Angela Hewitt, David Zinman with NSO

Great Symphonies, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, D. Zinman (Sony, 2014)

This summer David Zinman retired as music director of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. Before the birth of Ionarts, we enjoyed listening to him conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and were sorry to see him leave Charm City, but thanks to his series of recordings from Zurich, now available in a box set from Sony, we have kept in touch with his work. So it was a homecoming, in a sense, when the American conductor took the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra last night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, for the first time since 2009. The skilfully arranged program focused again on classics of the early 20th century: after Webern and Schoenberg last time, here it was Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, paired with Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, from which it is not too distant, in time or character. Unfortunately, many listeners who would have benefited from the lesson Zinman offered probably saw the name of Schoenberg and stayed home.

Mozart, Piano Concerti 22/24, A. Hewitt, National Arts Centre Orchestra, H. Lintu (released on July 8, 2014) Hyperion CDA68049 | 63'20" Mozart, Piano Concerti 18/22, Ronald Brautigam, Die Kölner Akademie, M. A. Willens (released on April 29, 2014) BIS-2044 | 59'01"

The scholar Carl Dahlhaus noted, in his book Schoenberg and the New Music, that Schoenberg's op. 16, composed in 1909, is one of the pieces that "divides the New Music from the nineteenth century." However, it is also "bound up with the tradition of programme music, the very tradition that was the quickest to become obsolete in the twentieth century and which fell into disrepute as representing all that was bad in the nineteenth century," an element that marks a continuity in this program between Schoenberg and Richard Strauss. Zinman conducts with a no-nonsense and authoritative beat that is such a breath of fresh air by comparison to Christophe Eschenbach, and Zinman left no fat on the bone in his approach to this Schoenberg, either in the barbaric march-like qualities of the first movement or the solo cello- and celesta-marked aura of nostalgia in the second.

Here is a primer of the possibilities of a large orchestra and a much broader understanding of what is "acceptable" in terms of dissonance. As Dahlhaus put it, before Schoenberg arrived at the ordering concept of the twelve-tone system, Schoenberg's music was informed by two ideas: "the difference between consonance and dissonance is one of degree, not of kind," and "tonality is not a natural law of music but merely a formal principle." The third movement is associated with Schoenberg's coinage of the term "Klangfarbenmelodie" (see Dahlhaus's book for an assessment of what Schoenberg meant), and here the floating orchestral colors smoldered inside their slowly changing static state, capped by shocking climaxes in the final two movements. As to what story the work might be telling, Schoenberg chose to remove the programmatic titles added to the movements at the time of the work's publication. Dahlhaus observed that Schoenberg's decision was unequivocal: "Extramusical premisses did indeed exist, but he did not 'give them away'; they did not belong to the work itself, merely to the circumstances of its creation, which were the private concern of the composer."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Workmanlike NSO, Zinman offer a blurred look back at Central Europe (Washington Post, October 10)

With that in one's ears, it was easy to draw connections to Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra on the second half, again propelled by the urgency of Zinman's incisive gestures. The performance was good, with a lush solo string ensemble and a nice mixture of orchestra with the imposing organ, and twittering piccolos in dialogue with the raucous E-flat clarinet later. Zinman guided the climaxes of sound, especially with the midnight ringing of the massive chime, which the player had to ascend a ladder to strike. (This dramatic moment made quite an impression on Miss Ionarts, who made her debut as an attendee at an NSO subscription concert.)

In the middle, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 (E-flat major, K. 482) was disappointing, not because it is not an ingenious and eminently likable piece, which it certainly is, but because the soloist, Angela Hewitt, and the orchestra were too often at odds. Hewitt is a gifted recitalist, where she has the freedom to shape each phrase in minute detail exactly to her liking; straitjacketed by an orchestra accompanying her, her performance often felt rushed and a little jumbled, except when she was playing completely by herself. The second movement featured her best playing, as well as excellent turns by the orchestral musicians in the section for wind ensemble and the funny flute-bassoon duet -- this is the first Mozart concerto to feature clarinets in the orchestration, and the use of the winds is extraordinary. Hewitt's cycle of the Mozart concerti has not become a favorite, either, possibly because it is in competition with the always surprising and endearing cycle by Ronald Brautigam on pianoforte -- both soloists released their versions of no. 22 this year within a couple months of each other.

This concert repeats tonight and tomorrow (October 10 and 11, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Dover Quartet's Kennedy Center Debut

Charles T. Downey, Dover Quartet’s Kennedy Center debut shows why they should be on must-hear list
Washington Post, October 10, 2014

Conservatories are churning out young new string quartets at a dizzying rate, but lovers of chamber music should put the Dover Quartet on their to-hear list. The group, formed at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music in 2008, swept the Banff International String Quartet Competition last year. Its local debut, last October as part of the Candlelight Concert Series in Columbia, Md., was a triumph, and its Kennedy Center debut, at Wednesday night’s Fortas­ Chamber Music Concerts season opener in the Terrace Theater, was... [Continue reading]

Dover Quartet
Music by Glazunov, Mozart, Schubert
Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Welcome to the Dover Quartet (Ionarts, October 7, 2013)

A Brilliant Dance of Cut Paper, Matisse @ MoMA

I’ll say it right off: Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs will be one of the Museum of Modern Art’s most popular exhibits. Over a half million visitors paid a visit to the the Tate Gallery to see this show on its first stop this past summer. It’s a soul-lifting dance of floating shapes of color. It's a garden of simplified elegant perfection that flows from gallery to gallery. The curving other-worldly beauty of Zuma, one of my favorites, shown left, the quartet of deconstructing Blue Nudes or, familiar to Washingtonians, the National Gallery of Art's Large Decoration With Masks: this show is out to please in every way.

Towards the end of his career, unable to stand on his own due to major colon surgery, Matisse began composing using scissors to cut paper shapes, which an assistant would arrange directly on the wall of his studio with pins and tacks. There is vintage film footage in the exhibit, which documents the process, and it is fascinating and eerie to watch. It's the master at work, as an assistant holds the paper, turning it for him with each cut. Bold shapes of brilliant color, the subtle nuance of a change in hue or the exposure of a white shape: this process took Matisse to a conclusion that he may never have achieved with paint alone. Unencumbered flatness, a pure vibration as colored shapes interact.

This new format was a perfect medium for the artist to use in illustrating the Jazz publication or decorating the vestments for the Rosaire Chapel. The flatness made for powerful graphic imagery, perfect for the many reproductions that we have all grown accustomed to. However, Matisse apparently didn't care for how his work looked in this format. What you will never grasp in reproductions are remains of the pin pricks, the uneven edges of cut paper and the three-dimensional effects of overlap–embracing, glued paper. It's a very different experience.


After a five-year restoration to restore its original color and form, Matisse’s Swimming Pool returns as a centerpiece to this exhibit. Designed as his own personal pool, it once graced the walls of his apartment in the Hôtel Régina in Nice -- everyone in!

This show runs from October 12 to February 8. Timed tickets are necessary. If you have ever considered a membership, this may be a good time to do it: no waiting in lines.

Opera Lafayette Brings Rameau to Life

Rameau, Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, C. Santon-Jeffery, C. Sampson, B. Staskiewicz, R. van Mechelen, Le Concert Spirituel, H. Niquet (released on October 28, 2014) Glossa GCD921629 | 113'36"

The last time that Opera Lafayette played the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, with Gluck's Armide in 2010, it was a triumph. The company returned to the venue on Monday night, with a house not quite as full but still respectable and very enthusiastic, to give a rare revival of Rameau's Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, an unusual ballet héroïque from 1747. It is not the first in the modern era, a distinction that falls to Le Concert Spirituel, a performance at Versailles to be released on disc later this month: see my review yesterday for more background on the work. Opera Lafayette gave the piece a not unwelcome modern twist, engaging three different dance companies working in different styles to choreograph the dances that are interspersed with the music.

The musical side had its ups and downs, but this was a mostly satisfying evening. French bass François Lis's Canope stood out for a booming voice, perhaps too booming at times and at others almost out of control toward the top, that gave sonic thrill to the overflowing of the Nile in the second entrée. Soprano Ingrid Perruche, matched with him as the nymph Memphis, used her searing tone and grand presence to give affecting weight to her character's more plaintive moments. In the big roles of Orthésie and Orie, soprano Claire Debono could fill the room with sound but did not seem quite the right type of voice for either role, where one missed a lighter ease at the top. Jeffrey Thompson had an even odder stage presence here, in the haute-contre roles of Osiris and Aruéris, than he did earlier this year in Philidor's Les Femmes vengées, which was exceeded by his affected vocal mannerisms, squeezing out top notes (except for some of the highest ones in the first entrée, which he did not quite get) and exaggerating straight-toned crescendi.

Some voices, like soprano Kelly Ballou (Amour and other small roles) and mezzo-soprano Laetitia Spitzer Grimaldi (Hymen and other small roles), would have fared better in the Terrace Theater but were often swallowed up in the larger acoustic. Regrettably, tenor Aaron Sheehan was under-utilized in smaller roles, where he excelled. With the orchestra placed at the back of the hall's large stage, the sound of the woodwinds was a little muted, perhaps justifying Hervé Niquet's doubling of all of the wind parts on his recording. The placement of conductor Ryan Brown with the musicians also caused a few problems in coordinating with the singers, in spite of a video monitor placed at the edge of the stage for the cast. The chorus sounded strong and was always on the mark, although their location in the chorister seats above the stage took them out of the action in a way that went against the integration of music, dance, song, and visuals -- all flowing into one another without boundaries -- that Rameau and his librettist, Louis de Cahusac, were after.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Opera Lafayette celebrates 20th anniversary, and Rameau (Washington Post, October 7) James R. Oestreich, Those Dancing Gods of Love (New York Times, October 12)

The only element that was missing was the stagecraft, the wondrous mechanical stage effects that made Baroque opera into the spectacle it was. Aside from minimal staging, some evocative lighting, and pretty costumes, it was the dancing by three different companies, in choreography created by their respective directors, that bridged the gap. Catherine Turocy's New York Baroque Dance Company provided the period-appropriate courtly dance, with heels and masks, familiar from any number of Opera Lafayette's performances, while Anuradhu Nehru's Kalanidhi Dance gave a subcontinental twist to the Amazons in the first entrée. The most striking was the vocabulary of modern dance movements drawn on by Seán Curran's self-named company as the Nile gods, in shiny aqua unitards, who bolted down the hall's aisle and washed, wavelike, over the stage as the surging waters of the Nile.

This performance will be repeated tomorrow (October 9, 7:30 pm) in the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in New York.

Hokusai Exhibit at the Grand Palais

Katsushika Hokusai, Severed head, Private collection
In Paris a new exhibition of Edo-period prints by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) has opened at the Grand Palais, where it remains until January 18. The selection of artworks, by design, excludes shunga, the pornographic images common in the period, whose notoriety would have overshadowed the rest of the exhibit. About half of the works on display, 175 of 320, will be changed out when the exhibit is closed temporarily from November 21 to 30, meaning that those who visit both before and after those dates will be able to see more than 500 works in all, more than have ever been shown together in the West. An article by Harry Bellet for Le Monde (L’incomparable leçon de dessin d’Hokusai, October 5) has the details (my translation):

The paper does not tolerate light well, even though the light in the Grand Palais has been cleverly filtered by the lighting technician Philippe Collet. The exhibit directors claim that the new works will be "equivalent prints, often coming from the same series, and that the paintings on silk and paper will be replaced with works of comparable type and quality."

"Incomparable" is the right word: all you who draw, come here to take a lesson from Master Hokusai. In the history of this art, there are, to be brief, the Lascaux caves, Dürer, Holbein, Ingres, and him. The exhibit opens with some of his successors, the first of them and not the best ones: those who, in France, discovered his work following the reopening of Japan in 1858, which allowed the spread of the ukiyo-e prints, the "pictures of the floating world." Félix Bracquemond was at the origin of a long series, including some of the impressionists, and Degas, and Lautrec, and Van Gogh, and Bonnard... Wisely, this section is limited to one room, the first: this could be the subject of an entire exhibit.

The rest shows, in chronological order, the works from the artist's long life. Hokusai was born a half-dozen times. The first time, the real one, in 1760. He then had the name given him by his parents, Tokitaro. At 18, as a student in the workshop of Katsushawa Shunsho, he made his first prints under the name Shunro. With each change of style, a modification of his name. He was called Sori in 1794, when he worked in the style of the Rinpa school but gave that name to a student when he decided to go by Hokusai in 1798. He is known by at least three others later, including Gakyo Rojin Manji, or "Manji, the old man mad about painting." He was in his 70s at that point and died fifteen years later, in 1849, regretting not having made it to the age of 110, which he estimated was the last stage necessary to achieve the fullness of his art.

The image shown above, drawn by Hokusai between 1804 and 1818 on a fan with Chinese ink and tiny touches of color, may reveal the artist's awareness and absorption of European drawing techniques, because he creates a sense of volume through shading. See more images here.

Briefly Noted: Rameau's 'Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour'

Rameau, Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, C. Santon-Jeffery, C. Sampson, B. Staskiewicz, R. van Mechelen, Le Concert Spirituel, H. Niquet (released on October 28, 2014) Glossa GCD921629 | 113'36" S. Bouissou, Jean-Philippe Rameau (Fayard, 2014)

This past September 12 was the 250th anniversary of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau. The composer's works have had a rough ride, passing into near-total obscurity by the end of the 18th century, then revived in nationalist editions that exaggerated and misrepresented their achievements in orchestration. Sylvie Bouissou has shepherded the long-delayed complete Rameau scholarly edition to completion in time for the anniversary, and one of the last works yet to receive a modern performance, Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, edited by Thomas Soury, came out last year. Rameau and his librettist, Louis de Cahusac, created this ballet héroïque for a public production but had to shelve it when the Dauphin's first wife died. When the Dauphin was remarried, in 1747, they had the work in hand for the celebration, after adding a prologue showing the reconciliation of Cupid and Hymen, thus recontextualizing the work for the wedding. It was premiered in the Manège of the Grande Écurie at Versailles, for this was still about twenty years before construction began on the opera house there.

Hervé Niquet did not use the Soury edition for this recording, made last February at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, but a version created by Fannie Vernaz (Les Éditions des Abbesses) for the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, which sponsored the performances. Niquet's ensemble, Le Concert Spirituel, makes beautiful sounds: sweet flutes, brilliant trumpets and timpani in the finale, and avian piccolos in the birdsong scene that concludes the first entrée, as well as two musettes, or bagpipes, in the dances of the Egyptian shepherds in the final entrée.

The cast is led by the piping, crystalline soprano of Chantal Santon-Jeffery, who takes the parts of both the Amazon princess Orthésie, who leads that birdsong scene, and the triumphant Orie in the final entrée. Soprano Carolyn Sampson has several excellent turns, as Cupid and Memphis, Canope's beloved nymph in the middle entrée. Two haute-contres, the very high French tenor, are required, and Reinoud Van Mechelen and Mathias Vidal are valiant if not quite ideal. The recording makes a case for the ear to go with the astute booklet essay by Benoît Dratwicki, artistic director of the CMBV, which claims that Cahusac and Rameau likely thought of this work as "the prototype for a complete theatrical spectacle, where verse, dance, music, and decoration together add up to a coherent and diverting entity for the audience."

Washingtonians can hear a rare live performance of this work this evening, presented by Opera Lafayette in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (October 6, 7:30 pm).

Perchance to Stream: Early Music October Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• Marcel Pérès leads Ensemble Organum in a program called "Les Extrêmes," bringing together music from Italy, Spain, and Morocco, recorded at the Abbaye de Royaumont. [France Musique]


• Listen to Parisian polyphony of the 13th century for the Office of St. Louis, in a program called "Speculum Maius" performed by Dialogos and conducted by Katarina Livljanic. [France Musique]


• Listen to a performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo from the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, recorded last July, starring Christian Gerhaher and Anna Virovlansky and conducted by Ivor Bolton. [France Musique]


• Christophe Rousset leads a performance of Rameau's Zaïs with Les Talens Lyriques and the Choeur de Chambre de Namur, starring Julian Pregardien and Marie Arnet, recorded in July at the Beaune Baroque Festival. [ORF]


• Paul McCreesh leads a performance by the Gabrieli Consort and Players, with music in honor of St. Cecilia by Purcell and Britten, recorded at the Freiburg Sacred Music Festival. [ORF]


• Hear another side of the conducting of the late Christopher Hogwood, in selections from concerts he led with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France between 1998 and 2003. [France Musique]


• Music on the story of Orpheus by Rossi, Charpentier, Clérambault, and Rameau, with Ophélie Gaillard, the ensemble Pulcinella, and Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, recorded in the Eglise Notre Dame de Pontoise. [France Musique]


• Jonathan Cohen leads a performance of music by Rameau with Les Arts Florissants and soprano Anna Reinhold. [RTBF]


• Live from the Wigmore Hall, the English Concert plays music by Bach, Vivaldi, and Telemann. [BBC3]

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Dip Your Ears, No. 175 (Janowski’s Lohengrin)

R.Wagner, Lohengrin M.Janowski / Berlin RSO & Chorus / G.Groissböck, K.F.Vogt, A.Dasch, S.Resmark, G.Grochowski et al. PentaTone

I’ll Have My Swan Medium-Fast

Conductor Marek Janowski is regarded more for competence and diligence than excitement and spectacular moments and not all his many recent recordings are equally successful. We’re not talking Peter Schneider solid-bland-boring, but not exactly Thielemann-splendor, either. But the ambitious project of recording all major Wagner operas (live) for Pentatone on SACDs with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin and the finest crop of current Wagner singers are shaping up very nicely, indeed.

Franz-Josef Selig, who was Janowski’s Gurnemanz on the Parsifal recording, described the veteran conductor’s approach thus: “Janowski… listens to the whole thing to get an idea of where everyone’s at and then he tells you what has to be changed. The rhythm here, or something stronger or softer there, and all the while he has the grand arch in mind… a view of the whole. That’s very fluid and perhaps a bit too fast for some. And there was once a concert performance of the Good Friday music under him where I thought ‘why can’t you give me a bit more time’. But on the recording everything is very organic and nothing ever seems too fast.”

His Parsifal, gorgeous though lacking a little profundity, is breezy. Lohengrin’s swan doesn’t swim too swiftly, though, and Janowski gets wonderful performances from his singers led by Anette Dasch (Elsa) and Klaus Florian Vogt (Lohengrin). If you can like Vogt’s chorister-tenor-timbre, he’s the foremost Lohengrin of our time; perfect for this introverted role and never in need of shouting. Susanne Resmark makes for wonderful, seductively sordid Ortrud: no wonder Gerd Grochowski follows her willingly to his own doom. The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra—and in this opera especially the Radio Chorus Berlin—contribute very much to these recordings being as beguiling as they are. Janowski and the singers get credit for moments of utmost delicacy and graceful singularity.