Alles Vergängliche: Ozawa's Mahler Eighth

G.Mahler, Symphony No.8, S.Ozawa / Boston Philips G.Mahler, Symphony No.8, S.Ozawa / Boston Decca G.Mahler, Symphonies Nos.7 & 8, S.Ozawa / Boston Decca (Japanese Import)

G.Mahler, Sy.8, A.Wit / Warsaw NPO Naxos UK | DE | FR G.Mahler, Sy.8, L.Bernstein / WPh Dg UK | DE | FR G.Mahler, Sy.8, K.Nagano / DSO Berlin Harmonia Mundi UK | DE | FR G.Mahler, Sy.8, R.Kubelik / BRSO Audite UK | DE | FR

Ozawa's tenure with Boston was not a very happy one towards the end of its stretch... and that muddles our memory of him as a conductor. But at his best, he had the ability to be truly spell-binding, and when the BSO/Ozawa affair was still young, they could create magic. This recording from 1980 at Tanglewood is such an occasion.

This is far and away the best recording of Mahler's 8th, owing to an intensity (especially in the last movement) that is not matched by even the best of contenders (Abbado/DG oop, Bernstein/DG, Sinopoli/DG oop, Wit/Naxos, and with reservations: Kubelik/Audite, Nagano/HMU). This is the Solti antidote. For all those who don't understand why the famous Solti Decca recording (great sound, good singers) is so hyped by the (English) press, here is what they need. Unlike Solti, who does not seem to understand the drug-hazed Goethe’s Faust II or, indeed, the abstruse mysticism of the Mahler 8th, and consequently energetically drives through it with elan, speed, and determination (all good qualities in most other works, but not here), Ozawa gives this – frankly weird – work all the time it needs to develop.

Not excessively so, either – 80 minutes is enough for him and not all that much, on paper, to spend on this work. Ozawa does not let it sag but rolls out the wafty, nebulous, foggy, misty parts so tenderly, in a way so other-worldly (and with no audible gear changes whenever he nudges the work forward again), that in a very eerie, beautiful way, time seems to stand still. After a mighty, powerful, broad Veni, Creator Spiritus (23:07), a marvel itself, he lunges into Faust II. Although ‘lunge’ is probably not the proper word: he carves it out of the score and, supported by a cast of singers that, seemingly infected by the momentous occasion, outdo themselves, delivers the most satisfying reading of this second movement. Better yet, he crowns it with an indescribably perfect Chorus Mysticus. For me, a performance of the 8th stands and falls with “Alles Vergängliche,” and Ozawa’s 6:02 are like a one-way ticket to heaven.

Whatever negative things have been said about Ozawa’s Boston Mahler (his Saito Kinen 2nd is actually excellent; the 9th with that band very good, too), this performance alone should have redeemed him. In Japan it was inducted into the “Philips Super Best 100” [sic!] collection, while in the West it still awaits reissue. I cannot quite understand why… but then I don’t understand the obsession with the inappropriate Anglo-drive through this work à la Solti or Rattle. The most recent Mahler 8th issued – with Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic on Naxos – is currently the only recording easily available in the U.S. that comes close to Ozawa’s splendor. The timings, incidentally, are similar: 6:25 for “Alles Vergängliche,” 23:56 for “Veni, Creator Spiritus” – although minutes and seconds rarely tell the whole story about a Mahler symphony. Available alternatives to Wit, lest you get Ozawa directly from Japan, are Bernstein in the DG box of Symphonies 8, 9, 10, and Das Lied, as well as Kent Nagano’s broad HMU recording.

[Post Scriptum 2021: Not much had changed, 10 years down the line when I wrote this article on Forbes.com about the best Eighth, but at least one new, very surprising alternative had emerged.

True, the first movement is a bit muffled and orchestral details are occasionally hard to hear, but even here it is a compelling performance. But where my ears really began flapping and my prejudices crumbling is the second movement, up there with the very best, in terms of atmosphere, pacing, and singing – courtesy Wiener Singakademie (not to be mistaken with the more famous Singverein) and the cast of soloists.

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[Philips - Japan: Mahler, Symphony 8. Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa / Faye Robinson (soprano 1 and Magna Peccatrix), Judith Blegen (soprano II & Una poenitentium), Deborah Sasson (soprano III & Mater Gloriosa), Florence Quivar (alto I & Mulier Samaritana), Lorna Myers (alto II and Maria Aegyptiaca), Kenneth Riegel (tenor I and Doctor Marianus), Benjamin Luxon (baritone & Pater Ecstaticus), Gwynne Howell (bass & Pater Profondus) / Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Boys Choir / Joseph Silverstein (solo violin), James Christie (organ)]

Ionarts in New York: Bargemusic

On Saturday, after visits to the Pierpont Morgan Library and the Met's Raphael exhibit, we took in a concert. It's late July, and most New York concert-goers have long since bailed out of the city for Tanglewood and other festivals. However, our schedule coincided perfectly with a concert in a venue I have heard about but never visited, Bargemusic. In the 1970s, violinist Olga Bloom had the idea to purchase a river barge (formerly used to transport coffee through New York Harbor), moor it permanently at Fulton Ferry Landing (at the foot of the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge), and host a concert series inside it. You walk over a gangplank to get onto the Barge, where you rock with the waves churned up by the tug boats and large vessels that cruise by (the piano has to be held in place with wheel blocks to keep it from rolling around), and listen to good music while the Manhattan skyline turns rose in the sunset. Enough people have enjoyed the experience over the years for the Barge to have a long list of donors and enough supporters nearly to fill the seats on a July Saturday night.

Other Articles: Fred Kirshnit, Good Humor on The River (New York Sun, July 25) Ben Finane, String quartets roll and rock (Newark Star-Ledger, July 21)

This weekend, four Brooklyn-based musicians played together as a nameless quartet: violinist Colin Jacobsen and his younger brother, cellist Eric Jacobsen, along with violinist Johnny Gandelsman and violist Nick Cords. They reportedly appear often enough in other formations to make finding a name difficult, but Ionarts readers are invited to submit name suggestions in the comments for this string quartet sine nomine. The Brooklyn Quartet is taken, while I think that the natural choice given the family connection, the Jacobsen Quartet, might not sit well with the non-Jacobsen players. In honor of this appearance, the Barge Quartet came to mind, as did the Zigeuner Quartet, because the group professed admiration for gypsy music, which was a theme on the evening's program. (All four players perform regularly with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project.)

The absence of a collective name hardly matters, since they had selected such an interesting program and played it with a rawness and verve that was gripping in the Barge's intimate space. Less than 150 people can squeeze into the air-conditioned cabin area of the Barge, and from the small stage area in front of what was the pilot's window the musicians sound thrillingly close. The improvised folk music of the Roma, or gypsies, was the connecting thread for the first half, beginning with Haydn's C major quartet (op. 54, no. 2). In the second movement (Adagio), then first violinist Colin Jacobsen dirtied up the ecstatic parlando solo, which he later described as a written-down improvisation. The group favors a direct sound, with generally very little vibrato, that plays quite well in a small setting like the Barge. In the Haydn, the group chose exciting fast tempi and played the joking qualities of the rondo to the hilt. Colin Jacobsen impressed most with the accuracy and taste of his playing.

To pair that with a rather different appropriation of folk materials, Bartók's second quartet, was a worthy idea. By comparison to other performances -- I heard the piece this spring from the Takács Quartet -- this was one of the most barbaric and violent performances I have experienced, especially the warlike second movement but also in the foghorn-like bellowing of viola and cello in the opening of the third movement. It was a gutsy rendition, creating stunning visceral impact, leading us into an intermission on the top of the Barge, watching the multichromatic spectacle of sunset over the East River.

Available at Amazon: Philip Glass, String Quartets Nos. 2-5, Kronos Quartet (released on February 7, 1995)

For the second half, Colin Jacobsen ceded the first violin position to his colleague Johnny Gandelsman. The latter played well in the taxing minimalist repeated figures of the first piece, Philip Glass's third string quartet ("Mishima"), although his unusual way of holding the bow, toward the middle away from the frog, was puzzling (if not the first time I have seen that technical approach). The quartet is a selection of movements that were created as the soundtrack for Paul Schrader's film Mishima (1985), a mosaic biography of Japanese author Yukio Mishima. It seemed clear to my ears from this piece and the Bartók that these musicians are drawn most strongly to modern music, and they captured the wavelike patterns of Glass's quartet beautifully: the peaceful rippling sound of the first movement (1957: Award Montage) that was appropriately maritime, contrasting 3/4 and 6/8 groupings, and the added-note irregularity of the third movement (Grandmother and Kimitake). This was beautiful listening.

Unfortunately, the concert ended on the weakest performance, Mozart's E-flat quartet (K. 428), one of the six quartets dedicated as a group to Haydn. The other quirk of Gandelsman's technique is an overuse of portamento (another gypsyesque touch? listening to too much Heifetz?), which was much less annoying to my ear when he was playing second violin. This was particularly out of place, it seems to me, in the Mozart, notably in unison passages in which none of the other players was sliding between notes in the same way. Overall, the Mozart had the least rehearsed and most labored sound on the program, with a few problems of intonation, accuracy, and ensemble. Again the tempi tended toward brisk, perhaps a bit troppo in the first movement (Allegro, ma non troppo), but to impressive effect in the last movement (Allegro vivace). At the final pause in the rondo's main theme, the added exchanges between instruments ticked away to nothing like a clock winding down, which brought a smile to my face.

On your next trip to New York, if you are looking for an alternative place to hear a concert, Bargemusic combines good performances with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. Plus, as you leave, Olga Bloom shakes the hand of every member of the audience. Adding to that warm atmosphere, the Barge actually has a fireplace, which I hope they are able to light up with a fire in the winter.

Gounod’s "Roméo et Juliette" at Wolf Trap

This review comes from guest contributor Richard K. Fitzgerald.

When we think of Gounod, three works stand out: Faust (1859); Roméo et Juliette (1870); and Ave Maria (1853), adapted from the 1st prelude of Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier (its original version was Méditation sur le premier Prélude de Piano de J. S. Bach for violin and piano; the words were added later in 1859). Perhaps one might recall his Marche funèbre d’une marionnette that accompanied the credits of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Despite the endurance and fame of these works, most of Gounod’s music has fallen into obscurity. It is certainly no surprise that Roméo et Juliette has found a permanent place in the standard operatic repertoire.

Last Saturday, July 22nd, conductor Stephen Lord led the National Symphony Orchestra in a semi-staged concert version of Roméo et Juliette at the Filene Center of the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. The performance featured the Wolf Trap Opera Company artists, members of the Washington Men’s Camerata, and members of the Washington Women’s Chorus. Lord’s leadership could be very communicative and expressive at places, although for most of the performance his eyes seemed attached to his score, and as a result his posture suffered; from behind it seemed as if he were bereft of a head! Perhaps members of the NSO and chorus might argue that his guidance was ambiguous, since entire sections – in both chorus and orchestra – were missing entrances while Lord did little to intercede. Lord was at his best when he sculpted the most intimate passages with his hands alone; perhaps he didn’t need the baton at all. The chorus was what one would expect of an amateur group: lacking nuance, poor intonation and diction, deficient unification, obtrusive, etc. The choir’s performance was decrepitly out of place, especially when compared to many of the superb musicians with whom they shared a stage. The orchestra’s performance, on the other hand, regardless of some apathetic playing throughout, was convincing both as an accompanying and solo force.

Soloists worth mentioning are Chad Freeburg, tenor (Roméo); Weston Hurt, baritone (Paris/Gregorio); Museop Kim, baritone (Capulet); Fiona Murphy, mezzo-soprano (Stéphano); and Ailyn Pérez, soprano (Juliette). Freeburg and Pérez were a flattering combination of star-crossed lovers. Freeburg’s middle and lower tessituras were resonant and engaging; it was unfortunate that he didn’t have the same command over his stratospheric register, as did Pérez, who heated up the room with her dynamic rendering of Juliette. Freeburg did, however, end his first attention-grabbing aria with a luscious decrescendo that was worthy of the many-shouted “bravi” it received. I’ve learned from hearing Kim as Raimbaud in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory – which I had seen the night before at The Barns – that his singing is consistently beautiful, despite some heavy vibrato here and there. Murphy’s depiction as Stéphano, although a brief role, was one of the most vibrant and memorable of the evening.

In particular, I appreciated the supertitle translations, which were written specifically for this semi-staged concert. Wolf Trap Opera director Kim Pensinger Witman commented in her program notes:

[The] primary purpose [of the supertitles] is to transport the listener more fully into the story. The opera’s librettists borrowed freely and frequently from the original play, translating Shakespeare’s lines directly into French. We have chosen to return those particular lines to their original form rather than translating them into modern English.

The evening was host to many sublime moments. The overture was captivating, complete with several cymbal crashes and dramatic flares, an energetic fughetta, and plenty of fire to propel the rest of the evening. The excellent lyrical moments that stand out were the duet between Roméo and Juliette in Act One when he visits her in her room, as well as the fughetta played by the strings that accompanied the wedding ceremony. The beauty of the latter brought a tear to my eye. The magnificent climax of the opera in the very last scene, that riveting and heart-wrenching duet, is beyond my ability to articulate. I can, however, articulate how effective the sound amplification was. It did not distort the voices at all; in fact, it was not noticeable as amplification but rather as sound reinforcement.

Other Reviews: Daniel Ginsberg, 'Romeo et Juliette' (Washington Post, July 24)

Some moments were not so sublime, as when my ears were accosted by the hideous sound of an electronic organ that accompanied Capulet’s aria in the second act. This was a feeble attempt to replicate the majestic quality generated by a pipe organ in a grand and reverberant space. I am susceptible to snobbery when it comes to electronic organs, so this made more of an impression on me than it would have the next person. Also, some members of the cast functioned dually as stagehands, moving props to and fro, which I found a bit awkward. A minimalist “set” consisted of a black, coffin-like box and a stepladder, the latter of the two looked so out of place it was as if housekeeping was changing light bulbs before the performance and forgot to remove it from the stage. In addition to several props that were used, lighting was utilized to heighten the drama. I thought that it may have been more effective if the performers were costumed, rather than in concert attire. Although it was advertised as a concert version, in reality it was like going to a fully staged opera – with some very good acting, by the way – with the orchestra and chorus on stage, rather than in the pit.

Despite the storm we endured that night, there was quite an attendance. Most people were fortunate to sit in the shelter of the theater while others weathered the storm on the lawn outside with blankets and umbrellas. For those of you who visit the Filene Center in the future, I would recommend arriving early enough to find parking as close as possible; otherwise you might be subjected, like I was, to the mini-trolley that transports people from all the ends of the parking lot right up to the gates of the theater. The transportation is brisk and unsafe – I made note to check the inventory of white knuckles surrounding me – and guaranteed to give you many lungs-full of exhaust! Why pound a nail in the coffin when you can ride the mini-trolley?

Ionarts in New York: Colonna Altarpiece at the Met

If I go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a very brief visit, as I did on Saturday afternoon for a drive-by look after lingering at the Pierpont Morgan Library, I really do not feel guilty about not paying full price. Before getting a quick dinner and heading to a concert, I had only enough time to see two things there: Cai Guo-Qiang's rooftop installation, Transparent Monument (it was closed due to inclement weather) and the reunited Colonna Altarpiece by Raphael. Once again, the quick eye and deep pockets of J. Pierpont Morgan made this possible, since it was he who purchased the main panel and lunette of this altarpiece, the last one in a private collection, in 1901, later donating it to the Met. Of the four small panels of the predella, or base, of the altarpiece, the Met later was able to acquire only one. This exhibit reunites the Met's three pieces with the remaining pieces, from three different institutions, for the first time since the altarpiece was taken apart in 1663.

The altarpiece gets its name from a family of art collectors in Rome, who owned the work after a celebrity list of European nobility, including Queen Christina of Sweden and the Duc d'Orlèans. It should be named instead for its original location, the nuns' choir, the cloistered section of a convent church, of Sant'Antonio di Padova in Perugia. At this point -- the Colonna altarpiece was completed in 1504 and 1505 -- Raphael had been apprenticed to Perugino in Perugia for about ten years and was looking to move on. For an audience of nuns at their communal prayers, Raphael was notably conservative in many ways, using gold for shining Byzantine halos, for example, something he would do away with for the most part when he was on his own in Florence and Rome.

Agony in the Garden Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pietà Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum, Boston

The wall text in the exhibit has some photographs of the church, in its present, heavily altered form, but one can still gain a good idea of how the altarpiece was originally placed. The greatest revelation of that placement is that the striking shadows in the main panel -- cast especially by St. Paul, as well as by the foot of the Virgin Mary, which hangs over the edge of her dais just slightly, and the point of St. Paul's sword, details that are visible best in person -- correspond to where the natural light of the chapel entered through a window. The effect, as in so much religious art of the period, was to make the sacred characters of the altarpiece be as real a part of the prayer experience of the nuns as possible. Because all the pieces are together, you can even see the same orientation of shadows in all of the predella panels.

Saint Francis of Assisi Dulwich Picture Gallery

Saint Anthony of Padua Dulwich Picture Gallery

Several reviews of this exhibit have criticized the placement of the show, in a rather ordinary room and with the component parts of the work spread apart instead of reassembled in their original form. I can understand the impulse toward reconstruction, which is how the Met normally shows the lunette and main panel, in a wood frame. However, since the gilt frame that originally housed the panels was destroyed, and it is impossible to view the whole work in its original context, I was happy to get to examine each part individually and very close up, which one cannot do with the crowning lunette as the Met normally shows it.

Procession to Calvary National Gallery of Art, London

The smaller panels were executed earlier than the main panel and lunette, and they have a less detailed, more cartoonish style, although the bright colors of the central predella panel, showing the carrying of the cross, are extraordinary and luminous. The one question left unanswered by this exhibit was the identity of the female saint on the right of the Virgin Mary in the main panel. We clearly have Mary, Jesus, and the young John the Baptist on the dais. In the foreground are two male saints easily identified by their iconographic symbols: St. Peter (left), with the key given to him by Jesus, and St. Paul (right), with the sword that made him a martyr. In the background, the female saint on the left is clearly Catherine of Alexandria, whose martyrdom is indicated by the palm carried in her hand and by the wheel used to torture her. The nuns of this particular convent were Franciscans, and the leading male saints of their order, Francis and Anthony, were depicted on the predella. But who is the other female saint in the main panel, to the right of the Virgin Mary?

I have seen her identified as Lucy or Cecilia, but never with certainty. We can be sure that she is a martyr, since she also holds the palm of victory, just like Catherine. We have apparently two symbols found with her in this painting: a book in her other hand and a crown of flowers in her hair. Flowers are a symbol for more than one virgin martyr, including Dorothy and Elizabeth of Hungary. The latter is a common Franciscan saint. Cecilia's legend recounts that both she and her husband, Valerian (whom she converted to Christianity before their marriage was consummated), were both given crowns of flowers by angels from heaven. That may be why some historians have argued for Cecilia. Of course, by this point in history, she was most often identified with a musical instrument, the easiest way to distinguish her from Dorothy, who shares many of the same iconographic symbols.

What if there were actually a third symbol in the background, where there is a building with a tower? (Significantly, the landscape is empty behind Catherine on the other side.) The tower is an important and almost exclusive symbol for Saint Barbara, because her father kept her locked up in a tower. A book and crown of flowers have been associated with Barbara, who is not infrequently paired with Catherine of Alexandria. For example, see Hans Memling's Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara (1479, also in the Met), where Catherine is on Mary's left and Barbara is on the right, reading a book and with a tower in the background behind her. Catherine and Barbara are both saints who preferred the Christian faith over an arranged marriage and faced pain and death for their belief, making them models for religious sisters. (In France, you still sometimes hear the term une catherinette for a woman who is unmarried by the age of 25: by tradition, she must wear a funny hat and pray hard for a husband on La Sainte Catherine, November 25.) We would welcome any thoughts from art historians who might be reading about my theory of Saint Barbara in the Colonna altarpiece. Maybe you can also tell me what the baby Jesus is wearing and holding in his hand in this painting.

The reunited altarpiece is accompanied by a couple rooms of sketches and a painting or two by Raphael, as well as works by Perugino and other contemporaries. It is all put together well, but the reason to go is to see all the panels up close and personal. You can do so until September 4.

Ionarts in New York: Pierpont Morgan Library

I was in New York this weekend, witnessing a beautiful wedding in Brooklyn on Sunday morning -- Guy and Luisa: mazeltov! -- and we spent Saturday being cultural tourists. I went first to see the addition that Renzo Piano designed for one of my favorite institutions, the Pierpont Morgan Library at Madison Avenue and 36th. It was Paul Goldberger's brilliant article (Molto Piano, May 29) in The New Yorker that first got me interested in the new space, although Nicolai Ourossoff had written about it in the previous month (Renzo Piano's Expansion of the Morgan Library Transforms a World of Robber Barons and Scholars, April 10) in the New York Times. My first impression of the new façade -- Piano's design shifts the entrance to Madison Avenue, which increases the museum's street presence -- was that it was dull and industrial. Plain grey steel plates deaden most of the elevation, rhyming with the stone of the neoclassical building on the corner, and grates and other metal pieces jut out in the sort of "unfinished" look of Piano's most famous building, the Centre Pompidou, designed with Richard Rogers.

However, once you go in that rather bland entrance, the interior space that Piano has created is a marvel of light and airiness. The presence of a museum cafe tends to make this high-ceilinged volume into a noisy echo chamber, but the vastness has a pleasant emptiness to it, a void mostly without function, joining the three buildings of the Morgan campus and framing views of the surrounding buildings and, that rare commodity in Manhattan, glimpses of sky. Digging far down into the ground, Piano put most of the details of the commission -- storage space, a rather large concert auditorium -- completely out of sight. Judging by the performers who were on the schedule earlier this spring, the Morgan will be hosting a world-class series of concerts in its basement.

By way of seconding Mark's comments about the importance of etching and printmaking, there is a small but excellent exhibit of etchings and drypoints by Rembrandt at the Morgan Library, Celebrating Rembrandt: Etchings from the Morgan, continuing through October 1. (It is so small that it shares a room with a less important but lovely companion exhibit, From Rembrandt to van Gogh: Dutch Drawings from the Morgan.) In addition to some beautiful landscapes by the Dutch master, whose 400th birthday we celebrate this year, and examples of many of his best religious engravings, I was struck by the two handfuls of tiny self-portrait images. Rembrandt left behind an impressive number of self-portraits, works that never cease to impress me for their probing introspection. The rare self-portrait with Saskia (shown here) is particularly noteworthy: in it Rembrandt appears young, strong, self-confident. Others in the show preserve odd and often humorous expressions.

The best pieces in this exhibit are the engravings on commonplace subjects, rendered sometimes with fervent sympathy, as in the Beggar Man and Woman Behind a Bank (c. 1630), a subject that must have created an interesting resonance in the heart of the collector, one of the richest men in the world at the time. These sorts of views, a series not actually intended to be a series, were inspired by the incisive engravings of Jacques Callot, who had actually lived in the Netherlands in the late 1620s. Rembrandt was an avid collector of his work. In other cases, a razor-sharp wit comes through, as in the absolutely hilarious The Monk in the Cornfield, an anti-clerical poke in the rib depicting a monk beating the barley with a milkmaid in a field.

Even better than the Rembrandt is the double exhibit occupying the new exhibit space designed by Piano, the Engelhard Gallery, over part of the atrium. On one side is a selection of the best literary manuscripts in the Morgan Library collection. I stood in shock over many of the cases, looking at the handwriting of so many heroes: Thoreau's journal, open to a page describing himself unsuccessfully chasing a loon on Walden Pond; the notebooks of the Brontë sisters, often in impossibly small script; Lord Byron's autograph copy of Don Juan. Most remarkably, I admired Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autograph copy of his novel, Julie ou La nouvelle Héloïse, one of the great epistolary novels of the 18th century. A manuscript in the hand of Galileo, supposedly explaining calculations of the orbits of Jupiter's moons, is interesting but completely inscrutable to me.

Of perhaps greater interest for Ionarts readers is the exhibit of stunning manuscripts of music, mostly in the hands of composers, which shares the Engelhard Gallery through October 1. Treasure after treasure is there for your perusal, behind glass of course, from Schubert's Winterreise and the slow movement from the Death and the Maiden quartet to Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Beethoven's tenth violin sonata and D major piano trio, Strauss's Don Juan, Mozart's Haffner Symphony, and Duparc's L'Invitation au Voyage. Just as an author's handwriting is the most direct way to grasp his personality (after he is dead, that is), a composer's musical script is telling. No handwriting analysis here, please, but I never feel closer to historical music than I do when working with primary sources.

The best part about this exhibit is that there are four listening stations, where up to two people at a time can listen to the excerpt of music featured on a corresponding manuscript page, as with Chopin's A-flat polonaise, op. 53. The first of these that I tried was Thomas Hampson's heart-rending performance of Mahler's song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, from the Rückert-Lieder. Sotheby's auctioned off the rediscovered manuscript copy of the completed song in 2004, a score that Mahler gave to his friend, the Viennese musicologist Guido Adler (title page shown at right). The Morgan Library owns a set of three of Mahler's autograph sketches for this song, which was a source of material for the Adagietto of Mahler's fifth symphony. (They also own a manuscript of the symphony, which is actually shown in the exhibit, but open to a different movement.)

I probably do not have to tell you that the words of this song meant something very profound and personal to Mahler ("I am dead to the world's tumult, / And I rest in a quiet realm!"), and so seeing the composer's early attempts to put the song to paper, coupled with hearing the music, was emotionally overwhelming. It was not the only score in front of which I trembled, as right next to the Mahler song is shown Massenet's autograph score of Manon, open to the wistful duet En fermant les yeux from Act II. Des Grieux relates his dream of marrying Manon, moving to a snug white maisonnette in the country, but little does he realize that she has just sung farewell to their petite table and will soon run out the door into the arms of another man. The words of the libretto are so sugary, but the music makes them devastatingly sincere: the soft lilting of the strings and the broad leaps of the tenor part (sung in the Morgan Library's excerpt by Roberto Alagna), its poignant appoggiature and sudden flights into sweet, high, head voice. It's so boyish and idealistic, which makes the blindness of Des Grieux to the true character of the shallow Manon all the more tragic.

Ionarts Turns 3

Three years ago yesterday, I published the first post at Ionarts. Since that humble beginning, I have published posts from many guest contributors and welcomed some of them as full contributors. For their excellent work, we have only their boundless generosity to thank, since arts and culture blogging is not a paid endeavor at Ionarts, at least not yet. We're working on that. At some point this year, Ionarts published its 2000th post (this post is no. 2092) and we had our 300,000th visitor. If you like what you read at this site, please spread the word. We're trying to keep to our chosen subject matter, with brief and infrequent tangents hopefully kept to a minimum.

The first word in the Ionarts subtitle is "music," and the majority of our posts deal with classical music, covered by the tireless Jens F. Laurson and me, your humble moderator. I turn my attention to other subjects in the arts from time to time, as do Todd Babcock (film and television) and Mark Barry (the art world). We will still hopefully receive occasional reports from Frank Pesci on the classical music scene in Boston -- he tells me that he has even started his own blog, Narcissistic Plate -- and Oksana Khadarina on ballet and photography. To all those who have graced the pages of Ionarts in the past year -- Frederick Pollack, Robert R. Reilly, George Pieler, John Henry Crosby, Richard Fitzgerald, Anita Joshi -- we extend our gratitude.

Kill the Wabbit -- Wagner at Wolf Trap

I now know why Emil de Cou does not mind leading an orchestra at Wolf Trap: where else would he get an announcement over the speaker-system like the team’s star quarterback taking to the gridiron? Thus opened a musical saga that began in the footsteps of hairy-footed hobbits meandering their way through Howard Shore’s score depicting Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings – a medley of appropriations, plagiarism, and appealing banalities.

It was followed by a little speech on the part of Wolf Trap Festival Conductor de Cou that would have had my eyes rolling at the Kennedy Center but was appropriate and funny in the Wolf Trap setting… reading the mood of the summery crowd just perfectly. Except, perhaps, when he made reference to the incestuous traditions of the deep south… even if such a reference is rather difficult to avoid when summarizing Wagner’s Ring cycle.

The Anna Russell Album

The jokes about The Ring (Brother-Sister-Nephew-Aunt-Fat-Ladies-in-armor etc.) were not particularly new, but they are nearly as timeless as the music itself – and truth be told, I am thankful if the conductor gets a good amount of Wagner neophytes thinking about Elmer Fudd and ‘killing that wabbit’, rather than proto-Nazism, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, and the Holocaust.

Emil de Cou is one of the most affectionate and passionate conductors I have heard or seen on the podium – but the efficiency of that is near-impossible to tell in the setting of the Filene Center… much like it would be difficult to judge the lumen efficiency of a light bulb on a Sahara afternoon. The short-sleeved, substitute-studded National Symphony Orchestra did play with panache and skill (first violins were a little underpowered and occasionally scrappy – but it featured happy brass), and Wagner was appropriately played for beauty (which it should be, anyway) and effect (which served the setting’s purpose). From the Rhine Journey to the Funeral March it led to the orchestral hum-along blockbuster, the Ride of the Valkyries that sent the thousands at Wolf Trap into half time with Germanic vigor and imaginary horns.

Other Reviews: Mark J. Estren, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington Post, July 22)

The impact of an orgiastic choral and orchestral bonanza, like the ever-popular Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, is undeniable in its amplified bombast. The Robert Shafer-trained Washington Chorus may not have come across with particular detail – but the gain in dramatic effect more than made up for this. Subtleties subside but Carmina needs to be heard like this, every once in a while. (Although if you feel inspired to found or join a political party within an hour of listening: Don’t!) Unlike opera, which is a damnable mess in the acoustic of the Filene Center, these kind of showpieces can shine.

The capable young singers were baritone Weston Hunt, the heavily miked tenor/swan (not a goose, last time I checked) Javier Abreau, and the radiant soprano Maureen McKay, a Filene Young Artist who acted her part charmingly and kept an effective, maximum distance from the microphone. For an unpretentious, un-intimidating classical music evening with beer and bug spray, Wolf Trap offers a few more concerts this summer.

Frolics and Frippery: A Roll in the Hay with Rossini

This review comes from guest contributor Richard K. Fitzgerald.

This evening I attended Le Comte Ory -- composed by Gioacchino Rossini, libretto by E. Scribe and C. G. Delestre-Poirson, after their own play -- at the Barns at Wolf Trap. Upon entering the theater (the first time for me, incidentally), I was immediately impressed with the intimacy and warmth of the room. Its rustic and monochromatic qualities were a welcome juxtaposition to the colorful, cartoon-like set before my eyes. The stage was bursting with brilliant colors, all of which were adroitly fused by light shed on an abstract backdrop, curiously modern in contrast. The set's multi-dimensional appearance also added great depth to the stage, providing the illusion of something made larger than it actually is. Chuck Hudson put his concept for the aesthetic approach of the production quite succinctly in his Director's Notes:

As we began to research the production with the design team, we focused on the devotional work seen in medieval illuminated manuscripts. The human figures encompass a disproportionately large scale within smaller arches and buildings, which seemed a perfect setting for these "larger than life" characters, and for the intimate stage at the Barns. The sets, lights, and costumes become partners in the action, and their creation demanded a level of virtuosity from the designers we find in Japanese Kabuki Theater.

The opera begins with a brief overture that leads directly into the first scene. Conductor Robert Wood led a brisk, supportive, unobtrusive, nicely balanced ensemble. The rest of the orchestra managed to overcome the absence of ensemble and intonation from that of the upper strings. As is typical in Rossini's operas, the orchestra doesn't have all that challenging of a role, relatively speaking, of course. In essence, the function of the orchestra is to provide accompaniment motifs and harmonic support, whereas in the operas of Wagner, for example, the orchestra takes on a much more aggressive and involved role. In this work, the quality of orchestration and instrumental passages do not generate a wealth of interest. Rather, the opera relies on its comical elements, beautiful melodies, and the virtuosity of those who sing it in order to stay afloat.

Other Reviews: Mark J. Estren, Wolf Trap Opera: 'Le Comte Ory' (Washington Post, July 17) T. L. Ponick, Funny, fast-paced 'Ory' (Washington Times, July 17)

Generally, the singing was very impressive. Performers worth note are Lauren McNeese, mezzo-soprano (Isolier); Museop Kim, baritone (Raimbaud); Heidi Stober, soprano (Comtesse Adele); and Ryan McKinny, bass-baritone (Gouverneur). Although Stober gave a wonderful and virtuosic performance as the Comtesse, complete with several stunning cadenzas that dazzled the audience, McNeese was the gem of female voices heard tonight. Her rich, resonant, and lyrical timbre captured me. Although she was the weakest actress of the lot, her singing of Isolier remained poignant. Among the cast's strongest male vocalists were McKinny and Kim, each giving a dynamic and amusing rendering of their respective characters. In general, the quality of singing was equal to that of the acting; these performers certainly rose to the challenge of conquering a vocally strenuous Rossini score.

This depiction of Le Comte Ory is very satisfying to take in. In the intimate setting of the Barns, one gets caught up in the production's contagious energy. I'm hesitant to go to a theater that is small and intimate, for fear of awkwardness generated by embarrassment felt for the cast if the performance falls short of what it should be. Everything in this production, however, seemed totally organic. I thought the stage direction/blocking seemed very natural; the fewer people on stage, the more the movement seemed to be improvised. The plot isn't worth mentioning here. One can almost guess the conflict in a Rossini opera: two individuals jousting for supremacy over the one with whom they are both in love (or lust). As silly as comic opera can be, the evening was well spent, full of frolics and frippery. I heartily recommend seeing the fourth and final performance tomorrow, July 23, 2 pm.