#morninglistening: Hashtag Jean Muton

#morninglistening to #JeanMouton, who is rarely used as a hash tag.
With the ensembles Dia… http://t.co/grNFdP4Zlg pic.twitter.com/xPwameN9H5

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) October 12, 2015

Read more »

CD Review: Divine Redeemer

Divine Redeemer (music by Bach, Franck, Gounod, Reger, et al.), C. Brewer, P. Jacobs (released on September 11, 2015) Naxos 8.573524 | 61'22"

Charles T. Downey, Divine Redeemer: Christine Brewer, Paul Jacobs
Washington Post, February 3

A new album of Christian devotional pieces by a major opera singer, while part of a long tradition, might turn off some listeners. On her new disc, “Divine Redeemer,” the celebrated soprano Christine Brewer, together with the equally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs, moves beyond cliche with a varied selection of music that she approaches with a sincerity that reflects her start singing in church in her Illinois home town.

There are only a couple of pieces that might set off chestnut alarms. César Franck’s “Panis angelicus” is offered, thankfully, in a version closer to its original form, in the “Messe à 3 voix,” than the schmaltzy arrangements with oohing chorus often heard now. Jacobs plays the organ arrangement in a way that recalls Franck’s original scoring for cello, harp, and organ, with the cello melody on a solo stop and the closing arpeggios rendered in a harp-like way... [Continue reading]

Divine Redeemer (music by Bach, Franck, Gounod, Reger, et al.)
Christine Brewer (soprano) and Paul Jacobs (organ)

Something Missing from 'Une éducation manquée'

(L to R) Sopranos Amel Brahim-Djelloul and Sophie Junker in Une Éducation Manquée, Opera Lafayette (photo by Louis Forget)

People should perform the music of Emmanuel Chabrier more than they do. The good folks at Opera Lafayette have done their part, adding Chabrier to their list of revivals of 19th-century operas. On Tuesday evening in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, the company presented a staged version of Chabrier's Une éducation manquée, a charming one-act operetta composed two years after L'étoile. On the basis of what I have heard so far, put me down for any performances of Chabrier's other comic operas or his serious work Gwendoline.

The libretto, by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo, recounts the dilemma of a young married couple, played by two sopranos, who have reached their wedding night without really knowing about what they are supposed to do with each other when the lights are out. The husband, Gontran, calls back his drunken tutor, Master Pausanias, to berate him on account of this deficiency in his education, but the elderly abbé is not much help. Only when lightning and thunder strike, driving the wife, Hélène, into her husband's arms, does the hapless couple figure things out.

Soprano Sophie Junker was a wide-eyed Hélène, with some bell-like top notes and a beautiful overall tone, with soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul a little more tested at the high end but showing a charming boyishness in the trouser role of Gontran. Baritone Dominique Côté had smart comic timing as Pausanias, if some tentative qualities on the high parts of the role. Opera Lafayette extended the short work to about an hour of music by introducing the opera with four of Chabrier's charming animal-themed songs (Villanelle des petits canards, Pastorale des cochons roses, Les Cigales, and the hilarious Cocodette et Cocorico, in which a hen and rooster find each other). For these scenes director Bertrand Deletré created little vignettes showing the charmed youth of the two leads, played by an adorable group of child supernumeraries.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, An evanescent French rarity by Chabrier returns to the stage (Washington Post, February 4)

Chabrier debuted the opera, in a semi-private performance, in his own piano reduction, but that does not seem like a sufficient reason to forego the composer's orchestral version of the score. Pianist Jeffrey Watson did the piano version justice, with probably unnecessary direction from conductor Ryan Brown, creating an intimate ambiance as heard from the close rows. Perhaps a future project could focus instead on Darius Milhaud's expanded version of this opera, created for Sergei Diaghilev in 1924, with Milhaud's recitatives and new number (Couplets de Mariette) for Hélène.

This performance repeats Friday and Saturday, at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York.

#morninglistening: Musorgksy / Bare Mountain Pictures & Gergiev

#morninglistening #mussorgsky @mariinskyen @ValeryGergiev... http://t.co/e9URrPHDBp pic.twitter.com/iBKUjArwyy

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) January 21, 2015

Read more »

ONF de Retour

Debussy, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, I. Huppert, Orchestre National de France, D. Gatti (Radio France, 2012) Debussy, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (inter alia), Orchestre National de France, D. Gatti (Sony Classics, 2012)

The last time that the Orchestre National de France was in Washington, at the Kennedy Center in 2008, the late Kurt Masur was at the podium. On that tour, the main course was delicious Bruckner, with a slightly odd Beethoven concerto with pianist David Fray. For their latest appearance, presented by Washington Performing Arts on Sunday afternoon in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Daniele Gatti reversed the concept, with a rather boring choice of symphony preceded by a devastating concerto.

Some cities on the tour heard Alexandre Tharaud play a Mozart concerto, which was probably nice enough, but in Washington it was violinist Julian Rachlin who offered a gloomy, mordant, utterly compelling rendition of Shostakovich's first violin concerto. He gave the solo part an intense but whispered tone in the first movement, with Gatti covering the dissonant string chords in a deep shadow, with glimmers of celesta shining through, the rumble of double bass pedal notes, colored with whoosh of the gong and growls of contrabassoon. It could be risky, trying to sustain the listener's interest over this extended movement, but Gatti and Rachlin did so, down to the last floating high note.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Biting Russian music from a French orchestra (Washington Post, February 1) Simon Chin, Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre National de France Perform Debussy, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky (Chin Up, February 1) Jeffrey Gantz, Daniele Gatti, Orchestre National de France shine in Tchaikovsky (Boston Globe, January 26) David Wright, Gatti, Orchestra National de France bring fresh insights to familiar music (The Classical Review, January 26) Natasha Gauthier, Violinist Julian Rachlin lets the audience share in his physical, mental performance (Ottawa Citizen, January 25)

In the second movement, maniacally and metronomically paced, Rachlin made his 1704 "ex Liebig" Stradivarius cackle and sneer, pushing the tone into ugly territory at times. The orchestra crowed in raucous approval when it had its chance to burst forth, to chilling effect, and the tempo of the slow movement, even though too slow for the marking of Andante, had a dirge-like feel to it that was convincing, even over its considerable length. Rachlin had a way of caressing the dissonant notes, making them just as beautiful, and the cadenza grew in force and volume into a triumphant start of the finale.

The Burlesca quivered with anxiety, as Rachlin appeared to rush and jump ahead just slightly here and there, but Gatti recalibrated the ensemble imperceptibly, so it ended up being an impressive tour de force. Sadly, the applause was not sufficient to elicit the encore Rachlin had in store, an Ysaÿe movement he played at Carnegie Hall (which the New York Times apparently did not review). The missed encore may have had something to do with the lack of bodies in the hall: the sales were apparently so tepid that the Kennedy Center closed the upper balcony and had patrons relocate to the floor. For the concert opener, Gatti and the musicians shaped Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with remarkable freedom, without the tempo dragging as it does so often. The result was languorous but not soporific, and along with a pretty flute solo, breathy and sensuous, an orchestra of immense proportions produced a range of delicate, pastel hues. The second half consisted of a performance of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony (not reviewed).

Next on the Washington Performing Arts visiting orchestra series is the Budapest Festival Orchestra (February 15), at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

David Daniels Broadens His Horizons

Handel, Oratorio Arias, D. Daniels, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, J. Nelson (Virgin Classics, 2002)

Countertenors have a limited repertory, because the voice part was just not a solo option for composers in many historical periods. This does not prevent them from trying to claim music created for other voice types, as David Daniels showed in his recital debut at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presented by Vocal Arts D.C. on Sunday afternoon. His voice was not in top shape, with some raggedness at the ends of phrases and shrillness on the top notes -- coughing seemed to indicate he was recovering from something -- which did little to relieve the impression that much of the music he sang was just not meant for this kind of voice. It was still beautiful to hear, as Daniels is a consummate musician with a sure musical taste and a dynamic stage presence.

Beethoven's mini-song cycle Adelaide was a case in point, music composed for a higher voice that tested Daniels at the top of his tessitura. He made most of it work quite beautifully, with a pretty sense of melodic line, but the same problems came to the fore in a set of songs by Reynaldo Hahn. In Hahn's lifetime countertenors were around, singing in church choirs, but that was a tradition with which Hahn had limited contact. A countertenor at the top of his range just does not have the same effect of sound as a soprano or tenor, which came across at the end of Hahn's Paysage, for example. Accompanist Martin Katz, not a finesse pianist, at times almost covered Daniels with forceful playing, making the largely unaccompanied Chanson au bord de la fontaine, a sort of neo-medieval planctus, the highlight of the set, as it featured the quiet beauty Daniels can achieve.

The most incongruous choice was a set of songs by Brahms, who likely would have rolled over in his grave at the sound of a countertenor singing his music. Here Katz was more in his element, giving a beefy sound at the keyboard in these songs, so often predominantly in the lower half of the instrument. High notes were again an issue, as at the climax of Auf dem See, but it was the sounds Brahms likely had in mind at the bottom end that did not match with the countertenor tessitura. Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen is a magnificently gloomy song, with the piano brooding in the bass end in a way that put the spindly countertenor sound in a bad light, and it was almost certainly not what Brahms was thinking of in O wüsst' ich doch either. The best effect came in the lusty folk song set by Brahms, Mein Mädel hat einen Rosenmund, with its eye-winking "Du la la la" refrain.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Daniels, Katz show music is more than mere beauty (Washington Post, February 1) Alex Baker, Blackberry Winner (Parterre Box, February 3)

Not surprisingly, Daniels was most at ease in Baroque music, the bread and butter of all countertenors. Henry Purcell actually knew the countertenor voice and wrote for it, and the breezy melody of Music for a While just sat beautifully in Daniels's compass. Both Katz and Daniels showed a crazy bravado in the kooky I'll Sail upon the Dog Star, and Daniels's gifts at dramatic recitative, combining musical sense and dramatic immediacy, were featured in Sweeter than Roses. While Daniels has not put much on record in recent years, we have always admired his work on stage in Handel and Vivaldi operas. No surprise, then, that he had his best moment in Dove sei, amato bene, an aria from Handel's Rodelinda for Bertarido, a role created by the castrato Senesino. A final set of American folk songs, in saccharine arrangements by Steven Mark Kohn, was mostly just a lightweight lead-in to two encores, Poulenc's tricky La Belle Jeunesse and Alec Wilder's Blackberry Winter, a sentimental favorite of Vocal Arts founder Gerald Perman, to whom Daniels dedicated it.

The next recital in the Vocal Arts D.C. series features tenor Javier Camarena (March 24), in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

#morninglistening: The Tharaud Goldbergs

#morninglistening to @atharaud’s #GoldbergVariations/#Bach on @warnerclassics#classicalm… https://t.co/mw0r6tFkh9 pic.twitter.com/AuTEl5uBMk

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) February 1, 2016

Read more »

Brahms 4 from the BSO

Sibelius / Khachaturian, Violin Concertos, S. Khachatryan, Sinfonia Varsovia, E. Krivine (Naïve, 2004)

After the Brahms first symphony from the National Symphony Orchestra on Friday, it was time for more Brahms from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The fourth symphony was the centerpiece of the program led by Czech guest conductor Jakub Hrůša, heard on Saturday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore. Hrůša, who last appeared with the BSO in 2014 and with the NSO the year before that, led a Brahms 4 that was more my kind of Brahms playing, with the emotions rarely on the sleeve. The orchestra was returned to its normal seating, after Marin Alsop's experiments earlier in the month, and the first movement was tight and clean, from the first beats of the first movement's melancholy first theme, crowned by a big, forceful ending.

After a heroic horn introduction, the second movement had just the right tempo, not too fast, to put that forlorn clarinet theme in the best light, ambling along at its own pace. Only the third movement seemed not quite right, too harried, although it settled into a slightly slower place later. It is already jolly enough with all those triangle rolls, the only time that a percussion instrument other than timpani appears in a Brahms symphony, and the comic metric shifts and hammered accents. The concluding passacaglia had a pleasing solemnity, with intensity more than speed, especially in the slower middle part.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, BSO makes dynamic music with conductor Jakub Hrusa, violinist Sergey Khachatryan (Baltimore Sun, February 1)

Sergey Khachatryan was the soloist in Sibelius's violin concerto, the same piece the Armenian violinist played the last time he appeared with the BSO, a decade ago. The opening of the first movement plays right into Khachatryan's strength, weaving a soft and delicate legato line over those shimmering D minor chords in the divisi violins, playing with mutes. In passages like this he tended to minimize his vibrato, which in louder passages could become a liability, at least for the clarity of tone. The E string playing was generally fine, especially the flautando notes in the third movement, but there was an unfortunate tendency toward flatness in the second movement, where the horns also had trouble staying in tune.

We are big fans of the music of Leoš Janáček here at Ionarts, but his brief orchestral piece known as Jealousy did not convince. This was both because the piece is odd, not really a curtain-raiser as it was offered here, and because Hrůša, who is a specialist in this composer's music, was at his most frantic and hard to understand, at least from the house. It was difficult to hear what either the composer or the conductor was after. One would have preferred something like the Sinfonietta instead.

Guest conductor Mario Venzago and pianist André Watts join the BSO this week, for music by Gluck, Mozart, and Schumann (February 4 to 6).