawa Citizen, January 25)

In the second movement, maniacally and metronomically paced, Rachlin made his 1704 "ex Liebig" Stradivarius cackle and sneer, pushing the tone into ugly territory at times. The orchestra crowed in raucous approval when it had its chance to burst forth, to chilling effect, and the tempo of the slow movement, even though too slow for the marking of Andante, had a dirge-like feel to it that was convincing, even over its considerable length. Rachlin had a way of caressing the dissonant notes, making them just as beautiful, and the cadenza grew in force and volume into a triumphant start of the finale.

The Burlesca quivered with anxiety, as Rachlin appeared to rush and jump ahead just slightly here and there, but Gatti recalibrated the ensemble imperceptibly, so it ended up being an impressive tour de force. Sadly, the applause was not sufficient to elicit the encore Rachlin had in store, an Ysaÿe movement he played at Carnegie Hall (which the New York Times apparently did not review). The missed encore may have had something to do with the lack of bodies in the hall: the sales were apparently so tepid that the Kennedy Center closed the upper balcony and had patrons relocate to the floor. For the concert opener, Gatti and the musicians shaped Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with remarkable freedom, without the tempo dragging as it does so often. The result was languorous but not soporific, and along with a pretty flute solo, breathy and sensuous, an orchestra of immense proportions produced a range of delicate, pastel hues. The second half consisted of a performance of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony (not reviewed).

Next on the Washington Performing Arts visiting orchestra series is the Budapest Festival Orchestra (February 15), at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Alyson Cambridge at the Kennedy Center

Charles T. Downey, Soprano Travels Adventurous Road During D.C. Recital
Classical Voice North America, January 23

W. Bolcom, From the Diary of Sally Hemings, A. Cambridge, L. Brown (White Pine Music, 2010)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Soprano Alyson Cambridge is testing the boundaries of classical music. The Washington-born singer’s breakthrough role at Washington National Opera was in the musical Show Boat, and her second recording, combining jazz, crossover, and pop music, was released on Naxos’ new Suite 28 Records label. Her recital on Jan. 20 in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presented by Washington Performing Arts under the title “In Her Voice,” brought together three new song cycles by American composers, two of them world premieres.

The concert opened with the most substantial work, William Bolcom’s From the Diary of Sally Hemings, which Cambridge recorded for a disc released in 2010. Bolcom used a literary text by playwright Sandra Seaton — eighteen entries in an imagined diary as it might have been written by Hemings, the slave of American president Thomas Jefferson...

[Continue reading]

Alyson Cambridge (soprano)
William Bolcom, From the Diary of Sally Hemings
Music by Jeffrey Mumford, Adam Schoenberg
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
Noah Mlotek, Jeffrey Mumford Portrait at the National Gallery (Ionarts, February 12, 2013)

Barbara Jepson, New Music With a Tonal Twist (Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2010)

Philadelphia Orchestra's Fabulous 'Firebird' at Strathmore

Rachmaninoff, Variations, D. Trifonov, Philadelphia Orchestra, Y. Nézet-Séguin (Deutsche Grammophon, 2015) Vieuxtemps, Violin Concerto No. 4, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, P. Järvi (Deutsche Grammophon, 2015)

Perhaps it was the news that just hours before Monday evening’s concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra at Strathmore -- presented by Washington Performing Arts -- the ensemble, its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Daniil Trifonov had been nominated for a Grammy for best classical solo performance. (Actually, it was just one of two Grammy nods for Nézet-Séguin and Trifonov.) Or maybe it was the thrill of performing to a sold-out house on the road. Either way, the Philadelphians and Nézet-Séguin leapt into an energetic rendition of Georges Bizet’s Suite No. 1 from Carmen (arr. Hoffman), the conductor gesticulating wildly on the podium, the players providing lots of volume and music flying by, ending with the Toreadors moving so quickly they’d have had little trouble outrunning their bulls. Yet even at that speed the orchestra, particularly its famed string sections, moved as one marvelous, precise instrument. This aspect of Nézet-Séguin’s group would return repeatedly during a night that featured much more satisfying interpretations than the bustling Bizet.

Next, all eyes turned to violin soloist Hillary Hahn. By the end of the four-movement Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, op. 31, of Henri Vieuxtemps, a contemporary of Bizet, it was clear that Hahn remains a virtuoso performer and Nézet-Séguin’s reputation as an excellent collaborator is warranted. Less clear, though, is why the Vieuxtemps, written in 1849-50, isn’t better known. The concerto, which Berlioz called “a magnificent symphony with principal violin,” contains large orchestral passages without soloist and extended room for the soloist to shine unaccompanied. Its Scherzo is a playful vivace that Hahn and Nézet-Séguin clearly enjoyed, and the Finale marziale is similarly spirited. While there were a few rough patches for the orchestra, Hahn’s technique and tone were flawless throughout. Best, of course, was the sense that soloist, orchestra and conductor were completely in synch interpretively.

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Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin

With your moderator still recovering from eye surgery, we thank Friend of Ionarts Robert 'Mecki' Pohl for the following thoughts on Thursday's recital by Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin. This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Beethoven, Cello Sonatas, S. Isserlis, R.Levin (Hyperion, 2014)

The first indication that this would not be just another concert of Beethoven's music for cello and piano came when entering the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. At this concert by Steven Isserlis, presented by Washington Performing Arts, one was confronted not with a giant shiny black Steinway, but with a brilliantly polished, wood-grained fortepiano. To go along with the gut strings Steven Isserlis prefers, Robert Levin was playing the ancestor of a modern piano, the instrument on which Beethoven himself composed.

The difference was remarkable, and, in the main, a real improvement. Starting with the quiet Adagio introduction of the first sonata, the warmth of the fortepiano meshed beautifully with the tone of Isserlis's gut strings. The revelations continued even through the sprightly Allegro, with notes that would otherwise be covered up being allowed to shine through. Particularly the quiet section that leads into the final, furious run was so subdued that it appeared that the fortepiano was in another room. As the first movement came to a triumphant end, it was a real testament to the restraint of the audience that nobody burst into applause.

In op. 102, no. 2, which ended the first half of the program, once again it was the Adagio that shone through, with its sublime notes flowing from Isserlis's bow and making a piece that has been played thousands of times feel truly new. (Why the fortepiano is not the go-to instrument in this modern age became clear during the intermission, when a technician came out to tune it, a job that took most of the time available.)

Other Reviews: Jeremy Eichler, Uncorking Beethoven, one cello work at a time (Boston Globe, October 28) David Weininger, Steven Isserlis delves into Beethoven at the Gardner (Boston Globe, October 24)

The second half of the program opened with the variations on Mozart's “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from The Magic Flute. Once again, it was the quiet movement that was revelatory; rather than being the quiet piece before the last restatement of the theme, it became under Isserlis and Levin's fingers the central point of the whole piece, the axle on which the whole thing turned. To have ended the concert with anything but op. 69 would have been a real mistake. Even with this crowd-pleaser, there were new things to be heard, whether a few runs that Isserlis and Levin added, or the moments where Levin had the fortepiano sounding more like a harpsichord.

As an encore, the two musicians offered up more Beethoven: a piece for mandolin and harpsichord which Isserlis said was much too good to be left to them. Levin quickly added that they “apologize to any mandolin players,” to which Isserlis replied “no we don't” and proceeded to play the fairly flashy piece with his usual good cheer and skill. It was a wonderful end to a remarkable concert.

The good news is that the rest of the Beethoven Sonatas will be played later this season by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. The bad news is that this concert is not until April 13.

Beauty Over Power: Herbert Schuch at the Kennedy Center

We welcome this review from Ionarts guest contributor Seth Arenstein.

Invocation (Bach, Liszt, Ravel, Messiaen, Murail), H. Schuch (Naïve, 2014)

Washington Performing Arts President and CEO Jenny Bilfield rang in the 49th season of the Hayes Piano Series with a Saturday afternoon recital at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater centered on musical evocations of bells. While compositions from Liszt, Ravel, Messiaen, and Murail provided bell-like sounds, as did Busoni and Bauer arrangements for piano of J.S. Bach vocal works, it was the young pianist Herbert Schuch whose sensitive touch and gorgeously subdued playing rang out this day. Yet Schuch’s playing was anything but loud. During this recital, the Romanian-born Schuch brought forth subtle colors from the piano, without the quicksilver technique and sheer power that seem to be hallmarks of many of today’s most popular young pianists.

From the opening of the program, Tristan Murail’s Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire, Murail's homage to his teacher, Olivier Messiaen, Schuch began building a quiet, mesmerizing line of music that lasted nearly one hour, through two more works: selections from Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173, and Ferruccio Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s chorale prelude Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639. The subtle wave lasted in part because Schuch played with barely a pause between the compositions, never leaving the piano bench.

By failing to announce that the works were to be performed en masse, Schuch and WPA took a risk that the Hayes audience would appreciate this uncommon practice and be able to follow along. While some audience members undoubtedly were puzzled, weaving the pieces together worked beautifully in an artistic sense. Schuch’s lyricism, displayed best during the Liszt, and his gorgeous control created a continuous, compelling tension until the Bach-Busoni’s final notes brought the first half to an end. It was as if Schuch had created a single, soft musical statement, despite playing pieces from various historical periods.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Herbert Schuch is a good pianist, but he inspires more questions than answers (Washington Post, October 19)

The second half was only slightly different. Again, Schuch performed his selections without a break, and the vast majority of his playing rarely rose above mezzo-piano. There was a moment of great contrast, however, as the dramatic Funerailles selection from Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses began with loud, clanging bells and later depicted a battle, with trumpet calls and horses’ hooves pounding. Schuch had little trouble transitioning from an afternoon of subtle, pianissimo playing, sitting calmly erect on the piano bench, to moments in the Liszt, where he hunched over the keyboard to produce fortissimo chords. He did so with power and executed several fast glissandi runs with impressive accuracy.

Shortly after that, though, Schuch returned to the contemplative, soft playing that dominated the recital. He concluded with La vallée des cloches, a selection from Ravel’s Miroirs. A tone painting written on three staves, it depicts a variety of ringing bells, from heavy Parisian church bells to sweet, hand-held bells. At one point Schuch crossed his left hand over his right, to flick two small bells.

The piano recitals continue later this month, when Washington Performing Arts presents András Schiff (October 26) and Evgeny Kissin (October 28).

Jeremy Denk and the Rag

Ligeti, Piano Études, J. Denk (2012) Ives, Piano Sonatas, J. Denk (2010)

Jeremy Denk is a thinking person's pianist, at his best putting together quirky playlists or drawing out bizarre sides of pieces you thought you knew. He is a musician of equal parts wit and enthusiasm, and this is probably why reading his thoughts about music is just as good as hearing him play it, if not better. In his last few appearances in the area, solo recitals in 2012 and 2013 and with the National Symphony Orchestra, he has disappointed a bit in the hearing. I suspect that for listeners who focus, even unintentionally, on his manner at the keyboard -- his gyrations and especially his tendency to turn towards the audience so that his face communicates an expression mid-phrase -- the humor and analysis of the music come through visually. Having spent most of his latest recital, presented by Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Sunday afternoon, looking at the floor instead of at him, I received only the sounds he made, including the loud slams of his percussive left foot.

The results were least pleasing in the opening Bach, my favorite of the English Suites (G minor, BWV 808), where Denk emphasized speed over detail in the fast prelude, courante, and gigue, so that trills were often smudged and runs elided. Abundant use of the sustaining pedal obscured the allemande and sarabande, both quite unctuous, while the gavottes had a music-boxy fairy dust quality, sometimes so light in the keys that tone barely registered. Although Denk did not make the connection in his brief remarks mid-recital, all but the prelude in the suite are dance pieces, making what could have been a natural segue to the "iPod shuffle" set examining the influence of American ragtime that concluded the second half. (I had to miss Denk's jazz-classical "playoff" with Jason Moran on Friday night, because of a medical emergency: thanks to Robert Battey for pinch-hitting for me at the last minute for the Washington Post.)

Curiously, Denk took the same over-delicate approach to Scott Joplin's Sunflower Slow Drag, co-written with Scott Hayden, echoed in the later work that was the closest to it, William Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag, played even more sotto voce. This was not at all the sound of the rag imitated by Stravinsky in his Piano Rag Music, a jagged jangle of clashes and metric complexity, nor the "Ragtime" movement in Hindemith's 1922 Suite, which was on the vicious side. Both pieces date from before their composers immigrated to the United States, and both came to a more nuanced understanding of jazz after living here. William Byrd's ninth pavan (The Passinge Mesures), from My Ladye Nevelles Booke, and Conlon Nancarrow's first Canon for Ursula had only a tangential relationship to ragtime music, in that they had different kinds of rhythmic complexity. Denk likewise seemed to include Constant Donald Lambert's stride piano send-up of the Pilgrim's Chorus from Wagner's Tannhäuser mostly for laughs.

Other Reviews: Simon Chin, Denk shows range in ‘iPod shuffle’ (Washington Post, October 13) Robert Battey, Two musicians in their prime, sharing music from their genres (Washington Post, October 10)

With Haydn's C Major Fantasia (Hob. XVII:4), Denk was back to his fast and furious Bach mode, with many of the details glossed over at an ultra-fast tempo. (It is marked Presto, to be fair.) This piece comes to a complete stop on a low octave a couple of times, with a fermata meant to be held for a long time followed by a move up a half-step, and Denk played with those moments quite gleefully. The frenetic and excessive side of Denk's musical personality was suited to the final work, Schumann's Carnaval, with its mood changes from madcap to distracted to delicate and back again. One had the sense of a somewhat unbalanced person flitting manically from one thought to another, which is at least part of what Schumann wanted to get across.

The only disappointment was that Denk did not play something for the "Sphinxes" movement. It is not really a movement, just the work's three letter-based themes (referring to Schumann and the birthplace of his one-time fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken) written in long notes, but I had hoped that Denk might do something unexpected with them. Instead, as with so many performances, the puzzles of the sphinx were left unposed, probably what Schumann intended, but not what one expects from someone like Denk.

Washington Performing Arts's Hayes Piano Series continues this Saturday, with a recital by pianist Herbert Schuch (October 17, 2 pm).

Evgeny Kissin, Master of Prokofiev

Chopin, Sonatas (inter alia), E. Kissin (Sony re-releases, 2014)

One of the highlights of any Ionarts season is a concert by Evgeny Kissin. The latest opportunity to hear the Russian virtuoso came on Wednesday night, in an uncompromising program presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Music Center at Strathmore. An inner core of deeply felt emotional masterpieces -- Prokofiev's fourth sonata and sets of Chopin nocturnes and mazurkas -- bolstered by showier Beethoven and Liszt on the ends. Those more profound pieces at the heart of the program were the high point, while Kissin left no doubt as to his near-unassailable technique in the outer ones.

Kissin remains at the top of my list among living interpreters of the music of Chopin, an impression maintained by this performance. In his hands, these pieces had an extemporaneous feel to them, beginning with the gesture of beginning the first nocturne on the program (B-flat minor, op. 9/1) with the right hand almost from nothing, hesitant even to start the piece. Kissin has a fluidity of rubato that sounds like improvisation, not rushed or dragged out sentimentally, but hesitating and impetuous in equal measure, with even the embellishments to the melody sounding not practiced but added on the fly. In all the nocturnes, there were degrees of exquisite softness and exceptional freedom in the runs of the right hand. Six mazurkas, even more intimate pieces, were exquisitely pondered, to the point of almost ignoring the audience: the blue notes savored in op. 6/1, the hurdy-gurdy sections of op. 6/2 and op. 7/3 dark and creaking, the middle section of op. 7/2 more martial.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Kissin slightly less than telling at Strathmore recital (Washington Post, April 24) John von Rhein, Evgeny Kissin regales fans with masterful Chopin and more (Chicago Tribune, April 20) Lawrence A. Johnson, Kissin’s distinctive mastery brings illumination on a rainy afternoon (Chicago Classical Review, April 20) Tim Ashley, Evgeny Kissin review – reflection and severity from former prodigy (The Guardian, March 23)

After the masterful rendition of Prokofiev's eighth sonata heard at his 2009 recital, as well as his recording of the composer's concertos, one expected great things of the fourth sonata (C minor, op. 29). Prokofiev built this sonata from themes of earlier pieces in his old notebooks, and the piece feels heavily layered, strands on top of strands that Kissin teased apart with careful patience, the first two movements steeped in melancholy but also wistful tenderness. The finale provided all of the fireworks Kissin needed to end the first half, at times cantankerous, heavy-handed, even clownish, all around extraordinary.

The only minor disappointment was a somewhat willful performance of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata (C major, op. 53), with the first movement bouncing around in tempo, many of the runs just slightly mushed together and the second theme weighty, maybe a little clunky. Little changes and hesitations here and there seemed over-thought, which made the slow movement viscous and oozing. Then there was the third movement, taken at a moderate pace, the bell-like main theme's first note played as if it were an anacrusis. Kissin's trills were immaculate as they buzzed around the trill-laden statement of the theme. The counterpart of this display was Liszt's outrageous Hungarian Rhapsody no. 15 ("Rákóczi March") at the recital's end, which whipped the audience into a frenzy satisfied only by three encores: Chopin's Nocturne in F# minor (op. 48/2), Liszt's arrangement of Paganini's "La Chasse" caprice, and the march from Prokofiev's opera Love for Three Oranges. So much the better that Washington Performing Arts will not make us wait two years for the next concert by Evgeny Kissin, who will return to the Kennedy Center on October 28.

As a postscript, it bears saying, on this official 100th anniversary of the massacre of Armenians in Turkey, that Evgeny Kissin has spoken out for the recognition of this tragedy as a genocide. After the speech by Pope Francis to the Synod of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Church earlier this month, more governments may be willing to say the same.

Gardiner's 'Orfeo' on the Road

C. Monteverdi, L'Orfeo, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, J. E. Gardiner (Archiv, 1990) [Survey of Recordings]

Washington is a city overrun with choral singers and early music-heads, as well as the audiences that keep them afloat. Where were all of those people on Tuesday night for the rare performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo? Presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, it was doubly rare because it was part of the tour of the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, under legendary conductor John Eliot Gardiner. This was not the first time that we have reviewed the opera live, since it celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2007, when we heard performances by Concerto Italiano and Concerto Vocale Gent, both in Europe.

Gardiner, who turned 72 on Monday, formed his Monteverdi Choir over fifty years ago to give a performance of the composer's Vespro della Beata Vergine, a masterpiece even greater than L'Orfeo. In only two cities on this tour, Gardiner will lead a performance of the so-called 1610 Vespers alongside L'Orfeo -- sadly, not including the District of Columbia. The Gardiner recording of L'Orfeo was crucial in my musical formation, but it is no longer my favorite. Likewise, while Gardiner's approach to the work has changed somewhat since that recording, made in London in 1985, this performance was good, but not necessarily great. The forces were essentially the same here as on the recording, with slight number changes in recorders, trumpets, cornetti, and theorbos: there were even a few senior players in the ensemble who took part in that landmark recording.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Gardiner leads pastoral celebration with memorable ‘Orfeo’ (Washington Post, April 23) Janos Gereben, It's News to Me: No Hint of Aging for Orfeo (San Francisco Classical Voice, April 22) Georgia Rowe, Monteverdi's great 'Orfeo' gets the classic John Eliot Gardiner touch (San Jose Mercury News, April 16)

Tenor Andrew Tortise was a fine Orfeo, one of the first virtuoso roles in operatic history, with rhythmic delight in Vi ricorda o bosch'ombrosi (an early example of the serenade aria type) and effortless beauty of tone and control of fast runs in Possente spirto (perhaps the first true operatic showpiece). The tone of his voice is quite pretty, flexible and light but with a satisfying resonance, casting a spell over the listener in that latter aria sung to Charon. (He did have one rather extensive memory slip in the second stanza of Qual onor, which we can chalk up to travel fatigue, something that may also account for the occasional scratchiness in his voice.) Francesca Aspromonte brought a clarion soprano and playful stage presence to the music of the Prologo and the Messagiera. Soprano Mariana Flores had a darker, somewhat softer tone as Eurydice and La Speranza. Bass Gianlucca Buratto made an imposing Caronte and Plutone, with impressive low notes, and Francesca Boncompagni was a silvery- light Proserpina.

The performance added up to about twenty minutes more than the length of the recording, this with no intermission and no pauses allowed for applause. The recitatives and in some cases the metered music was allowed a little more room to expand, but by and large Gardiner has stuck with his reading of Monteverdi's score, leading with a consistent and gracious hand. On the instrumental side, generally excellent, the cornetti had a bit of a rough night, right from the crucial opening Toccata, and there was an early solo violin entrance in the shepherds' scene. The addition of tambourine and drum, as well as vigorous hand clapping, enlivened many of the the choral and ballet scenes, danced by a few singers from the polished and puissant Monteverdi Choir as part of a rather successful semi-staging. The harp solo in the middle of Possente spirto was particularly fine, with harpist Gwyneth Wentink giving voice to the lyre of Orpheus.

The tour of these Monteverdi performances continues on to California (Costa Mesa and San Francisco), Princeton, and New York. The Carnegie Hall performance of the 1610 Vespers will be broadcast on WQXR (April 30). Do not miss it.