Dudamel and L.A. Phil

Disagree with his musical decisions, but there’s no denying that Gustavo Dudamel has power. His command over his musicians and audience-members alike is nothing short of striking. Monday night, as part of the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Orchestra Series, Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on the tail of his inaugural season, performed Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, “The Age of Anxiety,” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique,” to a sold-out hall. Even for the amount of press and rock star fame that he has already garnered at just 29 years old, not an inch of it is undeserved. Dudamel is a brilliant conductor.

The program’s first half was shared with French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and for two foreign-born musicians (Dudamel is Venezuelan), they certainly know how to play American music. From the opening clarinet duet, which Dudamel crafted simply and beautifully, the musicians embarked on a faith journey that moved between jazz, the loftiest Romanticism, and the most dissonant sounds of 20th-century anxiety. Bernstein’s identity-searching work is based on W. H. Auden’s poem “The Age of Anxiety,” which follows four strangers who embark on an alcohol-induced, and thus ultimately condemned, search to discover faith and meaning. Bernstein set it to music in 1949 in what is part symphony, part descriptive tone poem, and part piano concerto. Despite his birthplace, Thibaudet is no stranger to American music, performing Gershwin and straight-ahead jazz often, and Bernstein is of course a natural extension of that. The music comes easily to Thibaudet and was without pretense; it was simple, it was jazzy and rhythmic, it was full of duress, and it was always of that “none-other-than” American sound.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Gustavo Dudamel embraces music, and the orchestra follows (Washington Post, May 19) Tim Smith, Gustavo Dudamel, Los Angeles Philharmonic make notable impact in DC concert (Baltimore Sun, May 18) John von Rhein, 'Dudamania' hits Chicago. But is all the hype over Los Angeles' new maestro justified? (Chicago Tribune, May 16) Andrew Patner, Dudamel, L.A. Philharmonic's relationship growing (Chicago Sun-Times, May 16) Lawrence A. Johnson, Dudamel, Los Angeles Philharmonic deliver thrilling performance in Chicago (The Classical Review, May 15) Richard Nilsen, LA Phil, Dudamel thrill Phoenix (Arizona Republic, May 13) Joshua Kosman, Gustavo Dudamel bewilders (San Francisco Chronicle, May 12) Richard Scheinin, Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic deliver a dynamic double bill in Davies Hall (San Jose Mercury-News, May 11)

Dudamel and Thibaudet are also very thoughtful ensemble musicians. Thibaudet’s eyes never left Dudamel, whose conducting is quite clear when it needs to be. Between the two of them, they created an exactitude of ensemble playing the likes of which does not grace the Kennedy Center Concert Hall very often. As brilliant as they both were, and as powerful as the "Pathétique" Bernstein is, even Dudamel could not maintain the audience’s strict attention. It was a disastrously fidgety and coughing crowd, more so than usual, and so much so that it was actually embarrassing. Dudamel did not fully capture the audience until Tchaikovsky, when the ticket buyers finally got what they wanted – a hair-bouncing and commanding Dudamel, without the view-obstructing piano.

The sheer amount of different colors and sounds Dudamel elicited from his musicians in the Tchaikovsky was fresh for such a common work. Coupled with the raw energy that Dudamel exudes and which follows from his orchestra, the Tchaikovsky was a force of nature that left the audience, now firmly within Dudamel’s clutches, pin-droppingly silent for a good minute or so following the work’s concluding notes.

Dudamel brings an uncanny maturity to his craft, along with a youthful vigor that electrifies audiences. What is truly wonderful about him is that, despite his energy and curls and stardom, he does not exemplify the center-stage conductor persona. In fact, he is quite self-effacing on stage. No gesture was disproportionate to the sound he received in return, and no motion was distracting from the music itself. When the Tchaikovsky came to a close, he barely even acknowledged the audience. Dudamel and Thibaudet are well matched in this regard, but for such a young musician as Dudamel, it is refreshing to see that stardom is just a result, or maybe even a consequence, of doing what he loves.

Next, WPAS will present the Philadelphia Orchestra (May 26, 7:30 pm), with Charles Dutoit on the podium and pianist Nikolai Lugansky as guest soloist, in the Music Center at Strathmore.

'Hamlet' ohne Damrau

A. Thomas, Hamlet, S. Keenlyside, N. Dessay, Gran Teatre del Liceu, B. de Billy (released on October 5, 2004) EMI 5 99447 9 | 2h56

Actors insist that Macbeth is a cursed play, and opera singers are afraid of La forza del destino, but something appears to be rotten in the state of Denmark as far as Washington National Opera's first-ever staging of Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet. The last opera of the beleaguered company's season held the promise of being its most interesting production. Then baritone Carlos Álvarez withdrew from the title role, to be replaced by a combination of Michael Chioldi and Liam Bonner. As heard two summers ago at Wolf Trap, Bonner has more than enough voice for the big time and the right look and stage presence for the role, while Chioldi has crossed our radar only once and that quite briefly, if vividly, in the 2004 WNO production of Andrea Chénier. The solid and broad-voiced Elizabeth Bishop holds great promise as Gertrude, and wily veteran Samuel Ramey will have the necessary gravity (and eye-holding stage presence) as Claudius.

An untested Hamlet was easier to accept since, as previewed this winter, coloratura soprano Diana Damrau was going to make her company and role debut as Ophélie. Well, La Damrau became pregnant -- many congratulations to her! -- and has been instructed by physicians not to travel or overextend herself. So, we have Elizabeth Futral as Ophélie instead: most of the qualities she will need for the role she showed a-plenty in her most recent outing here, as Violetta, and the things she did not have are not as important for Ophélie. The casting loses that extra spark of a striking debut, but the changes are far from disastrous. Even the Metropolitan Opera, which for its first Hamlet in over a century brought the Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser production to New York -- as previewed by Matthew Gurewitsch, Honored in the Breach: Shakespeare through the Prism of French Grand Opera (Opera News, March 2010) -- had its own troubles: Natalie Dessay had to cancel, to be replaced, just in the nick of time, by German soprano Marlis Petersen.

If you are looking for a way to preview the opera before the WNO production, the DVD of the Caurier-Leiser production, recorded at Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu, is an excellent option -- it also happens to be the only show in town on DVD. There are a couple of fine recordings on CD, both now widely unavailable but that can be purchased through ArkivMusic: Hampson / Anderson (at 3h18, the most complete recording) and Milnes / Sutherland. The DVD offers a fairly unbeatable combination of leading singers, both lauded for their interpretations, at a much lower price. The supporting cast is neither exemplary nor truly disappointing, with Béatrice Uria-Monzon (Gertrude) and Alain Vernhes (Claudius) suited quite well to their roles, and Russian tenor Daniil Shtoda, who has received critical praise but has always struck my ears as too nasal and shouty, making an unremarkable Laërte. Markus Hollop seems cast for the ghost as much for his towering stature as for his voice, which is full but a little covered. Pasted with glowing makeup and lit with blue light, he is a menacing ghost.

WNO will present a production by Thaddeus Strassberger, premiered by Lyric Opera of Kansas City four years ago. It not only uses Thomas's alternate ending, made for Covent Garden, with Hamlet dying along with everyone else at the end of the fifth act, it updates the action to "an unnamed 1950s totalitarian regime." This provides a fairly convincing modern setting for the intrigues of the Danish court and the paranoia of both Hamlet and Claudius regarding the maintenance of power. Strassberger's sets evoke the grand, soulless architecture of fascist Italy, faded in the post-war years and covered with graffiti. I led a group of high school students, on an annual field trip, to the dress rehearsal on Monday night, and none of them questioned the updating as ridiculous (teenage boys have a finely tuned sensitivity to chicanery, intellectual or otherwise). Without printing any spoilers, I can also relate that the staging of the mad scene was a class-wide favorite.

Washington National Opera will present Hamlet from May 19 to June 4, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Emerson Quartet's Bohemian Rhapsody

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Janáček, String Quartets / Martinů, Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, Emerson Quartet (released on May 19, 2009) Deutsche Grammophon 477 8093 | 55'10" Dvořák, String Quartets / Quintet, Emerson Quartet (released on April 13, 2010) Deutsche Grammophon 477 8765 | 55'10"

The Emerson Quartet closed out its Smithsonian Residents Associates series, at the National Museum of Natural History, with a concert on Saturday evening. The program drew its focus from the quartet's recent recordings, music by Czech composers, which has been much at the center of their concert programming, too. The first half was taken entirely from the Emerson's Janáček and Martinů CD from last year, beginning with Martinů's Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola ("Duo No. 1," H. 313). The quartet's sound has always been more sinewy, even metallic, than glowing, and some stridency and imprecise intonation crept into the playing of violinist Philip Setzer, who took the upper part. This was especially true in the outer fast movements, like the first-movement moto perpetuo, in which a few pauses in each part were seemingly inserted only to accommodate page turns. The dreamy second movement was mysterious in its folk-steeped inflections: fiddle effects, chromatically odd scales, cimbalom-like pizzicati. The recording, also with the group's superb violist Lawrence Dutton, is more even across the three movements, with fewer clashes in the fast movements but less mystery in the second movement.

Janáček was represented by his second string quartet, known as "Intimate Letters," for its mode of passionate epistolary confession. The subtitle refers to the billets doux that the elder composer wrote to the much younger Kamila Stösslová: because of his invigorating love for this inspirational muse, we have many of the composer's late masterpieces. Intonation issues continued for Setzer on first violin (especially hair-raising on the first movement's final fortissimo chord, for example) and the rest of the quartet in the Janáček. The eerie sul ponticello solos and the forlorn viola solo were highlights of the first movement, with the second movement marked by a plangent tone, even biting and acerbic. Again, it was the slow passages, with their ethereal effects, that were most pleasing, like the passionate but elegiac serenade of the third movement, here wistful and here anguished. The strident Emerson sound, born of an apparent willingness to push the tone near ugliness for dramatic effect, served the ecstatic conclusion of the fourth movement well. These problems are less pronounced in the recording, which is hardly surprising.

Other Reviews: Allan Kozinn, Stirring the Sweetly Melodic Into the Darkly Intense (New York Times, May 17) Steve Smith, In Dvorak’s Folk Works, Elegance, Too (New York Times, May 10) John Terauds, Emerson String Quartet makes Dvorák sing (Toronto Star, May 5) Edward Reichel, Emerson Quartet breathes some life into Dvorak (Deseret News, April 28)

For the second half the quartet turned to its latest release, a set of Dvořák quartets (and one quintet) called Old World-New World, to round out the Czech holy trinity. Dvořák was also featured in the quartet's performance of Cypresses last season, and while one hears one of the composer's quartets every once in a while, there are many delightful discoveries to be made. Paul Neubauer joined the quartet as second violist for the third quintet (E♭ major, op. 97), as he did on the recording: he actually is the first to play, as if to announce his presence. Eugene Drucker was primarius for the quintet and played with a lovely tone in the second movement especially, but in many ways the two violas lead the piece, as in Dutton's first viola solo in the second movement and with both instruments coloring the third-movement Larghetto variations in a gloomy penumbra. The ensemble sound was full-throated and well balanced. The fourth movement's chipper dotted-rhythm motif is an unshakable ear worm, replayed in my head for hours afterward, alternating with some more folk fiddle-inspired sounds.

The Emerson Quartet's series at the National Museum of Natural History will continue next season, with five concerts from September 26, 2010, to May 8, 2011. More Dvořák will be on offer, this time paired with Mozart, and Haydn, Berg, Schubert, Webern, Debussy, Bartók, Mendelssohn, Jalbert, and Beethoven will be represented. One of the concerts will feature only cellist David Finckel in recital (January 15, 2011).

Things Seen but Not Posted

Ad agencies can come up with a definition for a non-existing condition that we should be aware of and take immediate action to cure it. Mine has something to do with spring. A garden preparation, painting, and travel disorder that prevents me from posting about all the art I’ve seen lately. But I will blab on Facebook and Twitter or put a picture up on Flickr - because it’s easy. I don’t know what to call my condition yet, but I’m sure it’s fatal.

Anthony Gromely’s installation of his life-sized nude self in steel, in the Madison Square Park area of Manhattan, has gotten a lot of press. It’s one of those things that New Yorkers will take for granted and think, oh that.

As I was walking through the park on my way to get a burger at the Shake Shack, my eye spotted something out of place, a man perched high on the roof of the Triangle building, then another a block away. There’s one on the ground in the park that gives you a feel for the material and scale (recently got tagged via:C-Monster). From this vantage point you can see high off in the distance another and a few blocks beyond another, 31 in all, if you can find them. They’re somewhat creepy, alien-like or maybe just another tourist.

One of the best painting shows this past spring, hands down, was Amy Sillman’s at Sikkema Jenkins. Luscious swashes of paint, with her personal flair for moving the eye around the canvas -- more, more.

Several airports are now providing space for art exhibits. However, if the work is not installed on my path to the gate, the only time I have to view it is while I’m waiting for someone's flight to arrive. Recently while awaiting a flight arrival at the Albany airport, I noticed an announcement for an exhibit on the upper level observation deck. I didn’t know the space even existed, and it's great for plane watching, too.

For Material Witness: A Collaboration with the Rensselaer Schools of Architecture and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, first-year students were challenged to imagine new spatial and structural possibilities in found, discarded, or recycled material. Some very interesting work. Trash Walls, pictured, is one example.

Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra played the Basement Series at Vermont Arts Exchange again this season: I posted about their last show. The band is touring to promote a new CD, Honker. Ethan is as entertaining as ever. In his lounge-lizardy manner Lipton highlights those moments of life we may consider mundane with poetry, intelligence, and great wit, backed up by a truly superb band.

Gabriel Alegria is an Afro-Peruvian jazz group that came through this past weekend on their way to a date in Montreal, also touring a new CD, Pucusana. Afro-Peruvian jazz! There are bright spots in the world and much of it is through cultural exchange, but I'm preaching to the choir on this blog (literally).

This past week milady and I visited the immense Brimfield Antiques (and junk) extravaganza. If you're a collector or like to walk miles and miles of furniture, tools, books, silver, jewelry, fashion, musical instruments, and more, Brimfield is a must. It happens three times a year.


This has been one of the nicest springs in some time. The Baroness and I are calling it our fourth, since traveling in Spain, China, back to Baltimore, and now in Vermont. I love the change of seasons, and it's great for the sinuses too.

I was a bit bold and already planted tomatoes, peas, salad mixes, and herbs, but the tomatoes will have to be replanted. We've begun harvesting asparagus and now the rhubarb. Rhubarb pie, ice cream, rhubarb everything for the next few weeks.

In Brief: Late Edition

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

• You know how you were told to do some stretches before you play tennis or whatever, to warm up your muscles? Yeah, actually not so much (with hat tip to Cronaca). [New York Times]


• Have any American musuems gotten on the "Nuit des musées" bandwagon? I would love to skulk about Washington's museums at night sometime. [Le Monde]


• Jessica Duchen is taking a brief medical-related break from blogging: we wish her a speedy recovery! [Twitter]


• Henri IV, king of France, was murdered 400 years ago this week (May 14, 1610). [Le Monde]


• Tyler Green announced this week that he will be moving his blog to Artinfo. Update your whatever it is you use now. [Modern Art Notes]


• Hrag Vartanian asks some questions about Tyler's new digs. [Hyperallergic]


• A great university president, Fr. David O'Connell of the Catholic University of America, is stepping down. [Whispers in the Loggia]


• There was a great profile of professor and blogger Tyler Cowen this week. [Washington Post]


• Speaking of Catholic University, Dr. Michael Cordovana, one of the most memorable members of the faculty of the school of music there, passed away this week. Former students are remembering his colorful and sometimes biting wit and the loving care he took with his students (pictures of him with Menotti are particularly wonderful). [Dr. Michael Cordovana Memory Page]

Braunfels Is an Obligation for Me

Walter Braunfels at the Piano (click for full picture)

Walter Braunfels is a composer whose music died twice. Once when the Nazis declared his music “degenerate art”. And then again when post-war Germany—and the art-subsidizing powers that were—had little use for the various schools of tonal music; when the arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music—almost the whole pre-war aesthetic—to be tainted.

Before the war, Braunfels was the second most performed opera composer in Germany behind Richard Strauss. During the war, Braunfels—a ‘half-Jew’ by the Nuremburg laws but a Protestant who converted to Catholicism—went into ‘inner exile’. His works were banned. After the war, performances of his music were few and far between, and even now there are just a handful of recordings of his music. So the re-premiere of his Great Mass in Stuttgart—the first performance since its actual premiere in 1927 under Hermann Abendroth—was a big Braunfels event. Even his octogenarian son attended, greatly moved to finally hear the vast work in concert, a work he remembered well from listening to the singers’ rehearsals at home while hiding beneath the grand piano.

Finally on April 18^th 2010, the Mass unfolded again in its humble, almost 100-minute glory when Manfred Honeck and his Stuttgart State Orchestra performed it at the Stuttgart Liederhalle—the crowning part of Honeck’s three-year focus on Braunfels during his time in Stuttgart. The Mass is in eight parts: an Offertorium is placed before the Sanctus and an Interludium before the Benedictus. Not only its dynamic and emotional scope, but its length too, is of Mahlerian proportions. Talking with Manfred Honeck right after the performance, we wondered why it had taken so long for the second performance of such an important work, especially considering that the work hadn’t been lost.

“Yes, it sat there, bid its time,” Honeck muses, “unrecognized for its greatness, underestimated, and perhaps a couple times someone got as far as the second page, saw what lineup it required, and quietly put it back. ‘We can’t sell that, it’s a whole evening’s worth of music, it would need a special occasion.’ And I suppose that special occasion never came up. Even anniversaries of his birth [his hundredth in 1982] or his death [50^th in 2004] weren’t considered, which is too bad. But if a work is good, its time will come. And the time has come. And it really was about time.”

Honeck became a Braunfels devotee when he was asked by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to conduct Braunsfels’ opera Scenes from the Life of St. Jean, composed during the war. “That was my first encounter with Braunfels and I was a little hesitant at first and asked for a score. But the deeper I went into the score, and the more I got to know this music, the more I was convinced. And I was even more moved when I heard his story, which touched me a lot.”

W.Braunfels, Te Deum, M.Honeck / Sjönberg, Jonsson / Swedish RSO Orfeo 679071 W.Braunfels, Te Deum et al., G.Wand / Rysanek, Melchert / Cologne RSO (WDRSO) Profil 6002 [mp3]

The BRSO performance had to be postponed, but with Braunfels now on his mind and the score studied, he performed “Scenes” with the Swedish Radio Orchestra, which played the world premiere. (The performance has since been issued by Decca.). “It was a great experience and I thought, ‘This is a great opera’. And while preparing that opera, I got to know more and more about Braunfels and I told the family that I wanted to get yet more—and they sent me scores. Small pieces, large pieces… and I was amazed by the Te Deum that was among those scores. It’s a great Te Deum; I love Bruckner’s Te Deum, and I saw Braunfels’ in that line. And in some ways it’s perhaps even a greater piece. And I was really amazed. So I performed it in Stockholm and we recorded it, because at the time there wasn’t a CD of it available. Since then the Profil-Hänssler label has found, cleaned up, and released an old recording of it with Günter Wand which I must say is wonderful, too. You feel the spirit in the interpretation. And not only do you have the Bruckner connection here, but Günter Wand was a student of Walter Braunfels in Cologne, too.”

(The 1952 sound of the Wand can’t hamper the emotional quality of the performance, but Honeck’s grasp and Orfeo’s crisp sound make it the obvious first choice; the Wand is the disciple’s pick.)

I must confess, it took me a while to grasp the Te Deum in either recording—the music should be straight forward, but the ears had to get used to it, anyway. (And while I’m in confession mode, I’ll add that the Bruckner Te Deum has so far failed to touch me in any performance, too.) By now I’ve listened to the Braunfels a couple dozen times, though, and the investment of time has paid great dividends. The Pittsburgh audience and chorus were apparently quicker on the uptake: When Honeck performed the first movement of the Te Deum with them, Honeck was amazed (a favorite word of his) with the reaction of the people to Braunfels’ music. “The choir, they fell in love with that movement. Of course, it’s a very romantic movement, it’s a Lohengrin-moment in music…” “But it is great” he hastens to add, as if the Lohengrin reference had cast that into doubt.

I don’t, in any case, hear a clear Lohengrin in the Te Deum until the third movement (about three minutes in), but instead I hear Braunfels’ own densely beautiful romantic music in that first movement, along with a few moments that could remind of other composers, notably a brief Orff resemblance toward the end of the massive 20-minute first movement.

Honeck gets carried away with enthusiasm, speaking about the Mass with even more superlatives in his speech than light editing has left in here: “There are a lot of composers who would all be in the repertoire today, if it hadn’t been for the Second World War and the very ideological aftermath: Braunfels, Fortner, Blacher, Hartmann—all of them. It’s too great a music, such fantastic music… I mean, in a way it’s a shame that after 80 years we are only now, finally, giving the second performance of this Great Mass. Sure, it asks for a children’s choir on top of the regular choir, and four soloists… but that isn’t in and of itself unusual for a mass. It’s got this big organ interlude, the big choir, and the orchestration! It’s fantastic. What a connection with Gustav Mahler’s music. For example, the part where the choir exclaims ‘Iudicare, iudicare’ (from the Credo: ‘Judge, judge… the living and the dead’), he uses the little drum in the exact same way Mahler does in the beginning of his Sixth Symphony. There is no Mass that uses so much percussion. Glockenspiel, tam-tam, big drum, small drum etc. And yet it’s never ostentatious and always obvious when he uses it why he uses it. It always goes with the words. And that’s his art. He takes the word first, and then he composes around it. And this inspiration for the instrumentation comes from the words. The word is first with Braunfels, always. You feel it all the time. Even in the Angus Dei: ‘dona nobis pacem’… To end a piece with a boys’ choir is really unbelievable. What is the reason to end a piece with the boys’ choir? The innocence of children, the idea of peace carried forward by children… ‘Give us peace’—children have peace, even if they are cruel, but they are innocent, you know? And just the idea is amazing. With Braunfels, it’s never about himself.”

Braunfels’ hand at drama and his careful consideration of the text betrays the opera composer, not only in the Te Deum, but also in the Great Mass. That Mass isn’t a liturgical work; in any case it wasn’t intended for a church service. But it also isn’t, minor similarities apart, like Verdi’s ‘secular’ Requiem either, because it speaks directly from a sincere spiritual urge. “The works addressed a need of my father,” Braunfels’ son said after the performance, suggesting it was far removed from being absolute music in the guise of a mass.

The music is of the kind of angular romanticism that we know from his colleagues K. A. Hartmann or Boris Blacher or Harald Genzmer (as opposed to the ‘double-cream school’ of 20^th century romantics à la Joseph Marx or Erich Korngold), and not always easy to digest. The Credo is dark and almost threatening as it begins over a low pedal point before some hope from the trumpet is shone upon it. A trombone solo follows, then the children’s choir enters. The rest of the singers join in, making it sound almost like an operatic slave-worker chorus -- until this longest of sections (25 minutes) builds up to a stunning climax on “et vitam venture saeculi.” The following Offertium offers the necessary respite and tenderness to recover. The Interludium for organ, brass, and strings leads into the longest instrumental section ahead of the Benedictus and could be sold as Zemlinsky. When the Agnus Dei finishes on “dona nobis pace”—give us peace!—it is the boys choir, after a perilous upward soprano leap (Hello Verdi!), that has the last word. The Mass ends most touchingly with “pacem” on their lips and dying away.

It would be childish to suggest that the performance, which was recorded to be broadcast and presumably published on CD, couldn’t be bettered. The soloists, for one, did not all excel. Roughly in declining order of excellence, we had dry precision and articulate accuracy, if not exactly excessive beauty, from soprano Simone Schneider; seasoned expressive ability amid occasional ambiguity from mezzo Gerhild Romberger; lots of (audible) effort and some beautiful moments from tenor Matthias Klink; and uncoordinated, indistinct wobbles from bass Attila Jun. The orchestra could probably have used a few more days in rehearsal, too, but their performance was spirited and committed enough to ensure that the work got the fastidious, warm performance it deserved.

A Performance that is important to Honeck, who has made Braunfels his personal cause. When we talked about how he wants to carefully, gently introduce Braunfels in Pittsburgh, he explains: “I want to help Braunfels wherever it is possible. And of course people might say I’m a Braunfels specialist, but other conductors are performing him also, and I hope that even more will take up performing his music.”

Moved by Braunfels’ vita as much as by his music, he adds: “It’s a shame that those artists who were banned by the Nazis have remained in obscurity. Just imagine how these artist must have felt, or Braunfels, how he must have felt when he had hoped to be performed after 1945, to continue his success, only to find out that his music was no longer wanted. And with 1945 over, it was—still, after those years of inner emigration—a disaster for him. What a story. Because the music is so good, I’d do it anyway, even without the story. But in the combination of his personal history and the quality of his work, it’s really an obligation for me.”

See also:

Best Recordings of 2010 - "Almost List" (14.1.11)
Listen What the Cat Dragged In: Walter Braunfels, Jeanne d'Arc (17.11.10)
Summer Opera: Braunfels and Grétry (11.6.05)

Schnittke's Charleston

.com .co.uk .de .fr

I can't get Schnittke's Charleston out of my head, so here's the snippet taken from “Adventures of a Dentist” -- to be found on Schnittke - Film Music v.4. Capriccio 5002. [Review here: RNNR: Schnittke, Sport & Soft Porn]

Reviewed, Not Necessarily Recommended: Political Music from Paul Dessau

Dessau, Orchestral Works, Epple / DSO Berlin Capriccio .com .co.uk .de .fr

DESSAU Symphony No. 2. Symphony in one movement. In memoriam Bertolt Brecht. Danse et Chanson¹. Examen et poème de Verlaine^{1, 2}. Les Voix.^{1, 3} ● Eoger Epple, cond; German SO Berlin; Ksenija Lukic (sop)¹; Manuela Bress (mez)²; Holger Groschopp (pn)³ ● Capriccio 5019 (69:36)

There are composers that I love to love for musico-biographical reasons. Most of the ‘lost generation’ of Viennese post-romantics—Korngold, Mittler, Zeisl, Marx—belong in that category, as do those composers that teetered between the post-romantic and the modern world without being part of the Second Viennese School or the avant-gardist movement. Braunfels, Toch, Křenek, and Hartmann come to mind. I would have thought that Paul Dessau (1894-1979) would be among that lot, but the generous selection of his orchestral works that Capriccio brings us—all new recordings made between 2004 and 2008 by the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin under Roger Epple—doesn’t do the trick. “In Memoriam Bertolt Brecht” wears its ever noble sentiment on its sleeves… or at least on the movement titles: “Lamento”, “War be damned”, “Epitaph”. A tedious, lurching, and extraordinarily dusty composition, it does more, alas, to damn the composer than mourn his friend. Joylessness would be excused given the occasion. But the idea that sorrow also, necessarily, translates into beauty—however well hidden or ‘difficult’—is solidly rejected by Dessau’s dirge. Berg’s Violin Concerto this ain’t!

Annoying is a highly subjective quality, but contrived and affected compositions like “Examen et poème de Verlaine” for soprano, mezzo, and orchestra make it difficult not to respond with a good rolling of the eyes. Dessau, always a steadfast supporter of the GDR’s dictatorship that afforded him a privileged life, was perhaps too much of a political composer—a species that sees its works age more rapidly and worse than others. In 26:4 James North writes of Dessau’s opera “Einstein”: “once [absorbed and appreciated], there is little of permanent musical value to draw you back again”. Agitprop as inspiration comes with a definite “best-before” date… which is one reason why I find Hanns Eisler’s biography much more appealing than most of his music.

It took me a long time to come to terms with genuinely disliking the Dessau pieces’ portentous plodding and self-importance, but apart from the clean, unfussy, and steadily moving Andante tranquillo of his Symphony in One Movement, there isn’t much that pleases the ears (or the intellect). The three works for voices—overt Spanish flavors in the two-minute “Dance & Chanson”—least so. The forced gaiety of the Andante contemplativo and the broodingly meandering Andante quasi Allegretto of the Second Symphony don’t enamor me, either. I could get used to the strident, pounding fourth movement, though, as well as the third movement “Dance”, an homage to Bartók in Bulgarian rhythm that Dessau added thirty years after composing the three other movements and publishing them as “Petit Suite symphonique” in exile in 1934.

That the DSO Berlin and Roger Epple perform these works with evident engagement is laudable. In fact, it’s what I love best about classical music today: Exploration of neglected, lost, dismissed, and forgotten works from all centuries are constantly unearthed by efforts such as these—affording us the opportunity to discover, re-discover, re-evaluate. This means an unprecedented amount of choice for music aficionados who can make up their own mind about what they like or don’t. The presence of lesser examples is not so a much lamentable side-effect of this trend, but a necessary element; hardly less enriching for being less pleasing. Sampling of bits of any CD is easy these days (Amazon, for example, offers snippets of the Dessau) and you might still like to hear for yourself if you are even mildly intrigued by Dessau’s musical kin Weill and Eisler.