{"id":695,"date":"2010-08-18T14:14:01","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T18:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=695"},"modified":"2011-10-11T00:39:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T04:39:50","slug":"raging-against-the-good-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=695","title":{"rendered":"Raging Against the Good Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I\u2019ve got this good friend, see, and he\u2019s a composer. In his lighter moments he signs his e-mails Darth Vader. At other times he\u2019s pissed at the plight of modern composers who can\u2019t get a hearing and get noticed\u2014especially American composers and himself in particular. He looks at\u00a0 <\/span>orchestra programming and sees many European composers getting premieres, and he sees red. He\u2019s got an opera opening tonight in Manhattan, and no one seems to be paying attention. He\u2019s taken to sending me personal blogs, and here\u2019s the most recent:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou say I am an angry composer, the real questions is, How can a modern composer NOT be angry
\nThis is the second run of [my opera]
\nThe first time, the major papers did not come
\nAnd the second as well (with a\u00a0full time PR person)
\nNew Yorker, Times, Timeout<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/08\/16\/arts\/music\/16ensemble.html?ref=music<\/span><\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/08\/16\/arts\/music\/16vanska.html?ref=music<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Yet this is what I get up and read in the Times today, more of things we know like the back of our hands<\/p>\n

My feeling is that these institutions should be tried for cultural treason !!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I remind him that he has gotten good reviews in at least one of those treasonable publications and tell him that someday he may not have us to kick around anymore\u2014then<\/em> who will help him get recognition? I heard his opera in its first run and enjoyed most of it; some of it is quite ribald, and the audience laughed in all the right places. I could do without his \u201cmessages\u201d and told him so, but I\u2019ll be there tonight to cheer him on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mozart We All Know<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sorry, Darth, I\u2019m going to write now about one of those events covered by the treasonable Times<\/em>. It was\u00a0one of those\u00a0increasingly rare completely <\/em>Mozart concerts offered up by Mostly Mozart. (The pre-concert recital compensated with music by Jan\u00e1cek and Bart\u00f3k.) Osmo V\u00e4nsk\u00e4, the live-wire Finn who conducted the Minnesota Orchestra last March at Carnegie in the knockout orchestral concert of the season, a pairing of Beethoven\u2019s Grosse Fuge<\/em> and Sibelius\u2019s Kullervo Symphony<\/em>, was on the podium. Wise music lovers don\u2019t miss his concerts.<\/span><\/p>\n

V\u00e4nsk\u00e4 programmed three Mozart works in minor keys: the two symphonies in G minor, the 25th and the 40th, and the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor in between. A serious evening in his purportedly \u201ctragic\u201d vein. <\/span><\/p>\n

He led a demonic 25th, teeth rattlingly intense in the outer movements, whisperingly delicate in the spooky Andante, with a relatively relaxed lilt in the Menuetto. Its lean, see-through textures and slashing string attacks reminded me of a good original-instrument performance but without the ghastly wheeze of those wretched strings and honky winds. I loved it, but my friend Peter was horrified; he thought it sounded like one of Haydn\u2019s \u201cSturm und Drang\u201d symphonies and stood by the much more refined Beecham recording.<\/span><\/p>\n

We agreed about the Concerto No. 20, liking V\u00e4nsk\u00e4\u2019s pointed accompaniment but finding the young Finnish pianist, Antti Siirala, who was making his New York orchestral debut, rather lacking character in this edgiest of Mozart keyboard concertos.<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowing V\u00e4nsk\u00e4\u2019s predilection for fast tempos, I was expecting high drama in the 40th\u2019s first movement Molto allegro, but his tempos remained within standard boundaries throughout. I think he took all the repeats in both symphonies (a fact I couldn\u2019t check because of the dark lighting in Avery Fisher Hall). I confess I\u2019ve never cared for the Mozart 40th. Only Furtw\u00e4ngler\u2019s hell-for-leather tempos in the outer movements of his late-40s Vienna recording on EMI compel me to sit up on the edge of my seat and wish to hear the piece again. My blind spot, however, does not keep me from recognizing that in all three performances V\u00e4nsk\u00e4\u2019s ear for detail, shades of dynamics (especially the pianissimos), and chamber-music interrelation of each choir was masterful and that the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra musicians were committed to within an inch of their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those Avery Fisher Hall Acoustics\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a subject debated to death, and when the economy improves, Lincoln Center and the hall\u2019s principal tenant, the New York Philharmonic, will try, try, try again to bring the hall up to snuff. In the meantime, the decision adopted in recent summers by Mostly Moz to move the players out past the proscenium and have seats on each side and behind the orchestra is a good interim solution. It worked well for Boulez\u2019s Rug Concerts in the \u201970s and seemed successful at Alan Gilbert\u2019s Lincoln Center Festival Var\u00e8se concert with the Phil. I say \u201cseemed\u201d because my press seats were in the first tier on stage left, so I couldn\u2019t judge from my usual perspective down on he floor. Phil spokesman Eric Latzky told me that \u201cNew York Philharmonic consensus was that it worked well.\u201d When I suggested adopting it fulltime, he reminded me of the variety of events in the hall and that moving the stage and seating configuration of the hall is costly. (Why can\u2019t these things be easy? Silly question.)<\/span><\/p>\n