The Year in Music: North America

By Leslie Kandell

The 20th century has seen its final new work. And now an American musical tradition is clearly, undeniably, in place. Aaron Copland established American classical sound in open-hearted orchestral works and song arrangements that synthesize folk idiom, and for his centennial, the New York Philharmonic mounted "Copland 2000," a 200-event tribute over two seasons. Tanglewood, where Copland famously composed and taught, offered an unusual survey of his film scores and elegiac, French-flavored chamber music, none of which had the Americana clout of the orchestral pieces. The San Francisco Symphony's "Copland the Populist" was the only true non-crossover recording on the summer charts. Even the walls participate in the tradition: Copland's upstate New York home is now "The Copland House," with resident composer and touring ensemble, educational programs, and national membership. Yaddo, where Copland and others composed, celebrated its centennial, as did Boston's Symphony Hall, where many American works were first heard. Other centennials included those of George Antheil, Kurt Weill, and Louis Armstrong, all of whom are identified with central aspects of the tradition. The San Francisco Symphony's "American Mavericks" festival celebrated Antheil, Copland, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison, Steve Reich, and Duke Ellington, whose works now seem more American than maverick.

Opera

At last, the Metropolitan Opera found voices for Tristan and Isolde in Ben Heppner and Jane Eaglen, and brought them east from the Seattle Opera. Reviews of the staging were skeptical, but voices were as advertised and the hours sped. In its 13-year-old Ring, with James Morris, Plácido Domingo, Deborah Voigt, and Eaglen, Stig Anderson looked a little-as it were-dwarfed.

Renée Fleming's first Marshallin, in the Met's Rosenkavalier, had such peaches-and-cream tone that even she was unable to cadge tickets for friends. (A recital tour with songs for her by André Previn, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Jake Heggie was more cautiously received.) The Great Gatsby, John Harbison's nice-try setting of Fitzgerald's novel, had a mixed reception at the Met before moving to Chicago Lyric Opera, its co-commissioner. Opera Theatre of Saint Louis mounted a sympathetically crafted Tremonisha and commissioned The Tale of Genji, Japanese pageantry from Minoru Miki. New York City Opera's first Roberto Devereux since 1974 featured Lauren Flanigan, who was also the compassionate and versatile lead in last year's one-act Central Park operas and Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All. Glimmerglass Opera exhumed John Philip Sousa's The Glassblowers and placed its La Bohème in World War I. (Colline carried a placard reading "Socialistes pour la paix.") Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles Opera's Bruce Beresford production, Rigoletto turned up in Hollywood, with cell phones and a fake swimming pool. Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree, at the Houston Grand Opera, was judged the most heartfelt American opera score since Porgy but was also criticized as warmed-over Floyd.

New Music

A profusion of new works suggests composers' optimism and hope for propagation of the species. For the millennium, the Walt Disney Company commissioned Kernis's monochromatic spectacular, Garden of Light, and Michael Torke's better, eclectic Four Seasons, introduced by the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. Carnegie Hall commissioned or co-commissioned 17 works performed in March alone. Pierre Boulez was in residence, leading the London Symphony in four concerts. Lowell Liebermann was in residence at the Dallas Symphony for the premiere of his single-movement Symphony No. 2 for orchestra and chorus, to Walt Whitman verses (including "The Mystic Trumpeter"). And for the New York Philharmonic, he composed a trumpet concerto that one reviewer found simply too easy to take. Objection to that view came from a New York Times reader stating that music "need not be inaccessible, 'knotty,' 'spiky' or 'jagged' to be challenging-or to be art." "Bang on a Can," downtown's new-music queen, inched uptown to Columbia University's ivory tower with "The People's Commissions," to which 300 donors contributed. The National Symphony commissioned Michael Daugherty's UFO, yet another percussion concerto for Evelyn Glennie, and the Pittsburgh Symphony introduced Christopher Rouse's single-movement Rapture-depicting, said Rouse, "a state of pure bliss." John Corigliano's Mr. Tambourine Man, a song cycle set to lyrics by Bob Dylan, was introduced by Sylvia McNair and Martin Katz. Steven Mackey played electric guitar with the New World Symphony in his Tuck and Roll concerto. Joan Tower's The Last Dance was introduced by the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the fearless, promising Alan Gilbert.

Orchestras

Generating long-anticipated good will, the Milwaukee Symphony traveled to Havana with light European and American repertory. Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League have created "Music Alive: Composers and Orchestras Together"-composer residencies for new orchestral pieces. "Northern Lights," hot music from Finland at the Brooklyn Philharmonic, was "a scintillating program mostly well rendered," with more glory for conductor Robert Spano. Lincoln Center's Great Performers series presented "Northern Exposure," with soprano Barbara Bonney singing Jenny Lind's repertory, and also a concert by the Gothenburg Symphony. The American Composers Orchestra, under Dennis Russell Davies, creates thematic centers: For instance, Barber's Night Flight preceded Weill's The Lindbergh Flight, Laurie Anderson playing her new Songs for Amelia Earhart, and an excerpt from Philip Glass's new The White Raven.

Festivals

Spoleto took a $60-70,000 hit, largely from South Carolina's Confederate flag-placement flap. (At press time, it was waving, but from ground level.) One festival highlight was Heiner Goebbels's wild Surrogate Cities, eclectic in the extreme, composed for Frankfurt's 1200th anniversary. Its huge orchestra was on risers, with extra percussion on scaffolds. A miked female rock singer climbed around, as did a cantorial bass who also shouted and babbled. Just the opposite was Bright Sheng's Silver River, building almost-literal bridges between cultures. It had a small waterfall and a trough leading to a downstage pond, in which ceremonially dressed Chinese and other singers sat, while the narrator spoke and sang in English.

At the Lincoln Center Festival: Louis Andriessen's Writing to Vermeer, a not-yet opera with words by Peter Greenaway, based on an event in Dutch history, had what was called a "spectacular liquid finale," with gallons of water representing opened dikes. Reinbert deLeeuw conducted new works in a series called "Electronic Evolution." Peter Serkin made his usual eloquent case for Messiaen's giant meldings of Catholicism and bird calls in From the Canyons to the Stars. At its 1974 premiere, the composer's wife performed in a Pierre Cardin dress the colors of Bryce Canyon; Serkin did not. "Voice Travel," a Meredith Monk retrospective at the Festival, showed Monk's well-known imagination as composer, conductor, and singer.

Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music looked back on the 20th century, plucking out durable works. Elliott Carter, 91-whose brainiac little opera What's Next?, with a libretto by critic Paul Griffiths, was performed in February by the Chicago Symphony under its commissioner Daniel Barenboim-was in residence at Tanglewood for the premiere of his song cycle Tempo e Tempi. Carter's new ASKO Concerto, heard in Amsterdam before Tanglewood, was performed by its namesake ensemble at the Lincoln Center Festival. The 25th "June in Buffalo" festival, in the shadow of Morton Feldman, mixed music of the deans-Glass, Reich, Charles Wuorinen, Bernard Rands-with that of emerging composers.

Cycles

Bach's death 250 years ago inspired cycles of his complete cantatas and complete organ works, and concerts of Bach as it sounded in his time-we guess. Yo-Yo Ma, who recovered his Stradivarius cello after forgetting it in a taxi, had it refurbished for a Bach concert with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Recordings were released of the cello suites transcribed for viola and for bass fiddle. Collegium Vocale Gent's wonderful B-minor Mass turned the Mostly Mozart festival into blatantly Bach; because of his slow tempos, Philippe Herreweghe was described as "the Wilhelm Furtwängler of the early-music movement."

Completing a highly praised Shostakovich cycle, the Emerson Quartet staged the composer's last string quartet. The format seemed to acknowledge that audiences get restless staring at near-identical concert stages while subordinating vision to hearing. Luciano Berio's 14 Sequenzas were performed at one four-hour gulp at Tanglewood's new-music week. Berio continues to compose in this form, so future gulps should be approached with caution. Bard College weekends uncovered rarely performed works by Beethoven, whose neglect was revealed as self-explanatory.

Linkups

The way to information, and the amount of it available, is changed forever. Schedules, librettos, bibliographies, fan clubs, reviews, even listening to concerts on tour-it's all on one-or-another Web site, with reviews by whoever happens to post one. (Disagree? Make your case in a chat room.) The visual factor is in force: Disney's shortened Fantasia sequel (with James Levine as-well-Stokowski) anointed The Firebird, Rhapsody in Blue, and Pines of Rome as digital successors to the first version. With monitors and hidden microphones, Zubin Mehta led a televised production of La Traviata filmed in four Paris locales, with the actors on scene and the orchestra elsewhere.

Musical Chairs

Zarin Mehta, Ravinia Festival president and CEO, is Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic, succeeding Deborah Borda, who moves to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's post was taken by Welz Kauffman, late of the New York and (fleetingly) Los Angeles Philharmonics. Nathan Leventhal, Lincoln Center's mild-mannered president, stepped down after 17 years of innovative management, including plans for the 40-year-old center's $1.5 billion renovation. Gerard Schwarz leaves the Mostly Mozart festival after 20 years as its music director. John Crosby handed the reins of the Santa Fe Opera to Richard Gaddes. Cho-Liang Lin in for David Finckel and Wu Han at SummerFest La Jolla. Andreas Delfs succeeds Hugh Wolff at Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Kent Nagano became principal conductor of the Los Angeles Opera (where Plácido Domingo is artistic director), and Pamela Rosenberg succeeded Lotfi Mansouri as manager of the San Francisco Opera, whose music director, Donald Runnicles, added the post of principal guest conductor at the Atlanta Symphony. That orchestra's incoming music director is Robert Spano, energizer bunny of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Yuri Temirkanov brings the Baltimore Symphony a more traditional European repertory than did his predecessor, David Zinman. Jahja Ling succeeds Leonard Slatkin as director of the Blossom Festival, Paavo Järvi succeeds Jésus López-Cobos at the Cincinnati Symphony. Hans Graf succeeds Christoph Eschenbach at the Houston Symphony. Itzhak Perlman, new principal guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony, is going around conducting major works with major orchestras: It must be refreshing for the master violinist to become a learner again. Ned Rorem, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, plans to add "Music" to its title.

New Performance Spaces

The Cleveland Orchestra's resplendent Severance Hall underwent a $36 million procedure to make it look as if it were too young to have been renovated or restored. (Sir Harrison Birtwistle, not American, composed the overture for its opening.) Carnegie Hall is cutting through bedrock to create a 680-seat auditorium underneath its present space. The Keystone Center for Music and the Arts, in the Poconos, will serve as a summer home for the Pittsburgh Symphony, with other orchestras making regular guest appearances. The Toronto Opera House is still mired in quarrels, but Toledo Opera is thrilled to be in the beautifully renovated old Valentine Theatre. Yale's new four-story Gilmore Music Library houses its famed collections, providing hi-tech seminar rooms and studios.

EDU: ALL AGES

Carnegie Hall's "Perspectives" series gave Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, and Maurizio Pollini with the Arnold Schoenberg Choir short residencies in which to explain what they believe and do, and then do it: conducting, playing piano, or in Barenboim's case, both. After a meeting of Manhattan public school superintendents, Isaac Stern gave them a violin lesson-and, to their surprise, they loved it. For "The Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book," Tan Dun, Chen Yi, Wolfgang Rihm, Frederick Rzewski, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Milton Babbitt, Hannibal, Carter, Harbison, and Andriessen composed intermediate-level works. Ursula Oppens coached "students" who joined her in performing them. "Intermediate" may need redefining.

James Levine led the opening program of the Verbier Festival's Verbier Youth Orchestra, whose players were coached by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Also under the Met's eye, Brooklyn public school children compose and produce operas. City Opera, after attending the Met to check the competition, joined Cooper Union in reviving a public showcase for excerpts from operas by new composers.

Teenagers who now participate in the Texaco Opera Quiz first compete to be selected as panel members for the radio show. "What instrument does Yo-Yo Ma play?" was a $32,000 question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented six concerts with its resident Orion Quartet performing the complete Beethoven canon, with free tickets distributed throughout New York City. (Its opening presentation included violin students of Roberta Guaspari, who was portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film Music of the Heart.) The New York Philharmonic has an interactive web area for young people called Kidzone, with audio clips, puzzles, and an instrument storage room.

Symphony orchestras across the country have been moving into schools. A Boston Symphony pilot program sends players into western Massachusetts schools, establishing a year-round presence near its summer home. Ivy league and similar colleges are accepting more students who have already begun performing careers, from such places as Professional Children's School. Eastern Connecticut State University, as punishment for campus infractions, takes students to the opera. (Some say they would rather pick up trash.)

Glory and Honor

Most prominent: Japan's Praemium Imperiale to Hans Werner Henze; a Kennedy Center Award to Plácido Domingo; the Pulitzer Prize to Lewis Spratlan; the Prix de Rome to Michael Hersch. Thomas Adès won the Grawemeyer Award for his 22-minute Asyla, for orchestra. The Polar Music Award was shared by Stern and Bob Dylan. Less lucrative but equally reputable are the Naumburg Award, to the Miro String Quartet and Eighth Blackbird. David Shifrin and Edgar Meyer each won an Avery Fisher Prize, and Avery Fisher Career Grants went to clarinetists Igor Begelman and Anthony McGill as well as cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who made a sweet debut recording for EMI. To honor the Copland centenary, 7,000 schoolchildren voted to give David Mallamud's "Par 80" the ASOL/ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Award for Education Programming.

Milestones

George Perle is 85. Stern, 80, was honored at Carnegie Hall, whose main auditorium, which he saved from the wrecker's ball 40 years ago, is named for him. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gunther Schuller, Boulez, and Berio are 75; Charles Wadsworth, 70; Andriessen, 60. The Marlboro Festival celebrated 50 years, under new directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida; Thomas Adès was composer in residence; and anniversary concerts were given in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Young Concert Artists, 40, celebrated with alumni concerts that included resident artist Mason Bates.

Obituaries

In the year 2000 and shortly before, the music world recorded the loss of composers Alan Hovhaness, Leo Smit; violinists Felix Galimir, Oscar Shumsky, Arnold Black, Donald Whyte; pianists Gaby Casadesus, David Golub, Friedrich Gulda; early-music specialist Bernard Krainis; flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal; baritone Louis Quilico; organists Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, Vernon de Tar; opera company founder Sally Amato; musicians' agent Thea Dispeker; and Helen Quinn, self-appointed manager of the Met's standing room line.

Leslie Kandell is music critic for the regional sections of The New York Times. She also writes for The Berkshire Eagle and other newspapers. She contributes to Opera News, American Record Guide, and Stagebill.