Critic’s Notebook: Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain visit Vienna

C.Saint-Saëns, Piano Concertos 1 & 2 Alexandre Kantorow, J.J.Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta BIS SACD

C.Saint-Saëns, Piano Concertos 3-5 Alexandre Kantorow, J.J.Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta BIS SACD

Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain on European Tour, showing off its symbiosis with Yannick Nézet-Séguin

As the second orchestra in Montreal, the Orchestre Métropolitain hasn’t got it easy. Few North American cities have two prominent orchestras; fewer still have two fine concert orchestras. But the music director who started his grand career with this band has remained loyal to his first love – and now they get to punch above their weight and fill (with a little help from the presenters) large halls on their European tour, hitting Brussels, Paris, Vienna, Hamburg, and Baden-Baden. To put this into European terms: It’s as if Christian Thielemann had always also remained at the helm of the Nuremberg State Philharmonic and now took them on a grand pan-Asian Richard Strauss Tour.

It’s heartening, really, and it makes you want to root for that 25-year collaboration that resulted, some six years ago, in a lifetime contract for Yannick Nézet-Séguin. And with that quantum of kindness in your heart, you might find that the buttery phrasing and the lavish touch in Maurice Ravel’s La valse do have a certain appeal, making the music (including much of the rest) sound a bit like those orchestras you seem to remember from old black and white movies. Nothing is overly subtle with Nézet-Séguin – even, paradoxically, the many finer points he has the orchestra perform aren’t. And therein lies much of what makes performances with the compact, energetic little man – 70% torso and 90% charisma – so consistently compelling in concert. So if you can live with music-as-entertainment, heart-on-sleeve emoting, and signaling emotional turns like a semaphore on amphetamines, what’s not to love?!

Of course, you could always revert to sneering quietly: “That’s not how it’s supposed to go.” And even though it might be tough to coherently argue what “supposed to” means, in this context, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Certainly not when it comes to the Tchaikovsky Pathétique, which was programmed for the second half. Firstly, there’s something old-school brazen and populist to that sort of programming. Perhaps that makes it cool again; in any case, it’s certainly effective. A Charles Ives Symphony might have looked smarter on paper – but it wouldn’t have gotten as many asses into the seats of the Wiener Konzerthaus on Wednesday night, nor out of them, again, when it came to jubilation. Taking the symphony by its nickname, YNS conducted it as his red-soled, Swarovski-encrusted buckled loafers might have suggested he would: To the hilt. Slow was very slow, fast was very fast. Empathic and emphatic, the opening was Tristanesque to the hesitant max and the opening of the third movement filled with a nice, nervous energy (if a bit unclean). Along with the rest, it was a perfect cliché of the composer, for better or worse – much depending on how the listener responds to Tchaikovsky in the first place. The critic-colleague for Die Presse on duty that night had his grimmest face on, as he read along in the score, but he was betrayed by vigorously tapping his feet along to the rambunctious music. Incidentally, his review pulled most punches, focusing on the highlight.

That had occurred in the first half. It wasn’t, unsurprisingly, Barbara Assiginaak’s 2021 orchestral work, a percussion-heavy, endearing-sounding, whispering, hissing, howling work of nature-sounds in the broadest sense, filled with tonal connective tissue and prominent woodwinds. It comes with all the charming, ecologically correct and naïve messaging that you would expect from a piece titled Eko-Bmijwang – As Long in Time As the River Flows… and it amounts to something of a land acknowledgment manifest in music: A pleasant gesture and harmless.

It was, however, the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No.2, performed by the rising star pianist Alexandre Kantorow (most recently heard at the Konzerthaus in Chopin’s F minor concerto). The big, bold cadenza works its way from Bach to Mozart (when the Orchestra enters) to full-blown French romanticism. Saint-Saëns runs in Kantorow’s family (his father Jean-Jacques has recorded pretty much all Saint-Saëns there is for orchestra, as a conductor and as a violinist, plus chamber music, and later re-recorded the piano concertos with his son) and he knows how to navigate the part with panache, staying clear of the pitfalls that would have the work sound frivolous and frilly. You’ll still have forgotten everything about it a day later, but while it lasts, it’s a marvelous piece and great fun and the pleasantly unfussy way of Alexandre Kantorow’s with it, romantic but never emoting, had a lot to do with that. That the orchestra was in support-mode didn’t hurt, either.

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Not The Classical CD Of The Week: Rolando Villazon's Abduction Of Mozart

Happy Second Advent Sunday to You!

…“CD’s of the Week” are – quite obviously – recommendations. It makes little sense to write about ho-hum releases; it’s more fun to place the spotlight (if these posts can be called so much) on something deserving. But every once in a while I come across a clunker that bothers me particularly, for some reason or another; usually because of missed opportunities or a certain cynicism involved in the making. It’s fun writing about that, too, and more importantly I think it is necessary. The classical music world is one filled with an insufferable amount of fluff-jobs, notoriously dishonest, and sycophantic. The occasional dose of an inconvenient opinion can’t hurt. Consequently, this is “Not The Classical CD Of The Week”:…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Rolando Villazon's Abduction Of Mozart

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#morninglistening: Trifonov at Work

#morninglistening to #Rachmaninoff Variations w/Trifonov on @dgclassics#classical #class… https://t.co/oYhHVIS26N pic.twitter.com/J39MiNVUPQ

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) November 4, 2015

A short video-interview with Daniil Trifonov here: Eight Questions for Daniil Trifonov

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Best Recordings of 2011 - "Almost List"

Since 2008 I have been cheating my way around the “Top Ten” quantity limitation with my “Almost Lists”—selecting a few (usually 10) new recordings I just couldn't not include in the “Best of” list. Even if it is a bit late now.

The procedure of assembling the list looks something like the following: Until December 12^th I groan that this year I rather wouldn’t assemble any “Best-of” lists at all… nothing really stands out. Then I begin to jot down the two, three records that would be obvious inclusions, and then, every day, five more that might make the list… and after I’ve written it all up, I think of twenty more that really deserve mention. These Almost Lists are the results of those determined Johnny-come-lately inspirations (and getting my hands on some releases only recently). Listed alphabetically by composer.

Here are the previous lists:

Best Recordings of 2008 - "Almost List"
Best Recordings of 2009 - "Almost List"
Best Recordings of 2010 - "Almost List"


Hans Gál, Violin Concerto, T.A.Irnberger, R.Paternostro / Israel CO, Gramola 98921

Gál, Violin Ct. et al., Irnberger / Paternostro / Israel CO UK | DE | FR

How could I forget that 2012 was not just the year of Mieczysław Weinberg’s solidification (viz. presence in the recording catalog), but also the year of the Hans Gál ascendency. Thanks first and foremost to the Avie label and the enthusiasm of Kenneth Woods and Thomas Zehetmair, but also another enterprising label: Gramola from the heart of Vienna. I could really include four Gál release in this list: Symphonies No.3 (Woods), No.1 (Zehetmair), No.2 (Zehetmair), and the Violin Concerto (Paternostro). It is the last-named that I feel most like singling out. There’s already a wonderful recording available on Avie (Woods / Annette-Barbara Vogel, 2010), but Thomas Albertus Irnberger, Roberto Paternostro, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra add just that extra little touch of lyrical sweetness to the work that makes it not just take off, but soar. A must-listen for the lover of the unknown ‘Third Viennese School’ of lost romantics à la E.W.Korngold, J.Marx, F.Mittler, etc.

A great next step would be a really good new recording of the excellent Gál String Quartets; the recent account on Meridian Records doesn’t, unfortunately, quite cut it. Perhaps a superbly talented group with easy access to the idiom—I’m thinking Acies or Minetti Quartet—will fall in love with them, and give them the time and effort they clearly deserve.


Mieczysław Karłowicz, Symphony op.7, “The White Dove” op.6, Antoni Wit / Warsaw PO, Naxos 8.572487

Karłowicz, Rebirth Sy., White Dove, Wit / Warsaw PO UK | DE | FR

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s music is much better than it is original. Even if you’ve never heard of his name, the music will sound familiar, but always in a good way. Influenced by the neo-romantic school and especially works of Wagner and Richard Strauss during his studies in Berlin from 1895 to 1901, Karłowicz further added touches to his work that sound of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, hints of Scriabin, and vaguely dark Scandinavian romanticism. He would probably have found a more distinctively unique voice, but Karłowicz died in 1909, aged 32, in an avalanche, skiing in the Tatra Mountains. Tragic, but fittingly ironic for a fatalistic pantheist.

Almost all of the mentioned influences can be heard in the ambitious “Rebirth” Symphony op. 7 and “The White Dove” Overture op.6 on a terrific new Karłowicz release from Naxos. The recordings of Yan Pascal Tortelier and Gianandrea Noseda with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (Chandos) made Karłowicz’ name better known in the West, there are several fine releases on the Polish DUX label, but Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra get the most out of this already gorgeous music, yet.


Gustav Mahler, Symphony No.5, V.Gergiev / London SO, LSO Live 664

Mahler, Sy.5, Gergiev / LSO UK | DE | FR

Gergiev’s Mahler had been a series of disappointments for me. For a variety of reasons I expected much from his First, Sixth, and Seventh, and got little to nothing out of them. The Eight, with its generous reverb from St. Paul’s cathedral, found me impressed—just when I had given up hope. The Fifth and Ninth came last in Gergiev’s cycle, because earlier performances recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra’s own label—LSO Live—were not deemed good enough for release. By the time the Fifth was taken on tour a second time, orchestra and conductor had it down pat. I was in London for the concert at which it was recorded, and for the first time in several years I found myself truly enjoying and very much impressed by a Gergiev conducted performance. (Shchedrin’s Concerto for Orchestra No.1 (Naughty Limericks) and Strauss’ Duett-Concertino for Clarinet & Bassoon were addition, superb boni.) The recording of the Fifth captures most of the excitement of the live event, from the drastic-yet-winsome Trauermarsch via bolting-lilting Scherzo and nicely unsentimental Adagietto to the ecstatic finale. Among SACDs, this is a worthy contender—next to Markus Stenz’ recording (Oehms)—for ‘first pick’.


Wolfgang A. Mozart, “Dissonances”, Quatuor Ébène, Virgin

Mozart, 2 SQ4ts, Quatuor Ébène UK | DE | FR

In 2008 the Quatuor Ébène issued its debut disc for Virgin—Ravel-Debussy-Fauré, an easy inclusion in the “Best of the Year” list. Brahms followed, and then a disc of their Jazz and film score encores: L'Autre Ebène. Good and entertaining stuff, if not as outstanding as the potential of the Ébènes would always suggests. Their Mozart recording of the ‘Haydn’ quartets in d-minor K421 and K465 (plus the charming F-major Divertimento K138) suggests a refreshed return to their unique combination of joy, accuracy, and weightless intricacy enclosed in a bold exterior.


Nino Rota, Cello Concertos, F.Kleinhapl / D.Kaftan / Augsburg Philharmonic, ARS 38105

Rota, Cello Ctos., Kleinhapl / Kaftan / Augsburg Phil. UK | DE | FR

Nino Rota was too successful a composer for film to ever establish a good reputation as a serious classical composer. You can’t write the scores for 8½, La Strada, Il Gattopardo, and The Godfather and hope for concert-hall exposure. That Rota is present next to Brahms and Berlioz, all the same, is in good measure due to his advocates Riccardo Muti (a one-time student of Rota’s), Josep Pons, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin—all of which have also recorded his music. Cellist Friedrich Kleinhapl (Best of 2009 with his Beethoven; wonderful Bruch) joins them, with his recording of the Cello Concertos (1972, 1973), two unforgivably approachable, shamelessly musical pieces.

Offenbach or Dvořák can be said to lurk behind the First Concerto of Curtis Institute student Rota, and his neo-classical streak, generously supplied with the vitality he found in jazz comes out in a more explicitly Mozartean spririt—in the Second. Kleinhapl excels in both (with more emphasis on excitement than dead-accuracy), and David Kaftan and his Augsburg Philharmonic show off the capability for greatness (especially in the waltz-happy Il Gattopardo score) that Munich critics have enthusiastically attested them for some time.

Franz Schubert, Die Schöne Müllerin, E. Belakowitsch, S. Delaney, Gramola

Schubert, Müllerin, Belakowitsch / Delaney UK | DE | FR

When I first listened to this, another (yawn!) Müllerin, I was taken aback—almost immediately—by the strange piano sound. Was this a robust, late forte-piano being taken to its limits? No. Why did it make such a happily-rambunctious noise? What is Stephen Delaney doing, and why? Then Erwin Belakowitsch’s baritone comes into play, and its natural, gruff, growling character not just justifies its own heaviness, it makes sense out of the active, lively accompaniment. Stephen Delaney’s playing, in turn, takes on a character of its own—from oddity to asset. There is a directness and honesty about this Müllerin that makes it stand out amid the crowded field. No silly claims about “the best”. Belakowitsch hasn’t the dark nuance of Gerhaher (from whom I wouldn’t mind a re-recording of his Müllerin), is about the opposite of Ian Bostridge’s heady introversion (EMI), the honeyed ease and sophistication of Werner Güra (HMU), the sensitive brawn of Goerne of Goerne (HMU)… But then if he had those exact qualities, he wouldn’t stand out. It makes me wish I had heard the excitingly dramatic Christopher Maltman’s 2011 recording (Wigmore Hall Live, with Graham Johnson)… alas, not yet. But it also makes me want to hear this version. Again, and again.


Geirr Tveitt, “From a Travel Diary” et al., Fragira Vesca, Simax PSC1222

Tveitt, Travel Diary, Fragira Vesca UK | DE | FR

Earlier this year I had finally found my way around to Geirr Tveitt, after being intrigued for years thanks to Robert Reilly’s chapter in “Surprised by Beauty”. Much of Tveitt’s music (albeit not much in relation to the quantities that were lost in that horrific fire that consumed his house and with all the manuscripts) is being restored, but there’s still very little chamber music of Tveitt’s to go around. The eight-movement “From a Travel Diary” (String Quartet No.1) is the only work for string quartet that survives, and even that has only recently had a missing movement restored thanks to a transcription from an old radio broadcast. In his “Favorites of 2011” column for CRISIS Magazine, Reilly rightly calls it “…the best musical postcard and chamber music form that I have heard… marvelously idiosyncratic, inspiriting music!” Vaguely covering the romantic spectrum from Brahms to Shostakovich, Tveitt is full of unexpected, newly familiar sounds that celebrate lyricism and sweetness one mo(ve)ment, and compelling angular rhythms the next.


Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, S.Weigle / Bayreuth Festival Orchestra / Vogt, Hawlata, Volle et al., Opus Arte DVD & Blu-ray 1041

Wagner, Meistersinger, Weigle / Bayreuth FO / Vogt et al. UK | DE | FR

Die Meistersinger is by far the most difficult opera to update – because it is much more literal and concrete than Wagner’s other works. No monsters, gods, or myths that can be transformed at will to represent abstract ideas in other shapes. But the Meistersinger takes place in a very identifiable Nuremberg, with very real people and every-day props. The options are limited. And while a dwarf-raised hero may smith his sword any which way he wants to, a medieval cobbler must always fix a shoe with his little hammer. No?

Miss Wagner can do without old shoes or hammers. And without a lot of other symbolic Meistersinger mainstays. This re-interpretation that is at once radical and at the same time very, very smartly aiming at the core message of Wagner and this opera, has invited lots of invective, most of it shortsighted, if not outright ignorant. In her hands, the opera now spells out the warning: beware one-time innovators becoming the new reactionaries! There couldn’t be more acute message for Bayreuth.

With principles Franz Hawlata (Sachs), Klaus Florian Vogt (Stolzing), Michael Volle (Beckmesser) and a superb rest of a cast (the 2007 weak spot, Amanda Mace’s Eva, is replaced by Michaela Kaune), this Meistersinger is musically top notch—a fine junior partner alongside Kubelik, Sawallisch, and [yes!] Goodall. Full review here.


Mieczysław Weinberg, Sinfonietta, Symphony No.6, V.Fedoseyev / Vienna SO, NEOS SACD

2010 was a good year for Weinberg, starting with the Bregenz-performance of his opera “The Passenger” and its subsequent release on DVD/Blu-ray (Best of 2011). On the financial coattails of The Passenger, the enterprising Munich record label NEOS—for which Weinberg is a relative classic in their otherwise contemporary-focused repertoire—several other Weinberg-releases have followed: live recordings from the Bregenz Festival, all. Most of them have great merits and singling out is difficult. Better let attrition work on it:

Weinberg, Trumpet Cto., Three Palms, Korsten / Ellensohn UK | DE | FR

Weinberg Edition No.5: The Trumpet Concerto No.1 op.94 is superb and this recording a happy first choice amid surprisingly busy (given Weinberg’s limited-but-growing discography) competition from Bibi Black (Chandos), the excellent Sergei Nakariakov (Warner), Carl Albach (ASO download), and Timofei Dorkshitser (with Kirill Kondrashin, out of print on Russian Disc). But the Three Palms [not Psalms] for string quartet and soprano is rather dour stuff and the String Trio too slight to make up for it. Of the latter there is an excellent recording with the Beethoven String Trio of London on Praga Digitals, coupled with the cello sonatas.

Weinberg Edition No.4: The Second Cello Sonata op.63 and the Piano Quintet are among the most recorded Weinberg works. The sonata exists with Yablonsky/Liu (Naxos), Moser/Rivinius (Hänssler), Chaushian/Sudbin (BIS), Kanka/Borges Coelho (Praga Digitals). The Quintet op.18—one of the unequivocally great chamber pieces of that time—is available on perhaps the most famous Weinberg recording of them all: that of the dedicatees Borodin Quartet together with the pianist-composer on Melodiya. But it can also be had with the superb ARC Ensemble (RCA), the Vilnius String Quartet (Delos), the Kopelman Quartet (Nimbus), and the Szymanowski Quartet (Hänssler). That would make it difficult for the EOS-Quartett Wien et al. to compete even if it were better than it is. As it is, it might be the only recording in this edition that can’t garner a recommendation.

Weinberg Edition No.3: Weinberg’s 1967 Requiem: See “Dip Your Ears, No. 112”

Weinberg Edition No.2: Symphony No.17: See “Dip Your Ears, No. 113”

Weinberg, Sy.6, Sinfonietta, Fedoseyev UK | DE | FR

Still, my pick for inclusion in this list is Weinberg Edition No.1: The Sixth Symphony is a wonderfully grim work with lots of moments evoking (but not copying) the sound of Shostakovich. At three quarters of an hour, this choral symphony is obviously the main ingredient of the disc. But the Sinfonietta (also available on Chandos’ Weinberg series, vol.1, Gabriel Chmura & Polish NRSO), half as long and four times as light, is the reason why I like this release so much: Get your dancing-boots out!

All the NEOS Weinberg releases are on SACD. Often expensive or unavailable on ArkivMusic and Amazon.com, they are most easily and inexpensively gotten via Amazon.co.uk

Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 3 )

Wolfgang A. Mozart • Le nozze di Figaro

After seeing Claus Guth’s Salzburg Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte on DVD and Don Giovanni live in 2010 (review), the opportunity to experience the entire Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in one, more or less fell, swoop was one of the many draws for this year’s festival attendance. The trilogy has been made even more exciting (and possible, to begin with) by assigning the orchestra duty to three very different bands, promising plenty fresh air in already very fine productions of these standards. Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski for Così, the Vienna Philharmonic (as throughout the production’s lifetime) with Yannick Nézet-Séguin (who made all the difference) again for Don Giovanni, and for the Nozze at hand the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with the twenty-nine year old Robin Ticciati.

W.A.Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro, N.Harnoncourt / WPh / Netrebko, Schäfer et al. DG DVD W.A. Mozart, Nozze, R.Jacobs / Concerto Köln / Gens, Kirchschlager, Keenlyside et al. Harmonia Mundi 2011 Notes: Chamber Concert 1, July 31 Preview, August 05 Le nozze di Figaro, August 07

Guth’s Nozze catapulted itself into the headlines as the starriest of Salzburg’s 2006 “Mozart / 22” project of producing (and filming) all of Mozart’s operas. It had a starry cast headed by Anna Netrebko, a slightly stiff Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, the imposing Conte of Bo Skovhus, Dorothea Röschmann’s curiously attractive, sordidly desperate Contessa, and Christine Schäfer as a Cherubino to best all Cherubinos. The result, more compelling on DVD than CD (in part due to Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s self-consciously extreme—in either direction, though usually slow—tempos), set a high standard for ensemble acting not necessarily attained in its several incarnations since. The performers this year had big shoes to fill, and one of the happy surprises was how well they all compared to the original cast.

The staging itself had gone through a few, subtle metamorphoses, and had now, at its presumably last run, arrived at something very smart, slightly more conventional than it had started out at. Even in this incarnation, the production has a bristling, even sexual sensuality—as erotic as the libretto must have seemed to Mozart’s contemporaries, and never crossing into crude, or ostentatiously shocking territory. The action takes place in the slightly run down Count’s palace dominated by large staircases and populated by dead blackbirds and visual bonbons (not to say gimmicks) that please the eye even when they are not imperative elements of the plot.

None of the singers gave any particular reason to grumble vocally; Katija Dragojevic’s Cherubino, with the most difficult task at hand (given Schäfer, who really must be seen to be believed) did splendidly in all her hyper-hormoned, pubescently sexed-up boyishness. Her fine, strong voice with a very slight, pleasant reedy character only added. Erwin Schrott occasionally fell into the trap of Figaroesque tomfoolery, but he’s too natural and sauve an actor on stage to ever ham it up too much or have Figaro become the insufferable oaf (a proto-Ochs) that many other baritones turn the poor character into. (Matthew Rose comes to mind.) More comfortable in the part’s lower register, his heights were muffled, but only marginally so.

Simon Keenlyside’s Count Almaviva didn’t have Skovhus’ physical or vocal presence and here and there he introduced an odd comical, befuddled note into the character (his rage wasn’t particularly believable and therefore the contrition not as crucial to the piece as it ought to be. Under the weight of dancer Uli Kirsch—the agile non-singing Fate/Cupid/Puck character Guth introduces—he nearly buckled. That character, a thorn in the eyes of some traditionalists, guides and manipulates the emotions of the protagonists until, in the final scene, they reject him, taking fate—at last—into their own hands. One can take or leave that visual-dramatic addition to the plot, but it takes a crustacean attitude to be particularly offended or even disturbed by it.

Genia Kühmeier, so neatly fitting into the dullness of last year’s Orfeo ed Euridice, played the Contessa very well, despite getting further away from youthful characters into matronly territory. Her voice was clear, seated at the back of the throat, tightly controlled and with richness beyond its actual volume. Marlis Petersen’s Susanna, in an interpretation toned down from previous runs, was sparkling and playful; a full-blooded actress that could make one forget her horse-hair straw blonde wig. Vocally very decent, a bit on the indistinctive side, but altogether a joy.

The orchestra opened with an explosive-aggressive, lean overture, fast and without any hint of a willingness to take prisoners. The brass had an edge and stuck its metaphorical head out of the shallow pit; the woodwinds were a colorful equal to the strings. The result was refreshingly bracing, but it wasn’t just that; Ticciati and Co. went on to produce beautiful colors in the more lyrical moments as well, and were an integral part of this year’s Nozze’s particular appeal.

All pictures courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Monika Rittershaus

Mahler Festival Leipzig: Nezét-Séguin - BRSO - Seventh Symphony

Is Mahler Seventh three times in five months too much? Yes and no. Yes, because it’s much easier to overdose on Mahler in general than the average Mahler fanatic would have you believe (or ever admit). Yes, because Mahler’s Seventh Symphony in particular contains some staggering banalities (particularly in the inner movements). No, because even three times live in short succession (Boulez / RCO, Haitink / BRSO, and now in Leipzig, with Yannick Nezét-Séguin and the BRSO again), plus new recordings (Jansons, Zinman, Macal, Abbado DVD, Järvi – and listening to Jansons earlier recording on the trip to Leipzig) are not sufficient to get one’s head around the work… much less understand it. (Assuming there is much to understand, that is.)

G.Mahler, Symphony No.7, V.Neumann / Leipzig Gewandhaus Berlin Classics / Eterna G.Mahler, Symphony No.7, Kubelik / BRSO Audite

I would have loved to ask Nezét-Séguin (36, interview at WETA) about whether he had a particular view of the work, but the busy—too busy, by all accounts— willowy conductor cannot be tracked down outside the concert hall these days. If he has discovered a narrative thread in the symphony, he’s not communicating it yet, but he sure knows how to conduct it. His and the orchestra’s performance were like a bold exclamation mark amid the performances so far and since; several levels above the other guest performances in terms of performance and interpretation.

The first movement had plenty outward (not to say ostentatious) emotion, ever evident carrying its feelings on its sleeve. The latter happens to be an essential ingredient in Mahler, and so it worked well enough. The BRSO wasn’t at its absolute pristine-precise (several of their first desks were missing) which detracted some, and added in other places, where sailing through Mahler without a trace of challenge can make the music come across as strangely glib.

The fleet first Nachtmusik was on the playful – or at least lively – side; the cowbells played with much more delicacy than the last time (though still the same tinny bells). The ‘double cello solo’ was gorgeous with klezmeresque inflection rarely heard; the brass and wind dialog was lovingly detailed. The central movement was the most night-like yet, with an ironically witty end, but muddled strings reminded of the above-mentioned banality never being far from hand. Perhaps a seating arrangement with antiphonal violins might have helped?

So far the performance was very good, but not quite exceptional. The fourth movement, Nachtmusik II, changed that. Picking up where the first of the inner movements had left off, this was a dream in hushed tones, not distanced nor very dusky, but with lots of characters well beyond the notes. It was grand music-making, with a yearning and constant fighting for each note. Unbelievably, the finale still topped this magnificence.

Few conductors seem to know exactly what to make of that movement when Mahler begins to cycles through variations upon variations of Die Meistersinger (opening of finale) and Tristan & Isolde (finale of first movement) in a mood that seems to crudely jubilant to be taken seriously and too trivial to suggest sardonic bite.

Nezét-Séguin took it seriously in its ludicrous way, went all out and stormed ahead with ecstatic abandon. Call it naïve or what you like, but as pure music, this finale suddenly worked in senselessly amazing and musical ways. In fact, it worked, triumphantly. Irresistibly compelling it hurled itself to its last wham and bang… and ended in – uniquely in my M-7 experience – instant, unanimous, standing ovations that lasted for the better part of ten minutes.

Mahler Festival Leipzig: Salonen - Dresden - Third Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Märkl - MDR SO - Tenth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Luisi - Concertgebouw - Das Lied von der Erde
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Gergiev - LSO - First Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Gilbert - NYPhil - Fifth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Zinman - Tonhalle Zurich - Sixth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Harding - Mahler Chamber Orchestra - Fourth Symphony

Philadelphia in Good Hands: Interview with Yannick Nézet-Séguin

This is excerpted from a longer interview with Yannick Nézet-Séguin to appear on Classical WETA in January. Friday through Sunday, October 29th through the 31st he will lead his first concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra since being named their new music director.


To say that Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a busy young man would be an understatement. The impossibly charming conductor with the boyish face and petite frame looks even younger than his 35 years when he appears at the terrace of the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg on a lovely August day this Summer. The fact that he’s had three free days in six weeks doesn’t show. In Salzburg he conducted 16 performances of Don Giovanni and Romeo and Juliette, and because there was a lacunae in his schedule, he took the Rotterdams Philharmonisch, one of the four orchestras he now has a close, contractual relation with, to the Proms. If Dudamel is the most hyped of the young generation, and Andris Nelsons quietly the one with the with the greatest potential, Nézet-Séguin is congenial whizz kid who heads from success to success. This season alone the Music Director Designate of the Philadelphia Orchestra will make his debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, Milan’s La Scala Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

On October 29^th, he will conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra for the first time since being named Charles Dutoit’s (and Christoph Eschenbach’s) successor. The program—Haydn’s 100^th and Mahler’s 5^th Symphony—had been decided before he was appointed, and he explains what he meant to achieve with it: “It was supposed to be my third visit with an orchestra which I already adored and with which I was wishing to continue a partnership. After having already done one program which was Russian, really romantic with ‘Tchaik 6’ and ‘Rachmaninoff 2’ [Piano Concerto], the second program was a very tricky one, but one we pulled off very well… with the Franck Symphony, and a new—well, not a new piece, but a new piece for them: “Orion”, by Claude Vivienne Vivier, and Brahms’ First Piano Concerto. So we had explored already a few things so we decided that ‘OK, on the third visit I should go in for something that the orchestra doesn’t do a lot, which is Mozart and Haydn, so I wanted to meet with them in a late Haydn symphony. And also Mahler, which I think is one of their great, great strengths.

“But of course now that this is a well-anticipated date in Philadelphia, for myself as well, I think this makes a lot of sense, actually. Because it is two angles which I want to keep doing a lot with the orchestra. Especially, if I may say, the classical repertoire. I mean: this is very early to decide which kind of repertoire I will be exploring in the next five years; we’re just starting the discussions about that. But definitely more Mozart and more Haydn is something I want to do, because it’s always good to for any orchestra to do in the first place.”

“My way of conceiving of what a symphony orchestra should bring nowadays (and this is without being aimed directly at the Phillies) is to have this advantage of exploring 400 years of music. From Gabrieli to now. And draw some lines or connections between generations and how music is so really interrelated, stylistically. And that is what really puts me on. And I think that for most of the audience this is also something very interesting and it doesn’t have to be very intellectual and it doesn’t have to be rocket science. I don’t just want to do the usual, an overture—classical, then a concerto—romantic, and then… and we end up very often with a concert that contains fifteen years of distance between the oldest and the youngest work. Going back to that question of Haydn for the symphony orchestra: it’s true that many orchestras feel deprived nowadays. ‘Oh… we don’t know how to do it anymore, because we can’t’, they might say. And some specialized instrumentalists in baroque and classical are still horrified that a symphony orchestra on modern instruments would dare still do this. But this is not my vision. I think that maybe it’s a question of generation as well. That younger generation of musicians has now benefitted from what the specialists have done and we still need those specialists. But we now need to incorporate this in the larger tradition of our culture of sound. When I just did the Proms with the Rotterdam Phil last week, in between operas…” here he chuckles with the half-knowing, half-apologetic grin of a confessing workaholic… “and one of the great things was to have the same orchestra to play Wagner (Tannhaeuser Overture) and then Eroica and it sounded like two different orchestras and yet it was the same musicians. And I think that’s what we have to achieve now and that’s very good for the orchestra, because it is good for the concert experience as a whole.”

made possible by the:

Notes from the 2010 Salzburg Festival ( 9 ) The Perfect Conservative Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni K.527, Dramma giocoso in two acts


There are different ways of taking the “giocoso” out of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Think of Peter Sellars’ ruthlessly raping New Yorker protagonist. Claus Guth’s Don Giovanni, seamlessly embodied by a stupendous Christopher Maltman, doesn’t need to rape. He’s too good-looking, too strapping, too suave, too vulnerable, too convincing to stoop to that level. But he is still a liar, a crook, constantly deceiving, ruthlessly manipulating, in short: a real jackass to the ladies. You feel for the women; Donna Elvira’s pain is made physically tangible by Dorothea Röschmann who exceeds at these roles of embittered, slightly trampy, strangely alluring women. Flighty, flirty Zerlina’s turn from being enamored to being cross (a willing, eager, perfect-for-the-thankful-part Anna Prohaska) becomes believable. Somewhere along the way, Donna Anna (Aleksandra Kurzak) is wronged, too.

That’s all in the libretto, and that alone wouldn’t be much of an achievement for a director to bring out (even if it is rarely brought out so poignantly, and DG all too often ends up as sexed-up Falstaff). Yet this Don Giovanni is also a tender man, earnest in his own—admittedly warped—way; and he is, to his best—admittedly limited—ability a genuine friend to his servant Leporello. Don Giovanni, who is hit by a bullet in the fight with Donna Anna’s father and who is slowly deteriorating, dying through the two acts, is tended to by Leporello; his bouts with his servant-friend are in good part expressed helplessness. It is their friendship, affectionate and loving through all the abuse and tussles that surreptitiously becomes the overwhelming focus of the opera. Not the production, mind you, the opera!

W.A.Mozart, Don Giovanni, B. de Billy / WPh C.Maltman, E.Schrott, D.Röschmann, A.Dasch et al. Dir.: Claus Guth EuroArts DVD W.A.Mozart, Don Giovanni, B. de Billy / WPh C.Maltman, E.Schrott, D.Röschmann, A.Dasch et al. Dir.: Claus Guth EuroArts Blu-ray

Let’s start with Leporello. He’s played and sung (and cooed, clucked, hummed, shrieked, crooned) by Erwin Schrott who will do anything on stage to enliven his character, and who panders to the audience with such refreshing shamelessness, that his besotted, drug-addled, nervous-tick and spasms displaying Leporello becomes a character lovable not for his buffoonish wit or cowardly antics or jester’ wisdom—which is the fate of so many Leporellos when they’re turned into a Sancho Panza character. But an honest soul, not too bright, who shoots up and gets more and more confused, and who cares deeply for his master and friend. All their relationship’s complexity is encapsulated in one, this, touching moment: DG wants to bribe Leporello into further advancing his schemes with four doubloons and—on the ground, in pain, just manages to lob a wad of money at him. Leporello counts, gently stuffs the excess bills back into DG’s pocket, and then, hurt in his pride, puts his money in the little fire they’ve made to warm themselves with through the increasingly cooler forest nights. Leporello—the help for hire!—can’t be bought... because underlying the two men’s economic relationship lies the pure and decent love of two men who have bonded and who need each other. And anyone messing with his Don gets a taste of Leporello’s knuckleduster. (He doesn’t actually need to have, or brandish one; Schrott’s physique does the trick plenty well.)

Claus Guth gets at the very core of Don Giovanni, and it would be limiting if one focused solely on the fascinating hyper-realistic forest that fills the entire stage (costumes and stage by Christian Schmidt), or the Chrysler Saratoga with which Anna and Ottavio break down on the forest road, or the other many ingenious little touches that, sometimes subtly, evoke the atmosphere of corrosion and eventually decomposition. Guth doesn’t rely on shtick, or heavy symbolism. His production is literal, it is to the point, it doesn’t hide behind abstraction or superficial glare; it just rolls up its sleeves and gets down and dirty with personal relationships, human emotions, broken hearts, broken bones, and a bullet wound. It unveils the essence of the characters’ souls (or at least one cogent interpretation thereof), their struggles. It recreates that with naturalistic, contemporary means that relate to a contemporary audience what was meant to be related to Mozart’s contemporary audience. It does so without shenanigans, superimposes nothing, reveals, entertains, thrills, making the greatness of this opera instantly audible. It is, in a word or three, a near-perfect conservative production.

What about Don Giovanni being shot in the overture (acted out in a slow-motion movie sequence that we observe through a peephole in the curtain)? Isn’t that messing with the substance? To the contrary. Don Giovanni still gets his end meted out by Il Commendatore. Still all because he won’t mend his ways; continues to live hard, ignores the warning signs (of his body), does his thing, squeezes the last bit of life out of his body, and never lets up. He could repent, he could check himself into the hospital after Act 1. But he does not. He is determined to see this through to the predictable end. Now we also know why he never actually has any success with the women on stage; he is wounded—Klingsor-like, almost—and couldn’t quite pull through with it, even if he had the chance. And there is no more suspension of disbelief necessary when the voices, the Commendatore (just a forest-worker, digging a ditch) are psychological entities, signs of the parallel mental and physical decline of servant and master, respectively.

When Don Giovanni and Leporello find themselves in the forest again for the final three scenes (not that they ever really left), we are confronted with an absolutely heartbreaking Dickensian ‘Christmas Carol’ setting for the destitute: The twosome create their own feast amid the trees with Spam and canned beers, Leoporello trying to get the spirit right by sprinkling a torn napkin over the nearest little conifer tree as ersatz tinsel. Familiar music bleeds in from a celebration afar. They are keeping up appearances, amid the dying moments, the hallucinations, and eventually the inevitable dying itself. It is that latter, horrifyingly predictable death that so scares that sad, lamentable, lovable character of Leporello up to his final, gut-wrenching scream.

Aleksandra Kurzak was a surprisingly indistinct Donna Anna, and in playing it so was relegated to a tertiary character. That wasn’t in itself disappointing (nor was the lack of clarity on top notes), because her relative blandness didn’t stand out as something actively missing; it became part of the story. A mild disappointment, perhaps the only one, was the indisposition of Joseph Kaiser. How brilliant would the show have been when even Don Ottavio had been cast with someone of equal stature (literally and metaphorically speaking), someone who acts and sings as naturally as the impossibly charming, ever-believable Canadian? Joel Prieto, the substitute (scheduled, anyway, for the last three performances), was fine. His tenor voice sounds very nice, with much room for improvement when it comes to expressiveness and the low range. But his slightly stiff, slightly overacted interpretation didn’t quite gel, and he never didn’t look like the chap who took on his older brother’s suit that doesn’t quite fit him yet. That Schrott and Maltmann are front and center (Röschmann squeezes in there, too) never detracts. Especially the latter has come quite some way from Gentleman Schubert singer (and superb captain in “The Death of Klinghoffer”, where I first saw, heard, and immediately took to him) to macho sex pot Don G., with a gorgeous, resonant, naturally strong voice every bit as well sculpted as his body that shows whenever he doesn’t don the Hugo Boss apparel.

The Vienna Philharmonic, a few sour-tinged violin section moments apart, performed with guts and gusto under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From a direct and smooth (never homogenized) overture, they worked their way through the two acts displaying anything from meaty verve to gentle touches and syncopations that really brought out how Mozart’s music supports the text, how he appeals to his audience’s ears with popular tunes and dances. This was not civilized Mozartizing—soothing sounds of gorgeous boredom—but brought the craze, the frenzy, the dementedness and rage; helped by a very funky fortepiano in the continuo parts that livened up the partly-improvised recitatives turning them into highlights, rather than chores. It helped make this honest, most cogent of all Don Giovanni productions a definite highlight in my opera-going life.


All pictures © Salzburger Festspiele / Monika Rittershaus