Stirb in mir, Welt: Bernarda Fink's Bach

Bach Solo Cantatas (BWV 35, 169, 170), B. Fink, Freiburger Barockorchester, dir. P. Müllejans (released on February 10, 2009) Harmonia Mundi HMC 902016

Our own Jens Laurson, in a recent survey of recordings of the four solo cantatas for alto composed by Bach, pointed to this new release from Bernarda Fink as a good option for those inclined against countertenors. We have been quite taken by many of Fink's recordings and were predisposed to enjoy this recording. So, I have been surprised while listening to it to find myself not that happy with it. The grain of woody vibrato, adding dark heft to her Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito or her Phèdre in Hippolyte et Aricie, here seems to go against the purity of the texts she is singing. Fink has recorded Bach before, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, John Eliot Gardiner, and René Jacobs, all to good effect, but bad form at the recording sessions or a nervousness about carrying the performance alone seems to have colored the suavity of her line. This is the latest in a bevy of solo Bach discs from singers at the moment, including others by Natalie Dessay and David Daniels, but none of them has been a knockout. The best part of this disc is the playing of the Freiburger Barockorchester, directed by violinist Petra Müllejans, with really fine obbligato solos from various members. The Vocalconsort Berlin is sturdy on their portion, the simple chorales that conclude the cantatas. When Fink is on, as she is in many of the tracks, it is quite lovely, but something about the tone does not convince my ears of the withdrawing from the world described in the texts.

76'20"

Kissin Triumphant in Prokofiev and Chopin

Evgeny Kissin returned triumphantly to Washington for his biennial Washington Performing Arts Society-sponsored recital, on Sunday afternoon in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Both his recitals and his recordings have come in for some high praise here at Ionarts, and this performance was no less laudable. Kissin's best playing, as shown in the live recording made at the 2006 Verbier Festival, is in Chopin, providing just the right combination of loneliness and technical furor. Even better balance can be provided by Kissin's other specialty, demanding Russian repertoire, as found in his 2005 Strathmore recital (Medtner, Stravinsky's Pétroushka Suite) but not his 2007 recital (restrained Schubert, excellent Brahms and Beethoven). The music of only two composers passed through Kissin's hands this time, in a beautifully unified program of Prokofiev and Chopin.

Opening with Prokofiev's Three Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, op. 75, Kissin captured Juliet's flightiness in restless runs, the wild romp of Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and the heavy-footed dance of the Montagues and Capulets, orchestral in scope and marvelously differentiated in voicing. That was a pleasing overture to the meat of this recital, an unforgettable performance of Prokofiev's eighth sonata (B-flat major, op. 84). From the opening note of the first movement (Andante dolce), which Kissin set gently and sweetly in place with such deliberate care, this was a display of patient craftsmanship, alternately elegiac and then restive in the inquieto sections. The piece has never much appealed to me, by comparison to the flashier Prokofiev sonatas (no. 2, no. 7), but Kissin's case was persuasive, giving the second movement (Andante sognando) the feel of someone fallen asleep outside a dance hall, with chromatic chord alterations soft-pedaled and Kissin's velvety touch making time seem to stand still. Finally, the third movement (Vivace) was an outrageous toccata that rumbled with trumpet-like fanfares through to its booming conclusion.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Kissin Is Dexterous but Lacking in Emotion (Washington Post, March 3) John von Rhein, Evgeny Kissin, wunderkind no longer, brings mature insights to Chopin and Prokofiev (Chicago Tribune, February 24)

In a less bombastic all-Chopin second half, the Polonaise-Fantasie (A-flat, op. 61) had a wandering, improvisatory quality that evolved seamlessly into more metered polonaise sections, with an appropriately operatic abandon in the right hand's Bellini-esque flights. The multiple-trill section was flawless and fluttering, and the immense ending had just enough technical perfection while also giving the sense of being emotionally off the hook. A set of three mazurkas showed Kissin stretching the tempo too much at times (op. 41, no. 4) but hitting just the right melancholy tone of Chopin's mal de pays in others (especially op. 59, no. 1). The concluding set of etudes, a selection from opp. 10 and 25, appeared to get Kissin slightly flustered because the audience applauded after an astounding performance of op. 10, no. 12 4, as well as when the set actually ended (after another passionate "Revolutionary" etude). Most startling to my ears were the three selections from op. 25, a sparkly, not buffoonish "wrong note" etude (no. 5), geysers of thirds at impossible speeds (no. 6), and a supremely polished no. 11.

As if the first half were not enough of an indication that Kissin should record more of the Prokofiev solo literature, he focused on Prokofiev in his three encores. (After hearing eight encores in 2007, one could not help feeling a little disappointed.) After a fluid, expansive Chopin nocturne (op. 27, no. 2) Kissin brought down the house with two Prokofiev selections, Devilish Inspiration, Op. 4, No. 4 and the March from Love for Three Oranges. Both were hard-fingered heart-stoppers, just the way this kind of Prokofiev works best.

Compare Russian pianists with the next concert from WPAS, a recital by Olga Kern at Strathmore (March 22, 4 pm).

On the Radio: NSO

Tune your radio dial to 90.9 FM on the first Wednesday of the month at 9 pm to hear NSO Showcase, broadcasts of recent concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra. Here is the program of this evening's installment:

March 4, 9 pm
Bach, St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244)
Helmuth Rilling, conductor
Soloists: Kate Royal, Ingeborg Danz, Thomas Michael Allen, Lothar Odinius, Christian Gerhaher, Georg Zeppenfeld
University of Maryland Concert Choir, Children’s Chorus Of Washington

This was, I recall, a noteworthy performance. Here is what our own Jens Laurson had to say about it back in 2006:

The Bach passions can center around the Evangelist, who does the lion’s share of the work, or shift to Jesus (not entirely inappropriate, either, come to think of it) when the latter is more outstanding than the former. With the notable Christian Gerhaher as Jesus, that’s exactly what happened. Strong, mature, pleasant, full of character – his was an outstanding performance. He was, in more than one way, to Jesus what Peter Schreier was to the Evangelist – and equally put his stamp on the performance, equally dominates the memory of the night. This is not to say that Lotha Odinius’s Evangelist was sub-par – far from it. Although not exactly stentorian, he delivered a felt performance that only got better the more he sang. His voice is less strong in the upper registers but compensated with a nicely ringing middle and lower register. Bass Georg Zappenfeld did well as Judas, Pilate, Peter, Second Priest et al., especially taking to “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,” the work’s last aria. In timbre he was surprisingly close to Mr. Odinius, ever nimble, solid, never roaring. Tenor Thomas Michael Allen (a.k.a. Tom Allen) showed a large, operatic voice as the second priest and in a few arias.

Rilling, with a Message from Bach (Ionarts, April 14, 2006)

Out of Frame: Gomorra

During a school trip to see Greek and Roman ruins in southern Italy last summer, we spent several days in and near Naples. We did not stay in Naples, for both convenience -- most of the sites we visited are outside the city -- and unease at exposing students to the city's risks. You may recall that last summer was the height of the garbage crisis in Naples. Because the city's household waste disposal system ground to a halt, bags of garbage were piling up in the streets. As summer came and the temperature rose, the stench became unbearable and people began to light the piles of garbage on fire. When police and fire companies came to put the fires out, residents threw rocks at them and worse.

Our tour guide, who was not from Naples, and our bus driver, who was a native Neapolitan, both blamed the garbage crisis on the Camorra, the infamous Neapolitan mafia. According to them, the Camorra controlled the city's garbage dumps and took money from other cities in Italy and around Europe, to put their garbage in the Neapolitan dumps. Soon there was no place for Neapolitan garbage to be taken. As reported on NPR, author Roberto Saviano claims that the problem goes much deeper. His book, Gomorra, was adapted (by director Matteo Garrone, Saviano, and a daunting committee of screenwriters) into a disturbing movie of the same name, made in 2008 but just recently released in the United States. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year and and has been praised to the skies by just about every film critic whose opinion I respect. Naturally, it did not even make the shortlist for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, even though it did win the Golden Globe in that category.

Other Reviews: Washington Post | Los Angeles Times | San Francisco Chronicle | New York Times | Wall Street Journal | Roger Ebert | Anthony Lane | The Guardian | DCist | Rotten Tomatoes

The film follows several strands of the Camorra's most infamous crimes: the sale of drugs in the desperate assisted housing projects of Scampia (one of the most notorious drug markets in Europe), the intimidation and assassination of gang rivals and their families, the counterfeiting of haute couture designs, the brutal control of business interests, and worst of all, the illegal dumping and burial of toxic waste on farms and other land. Garrone has made possibly the least glamorous, most authentic mob film ever, casting many real Neapolitans in minor roles and taking the gritty, bleak, often hand-held camera into the Naples and Campania that few get to see. The opening sequence, an unexplained multiple assassination in a tanning salon, is bathed in a blue, otherworldly glow, the victims in their booths resembling time travelers in space ships. Indeed, Gomorra takes place in another world, the dialogue authentically peppered with so much Neapolitan dialect that it was generally impossible for me, with my middling Italian, to follow and was reportedly even difficult for many native Italians not from Naples.

What is so depressing about the film is how inevitable the Camorra is in the lives of the people shown. The conflicts are all between rival gangs within a loosely confederated organization: the police and the government are glimpsed from time to time but rarely even figure in the calculation. In the grandest gesture of irony, elder Camorra bosses seem the most moral actors in the story, reluctantly accepting the necessity of assassinating two young knuckleheads who have stolen their cache of weapons or justifying the poisoning of land with toxic waste as a way to relieve Italians of their debts. This certainly fits with how our bus driver described the Camorra, so deeply embedded in Neapolitan society that they function mostly out of underground tunnels and bunkers, a second city underground for the black market. As this man put it, even if the police were willing to try to take on the Camorra, it would require much greater firepower than they or anyone else had (not even the U.S. Marines, as he put it). Perhaps now that the Camorra is even interfering with the production and sale of food, the thing most sacred to all Italians, it has gone too far.

In the Washington area, Gomorra is playing exclusively at the Landmark Bethesda Row cinema.

March Concert Planner

After a holiday break that lingers from December through February, all of Washington's classical music cylinders really get firing again this month. We start with my favorite, early music.

KEEPIN' IT HIP:
>> Members of Washington Bach Consort perform one of Bach's most powerful cantatas, Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (BWV 12), in their monthly series of free noontime cantatas at the Church of the Epiphany (1317 G St. NW) tomorrow (March 3). Staying with Bach, the Washington Bach Consort performs Bach's Great Organ Mass later in the month at National Presbyterian Church (March 22), although we have to miss it to catch the Academy of Ancient Music performing all of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos the same afternoon at George Mason University Center for the Arts (March 22). Jessica Duchen may not care for Handel, but you will probably enjoy Handel's Brockes Passion as performed by Cantate Chamber Singers at St. John's Norwood Parish in Chevy Chase (March 20).

>> For a new twist on something old, try what should be a fine performance of Mozart's Requiem Mass, with Jun Märkl conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore, with vocal soloists including soprano Christine Brandes and mezzo-soprano Susan Platts. The work is paired, unusually, with Stravinsky's score for the ballet Apollo (March 5 to 8). In honor of its exhibit of Dutch cityscapes, the National Gallery of Art is presenting concerts of early Dutch music by the NGA Vocal Arts Ensemble (March 8), Harmonious Blacksmith (March 15), and the Egidius Kwartet (March 22). The Folger Consort's Mosaic program, with soprano Ann Monoyios, brings together medieval songs from Spain and Cyprus at the Folger Shakespeare Library (March 13 to 15). Smithsonian Chamber Music Society performs a program of Haydn's Trios for the Esterházys, including some featuring the baryton, at the Renwick Gallery (March 15).

FOUR BY FOUR:
>> If it's string quartets you want, put yourself down for the free concerts by the Belcea Quartet, shown at left (March 5), and Quatuor Ébène (March 13), who have received high marks from Jens, at the Library of Congress. Also, the Auryn Quartet will give the annual series of free concerts known as Schubert, Schubert, and Schubert, joined by pianist Menahem Pressler, at Georgetown (March 20 to 22). If you are willing to drive to Baltimore, the Brentano Quartet joins with Peter Serkin at Shriver Hall (March 8). Pro Musica Hebraica presents the Biava Quartet at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (March 19), the Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts the Ariel Quartet with violist Roger Tapping (March 22), and the Library of Congress presents the New Zealand String Quartet with Richard Nunns, playing traditional Maori instruments (March 27).

MAKE IT MODERN:
>> If it's contemporary music you want, you should know about the Mobtown Modern series at Baltimore's Contemporary Museum. Their next concert is a Sequenzathon, a performance of (nearly) all of Luciano Berio Sequenzas (March 3). Tickets are only $10 (students, $5). The Cathedral Choral Society will give a rare performance of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd, a setting of Walt Whitman's poem in tribute to Abraham Lincoln, at Washington National Cathedral (March 8). The Leipzig String Quartet will play music by Takemitsu, Hosokawa, Tan Dun, and John Cage on a free concert at the Freer Gallery of Art (March 11).

>> The same evening, the Snark Ensemble will perform new scores by Catholic University composers as accompaniment to the screening of silent films at CUA's Ward Recital Hall (March 11). In conjunction with their exhibit of Robert Frank's photographs, the National Gallery of Art is presenting its 63rd American Music Festival in a series of free lunchtime concerts: pianist David Amram (March 4), pianist Peter Vinograde (March 11), Jessica Crash and the NGA String Quartet (March 18), and the New York Chamber Soloists (March 25). Finally, do not miss the Bang on a Can Marathon featuring composers Terry Riley and Glenn Kotche at Clarice Smith Center (March 29).

88 KEYS:
>> Till Fillner, shown at right, continues his complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas, begun at the National Gallery of Art in December, with the three sonatas of op. 2 and the Appassionata, op. 57, in a concert sponsored by the Embassy Series at the Embassy of Austria (March 4). Jonathan Biss joins the National Symphony Orchestra for a Mozart concerto (March 19 to 21). Lukáš Vondrácek, a 20-something Czech prodigy who will be taking part in the Van Cliburn Competition this spring, will be performing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the same time, playing the first Chopin concerto (March 19 to 22).

>> Other pianists worth hearing include Olga Kern in a WPAS-sponsored solo recital at Strathmore (March 22); the contemporary music specialist Gilbert Kalish, in a concert with Philip Setzer, violinist of the Emerson Quartet, and pianist Paul Epstein at the National Museum of Natural History (March 22); Michael Sheppard with his Monument Piano Trio in the Mansion at Strathmore (March 23); Alexei Volodin playing the fourth Beethoven concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, sponsored by WPAS in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (March 28); and a solo recital by Richard Goode sponsored by WPAS at Strathmore (March 29); and Alan Mandel will play an all-American program in a free concert at the National Gallery of Art (March 29).

SING SWEET AND LOUD:
>> Both may be past their prime, but the joint recital by Frederica von Stade and Samuel Ramey, sponsored by WPAS in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, is a major event (March 25). A younger singer you will want to hear is soprano Susanna Phillips, who will be giving a recital with pianist Craig Terry sponsored by Vocal Arts Society in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (March 26). Washington National Opera's production of Peter Grimes, Britten's modern masterpiece, will feature performances by Patricia Racette, Christopher Ventris, and Alan Held (March 21 and April 4). Get out there to support the little opera company that could, Baltimore's Opera Vivente, in their English-language production of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea, with the lovely soprano Ah Hong in the title role (March 6 to 14). Keep the Mendelssohn flame alive with the Catholic University School of Music performance of the composer's Elijah at St. Matthew's Cathedral (March 20 and 22).

MISCELLANY:
>> Playwright and actress Heather Raffo, shown at right (full disclosure -- Heather is a high school friend of mine), will perform with jazz trumpeter and Iraqi santoor player Amir El Saffar in a concert derived from Heather's Nine Parts of Desire at the Kennedy Center Family Theater, as part of the Arabesque Festival (March 6). Playwright and librettist David Henry Hwang will give a lecture at Clarice Smith Center (March 10). Cellist Steven Isserlis will give a recital with pianist Connie Shih at Clarice Smith Center (March 13). The Russian National Ballet Theater will perform Prokofiev's Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty at the George Mason University Center for the Arts (March 20 and 21). Lara St. John, the violinist known principally for having posed topless (well, partially covered by her violin) for an album cover, will be at the Barns at Wolf Trap (March 20). On a much more serious note, Vadim Repin will perform the Brahms violin concerto with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted not by Yuri Temirkanov but by Yann Pascal Tortelier (March 26 to 29). Finally, James Ross will conduct the University of Maryland Symphony in a performance of Mahler's 5th symphony at the Clarice Smith Center (March 27).

Fun with Ethan and His Orchestra

Humor, spot-on observations of life, love, Tupperware, pets, and many unexpected twists... Ethan Lipton brought his orchestra to the Vermont Arts Exchange's Basement Music Series in Bennington, Vermont, on Saturday night and blew us all away. I awoke the next morning with a smile, thinking about Greg Aguilera, the king of accounting, so wry, so good.

Lipton, a New York-based singer, songwriter, and playwright, masterfully weaves sophisticated often hilarious parables from the simplest moments in our lives, what will really fit in that Tupperware container or as in the tune Old People Don't Whisper, the beauty of growing old together is, we become more alike (he gets large breasts and she grows a beard).

Ethan Lipton continues a long tradition of observational story telling: John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Frank Zappa, the Gershwins. He cherishes the mundane, and with whit, charm, and tight back-up from Eben Levy on guitar, Ian M. Riggs on bass, and Vito Dieterle on sax, the simple and mundane become the puzzle pieces we've been searching for and Ethan has had them in his pocket all along.

Update: New York Magazine's best lounge act! Cool Ethan.

Ionarts at Large: A Mahler Supreme & a Lulu to Die For

When Mahler’s Fourth Symphony is coupled with the Lulu Suite of Berg in concert, one might expect Mahler through the prism of modernity, perhaps à la Gielen. Not so, however, with Daniele Gatti. In the Munich Philharmonic’s concerts from February 26^th through 28^th, it was instead Berg approached from his most romantic side.

There’s never enough time to rehearse this big orchestral works of the Second Viennese School. Phrases could always be made to melt into another yet more organically. But given the unavoidable limitations of the modern orchestra business, the MPhil did Gatti proud with its warm, soft-cornered rendition. Given the shimmering, elusive beauty of the Rondo to the suspended gorgeousness of the Adagio (sounding like Mahler, molten on the hot oven plate of vanishing tonality) it became absolutely inconceivable how I once thought this music to be in the neighborhood of incomprehensible noise. In Gatti’s flowing, horizontal-propulsive interpretation (conducted from memory), the romantic heart beating so passionately under the occasionally forbidding façade of the Lulu Suite became astonishingly obvious. Even the finest recordings—Gatti’s among them—cannot come close to this ardently enrapturing experience.

After the Lulu Suite—so much more easily appreciable than the overlong completed version of the opera—it seemed clear that Berg, not Mahler, would be the highlight of this concert. As if this didn’t already sound close to hyperbole, it should be telling about the quality of the concert that the Mahler turned out the highlight, after all. For that it would have to have been the best Mahler Fourth I have heard—and it was.

The ingredients of that success? Think Mahler’s first two movements as extensions of Peter and the Wolf. Every instrument, woodwinds, brass, strings, even the harp, were distinct characters. Brashly interjecting trumpets, giggling flutes, slurring bassoons were like unruly children, drunken ruffians, eagerly quacking ducks, nervously yelping dogs. A gaggle of individual voices, extraordinary accelerandos and ritardandos, radical pianissimos, seamy portamentos, daring pauses, and all phrases indulged in with gusto, abandon, and great detail. Colors were applied liberally, risks taken, and the two first movements laced with thick humor. The strings weren’t just sighing, they were howling.

Then the third movement (“the better Adagietto”) in perfectly natural earnestness with neatly rehearsed entries and cumulating in clenched intensity. The performance was dotted by those usually rare “wow” moments where you want to look to your seat neighbor in reaffirming disbelief. For the fourth movement I would usually wish for a clearer, more pure voice than Christiane Oelze’s. But just as in the Lulu parts, her rather more earthly than angelic voice fit this performance perfectly with its character and swaying charm. (She has only recorded the Symphony's Chamber Version, so far.)

This Mahler at once redeemed the sad performance of the Ninth last year and goes a long way in (re-)establishing the Mahler credentials of the orchestra that premiered this (Fourth) Symphony under the baton of the composer. Gatti meanwhile, who was thwarted by difficult acoustics when I last heard him in Garmisch and Bayreuth, proved that special quality that I hear musicians attest him for a while now. As hard as it is to believe that the man has never been the music director of a top symphony orchestra, it’s easy to give credence to rumors that after its English interlude, the next MD of the Berlin Philharmonic (2019) will not be German, but an Italian again.

Berg, 3 Pieces for Orchestra op.6, Lulu Suite, RCO / Gatti - RCO live 08004 Available on Amazon.com Available on Amazon.co.uk Available on Amazon.de Available on Amazon.fr

Mahler, Symphony No.4, Haitink, Schäfer, RCO, RCOlive 07003 Available on Amazon.com Available on Amazon.co.uk Available on Amazon.de Available on Amazon.fr

In Brief: Lent I Edition

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

• You knew it had to happen -- you can now follow Ionarts on Twitter. I'm still sorting the whole thing out, but if you use Twitter and have a suggestion about how we should be using it, please let me know. [Twitter]


• Congratulations to a student of mine, Wesley Mann, who won the D.C. State Competition of Poetry Out Loud on Monday night. WAMU has some audio of one of Wes's recitations. [Washington Post]


• Jessica Duchen lights up her comment list and hit stats with a rattle-the-cage feature about how she hates the music of Handel. This is a tried-and-true critical device -- Anne Midgette doesn't care for Brahms, Jens Laurson finds Donizetti tedious, I hate most Rachmaninoff and am bored to tears by a lot of Tchaikovsky -- and it's sure to get people's dander up, which is just what the author wants. There is always someone who will accuse you of musical heresy, but it's all just a matter of taste. No one has to like Handel, of course, but do the accusations she levels really make much sense? Handel was endlessly prolific (so was Schubert); Handel had commercial success (so did Richard Strauss); Handel recycled his own music and borrowed from others (so did Bach); Handel's opera libretti were convoluted (Wagner, anyone?). All it really came down to is that Jessica had to sing Handel as a teenager and now hates his music. Fair enough. [The Independent]


• "Brian" just has to rub it in about how Los Angeles Opera has James Conlon and not Washington: "The heir to Esa-Pekka Salonen as the leader of all things musical in Los Angeles is not in fact Gustavo Dudamel. (At least not yet.) No, the person who has more or less already assumed that mantle is none other than James Conlon." [Out West Arts]


• As a Proust nut, I am compelled to buy Paintings in Proust, by American painter and art critic Eric Karpeles. He has tracked down all the references to art works in Proust's books, reproducing nearly 200 reproductions of the works across from the relevant quotations from Proust. Proust has come into my mind every time I stepped into the Sistine Chapel because of how Swann pathetically connects Odette to the figure of Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, in a Botticelli fresco in the Sistine Chapel. In fact, I wrote about Swann's allusions to art way back in the infancy of this blog. [La Libre Belgique -- Wall Street Journal]


• Bad news about the famous prehistoric paintings in the caves at Lascaux. After the infamous invasion of white fungus that forced the caves to be closed to the public, another fungus is causing indelible black spots to appear on an estimated forty paintings dating from 17,000 B.C. Specialists are meeting in Paris to decide what to do. [Le Figaro]