Bringing back the Royal Opera

One of the most amazing theatrical experiences of my life was not particularly because of the performance on the stage but because of the location. I sat in the king's box, albeit on the edge of a staircase, of the Opéra royal at Versailles one year, for a performance sponsored by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. According to an article I read recently, that space has something new to recommend it and was the setting of perhaps the year's most interesting celebration of the Mozart anniversary. Here is a section of the article by Jean-Louis Validire (Un nouveau décor pour l'Opéra royal, November 20) in Le Figaro (my translation and links added):

The audience that was present Saturday for the premiere performance of Mozart's ballet-pantomime Les Petits Riens, followed in the second half by Gluck's ballet Don Juan ou le Festin de pierre, had the privilege of discovering a very lovely reconstruction of a spectacle such as it would have been staged at the time of its creation. Faithful to its mission, the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles wanted to show «dans son jus» two works illustrating in its own way the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. The theme selected, the second trip the composer made to Paris in 1778, allowed for a snapshot of the broad musical activity in the royal capital at the time and to underscore this crucial moment in the composer's evolution.

Les Petits Riens, as its name seems to indicate, is certainly not Mozart's most unforgettable work. Performed at the Opéra de Paris in 1778, it does represent, however, his only incursion into the genre of the ballet-pantomime, a suite of little scenes with a libertine character, on a choreography of Jean-Georges Noverre, of which no trace remains. Neither did Mozart give any importance to the score, a part of which is the work of François-Joseph Gossec, written to flatter the taste of the French public and perhaps to trigger an operatic commission that never happened.

It was not so much the cautious interpretation of the Orchestre des Folies françoises, conducted by Patrick Cohën-Akénine, with its very pastoral duck-pond atmosphere thanks to the natural horns, that impressed. It was the beauty of the set pieces, recreated by Antoine Fontaine, that move thanks to the original, wondrous machinery of the Opéra royal, the only example of such in the world. We have technical director Jean-Paul Gousset to thank for making the decision to reconstruct a traditional backdrop, using period conditions. Antoine Fontaine, who worked with Sofia Coppola in the Théâtre de la Reine for the film Marie Antoinette, for the outdoor scene in Les Petits Riens, used a black-and-white sketch by Pâris showing an autumnal French garden intended for another opera, L'Amant Sylphe. The Temple of Love, in Belvedere style, that disappears magically with machinery tricks, was also inspired by the same work, in which it was the Temple des Génies.

"We decided to be radical in using all the original techniques, including for example glue made from rabbit skin which gives a more luminous appearance and painting with tempera, with period materials [...]," explains Antoine Fontaine. The magnificent colors, with acidic blues and greens, were made with inspiration from Fragonard. A lot of work that imposed its logic on the choreography by Marie-Geneviève Massé, totally invented in that there are not even commentaries on the spectacle presented in June 1778.

Validire admired the Gluck piece even more than the Mozart. A patron, Albert Kfoury, made possible the creation of the Gluck set pieces, the beginning of a project to create a collection of traditional sets that can be used for all the stagings by the Centre de musique baroque.

UPDATE:
See also Marie-Aude Roux, Un ballet de Mozart sorti du placard (Le Monde, November 21).

Rostropovich Conducts Shostakovich?

Washingtonians were deprived of a grand celebration of the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich this month, when the National Symphony was forced to cancel its two-week Shostakovich festival. The reason was the fragile health of the NSO's conductor emeritus, Mstislav Rostropovich: when doctors refused to authorize him to travel across the Atlantic, all but one part of the program (Yo-Yo Ma's performance of the cello concerto) was hastily redone. "Delayed for eventual rescheduling" is the official line, but I have my doubts. Jens reviewed the replacement concerts and was mostly pleased. The most heart-breaking result was the loss of a rare enough opportunity to hear Martha Argerich play live, which I mourned by listening to some of her recordings.

News reached me recently that Rostropovich has conducted another Shostakovich festival, with the Orchestre de Paris, this week and last week. Marie-Aude Roux was there to write a review (Rostropovitch célèbre avec éclat Chostakovitch, November 18) for Le Monde (my translation):

Rarely has an audience expressed such emotion, manifested love and admiration as much for a musician as at the end of the first concert that Mstislav Rostropovich gave with the Orchestre de Paris, in the Salle Pleyel, on Wednesday, November 15. [...] Slava appeared very thin, moving slowly, but still keeping his will intact, which allowed him, barely recovered from a serious septicemia, to conduct the Shostakovich concerts at Pleyel to celebrate the centenary of the Russian composer's birth. [...]

Facing this music, which made his career as a cellist and caused him to abandon composition, Rostropovich was like a mystic before his god. His gestures were barely sketched, his body seemed to float, but his long cellist's hands sometimes traced rebellious bowstrokes in the air the wings of night birds, pulsing in the stridency and thunder at the end of the world or on the beaches of aphasic meditation. The man who with his cello played for the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 had just traversed the last distance separating us from Shostakovich. While Mstislav Rostropovich, visibly exhausted, held the large green score close to himself, turning toward the audience standing as if for a presentation in the Temple, it was impossible not to have the feeling that one was in the middle of experiencing an unforgettable moment.

After the 28-year-old cellist Tatjana Vassilieva, winner of the Rostropovich Competition in 2001, played the first cello concerto, Rostropovich conducted the eighth symphony. The Web site of the Orchestre de Paris also has published Yannick Millon's interview with Rostropovich (my translation):

What is the importance of the first cello concerto, in relation notably to the second, which is played much less?

I come back to Stalin. Shostakovich always held a grudge against him, a bitterness that was more or less open depending on the time. For example, in the first cello concerto, towards the end, there is a very simple passage with the melody in the basses, where the solo cello plays octaves above. One day, Shostakovich told me, "Slava, you must understand that in this concerto, I know every note. Did you not find anything about Stalin in it?" After some reflection, I answered no in all honesty. He then showed me in the score a quotation so well camouflaged that even I, who knew the concerto perfectly, could not decode it. It was a Georgian melody called Souliko, which was supposedly Stalin's favorite song. Shostakovich had hidden three notes from this melody right in the middle of the basses' phrase, while the cellist is playing two times faster above it, making its identification practically impossible.

The second Shostakovich concert, on November 22 and 23, will include the tenth symphony, the five Entr'actes from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and the first piano concerto, with pianist Cédric Tiberghien. Mstislav Rostropovich will conduct.

Dom Garcia's Buildings

Photographer Dom Garcia has an exhibit, In & Off, right now at the Galerie Sit Down (4, rue Sainte-Anastase) in Paris, through December 2. This is a series of portraits of buildings, skyscrapers and a few smaller apartment buildings, all of which are located just outside the boulevard périphérique, the beltway that goes around Paris and marks the city's border. Height laws restrict the building of skyscrapers within Paris, which is one of the things that makes that city so beautiful. (Washington, D.C., has similar laws, by the way.) However, when you drive on the BP, you see these buildings with their colorful neon signs and advertisements, like a hallucinatory vision of the world outside the protected zone. The photograph shown here is of the Pirelli building at the Porte de Clignancourt, which I have driven by many times, so it brought back a lot of memories. To look at some of these photographs, Le Monde has a nice online feature ("In and off" : les immeubles périphériques de Dom Garcia, November 18). It's done in Flash, which is annoying. If it really bothers you, there is an HTML version without Flash, made for printing, although the images are smaller.

This is apparently a theme in Garcia's work. The work is beautiful, with the buildings shot at dusk or full night, which accentuates the colored lights and contrasts. If Eugène Atget's photographs make Paris look surrealistic, Garcia's buildings have a Barnett Newman-like calm, but glowing like a Dan Flavin.

Bringing Philémon Back to Life

Available at Amazon: Gluck, Le Feste d'Apollo (Aristeo / Bauci e Filemone), Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset (released on October 31, 2006)

The first act of the incredible story behind this recording is the most horrible tragedy a parent can imagine, the sudden death of a young child from a mysterious disease. Having lost their baby son Philémon, Vincent and Caroline Guiot made the brave decision to honor their child and the tireless doctors and researchers who had labored to try to save him by producing performances and ultimately this recording of a lesser-known Gluck opera. By this point last year, their association (Les sept vies de Philémon) had already raised more than 40,000 € for the Genetic Center at the Hôpital Necker for Sick Children and the Association to Fight Mitochondrial Diseases. If I had gone through what these parents have, I would not be able to do much more than curl up in a corner and hope to die myself. If you love good music or even if you don't, buying this CD can help these parents make some good come out of what happened to their son.

Also on Ionarts: Summer Opera: J. C. Bach's Temistocle [conducted by Christophe Rousset] (July 13, 2005) Summer Opera: Rameau's Zoroastre in Drottningholm [conducted by Christophe Rousset] (August 17, 2005) Harpsichord Like Rarely Ever [Christophe Rousset recording] (November 2, 2005) Tamerlano-Alcina Double Bill in Paris [conducted by Christophe Rousset] (November 11, 2005) Handel Arias, Sandrine Piau [conducted by Christophe Rousset] (January 26, 2006) Vicente Martín y Soler, La Capricciosa Corretta [conducted by Christophe Rousset] (September 28, 2006)

As for the good music part, Christophe Rousset is also to be commended for bringing his excellent historically informed performance (HIP) ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, into this project. The Guiots were drawn, because of their son's name, to the recovery of the two operas that Gluck was commissioned to create for the marriage of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma (grandson of the King of France, Louis XV), and Maria Amalia, Archduchess of Austria (sister of Marie-Antoinette) in 1769. When the wedding festivities finally took place (delayed by the death of the pope) in August, the court celebrated with an elaborate fête in the style of those at Versailles since the time of Louis XIV. Among many lavish entertainments was a theatrical performance called Le Feste d'Apollo, with two operatic acts by Gluck. Each act sets a modified version of a minor myth, Aristeus in the first act and Baucis and Philemon (whence the connection to the Guiots' child) in the second.

Aristaeus was a minor agricultural deity, who mastered the arts of beekeeping and cheesemaking. Virgil added Aristaeus to the version of the Orpheus-Eurydice legend in his Georgics, saying that Aristaeus tried to rape Eurydice and caused her to be bitten fatally by a snake, which she did not see as she ran away from Aristaeus. (In Orphée aux enfers, Offenbach has Eurydice willingly take Aristée as her lover.) In the libretto by Giuseppe Pezzana, Aristeo suffers from his involvement in Eurydice's death and seeks to regain his bees, which were all killed by Eurydice's nymphs. (In the bronze sculpture by François Rude, shown here, Aristaeus stands mournfully by his empty beehive.) By faithfully listening to the counsel of his mother, Cyrene, he is able to bring his bees back to life and is ultimately wedded to his new love, Cidippe.

Ovid told the story of Baucis and Philemon in Metamorphoses (English translation: Book VIII), the contented, poor, and old husband and wife (in English, a Darby and Joan) who are the only ones in Phrygia to offer hospitality to the traveling gods Zeus and Hermes. When the outraged gods wipe out Phrygia in a flood, Baucis and Philemon are spared. The gods transform their house into a temple and the couple live there as priests and guardians. The couple get their wish to die at the same time and are transformed into two trees that stand next to each other in the sanctuary for all time. The librettist of Gluck's opera, the monk Giuseppe Maria Pagnini, altered the story so that Bauci and Filemone are a young shepherd and shepherdess (to reflect the youth of the noble bride and groom whose marriage was being celebrated) and their reward is to live together as guardians of Jupiter's temple.

Neither of these one-act operas is an unjustifiably lost masterwork, but there is plenty of good music to be heard, some of it borrowed by Gluck from his own operas or recycled into later operas. (As a self-borrower, he was no worse really than Handel or Vivaldi or Bach: this kind of plagiarism was perfectly acceptable in the 18th century.) The singing on this recording ultimately makes it worthwhile, beginning with the fine soprano of Ditte H. Andersen. As Cirene in Aristeo, she gives an excellent reading of the challenging aria Nocchier che in mezzo all'onde, in which she counsels her son, Aristeo, to remain steadfast in the face of trouble, like a confident mariner during a storm. In the most stunning performance on this recording, Bauci's coloratura aria in Bauci e Filemone (Il mio pastor tu sei), the Danish soprano ably negotiates the ultra-high notes that Gluck often has pop out of nowhere.

The soprano who created the role, Lucrezia Agujari (her illegitimate birth gave her the nickname La Bastardella), was something of a vocal freak, with a range of over three octaves, strong in both high and low registers. This recording's helpful liner notes, by Emmanuelle and Jérôme Pesqué, even quotes Leopold Mozart, who heard her sing while in Italy with his son in 1770, on both her voice and unusual manner of performing. Andersen is a strong and graceful singer, with admirable agility, but it is the high notes that are so stunning, soaring up to F#, with purity only occasionally perturbed by a slightly nervous vibrato. There is likely a Queen of the Night in Andersen's future.

French soprano Marie Lenormand has some lovely turns as Filemone, especially in several duets with Andersen (including the excruciatingly beautiful Se tuo dono, o fausto Nume), and as Cidippe in the first opera. Lenormand sang in Washington last March, with Steven Blier hosted by Vocal Arts Society, a concert I missed (review by Stephen Brookes). She now lives in New York. Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg is excellent as Aristeo in the first opera, especially on the brief cavatina Numi offesi, ombre sdegnate and her main aria, Cessate, fuggite. In the second opera, she sings the solo part of Una Pastorella with the chorus in Di due bell'anime, an utterly charming dance-like number accompanied by pizzicato strings.

Norwegian tenor Magnus Staveland is an excellent young voice. He is studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Opera but has already worked with Fabio Biondi and sang the role of Enea in Cavalli's La Didone at La Fenice in Venice this season. Conductor Christophe Rousset may have been put in contact with all these Scandinavian singers on his summer trips to conduct at Drottningholm. Rousset elicits a fine performance from his ensemble, in keeping with the high standard of sound they have set. The Chœur de Chambre de Namur, at a lean 18 voices, give a precise and subtly shaped rendition of the choral numbers.

Naïve/Ambroisie AMB9995

Dip Your Ears, No. 71 (With Touches of Charpentier)

M.-R. de Lalande, Les Folies de Cardenio, EBL, Christophe Coin Laborie

Touches of Charpentier and South American baroque – that’s what comes to mind listening to wonderful new release of Michel-Richard de Lalande’s Les Folies de Cardenio on the new Laborie label. Recording the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges (EBL Laborie is their own label) under Christophe Coin, they dug deep into the vault to exhume a neglected, if not forgotten, composer’s charming, wily ballet. The research and necessary restoration work has paid off handsomely.

Based on a story from Cervantès’ Don Quixote, the ballet composed for Louis XV is a foot-tappingly infectious baroque music with a few vocal elements (to the extend they survived or were possible to reconstruct) and, in accordance with the madness that goes on in the story, all kinds of percussion instruments are thrown in at various points – clinking and scattering and thumping about in a gay frenzy. The baroque guitar adds the Spanish flavor. It may not be great music – but it’s music that (given a predilection for baroque music and, e.g. the work of Jordi Savall – whose Don Quixote recording Charles discussed at length) is great to listen to if you want something outside the Telemann-Bach-Handel-Vivaldi fare. There is much and much more to discover out there – but this very fine recording, attractively presented, is an excellent place to start.

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LABORIE LC01

The Thin Line Between "Great" and "Impressive" - Denis Matusev Dazzles at the Terrace Theater

Denis Matsuev, the latest pianist to have graced WPAS’ Hayes Series, is a pianist who could elicit a long-overdue tirade against the practice of 'Piano-Bench Gymnastics'. Together with Lang-Lang and Fazil Say he would form the unholy trio of carefully studied emotional acrobatics where the effect of the contortion takes precedence over the sound of the playing. But Matsuev’s recital was too good, too interesting to warrant wasting much space on this.

Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons op.37b is rarely programmed and all the more welcome. Simple – but not simplistic – works that they are, they can be the perfect antidote to all that overly romantic, ever-yearning, sweet orchestral Tchaikovsky that usually comes our way. A ballet for pianist in twelve movements, we got to see the many sides of Denis Matsuev: DM – the calm center for January. DM – the firebrand in February. DM – the dreamy poet in March. The delicate DM in April, the lavishly punctilious DM in May. DM as a dainty rose in June, “DM got rhythm” in July and DM as ‘Eusebius and Florestan’ in August. DM – in powerful rapture during September. Sensitive DM in October, DM of ‘obvious subtlety’ in November, and finally the languid and composed DM in December.

There were fine and acutely accentuated moments (January) and displays of his prodigious technique far exceeding the demands of the piece (February). Muted colors dominated the most famous of the months: June. It was in the soft passages that Matsuev displayed the musician (as opposed to the pianist) – a display that might have gone lost elsewhere, because Matsuev (visibly not somebody who is lacking in self esteem) does not only play effortlessly, but also effortlessly loud. In combination with the Yamaha piano that he had at his disposal, the sound was not always very pleasing and indeed rather harsh; shrill even, in the upper register. It accentuated the moments of banging (more of which were to come) in a way that made Matsuev – unfairly, I presume – seem like he had the touch of Garrick Ohlsson (except with the body language of Lang Lang and the technique of Arcadi Volodos).

The showtime element of his recital started after intermission with Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz no.1. Amid left-hand flights of fancy (carefully studied in a mirror, no doubt – and to great theatrical effect) and a few missed notes while he was playing with the intent purpose of impressing the living hell out the audience, there shone through a bit of that sensibility that distinguishes genuine playing from a mere run-through.

Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka can make any pianist feel a little queazy. Matsuev’s performance – unabashed and bold – was a feat… even if the piano’s sound was unpleasant above fortissimo, even if the color, joy and rhythmical feel of a Kissin or the clear brilliance of Pollini was missing (players admittedly in a different category). This was fitfully impressive stuff, an exceptionally good second movement, and if the enjoyment of it was slightly uneven, he cannot be blamed for having been anything less than consistent in his approach to the work. Merely that it worked better in some places than others. Having reached the right virtuoso-operating temperature (indicated by a lobster-red head), he dazzled the delighted audience and cooled down only during a series of understandably mellower encores that were demanded.

A Sunday with the Contemporary Music Forum and Young Concerts Artists

Young Concert Artists

Hearing works by Benjamin C.S. Boyle more and more often and in more and more prestigious venues is very gratifying. (Although my musical tastes tend to a more modern idiom than Boyle usually delivers, the quality of the music itself and its play with traditions and contemporary influences has fascinated me ever since first hearing his Kreutzer Concert-Variations.) The Young Concert Artists’ recital at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, last Sunday, offered such an opportunity. Now in his second year as composer-in-residence for YCA, he was commissioned to write a piece for the young harp virtuoso Emmanuel Ceysson. The resulting Suite Sylvanesque adds only another work to a string of successes. Being just about the least notably modern work I have heard of Mr. Boyle’s, most of the audience would probably not have thought the Suite any younger a work than the Fauré, Ravel, Renié, or Grandjany works that were also offered by Mr. Ceysson.

Were Boyle’s Suite lulls the ears with beauty rather than piquing it with little reminders of ‘music in 2006’ – and assuming that one might consider that a shortcoming, not an asset, in the first place – it won its laurels on brevity, that most underrated but essential skill that makes a good composer. (The grand-master of brevity, Anton Webern, was present in spirit, if not at all in sound.) Five sparkling, generally gentle movements – each supplied with a short epigraph – make for music that sounded genuinely tailored to the harp and the romantic stereotype we often associate with it.

Mr. Ceysson, in his very early twenties, played this with the same flair and impeccable, impressive skill as he did the other works. During a transcription of Bach’s French Suite No. 3 BWV 814 his red-cheeked, angelic face with puckered lips ecstasy under a well cared for mop of soft, long, dark hair made that ‘romantic abandon’ impression that is especially annoying with pianists but more forgivable with the engaged, flair-burdened harpist.

Fauré’s Une chatelaine en sa tour, op.110, consisted of muted, melting tones, Marius Constant’s Harpalycé showed that the harp need not necessarily be angelic but that it can be a raw instrument, too. In Marcel Grandjany’s Rhapsody for harp and string quartet the magnificent Jupiter String Quartet was sadly underutilized. Henriette Renié’s Ballade fantastique on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” would have been just as extraordinarily effective music if one were blissfully unaware of the story (and that beating heart) that motivated it.

Ravel’s Intro & Allegro for Harp, accompanied by String Quartet and Clarinet makes no pretense of being a septet – the partners here hare decidedly not equal, especially with the String Quartet relegated to provide the orchestral carpet for the harps solo performance.

Amid all this, the prodigious technique and talent of Mr. Ceysson was in full display. The only criticism: He should not have talked at all… not introduced a work nor read the poetry that goes along with the Suite Sylvanesque. His thick accent rendered it completely incomprehensible, awkward… even embarrassing. The effect was one that detracted, rather than added to the music.

contemporary music forum

If the YCA concert was six seventh 20th century music, it still could not have been more different from the second cmf concert of the season at the Corcoran Gallery of Art where five sixths were also from the 20th century (with one piece from the 21st) but the soundscape worlds apart. The recently deceased James Tenney – unknown to most audiences but a favorite composer of Ligety’s and well respected by his colleagues Feldman, Cage, and Reich – came first with the Chromatic Cannon in the version for piano and tape (a pre-recorded piano track that would otherwise fall to a second player). An intriguing work that sounds like minimalism but hardly betrays its (loosely applied) 12-tone technique, builds slow but irresistible climaxes, and plays with different pulses running through the two piano parts. Jenny Lin, who played ‘with herself’, made the Chromatic Cannon appear a downright elegant piece.

Other Reviews: Daniel Ginsberg, Contemporary Music Forum (Washington Post, November 13)

Tom Lopez’ Underground (2004) is probably not music in the conventional sense but the soundtrack (ambient noise, crashes, rhythms, occasional tones) to a modern, curiously appealing short-film-cum-documentary on the London Underground by director Nate Pagel – a second in a planned series that plans to explore subway systems around the world. With graphics and ‘sound’ (like an industrial remix with a Moby beat) very professionally put together, the clip could as well have been screened at the Hirshhorn as a ‘video sculpture’.

Lawrence Moss’ “Korea for Kwartludium” (1999) for violin (Lina Bahn), clarinet (Kathleen Mulcahy), percussion (Svet Stoyanov), and piano (Ms. Lin) is based on the interesting concept of recreating or emulate an electronically assembled earlier composition of his (Korea). The same principle as on the “Accoustica plays Aphex Twin” CD, but with Korean folk elements, instead of Richard D. James’ brand of electronica. Interesting, but lacking: There was no sense of improvisation or spontaneity in this performance, only theatrical, self-important sound-reproduction which had its low points in the instrumentalists half-yelled ‘uuuuuhs’ and ‘ooohmms’.

Transfigured Wind IV for flute and audio fared better but could have been half as short. Carole Bean played this overlong 1985 work by Roger Reynolds (a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1988) which began with subtle piccolo interjections from the audio source which sounded like someone practicing in the room next door. The taped part became more complex, before lower, earthy flute chatter entered the ears. “Climax” is too much a word for it – but halfway through Transfigured Wind IV there came a particularly busy and pleasing passage before everything mellowed out into a bland, occasionally interrupted, modernist mélange. It did, fortunately, avoid most of the histrionics that other contemporary works for flute are prone to.

The Khan Variations by Alejandro Viñao for solo marimba were an impressive showcase for Mr. Stoyanov who proved great athleticism and musicianship alike in this Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn based musical exploration. Migrations from 1997 by Alexandra Gardner, a D.C. native, closed the concert with a wild ride for percussion/marimba and piano strings (hit directly) around flute, clarinet, cello, and the piano, more conventionally steered. There was plenty thunder but melancholy underneath; the aggressive and abrasive outbursts of the music didn’t scare even Ms. Bahn’s tiny little daughter who, after escaping her minder, progressively climbed towards her mother; reaching her just in time to take bows with the musicians. It was the most human touch of the evening.

Julia Fischer and Mozart

Available at Amazon: Mozart, Violin Concertos 1/2/5, Julia Fischer, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Yakov Kreizberg (released on October 31, 2006)

Over the past few years, German violinist Julia Fischer, now 23 years old, has emerged as one of the best violinists performing today, certainly among the 20-somethings. We have had the chance to hear her play live only once, when she gave an extraordinary reading of the Beethoven violin concerto with the Baltimore Symphony last spring (Jens got to hear it twice). On recordings, she has also been impressive, with a series of discs on PentaTone Classics, of which we have reviewed her fine CD of the complete Bach works for solo violin. Her recording of Russian violin concertos won the 2005 ECHO classical award. The American release of her Tchaikovsky violin concerto, already available in Europe (see French review quoted here), is scheduled for November 28.

My translation of Jean-Louis Validire, Julia Fischer et Jonathan Gilad au Théâtre du Châtelet : Jeunesse et maturité (Le Figaro, November 14): It was a particularly rich and interesting program offered Sunday morning by Julia Fischer and Jonathan Gilad. Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, in spite of the unusual nature of this piece, neither sonata nor concerto, is a true duet of artists, that reveals not only the musicians' virtuosity but also their sense of dramatic construction. The young German violinist, who has just celebrated her 23rd birthday, is in my opinion one of the most interesting performers of her generation. The beauty of her ample and melodious sound, the evenness of attack, the technical facility are mind-blowing (époustouflantes). Recordings have shown her to have stunning maturity in interpretations of Bach and Mozart. Today, she has done it again with Pentatone's release of the Tchaikovsky concerto, which shows the same qualities that she displayed on the stage Sunday. [...] Jonathan Gilad, who has youth in common with Julia Fischer -- he is only 25 -- is a pianist with a delicate touch. Discovered by Daniel Barenboim, he already has broad experience and the capacity for listening necessary in these sonatas, where he is unable even to pull the covers over himself. The duo that he forms with the violinist is of a marvelous homogeneity, as proven in an encore performance of a movement from Mozart's Sonata in E. An exceptional concert in this cycle, organized on Sunday mornings at the Châtelet by Janine Roze.

For her latest recording, she collaborates again with conductor Yakov Kreizberg and his Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. This disc is essentially the second volume of a complete set of the Mozart concerti violin, to go along with her 2005 CD of the third and fourth concerti, with the same forces. As such, it competes with another full set of the Mozart concerti released this year, by Anne-Sophie Mutter (reviewed by Jens). For the second installment, Fischer has combined the last of the five, K. 219, with the two minor concerti, nos. 1 and 2 (K. 207 and 211). Just as on the 2005 disc, she has composed her own cadenzas and added her own ornamentation (in the booklet, she shares credit for their composition with Yakov Kreizberg).

Julia Fischer: Mendelssohn, Piano Trios, D. Müller-Schott, J. Gilad (2006) Bach, Partitas/Sonatas (2005) Mozart, Violin Concertos 3/4, NCO, Y. Kreizberg (2005) Russian Violin Concertos: Khachaturian, Glazunov, Prokofiev (2004)

On a purely technical level, Julia Fischer is on par with the more experienced Anne-Sophie Mutter. However, this recording provides what Jens found lacking in Mutter's performances, in which technical flair seemed "blatant and gratuitous virtuosity in a work that has natural beauty to offer" (as Jens described Mutter's reading of no. 4). Fischer's playing is guileless, which is certainly not to say unsensitive or square. The first two concerti -- probably from early 1775 -- reflect the teenage Mozart's experience of traveling in Italy with his father (the last time for Lucio Silla in 1772) and hearing the virtuosic compositional style of Italian violin virtuosi. Kreizberg and Fischer quite rightly chose to match the Baroque qualities of these concertos by performing them with harpsichord (played capably, if almost inaudibly, by Pieter-Jan Belder). Although she had the curiously frustrating opportunity to play Mozart's own violin at the Salzburg Festival this past summer, Julia Fischer's regular instrument these days is of Italian origin, made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1750.

In fact, all of the Mozart concerti are relatively young compositions (although what that really means for a composer who died in his mid-30s, I don't know). The final three concerti were completed as a group in the last few months of 1775. Mozart wrote one more piece featuring solo violin in 1776, the Haffner Serenade (K. 250) and some single movements, probably as alternates for other violinists who wanted to play his previous concerti (the K. 261 slow movement and K. 269 rondo are on Fischer's first Mozart disc). He subsequently turned to writing piano concerti for himself to play. No. 5 is the most extraordinary of the Mozart violin concerti, performed here with the third movement as a truly jovial menuet. (It also happens to be one of the concerti, along with no. 4, whose autograph score is here in Washington, in the collections of the Library of Congress.) That mysterious alla turca middle section in the third movement, complete with folkish drones and janissary col legno strikes, is so odd yet lovely. The Nederlands Kamerorkest provides excellent sound behind Fischer, with strong and graceful playing from all sections. Beautifully recorded, too, this disc is likely to please any and all ears.

PentaTone Classics PTC 5186 094

Julia Fischer will perform the Khachaturian violin concerto in Washington, in a set of concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra, March 15 to 17, 2007. In other American appearances next year, Julia Fischer will play the Mendelssohn violin concerto with Yakov Kreizberg conducting the Cincinnati Symphony (February 9 and 10, 2007), the Beethoven violin concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony (March 9 to 11, 2007), and the Brahms violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic (April 18 and 19, 2007). Ionarts will travel.