From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 10

September 8^th. Piano, Semifinals with the Munich Chamber Orchestra (MKO) at the Herkulessaal

For a Mozart concerto to be played so well, by orchestra and soloist, that hearing it six times in a row wouldn’t be a dulling, cruel experience, it would have to be played… well… astonishingly well. I doubt I have heard it. Maybe Clifford Curzon or Ivan Moravec, with someone like Ferenc Fricsay or Karel Ančerl or Rafael Kubelik—to list the names that pop into my mind trying to come with the most musical, satisfying artists—would be able to pull in a hypothetical musical universe. It’s quite bad enough even just to hear three in a row, and that’s not because the MKO isn’t up to snuff or because Roope Gröndahl (Finnland), Eun Ae Lee (South Korea), or Tori Huang (US) are rubbish. They’re all in the semi final and fine pianists, the first-named with a no-nonsense, mature, unaffected approach. Subtle and perfectly pleasant, with elegance-through-simplicity in the slow movement, which seemed most notable in his performance of the Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K.456. Yet the Finn with a Swedish name left something, that intangible ‘something’, missing from the concerto … a minor-yet-important fault he shared to some degree with all three renditions before the break.

W.G.Mozart, Piano Concertos 17 & 18, M.Perahia / ECO sony J.Reubke, F.LisztSonata in c-minor, Ad nos, Sir Simon Preston, Westminster Abbey Organ DG M.Reger, Chorale Fantasias, op.52/2 et al., H.Feller, Reger Memorial Organ, St.Michael, Weiden Oehms

The second performance came from Eun Ae Lee, one of two South Koreans left from the 18 (!) that started out in round one. Performing the rather lovelier G-major concerto, K.453, she took a more mannered but also a more nuanced approach which made for some very charming passages early on and the finest impression of these three overall, even if the slow movement was a wee bit overwrought. The third movement, much like the third, was unambiguously lovely.

Tori Huang, a wafer-thin Chinese-American and although of the complexion of rare porcelain, didn’t treat the Mozart (also the B-flat concerto) in the Dresden-China style either. (Thankgoodness!) More energetic than either of her predecessors, with a hint of flamboyancy, she came up with a notably compelling first movement—especially when compared to the other K.456 performance. There was pretty stuff in the third movement, too, but arguably more heat than light.

The main draw for attending the piano semi-finals (as any ARD semi final and in fact one of the best aspects of the whole undertaking) is, and was, the commissioned composition. The one written for the pianists came from Lera Auerbach this year. “Milking Darkness” sounds, no matter how different the interpretation, like Messiaen-meets-Silvestrov; it’s a pianistic, musical, playable composition that starts with an Adagio misterioso that also insists on being ‘ritmico’, like a little music box, perhaps. Eun Ae Lee took “ritmico” more seriously than “misterioso”, which was particularly notable after Mr. Gröndahl had done it the other way around… to considerably greater success. Tori Huang nearly achieved the perfect third way between steady-steady and ominously meandering, but was less concerned with the low and lowest dynamic markings of the work than her Finnish colleague. Her more robust approach offered yields of its own, but couldn’t, to these ears, surpass Gröndal’s way of milking “Milking Darkness”.

Organ, Finals Part 1, Grand Hall of the Academy of Music

With three more Mozart concertos threatening, the decision to bike over to the Academy of Music for the first—solo—part of the Organ finals, was easy enough. All the easier, since Jamie Bergin, for my ears the bright spot of the second round, had sadly not even made it into the semis. (Music’s loss, methinks, but surely no obstacle for his ensuing career.) The 140 minutes spent at the Herkulessaal with the pianos meant missing the first two candidates (German Lukas Stollhof in the Reger Fantasie & Fugue in d-minor and Austrian Michael Schöch in Julius Reubke’s Sonata, the “94th Psalm for solo organ”*), but catching the two candidates heard previously, Johannes Lang and Anna-Victoria Baltrusch. That constellation meant another personal favorite missing: Mlle. Metzger, particularly convincing in the first part of the semi final (which in the case of organ was already the second round), had not advanced.

Johannes Lang performed Max Reger’s Chorale Fantasia & Fugue op.52/2 (“Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme”), Anna-Victoria Baltrusch the next one in line, the Choral Fantasia op.52/3 (“Hallelijah! Gott zu loben, bleibe meine Seelenfreud”). If anyone found himself sleeping at the Grand Hall, they certainly woke up to Lang’s Reger, given the full-out organ assault he unleashed between deceiving stretches of lull and whisper. The lowest pedal points struck literally rattled the cage and got assorted construction bits of the venue to hum. Anyone but an card-carrying organ-aficionado won’t often hear even the more popular Reger pieces, which makes judging a performance for lay ears so difficult. Did Lang brush parts of the music under the heavily registered carpet? Was there something that ‘isn’t done’? I like the occasional Reger and, perversely, have two complete sets of just the organ music, and could access a good dozen versions of op.52/2 via the Naxos Music Library. But still I felt at a professional loss, admiring ‘in private’, as it were, the gorgeously gentle register change and choice for the faint end of the Fantasia, and the very Bachian Fugue, played fresh, lively, not without mistakes but nice and—never to be underestimated as far as organ-appeal goes—loud. Mlle. Baltrusch’s Reger Fantasy has the more striking opening, distinct and distinctly registered. The erratic muting with the swell annoyed me more than anything else, otherwise the work, especially the Fugue, struck as well judged. All four participants would go on performing the Hindemith Concerto for Organ and Small Orchestra (a.k.a. “Kammermusik 7”) the next day at the large organ of the Philharmonic Hall of the Gasteig.

* A work Simon Preston much cherishes and one of his recordings he takes particular pride in, even if the affable, almost deferential but witty seventy-three year old probably wouldn’t use the word “pride” referring to anything regarding himself.

'Tosca'

See my review of Washington National Opera's production of Tosca:

Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Kennedy Center (The Washingtonian, September 12):

Puccini, Tosca, B. Nilsson, F. Corelli, D. Fischer-Dieskau, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, L. Maazel

Puccini’s Tosca really is, as Joseph Kerman once quipped, a “shabby little shocker.” That is, without really fine, powerful singing from the three principals, the work has little else to recommend it. One ends up, in fact, as in Saturday night’s opening night of Washington National Opera’s new (old) staging of the opera, with a mediocrity. It was telling that the most dramatic moment of the evening, other than the grand panorama of the Te Deum scene in Act One, had nothing to do with singing. It was the headlong abandon with which Patricia Racette, in the title role, hurled herself from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo at the opera’s melodramatic conclusion.

Little matter that, according to one reliable source, such a suicide is unlikely, given the structure of the building. One expected Racette’s closing gesture as Tosca, the actress who loves too strongly, to have been dramatic. This is the American soprano’s principal strength, as seen in her recent outings in Washington as the title role in Jenůfa, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, and last year’s Iphigénie. Racette’s voice can be beautiful in softer, more diaphanous passages, but when she hurls sound approximately at high notes, as Tosca is so often required to do, the effect can be acidic and often was. As always, Racette was the most gripping dramatic presence on stage, but one wished for more beauty in iconic moments like Tosca’s most famous aria, “Vissi d’arte.” [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette, Serviceable ‘Tosca’ signals business as usual at Washington National Opera (Washington Post, September 12)

Terry Ponick, Enthralling ‘Tosca’ (Washington Times, September 12)

Reich, Trading on the WTC

S. Reich, WTC 9/11 / Mallet Quartet / Dance Patterns, Kronos Quartet, Sō Percussion, et al. (released on September 20, 2011) Nonesuch 528236-2 | 36'32"

Yesterday was obviously a day of reflection, not only about the terrorist attacks ten years ago, but also about the role of music in commemorating them. For some more thoughts, there is this review, which was first published at The Classical Review on September 12, 2011.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York of September 11, 2001, to which the release of this recording of Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11, a new piece for three string quartets -- two pre-recorded and one live -- is shrewdly timed. The original artwork announced for this disc by Nonesuch showed smoke billowing from one of the World Trade Center towers and the second plane yards away from striking the other tower, with the color palette modified to a historical sepia. Many who saw that photograph complained that the image was too searing, that it may even have implied an attempt to profit from the horror of the attack. The composer and Nonesuch eventually agreed to replace it with something less shocking (illustrated above). The controversy over an image of something that actually happened and was the subject of a work on the disc indicates just how divisive the mere memory of September 11 remains.

Beginning in the days after the attacks, musicians and the public yearned for a grand musical expression of the shock, horror, pain, and grief experienced by those who lived through those events, as well as a lamentation for those who died. We are still searching for it. Perhaps the leading contender, On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams, moved audiences when it was first performed in 2003, winning a Pulitzer and Grammy shortly afterwards, but it has since begun to stale and seem too direct a reaction.

Reich’s WTC 9/11 was composed more recently but follows a rather similar process, transforming recorded voices into musical motifs, a technique he has used many times, most famously in Different Trains, also for string quartet and pre-recorded accompaniment. The only new technique is that Reich can now extend the final syllable of each statement as a held note, so that the voice fragments -- of air traffic controllers, fire and ambulance crews, WTC workers and New York residents -- provide not only melodic and rhythmic motifs but harmonic clusters as they are layered on top of one another.

The piece is not that elusive grand statement of grief, which apparently remains to be composed. Its power -- a short wallop of intense experience culled from that day in lower Manhattan -- comes principally from the words of the survivors and other noises, with the music providing some ancillary color in the background. A beeping eighth-note motif -- the repeated F a landline telephone chants when left off the hook, also imitated by the strings -- paces the first movement, a pulse technique familiar from Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood and countless other minimalist works, not least Terry Riley’s In C.

The Kronos Quartet play these jagged motifs with their customary edge, beauty of tone and intonation often subjugated to an overall sense of energy. It is the sort of incisive performance the piece requires, because, especially in the first two movements, it is largely about the visceral terror of the day. A more dirge-like mood prevails in the last movement, where Reich turns again to the Hebrew texts of the Psalms, as he did in Tehillim, another gesture toward the Jewish faith of his youth.

Little is different, musically speaking, in the other two pieces here, except that they are purely instrumental and thus lack any specific context. Four members of Sō Percussion, on vibraphone and marimba, give a sprightly rendition of the Mallet Quartet (2009), a work suffused with dance-like syncopation. (A bonus DVD shows the group playing the piece, recorded in the Sō Percussion Studio in Brooklyn, which looks strikingly like someone’s basement, with stuff piled all over the place.)

The same basic contrasting structure of fast and slow is compressed into a single movement in Dance Patterns (2002), for two vibraphones, two xylophones, and two pianos. Recorded back in 2004, this performance is not as crisp and unified as that of the Mallet Quartet. None of the three pieces, not even reaching 40 minutes of music together, is memorable enough to warrant an unqualified recommendation.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 9

September 6^th was a gorgeous late summer day in and around Munich—and it started with a trip to Ottobeuren in the far south-west corner of Bavaria. On the way toward Ottobeuren you drive through and over the many rolling, lush-green-grassy Allgäu hills—most of them with the typical hill-top farms on it. And just as you get over the top of yet another one of them, the little village comes into view, dominated by the large white, imposing and very beautiful baroque basilica and abbey. It sits amid and above Ottobeuren (population 8000), like a gargantuan white hen roosting on its nest... still lower than the surrounding hilltops but itself above the rest of the village with stone steps cutting through the grass hill on which it chose to hatch its ecclesiastic eggs. Music lovers might know the place from the annual concerts (and recordings—some with Bernstein, for example, are quite famous) of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the cathedral.

Organ

Inside, at its eastern end in front of the altar stand to the left and right the Heilig Geist (Holy Ghost) organ, and the Dreifaltigkeits (Trinity) organ by the German/French-school master organ builder Karl Joseph Riepp… a masterpiece of organ construction essentially unmodified since their premiere in 1766, even if it isn’t necessarily the favorite of everyone who has to (or gets to) play it. Among them were the eight semi-finalists of the organ competition who went out to Ottobeuren on their second day of their semi final to perform on it music of the organ’s time, including that of Franz Xaver Schnitzer (1740-1785) who was the organist of the Ottobeuren basilica, inaugurated the organ when it was built, and specifically composed for it.

With red currant cheesecake—freshly made and if not made by one of the two grandmotherly middle-aged ladies behind the bakery’s counter, then surely by one that looked and talked just like them—taken in as the necessary nourishment for the upcoming organ hours, I ascended the stairs to the basilica and took, with sure but sadly misguided instinct, a place vis-à-vis the wrong organ. Excusable, perhaps, seeing how on the outside the smaller Holy Ghost Organ (37 ranks / 27 stops and two manuals) looks almost identical to its bigger sibling, the Trinity Organ (74 ranks, 49 stops, 4 manuals).

The young Freiburg student Johannes Lang went first with the Toccata octava by Georg Muffat (1653-1704), for which he chose a dark, musty, yet clear and plain, unexpectedly melancholic registration, even as the high voices of the Toccata have fairly gay material to cherish. His Franz Xaver Schnitzer Andantino from the Sonata no.2 sounded similar, a bit forward leaning, clumsy even, but clearer, less awash in the Allegro assai. The Fugue à 5, Duo, and Dialogue sur les grands jeux from "Veni creator" by Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) was required of everyone. Nasal and precise the Fugue, a bit gawky in the Duo, and at last with some grandiosity for the Dialogue, with the pushed to its reluctant maximum and easily drowning out the chainsaw outside that had been cutting down trees at an incompatible pitch.

Dominik Bernhard’s Toccata dudecima & ultima (Muffat) was comparatively gleaming, with large swaths of shimmering, yet beautifully soft sound, though throughout a second winner in the unofficial contest with that chainsaw. Schnitzer (Minuetto & Presto from the Sonata no.5 in B-flat) was lively muted, light and sparkly. The Grigny Fugue more deliberate than Lang’s perhaps, but with excellent rigor against which the ears can lean. During the Dialogue he taxed the instrument’s droning low register to a point where the organ only just approximated the right pitch.

Anna-Victoria Baltrusch (*1980), more buttoned-down than actually young, already looks the part of the protestant church organist… but where she has a humor- and spunk-deficit, she offers impeccability and properness. Two qualities not to be underestimated for organ playing. Apparently. A grand, ‘Bachian’ registration in the Toccata octava sounded glorious, although not half as haunting as the damp browns and soft black that Lang had chosen. Instead everything was clearer and more audible. She also chose a brighter approach for the Schnitzer Andante and Presto (from the Sonata no.4 in D) which my organ-naïve ears preferred here, rather than in the Muffat. De Grigny opened lean, bright, reedy and not as notably fugal. The noon bells rang through the summer day before the Dialogue proceeded.

Angela Metzger, still a favorite for her Toccata interpretation, jumped into the Muffat Toccata duodecima et ultima, without pomp nor undue hesitation and ultimately a little pale. Schnitzer’s Andante und Presto (Sonata no.4 again) was clad in muted colors, fast, and bright; pleasantly mechanical in its regularity. An unobtrusive fugue, a pleasantly chatty duo, and a dense, rather than just loud Dialogue (avoiding the ill tuned pipes) in De Grigny concluded the first batch of organists in Ottobeuren after which it was time to go back to Munich to catch a bit of the Trumpet semi final and the oboe final.

Trumpet

It’s quite impossible to judge on the merit of a candidate advancing over another when one has not heard all of them in the preceding round. So I was merely surprised not to find mine and my colleague’s favorite trumpet of the second round (Simon Höfele) in the semi final at the ugly Carl-Orff-Saal of the Gasteig. I’m sure I will hear him again, somewhere. First-to-perform Miroslav Petkov (Bulgaria) struggled through the Haydn Concerto in E-flat (on a B-flat trumpet) with a trying tone even where he was perfectly secure. Choppy and not particularly musical, with orchestra and soloist rarely forming a meaningful union. On the upside, he turned in a performance of French-German Darmstadt-school composer Mark Andre’s “iv6b” for solo trumpet that, in its passive aggressive way, did the work more justice than the other two I heard; Fabian Neuhaus’, and Ferenc Mausz’. A work that veers between pppppp and pp (at its loudest), with an occasional fppp and fpp accent. Petkov took the work to its extremes, which if you have a work written against one’s own instrument in front of you, you might as well do. I would have liked to read along, but turning the pages of the score would literally have been louder than the performance.

With a full page of performance-instructions, it offers all kinds of different ways of blowing at or into the trumpet, tut-tutting helicopter-style (“taps”), and tone ‘corridors’ in which the player is to retrace relative microtonal variations. Much of it looks just like a composer trying to show his performer that he is familiar with the trumpet and its technique… only that the whole thing sounds decidedly anti-trumpet. I couldn’t find much in it that appealed musically, but with the aggressive silence it made a point I cherished… and it made that point only in the superbly over-the-top Petkov interpretation. Neuhaus and Mausz attempted to actually play the work by, among other things, bringing up the entire dynamic level. It was more audible but took away the joy of the extreme, which is pretty much all the work has got. The colleague next to me, less amused about even the aspect of the extreme, shook his head, grunted “idiotic, that’s so super-yester-year avant-gardish” and wrote a brilliant snarky article about it. Fabian Neuhaus’ Hummel Concerto in D-major—initially a more pleasing concerto than the Haydn, but not nearly holding up as well—was played with few mistakes and more energy than Petkov had given Haydn, a fine but indistinct performance. Ference Mausz—with Haydn again—was in a different league than those two; his confident tone of the Böhme Concerto (Round 2) present again, as was his well rounded tone with a tendency toward the ungainly only at high volume. Not surprising that of those three, Mausz made it into the final, along with Alexandre Baty and Manuel Blanco Gómez-Limón. The Munich Chamber Orchestra, the usual highlight of these semi finals, performed well under concert master Esther Hoppe, but not quite with the enthusiasm I remember from the last three years.

Oboe

The Oboe final in the Herkulessaal was too far away not to miss the first competitor, Ivan Podyomov, but then there seemed unanimity among everyone I spoke to that his Strauss Oboe Concerto was nothing I needed regret having missed; “on the music, not in the music” was the kindest verdict. Christina Gómez Godoy is a pint-sized oboist member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and her Strauss was immediately, very appealing: Mellifluous, plaintive, with more than a hint of the wistfulness of the old graying Strauss in the music. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sebastian Tewinkel turned in three superb performances, a very happy surprise after their often lackluster showings in previous years. They were already good in playing truly with Mlle. Gómez Godoy, but in accompanying Philippe Tondre (France) and his Marigaux M2 “Alfred”, they coaxed yet more out of old Strauss. The latter bested Mlle. Gómez Godoy with his self-evident naturalness, dignity, perkier tone, his very powerful softness that brimmed with contained force. It wasn’t lovely-lachrymose as Gómez Godoy’s tone, who was my emotional favorite in this finale, but seemingly on track to a first prize and successful in securing the Audience Prize. Certainly Marc Lachat’s neutral, beautiful but uninvolved performance didn’t seem to argue strongly for getting that prize, and while he was lyrical in the Andante, it wasn’t as sensitive or cantabile as the others, marred by great nervousness. The final alone would not have suggested the jury’s result bringing in Podyomov and Philippe Tondre at second, and Cristina Gómez Godoy and Marc Lachat at 3^rd. Part of the result might be explained if the jury felt awkward giving Podyomov, who had come second in the 2007 ARD Competition, a lesser prize now, four years onward.

In Brief: 9/11 Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• 
  This week's issue of The New Yorker, dedicated to thoughts on the September 11 anniversary, is essential reading for today, and I have been ruminating over each of the articles since the magazine arrived in the mail. In particular, George Packer's piece about what should have happened after the attacks, which did not happen, and about what did happen is a must-read. Yet another reason for you to subscribe to the magazine if you do not already. [The New Yorker]


• Also -- I reserve personal judgment, since I have not visited the new World Trade Center myself, but my gut feeling is that Paul Goldberger has it right. [The New Yorker]


• Matthew Guerrieri examines the impulse to commemorate a tragedy like the September 11 attacks in music, something that is happening all day today around Washington and New York. The Latin quotation of his title, from The Aeneid, has been often quoted and commented on, cited by Montaigne and Johnson and others: it means, more or less, "Scant breath of their fame barely drifts down to us." Far more eloquently, Frederick Ahl, in his new English translation in Virgilian hexameter, renders it, "We, though, feel hardly the slenderest breath of a rumor from those days." [Soho the Dog]


• If, on the other hand, you feel like commemorating those who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks, you could watch the performances from Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York. [Medici.tv]


• Or the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra playing Mahler's fifth symphony in a September 11 concert from the Berlin Philharmonie. [ARTE Live Web]


• In online listening this week, Jean-Yves Thibaudet (playing -- what else? -- the Ravel G major concerto) with the Philadelphia Orchestra from the Salle Pleyel; Ensemble La Fenice performing music from the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route at the Festival Baroque de Sablé; Murray Perahia with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at the Prague Spring Festival; Le Parlement de Musique performing a complete solemn Vespers service made up of music by Nicola Porpora, at the Festival Sinfonia en Périgord; the world premiere of Oscar Bianchi's opera Grâce à mes yeux from the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence; the Zemlinsky Quartet at the Festival de Musique de l’Orangerie de Sceaux; the Ensemble Mare Nostrum performing Alessandro Stradella's La Forza delle Stelle at the Abbaye de Saint Michel en Thiérache; and more. [France Musique]

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 8

Piano is, in theory, one of the more pleasurable categories in a competition, because of the amount of great music available to pick from, in any round—from first to finale. And because there is a vast pool of pianists to choose from, which presumably would suggest a higher general level of quality. In practice, that isn’t so, because in the piano part (as with violin) of a competition, it seems, the worst qualities of competition-playing—technical prowess married to bland-as-can-be risk-avoidance—come out. Everything an étude, nothing inspired.

That’s one reason why I didn’t regret too much that I only started listening to the participants in round two, and then only to a small sample—four of the 18 pianists that made it to the second round, down from 47 that had qualified for (though not necessarily all participated in) the first round. First up were two Ukrainian pianists, that (once-upon-a-time) hotbed for great pianists. Vasyl Kotys performed Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata in f-minor, op.57, opening it softly to the point of hazy, heavily pedaled, unclear, with ostentatiously emotion coming through in outbreaks, with peaks, valleys, and notable pulling and pushing of tempo. The slow movement was very slow, indeed, with Kotys going for the lyrical at the expense of the wonderfully crisp rhythm that underlies this variation movement. Absolutely gorgeous were the emphasis-shifts between hands in repeated material; phrasing being his strong suite, not architecture. He raced through and labored away at the third movement—enthralling in a way, but also slightly senseless-sounding. Much clearer than the first movement it wasn’t longer awash in indistinct loudness, until the end that is, when it was just too darn fast for anyone’s good, not the least Beethoven.

Schumann’s Fantasie in C-major continued where the Beethoven had left off: High romantic, fast, and with very pronounced dynamics and tempo changes. Fortunately that suits Schumann better than middle-Beethoven. Kotys, whose body always announces the next interpretive move, rushed himself a little and while there were a couple too many slips towards the end—perhaps betraying waning concentration—, at least he succeeded in not making the piece sound longer than it already is.

His countryman Alexej Gorlatch played Beethoven’s op.110 after Brahms Four Ballads op.10 (thank him!) The first of the Ballads, “after a Scottish Ballad ‘Edward’”, seems to quote Schubert’s “Götter Griechenlands”, but wasn’t songful in many other ways. The opening was monochrome and, just as Kotys before and South Korean Da Sol Kim after him, ungainly-loud on the Steinway that everyone plays. The latter might be a detriment by contributing to the unhealthy grand-piano monoculture, but is surely outweighed by avoiding the distracting manufacturer-politicking. (See the Chopin Piano Competition.) Beethoven, after the Brahms (a piece for which I must admit ever-waning patience) was cleansing to the ears, lean and swift and youthful vigorous, neither thick nor lumbering. During the terse scherzo was inclined towards a choppy and crude sound, with either some odd interpretive choices or very cleverly marked memory blanks. Gorlatch recovered in the blustering third, fugal movement, even though its various parts sounded just like moments, strung on a line… awkwardly first, eventually muddled.

Da Sol Kim offered a glimpse of a much more pleasant ‘loud’ being possible on the instrument in the Great Hall of the Academy of Music—and his gratuitously stormy & wild style suited the early Beethoven in op.10/3 better, too, than it had many of the passages in middle and late Beethoven. I found something beguiling, even pretty in the way he flailed the instrument in the first movement, though eventually he got carried away by the loudness factor. His facial expressions threatened a ‘most tender and yearning’ Largo, but the hands—thankfully—provided something more sober and well articulated with only a few heavier-than-necessary accents. His Liszt Dante Sonata—a dazzling, appropriately flashy, loud, and feckless, was received with enthusiastic ovations and even hollering by the crowd which, especially in that venue during the free-admission rounds of the ARD competition, is staggeringly obnoxious; every year, every time. And that’s before taking their overt Liszt-appreciation into account.

Then, alas, came a revelation. Jamie Bergin (2^nd Prize Winner earlier this year in the PianoRama Competition in Århus) made an exclamation mark bigger than any of the previous techno-banging with his quiet opening of Beethoven’s Sonata op.31/1. Wit like Haydn, color and sensibility (at last!)—how very enjoyable was this, endearing and puckish. Bombast was employed only for brief moments of contrast, almost as if to make light of the ‘grand air’ that Beethoven is so often given. He had a tendency to be fast in the Scherzo, but didn’t sacrifice the ioie de vivre of it. The Menuetto. Moderato e grazioso was a balm on soul and ears and the closing Presto con fuoco very smart, indeed. Why would a musician like that chose the Liszt Sonata in b-minor for the non-Beethoven piece? Especially when Schubert’s Six moments musicaux were an option or, better yet, his Drei Klavierstücke?The tender, more obliging episodes of the Sonata suggested a few reasons; that there were a few things very young Mr. Bergin might have wanted to say (and did) in this music. His playing continued to be organic, including his struggles, his loud never hurt, and he could sound just as bold in Liszt ad did his South Koran colleague, and without that neutral glam-sound. Only technically it wasn’t nearly as proficient as that Dante Sonata. It certainly didn’t bother me, but perhaps the jury; sadly Bergin did not make it onward into the semi finals, unlike Da Sol Kim and Gorlatch.

That Amazing Wagner on the Flying Trapeze

Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, La Fura dels Baus, Z. Mehta (released on November 16, 2010) Unitel Classica 703808 | 17h40 (with bonus films) M. Owen Lee, Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Round

A few years ago, I wrote about the outrageous and yet fascinating staging of the first half of Wagner's Ring cycle, by the Catalan acrobatic group La Fura dels Baus. Florence's Maggio Musicale Fiorentino hosted Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in 2007, but the entire cycle was debuted at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, in Valencia, and all four operas were recorded there for this recently released DVD set. (Incredibly, it was reportedly the first complete Ring cycle ever staged in Spain.) The productions of all four operas complete the picture from the first two in 2007, creating together a Ring cycle of boundless visual imagination, fine singing (if not an entirely even cast), sure conducting with some unusual choices (from Zubin Mehta), and an interpretation that will probably not please some traditionalists but that yields interesting thoughts.

The acrobats of La Fura dels Baus, costumed as a masked crowd of automatons, serve dramatic functions throughout, from their roles as a bubbling mass of Rhinegold and the floating links of the Rainbow Bridge in the first opera, the bodies of the slain warriors in the second, to the shaggy bear that accompanies Siegfried into Mime's laboratory and the writhing orgy of naked bodies that envelops Brünnhilde when Siegfried, disguised as Gunther, seduces her. Stage director Carlus Padrissa casts the Rhinegold as a genitive material, spurting out like menstrual blood from the Rhinemaidens in the river. The Nibelungs use it, against nature, to create a race of enslaved clones, and Mime is costumed like a futuristic genetic researcher, trying to turn Siegfried, the real output of the master race, to his own ends. Wotan sees all too clearly how his fateful gamble in building Valhalla caused this monstrous experimentation -- cloning, genetic engineering, biometrics-based eugenics, any number of science-age anxieties could be named -- to be unleashed.

Unfortunately, the directorial team, as well as the author of the liner notes, sees the most important part of the interpretation as relating to "the suicidal degradation of nature by technological man" and the "decadence of this money-obsessed world." This is far less interesting than the topoi mentioned above, mostly because it has been done before (and better). Oddly, the capitalist and environmental themes come to the fore only in Götterdämmerung, where Siegfried's journey down the Rhine involves sweeping aside swirling piles of plastic bottles and other litter. Gunther, Hagen, and Gutrune are costumed as the idle rich consuming conspicuously, indicated heavy-handedly by yen, euro, and other currency symbols on their costumes. Siegfried, like some sort of noble savage, has to have his hair cut and his costume exchanged for glasses and a suit, before he can enter their hall.

The singing in the La Fura Ring continues to be generally excellent. Juha Uusitalo's shambling, mossy Wanderer is stentorian and cosmic in force, not so refined in German diction or tone quality but one never doubted his authority. As in Das Rheingold, the Erda of Catherine Wyn Rogers was outstanding, a regal vocal presence with commanding heights and an earthy chest voice. (She returns, unrecognizable, for an equally fine and dramatic turn as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung.) As Siegfried, Lance Ryan was a huge hulk of a man, in Mad Max dread locks and a costume of furs and bones (costume design by Chu Uroz), with a rough-hewn voice to match. One might complain of some low notes forced off pitch, perhaps the Canadian-inflected German, but never of the high notes, which had a nasal but puissant force. He certainly had to have stamina to survive the slow tempo of the forging scene taken by Mehta. Franz-Josef Kappellmann was a little worn as Alberich but otherwise convincing, while Gerhard Siegel's Mime was broad and sniveling.

Stephen Milling was a remarkably booming Fafner, with the right edge of pathos at his death scene, and Marina Zyatkova had a nice avian piping quality as the Woodbird, even while suspended in a winged harness, floating down from above the stage each time Siegfried hears her. After Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Matti Salminen makes a massive and shifty Hagen, although cracks are heard at the vocal edges in some places. Overall, Fairfax native Jennifer Wilson (a former member of the Washington Opera chorus) was an excellent Brünnhilde, with piercing but beautiful top notes and only a few intonation issues to mar a strong performance. Dramatically, however, she lacked a certain nobility, partly of the fault of the direction that put her in a ridiculous costume in the love scene of Götterdämmerung. With a body type that is perfectly acceptable at a distance in the hall, as can be seen in some of the wider shots on the DVD, Wilson should not have been filmed in so many closeups. This is one of the ongoing problems with the gravitation toward cinema simulcast by many opera houses in the last five years, to the detriment of the experience in the theater.

The overall effect of the staging, with its combination of acrobats floating on wires, huge video backdrop of stunning effects, and puppeteer-controlled flying scaffolds, is a feast for the eyes, although there are some surprising disappointments. You would expect the effect of Siegfried slicing the anvil in half, after the forging scene, to be extraordinary here, but it is not. Nor is the circular cage of flame, serving as the forge, all that impressive. This is made up for by other sequences, like the dragon, a segmented geometric worm manipulated by puppeteers, with lots of serpentine video sequences behind it. Also, at the beginning of the third act of Siegfried, Wotan is seen alone at the back of the stage, appearing to stride over mountain-scapes that roll under him. Likewise, images of earth viewed from space arise as Erda appears, hovering over the stage like a seated statue, with the base of the rolling platform she sits on concealed between two of the video screens (video design by Franc Aleu, sets by Roland Olbeter).

It is principally in Götterdämmerung that the staging's focus in the theme of genetic manipulation seems to fizzle out and the environmental, anti-capitalist theme regrettably takes over. This is a shame, since the climax of the cycle relies on a continuity of dramatic arc: the transgression leads to the world's destruction and subsequent rebirth. The Leitmotif that ends the Ring, heard as Brünnhilde gallops into the Rhine and destroys the ring, is a tune that only appears once before, in the third act of Die Walküre. Sieglinde sings it ("Oh hehrstes Wunder! Herrlichste Maid!") to Brünnhilde, praising her for saving her and her unborn child. The theme appears again, in the orchestra, "soaring quietly over the fire and water that have destroyed Wotan's world," as Fr. M. Owen Lee put it in his excellent book Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Round.

It will signify the transformation of Brünnhilde, Wotan's Wille, into what the whole of Wagner's Ring is striving to create -- a new world. There are many wonderful moments in Die Walküre, which is my own favorite of the four Ring dramas. But there seems to me no question that the greatest single moment in the cycle comes in the closing measures of Götterdämmerung, when that Brünnhilde theme sounds for the last time (p. 61)."

No staging, no matter how misinformed, could destroy the beauty and triumph of this redemptive moment. The Valencia Ring could have been greater than it is, but it still has much to recommend it. Sadly, the filming of the video is too cinematic by several degrees, showing too many closeups, odd angles (with moving cameras), and switching shots at an almost vertiginous pace, not allowing the viewer a real sense of the staging's grandeur. Having viewed half of the cycle in a theater, I had memories of the scope of the setting to keep me rooted in these rather spectacular scenes, with video panels often overwhelming the viewer. Someone experiencing only the video will not be so lucky.

Washington Concert Opera: 'Attila'

See my preview of tonight's performance by Washington Concert Opera:

Washington Concert Opera to Perform “Attila” (The Washingtonian, September 8):

Verdi, Attila, S. Ramey, C. Studer, N. Shicoff, La Scala, R. Muti (re-released on February 9, 2010) EMI 3 09106 2 | 115'51"

The fall opera season gets underway this Friday with the first performance of the season from the Washington Concert Opera, an unstaged performance of Verdi’s Attila. Premiered in 1846, this is an early Verdi opera, and it has the dramatic weaknesses (and melodic strengths) of such. The libretto is a bit of a hash, with different parts completed by two poets, Francesco Piave and Temistocle Solera—neither of whose work the composer really approved. It tells the story of Attila the Hun’s advance into Italy, in which he took Aquileia but was unable to take Rome. The way the story is usually told, Rome was saved thanks to intervention from Pope Leo the Great, but the details of the famous meeting of invader and pope are likely apocryphal. Verdi’s libretto pushes the character of Pope Leo into the background, as the daughter of the ruler of ruined Aquileia, Odabella, becomes the main opponent of Attila. In the libretto, based on a play by Friedrich Werner, she even foils other plots to kill Attila and takes her revenge by killing him with a sword. [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Raphael's depiction of the meeting of Attila and Leo the Great in the Vatican