Salonen Piano Concerto: CSO and Bronfman

For my money, the Chicago Symphony has kept its place at the top of the heap of American orchestras, as much by changing as by retaining its strongest elements. It’s the typical American orchestra, a kind of chameleon, very professional, kind of faceless, kind of a blank slate – until a strong-willed conductor puts his stamp on it and harnesses its virtuosity to his requirements. Americans are hybrids and at our best we reflect and refract the multitudes of cultural influences around us, and maybe focus them, clarify, de-mystify them.

These thoughts are provoked by the current concerts conducted by the eminent Finnish maestro, Esa-Pekka Salonen. In a rambling pre-concert “conversation,” Salonen told of his 16-year sojourn in remote California, and of how his relocation changed his Euro-centric attitudes, and his musical allegiances.

The journey he travels in his Piano Concerto clearly reflects his experience. Made-up Finnish folk music, mechanical birds, minimalism, Jazz, yes, even Gershwin – all figure in the fabric of this massively ambitious piece. There are wonderful stretches of orchestration, solos, ensembles and dramatic outbursts -- music that would test the limits of any orchestra.

But the CSO is up to most any challenge, and with the composer on the podium, they gave a rousing performance of this dense but not congested piece. Salonen is a masterful conductor, and he cleanly dissected his own music so that the pieces revealed their facets in sharp relief.

It was a work of many fragments, though. It didn’t cohere as a whole, and this was it’s downfall for me. It was exciting in places, even romantic in some other places, but basically an intellectual construction that reveals Salonen as the rebellious stepson of the Boulez school of modernism.

I have left the best part for last. Yefim Bronfman is a giant of the keyboard. The price of admission was more than paid off by seeing his almost superhuman pianism. Fighting the eternal battle of the keyboard versus the full orchestra, and winning it hands down, he negotiated mountains of notes with amazing dexterity and power.

If this concerto is flawed as a composition, it certainly does give two great virtuosos, the orchestra and the soloist, many opportunities to enhance their fame..

Anderszewski Beethoven on Virgin Classics

Piotr Anderszewski, conductor and pianist: Beethoven Bagatelles Op. 126; Piano Concerto # 1. (Virgin Classics).

Gerry: This was an album that I actually bought, Bryant, do you think I spent my money wisely?

Bryant: Probably not. You could've saved at least $5 had you chosen iTunes.

Gerry: Do you think any of this music is dainty?

Bryant: Some of those early sonatas are; even the second concerto has bars of horse and buggy daintiness. But no, dainty doesn't come to mind in this recording.

Piotr Anderszewski is a Pole. Do you think he's more at home in the Chopin recordings or in these German works?

Gerry: Well, his first recording was of the Diabelli Variations, then Bach, so obviously he regards these as important. He was a student of Perahia & Brendel as well and the whole Marlboro school is in his background. That said I think the Chopin disc he produced came from the soul, so obviously he's got the blood. I think the mixture is what makes him somewhat unique. Used to be artists didn't mix the two.

Bryant: In regards to Perahia, he's gone back to Bach and now wants to play little else. He just a released a disc on Sony of the Partitas 2-4. What do you think of veteran pianists going back to well-worn repertoire when they could be recording some other composer's latest work? Are they obligated to find balance?

Gerry: I don't obligate any performer to any course of action...that said, I am not convinced his Bach performances are driven by great passion or originality. Maybe he needs this time to lie fallow and he'll go into the French repertoire or maybe some underperformed German school composer like Wainberg or Reger -- which is where Rudolf Serkin went in his later years. I contrast Perahia with Peter Serkin, who is always exploring unusual repertoire, and yet coming back to the standards with renewed insight. Maybe some artists just lose their curiosity with age. But they do have to follow their own muse and not pay any nevermind to folks like us who inhabit different skins.

Sleeping Beauty : ABT

A.B.T. 's Sleeping Beauty in Chicago

Main floor free seat, major American company, full-length Sleeping Beauty; Good opportunity?But I had just seen a full-length Swan Lake by a sterling Russian troupe weeks ago and the images and sensations lingered on. This was quite different.

The first thing I noticed were the absolute rigidity of pose the secondary performers adopted; not just still but statue-like; or like painted figures in a child's story book. Every minimal move clearly determined; the stage a picture; no messy life-like behavior. And so what? Isn't this a fairy tale? Even more than Swan Lake this is clearly an elite child's box of dolls come to life. 1890 was the debut in Petersburg and I'm sure the Czar's lovely daughters were among the audience, or the lovely daughters of some other aristocratic family who were living a doomed life of fantasy with terror ready to break in at any time. Tchaikovsky's ballets all have a sense of that underlying horror that lurks outside.

In this odd production, the lurkers -- the evil fairy and her bug-like minions have all the scariness required to disrupt and threaten. I came to life when they arrived. Maybe this was going to be fun after all. It was.

The bugs did their work and the sleepy head was carried off, and the cardboard figures mimed incomprehesibly and danced quite well, all said.

Really, in these overlong dramas it's just about enjoying the set pieces as they unroll; the high point for me was the entry of the male dancers and Sid Smith got it right in his Tribune review, so I'll just quote him:

The charismatic Carreno remains a sure-footed, comfortable star, a study in soft landings, clean technique and effortless control. He and the hunters, in their romp that opens Act II, take over the stage with an exhilarating rush.

There was a lot more to enjoy in this production, and the company just got better as time went by, so there were grand, gay, and sweet moments throughout. And a lot of misfires as well -- literally with a bizarre rocket blast that seemed strangely disconnected to the actual witch it was meant to transport...

I can't really say I was enlightened by the quirks of staging. I think choreography by committee is not usually successful. How does anyone interpret the switching of period costumes back and forth -- yes, I read the note that said it was the hundred-year sleep of the beauty, but it was just a device to get a different costume theme going as far as I could see...

But I am not a cranky purist, and I like attending performances that are vital and exhilarating. This A.B.T. show was energetic from start to finish. If I didn't get much of a sense of coherence in the action, and if it was more about technique than about the shadings, i enjoyed watching this first class dancing machine give us their (almost) best.

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Sangre de mi Sangre or Padre Nuestro a Masterpiece?

Sometimes a film with certain narrative or structural weaknesses has so much excellence in its content that you are well rewarded if you just throw out your criticisms and enjoy the moments as they unfold.

"Sangre de mi Sangre" (the better title is the original "Padre Nuestro") was just given two showings at the Chicago Latino Film Festival. It's a film that deserves wider distribution. Perhaps overlong, and with a plot that is rather too complex and relies on coincidence a bit too much, this movie nevertheless sucks you emotionally into the lives of its characters, Mexican immigrants living at the margins in New York City. The core of the movie is the story of the two young Mexicans trying in their separate ways to survive in an alien environment. The plot revolves around stolen identity and personal interconnections as the two protagonists try to gain security through money or through relationships. The story recalls another masterpiece of ambivalence, "The Son", and I'll say no more, except to indicate that the conclusion of the action is richly satisfying, if harsh. Just a word about the performances: the director is clearly a genius at handling actors. The leads give virtuoso turns to their characterizations, and the cast throughout shows never a false note.

Swan Lake: Makarova and Perm Tchaikovsky: Get Going!

Makarova's Swan Lake in Chicago was a wonderful dance experience missed by a lot of people, judging from the sparse attendance at yesterday's performance in the Auditorium Theater. But who knew? There wasn't a lot of prepublicity, nor anyone tooting the horn ahead of this gem of a troupe. Plenty of horn blowing in the ballet, though. So much of the showmanship of the original was captured here: the drama of the story, the individual starry characterizations, the plush ensembles and even a pit orchestra with energy and full-blooded Russian style. A little rough around the edges, to be sure, but so true to the heart of this piece.

Only two performances left! So get out there, Chicago!

Jonas Kaufmann: The Whole Package?

Jonas Kaufmann: Romantic Arias (Decca)

Here's a voice we'll be hearing for a while. The brief back story of this handsome young German tenor is interesting: he was trained as a light tenor, and by good fortune was allowed to liberate the drama of the lower and richer tones which he says were what he used " in the shower or the elevator."

So his career is a product of a very personal drive which he reveals in his choice of repertoire and his intensely dramatic presentation The arias on his calling-card disc are a mixture of the usual and the slightly less so.

He opens with a full-throated run-through of "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme, and then he takes an abrupt left turn into French opera: Bizet, very idiomatic, with a minor but gorgeously-sung aria from Carmen, turning at last to his home tongue with the show-stopper and only hit from Flotow's Martha -- which he nails as well as Siegfried Jerusalem did in the recent past.

So we get him as eclectic, fluent in various languages and styles -- dare we say Post Modern? An artist who brings as much sensibility and style to Wagner as he does to Massenet. His lyric gifts also enhance an affinity with Italian Opera. Verdi is in his soul, and he did begin his debut disc with an emotive Puccini.

Highlights of this disc include an aria from Don Carlos, the 5 minutes of glorious Wagner, and especially a Berlioz aria from The Damnation of Faust, sung with Wagnerian greatness of soul.

The proof is in the Opera House performance, of course. So we will have to see him. Is he the real thing or the product of the electronics of the recording medium? I suspect he's the whole package, relying on field reviews of his performances. Can't wait to see him in person!

Although the disc is nothing but a collection of snippets, there is something to enjoy in most of these performances, not least the conducting of Marco Armiliano, whose accompaniment matches Kaufmann's eclecticity with stylish performances in a variety of styles. The two artists seem to be on the same wavelength, and the result is a very satisfying CD. It's ipod ready since almost every cut is a keeper: just rip and burn!

Max Reger

Peter Grimes

URBAN OPERA
Peter Grimes at the multiplex


Well, I wanted the experience of the Live from the Met hookup which brings Grand Opera to a cine near you in HD. I’d heard such great things about the experience. So when Bryant suggested we attend the showing of Peter Grimes today, I gladly went along.

But, although it was definitely worth going, I don’t think I’ll be doing it very often in the future. Really, there’s just too much annoyance added in (city driving and parking) and too much energy sucked out, to make it a vital need for me.

Opera live is best really live, and not second-hand through a distancing medium like a movie theater representation. Yes, some of the frisson of the immediate with its potential for the unexpected is there at first, but the absolute control of the technical elements soon takes off that edge. The only spontaneous things that I saw were in the clumsy but endearing interview segments with an uncomfortable Natalie Dessay doing her darndest not to sound scripted.

Best unexpected interchange: Natalie trying to prompt tenor Dean Griffey for his own personal take on the guilt or innocence of Peter Grimes (he wouldn’t be pushed). I’ve always wondered how these artists can take this kind of intrusion into the flow of their performances.

Griffey in particular seemed to be so identifying with Grimes, that I wondered if he wasn’t tempted to smack Ms Dessay around a little. Patricia Racette was herself quite the Ellen Orford, with her very idealistic interpretations and her almost pedantic descriptions of the technical aspects of the music. Both of them give great performances, by the way – quite stellar.

Maybe it was just this production, but I really didn’t see Grimes as just an “outsider” being unfairly tarred and feathered by the moral righteousness of his community. I actually was agreeing that Ellen was quite wrongheaded to set Grimes up with another young boy to abuse, honorable as her reasons were. I was thinking that she was sending this scared kid to his doom. And so it was.

I wonder what it is about this opera that makes it one of the most celebrated of the last 50 years. Certainly the music is quite wonderful; Britten is such a genius of orchestral color and emotiveness. But the libretto is so bookish, so prosaic. There are great vocal parts for many of the characters, and there are such rich characters for good performers to get their teeth into, but the whole thing is rather like a musical version of a Victorian novel. Sweeney Todd comes to mind – there’s even a bit of twisted humor now and then.

And then there is the inventive use of the chorus, who are collectively one of the most important characters in the drama. And the moral ambiguity of the story is quite absorbing, no easy answers here.

But it’s all so unremittingly down, so clearly spiraling to a painful end, that I left before the last act, which I knew was just going to be more and worse tragedy, however gorgeous. The “issues” were of the time and in the psyche of the original artists. Britten, obsessed with young boys, reveals perhaps his struggle with the monstrous side of his fascination, and paints a deeply disturbing picture of an almost erotic intensity.

Liberals of the time (and surely Britten and Pears were socially liberal) had much to say about the power of the ignorant majority, the “other- directed” as opposed to the more heroic “inner-directed”, as Riesman’s Lonely Crowd called them. (Ellen vs. The Borough). It’s a gripping morality play we are watching here, and although it’s got lots of great musical moments, and displays great inner conflicts, I can’t help feeling that moral ideas are not best served by the medium of Opera.

Maybe I was scared to be sucked into the whirlpool of the inevitable denouement – I’ve heard the recordings and I listened to it on my car radio as I retreated, and it’s implacably intense, even masterfully so. But I had had enough reminders of my own inner conflicts, and my love-hate with the Fifties, which haunted my childhood. I wanted out, and Bryant wanted to go as well, for his own reasons – he said he was bored with some of it (great admission, Bryant!) .

Hvorostovsky In Chicago: Eugene Onegin

A Woman’s Triumph

This great melodrama Tchaikovsky hatched in 1879 from Pushkin is one of the best tickets in town. The plush, but modern, staging is brought off in style and with great imagination. There is not a weak link in the singing, and the acting is at the highest level as well. The cast, including Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Dina Kuznetsova and Frank Lopardo, is joined by an acting chorus that forges a collective characterization that enlivens every scene they’re in.

Of course the opera has its problems. For one thing, people don’t do much. They just stand around picturesquely, read books and sit at writing tables. And the music is not always top flight Tchaikovsky. It has flashes of greatness everywhere, but much of it is boilerplate, standard issue accompaniment to the high-tone soap opera which unfolds at a leisurely pace.

Every Russian brings his own feelings to this unhappy love story and that prior engagement with the story probably helps to fill in the gaps in the episodic structure of the opera. For first-timers the great set pieces might seem disconnected. But that said, it would be wrong to dwell on the opera’s weaknesses, when there are so many things to savor in the Lyric production (which dates from 1997). In fact, the set pieces, led by Tatyana’s letter scene, are outstanding here.

A special word about Dina Kuznetsova: her very real character has depth and breadth, and she makes the writing of an effusive love letter an epic rollercoaster ride. Add in a rich and flexible voice, and we have a truly memorable Tatyana both as child and mature woman.

The successful performance of the letter scene determines how we judge Onegin’s patronizing rejection of her. If we identify with the girl’s ardent longing, then we will see Onegin as a cad, which he does seem to be in this defining interpretation by Hvorostovsky. This artist is at the peak of his craft now, so we need only sit and be seduced. His stage presence is magnetic, his movements are leonine and always on key. It does seem as if the Siberian tiger is overworked of late (he backed out of half the run this year), but Onegin’s principal emotion is ennui, and he isn’t on stage all that much, so the baritone could almost phone in his performance.

He’s got to be ready to take command of the last scenes, however, and Hvorostovsky does so with power and economy. There is an almost verismo climax as Tatyana turns and runs out of Onegin’s life forever, and he is confronted with his great bereavement and stands abashed and alone at curtain’s fall.

This high strung psychological drama would seem to be perfect for the music of Tchaikovsky, but his score doesn’t always plumb the depths as deeply as his purely orchestral music. Maybe the addition of words made the passions too concrete for him, so closeted, to put his soul out plain to see, with so much sexual ardor attached to his most revealing musical effusions. Maybe the constraints and conventions of Russian opera of the time put a rein on his creativity. His personal life was undergoing its greatest upheavals at the time, with his panic-driven marriage, and his admission of his homosexuality, so that has to be figured in.

But his understanding of the emotional center of Tatyana, from her repressed early years to her strong and ultimately triumphant later self, is at the root of this opera’s success. His own personal struggles shed light on his portrayal of her, Lensky , and Onegin’s rich and affecting stories.

Alfred Brendel's goodbye to Chicago

The pianist Alfred Brendel would never, but never, inject any sentimentality into his patrician interpretations of the classics, but one wonders if he experienced a slight catch in his throat at the loving response his audience of long time fans gave to his farewell appearance at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.

He offered a kind of microcosm of his career, great gobs of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert with smaller dollops of Bach and Liszt. It's not a broad range he covers, but he goes deep and his technique is still near flawless. He's seemingly slowed down a bit -- this was most noticeable in the Mozart Sonata -- but he fills the spaces he creates with such inight and precision, that it all seems right.

Never showy, he still fights the tics which show how intensely he is concentrating on the musical challenges he boldly tosses off.

His program was thoughtfully chosen, as much for the substance of the pieces as for the respect shown to the intelligence of his audience. Nothing commonplace, but music at the heart of the composers' work. Who programs the other Beethoven Sonata "Quasi una fantasia" instead of the Moonlight Sonata? Who would be likely to open a program with a complex series of variations which ends in an anticlimax as does the exquisite Haydn work? And the encores, spotlighting the lesser-known Brendel: the second movement, so romantic, from Bach's Italian Concerto, and some almost impressionistic Liszt.

The second half of the program was devoted to Schubert's last Sonata, and it too was a deeply considered choice -- a valedictory piece to begin with done with a profound understanding of the sequential nature of the structure, it's emotional rather than logical structure.

I was really moved to see this humble yet somehow grand artist walking slowly out of my life...

PROTEUS

Cyber Classical Program #65

Sunday February 24, 2008

Nothing about the music we played. I'll fill that in later. We got all wrapped up in the Oscars and indulged our second love, film!

Oscar Night:

Bryant, what was important about this night?
What about the international aspect of the awards? Is that a change for the better?
-----------------------
Bryant: The number of international winners this year is unprecedented -- it seems. For critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum, who have written books deriding the Hollywood system and particularly the Academy Awards, this is a small step in legitimizing the awards to world cinema fans. And, if you can get past all the self-importance, the award ceremony presents a friendly face to the rest of the world, i.e., plenty of anti-Bush and anti-Republican statements are made. Doncha think?

Gerry: Actually, I don't. I haven't examined the list of winners in detail, but I'm willing to bet that all of them, with the possible exception of the low-budget "Juno," are beholden to Hollywood/American corporate money, just to get seen by Academy members. Token Liberalism is warm and fuzzy, but there are actually films out there that represent their cultures more honestly and with greater artistic integrity than the user-friendly stuff that passes for "international" cinema.

Bryant: I think that's an elitist and bogus phrase, if you'll excuse me. A movie made in France or Pakistan *is* international cinema, any way you look at it. As for greater artistic integrity, would you care to elaborate?

Gerry: Just because a film is made on Pakistan, or has Pakistani actors does that really make it Pakistani if the entire funding was European/American, or if the script was written by an Englishwoman, or if the actors are, say Indian or Sumatran? Take a look at the credits at the end of any International film that gets distribution widely, and you'll be enlightened..

As for artistic integrity, I don't mean that these beholden films can't have it but that for me, I am more moved by films that come from the heart of the culture that produces it rather than by ones that have as their primary function the utilization of cultural "style" for the purposes of making a lot of money for the international cartels that fund them.

Bryant: I see your point. But isn't a Pakistani film that has AmEuro backing better than no film at all? I still hope that many of the artistic choices are still left to the director and his/her vision. David Lynch continually goes to France's Studio Canal to get financing, but I still think of his films as uniquely his own. In my opinion, of which you will most certainly disagree, the best films transcend a culture or a politics or a nationality. Andrew Sarris and Truffaut talked a lot about an "autuer theory"; that movies are the complete products of its director. Do you seek out movies because they are about Iran or because Makmahlbaf, for instance, directed it? Or better yet, the storyline seems interesting?

Gerry: Well, I think the "auteur" theory is a bit "old", and not really accurate in a lot of ways. When a director employs a cinematographer who stamps the visual experience with his unique view (think Bergman and Nyquist), who is the auteur? Think of Fritz Lang making film noir under the American studio system (which he did try to stamp with his point of view, however subversively) and you'll see what I mean. Th artifact called "film" is such a tangled mess of creators and motives that pure "auteurism" is almost impossible now. By the way, I think it's almost impossible for any film to transcend its culture (which includes nationality), since what you are able to see is so much a part of where you're from, culturally, historically, personally, that you would almost inevitably miss all the cultural subtleties that make a film such a great way to communicate feeling to people.

Bryant: So even if a director gets "final cut,"--which is most certainly not always the case--then isn't he essentially authoring the film? Yes, many competing visions go into film production, so I would agree that "pure" auteurism is a myth. But if you have final say, then the baby's yours. This kind of relates to your idealistic view of world cinema which is completely unshackled by Western influences or finances. In other words, everything is corrupt and adulterated. OR, another way of looking at it, these ingredients make the films their own things. Truffaut has gone on record saying he thought Hitchcock's Hollywood period was more artistically interesting than his British period. But now I'm veering from the topic at hand. I need to be thinking about the QNG.

Gerry: Get to work, we'll do this later.

Cyber Classical #64

February 17, 2008

Gerry: Apres une Reve -- the encore piece chosen today by Joshua Bell to follow his spectacular pyrotechnics in the Violin Sonata by Saint-Saens -- just about reflects my feeling this evening. I came home after the concert at Chicago's Symphony Center, pretty well nourished by Bell and his equally talanted accompanist Jeremy Denk, fell asleep and dreamed about baby grizzly bears dancing with ground squirrels (think PBS)...

I'm still trying to get my mind in gear as I start show# 64, accompanied by my partner in crime Bryant Manning, who has his head in his laptop trying to get done with a profile for Time Out Chicago, his new gig.

Vivaldi: L'estro armonico, Op. 3 #6 and Op3 #1

I start with a fluent performance of Vivaldi concertos byTafelmusik, the early-instrument group from Toronto - Bryant and I saw this group at Ravinia last year and I was underwhelmed and a bit disappointed by their choice of music and the drab performance of it. But their recordings sound much better, really alert and on the mark.

Gerry: What do you remember about the Ravinia performance by Tafelmusik?

Bryant: I reviewed it for the Sun-Times and thought it was OK. I liked their presentation (standing up like a cocktail party), but the music never seemed as crisp and alive as this disc. Go figure.

Nielsen: Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable"; Paavo Berglund/Royal Danish Orchestra (BMG).

Bryant: I chose this because I love Nielsen's symphonies, but never got to know the 4th all that well. This performance was off-da-hook! Berglund got all he could out of his players, or to use a sports metaphor, they left everything on the field. Highly recommended!

Guess this piece:

Faure: Barcarolle #1: Jean-Philippe Collard, piano (EMI)

Bryant started out with a quick off the mark guess of Bach: and that wasn't as off as it seems, since there was some subtle counterpoint in the opening bars -- but then it got more decorative and flowery, and it wasn't long before the word "French" popped out. And it wasn't a very long stretch to "Faure." We should and will be playing more of this disc in future programs.

Prokofiev: Violin Sonata #1: Vadim Repin and Boris Berezovsky (Erato)

Gerry: For comparison with the performance that was the highlight of Bell & Denk's concert. Weightier violin playing, more power from Repin and Berezovsky, more sweetness and refinement from the other two artists. Both excellent performances; Bell trumps Vadim in projecting the feathery glissandi that mark the first and last movements. Berezovsky provides a heavy ominous opening that Denk didn't project as forcefully.

Augusta Read Thomas: Rumi Settings for violin and cello; Piano Etudes 1 & 2/Stefan Hersch, violin; Julian Hersch, cello, Amy Briggs Dissanayake, piano (Art CD)

Gerry: Mixed feelings on this music. Very clearly modernist in stance, and very well played by the artists. I will still be looking to Thomas' orchestral and larger chambeer works before I come to any conclusions about music.

Rodrigo: Coplas del Pastor enamorado (Domingo & Barrueco); Zarabanda lejana (Barrueco) (EMI)

Alexander Borodin: Symphony #2. Simon Rattle/ Berlin Philharmonic.
Gerry:Rattle plays this repertory piece like he means it! This is one of the best, and best recorderd performances I have heard of this, and it brings out the Borodin so known from the Polovitsian Dances.

Moritz Moszkowski: From All Over the World: 6 Pieces for Piano 4 Hands. (Tudor)

Bryant: These didn't quite capture my attention like the Mozkowski works you played last week. They seemed a little more dainty, but I still liked the thick textures throughout.

All for this week!

Ainadamar in Chicago

When an artist of the magnitude and quality of Dawn Upshaw puts her heart and soul into a work by a little-known composer, you have to take notice. The very American soprano has been making a specialty of Osvaldo Golijov, and getting his work performed pretty extensively in major venues. To great applause – Ainadamar got a standing ovation on Feb 12th at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, where a pretty sizeable house witnessed a truly memorable performance.

From the very entrance of a distraught Ms Upshaw, the audience was pulled into the emotional heart of the story of a great artist’s murder by Falangists in 1939. The libretto by David Henry Hwang focused on the murder of Lorca as the central event of the piece – is it an opera? A passion? I think it is a new hybrid concert form where the drama is as important as the music.

The lighting, the sound effects, the mikes on the singers, the supertitles, everything was centered on the staged drama of an inexorable tragic loss. The reiterated gunfire (becoming percussion effects) was a jolting climax, but the piece sort of petered out in a too prolonged ending. Still, the performances were never less than compelling. I could wish all music or theater were as deeply felt as this one was.

Dawn Upshaw was always magnificent, with a new layer of chest tones that really extend her range of expression. Jessica Rivera was every bit as marvelous vocally (I was already converted when I saw her as Kitty Oppenheimer in Dr Atomic). And the magnetic Kelley O’Connor brought a flexible mezzo to the trouser role of Lorca. The three artists had wonderful dramatic and vocal rapport, and their trios were quite ravishing.

I think the music also represents an exciting new hybridity quite different from the artificial insertion of “exotic” elements into basically western contexts that is the older way. Here the foreign is domestic, and both are fully integrated into a coherent whole.

Interestingly, I was prepared to dislike this piece. Just hearing the CD as I did, without knowing anything about the narrative, was disorienting to me, and I dismissed the score as pointlessly eclectic. I missed the point. Another lesson in drawing conclusions too easily!

Cyber Classical #63

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Burhan Ocal: Orient Secret/ Classical Ensemble of Istanbul
(L'empreinte Digitale)

Classical music from 18th century Turkey. Since I get to do the show on my own this week, Bryant being stuck in Michigan somewhere, I am taking the opportunity to play whatever the heck I want to. And today I want to hear recordings I haven't heard before -- it's the thrill of the new which keeps me going, and it's all new to me -- and you the listener!

10:05 ---
Bryant is back home (he just IM'd me) safe and sound if frozen. I'll get his take on the music I'm playing and post it here so we can still have our dialogue.

Anton Webern: Six Orchestral Pieces op. 6/ Sinopoli, Staatskapelle Dresden (Teldec)

Really rich recorded sound on this disc; and the music has its large moments as well as Webern's patented minimal quietnesses.

Pierre Boulez: Pli Selon Pli. Last Movement, "Tombeau"/ Boulez, BBC Symphony, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano (Erato).

Successor to Webern in many ways, this is a largely orchestral section of a larger work setting poems of Mallarmé. Like the Webern it has its big orchestral moments, but ends on a prolonged quietness....The Tombeau is in memory of Verlaine, who inspired the poem. I love all the cultural cross connections -- and all the artists involved are heroes of newness - my theme for the night!

Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Symphony #5 (1962). Gabriel Chmura, Nat. Polish Radio Sym. (Chandos).


Angular and almost traditional, the music has a lot of Central European gestures; it's bold yet relaxed and lyrical in places. Multi-tonal. I like the last movement which insinuates itself into the ear and goes out like so many of tonight's pieces into quietness...

Update: Bryant had a bad trip; his window broke and he drove most the way exposed to the coldest day of the year. But he's home and dry now and listening to Cyber Classical. Tomorrow's his first day at his new position with Time Out Chicago. We're both at the beginnings of interesting and multi-faceted jobs, my third week at WFMT selling ads starts tomorrow, and I'm loving it so far. More as the events multiply....

Moritz Moskowski: New Spanish Dances for piano 4 hands (op 23). Ulrich Koella & Gerard Wyss.(Tudor)

Gerry: More "new" music. Fills the space nicely. Salon music with a slight edge.

Bryant from home: i loved the duo piano work: concise, ever-changing, and very melodic. That was a lot of fun. Who wrote it? Moszkowski?
RadioDePaul (11:07:35 PM): yes
PaceBM (11:07:44 PM): A gem I do say
RadioDePaul (11:07:58 PM): I'll post that thought.


Anton Arensky: Piano Trio No. 1 Op 32/Borodin Trio (Chandos)

Bryant:When I interviewed the Manhattan Piano Trio's manager last week, he said this was his favorite trio ever. I've yet to hear, so glad you're playing it!

Gerry: This performance by the Borodin Trio has to be the best available. They do put a lot of soul into it. 2nd movement is so suave.

Shostakovich: Piano Trio #2/ Vadim Repin, violin, Dmitry Yablonsky, piano, Boris Berezovsky, piano (Erato).

A couple of my favorite Russian musicians, good pals in real life (Vadim & Boris). It's a real gem of a performance. So to bed...

Tonight's Cyber Classical

Sunday February 10, 2008

Bryant is trapped in Michigan by the elements, but the show will go on, so tune in to radio.depaul.edu at9PM for a program of CDs I've never heard. We'll listen for the first time together to music by Weinberg, Schwertsik, Raff and Arensky and some others.

Cyber Classical #62

The blizzard program
Sunday 02/03/08
9:00 P.M. Chicago.

As the snow falls lightly down into pillowy drifts, and cars spin out and people scurry back to warm homes or shelters, Cyber Classical is on the air with music to listen to in darkness.

Charles Ives' Symphony #4, with its bizarre sonics and insistent originality is just the thing to get the blood circulating in housebound heads.

Ives: Sym 4/ Serebrier, LPO (BMG)

Then our contemporary original: John Adams and his Shaker Loops, shivery music for a winter night, with some of the same drama as in the Ives. And ice coldness. The orchestration is a lot heavier than I remember the original version.

John Adams "Shaker Loops" (1978, rev. 1983) Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop.

So on to Bryant's first choice for the day:

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Concerto for Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra. Composer conducting. (Reference Recordings)

Gerry: What made you pick a CD by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski for the show?

Bryant: As I was browsing my collection, I wanted to snag up a disc that wasn't something I'd heard a hundred times. In fact, I don't remember anything about this CD! Plus, the really weird looking name was enticing.

Gerry: I like this music; although it was dedicated to his memory, it doesn't sound much like Bruckner -- at least the first movement; there's a lot of hard edges and big orchestration, but no psychology that I can hear. More Bartok than anything. The Adagio goes into more tonal areas with drama and some liquidity. Then all hell breaks loose until the end, which goes out quietly. Pretty solid stuff. Do you think it will be entering, as they say, the repertoire?

Bryant: Theoretically, yes. Logically, no. Unless Pierre Boulez or some other visionary conductors with a world-class orchestra at their disposal was listening tonight, I doubt Strowaczewski will get his due exposure. But I'm going to be optimistic and predict there will be a revival at some point, because that was a pretty gripping and substantial work.

Guess this artist: Beethoven Symphony No. 7 (First movement)
Gustavo Dudamel; Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (DG)

Gerry: I thought it was propulsive and energy-filled. The studio sound here is so bad I originally thought it was a historic CD, or at least an older one. Not big on subtlety or refinement, but I bet Ludwig would've liked it... B, you saw young Gustavo live; how did he seem as compared to the impression given by this disk?

Bryant: Well, no recording is a suitable replacement for a live performance, and this is no exception. I didn't hear him do LvB in person, but heard his take on Mahler's 1st. I would agree with you that were wasn't a ton of nuance in the Beethoven, but I will say he is more interesting in the Mahler. Andrew Patner interviewed him for WFMT and asked him what other kinds of music he liked. He responded in the thickest Venezuelan accent: "I like-a da bo-leros!"

Saint-Saens: Parysatis -- Airs de ballet.
Geoffrey Simon/LPO (Cala)

Gerry: Here's an oddity, by one of the most fertile musical minds of the later 19th Century, who lived into anachronism, dying in 1921. It's a ballet suite from incidental music used in a play about some bloodthirsty Persian queen we've never heard of, and sounds like a briefer version of the bacchanal from Samson&Delilah, written decades earlier. Old SS never really changed that much, but always had a musical idea or two up his sleeve. Very rich stuff, I thought.

Anton Webern. "Langsamer Satz" for String Quartet. Carmina Quartet (Denon)

Bryant: This was nothing like the Webern we've come to know in his Op. 6 suite. This was a page out of early Schoenberg, his mentor, and other late romantic repertory. I loved it, because you could tell there was a serialist underneath the flowers and tenderness. It was a nice prelude to his thornier and more desolate sound. Any quick thoughts on it, Gerry?

Gerry: Very smooth and clean, without sentimentality, almost like some proto Norwegian semi modernist. Am I off base? I'll bring some major Webern next week for a quick comparison. I like listening to composers like Webern & Schoenberg in their early works because you can use them as keys to unlock the emotional kernel in their latter more unyielding pieces.

Brahms: String Quartet # 1/ Emerson Qt. (DG)

A fav of both of us. New and fresh. I picked up this CD on my first day at WFMT. Nice little extra!

Bryant: This was also my first appearance in Time Out Chicago. I wrote a 280-word review of this disc.

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (Selections)
Boris Berezovsky, piano. (teldec)

Gerry: Boris Berezovsky and I go back: I had to cart him around to his various appointments in Chicago about ten years ago, and we ended up at his hotel bar competing in shots of vodka. I lost. My boss at WEA next day almost fired me for being such a demonstrative bore at a large fancy dinner party for Boris. A memorable night, though.

Cyber Classical #61

Cyber Classical Show #61
January 27, 2008

Esa-Pekka Salonen. "Insomnia for Orchestra"
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Salonen, conductor.
(DG)

Matthias Pintscher: Sur "Depart"
NDR-Sinfonieorchester, Hamburg/Eschenbach
(Teldec)

Christoph Willibald Gluck. "Allesandro."
Musica Antiqua Koln. Reinhard Goebel.
(Archiv)

Guess this piece: Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto: Andante
Kyung Wha Chung, LSO/Previn
(Decca)

George Enescu:Suite No. 2 for orchestra
Orchestre Phil. de Monte-Carlo/ Lawrence Foster
(Erato)

George Crumb. "Voice of the Whale."
For electric flute (Daniel Pailthorpe), electric
cello (Bridget MacRae), electic piano (Julian Milford)
(BlackBox)

Eugene Ysaye: Sonata No. 4 for violin solo (Dedicated to Kreisler)
Philippe Graffin, violin
(Hyperion)

Mark-Anthony Turnage. "Two Memorials," "An Invention on Solitude,"
"Sleep On." The Nash Ensemble. (BlackBox)

Jean Sibelius. "En Saga."
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Kirill Kondrashin. RCO

Cyber Classical #60

Show no. 60
January 20, 2008
(Revised 1/23)


Glenn Branca. Symphony No. 8 (first movement)
The Glenn Branca Ensemble, con. G. Branca (Blast First)

My first exposure to this iconic figure. It's sufficiently hard to get his music on disc that I grabbed this at the DePaul library the minute I saw it. Ok, so that's what it's all about, is it? It's a bridge to the rock kids. Guitar based, relentlessly rhythmed and amplified. And it was a real experience -- much more to be there I'm sure, and I'd go in a minute. A welcome new wrinkle to our program.

György Ligeti. Trois Bagatelles for David Tudor.
Fredrik Ullén, piano. (BIS)

Bryant picked this for fellow critic Stephen Marc Beaudoin. We wuz bamboozeled! Should have noticed the dedication to David Tudor, which might have wakened associations with Cage, which might have made us wary but no, we put it on and actually thought we had a defective CD and dead air, so we panicked and pulled it off...and it was simply a witty modernist position being taken by Ligeti, consisting of a single piano note and its endless decay. At Cyber Classical at least you will get the truth even if it reflects against us...


Anton Arensky. Symphony No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 4.
USSR Symphony Orchestra; Yevgeny Svetlanov, con.
(VOX)

Our only 19th century item today. Bold, rich, and sounding
at times like Tchaikovsky at times like Rimsky-Korsakoff. His chamber music is well liked by some.

Arvo Part. Cello Concerto "Pro et contra."
Bamberg Sym; Neeme Jarvi, con. (BIS)

This was a "Guess This" item for Bryant. Part acting up. Very appropriate that the CD did too! He guessed it after several strong hints -- "west of Russia""...etc.
That magnificent Estonian Neeme Jarvi conducted with vigor.

York Bowen. Sonata in E minor for Violin & Piano, op. 112
Endymion Ensemble (Epoch)

Wow, a whole new composer to sample...this was music suitable for a matinee with the Queen Mother, and I'm not being patronising, I'm simply placing it in its time and place. I believe he's got an interesting Violin Concerto which has been compared to Glazunov's.

Henry Cowell. Symphony No. 15 (Thesis)
The Louisville Orchestra (Robert S. Whitney
& Jorge Mester, conductors) (first edition)

A late and somewhat academic piece with still lots of that great American gruffness and orchestral spunk. Recommended.

Debussy. Preludes, Book II.
Jorge Federico Osorio, piano. (Cedille)

Cedille goes on its unconcerned way just releasing the CDs it wants to and getting lots of positive reviews. They seem to have a business plan in place which insulates them from the tumbling market for CDs, or else they have another source of income.

Philip Glass. Symphony No. 5 (Selections)
Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, con.
(Nonesuch)

I finally got to audition this 2-CD Nonesuch box before the show and I was immediately taken with this vocal extravaganza written for the Millenium. I think it is first class Glass. I loved the text, the chorus, the soloists and the conducting. As for Glass' music, there will have to be some winnowing pretty darn soon!

Dr Atomic in Chicago

For me there was a disconnect between what I was hearing and what I was seeing. The music of Adams was rich, inventive and full of foreboding. The choral sections were particularly strong and well-sung. I thought the sound design was involving and even the anti-climactic ending was satisfying to me. The baritone (almost a tenor at times) of Gerald Finley was always in the right place, and his performance of Donne's tortured poetry, standing in front of the curtained bomb, was riveting. Good singing from the rest of the cast as well, especially from soprano Jessica Rivera as Kitty.

The work however failed to cohere for me. The staging was great in spots but studded with arbitrary and overly fussy elements. I was not impressed with the balletic bits, which reminded me more of Sharks and Jets (old in their time), and seemed to be deployed to give some needed physicality to a static script.

The libretto was the problem, and what was happening on the stage was too often uninteresting in spite of the profundity of the issues. It seems as if Peter Sellars the stage director couldn't tell Peter Sellars the librettist when enough was enough...A good example was in the lengthy bedroom scene in Act I. But there was so much good music and such a core of drama (can we say Apocalypsis) underlying it all that it's hard to be too hard on the thing. It's just that this opera will not be on any top ten of mine any time soon.