Czech Love Month

See my preview of tomorrow's Embassy Series concert at the Czech Embassy at Washingtonian.com:

Veteran Washington Soprano Lamoreaux to Perform at the Czech Embassy (Washingtonian, May 26):

As a city full of embassies, Washington offers a smorgasbord of international flavors, and that goes for classical music, too. The Embassy Series hosts a season of chamber-size concerts in various embassies and ambassadorial residences around town, often featuring the music and/or musicians of that country. The penultimate concert of the season, planned for this Friday evening (May 27, 7:30), is an evening of mostly Czech music at the Embassy of the Czech Republic (3900 Spring of Freedom St. NW). Soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, clarinetist Richard Spece, and pianist Elizabeth Hill will perform love songs and other music suitable for May, the month of lovers in any culture.

Lamoreaux is likely familiar to most classical-music mavens in Washington because she has been performing throughout the city for some 25 years. In response to questions earlier this week, she told me she loves singing in many venues in Washington—the auditoriums at the Library of Congress, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Phillips Collection for their “warm acoustic resonance”; the ringing stone of spaces at the National Gallery of Art (where she directs a vocal ensemble) and Washington National Cathedral, “particularly for chant and early music” have also captured her imagination. Above all, she adds, “Strathmore is terrific, and I share with many of my colleagues a genuine enthusiasm for performing in that space.” [Continue reading]

NSO: The Inextinguishable

See my piece on the NSO's first season with Christoph Eschenbach at Washingtonian.com:

National Symphony Orchestra Review: Guest Conductor Thomas Dausgaard and Pianist Nikolai Lugansky (Washingtonian, May 25):

Since the meltdown of the world's financial markets began, classical music institutions have been dropping like flies, freezing or cutting salaries in the case of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, declaring bankruptcy like the Philadelphia Orchestra, or folding altogether in the case of the Baltimore Opera. The National Symphony Orchestra seemed poised to founder, too, having gone through a couple years of wandering without a strong leader when the economic crisis hit.

In 2008, generous patrons Roger and Vicki Sant stepped in with a major donation -- call it a classical-music golden parachute -- to fund the salary of the NSO's music director. Suddenly, the NSO found itself with Christoph Eschenbach, a veteran conductor with an international reputation and with whom the musicians had a good rapport, taking the helm. The end of Eschenbach's first season as music director is approaching, and it has been a grand success. The latest evidence of this was this past weekend's concerts, with guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard and pianist Nikolai Lugansky, heard on Saturday night.

Dausgaard, a respected Danish conductor, made his NSO debut with a program not unlike his 2008 appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra -- it opened with the same Sibelius tone poem, "En Saga." Dausgaard kept this short symphonic piece, reportedly describing an episode in Sibelius's own life, unmannered, almost plain, a square, driving voyage marked by crisp articulations and an insistent theme in the violas. [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
With Thomas Dausgaard (conductor) and Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

The other paradigm through which Nielsen's music is often defined is nationalism. Richard Taruskin once defined nationalist symphonies as "colonialism in disguise": the ideal of absolute music in the symphonic tradition, in that sense, could be interpreted as an extension of German nationalism. Writing about this possible interpretation of Nielsen's fourth symphony, Raymond Knapp wrote that national or other collectives have to judge the value of these musical statements made on their behalf, adding that for all the transcendentally minded symphonies composed since Beethoven's ninth, "there is no evidence (so far) that the cosmos actually appreciates any of the symphonies that have been offered up to it" (Raymond Knapp, "Carl Nielsen and the Nationalist Trap, or What, Exactly, is Inextinguishable?", in Carl Nielsen Studies, ed. Niels Krabbe).

OTHER REVIEWS:

• Anne Midgette, With Beethoven, Dausgaard’s NSO debut is a curious letdown (Washington Post, May 20)
  
• Alex Baker, NSO in NIELSEN! and also perhaps Beethoven and Sibelius I guess (Wellsung, May 20)

Mahler Festival Leipzig: Gergiev - LSO - First Symphony

The Leipzig Mahler Festival is not just a musical success, it also seems to be working out quite nicely economically for the Gewandhaus, which organizes and hosts this 14-day Mahler-hoopla. Even so, the 1900-seat large, modern hall[1] showed a surprising amount of empty seats, every night. That the first sold out night would feature the artistic nadir might be considered ironic.

Name recognition is a better draw than insider tips, naturally, and so it wasn’t the BRSO and Yannick Nezét-Séguin (still largely unknown among regular concert-going folk in Europe) that played to a sold out house, but Valery Gergiev (a house hold name everywhere) and the famous Symphony Orchestra from London that had droves of people hold up rickety signs with “Ticket sought” drawn on them in their hopeful hands on the plaza before the Gewandhaus Hall.

G.Mahler, Symphony No.5, Gergiev / LSO LSO Live G.Mahler, Symphony No.1, O.Suitner / Staatkapelle Dresden Berlin Classics/Eterna

My feelings approaching the concert were less enthusiastic. I know from my last visit that the LSO can achieve wonderful things, even in Mahler and with Gergiev (their concert and subsequent recording of Mahler’s Fifth was and is very successful; their Romeo & Juliet terrific)… but by and large I found the combination lacking… including most of the rest of their Mahler cycle. Working of exhaust-fumes, which is what being conducted by Gergiev seems to involve more often than not, isn’t always enough for great music-making.

The First Symphony and the Adagio from the Tenth as Mahler-stocking-stuffer were on the program. Would the Adagio in isolation get the additional attention that might lift it above the level of intensity the same movement might pervade as part of the entire Tenth? Certainly the Totenfeier under Luisi from earlier that day seemed to suggest the possibility. The answer, in the negative, was fairly clear, fairly soon. Episodic, meager, slow, with beautiful but sadly disconnected transitions, messy, non-committal as if hurriedly brushed aside: the whole Adagio was a big misunderstanding; a throw-away, a waste of time and energy.


Mahler’s First Symphony was better of course, but not necessarily good. The opening pedal point, the third in succession of famous toneless, hovering Ur-openings (Beethoven’s Ninth, Rheingold), was steady and notable for its restraint in the strings. The first outbursts were a little stiff at the hip, and—true for the entire work—with very little Ländler-lilt. Among the rare highlights were the impressively unisono Frère Jacques (played by the basses in tutti with just the right amount of dread) and the shrill frenzy in the fourth movement that recalled the shrieks from the 10^th Symphony. But the brass was particularly sallow and mishap-prone, the brass chorale in the finale rushed, and the louder it got the emptier it seemed, just as in the (hollow) relentlessness of the finale of the first movement. The majority of the audience, of a notably different makeup than on the nights before (the See-And-Be-Seen crowd was out in full force), would probably have disagreed with that assessment: The standing ovations were instant and lasting. It went to show, if nothing else, that loud does equal impressive, and that composers and conductors alike know how to win a race on the homestretch.

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

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[1] Like so many halls in the late 70s or early 80s very clearly based on Hans Scharoun’s Berliner Philharmonie, in this case also with excellent acoustics.

Filianoti's Fervent Werther

In many ways Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther is the quintessential proto-Romantic tale. A sensitive, poetic young man falls in love, but the woman he idealizes is already promised by her parents to another man. Unable to conceive of loving another, Werther takes her father’s pistols and kills himself, a literary suicide that sparked off a wave of real-life copycat suicides around Europe, as men who took to dressing like Goethe’s character and writing their own effusive poetry also followed him into death. The only operatic adaptation of the work that has really endured on its own is Werther by Jules Massenet, produced in both German and French versions in 1892. It succeeds or fails on the basis of its title role tenor, and Washington Concert Opera’s performance on Sunday night was a spectacular success mostly because of the astounding voice of Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti.

Washingtonians have waited a long time for the chance to hear Filianoti sing. As his career was gaining momentum, he was scheduled to make his debut with Washington National Opera in Lucrezia Borgia in 2008, but he backed out. He was replaced at the eleventh hour for a planned engagement at La Scala, and since then Filianoti has been struggling vocally, as anyone who follows reviews of his performances can observe. (Last year, Filianoti told James Jorden in the New York Post that he had been treated for thyroid cancer in 2006 and that the operation had damaged his voice.) So Filianoti finally made his local debut with Washington Concert Opera instead, in the role for which he has gained great acclaim, and with the exception of one slightly dicey high note at the end of the second act (“Appelle-moi!”), Filianoti sounded heroic, right on pitch, and in control of a lovely tone at all dynamics and in all tessituras. He had the most comprehensible French diction of a rather varied cast in that regard, and his legato spin (in his opening prayer, for example) was just as effective as his more actively articulated moments. The only minor flaw was a slight raggedness at the release of some long high notes.

Massenet was most inspired by the soprano voice, and some of his greatest music was written for the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson, who became his muse. Nowhere is that clearer than in Werther, where the role of Charlotte, created for a mezzo-soprano, is not only not the equal of Werther but even somewhat eclipsed by the smaller role of Sophie, Charlotte’s younger sister, whose flighty, vivacious nature is represented in some flights of vocal fancy. Jennifer Larmore brought considerable dignity to Charlotte, deploying her full, resonant lower register to powerful effect. The vibrato has become noticeably broad and over-active, and some of the high notes edged toward stridency, but arias like “Va! laisse couler mes larmes,” with its bluesy solo for saxophone (Massenet wrote for the instrument throughout the score, but it was played only selectively by first bassoonist Eric Dircksen, who put down his bassoon to take up the sax), and the letter-reading scene at the start of Act III had palpable dramatic power. As Sophie, Joélle Harvey had a fluttery, soubrette kind of voice that was very pretty and bubbly, giving her a coquettish turn in the laughter aria ("Ah! Le rire est beni!"), for example.

Timothy Mix headed up the supporting cast with a puissant baritone for Albert, Charlotte’s husband. Tenor Patrick Toomey and bass-baritone Eugene Galvin were funny as the pair of drinking buddies, Schmidt and Johann, after one mistaken early entrance by Galvin in the first scene. Bass Matthew Lau was fusty and fussy as the Bailiff, Charlotte’s father, with a slightly unpleasant nasality in the sound. A sextet of child singers was appropriately cute as the Bailiff’s burgeoning family, giving the Christmas carols they sing an authentic off-key quality.

Other Articles: Joe Banno, Giuseppe Filianoti sings beautifully in Washington Concert Opera’s “Werther” (Washington Post, May 24) Anne Midgette, Promising tenors, hitting a low note (Washington Post, May 21) Emily Cary, Fairfax native Timothy Mix returns to Washington in "Werther" (Washington Examiner, May 16)

Artistic Director Antony Walker, fresh off his Metropolitan Opera debut in Orfeo ed Euridice, led his orchestra with a sure hand. He has that most important quality for a conductor, a sure sense of ensemble movement and the vocabulary of gestures to keep all of his forces aligned. In particular, he always takes care not to allow the instruments to swamp the singers, while also providing them enough supportive sound at the loudest points. Winds and brass were the most solid sections, with fine contributions from the horns, in particular, while the violins were the least unified and reliable, on very high attacks and in fast running passages. Cello and violin solos, like those at Werther’s moody entrance, were lovely, and the two percussionists added considerable oomph to the big climaxes, most notably with a thunder machine in the storm scene. It is unfortunate than nothing can be done about having to use a pretty awful synthesizer to cover the organ part in the chapel scene.

If you missed Werther this time around, you have only to wait until next spring for Washington National Opera’s production of it (May 12 to 27, 2012), sadly not with Giuseppe Filianoti. Washington Concert Opera’s two performances next season will be devoted to Verdi’s Attila (September 9, with John Relyea, Brenda Harris, and Jason Stearns) and Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila (May 13, 2012, with Brandon Jovanovich, Michelle DeYoung, and Greer Grimsley).

Mahler Festival Leipzig: Luisi - Concertgebouw - Das Lied von der Erde

While the New York Times is busy pitching Fabio Luisi as James Levine’s successor at the MET (it’s almost too obvious now, I wouldn’t be half surprised if the appointment ended up being someone else), Luisi was in Leizpig adding Mahler with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to his conducting-credentials. Incidentally that put him in direct Mahler-competition with his two former orchestras, the MDR SO and the Dresden Staatskapelle.[1]

Purely on a technical level, it wasn’t too much of a contest; neither Dresden’s performance nor that of the MDR were so watertight that the RCO couldn’t have collectively sleepwalked to a better result. (They didn’t sleepwalk, but a few players might have preferred a leisurely breakfast over playing Das Lied von der Erde the Gewandhaus at 11AM.)

G.Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde, B.Haitink / Baker, King / RCO Philips/Decca G.Mahler, Totenfeier & Symphony No.2, R.Chailly / RCO Decca

But performance is more than getting all the notes and entries right… and in that regard Luisi, his Dutch orchestra, and the soloists left something to be desired. It started very promisingly with Mahler’s stand-alone symphonic movement “Totenfeier”, which Mahler would, with very few changes, turn into the first movement of the Second Symphony. The movement has special relevance for a Mahler Festival in Leipzig because it was, along with the First Symphony, composed while Mahler was second Kapellmeister in Leipzig (under Arthur Nikisch). Luisi combined deliberate touches, careful calibration, nuanced dynamics, and broadly sweeping gestures into a very pleasing whole – and the homogenous, mellow woodwind section had particular opportunity to distinguish itself. Perhaps it was to the advantage of that movement that it stood alone, rather than at the beginning of the long journey of the whole symphony. (Much like a single act from an opera in concert can sound very different than the same act as part of the whole.) Only the last few bars ended on a whimper, with matinee-timidity from the brass and strings.


Unfortunately that was pretty much the end of the glory. Das Lied von der Erde with Anna Larsson and Robert Dean Smith didn’t live up to the promise from before the intermission. This was largely due to Luisi allowing the orchestra to completely drown out the singers at every occasion he got. To his very considerable credit, Dean Smith did not let this tempt him to push his unspectacular but very fine voice—clear and unmannered—through the orchestra. It would only have sounded crude and he wouldn’t have had a chance, anyway. To the extent one heard him sing, there wasn’t much by way of inflection or text-coloring, but diction and pronunciation were exceptional.
Interestingly enough that same did not apply to Mme. Larsson, a model of stylish restraint and taste in her sleek black dress, as tall as Luisi with rostrum. Her voice is, in the low registers, deliciously haunting as ever… but hard—impossible, actually—to understand throughout the other registers, with a strange hollow quality to boot, as if you get the surrounding of a beautiful voice, a halo… but never quite the center. Luisi didn’t seem to care or mind about the voices and was busily engaged in an admittedly very lively accompaniment that completely dominated the affair. Eventually the liveliness faded, too, the energy level became inconsistent and in Der Abschied only musical moments remained, but no arch that carried one through to the end. Larsson’s “Ewig… Ewig!” was lovingly muted but one could only make out “Eeeehhhhh…-something”. I’m willing to assign blame to the hour of the day; AM-Mahler is probably just not a good idea.

Mahler Festival Leipzig: Salonen - Dresden - Third Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Märkl - MDR SO - Tenth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Nezét-Séguin - BRSO - Seventh Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Gergiev - LSO - First Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Gilbert - NYPhil - Fifth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Zinman - Tonhalle Zurich - Sixth Symphony
Mahler Festival Leipzig: Harding - Mahler Chamber Orchestra - Fourth Symphony

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[1] Luisi resigned from that orchestra in a (perfectly justified) huff and puff when the new management bungled big time and didn’t even deign to inform him that his slated successor, Christian Thielemann, would conduct his, Luisi’s orchestra in a New Years TV Gala performance in 2010.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Brief: More Mahler Edition

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

• 
  If you missed out on solemnizing the 100th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's death this past week, have a listen to this online recording of the eighth symphony led by Christoph Eschenbach with the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Prague. [France Musique]


• Also, ARTE is hosting an entire Mahler cycle on its video Web site, including the performance of the 10th symphony Jens reviewed earlier today. [ARTE Live Web]


• Christine Brewer writes about how to share classical music with kids. My impressions of teaching music appreciation sorts of courses are quite similar. It's not about preaching or speaking down to kids about how great classical music is. All you have to do is explain why you like it, help them explore it, ask leading questions so they can discover it. La Brewer helped a class of 12-year-old students learn about Britten's War Requiem. [Deceptive Cadence]


• It's official: New York City Opera is leaving Lincoln Center. [New York Times]


• Stones from destroyed houses in Palestine have been brought and built into an outdoor art installation in the Cour Napoléon of the Louvre. [Lunettes Rouges]


• Watch an online video of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in action with Daniel Barenboim. [Cité de la Musique Live]


• You may remember when 18-year-old Marie-Elisabeth Hecker won the Rostropovich Competition in 2005. Hear what she sounds like now, in a concert with the Orchestre de Paris. [France Musique]


• Jessica Duchen, having disparaged the music of Hubert Parry at Will Windsor's wedding, has a look at "the real Parry," simultaneously praising and yet still assassinating his music. [The Independent]


• Gautier Capuçon and Thierry Escaich appear as soloists with the Orchestre de Paris, also viewable via online video. [Cité de la Musique Live]


• For your further online listening pleasure this week, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Ensemble Intercontemporain playing music by Ligeti, Herrmann, Harvey, and a world premiere by Unsuk Chin, Christoph Eschenbach (at the piano) and friends in a song recital, John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven, and Alexandre Tharaud playing Mozart with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. [France Musique]