{"id":4637,"date":"2012-04-25T17:13:50","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T21:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4637"},"modified":"2012-05-24T20:28:11","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:28:11","slug":"dick-clark-dont-r-i-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4637","title":{"rendered":"Dick Clark: Don’t R.I.P."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

The media\u00a0were consumed last week\u00a0by the death at age 82 of Dick Clark (need I say, no relation?). I was never a fan of American Bandstand<\/em>. I came home from school when I was a tot and twisted to Hollywood on Indianapolis TV\u2019s late-afternoon Frances Farmer Presents<\/em> instead of Chubby Checker. There, in her world-weary voice, the aging\u00a0actress introduced the film of the afternoon with anecdotes about the stars. I was too young to appreciate what she had to say, but I recall that her show was interlarded with so many commercials that often I didn\u2019t reach the denouement before my mother called me to dinner. It was many years before I learned who got the girl in Casablanca<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, while America was mourning, I had less charitable\u00a0thoughts about Dick Clark.\u00a0In 1972 the New York Daily News<\/em> ran a\u00a0short interview with him saying that classical music would die because no one wanted to listen to it. “What a moron,” I thought,\u00a0and skewered the piece on the wall of my office at Philips and Mercury Records.\u00a0For some reason I never forgot that\u00a0little news piece.\u00a0It perished in the electrical fire that ignited in the ceiling months later, a little after 6 one evening when I would have been\u00a0at my desk. Fortunately, I was at dinner with Bernard Haitink that night in Boston, where he was conducting Mahler\u2019s First\u2014else my ashes would have forever commingled with Dick Clark\u2019s thoughtless words.<\/p>\n

Van Zweden\u2019s Galvanic Mahler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

And speaking of Mahler\u2019s First, it was the major work led by Musical America<\/em>\u2019s current Conductor of the Year, Jaap van Zweden, in his New York Philharmonic debut on April 12. Talk about intensity! I don\u2019t recall ever seeing a more tightly wound podium demeanor. He cued every last entrance, and the New Yorkers responded with coiled-spring precision. Interpretively, the Dutch conductor fell somewhere between Bernstein\u2019s emotionalism and Haitink\u2019s objectivity, with dynamism in spades. You can\u2019t lose with Mahler\u2019s Triumphal <\/em>conclusion\u2014the horns standing suddenly to pour out their golden tone fff<\/em>\u2014and the audience went predictably wild. What was not predictable was that the orchestra stayed seated, applauding van Zweden as he came out for his first bow\u2014a remarkable gesture of respect from these difficult-to-please musicians. He\u2019ll be back soon, no doubt.<\/p>\n

In the first half, he accompanied the volatile 25-year-old Chinese pianist Yuja Wang in Prokofiev\u2019s Third Piano Concerto. She kept pushing ahead, but van Zweden and his players kept up respectably. The concluding allegro, beginning with the pizz. strings at 131, was dispatched with a breathless edge-of-seat unanimity that I\u2019ve heard equaled only by the mercurial Martha Argerich, Charles Dutoit, and the Orchestre National de France at Avery Fisher Hall on March 18, 1994\u2014the best performance I\u2019ve ever heard live. Message to Yuja: A bit more poise can yield a more satisfying performance overall.<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts:<\/p>\n

4\/26 Metropolitan Opera. Wagner: Das Rheingold<\/em>. Fabio Luisi (cond.). Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Stephanie Blythe, mezzo; Patricia Bardon, mezzo; Adam Klein, tenor; Gerhard Siegel, tenor; Bryn Terfel, baritone; Eric Owens, bass-baritone; Franz-Josef Selig, bass; Hans-Peter K\u00f6nig, bass.<\/p>\n

4\/27 New Jersey Performing Arts Center (Newark). New Jersey Symphony\/Jacques Lacombe; Gil Shaham, violin. Mozart: Masonic Funeral Music<\/em>. Berg: Violin Concerto. Danielpour: Kaddish<\/em> for Violin and Orchestra (world premiere). Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3.<\/p>\n

4\/28 Metropolitan Opera (broadcast). Wagner: Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em>. Fabio Luisi (cond.). Katarina Dalayman, soprano; Eva-Maria Westbroek, soprano; Stephanie Blythe, mezzo; Jonas Kaufmann, tenor; Bryn Terfel, baritone; Hans-Peter K\u00f6nig, bass.<\/p>\n

4\/30 Metropolitan Opera. Wagner: Siegfried<\/em>. Fabio Luisi (cond.). Katarina Dalayman, soprano; Patricia Bardon, mezzo; Jay Hunter Morris, tenor; Gerhard Siegel, tenor, Bryn Terfel, baritone; Eric Owens, bass-baritone.<\/p>\n

5\/1 Carnegie Hall. Mathias Goerne, baritone; Lief Ove Andsnes, piano. Songs by Shostakovich and Mahler.<\/p>\n

5\/2 Carnegie Hall. New York Phiharmonic\/Alan Gilbert. Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (\u201cTragic\u201d).<\/p>\n