Musical America Blogs

by Sedgwick Clark

In the past two weeks I heard two concerts I’ll never forget, both at Carnegie Hall. 

The first was on February 17, with my favorite European orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, playing my favorite Mahler symphony, the Third. The CGB was Mahler’s favorite orchestra and its music director, Willem Mengelberg, the only conductor other than himself who performed the music the way he intended. I’ll bet he would have approved Mariss Jansons’s conducting on this evening, which reminded me of Horenstein’s noble interpretation. Even if I prefer a slower tempo in the finale, the music unfolded naturally and without the impatience he had demonstrated the night before in Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony. And the playing! It was simply stupendous—rich, warm, expressive, unforced musicianship that we modern Americans think of as “old world,” available on our side of the Atlantic only from Philadelphia on its best days (we’ll see if Chicago can reclaim its stature when Muti has settled in). Astonishingly, there was not a single strident note in the entire evening (and no wrong ones, either). The posthorn solo—suitably distant—took one’s breath away, and for once one’s stomach didn’t clutch as the climactic high A approached. To say that the contributions of the mezzo, Jill Grove, and the New York Choral Artists and American Boychoir, were up to the orchestra’s standard is the highest praise I can imagine.

The timbre and style of playing achieved by the Minnesota Orchestra under its music director, Osmo Vänskä, on Monday (3/1) was totally different but no less astounding. Vänskä seeks absolute transparency of texture and perfection of detail and attack. Thus Beethoven’s normally lumbering full-orchestra arrangement (by the late Michael Steinberg in this instance), taken at a ferocious clip, emerged lithe and dynamic, as if played by the world’s finest quartet. The first and second violins were split left-right, and throughout the concert I’ve never heard the seconds make such a strong impression on that side of the stage. To hear the five string bodies converse fortissimo with such unanimity and split-second force was jaw-dropping, but the pianissimos—a Vänskä speciality—arrested the listener’s attention no less. More than once I exclaimed to myself, “My god!”

After intermission came Sibelius’s nationalistic symphonic poem, Kullervo, an 80-minute piece for two soloists, men’s chorus, and orchestra. It tells a grim story about a thoroughly unpleasant “hero” who was separated from his family as a boy and many years later encounters and unknowingly rapes his sister on his way home from paying taxes. He woos her with the words:

“Come into my sledge, my dear,
come under my rug, my darling,
there you shall eat my apples
and crack my nuts at leisure.”

Her entirely understandable response of “I spit at your sledge, you villain, you rat. . . ” ires him to commit his foul deed, and at the end he falls on his sword in contrition. Those who know the composer’s compact later symphonies may be surprised at this early work’s garrulousness, which owes a strong debt to Bruckner, especially in the work’s structure and frequent lengthy pauses, which Vänskä fearlessly honored in full, presumably beating the longest rest clearly so that the audience would not applaud prematurely (it also ensured that his players would not mistake their entrance). Despite its dark story, it’s actually a rip-snorting piece, with Sibelius the inspired melodist and tone painter apparent throughout. The choral passages roar along with Brucknerian panache (cf. the Austrian composer’s Te Deum), and the soloists add high drama to the overall effect.

Kullervo’s New York premiere by the Nashville Symphony under Kenneth Schermerhorn, at Carnegie in 1979, and a Brooklyn Philharmonic performance led by Robert Spano in 1998, were good, but this Minnesota outing was in another league entirely. The wonders of ensemble were jaw-dropping. As usual, Vänskä’s laser-like ear and care for balances revealed hidden treasures in nearly every bar. He must have rehearsed those creepy first-violin downward-slithering pianissimo motives early in the second movement for hours to get such uncanny unanimity. Never were the strings overwhelmed by the brass, as happens with many orchestras, and the woodwinds contributed many distinctive solos. And when, I ask, did you last hear double basses in such perfect, pungent tune? I wonder if the Minnesota players know just how extraordinary their playing was on Monday night? If this was an example of their standard level, the orchestra’s subscribers may be the luckiest in the nation.

The encore, Finlandia, complete with the male chorus in the final bars, was icing on the cake.

Bleeding Olympian Chunks
Was anyone else bothered by the slicing and dicing of music for the ice dancers at the Olympics? Carmen, Scheherazade, Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody—on and on, brutally abridged to match the choreography rather than the other way around. Certainly those involved had no awareness of the jarring juxtaposition of keys.

And then there were a couple of General Electric commercials. The poetic slow movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G served as background to how a woman’s cancer was treated. Three sections of the opening solo piano statement, before the flute and strings enter quietly, were used. Its soothing character was perfect, and I was pleased to hear Ravel receive such exposure, however anonymous. Still, why not allow the music to play as written for the length of the commercial? I’ll think it over when Alexander Toradze plays it on Sunday (3/7) with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski at Lincoln Center.

In a second GE commercial, the famous Beethoven Ninth melody is intoned by children around the world saying “ah” as doctors depress their tongues. That was fun.

By Sedgwick Clark

I just received the press kit for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2010-11 season, announced today, and it’s a humdinger (haven’t used that word since I was in Muncie). The veteran Charles Dutoit, now 73, whose association with the orchestra dates back to 1980, is currently in his second of a four-year appointment as chief conductor while a new music director is being sought, and the new season’s programs glisten with his French-Russian specialties. Most encouragingly, the usual standards are balanced by the music of 12 living composers, including Osvaldo Golijov, Christopher Rouse, Magnus Lindberg, Arvo Pärt, Tan Dun, James MacMillan, and three works by Henri Dutillieux, which seems extraordinary for this conservative organization. The complete 2010-2011 season announcement press kit materials can be viewed online here.

It’s no industry secret that the orchestra is in parlous shape these days due to disastrous decisions from a dusty Board of Directors on down, capped off by the appointment of former music director Christoph Eschenbach, who lacked the support of the players. The orchestra’s “new” home at the Kimmel Center seems never to have recovered from a premature opening at which the acoustician, the late Russell Johnson, let everyone know that Verizon Hall was not ready for prime time. (Nevertheless, while not perfect, Verizon is incomparably superior to the unmusical Academy of Music in which the orchestra labored for nearly a century.) Whatever the reason, the Center hasn’t been sufficiently embraced by Philadelphia audiences and recently cut back on its programs and personnel. After hiring and quickly dispensing with an executive director who had no prior experience running an orchestra, the Board lured Alison Vulgamore—a savvy, hands-on exec with a proven track record—away from the Atlanta Symphony. (Do I hear Robert Spano, anyone?)

She has her hands full: balancing the budget, spearheading the search for a new music director, rebuilding the audience at home, and re-educating the world that this orchestra remains one of the foremost in the world. Which brings me to an infamous article in the December 2008 issue of Gramophone that rated “The World’s 20 Greatest Orchestras.” Not only was the Philadelphia Orchestra not included among the top 20, it was listed with the NBC Symphony—an orchestra that last played in 1954—under a sidebar headed “Past Glories”! I wonder how many of Gramophone‘s critics had heard the orchestra in concert before they voted? Eschenbach took Philly on a European tour last year, the final year of his tenure, but it was too late and, moreover, he was the wrong man in every way. An international tour is crucial as soon as possible after a new (presumably younger) maestro is chosen and the economy allows.

From my vantage point at the orchestra’s Carnegie Hall outings, the Philadelphians remain fabulous. Their corporate sound is intact, and their concerts display nothing of management fumbling. Indeed, the most memorable concert I heard last season was when André Previn led the orchestra in April in one of his typically laid back Mozart concerto performances. It was the 24^th, and it sang from first note to last. When I was younger I thought his Mozart twee, but on that evening his autumnal expressiveness was a balm to the soul, reminiscent of Curzon in the 27^th. The 80-year-old Previn is frail these days but has lost none of his musical powers. After intermission he led, with minimal gestures, a Philadelphia specialty from the Sawallisch days, Strauss’s Sinfonia domestica. One would have thought this oft-maligned work was Strauss’s greatest tone poem. Rarely have I seen such a chorus of smiles from orchestral players as they responded with affection and power, always wrapped in what Stravinsky called a “chinchilla echo.”

Here’s hoping that Dutoit’s well-chosen repertoire for the new season may be the first step to restoring the Philadelphia reputation.

By Sedgwick Clark

Everyone’s been raving about Pierre Boulez’s fountain of youth as he nears his 85^th birthday on March 26. I missed his Vienna Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall on January 16 of music by Schoenberg, Webern, and Mahler. But I caught his pair of Chicago Symphony concerts at Carnegie and was once again riveted by the same revelatory clarity of texture, subtle palette of instrumental color, and vigorous thrust of tempo that first astonished me 41 years ago this month at his initial engagement with the New York Philharmonic. 

Very simply, he changed the way I hear music. From those first four Philharmonic concerts, I cannot forget the harmonic clarity and singing of the cellos halfway through the first movement of La Mer; the unexpected orchestral outburst and dramatic surge of waves at the climax of “Asie,” the first song in Ravel’s Shéhérazade, which nearly propelled me from my seat; the whisper-quiet dynamics in Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; and of course that savage Sacre! His Philharmonic years are still the most exciting of my concert-going life. 

Those qualities were vividly in evidence at the two Chicago concerts: on January 30, in Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Marc-André Dalbavie’s Flute Concerto (2006), and a concert performance of Bartók’s only opera, Bluebeard’s Castle; on January 31, his own Livres pour cordes, Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra, and Stravinsky’s complete Firebird. 

The only (minor) letdown was the Tombeau, which has never seemed to me to fully engage him and was not that well played; I wish he had programmed Debussy’s elusive Jeux, a work he reveres and has always led with peerless lucidity. His concentration was fully in gear for the Dalbavie concerto, commandeering a brilliant accompaniment to Mathieu Dufour’s sparkling flute playing. But it was Boulez’s glittering performance of Bluebeard that remains most vividly in the memory. He has always been drawn to the early works of favorite composers, and in this case he never lets us forget the young Bartók’s many lustrous debts to Debussy. Some listeners may have missed the devastating emotional impact of the Kertész (Decca) and Kubelik (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) recordings, but those anticipating the usual Boulez insights were not disappointed. Mezzo-soprano Michelle De Young and bass-baritone Falk Struckmann characterized their solo roles outstandingly, especially the latter, who was terrifyingly intense.

In the second concert, Boulez’s incomparable ear for balance and the Chicago’s rich bass sonority combined to produce the most luscious performance of the French composer/conductor’s Livre pour cordes I’ve heard. Originally a two-movement work for string quartet (1948), it was revised 20 years later for full string orchestra and has become a genuine crowd-pleaser to judge by the audience reaction. I already wrote about the second work on this concert—Bartók’s recasting of his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion into concerto form—in my February 1 blog. In short, the performance was unsurpassed but I far prefer the Sonata version. The evening concluded magnificently with one of Boulez’s specialties, the complete Firebird, the work that made Stravinsky famous. In his later years the composer seemed embarrassed by the score’s Rimskian opulence and pared down the orchestration for his 1945 suite; and in his early-sixties Columbia recording, which was billed as utilizing “the original 1910 orchestration,” he had the strings play the final peroration with the slashing, sec attacks of the latter suite. Boulez stuck with the sustained, Romantic chords of the original, played to overwhelming effect by the CSO.

Boulez will lead the MET Orchestra at Carnegie on May 16 in Bartók’s rarely programmed folk-nationalist ballet The Wooden Prince and Schoenberg’s expressionist monodrama Erwartung—again, both early works by favorite composers. (Coincidentally, his friend and former Ensemble Intercontemporain colleague, David Robertson, will conduct The Wooden Prince with the New York Philharmonic on February 25-27.)

And then what? The two American orchestras Boulez has conducted and recorded with most often in the past two decades are Chicago, of which he will remain conductor emeritus, and Cleveland.  But their music directors are not likely to give up their opportunities to conduct in New York, especially Riccardo Muti, who takes over Chicago in the fall. It’s doubtful that Boulez will make time for the New York Philharmonic. He says he will greatly reduce his conducting to concentrate on composing. We’ve heard that before, but the passing time may strengthen his resolve now. 

Clearly, the chances of his conducting in New York again diminish rapidly after his MET Orchestra engagement at Carnegie. Wise music lovers will get their tickets ASAP.

By Sedgwick Clark

Beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . stuttered a dying hearing aid battery during Carnegie Hall’s Boston Symphony concert last Monday (2/1). Heads turned throughout the audience, trying to locate the high-pitched nuisance.  Announcements were made before each of the Ravel works on the second half of the program, but to no avail.

It’s safe to say that neither artists nor audience members with adequate hearing could concentrate fully on the performances. But the BSO under James Levine still managed an authoritative reading of Elliott Carter’s Dialogues for piano and orchestra with soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a rousing Berlioz Harold in Italy with the orchestra’s rich-toned principal violist, Steven Ansell, Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand with the masterful Aimard again, and the Suite No. 2 from Daphnis and Chloé. 

My most vivid recollection in this regard was a Philadelphia Orchestra concert conducted by Eugene Ormandy at Lincoln Center on April 23, 1973, when a hearing aid accompanied the Mahler Tenth continuously from first note to last. Ormandy probably had something else on his mind, for he had received a letter stating that he would be shot during the concert if he didn’t perform Deryck Cooke’s 1972 revision of the score instead of the 1964 version. To stem the death threat, a note on the program page explained that he couldn’t conduct the ’72 revision because another conductor had exclusive performing rights. As I recall, the performance was on the fast side.

Lincoln Center tried to solve the hearing aid dilemma in the 1980s. An article in the Times reported that LC’s P.R. director, Joe McKaughan, had pinpointed several of the worst offenders (usually old men) and enlisted the ushers to keep their eyes out for them. LC certainly didn’t want to discourage faithful music-loving subscribers from attending, Joe said diplomatically, but the ushers would be ready with a gentle reminder if one of them misjudged the volume control.

Couldn’t a neighbor have asked the offending noisemaker to desist? I’ve done that in the past. In my opinion, Levine should have stopped the orchestra, turned to the audience, and announced that the concert could not continue until the intermittent noise was located and turned off, which is what Erich Leinsdorf did at a New York Philharmonic rug concert back in June 1977. A camera was discovered, its piercing whistle extinguished, and the concert resumed. 

By Sedgwick Clark

Note to the blogosphere: Sorry, I’ve been in Muncie. But I return with an exciting discovery.

Tamara Stefanovich. Hers was a new name for me until her piano recital of works by Bartók, Carter, Ligeti, and Rachmaninoff last Wednesday (1/27) at Poisson Rouge. Simply put, I was bowled over and urge anyone within Internet distance to hie themselves to any concert she plays. I would say more about that recital now, but Musicalamerica.com editor Susan Elliott has asked that I keep readers in suspense until March for my interview with Stefanovich as the Web site’s New Artist of the Month.

I am allowed, however, to mention last night’s Chicago Symphony concert at Carnegie Hall where she performed with her mentor and fellow teacher at the Cologne Hochschule, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Musical America‘s Instrumentalist of the Year for 2007, in Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra (1940). The destitute Hungarian composer, newly arrived in America, made this orchestral transcription of his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937) at the suggestion of his publisher in hope of widening the work’s appeal and providing a vehicle for himself and his pianist wife during what would be his last years.

Despite the superb efforts by the two pianists, percussionists Cynthia Yeh and Vadim Karpinos, and the Chicago Symphony under Pierre Boulez, the Concerto version is unquestionably inferior, merely gumming up the Sonata’s evocative timbres with superfluous doublings. It should be retired to the curio bin, in my humble opinion, and Carnegie Hall should re-engage the four soloists to perform the Sonata ASAP.

And yet. And yet, my wife and another friend in attendance had never heard either version, enjoyed the Concerto immensely, and are looking forward to hearing the original. So Bartók and his publisher were right.