{"id":8568,"date":"2012-11-29T16:48:07","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T20:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8568"},"modified":"2013-01-16T11:59:50","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T15:59:50","slug":"more-delights-in-new-york-concert-halls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8568","title":{"rendered":"More Delights in New York Concert Halls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Gardiner\u2019s \u201cAuthentic\u201d Missa solemnis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was driving with a friend over Thanksgiving weekend, and we tuned in during the middle movement of a Sibelius Violin Concerto on Sirius FM. I was quickly enthralled by the soloist\u2019s rubato and technical command and declared him to be \u201can old Russian violinist.\u201d When I heard the double basses\u2019 pianississimo<\/em> in the last five bars, barely audible yet with firm tone, I had no doubt: \u201cThis is the 1959 Heifetz with Hendl and the Chicago Symphony.\u201d Indeed, it was. But what pleased me more than my good guess was that for years I have considered it inferior to the violinist\u2019s 1937 recording with Beecham. The later recording\u2019s freedom, especially in the finale\u2019s wild accelerating into climaxes and subsequent backing off as the temperature cools, bothered me in my youth, but last week I reveled in it. The recording hadn\u2019t changed, but I<\/em> had!<\/p>\n

I keep hoping I’ll change in my appreciation of \u201cperiod\u201d performances. Alas, except for a couple of pages at the beginning and end of the Adagio section of the Credo<\/em>, where he managed to elicit momentary meaning and emotion, John Eliot Gardiner\u2019s performance of Beethoven\u2019s Missa solemnis <\/em>with the Orchestre R\u00e9volutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir at Carnegie (11\/17) was his typically punctilious reading of notes on the wretched-sounding, so-called stylistically correct instruments that many find to be illuminating. With Colin Davis’s awe-inspiring interpretation with the London Symphony Orchestra’s modern instruments last season indelibly imprinted in my memory (10\/27\/11), Gardiner’s puny conception couldn’t hope to compete. The Times<\/em>\u2019s new lady on the aisle, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, filed a more welcoming point of view on 11\/19.<\/p>\n

Fr\u00fchbeck\u2019s \u201cCharmingly Unstylish\u201d Mozart<\/strong><\/p>\n

Far more to my liking, on 10\/26 with the New York Philharmonic, was Rafael Fr\u00fchbeck de Burgos\u2019s charmingly old-fashioned account of Mozart\u2019s Serenata notturna<\/em>. In the Menuetto\u2019s Trio, for the four principal strings, he didn\u2019t even conduct but sat back and smiled while they played. (George Szell conducted solos.<\/em>) Fr\u00fchbeck was Musical America<\/em>\u2019s Conductor of the Year in 2011, and I went backstage to say hello. \u201cI loved your Mozart!\u201d I said in greeting him, and he laughed broadly. \u201cWell, you know, that\u2019s the way we all played Mozart when I was young. I know it\u2019s not the way young conductors do it today, but I like it that way. The Philharmonic is such a great orchestra, and I love to conduct them. I\u2019m going to do Heldenleben<\/em> next season,\u201d he confided with great relish.<\/p>\n

Fr\u00fchbeck had looked fine back in June, when he conducted Carmina burana<\/em>, but not now. He had lost weight and walked to the podium with great effort and sat while conducting. I spoke with a friend in the orchestra, who told me that he had had stomach cancer; but his doctor assured him that his recent surgery was completely successful, and she said that he had conducted as if he had a new lease on life. The Philharmonic musicians played their hearts out for him in Mahler\u2019s First. Next summer he will conduct the Boston Symphony in Mahler\u2019s Third in the opening weekend at Tanglewood.<\/p>\n

DiDonato\u2019s Drama Queens<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kansas mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is irresistible, a self-evident statement to the some 2,800 music lovers who delighted at her catchily dubbed \u201cDrama Queens\u201d recital a couple of Sunday afternoons ago (11\/18). The program encompassed a selection of arias from Baroque operas that depict queens and royalty, including works from Orlandini\u2019s Berenice<\/em>, Cesti\u2019s Oronotea<\/em>, Monteverdi\u2019s L\u2019incoronazione di Poppea<\/em>, Radamisto<\/em>, and Alesandro<\/em>, Giacomelli\u2019s Merope<\/em>, Hasse\u2019s Antonio e Cleopatra<\/em>, Porta\u2019s Ifigenia in Aulide<\/em>, and Handel\u2019s Giulio Cesare<\/em>, plus orchestral works by Vivaldi and Scarlatti. She\u2019s presenting this recital internationally for the next year, and Virgin Classics just released her recording of it. Her backup band, Il Complesso Barocco, with Dmitry Sinkovsky as director and violinist, was ideal. <\/em><\/p>\n

Philharmonia on My Mind<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone at Avery Fisher Hall was talking about the ravishing sound of the Philharmonia Orchestra. It wasn\u2019t that Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Mahler\u2019s Ninth (11\/18) and a semi-staged version of Berg\u2019s Wozzeck <\/em>(11\/19) was small potatoes. The Philharmonia has a noble tradition for its beauty of sound. Created just after World War II by Walter Legge primarily as a recording orchestra, its timbre was honed by Furtw\u00e4ngler and Karajan in many recordings that have never left the catalogue. Klemperer was its most visible leader from the mid 1950s through the end of the next decade, with memorable concerts and recordings during that time by Giulini and Fr\u00fchbeck de Burgos. But its direction and reputation had begun to falter during Klemperer\u2019s decline in the late 1960s, which led to a freelance image buoyed by occasional appearances by such notables as Boult and Barbirolli.<\/p>\n

But no one could remember when the orchestra last played in New York. The most recent I could recall was in November 1971, when the orchestra was named the New Philharmonia and Avery Fisher was still called Philharmonic Hall: Lorin Maazel led crack renditions of Sibelius\u2019s Seventh, Delius\u2019s Paris<\/em>, and Bart\u00f3k\u2019s Miraculous Mandarin <\/em>Suite, conducting the latter\u2019s hectic final dance with his rear end.<\/p>\n

Calls to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall\u2019s Archives revealed that the Philharmonia graced Fisher Hall most recently in January 2002 with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting. Prior to that were concerts in March 1988 and January 1990 conducted by the orchestra\u2019s then-principal conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, an interesting but variable maestro. The ensemble\u2019s most recent New York appearance was in a pair of Carnegie concerts in October 2003 with Christoph von Dohn\u00e1nyi (in works by Bruckner, Wagner, Haydn, Brahms\u2014no wonder I didn\u2019t go), a maestro whose sole distinction, to my ears, lies in performances of the New Vienna School and complex 20th-century works.<\/p>\n

So perhaps the way to get the orchestra noticed is to play compelling programs, eh? I have no doubt that E-P wanted the audience to make the connection of Mahler\u2019s final completed symphony (1909) with Berg\u2019s first opera (sketches begun in spring 1914, orchestral score finished eight years later, premiere performance by the Berlin Opera under Erich Kleiber on December 14, 1925). In other words, had Mahler lived, the late-Romantic language of his valedictory Ninth Symphony would have developed into the ripely atonal world of Berg\u2019s Wozzeck<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the Mahler, Salonen\u2019s tightly knit opening movement was most impressive, avoiding the incoherent sprawl of many current performances. Still, the triple-forte <\/em>climax, which Mahler marks \u201cwith utmost violence,\u201d could have been more cataclysmic (where was the tam-tam?). The middle movements lacked character, and the finale was shapeless. The brass did not always avoid the Fisher Hall glare but otherwise played with distinction. Woodwinds were infallible throughout, with honors going to the bassoons and contrabassoon. And the strings! Their consistent beauty of tone, from whispered pianissimi<\/em> to massed fortissimi<\/em>, and attention to Mahler\u2019s frequent portamento indications were the highlight of the afternoon.<\/p>\n

In Wozzeck<\/em> the next evening, the Philharmonia was simply astonishing, conjuring up orchestral wonderment that even surpassed the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine. However\u2014and it\u2019s a big<\/em> however\u2014Salonen allowed the orchestra to cover the singers so often that their only recourse was to bellow (the Berg Bark?). Of the major roles, heard from audience right in Row V, only Angela Denoke\u2019s touching Marie and Tijl Faveyts\u2019s cheerfully demented Doctor went unscathed. In the end, frustrating though the vocal balance may have been, the tradeoff of hearing Berg\u2019s orchestral writing played so magnificently won the day for me. And if a recording was made in London before setting off on tour, the engineers can fix it in the mix!<\/p>\n

Salonen is the Philharmonia\u2019s current beau, and judging from the clamorous audience response he may turn out to be what the orchestra-lovers\u2019 doctor ordered. Lincoln Center already has two major Brit bands as regular tenants\u2014the London Symphony and London Philharmonic\u2014and it would behoove Jane Moss and company to add the Philharmonia to its stable ASAP.<\/p>\n

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

12\/1 Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic\/Alan Gilbert; Gil Shaham, violin. Steven Stucky: Symphony. Barber: Violin Concerto. Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances.<\/p>\n