{"id":8351,"date":"2012-11-21T15:23:39","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T19:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8351"},"modified":"2013-01-16T12:01:04","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T16:01:04","slug":"in-new-york%e2%80%99s-concert-halls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8351","title":{"rendered":"In New York\u2019s Concert Halls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Atlanta Symphony\/Spano<\/strong><\/p>\n

My broadest exit smiles so far this season occurred the same week at Carnegie Hall featuring programs with a chorus: the Philadelphia Orchestra and Westminster Symphonic Choir (Joe Miller, director) under Yannick N\u00e9zet-Seguin in Verdi\u2019s Requiem on 10\/23 and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Norman Mackenzie, director) under Robert Spano on 10\/27.<\/p>\n

The first, about which I enthused in this space on 10\/25, is one of those pieces one simply cannot miss at Carnegie. The Atlanta program was equally enticing in its own way, a satisfying amalgam of works laced in jazz rhythms and irresistible melody: Copland\u2019s Appalachian Spring <\/em>Suite, Bernstein\u2019s Chichester Psalms<\/em>, and Walton\u2019s Belshazzar\u2019s Feast<\/em>. Ensemble was occasionally wayward in the Copland, but the two choral works were knockouts. If the Psalms<\/em> lacked the composer\u2019s manic energy, Spano\u2019s spacious warmth offered numerous beauties in this most affecting of Bernstein\u2019s concert works; the use of a countertenor (John Holiday) in the second-movement solo provided more vocal assurance than the prescribed boy sopranos I\u2019ve heard, although one might argue that a certain innocence was lost. Best of all was the Belshazzar<\/em>, in which Walton\u2019s episodic structure was given welcome continuity without ever shortchanging the work\u2019s pagan exhilaration. It completely surpassed a hectic affair in 1976 at Carnegie by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Georg Solti, the only other live performance I recall hearing. That this fine orchestra is confronting a $20 million deficit and that musician ranks will be reduced along with a 20 percent cut in salaries is shameful.<\/p>\n

Cleveland Orchestra\/ Welser-M\u00f6st<\/strong><\/p>\n

My word, the Cleveland Orchestra makes a beautiful sound under Franz Welser-M\u00f6st these days (11\/13)! The downside is that I don\u2019t recall ever hearing so many dropped programs and undefined thumps at a concert. W-M\u2019s overly refined Beethoven Fourth was ho-hum. The Grosse fuge <\/em>later in the program was much more involved. But it\u2019s not really a \u201cnice\u201d piece, Franz, and I\u2019m afraid the sumptuous Cleveland strings will pale in memory next to the electrifyingly precise Minnesota\/ V\u00e4nsk\u00e4 earthshaker in March 2010. The gentlemanly rendering of Scriabin\u2019s Poem of Ecstasy <\/em>at the close seemed positively perverse with such an interpretive engine available to him. I remember a Comissiona\/Baltimore performance in the \u201970s that blew the roof off of Carnegie; afterwards, as I raved about it to friends, my date interjected, \u201cGee, I wish you\u2019d get that excited about me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Aimard\u2019s Debussy and Schumann<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was surprised at how much this esteemed pianist went in for washes of color rather than clarity in Debussy\u2019s Preludes, Book II (11\/15). A pianist friend didn\u2019t like it at all, and Zachary Woolfe in the Times <\/em>leaned toward Jean-Yves Thibaudet\u2019s Debussy program the week before. The latter not being one of my faves, I didn\u2019t subject myself to his \u201cfreedom\u201d of expression, but I did enjoy Aimard\u2019s performances, even if a certain sameness crept in after awhile. (Admission: I think the Book I Preludes are more inspired and individual.) But Aimard\u2019s reticent Schumann, while perhaps hewing to the letter of the score, doesn\u2019t move me, and I think that inserting the five posthumous etudes in the middle of the piece makes it interminable. Play the five independently if you must (but they are still not top-drawer Schumann).<\/p>\n

Ad\u00e8s\u2019s Grey Tempest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With all the encomia over this Brit darling of the critics, Thomas Ad\u00e8s, I expected a new operatic masterpiece at its final performance this season (11\/17). True to form, local reviewers raved en masse<\/em>. But, great heavens, what a disappointment: colorless (Shakespeare?), dynamically squashed, melodically tepid. Would that Hurricane Sandy, which struck six days after this operatic tempest\u2019s debut, had packed such a paltry punch! Give me an operatic treatment of MGM\u2019s 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet<\/em>, based loosely on The Tempest<\/em>, with Louis and Bebe Barron\u2019s \u201celectronic tonalities\u201d for the music.<\/p>\n

Perhaps my esteemed colleagues were taken with the Brittenisms scattered throughout (Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em>?). I spoke with one who, when challenged, said he might have gone overboard in his praise because he doesn\u2019t want to discourage new opera at the Met. I\u2019ll try again in the eventual revival and hope to be embarrassed by my comments herein. In the interim, Peter G. Davis\u2019s informative and positive review on this Web site (10\/25) may provide more than my visceral reaction.<\/p>\n