New York Philharmonic. Jeannette Sorrell, conductor. October 28, 2023.

David Geffen Hall.  Orchestra 3 (Seat AA118, $70).

Photo taken after Act II, before the intermission.  There were only 4 soloists at this point.

Program

Israel in Egypt, Oratorio in Three Parts, HWV 54 (1739) by Handel (1685-1759).  Adapted by Jeannette Sorrell.

Artists

Soloists: Amanda Forsythe, soprano; Sonya Headlam, soprano; Cody Bowers, countertenor; Jacob Perry, tenor; Edward Vogel, baritone.

Apollo's Singers (Chorus of Apollo's Fire), Jeannette Sorrell, artistic director.

Sheryl Staples, Lisa Eunsoo Kim, violins; Carter Brey, cello; Robert Botti, oboe; Christopher Martin, trumpet; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord.

This is an oratorio composed by Handel in the span of about a month.  In its original form it lasts about 3 hours.  Over the years different people have made various attempts to shorten it.  Tonight's version, about 100 minutes in duration, was adapted by Sorrell in 2017.  In the Program Notes she mentions her restoring some portions of Part I to make the storyline more complete.  To keep the oratorio's duration manageable for modern audiences, she for the most part made cuts within movements and added some dynamics to drive the story.  Practices, she claims, that were common for performance of Baroque music in Handel's time.

The three parts of the oratorio are familiar to those with some knowledge of the Bible: Act I: Lamentation of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph; Act II: Exodus; Act III: Moses's Song.  Most of Act III is taken from Moses's song as recorded in Exodus 15, which also recorded what Miriam sang.  

The death of Joseph as recorded in the last verse of Genesis reads: And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt (NIV).  The last line in Act I is "Their bodies are buried in peace," a quote supposedly from Ecclesiastes 44:14.  That book has 12 chapters.  It turns out in the KJV (up till 1885) the books in the apocrypha was included between the traditional Old and New Testaments.  So Handel (more likely his lyricist, believed by many to be Charles Jennens, who also did the lyrics for Messiah) was quoting from the book of Ecclesiasticus.  Act II is basically a short description of the plaques that visited on Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, and ending with "the waters overwhelmed their enemies."

There is much to like about the performance.  An easy to understand story, music that doesn't overwhelm (unless one chooses to be, by trying to analyze what one hears), performed by competent musicians.  The Program Notes describes how vivid Handel made the music: frogs jump off the page; flies appear ... in the violins; hailstones drops ... overwhelming torrent; indeed one can hear these effects, but they are not necessarily more realistic than what Beethoven did in the Pastoral Symphony, to cite an example that comes to mind readily.

Apollo's Fire is based in Cleveland, Ohio.  The chorus was founded in 1992 by Sorrell.  For tonight there were about 50 singers on stage.  Per the listing in Playbill, today's soloists are the leaders of their respective sections (if listing order is any indication).  If one looks at the organization's website, there are only 36 singers listed, and none of tonight's soloists is listed as a "core singer."  Sounds like a democratic and/or egalitarian organization.

The unfortunate fact is when one thinks Handel and oratorio, Messiah is the one that comes to mind.  Enjoyable as it is, Israel in Egypt suffers from a storyline that may be too simple, and the lack of memorable melodies.  Indeed none of the movements sounded familiar to either Anne or myself.  That in itself may not be that unusual.  The last (and only) time the entire oratorio was performed by this orchestra was in 1891 (some single arias were done, evidently).  I wonder what Handel would think if he knows this oratorio is performed less than once per century, but Messiah is performed every year.

Acoustics at our seats was generally fine.  The solo voices didn't come across as strong as I would like.  So there is a difference between Orchestra 3 and Orchestra 1, after all.

We left right after the concert concluded, and managed to catch the 9:38 pm train back to South Amboy with a few minutes to spare.

New Jersey Symphony. Joseph Young, conductor; Sterling Elliott, cello. October 21, 2023.

Count Basie Center, Red Bank, NJ.  Orchestra Center (Seat G101, $55).

Soloist Elliott acknowledging the orchestra, with conductor Young looking on.

Program

Snapshots by Jessie Montgomery.

Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129 by R. Schumann.

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, "Enigma" by Elgar.

The draw of the concert, for me, is the Schumann Cello concerto.  About ten days prior we heard the piano concerto performed by Trifonov.  Today's Program Notes isn't as "educational" as the writeup in NY Phil's Playbill, but the music is equally fascinating.  Instead of taking years to write the piano concerto, Schumann took all of two weeks to do it for the cello; it was written in 1850, a few years later.

It's a lovely concerto.  Again I am more familiar with it than I thought.  The young soloist is a recent Avery Fisher Prize winner.  He is from a musical family, and was brought up with a jazz and blue-grass background.  For an encore he played "Julie-O" by Mark Summer (I heard Julio by Mark Sumner, a search using that term returned some videos that sounded like the encore).

Who am I to haggle with Avery Fisher Price judges, but I did think the performance was missing a coherent story line.  It is still amazing how one could still get a accurate pitch jumping around the fingerboard, though.  And Schumann seemed to use every note available to the cello.

The movements of the concerto are Nicht zu schnell, Langsam, and Sehr lebhaft.

Despite all the writeups extolling the virtues of the "Enigma" variations, it remains an enigma to me.  Not so much what specific people Elgar had in mind for the specific variations, but something quite fundamental: how each variation deals with the theme.  I am embarrassed to say by the time we got to the finale, I couldn't tell how similar it was to the original theme.  Perhaps next time I will read up on the music (rather the story) and look at the score.

Tonight's program began with Montgomery's Snapshots, a work commissioned by several orchestras, including the NJ Symphony.  The movements are all marked by tempo markings, but the music didn't feel rigid at all.  Montgomery had a brief description of each of the vignettes, and as quoted in the Program Notes, "Each movement [is] distinct in character and based on an imagined scene, mood or effect."  The movements are described as boisterous (I, Quarter note = 168), whimsical and playful, a passing storm that never quite quits (II & III.  Lively: quarter note - 132; Meandering: quarter note = 60), and being influenced by film music and Ravel and Debussy string quartets (IV: Con fuoco: quarter note = 112).  Multiple listenings may get a listener to appreciate what she was saying, but I wouldn't even want to try with a first-listen.

The conductor Joseph Young has several concurrent assignments, one being the resident conductor of the National Youth Orchestra-USA at Carnegie Hall.

Our grandchildren were staying with us this evening.  I left the house a little before 7 pm to get a discounted ticket for the 8 pm concert.  This concert was poorly attended, the auditorium was perhaps 1/3 full.

Quatuor Danel. October 15, 2023.

Town Hall, New York City.  (Orchestra, Seat N117.  $15.45)

The quartet at the conclusion of the concert.

Program

Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Quartet in C Minor, D. 730 "Quartettsatz" (1820).

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), Quartet No. 16 in A-flat Major, Op. 130 (1981).

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80 (1847).

Artists: Marc Danel, violin; Gilles Millet, violin; Vlad Bogdanas, viola; Yovan Markovitch, cello.

The quartet is named after it's leader, Marc Danel, and has been around for over 30 years.  It's has worldwide presence; for example, in the month of October they have concerts in several cities in the US and in Leuven, Belgium.  Naturally this was my first encounter with the ensemble.

The Schubert piece was relatively short (less than 10 minutes) and contains two movements: Allegro assai, and Andante.

Weinberg was a Polish-born Russian composer and pianist, per Wikipedia, which also lists the 159 compositions authored by the composer.  The musicians certainly got a workout from the piece - the longest of the three.  As with most modern compositions, I spent a lot of time trying to "analyze" what I heard - without much success, as usual.  This composer is a favorite of this quartet, which performed the complete quartet cycle in Manchester in 2019.

Mendelssohn's piece would straddle the relatively simplicity of Schubert and denseness of Weinberg.  I enjoyed it.

My lack of words in this blog reflects my need to get more familiar with this genre.  Indeed I appreciated how the four parts worked with (and sometimes against) one another, but I don't have the vocabulary to describe what I heard.

After finding out about People's Symphony Concerts (PSC) I decided to do a 6-concert subscription (the Solomon series).  The whole series cost $90 (plus a 3% fee).  Frank Salomon is the third manager in the organization's 125-year history, and has been in the role for 50 years.  His predecessor did it for 58 years.  I am sure he is a major benefactor as well.  Despite the word "symphony" in its name, PSC hosts very few (if any) symphonic concerts.

The concert was reasonably well-attended.  The gentleman next to my assigned seat mentioned that the auditorium used to be full pre-pandemic, but hasn't quite worked back up those crowd levels yet.  We also commiserated on our inability to understand many of today's compositions.  I moved before the concert started (social distancing) and moved to the back row after intermission so I could make a quick exit.

NJ Transit ran smoothly, so I had time to stop by a pizzeria for lunch.  Cost about $16 for two slices and a soda.

New York Philharmonic. Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, conductor; Daniil Trifonov, piano. October 13, 2023.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra 1 (Seat O105, $90.25).

Trifonov after the performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto, with Grazinyte-Tyla looking on.

Program

De profundis for string orchestra (1998) by Raminta Serksnyte (b. 1975).

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 (1841-45) by R. Schumann (1810-56).

Selections from Lemminkainen Suite, Op. 22 (1895, last rev. 1939).

The drawing card on the program for most people was most likely Trifonov who at 32 has been a reliable (perhaps sensational is the better adjective) soloist for about 10 years.

And the piece did not disappoint.  Looking over my blog entries, I found out to my amazement and chagrin that in January 2019 I had seen Trifonov perform this concerto with the New Jersey Symphony.  And my reaction then is valid for today's performance as well.  One could argue Liszt's influence came across clearer today, but that may well be due to my level of familiarity with this concerto.

Some interesting side notes.  The Clara Schumann concerto, completed in 1936, was performed by Inon Barnatan and the New Jersey Symphony in 2020.  She didn't marry Robert until 1939, so was still Clara Wieck.  The Program Notes also mentions her influence by Liszt and Chopin.  Perhaps that just the development of classical music during that time period?  Also, Clara Schumann gave the premiere performance of the Robert Schumann concerto.

Today's Program Notes also describe most concertos written during that time were considered lightweight vehicles for showmanship.  The composers listed - Kalkbrenner, Thalberg, Herz, Pixis, and so on - have indeed slipped to the fringe of the repertoire; I didn't know any of them.  The Schumann concerto had its origin in 1841 as a one-movement Phantasie for Piano and Orchestra, performed twice at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Clara Schumann as the soloist, and Felix Mendelssohn as the conductor.

[Note added October 25: Trifonov played an encore that sounded like one of Bach's three-part inventions, if there is such a thing.]

De Profundis was written by Serksnyte as her bachelor's graduation work in 1998.  She is now teaching at the same Lithuania Academy of Music.  In her words as quoted in the Program Notes: "This dramatic music, full of contrasts, reflects a certain worldview of a young person...  At a young age life is perceived in an extreme, "severe" way, where euphoria quickly changes to disappointment..."

The composer of De Profundis, Raminta Serksnyte, on stage after the performance.

Indeed it's easy to discern some of the contrasts she talks about ("extreme" is too strong a word): beauty and melancholy, Western and Eastern cultures, rational and irrational ideas - quoting again from the Program Notes.  And the use of major and minor thirds.  For me, however, the music doesn't go beyond that.  Other than describing these contrasts, the music didn't say much else to me.  I certainly did get what the Annotator describes as "a taut, spellbinding intensity that eventually quiets even as it never entirely dissolves."  Over the ensuing 25 years the composer has written music and many different genres, and accumulated quite a few prizes.  De Profundis, however, is still her most-performed work.

My reaction to the Lemminaiken Suite by Sibelius runs hot and cold, mostly cold.  In fact I considered my first encounter of "The Swan of Tuonela" forgettable.  The one positive reaction I had was when the entire Suite was performed by NY Phil, under the direction of Sir Colin Davies.  That was the first time the piece was performed in its entirety by the ensemble.  The pieces selected for tonight's performance are: Lemminlainen and the Maidens of the Island; The Swan of Tuonela; and Lemminkainen's Return.  Ryan Roberts, the orchestra's English Horn, was the soloist in the Swan movement.

The Program Notes spent quite a few words describing what is behind the first movement, discussing if it describes how Lemminkainen sleeps with with every woman on the island, or if it simply a portrayal of the wanton life of the protagonist (the word "hero" used doesn't seem appropriate).  One would think the latter remark, supposed from Sibelius himself, would cut off all discussions of this nature.  Being a tone poem, there should be storylines behind each movement, and I am sure there are.  Those are not described in the Program Notes for tonight.

Ryan Roberts was the English Horn solo for the Swan of Tuonela movement.

This is the debut performance by the young Lithuanian-born Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla.  She had a presence that is remarkable, especially considering her small stature, and is one of the few conductors with an upward facing palm in her conducting techniques.  The reports that I have read all seem to heap praises on her, so it's somewhat of a pity that tonight's performance wasn't a showcase of her talents - others disagree.  Of course the Schumann concerto being as pleasant as it was had to be due to the great performance of the orchestra.  Unfortunately she was blocked from view by the piano.

Today's concert began at 11 am, so we were planning to take the 9:04 am train from South Amboy.  As with our last trip, a pedestrian accident (which ended up being a fatal one) stopped all trains coming up from the south.  Fortunately the 9:17 am train originated from South Amboy, so we got to Lincoln Center with 15 minutes to spare.  The return trip was fine.

There were some empty seats in the auditorium, and - as is the case with many of these day-time concerts - many in the audience are older folks.

New York Philharmonic. Jaap van Zweden, conductor; Joshua Bell, violin. September 30, 2023.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  (Orchestra 1, Seat R101, $90.25)

Program

The Elements (2023) by Puts, Meyer, Heggie, Higdon and Montgomery.

Third Symphony (1944-46) by Copland (1900-90).

Concertmaster and Conducting shaking hands after the concert.  This would be van Zweden's last year as Music Director of New York Philharmonic.

First, we didn't get to Lincoln Center in time for the Elements.  I will get to the reason later.

It was about 8:30 pm when we got to David Geffen Hall.  The renovated building has a rather large atrium with a couple of large screen TVs that would broadcast the event live, and is open to the public.  The atrium was reasonably full, with all the seats occupied.  There was quite a bit of standing room, and some available seating in the box office area.  So we managed to see part of the performance.  For various reasons it was difficult to concentrate, but I did get a glimpse of what the piece sounded like.

The piece wasn't over until around 9 pm.  The durations as stated in the Playbill total 38 minutes.  If my logic is correct, that would mean we missed only about 8 minutes of the piece.  In my mind I had given up on hearing the piece, so I wasn't focused on it, and consequently don't remember much of it.  Perhaps it is sour grapes, but Anne and I concluded we didn't miss much.

At intermission we were allowed into the venue.  We have attended concerts in the renovated David Geffen Hall quite a few times, this, however, was the first time we sat in a prime section (Orchestra 1).  My first impression was that the sound was loud, although not as clear as it could be.

The Copland piece was finished after the second world war, and the work is considered by some both as a contribution to the war effort and the celebration of its end.  Honestly, without the Program Notes I wouldn't have gotten either.

The four movements of the symphony are (i) Molto moderato with simple expression; (ii) Allegro molto; (iii) Andantino quasi allegretto; and (iv) Molto deliberato (Fanfare); Allegro risoluto.  A few noteworthy (well, to some) comments on the work.  First, Copland deliberated name this the Third Symphony, instead of the more expected Symphony No. 3.  Wikipedia has it listed as "Symphony No. 3 (Copland)."  What would a purist say to that?  Second, the third and fourth movements are performed without pause.  Third, the fourth movement contains the well-known theme "Fanfare for the Common Man" composed by Copland a few years earlier.  Lastly, Copland made it clear this was the only non-original part of the symphony, and that it contains no folk, jazz or other popular material; he allowed he might have been influenced by Mahler in a general way.  Well, had it not for the last sentence, Mahler would not have crossed my mind: and I have been listening to Mahler recordings quite a bit recently.

One can see the performance live from large screen TVs installed in the Atrium, for free.

I wonder why there is this grey hue in the stage area.  Photos taken with iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Both Anne and I agreed this was not a particularly inspired performance.  Whether it was due to our mindset, I don't know.  Let's hope things improve: we have tickets to an additional 12 concerts.

One word about the ticket price.  This is part of the "Add-On" package I bought, the "best available seats" were priced at $89 (price of $90.25 includes part of the booking charge).  I checked the NY Phil website, a similar seat purchased at "retail" costs $217 (including a $23 service fee).

We took the 5:40 pm train from South Amboy, which would have gotten us to NY Penn at 6:40 pm, ample time to get something to eat before the concert.  There was a train accident in North Elizabeth involving a pedestrian fatality at 4 pm, which resulted in delays the rest of the day.  As a result, we didn't get to NY Penn until around 8:15 pm.  This kind of delay - thankfully - is rare, but does happen.

There was no food at the Bar, nor the kiosks in the venue, so we made do with a bag of chips (each).  We did have time at NY Penn for the return trip, and shared a sandwich between the two of us.

The train was more crowded than usual, but was on time.  It was just past midnight that we got home.