Kindred Spirits Orchestra. Kirstian Alexander, conductor. June 21, 2025.

George Weston Recital Hall, Meridian Arts Center, Toronto, Ontario.  Dress Circle (Seat C218, C$52).

Program

Verdi's Requiem.

Artists

Natalya Gennadi, soprano; Danielle MacMillan, mezzo-soprano; Michael d'Entremont, tenor; Dion Mazerolle, bass.

Orpheus Choir of Toronto, Thomas Burton, Artistic Director.

Resound Choir, Thomas Burton, Artistic Director.

Anne and I are spending a few days in Ontario, Canada, and we are in Toronto for a few days.  When I searched for classical concert availability for today (June 21), I found a Copland opera (The Tender Land) and this concert.  We felt a more familiar work would be better suited for our "vacation mood," and decided on this event.  "Familiar" is relative, as I find three blog entries of this work: twice by NY Phil, and once by NJ Symphony.

I had not encountered any of the performers before, and I didn't know about this Meridian Arts Center.  The upshot is we came not knowing what to expect.  I went away giving a lot of credit to the hard work the musicians put in, and much appreciation to the group being able to convey the sentiments Verdi was trying to convey with this work.  There was an Emcee who gave an introduction for the piece.  Too complex for someone not familiar with the music; not much fresh insight for those who are; and too long in either case.

The ensemble was large.  I counted around 95 chorus members, and guess there were about 80 orchestra members.  There were 12 first violins, 6 cellos, and 4 basses (so not enough low voices).  Four brasses were in the balcony.  The auditorium sits about 1000 people, perhaps 800 showed up.

The concert hall is a short walk from a subway station.  Overall an enjoyable evening.

New Jersey Symphony Xian Zhang, conductor; Conrad Tao, piano. June 7, 2025.

Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, NJ.  Balcony (Seat G113, $45).

Conrad Tao and Xian Zhang after the performance of Rachmaninoff 2.

Program

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).

Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47 by Shostakovich (1906-1975).

This is the last series of concerts for this NJ Symphony season, and we have two war horses on the program.

Perhaps to the detriment to the appreciation of his overall compositional skills, one thinks of nice melodies and virtuoso techniques whenever a Rachmaninoff piece is performed.  Today's performance was no exception - the pianist put in a delightful performance, and his virtuosity was on full display.  Even though I am reasonably familiar with the work, I still couldn't get beyond singing (no sound) to the tunes and marveling at how easy Tao made it look.  Every now and then I could move back a little and enjoy how cleverly the piece was structured; those moments were few and fast between.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

We are quite familiar with Conrad Tao's name, but I am quite sure this was the first time we saw him perform.  (Anne thought we had seen him before, but she is not writing this.)  I do remember listening to one of his compositions performed by the Hong Kong Philharmonic; that was back in 2017.

For encore he played a "transcription" (if I remember what he said correctly) of Over the Rainbow as played by Art Tatum, a jazzy rendition of the well-known song from Wizard of Oz that came out in 1939.  (Google filled in some of the details.)

2025 is the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich's death, so one would expect orchestras to program his composition in their concerts.  I find it a bit surprising this is only the 4th concert so far this year for me.  We will see what the start of the 2025 Fall season brings.

The fifth symphony is considered the most popular of Shostakovich's fifteen symphonies.  He was denounced in the Soviet press for his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtmensk (many think the critical article in Pravda was written by Stalin himself); and, given the fate suffered by many of his fellow musicians at that time, Shostakovich supposedly packed a suitcase should agents appear at his front door at any time to arrest (and possibly disappear) him.  He wrote this symphony in a way the authorities wanted and to rehabilitate himself.  With any of Shostakovich's work, musicologists and historians (professional or otherwise) can't seem to resist debating what kind of political message was being expressed directly or indirectly, and how much sarcasm was intended.  Ostensibly patriotic passages mean Shostakovich was on board with the authorities' view of "good music," or were they meant to be caricatures of the outward obsequiousness?  Interesting ideas that often lead me down various rabbit holes, but the fact is Shostakovich did not provide much guidance on how his music should be interpreted.  For this symphony, however, I will posit he meant to sound patriotic.  It possibly would be fatal for him if the authorities suspect any sarcasm or disloyalty in what he wrote; that would apply even if his intentions were misinterpreted.  Shostakovich is said to have described the fourth movement as "forced rejoicing," but the authenticity of the account is questioned by many; and in any case the remark came out after Shostakovich died.

I prepared for this concert by listening to the two episodes on the Symphony in the Sticky Notes podcast, and reading the Program Notes on the NJ Symphony website.  Much of what I wrote in the previous paragraph was lifted from these sources. Alas, that didn't make this a great listening experience.  I was so intent on "deciphering" the music that I missed the music itself; that may be too harsh, but at a minimum I missed enjoying the music for its own sake.  That was quite different from what I experienced when I heard the Eighth Symphony last month (BSO).

An unusually large orchestra was used for this performance.  I counted 14 first violins and maybe 10 second violins, for instance.  That the orchestra can pull this off with precision is something I couldn't imagine happening a few years ago, so that's great.  Many woodwind and brass instruments had to come in by themselves, against a large ensemble, and I thought they generally acquitted themselves quite well.  The volume range was large, and at its loudest my ears hurt (slight exaggeration), so I can imagine how the volume affected those on stage.

Shostakovich described this work as "... the development of the individual.  I saw man with all this sufferings as the central ideas of the work, which is lyrical in mood from start to finish.  The finale resolves the tragedy and tension of the earlier movements on a joyous, optimistic note."  Fair enough, although it is difficult to hear the last movement and not think "glorious homeland," perhaps spiced with a dose of sarcasm.  I wonder if the quote (in the Program Notes) was published after persecution stopped.  One thing for sure, he described it as "a Soviet artists creative reply to just criticism."

A large orchestra was used to perform the Shostakovich Symphony.

Well, I sound like one of "those people," or someone who pretends to be one.

Four other people we know also attended the concert, and we ate at Juanito's before the event.  Anne and I got rained on a bit by the forecasted "light rain."

The event was one of the best attended I have seen in NJ, which was encouraging.  The applause was also enthusiastic.

New York Philharmonic. Gustavo Dudamel, conductor. May 30, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat Z103, $147).

Program

Symphony No. 7 (1904-05) by Mahler (1860-1911).

A very large ensemble used for the concert.  There was some space in front of the brass players which I couldn't tell from where I sat.

Dudamel will become the music director of NY Phil in the fall of 2026 (full 3 1/2 years after the announcement in 2/2023).  This program is the last of the several (more like "few") he will be conducting this season; and this series would also the season.

Performances of Mahler symphonies are always major events.  They usually represent the only composition in a program, although in the past NY Phil often paired a Mahler symphony with a shorter piece.  (A good example would be his first symphony.)  There are two blog entries I could find where Mahler 7 was performed, the first one was in June 2007, conducted by Maazel, the second was in June 2017, a farewell concert for Gilbert.  Both concerts had other pieces on the program.  This afternoon's was Mahler only.  (The concert started at 11 am.)

Despite having heard it at least twice, I was not familiar with the work at all.  When I first started listening to Mahler, I described his music as wandering from one scene to the other, and it never took a lot of effort to map his symphonies into that scheme.  I listened to today's performance with that in mind, my short summary of it would be it went around in circles and didn't get anywhere.  The journey itself?  Okay, but not as deliberate as I thought it would be.

The Program Notes had a short description of the "plan" for the work, quoting Mahler as saying "Three night pieces; the finale bright day.  As foundation for the whole, the first movement."  Yes, it was possible to think of the movements that way, but somehow I didn't find it very satisfying.  The recent BSO concert we went also had a simple description in the Program Notes (on Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony).  To be fair, the BSO annotator did the description over several short paragraphs, and Shostakovich probably had more of a scenario in mind.

At the suggestion of a high school classmate, I bought a book on Mahler's symphonies a couple of years ago, which I had finished reading.  To prepare for today, I dutifully reread the 30-plus pages devoted to this symphony.  The chapter provides some background on where Mahler was (physical location, mental state, professional obligations, his familiarity with Wagner, and so on) when he composed the music - which may or may not help in the understanding of said music; it also describes how each of the movements is organized.  That didn't help much either.

All this isn't to say I didn't enjoy the concert.  It was interesting to see how large the ensemble was (perhaps 17 first violins, for instance), and how the musicians filled up the entire stage, at least as viewed from my seat.  The music did get into different moods, especially the "simpler ones" of Nachtmusik and scherzo.  There were many enjoyable solo passages, and they all came through well.  For the fourth movement (second Nachtmusik) a mandolin and a guitar were added to the mix.  Against the large orchestra they still managed to be heard; I wonder if their sounds were enhanced.  I had remarked in a prior blog entry it seemed to be the case.

Dudamel seemed to have great command of the orchestra.  The volume contrasts were amazing - and the sound was sometimes very loud even for my seat in the back of the auditorium.  Equally impressive was how precise the whole ensemble sounded.  I won't be surprised if no note was out of place (of course I cannot tell), and Dudamel did all this without the music in front of him.

The mandolin and the guitar were used in the fourth movement.  These two musicians were in the orchestra during the entirety of the symphony.  (I do wish their names be acknowledged in the Playbill.)

A close up.

Overall, I felt somewhat frustrated that I didn't get as much out of the concert as I expected, or thought I should.  Over the last several days (the bulk of this blog entry is written 3 days after the concert) I listened to some of these movements on my iPod (NY Phil, conducted by Bernstein), and the music is making more sense.  I will be doing more of this in the coming days.

This article in the New York Classical Review did nothing but heap praises on the performance, and I have no problems with that.  I do suspect the reviewer had read this book on Mahler that I have, using terminology that is close to those used in the book, The reviewer also mentioned most of Mahler's symphonies have a "linear narrative," and earlier I said "wandering from scene to scene."  I don't have a NY Times subscription, but the search comes back with phrases "not super-stylish," "ungainly" and "intonation ... not spot on."  So I can assume that reviewer wasn't enthralled with the performance, or Dudamel, or both?

Tickets (the few that were available) were selling for over $200 near the section we were in, we paid quite a bit less as part of a subscription.  The ticket for the June 2017 concert was $45.50, for a somewhat less desirable location.  Concert prices really have skyrocketed in the past few years.  Today's concert had only a few unsold seats.  The two seats next to us were no-shows, though.

We rushed out of the venue afterwards, missed the 1 train by seconds, didn't make the 12:43 pm train; we bought some food to eat while we waited for the next train back to South Amboy.

New Jersey Symphony. Xian Zhang, conductor. May 16, 2025.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton.  Parterre Left (Seat O-7, $72).

Program

Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K.525, by Mozart.

Double Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043, by J. S. Bach.

Delights and Dances by Michael Abels.

Symphony No. 35, "Haffner," K.385, by Mozart.

Quartet after performance of Abels' Delights and Dances.

Artists

Bach - Eric Wyrick, Francine Storck, violins.

Abels - Members of NJ Symphony: David Southorn, Ming Yang?, Elzbieta Weyman, Nayoung Baek.

The tagline for this concert is "Xian conducts Mozart."  There were two Mozart pieces on the program, but half of the program was of non-Mozart music, a Bach piece, and a piece by Abels (b. 1962).

 

Both Mozart pieces were nicely done.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik was first written for a 5-member string ensemble, but has since adapted for many different combinations of instruments.  I still remember our children learning a piano 4-hands version of it when they were young.  Adaptation for a string orchestra should be quite straightforward.  To make the bassists happy, they could always double up the cello part, which they did.

The Haffner probably won't belong in Mozart's "Top Five" most popular symphonies.  (In my casual search it missed the mark by one: it was the sixth most popular one.  So my guess was right, albeit barely.)  Per the Program Notes, it was very popular when it was published: partly because the more popular ones would be written later.  One could listen to Mozart with one's right brain and simply enjoy the rush of crisp and delightful sounds washing over you, or with the left brain and analyze the composition for form and harmony.  For this symphony one can do both, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes by individual passage.

Abels is best-known as the co-writer of an opera, and composer of film music.  This was my first encounter with both the name and the music.  As far as today's music goes, it was quite interesting, and quite pleasing to listen to also.

Per the composer (as described in the Program Notes, and paraphrased by me), the music starts "blues-like" and ends up "blue grassish."  Along the way he threw in other elements such as jazz and Latin.  Let's say I could tell blues and blue grass apart.

One composition technique he used was to start a melody in one quartet instrument and then either pass along the tune to the next instrument, or more instruments were added as the music progresses.  The tunes were modern enough that one would never associate them as a round.  And the music looked to be quite difficult, which all the quartet players did impressively well.  The string orchestra was used mostly as an accompanying ensemble, so Zhang just stood there most of the time letting the quartet go by themselves.  Towards the end, I did feel Abels overused this "relay technique" a bit, although to be fair it was only a handful of times (three?).

The Bach piece was a disappointment.  There were moments of clarity, but I generally had trouble picking out the different contrapuntal lines.  Being familiar with the music helps, but I usually have more success with Bach pieces that I am not familiar with.

Wikipedia (a short 2-paragraph entry) calls this one of Bach's most successful works, and the Program Annotator mentions that Bach was trying to write an "Italian Style" concerto (modeled after Vivaldi).

Wyrick and Storck performed Bach's Double Concerto.

The program concluded with Mozart's Haffner Symphony.

(I had a lot more observations right after the concert.  By the time I started this blog entry about a week a later much of what I wanted to say has been forgotten. And it looks like I will be posting this entry on 6/7, a full three weeks later.)

Overall, it was an enjoyable concert.  Since this was near the end of the school year, the streets of Princeton were busier than usual.  I could find parking only in the garage, and restaurants were very busy.  We ended up grabbing something light to eat at Starbucks.