In Memoriam: Listening to Alfred Brendel

Most people listening to classical music today have, to a greater or lesser degree, been musically socialized with the performances of Alfred Brendel. He was a fixed star on the international scene when it came to Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and a few other of his favorite composers. His dry wit, usually gentle, rarely acerbic, poignancy, his unapologetic classicism made him an unlikely, charming icon. He has passed away on Tuesday, June 17^th, 2025 at his home in London.

I was on the steps outside the Musikverein when I read the news that Alfred Brendel had passed away in London, at the age of 94. This was the place he had given his final recital of his truly final farewell tour and this was the town where he lived when his career got under way in 1950 after first successes in Graz and before he permanently settled in the UK in 1971.

His success was a stellar one; born in the 1930s, Brendel was of a time that came a generation-plus after the keyboard titans à la Arthur Schnabel (1882), Wilhelm Backhaus (1884), Edwin Fischer (1886), Arthur Rubinstein (1887), Wilhelm Kempff (1895), Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin and Claudio Arrau (all 1903). He was thus a “modern” artist, to anyone born before 1980, and, crucially, born into the stereo age. This is relevant, because as the exclusive go-to pianist of one of the major labels – Philips (now Decca) – for the heydays of the late analog and digital age, Brendel became a superstar of – and to some extent also because of – the recorded age. In the 100-volume, 200-CD “Great Pianists Of The 20th Century” project of Tom Deacon’s – to which Brendel was an advisor – Brendel is one of only seven pianists (Arrau, Gilels, Horowitz, Kempff, Richter & Rubinstein being the others) with three volumes dedicated to his art. If it had to be the classical repertoire – Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven – Brendel was there for you. Within that realm – and a little beyond – he recorded most of what there was to be recorded and much of that twice, some, like the Beethoven Sonatas, even thrice or more: In the 60s for Vox, in the 70s for Philips, analog, and for Philips again in the 90s, digitally. And of select works Brendel, who exerted quite a bit of control over what would get released and what would not, opted to have live accounts published, which he professedly preferred over his studio accounts. With the different releases of each of these versions (and most of them on Philips or Decca, still), it can get a bit messy trying to figure out which the analog second recording of D.960 or the digital remake of the Moonlight Sonata is or isn't. (But I am here to help.)

Alfred Brendel on Ionarts: In Performance His Soft Touch, Powerfully Moving, 02/09/2006 (jfl) Closing the Lid: Alfred Brendel, 19/03/2008 (Charles) A Conversation with Alfred Brendel, 20/03/2008 (Michael Lodico) Alfred Brendel Speaks, 11/18/2000 (Charles) On Record: Best Recordings of 2004 (#8), 12/16/2004 (jfl) From Goerne to His Distant Beloved, 07/18/2005 (jfl) Brendel and Mozart, 02/06/2006 (Charles) Brendel’s Choice, 02/06/2006 (jfl) Best Recordings of 2009 (#3), 12/14/2009 (jfl)

In Austria, his success shadowed that of fellow pianists Paul Badura-Skoda (1927), who, to some degree, escaped into the historical performance niche, Jörg Demus (1928), who found his main fame in Lied accompaniment, Ingrid Haebler (1929), who recorded much the same repertoire but whose star waned earlier, and Friedrich Gulda (1930), who became the eccentric: Considered by people in the know as a superior pianist but with a far smaller reach, ultimately. Internationally – specifically in America – there were contemporaries Byron Janis (1928), Glenn Gould (1932), Van Cliburn (1934), Leon Fleisher (1928), Richard Goode (1943), most of whom had their careers cut prematurely short; elsewhere, pianists like Ivan Moravec (1930) were stuck behind the iron curtain. As a result, the name “Alfred Brendel” and the maroon bar of the Philips label’s recordings became as indicative of a musically interested household as Wilhelm Kempff on the Yellow Label had been, a few decades earlier. Brendel’s association with the “Complete Mozart Edition” only furthered this omnipresence.

This kind of prominence brought about the invariable backlash in the form of criticism – the thrust of which, generally, was that Brendel was boring. This accusation might have had its understandable roots in Brendel’s style, which relied on subtlety and wit, level-headedness and sincerity, articulation, intelligence, and purpose, but never flash. The grand romantic gesture, even if it had been within his reach, was not temperamentally his. Even Liszt (where he did show the kind of chops that some critics might occasionally have forgotten he had) was not showy with Brendel.

It also showed in the repertoire he chose to play and even more so the repertoire he chose not to play. He left out composers most pianists couldn’t envisage making a career without: Chopin was (largely) missing; hardly, if any, Debussy or Ravel; no Rachmaninoff was ever in his sights, nor Tchaikovsky. Instead, he dropped morsels of

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Critic’s Notebook: Perfection in Mozart Lies not in the Fingers, but the Heart. Alfred Brendel’s Final Concert in Munich

While preparing ionarts' appreciation of Alfred Brendel (and newly indexing the computer), I found a review of Alfred Brendel's last concert in Munich on my hard drive. He performed with the Munich Philharmonic und Christian Thielemann at the Gasteig's Philharmonic Hall, on November 6^th, 2008

W.A.Mozart Piano Concertos 20 & 24 C.Mackerras, Scottish CO Decca (2007) US | UK | DE

W.A.Mozart Piano Concertos 20 & 24 N.Marriner, ASMF Philips (199?) US | UK | DE

Mozart: Piano Concerto in c, K491, Beethoven: Coriolan Overture op.62, Symphony No.6 “Pastorale” op.68

Twelve more towns will hear the pianism of Alfred Brendel before the near-octogenarian retires after 60 years of concertizing around the world. Munich was thirteenth to last, and he stopped by with Mozart’s C minor Piano Concerto, supported by Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. But before Brendel went on the stage to play his farewell, the orchestra nearly stole the show with a magnificent, indeed brilliant Beethoven Coriolan Overture.

With an opening more explosive than clean (but so much of the former that the privation of the latter did not distract), this was gripping stuff with intense, soft, hushed passages and merciless, jolting, violent bursts; nicely driven and propulsive in everything between. Thielemann, conducting from memory as he does with all his core repertoire, commanded a beautiful sound from his players – making Beethoven, as ever, an occasion worth looking forward to even for the most jaded or experienced concert-goer.

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the Pastorale, broad and flexible, had many of these qualities, but not as obviously so. Slightly understated and légère in the first movement, very flexible with its quickening and slowing tempos, and featuring a horrifying storm worthy of a “Flying Dutchman” performance, it was an attractive-enough proposition, but the true strengths of this conductor/orchestra combination did not emerge as obviously here as in the overture or other repertoire.

The principle of Thielemann conducting Mozart is, as of yet, better than the actual result – but I suspect he might find his unique, grand way with it before long. In any case, the orchestra was relegated to the background in the C minor Concerto, where Alfred Brendel was the focus of everybody’s attention. His opening notes were halting, as if acknowledging that these would be some of his last sounds emitted from the piano in Germany. But even if this was good-bye, ‘C minor’ was not sad with the level-headed, unsentimental Brendel – it was serious and collected.

The separation of notes in the cadenza made the ears perk, and his skilled simplicity, his serious ease and dry wit (well hidden) made the ears smile. Perfection in Mozart lies not in the fingers, but the heart; few pianists have more of the latter for Mozart than Brendel. Because of who he is, how he plays, and what we know him to be, his whole persona makes up the impression in concert, not just the naked notes. Perhaps that’s one reason why this listener finds – found – him a good deal more appealing live than on record. How good to have had one more opportunity to take him in at his best, then.


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Critic’s Notebook: Haydn as the Highlight with the Concentus Musicus

Also published in Die Presse: Concentus Musicus im Musikverein: So wird Haydn zur großen Unterhaltung

W.A.Mozart, Sinfonia Concertante G.Kremer/K.Kashkashian N.Harnoncourt / WPh DG

J.Haydn, Symphonies No.103/104 N.Harnoncourt / RCO Teldec

Splendid entertainment courtesy of the "Drumroll" Symphony. The double concerto? Less so.

A proper classical evening at the Musikverein: Mozart overture (The Magic Flute), Mozart concerto (Sinfonia Concertante), and a Haydn symphony ("Drumroll") — performed by the Concentus Musicus in the sunlit Golden Hall of the Musikverein. A fine concert that even a — to put it mildly — rather dicey performance of Mozart’s double concerto couldn’t derail.

It’s a tricky piece, the Sinfonia Concertante. Superficially charming and “pleasant” — but don’t be fooled. It demands vigilance. The viola part in particular (especially if, as was commendably done here, one adheres to the original “scordatura” tuning — up a half-step) is rife with pitfalls. Add to that the fact that the Sinfonia Concertante is not exactly a box-office draw, so you rarely get actual soloists (i.e. the expensive kind). Instead, it becomes an occasion for the section leaders to step out of the orchestral shadow every once in a while.

More often than not, that goes sideways. And so it did here: Cohesion among the soloists, intonation, even the basic tonal quality — all were wanting. The first movement, in particular, was limp and mewling; the third showed marked improvement, but not enough to erase what came before. No matter: the audience, especially and understandably fond of the longtime concertmaster for his decades of musical trailblazing, responded with cheers that masked the crooked playing.

Before that, and fittingly rare in this setting, came the Magic Flute overture: lively strings and spirited winds, ably held together by the deputy concertmaster in a performance that sounded fresh and spontaneous.

And then there was Haydn. Symphony No. 103 — unmistakably the highlight of the evening. As it should be, and as it was. Granted, it remains an unfortunate quirk of Vienna — the classical music city par excellence — that Haydn must be sought-and-found in period-instrument subscription series rather than in the main symphonic concerts (Wilhelm Sinkovicz quite rightly lamented this recently in Die Presse: “Die Musikstadt Wien verliert nach und nach ihre Klassiker”). Still, one takes what one can get — especially when it's done as well as here: Snappy and incisive in the first movement, bold accents confidently absorbed. The slow second flowed with life (though marred by an extended solo passage for the erstwhile soloist, now returned to his concertmaster post). The minuet was cheeky, and the finale pulsed with a driving, unhurried, and delightfully agitated energy — culminating in a result both thrilling and gloriously tumultuous.

This is Haydn as high entertainment.


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Kritikers Notizbuch: Das Wiener Kammerorchester unter Jan Willem de Vriend Erfreut

J.C.Bach, The Symphonies A.Hoalstead, The Hanover Band CPO

W.A.Mozart, Piano Cto. No.15 K.450 V.Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Decca

F.Schubert, Symphony No.5 D.Barenboim, StaKap Berlin Teldec/Warner

Klassische Morgengabe

Das Wiener Kammerorchester überzeugt unter Jan Willem de Vriend auch zu früher Stunde im Mozart Saal

Halb-Elf Uhr morgens ist der natürliche Feind des Orchestermusikers; mehr noch, als der des Musikkritikers. Aber das Wiener Kammerorchester spielte im Konzerthaus das Zwillingskonzert zu dem so großartigen Konzert vom 23. September (siehe Rezension in der Presse): Die gleichen Komponisten, die gleichen Gattungen, andere Werke. Johann Christian Bach: Sinfonie g-Moll, op .6/6. Mozart: B-Dur Klavierkonzert K 450. Schubert: Sinfonie No. 5. Konnte dieses hohe Niveau unter dem neuen Chef Jan Willem de Vriend auch ante meridiem wiederholt werden? Kurz: Ja! Spannung von der allerersten Note und im Mozart Saal noch direkter erfahrbar als im Großen. Da knarzt das Blech gleich nochmal so sehr, das Fagott brummt herrlich und zwei engagierte Kontrabässe füllen den Raum locker mit peppigen, antreibenden Noten. Kaum Spannungsabfall im Andante mit aufheulenden Geigen und packend „furioso“ im Allegro molto finale.

Ohne Sperenzchen spielte Jasminka Stancul, mit sympathisch-nervöser Energie, das Mozart Konzert (mit bemerkenswerten Beiträgen von der Flöte und den Oboen) und wurde von freundlich-familiären Publikum wärmstens beklatscht. Ob es die zum Ritual sklerotisierte Zugabe gebraucht hätte, sei dahingestellt.

Dann Schuberts Fünfte. Über Vernachlässigung kann sich die Sinfonie nicht beschweren; alleine im Konzerthaus ist sie seit 1913 öfters aufgeführt worden, als ihr vermeintliches Vorbild, Mozarts „große“ g-Moll Sinfonie die erst am Vorabend vom Bremer Kammerorchester gegeben wurde. Auch diese zeitliche Nähe macht die Beziehung allerdings – außer im letzten Satz – kaum deutlicher, denn wer die Fünfte als „Schubert“ kennen und lieben gelernt hat und nicht als epigonalen Mozart-Light, der hört ein originelles, durchweg entzückendes, zu Recht populäres Werk: Die mit Abstand lebendigste seiner frühen Sinfonien. Aber auch eine schwierige, denn sie soll einerseits sonnig-lyrisch klingen, andererseits heiter-lebendig. Etwas kantig im Holz und mit kurzen Phrasen und wenig warmem Streicherklang ging es hier zuweilen hektisch voran, mit wenig Sonne, aber lieber lebendig und bewölkt als geschmeidig und langweilig. Wenn das Kritik sein soll, zeigt dass nur, wie hoch die Erwartungen nach eineinhalb superben Konzerten unter de Vriend schon sind, nach eineinhalb Jahrzehnten Enttäuschung. Nein, in dieser Verfassung kann man zum Kammerorchester schon nach der Frühmesse gehen und musikalisch Hocherfreuliches erwarten.


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Notes from the 2024 Salzburg Festival ( 5 ) Don Giovanni • Currentzis • Castellucci

Opera • Don Giovanni • Currentzis • Utopia Orchestra

Also reviewed for Die Presse: „Don Giovanni“ bei den Salzburger Festspielen: Jubel für weiße Bilderkunst

ALL PICTURES (DETAILS) COURTESY SALZBURG FESTIVAL, © Monika Rittershaus. CLICK FOR THE WHOLE PICTURE.

50 Shades of White: Currentzis’ and Castellucci’s Don Giovanni Triumpans/span>

Robert Castellucci’s Don Giovanniwas first performed at the 2021 Salzburg Festival. For the premiere of the revival, the production has changed only in some small details. It still begins with a professional crew of movers clearing out a church. By the time they get to taking down the renaissance crucifix from the wall, the overture bursts on the scene, courtesy Teodor Currentzis and his Utopia Orchestra, which is in essence his MusicAeterna Orchestra, but the West-European edition, to avoid unnecessary controversy about a Russian orchestra performing in Europe. (More about that, in a bit.)

Whether the pre-overture action means to suggest that art is replacing religion is up for speculation. But they must clean house. Perhaps to get rid of clichés and old-fashioned ideas about Don Giovanni. Or simply to make room for this production. Lots and lots of white room. So white, in fact, and in so many different warm and cool shades, sometimes draped with vast sheets of cloth, and brilliantly lit, one might have mistaken it for a Dieter Dorn production, except with a slew of animals making witty cameos: A goat, a poodle, and a rat!

The Dieter Dorn comparison might not even be so off the mark, because despite the overwhelming, wafting pictures that Castellucci painted unto the stage – set, costumes and lighting all being one homogenous one – his production is essentially a fairly conventional chamber play, which relies on the actor-singers to bring it to life. And that they did!

Homogenous Ensemble

The Singers were a very homogenous, very satisfying ensemble. No reasonable person would have attended this Don Giovanni for any one particularly singer – and yet, the vocal offering was excellent. Nadezhda Pavlova’s Donna Anna, for example, who got the loudest ovations: Strong-voiced and soaring above all, when necessary. Or the much appreciated Federica Lombardi’s Elvira, touching, half-motherly, half-seductive, with a nicely low timbre. Anna El-Khashem’s minx of a Zerlina was a little muted, but the way her voice betrayed experience-beyond-her-years worked nicely with her character, who is rather more worldly than her oaf of a husband-to-be, Masetto (Ruben Drole: smokey, sturdy, blunted – all befitting his character). This becomes deliciously obvious, when she rather enjoys being tied up with a bondage rope by Don Giovanni, whereas her encouraging “Batti, batti, o bel Masetto” is rather lost on the poor chap, who doesn’t, much to Zerlina’s resigned disappointment, get her drift.

The fact that Don Giovanni are just about doppelgängers reminds of Peter Sellars’ 80s production, where he cast the rôles with the Perry twins. Kyle Ketelsen’s Leporello, dark-hued and gruff, and Davide Luciano’s all-in Don G., steady and with a warm timbre, and never, never prone to barking, hit all the marks – and especially Luciano embodied the personified id. Superstars in the Pit None of this would have been as satisfactorily possible, had it not been for the support from the Orchestra. The Utopia Orchestra offered precision, force, and lots of bite – but also oodles of transparency – to a degree that you simply don’t get from an orchestra where, not a minute into their scheduled lunchbreak, the first trombone already raises their hand. From full-out attack to the height of tender reticence, even the smallest phrase was fully thought-out and shaped. Any sense of harmlessness is out of the question, in such a performance and if anyone could possibly niggle, it would be about this approach being a bit too much of a good thing. Except, not really. The fortepiano had inspired, free-wheeling passages, with ‘planned-improvisatory’ contributions that even included a bit of late Beethoven, to underline the seriousness of Act 2. The consequence was great enthusiasm for the music and near instant, unanimous standing ovations for Teodor Currentzis and his musicians.

If one only followed the “Currentzis Question” through social media, one might get the idea that he’s controversial. And yes, there are enough bigots out there – well, one, specifically – who make a point out of trolling Russian artists (not that Currentzis is Russian – but he works there) that don’t kowtow to their demands for explicit renunciation of all things Putin… and all consequences for their careers (and the livelihood of the musicians that rely on them) be damned… and some cowards who will immediately try to distance themselves from presumed controversy or Twitter-pressure.

In Salzburg, the audience couldn’t possibly care less about this one-man witch-hunt against Currentzis (who has, in any case, shown his true colors by immediately programming Ukrainian works in the aftermath of the Russian invasion, and the Britten War Requiem). What they want is great music-making. And that they get in spades from the weirdo-conductor and his supremely willing band of musical Nibelungs.

Dramma giocoso

For all the grandness of the production’s sets, populated with 150 choreographed women of all ages, shapes, and types – a none-too-subtle but perfectly effective manifestation of Don’s “catalogue” – Castellucci does not leave the “giocoso” part of Don Giovanni unattended to. (Unlike Glaus Guth, whose perfect Giovanni was all bleak and dark.) Of course, playing up the comedic element of the story rarely works well; least of all when the Don is played as a sort of oversexed Falstaff. This is something that Castellucci fastidiously avoids. The laughs come from other corners. Like Masetto’s hiding place, from which a (live!) rat scurries across stage, as he is discovered. His shriek might have been real, too. Chuckles also ripple through the Festspielhaus, when Donna Elvira’s two little kids are chasing Daddy Giovanni, who is distinctly put off by these two unintended consequences clinging to his legs.

But the comedic coup de théâtre is the treatment of that big fat zero of the opera, Don Ottavio, that ineffectual bloviator, who sings much and does absolutely nothing, except stand on the sidelines making helpful comments like an acquaintance telling you that you’re putting the Ikea closet together all wrong. Every time Castellucci and his Theresa Wilson, his costume-assistant, send Ottavio – who starts out looking like a posh hobby dictator in his silky mess uniform – out on stage, they stuff him into a yet-still-more ridiculous costume: A Pierrot with a coiffed (real) poodle. The King of Jerusalem. As a nun. And the more earnestly Ottavio sings, the more pathetic – and hilarious – it becomes. Julian Prégardien does this with total commitment, great lyrical stretches, and just a brief, intermittent stretch where the intonation softened. Once scene, with him and Donna Anna, features two artist’s mannequins who, as graphically as is within their abstract ability, act out what really happened between her and Giovanni, earlier that night, before the overture. A wink, a nod, and a reminder, as if it was needed, that a point of view, one’s reality, and the truth are not necessarily the same thing. A move, reminiscent of what Kasper Holten’s does in during the overture of his film version of the opera, Juan.

There is probably no production that will be liked by everyone. And a small group in the audience, evidently less impressed by things falling and crashing onto the stage at irregular intervals (still basketballs and a grand piano; the car and the carriage now only dangle and don’t fall, in this updated production), hollered “Boos” at the production team. But those were immediately drowned by contra “Bravos” from an audience that wouldn’t have its good time spoiled.

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Photo descriptions:


Above
Picture No.1: Don Giovanni 2024: Extras of the Salzburg Festival (Pre-Overture)

Picture No.2: Don Giovanni 2024: Anna El-Khashem (Zerlina), Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni)

Picture No.3: Don Giovanni 2024: Julian Prégardien (Don Ottavio), Nadezhda Pavlova (Donna Anna)




Below
Picture No.4: Don Giovanni 2024: Ensemble

Picture No.5: Don Giovanni 2024: Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni), Federica Lombardi (Donna Elvira), Ensemble

Picture No.6: Don Giovanni 2024: Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni)

Picture No.7: Don Giovanni 2024: Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni)

Picture No.8: Don Giovanni 2024: Nadezhda Pavlova (Donna Anna), Ensemble

Downsized Mozart in Mary Zimmerman's 'Matchbox Magic Flute' at STC

Russell Mernagh (Monostatos), Dave Belden (violinist), and Emily Rohm (Queen of the Night) in The Matchbox Magic Flute.
Photo: Liz Lauren

Mary Zimmerman is known for her adaptations of classic works, like her transformation of Ovid's Metamorphoses currently showing in a new production at Folger Theatre. This year the American director took on Mozart's late Singspiel masterpiece, which she titled The Matchbox Magic Flute, premiered in February at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, where she is resident director. This charming but decidedly non-operatic production closes out the season at Shakespeare Theatre Company, seen Saturday night at the Klein Theatre in downtown Washington.

Listeners hoping to see Mozart's classic as it is staged in an opera theater will likely be disappointed. Zimmerman has cut the work down to theatrical size, an approach implied by the word added to its title, an allusion to the tiny toy cars. Everything about the production is "miniaturized," as the director put it in her program note. The set is a theater within the theater, an evocation of the small but ornate theaters of the European nobility, with a constricted stage, antique footlights, and tiny jewel-like loges. Mozart's silhouette fills a coat of arms at the top of the proscenium arch (set design by Todd Rosenthal). The fairytale costumes, props, and stage effects (costumes by Ana Kuzmanić) are reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's movie adaptation, Trollflöjten, filmed in a sound stage replica of the Drottningholms Slottsteater outside Stockholm.

Zimmerman adapted the libretto in her own English translation, deleting a lot of spoken dialogue and updating and shortening most of what remains. She has also excised about an hour's worth of Mozart's score, including the entire overture and most of the music for the priests in Act II, like the chorus "O Isis und Osiris." Of Mozart's colorful orchestration, only a flute, a violin, a cello, and a percussionist remain (marimba, timpani, tambourine, other drums), with the rest absorbed into the piano played by Laura Bergquist (music adapted and directed by Amanda Dehnert and Andre Pluess). Some of the most striking musical effects remain, with Bergquist turning to play the celesta for Papageno's magic bells. The birdcatcher played his characteristic whistle on stage, and at one point an accordion was added to the mix. The pit musicians also wear costumes, gowns and black fezzes, and flutist, cellist, and violinist all take the stage for certain major solos.

Reese Parish (the Spirit, center) and Cast in The Matchbox Magic Flute. Photo: Liz Lauren

Zimmerman has cast mostly singing actors, who do their best with Mozart's sometimes daunting vocal writing, aided by the small instrumental accompaniment and generous amplification. What this approach lost in vocal thrill, it gained in liveliness of action and comic timing. Soprano Emily Rohm got most of the Queen of the Night's notes off the top of the staff, her scenery-chewing acting style suiting the dramatic lighting and costuming for the character. (Her entrance for the Act II showpiece, "Der Hölle Rache," spinning while suspended over the stage, took the cake.) Marlene Fernandez nailed Pamina's high notes with a light tone, adding a music theater belt to the low range. Likewise, Billy Rude's tall and handsome Tamino took advantage of a pretty head voice as much as possible. Bass Keanon Kyles felt light in the bottom register for Sarastro, but he gave the role considerable dignity otherwise.

One delightful addition was the character of the Spirit, played and sung by Reese Parish. Her airy soprano suited the top part of the Three Spirits, but her balletic movements throughout the evening added a whimsical air to the proceedings, especially as she carried humorous signs at moments of transition to guide the audience. Reducing the cast to ten roles meant some double-casting, with the trio of the Queen's ladies (Tina Muñoz Pandya, Lauren Molina, and Monica West) among the several actors who took on more than one part (the two other Boys, the speakers in the temple, the animals summoned by the magic flute). Particularly charming were the nerdy Papageno of Shawn Pfautsch, played with improvisatory flourish and decent singing, matched by the manic Papagena of Lauren Molina, in one of those double-castings.

The Matchbox Magic Flute runs through June 16. shakespearetheatre.org

Critic’s Notebook: Too much beauty from the Dresden Staatskapelle and András Schiff?

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Retro-Schönklang im Konzerthaus: So hat man Bach und Mozart lange nicht gehört

An excess of gorgeousness, if that is possible

I’ve never been to a concert where an orchestra played so well and annoyed me as much. The travel-contingent of the Dresden Staatskapelle was in Vienna with Sir András Schiff conducting and playing with them, and it was a bath of beauty, mostly. But was something amiss?

Throwback-Bach

Certainly with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5 (taking on the part of the overture in this most classical of overture-concerto-symphony sandwich concerts). Not necessarily the very old-fashioned sound and style from the interpreters, concert master Matthias Wollong and solo flute Sabine Kittel, who played next to Schiff while the latter who was operating on his gorgeous, shiny, red-and-black Mahagony Bösendorfer. While t’s a matter of taste (and certainly not to mine), hearing Bach performed as if by Karajan, it might posisbly have been neat enough to hear that kind of throwback-sonority (but at reasonably brisk tempi), had it not been for the balance being completely off, usually with Schiff drowning out his colleagues - or the soloists together the little orchestra.

Retro-Mozart

A similar kind of retro-prettiness hung over Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 in A major, played with a flawlessness and beauty that is rare and impressive, but that also felt spelled-out, rather than impetuous or spontaneous, and had its share of sentimental moments that bordered mawkishness. If anyone found it too slow, Schiff made up for it with a racing encore of the first movement of Bach’s Italian Concerto.

Confectioner’s Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony raced out the gates like a horse possessed. Or, as I wrote in my German review, “chattering like a stork on cocaine”. (This I had better kept to myself, as it prompted a slew of sternly worded letters to the editor, not all of which stayed clear of invective and several suggesting that it was not the storks that were under the influence of the mentioned substance.) The well-oiled machine that was the Dresden Staatskapelle played gorgeously. András Schiff seemed to enjoy it as much as the audience, happily waving his arms before them. With the speed determined at the outset, the symphony seemed to uncoil inexorably, quite independent of any further movemenet on the part of Schiff's. Every group was clean, the sections together, and the strings shone with a noble, dark timbre. Beauty goes a long way, not the least in Mendelssohn, but at least to these ears, there was something curiously unsatisfactory about the relentless loveliness. It rang a little hollow, giving the Symphony a Midsummer Night's Dream-esque, fairy-like character. The orchestral encore – Mozart’s Figaro overture, didn’t undo that impression. Suggesting that, after so much sugar and beauty, "a beer and a cigarette were what was needed in order to return to the real world", also did not go over well with the reader who thought the suggestion “disgusting, classless, repulsive, objectionable” and altogether unworthy of the fine newspaper I write for. I wonder if it had been better, had I suggested instead that after a concert such as this, the only thing to do was to wake up – and bow before such skill.

Photo © Manuel Chemineau

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Dip Your Ears: No. 272 (La Clemenza di Rolando Villazon)

W.A.Mozart La Clemenza di Tito Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Chamber Orchestra of Europe Joyce DiDonato, Tara Erraught, Regina Mühlemann, Adam Plachetka, Marina Rebeka, Rolando Villazon DG, 2018

The Nézet-Séguin Mozart opera project was doomed from the start.

It’d be easy to blame Deutsche Grammophon for having insisted on making their Nézet-Séguin Mozart operas a vehicle for Rolando Villazon, as a case-book study of marketing over musical sense. But these Baden-Baden performances were Villazon’s project and DG was stuck with their biggest star being the crassly weakest link—whether they care or not. It’s been rough-going with the releases so far (Don Giovanni fared best, the Entführung – review on Forbes – was pretty bad) and this La Clemenza di Tito is no better. After Villazon’s comeback from his vocal crisis, Mozart made sense. Except he still pushes it like French high-romanticism. Now the voice sounds strained, rudderless, devoid of nuance, ill at ease. The good-to-great supporting cast (Joyce DiDonato!) can’t salvage this, and neither can Nézet-Séguin’s splendid, traditional-but-energetic conducting of the responsive Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Shame.

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Briefly Noted: Ying Li

Mozart, Sonatas / Bartók, Suite, Sonata, Ying Li (released on October 7, 2022) Decca 00028948581443 | 61'21"

The pianist Ying Li, a 24-year-old Wunderkind, made an auspicious Washington debut this past week. Born in China, where she received her early musical training, she has completed advanced studies at the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School here in the United States, counting Jonathan Biss, Seymour Lipkin, and Robert McDonald among her teachers. Last year she won first prize at the Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, leading to Young Concert Artists presenting her in a solo recital at the Kennedy Center on October 11. She repeats that program this Tuesday at Carnegie Hall.

Ying's debut recording for Decca shows many of the same qualities heard when she played live. Two Mozart sonatas -- K. 281 and 333, both in B-flat major -- frame the disc, clean and spirited in character like the Haydn sonata she played in her concert. Runs, passage work, and trills sparkle, with not a note out of place, but there is considerable sensitivity and dynamic shading as well. She shows admirable patience in the simpler slow movements, with a great variety of voicing and articulation. Although she has impressive virtuosic chops, put to work in the Bartók, she displayed considerable maturity in the understated way she played these sonatas.

Bartók's Piano Sonata is the only piece from this album that Ying played at the Kennedy Center, and it is a blockbuster interpretation. In concert it was perhaps eclipsed by even more demanding pieces like Schumann's Fantasie in C Major, Guido Agosti's suite arrangement of music from Stravinsky's The Firebird, and Qigang Chen's Messiaen-like Instants d'un Opéra de Pékin. By contrast on the disc, the Bartók sonata is the most daunting work, paired with the composer's earlier Suite, full of bouncing jollity. She plays the sonata with ferocious control and percussive touch, but it is far from being only pointed attacks, with the many pulsating parts distinguished from one another by careful voicing. As her concert program showed, there is plenty more athleticism where that came from, as well as poise beyond her years.

Dip Your Ears: No. 268 (Robert Levin on Mozart's Piano)

W.A.Mozart, Piano Sonatas Robert Levin ECM

The Compleat Mozartean

When historical performance practice performances were just becoming mainstream fare, in the mid- to late 90s, Robert Levin was the first address in most matters fortepiano. Certainly, his cycle of the Beethoven Piano Concertos (with Gardiner) was clearly the one to have and his Mozart concerto cycle-in-the-making (with Christopher Hogwood) was exciting and promising and sadly aborted as so many projects were, back then. (Incidentally, the Academy of Ancient Music is currently working with Levin on having the cycle completed by the band’s 50th anniversary next season!) Levin was the least professorial among the musicologist-pianists that were hammering away at these early instruments… and his instruments tended to sound better than was the low average back then.

Much has changed since these days, with a new generation of concert pianists who grew up natively on historical instruments and of course with the instruments themselves (think Paul McNulty!), which have improved dramatically in quality and sound. This, alas, is not the path that Robert Levin takes in these 2017/18 recordings of Mozart’s keyboard sonatas. He takes a step further (back?) towards historicism: He plays on Mozart’s own fortepiano, which can be viewed and occasionally heard at the Salzburg Mozart Residence. What he gains in authenticity, he loses, alas, in sound, because it might as well be admitted: The most interesting aspect about that instrument is its late owner.

Nor is Levin the kind of full-throttled pianist that many of his modern HIP competitors (Bezuidenhout, Brautigam et al.) are. Granted, you don’t need virtuosic skills to navigate through the Mozart sonatas to perfectly competent results and Levin is still a nimble, graceful performer at the (then) age of 71. But there’s something of a generous, pliable, amicable playfulness in the finest performances (like Bezuidenhout on historical instruments or William Youn on a modern one, to name only two outstanding recent such cycles) that I find missing here… and something of a sewing-machine element – lissome, granted – that I don’t particularly need. What Levin does give us, in terms of uniqueness, is some extra music. Apart from the standard 18 sonatas and the C minor Fantasy, he also adds three sonata movement fragments that Levin completed masterfully: Charming little bonbons that bring the set’s runtime to about seven hours. Whether those bits, along with ECM’s first-rate presentation and essay (or the lure of hearing this works on Mozart’s own instrument; see also “Koncz/Mozart”), are enough of a USP, well, that’ll be up to the most curious among Mozart listeners.

7/8
References: William Youn (Oehms); Ingrid Haebler (Denon); Mitsuko Uchida (Philips); Ronald Brautigam (BIS); Christian Zacharias (EMI issues, not Warner re-issue); Kristian Bezuidenhout (BIS)

See also the ionarts Mozart Sonata Cycle Survey

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