Perchance to Stream: Kairos 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.

• Myung-Whun Chung conducts Mahler's sixth symphony, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. [France Musique]


• Watch a performance of Rain, a ballet created in 2001 by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and her dance company, Rosas, mounted this year at the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris. It is set to Steve Reich's Music for Eighteen Musicians, performed by the ensembles Synergy Vocals and Ictus, conducted by Georges-Elie Octors. [ARTE]


• Cornelius Meister leads a performance of Boulez's Pli selon pli, with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and soprano Marisol Montalvo. [ORF]


• Listen to Patrick Davin and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France perform Lalo's opera La Jacquerie (1895), in a production starring Véronique Gens, Nora Gubish, Charles Castronovo, and others, recorded this summer in Montpellier. [RTBF]


• Gustavo Dudamel leads a performance of Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, with tenor Andrew Staples, the Choeur de Radio France, La Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, the Simon Bolivar Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. [France Musique]


• Watch Alice Sara Ott play Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, with conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada also leading performances of Brahms's first symphony and Falling Time to the End by Atsuhiko Gonda. [ARTE]


• Watch an evening of ballets by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker at the Opéra de Paris: three works set to music by Bartok (fourth string quartet), Beethoven (Die Grosse Fuge), and Schoenberg (Verklärte Nacht). [ARTE]


• Pianist Stephen Hough plays a recital of music by Schubert, Franck, Liszt, and Hough, recorded at the Barbican Hall in London. [BBC3]


• Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Philharmonic in music of Britten (Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge) and Shostakovich (fourth symphony), recorded in August. [ORF | Part 2]


• The Ensemble Pygmalion performs music of Bach, Schütz, and other composers of the German Baroque, recorded at the Festival de Royaumont. [France Musique]


• Gottfried von der Goltz leads the Freiburger Barockorchester in music of Bach, Handel, and Corelli, recorded last April at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. [ORF]


• From the Mecklenberg Festival in Northern Germany earlier this year, Martin Helmchen plays Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, plus a Haydn piano trio with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and more. [BBC3]


• Dennis Russell Davies conducts mezzo-soprano Nora Gubisch and the Orchestre Français des Jeunes in music by Mendelssohn, Chausson, and Sibelius (first symphony) at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. [France Musique]


• Markus Stenz leads the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in music of Schumann, Strauss, and Unsuk Chin (Su, her new sheng concerto), recorded in Glasgow. [BBC3]


• From last month, a performance by the Apollon Musagète Quartett, of music by Dvorak and Schubert, recorded at the Schubertiade Hohenems. [ORF]


• La Maîtrise de Radio France performs a tour of European choral music, with pianist Anne Le Bozec. [France Musique]


• Recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, the London Philharmonic under Markus Stenz performs Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Beethoven's first symphony, and Thomas Larcher's Violin Concerto. [BBC3]


• Herbert Blomstedt leads the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart in Nielsen's clarinet concerto (with Sebastian Manz as soloist) and Bruckner's ninth symphony, recorded last July in Stuttgart. [ORF]


• Music of Mozart, Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo at the Barbican Hall in London. [BBC3]


• Paul Daniel conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Esa-Pekka Salonen's Karawane and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges. [BR-Klassik]


• From the Schwetzingen Festival, Jos Van Immerseel and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra perform music of Haydn, Schubert, including Haydn's cantata Arianna a Naxos with mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland. [RTBF]


• Soprano Ruby Hughes joins the London Handel Players for a Baroque program including two solo cantatas by Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, recorded at the Brighton Early Music Festival. [BBC3]


• Watch cellist Edgar Moreau and the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, under conductor Kazuki Yamada, perform symphonic excerpts of Claude, an opera by Thierry Escaich, the first cello concerto by Saint-Saëns, and the second orchestral suite from Ravel's music for Daphnis et Chloé. [ARTE]


• From Milton Court Concert Hall in London, Oliver Knussen conducts the Britten Sinfonia in music by Mozart, Knussen, and Berg. [BBC3]


• Listen to a recital by baritone Adrian Eröd and pianist Christoph Traxler, with music by Mozart, Holst, Mahler, Schubert, and others, recorded in September at the Schloss Rothschild in Waidhofen an der Ybbs. [ORF]


• In a concert recorded this past October, Olari Elts made his debut with the Bavarian Radio Chor, conducting music by Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür. [BR-Klassik]


• Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott plays a recital at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, as part of the Festival Bach Heritage, recorded this past October. [RTBF]


• Cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca and pianist Amandine Savary play transcriptions of songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Gabriel Fauré, Francis Poulenc, Erik Satie, Henri Duparc, and others, recorded at the Auditorium du Musée d'Orsay. [France Musique]


• Listen to the recording of Auber's opera Le domino noir, with Richard Bonynge conducting Sumi Jo (Angèle d'Olivares), Isabelle Vernet (Brigitte de San), Bruce Ford (Horace de Massarena), London Voices, and the English Chamber Orchestra, from 1993. [ORF]


• A recital by pianist Kit Armstrong, featuring music of Bach, Liszt, William Byrd, Beethoven, and Joohn Bull, recorded last June at the Musikschule Deutschlandsberg during the Klavierfrühling Deutschlandsberg. [ORF]


• Violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist David Fung play music by Dvorak, Prokofiev, and others, recorded at the Auditorium du Louvre. [France Musique]


• From 2012, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, and John Lithgow narrates Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale. [CSO]

Second Opinion: NSO's Mahler Third

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

Mahler, Symphony No. 3, A. S. von Otter, Vienna Philharmonic, P. Boulez (DG, 2003) Mahler, Symphony No. 3, A. Larsson, Berlin Philharmonic, C. Abbado (DG, 2002) [Other Recordings]

Mahler's Third Symphony, a gargantuan affirmation of life is, I believe, his longest symphonic journey. He wrote that it "begins with inanimate nature and ascends to the love of God," and, I might add, puts in just about everything in between. The Third Symphony declares in its closing choral section a "Joy, deeper still than heartache!" This is, in fact, "heavenly joy." Yearning is not insatiable; it is fulfilled in "a blessed city." Music can hardly aim higher than to express these things. Mahler fascinates endlessly because he attempted the ineffable.

When I heard the National Symphony Orchestra under Iván Fischer perform this work in 2008 at the Kennedy Center, I experienced an interpretation that aimed at a jewel-like, refined beauty. It toned things down a bit to achieve this. On the other hand, a few years later in London (October, 2010), I heard Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra give the Third a more full-throated, rambunctious approach that may be closer to the heart of this phantasmagoric music.

On Friday evening, November 6, 2015, in the second of three performances by the NSO at the Kennedy Center, I expected Christoph Eschenbach’s Third to come somewhere in the middle of these two interpretive stances, with most likely a lean in the Jurowski direction. I am not sure what I ended up getting. In the first and longest movement, Eschenbach kept the line, which is an accomplishment in itself with this sometimes fragmentary music, but it was as an unbroken succession of often delectable moments, beautifully played by the NSO. However, Eschenbach’s signature sense of concentration seemed to be missing. It’s not that anything was out of place, but that the inner spring – that tension which holds together even the most slowly played music – was absent. This is not simply a matter of tempos, which in this case were very broad. For example, the slowest Mahler Second Symphony I’ve ever listened to was by Klaus Tennstedt. He froze the music and achieved a suspension of time, which was not only breathtaking, but extraordinarily tense. I missed the tension in Eschenbach’s first movement. About 25 minutes in, it seemed to jump to life, but then slackened. I was similarly disappointed by the second movement.

Then, in the third movement, everything seemed to come together. Eschenbach and the NSO players achieved a kind of Mendelssohnian charm and magic. The post-horn music, played over deliciously pianissimo violins, was mesmerizing and made for the most enthralling moments of the evening so far. The double basses achieved something similar in their extraordinarily soft and delicate introduction to the fourth movement. Eschenbach’s tempos continued to be slow but, no matter, his sense of concentration had returned. This level of engagement continued through Anne Sofie von Otter’s beautiful singing of the Nietzsche text and the chorus’s lovely delivery of the angelic message.

Other Reviews: Charles T. Downey, Eschenbach and NSO find coherence elusive in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 (Washington Post, November 6)

The giant extended adagio of the sixth movement is a challenge for any conductor to pull off. Eschenbach was fully in his element here and I thought he rendered it more beautifully than he had the Adagietto in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which he played with the NSO in early May of this year.

Since Mahler embraced and tried to fit the entire world into this symphony, every first desk player gets a chance to shine -- in fact, every section of the orchestra does. The NSO excelled in this respect. The brass were outstanding; the strings were very strong; the winds were delectable; and the timpanists spot on.

The Kennedy Center Concert Hall audience was on its feet to give Eschenbach and the NSO a standing ovation. I can only presume it was for the last four movements.

This concert repeats this evening.

#morninglistening: Itzhak's Bartók-Outing

#morninglistening to #Bartok 2nd VC w/@PerlmanOfficial & @londonsymphony on @WarnerClassic… http://t.co/miKve4Mw9V pic.twitter.com/aczg9ak46X

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 7, 2015

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What the NSO Told Me

Mahler, Symphony No. 3, A. S. von Otter, Vienna Philharmonic, P. Boulez (DG, 2003) Mahler, Symphony No. 3, A. Larsson, Berlin Philharmonic, C. Abbado (DG, 2002) [Other Recordings]

Charles T. Downey, Eschenbach and NSO find coherence elusive in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 (Washington Post, November 6)

Christoph Eschenbach’s tenure at the National Symphony Orchestra is drawing to a close, with his term as music director set to end at the close of next season. The German conductor’s time in Washington has produced several significant achievements, but a great Mahler symphony cycle has eluded him. The season’s major opportunity in this area came Thursday night, with Eschenbach’s first performance of Mahler’s gigantic Symphony No. 3, heard in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Mahler’s Third is a behemoth under the best of circumstances, a work of evening-filling length and often intractable proportions... [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
Mahler, Symphony No. 3
With Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette, Anne Sofie von Otter set to perform in D.C. in November (Washington Post, October 30)

Eschenbach's Mahler Symphonies:
No. 5 | No. 9 | Blumine | No. 4 | No. 5

Mahler 3:
Marin Alsop (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 2015)
Gustavo Dudamel (Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, 2013)
Iván Fischer (Munich Philharmonic, 2012)
Esa-Pekka Salonen (Dresden Staatskapelle, 2011) | Mariss Jansons (Royal Concertgebouw, 2010)
Mariss Jansons (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2010) | Iván Fischer (NSO, 2008)
Claudio Abbado (Lucerne Festival, 2007) | James Conlon (Juilliard Orchestra, 2005)

Bach Collegium Japan

Bach, Brandenburg Concertos / Orchestral Suites, Bach Collegium Japan, M. Suzuki (BIS, 2009) Handel (attrib.), Gloria (HWV deest), E. Kirkby, Royal Academy of Baroque Music, L. Cummings (BIS, 2001)

Charles T. Downey, A triumphant return for Bach Collegium Japan
Washington Post, November 5

Many historically informed performance ensembles perform on original instruments. Some play with exceptional virtuosity; a few expand our understanding of a work by playing it. Bach Collegium Japan, which returned triumphantly to the Library of Congress on Wednesday evening, does all of these things. Beyond that, as demonstrated at this concert perhaps even more than on its last visit here, in 2006, the ensemble is never willing to sacrifice musical instinct and ensemble cohesion on the altar of authenticity.

At the heart of the program were two soprano blockbusters, both sung with limpid clarity and sensitive phrasing by Joanne Lunn... [Continue reading]

Bach Collegium Japan
With Joanne Lunn, soprano
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Lawrence A. Johnson, Bach Collegium Japan makes intimate Chicago debut at Rockefeller Chapel (Chicago Classical Review, October 30)

Mark Swed, Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan's impeccable taste shows at Disney Hall (Los Angeles Times, October 27)

Jens F. Laurson, Bach Collegium Japan: Non nisi mota cano (Ionarts, March 28, 2006)

Briefly Noted: Suzuki Plays the Bach Organ Works

J.S. Bach, Organ Works, Vol. 1, M.Suzuki (released on October 9, 2015) BIS-2111 | 79'26" C. Wolff and M. Zepf, The Organs of J.S. Bach: A Handbook, trans. Lynn Edwards Butler (University of Illinois Press, 2012)

Most of the Baroque-heads of my acquaintance are already champing at the bit for tonight's performance by Bach Collegium Japan, at the Library of Congress (November 4, 8 pm). If, by some chance, you have not already reserved your ticket, they are all gone, but you have a good chance of still getting a seat if you show up early and wait on line for an unclaimed spot. (Next year, remember to read my Top 25 Season Preview, so you do not miss something like this.) The program features two major soprano showcase pieces, Handel's recently rediscovered setting of the Gloria (HWV deest) and Bach's solo cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, to be sung by Joanne Lunn, plus instrumental pieces by Bach and Vivaldi.

Masaaki Suzuki founded Bach Collegium Japan when he returned to his homeland after graduate studies in organ and harpsichord in the Netherlands. His recordings of Bach's cantatas and other choral works are acclaimed, and he has been slowly working his way through the instrumental works. This is the first installment of what will eventually be a complete recording of the organ works, and it is delightful listening. Suzuki has chosen to begin this odyssey on the beautifully restored historic organ of the Martinikerk (St. Martin's Church) in the Dutch city of Groningen, built by the German builder Arp Schnitger and enlarged by Albertus Hinsz, all during the lifetime of J.S. Bach. Although this instrument was disastrously altered in later periods, it has been put back to its historic dimensions by Jürgen Ahrend. It makes a gorgeous range of sounds, all captured beautifully on this disc.

As far as we know, Bach never had any connection with this organ or even played on it, although it is not that far out of the sphere of Bach's life. For an absolutely thorough guided tour of the instruments that Bach knew and played on, Christoph Wolff's magnificent study was translated into English a couple years ago and is well worth your time; for example, Bach certainly knew other instruments built by Arp Schnitger in Germany. A selection of works shows off the Martinikerk instrument's range, with a full registration in the G major fantasia, BWV 572; the buzzy tuning, sometimes hair-raisingly rural, of the reed stops in the F major Pastorella, BWV 590; some feather-light finger- and pedal-work in the monstrously difficult "Wedge" fugue, BWV 548. The registrations are all colorful and attractive, and the appeal is both purely musical and scholarly, with savant notes on each piece by Prof. Albert Clement, of the University of Utrecht. The only shortcoming, albeit a minor one, is the omission of translations of the German texts of the chorales set by Bach (O Gott, du frommer Gott and Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her), after making a strong case for organists studying these texts to garner clues about how to play Bach's music derived from them.

#morninglistening: Grieg 'n' Grainger, Works for Cello & Piano

#morninglistening to #Grieg et al. with Christian Ihle Hadland and Andreas Brantelid. #cla… http://t.co/0pIXjh3zbQ pic.twitter.com/BRG5YhT7vI

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) September 20, 2015

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Classical Music Agenda (January 2016)

Bass viol by Barak Norman, 1692 Metropolitan Museum of Art

The New Year is just around the corner, so it is not too early to start planning your concert schedule. Here are our Top Ten concert picks for the month of January.

EARLY MUSIC:
Some of the most beautiful music you have likely never heard was composed for the viol consort, a set of instruments rarely heard anymore. In its first concerts of the year, the Smithsonian Consort of Viols will perform music for the combination by John Dowland and William Lawes (January 9 and 10), in the unusual setting of the Smithsonian Castle National Museum of American History.

One of Europe's leading historically informed performance ensembles, Europa Galante, comes to Baltimore's Shriver Hall with their leader, violinist Fabio Biondi (January 17). They will perform their intriguing Diario di Chiara program, already reviewed on disc.

The Folger Consort's New Year concerts at Washington National Cathedral are pushed later into the month this year. The group shares the stage with Stile Antico and Arcadia Viols in a program marking the 500th anniversary of Shakespeare's death (January 22 and 23).

ORCHESTRAS:
The National Symphony Orchestra's parade of guest conductors continues in the New Year, with an appearance by Neeme Järvi, who will conduct Sibelius's second symphony and Eller's Five Pieces for String Orchestra. Violinist Baiba Skride joins for Prokofiev's first violin concerto (January 14 to 16).

Jakub Hrůša conducts the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an unusual combination of Janáček's Jealousy and Brahms's fourth symphony, plus violinist Sergey Khachatryan in the Sibelius violin concerto (January 30 at Strathmore; January 29 and 31 in Baltimore).

Washington Performing Arts presents the Orchestre National de France, with Daniele Gatti at the podium for Dutilleux's Métaboles and Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony, plus Julian Rachlin as soloist in Shostakovich's first violin concerto (January 31), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Bach, Sacred Arias and Cantatas, D. Daniels, English Concert, H. Bicket (Virgin Classics, 2008)

CHAMBER MUSIC:
Washingtonians should take advantage of opportunities to hear pianist Brian Ganz. The next one is a solo recital of Chopin, the latest in the series sponsored by the National Philharmonic in the Music Center at Strathmore (January 9).

A cancellation by bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk on the series of Vocal Arts D.C. yielded an unexpected upgrade, a concert by countertenor David Daniels and pianist Martin Katz in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (January 31). Music by Purcell, Handel, Brahms, Hahn, and Vaughn Williams will be featured.

The Arditti Quartet returns to Washington on the same day, with a concert at the Phillips Collection (January 31). The program includes the Washington premiere of Pascal Dusapin's Quatour V (2004–2005).

DANCE:
The first major visit of the ballet season is American Ballet Theater's production of the historically renewed version of The Sleeping Beauty by Alexei Ratmansky, which will take over the Kennedy Center Opera House at the end of the month (January 27 to 31). The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra provides the sounds of Tchaikovsky's score.

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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