New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Inon Barnatan, piano. March 20, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 1 (Seat S103, $64.50.)

Program

Nyx (2010) by Salonen (b. 1958).

Piano Concerto in G major (1929-31) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Jeux: Poeme danse (1912-13) by Debussy (1862-1918).

Der Rosenkavalier Suite (1909-10/1944) by R. Strauss (1864-1949).

My prior encounters with Salonen’s music have been mixed, so I was not expecting much from the music that began today’s program.  The Playbill contains Salonen’s description of this work, Nyx being a shadowy figure in Greek mythology which traces to Nyx the creation of Day (or heaven and earth in another version).  Salonen decided to name the composition after this elusive figure, while making the claim that he is not trying to describe her.  He also mentions a deviation of his recent technique of continuous variation of material in the composition of this work.  In any case, many of his remarks are too profound for me, and – I suspect – for much of the audience.

So I fully suspected I would be shrugging my shoulders (figuratively) during the performance.  Instead I found this an easy piece of music to enjoy, as the orchestra is called upon to produce its full range of timbres, frequencies, and loudness.  While I cannot dissect the piece into different parts, I found it quite coherent as the music went from soft to loud, slow to fast, and low to high.

Salonen came on stage afterwards to take a bow.

I recall having heard Ravel’s G major piano at least twice, and came away with different impressions.  This is definitely a difficult piece – Ravel wanted to premiere it but couldn’t, after all – and Barnatan managed to pound out all the notes, leaving no doubt that he could handle the virtuoso piece.  However, musically it wasn’t satisfying, and the second movement simply dragged on aimlessly.  Going back to some of my earlier blog entries, this could be an enjoyable concerto.

A couple of days ago we heard Gershwin’s piano concerto.  Ravel composed this after his visit to America and Gershwin, so it is natural to assume there is some Gershwin influence in this piece.  Indeed occasionally one hears a glissando that evokes images of a jazz player.

Interestingly, a concert I went to last year had both the Gershwin and the Ravel piano concertos on the program.  Actually, the pianist was also the conductor for that concert as well (Jeffrey Kahane.)

We heard Jeux a few years ago, conducted by Lorin Maazel in 2011.  To recap, this was intended as ballet music with a rather thin story line.  I described the sound by the full orchestra then as “great.”  Admittedly I don’t remember much about that 2011 performance; however, while today’s performance is okay, it is definitely not in the “great” camp.

Similarly, the Rosenkavalier Suite didn’t quite rise to the “great” level either.  The version played today was by an unidentified arranger in 1944, although Artur Rodzinski is believed by many to be the editor.  For this concert series Gilbert further replaced the last section of the arrangement with the last pages of the opera, subsuming the vocal parts into the orchestra’s lines.

So this was a disappointing performance, and it showed so much promise on paper.

In his short description of the program, Gilbert talks about exploring texture and color possibilities.  With the exception of Salonen’s, the works were composed within about two decades of one another, yet they have the possibility of providing a wider range of textures than the LSO program we saw two days ago.  Gilbert decided to forgo the use of a baton today, I wonder if that had anything to do with the sloppiness of the sound.  Anne remarked that he looked like a traffic cop.

The 36-year old Israeli pianist is the Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic, so I imagine he comes with great credentials.  I had mentioned earlier how I found his performance flat, let’s hope it gets better as he spends more time working with the orchestra.

I don’t know if Sheryl Staples will be named the concertmaster to replace Dicterow.  If she did, I would be okay with it.  Actually in some way I am rooting for her, something about bridesmaids eventually becoming brides.  There were quite a few solo lines, but today she came across uncharacteristically weak playing them.

In an earlier blog I was hoping that the changes affecting the orchestra won’t diminish its quality.  Let’s hope today was just an aberration.

The New YorkTimes review actually went along pretty much the same lines I did, although I will concede the reviewer has better prose.  The one exception would be his calling Barnatan’s performance “judicious,” and the second movement “striking simplicity.”

This was an 11 am concert, but our drive into and out of the city was quite straightforward.

London Symphony Orchestra – Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Yuja Wang, piano. March 18, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Right Orchestra (Seat Z16, $65.)

Program

Four Sea Interludes, from Peter Grimes (1945) by Britten (1913-76).

Concerto in F (1925) by Gershwin (1898-1937).

Symphony No 2 in D major, Op. 43 (1901-02) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

As the playbill says, the three pieces for this concert were written within a span of forty years, and it would be interesting to hear the contrasts among them.  Of course one could have put Brahms and Bruckner in the same program and then made equally profound remarks about how their styles differ.  Having said that, I must say this is a delightful program, yet it didn’t quite stimulate to the extent I thought it would.

Soon after Peter Grimes was premiered, Britten excerpted and edited four of the interludes into an orchestral work.  The titles of the interludes are Dawn (Lento e tranquillo), Sunday Morning (Allegro spiritoso), Moonlight (Andante comodo e rubato), and Storm (Presto con fuoco).  The Playbill has a description of the segments that allows the listener to closely follow the music.  There is some novel instrumentation, such as the use of horns to imitate church bells.  On a good day I would probably find this enjoyable, today – perhaps in my jet-lagged state - I just found the whole thing a bit too predictable and trite.  So you can make music sound like the sea’s different conditions, what’s the big deal.   So could Debussy, Wagner, and many others.  Yes, and we heard The Oceanides by Sibelius in our last concert.  I guess the harshest remark would be this: having heard this piece didn’t really make me want to go see the opera.  In its defense, it didn’t make me want to see it less either.

If you asked me what I know about Gershwin, I would say Rhapsody in Blue, American in Paris, and parts of Porgy & Bess.  In the Playbill Gershwin is quoted as trying to show his critics “there was plenty more where that came from.”  After listening to this, both Anne and I agreed the concerto sounded like a combination of all three, only less exciting.  One note was repeated so often that it seemed to dominate much of the music.  It makes me wonder, however, what distinguishes classical music from jazz.  To me at its best jazz makes you want to swing, it radiates happiness and sadness, and it feels whimsical.  Somehow the “traditional” classical music means more to me, although I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Is it the structure, the harmony, or is it something else?

Yuja Wang is one of these young musicians that burst onto the music scene, seemingly from nowhere.  She is now in her early twenties, and today was the first time that we got to see her.  Our seats were on the right side of the auditorium, so we could see only her face and part of her right arm.  There were times I saw rapid arm movements but could barely hear the piano, I wonder if that was the acoustics of our seats, or it was just lousy balance with the orchestra.  She seemed to enjoy herself, and it looked as if she was singing or murmuring along as she played.  The 30- or so minute piece consists of three movements: Allegro, Adagio – Andante con moto, and Allegro agitato.

The thunderous applause really puzzled me.  She played an encore that I had not heard before, but it was in the same “genre” as Gershwin, if there is such a thing.  The one remarkable thing was she used an iPad (or an Android tablet) as her music score, turning the pages by quickly tapping on the device.

There is much discussion in the Playbill about Sibelius’s second symphony’s patriotic element, a defiant gesture towards the Russian occupation.  Frankly I didn’t hear much of it; actually I found it rather sunny.  Described as “significantly tauter” than the first, I still found its 45 minute length a bit long.  However, it is on the whole quite enjoyable.  The part where a theme took a while to be teased out in its entirety still held me in anticipation.  The movements are: Allegretto; Tempo Andante, ma rubato; Vivacissimo; and Finale: Allegro moderato, with the last two movements played without pause.

I vaguely recall listening to Thomas conducting this orchestra (or was it the San Francisco Symphony?) at the Barbican Center years ago, before my concert-blogging days.  However, I must say I don’t have much recollection of that event.  If you ask me five years down the road, I suspect all I remember would be this is the first time I heard Yuja Wang, and it was a concert that didn’t quite live up to (what I considered) its promise.  Also, the exaggerated movements of the Symphony's leader made me wonder if he thought he was the soloist.

I am finishing this writeup on March 21, after attending a New York Philharmonic concert last night.  I will have more to say about the latter concert, but suffice it to say the programming there was much more successful in showing the style contrasts of the different composers on the program.

The New YorkTimes review characterized Wang’s playing as brilliant; the Sibelius symphony as epic; and that the encore, titled “You Come Here Often,” was written for Yuja Wang by Michael Tilson Thomas.

New York Philharmonic – Sakari Oramo, conductor; Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin. February 26, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, First Tier (Seat CC15, $64.50).

Program

Aallottaret (The Oceanides), Tone Poem for Orchestra, Op. 73 (1914) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

Concerto for Violin in D minor, Op. 47 (1902-04; rev. 1905) by Sibelius.

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 (1877) by Brahms (1833-97).

We came back from an international trip late Tuesday, so I was worried about being awake for this program.  On top of that, babysitting duties and Anne’s meeting in Flushing meant a relatively early start for us.  I am glad to report that we had no problems.

Aallottaret is the name of the water nymphs of Greek antiquity, and Sibelius wrote it as a commission for a music festival in Norfolk, CT.  He was also invited to conduct its premiere, and the composer retitled the tone poem from “Rondo of the Waves” to the current one after crossing the Atlantic on Kaiser Wilhem II (perhaps a rough ride?).  Except for the conjecture, all this is from the Playbill, which also cites opinion that this work calls to mind the other famous seascape piece (La Mer) and was perhaps Sibelius’s venture into impressionism.

To me, the line between impressionist paintings and those of other genres is quite blurry.  I haven’t studied what impressionist music really is, but suspect there is a similar spectrum of uncertainty involved.  One thing I know, impressionist paintings appeal more readily to me than impressionist music, and I say this as someone who goes to concerts much more than art galleries.

While the music is definitely Sibelius, the adjective that came to my mind was “clichéd.”  There may be a story line associated with the music (as those tone poems that I know have), I couldn’t make it out and wasn’t creative enough to make one up, so all I got were sounds of waves, crescendos and decrescendos (building up and calming of the waves, no doubt.)  I found both La Mer and the overture to Flying Dutchman more compelling as a description of the oceans.  The orchestra sounded quite precise, though.

Zimmermann was a recent artist-in-residence at the Philharmonic, and I heard him a couple of times.  I was also looking forward to hearing Sibelius’s concerto, a piece that is both technically and musically challenging piece.

Technically Zimmermann did well, one measure of that was at no time I was worried that he would miss a passage.  However, I did cringe – a lot – at his intonation problems, especially during the first movement.  Anne had a similar complaint.

Lately it has been out of fashion to talk about how this violin concerto is a reflection of Sibelius’s inadequacies as a violinist (although he was pretty good,) which is okay.  However, that doesn’t mean all the emotion should be taken from the composition.  Zimmermann started the solo with a dark tone, underlined by little use of the vibrato, which really captured my attention; it is too bad the piece eventually sounded like an etude.

In any case, the audience went wild afterwards.  Zimmermann played Bach’s Partita (MWV 1006, E major) as an encore.  It was really well-played, with the different lines coming through clearly.

Of all the Brahms symphonies, I have a special affinity for his second: I was with the Cornell Symphony when we played it at one of the semi-annual concerts.  That was the 70s.  Forty years later it still sounded as lovely as it did then.

This was the first time we saw Oramo, chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Orchestra.  While he certainly got a good sound from the orchestra, especially for the Sibelius violin concerto, I am not sure how good a story-teller he is.

It’s been a while since we last sat in Tier 1, the acoustics at the corner was surprisingly good.  While I was scanning the orchestra with my binoculars, I noticed in the Violin II section someone who (used to?) plays for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.  Audition?

The New YorkTimes review contains some interesting information on the “new” violin Zimmermann used for this concert (a Guarnerius instead of a Strad) and explained how he managed to produce a similar sound.  The reviewer also talked about the beginning of the concerto.  He however liked the entire performance.  I did like the sound of the instrument, though.

Anne went to Flushing earlier in the day to have a meeting, and I drove up by myself to Lincoln Center.  Traffic wasn’t a problem at all.

Opera Australia – Gounod’s Faust. February 21, 2015.

Joan Sutherland Theatre at Sydney Opera House, Circle (Seat M20, A$139.)

Story.  See previous blog.  There are some variations in this production: some of the scenes (e.g., Marguerite killing her baby) happens in a vision, Marguerite didn’t go to heaven (not physically anyway), and Faust didn’t follow Satan into hell – he was transformed into an old man again.

Conductor – Guillaume Tourniaire; Mephistopheles – Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Faust – Michael Fabiano, Marguerite – Nicole Car, Wagner – Richard Anderson, Siebel – Anna Dowsley, Valentin – Giorgio Caoduro, Marthe – Dominica Matthews.

As is our usual practice, we try to see one opera during our annual visit to Australia.  The old war horses (Butterfly, e.g.) are being performed, but my preference is for something less popular, and this opera also worked well with our availability during our time in Sydney.  Of course this opera is one of the most performed operas historically, and it was the first opera performed at the Met (yes, that Met), and the Met is sometimes described as the “house that Faust built.” The last quote was from the flyer handed out at the door.  As usual I decided against buying a program (especially since I just got one from SSO for free earlier today,) which incidentally is priced at A$20.

Let me first dispense with the “how was it” question.  At the risk of repeating what I said about another OA performance, this was an excellent show, perhaps the best OA show I have seen over the years.  (The last OA performance I gave this accolade to was La Boheme two years ago.)  No doubt an important factor is the story.  Even though I had forgotten some of the details (and they vary from version to version), the overall story of “selling ones soul for … take your pick …” is compelling.  At the intermission both Anne and I agreed that the plot was unfolding at a nice pace, which made the 3:15 hour go rather quickly.

The singers were uniformly good.  They all look quite young (we were seated at the back of the hall, so I am not completely sure.)  However, I am sure I read somewhere that Michael Fabiano is a 30-year old American sensation – he certainly did very well as Faust today.

The production was on the “in your face” side.  I have made similar remarks that a show with Satan playing a lead role has to be somewhat blasphemous.  It was very much so here with images of Christ and Satan mixed up constantly; at certain points I even felt a bit uncomfortable.  Perhaps that was the idea?  The handout today is more detailed than ones I got in the past (it is printed on both sides!), and talks about how magnificent the set is: giving the audience a Parisian theatre, a recreation of the Church of Saint-Severin and a glittering reconstruction of the Cabaret L’Enfer.  I suppose I would have been impressed if I had been to these specific places …

The drama and the good singing redeemed some of the short-comings in the show.  Rhodes as Satan generally did well, but his voice is weak at the lowest registers.  Nicole Car as Marguerite drew a great deal of sympathy from the audience with her melancholic and wistful renditions.  I did cringe a bit when the violin solo was quite out of tune at one point.  The chorus did a competent job, but there were some jitters at the beginning which diminished as the performance progressed.

There was a rather long ballet scene during Faust’s vision that was quite disturbing.  The ballets would start out traditionally enough but they devolved into chaotic scenes that sometimes bordered on lewdness.  I don’t remember the same level of repulsiveness in the other Fausts I saw.

I told Tim one of the familiar tunes is the Hungarian March and hummed it for him.  Turns out he knew the tune I hummed, but it was actually from Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust.  The tune I was thinking of sounds more like the French National Anthem.  In any case, on any given day these two tunes and the triumphal march from Aida get me extremely confused.  Alyson also pointed out the Jewel Song sung by Marguerite was the one in the movie Adventures of Tintin that caused the crystal to shatter.  I had seen that movie but embarrassingly couldn’t remember its use of the tune.

In any case, an annual routine ended up being a very enjoyable evening.

The Sydney Morning Herald review is glowing, with the reviewer climbing all over herself to find better adjectives to describe the performance.  She only had a minor quibble with the orchestra, wishing that they will "find greater focus during the season."

I found out earlier today that the house seats only about 1500 people.  Indeed when we took a ferry ride from Circular Quay it is obvious that the Concert Hall (on the right in this photo) is larger than the Opera Theatre.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra – David Robertson, conductor. February 21, 2015.

Concert Hall at Sydney Opera House, Circle (Seat S7, A$62.)

Program

Jerusalem (after Blake) by Georges Lentz (b. 1965).

Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 by Schumann (1810-1856).

Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op. 97, Rhenish by Schumann.

Anne and I are visiting Australia.  As is our practice, we had bought tickets for an opera quite a while ago – that was going to be Saturday evening.  After having been here for more than a week, we realized that we would be able to attend this concert as well.  When I offered to buy tickets at (about) A$80 each, the box office agent said these $62 ones were just slightly inferior, so we gladly took her advice.  Lest one thinks this lady had a grudge against Sydney Symphony, it was far from being so: she proceeded to tell us the great conductors they have had before Robertson, including Edo de Waart.

It had been a few years since I last visited the Concert Hall.  It still looks quite modern after 50 years or so, and it seats comfortably 2700 people, with lots of elbow and leg room – of course here in Sydney one seldom has to contend with heavy coats.

Lentz is a member of the Sydney Symphony’s violin section who is also “one of Australia’s best-regarded composers on the international scene.”  According to the Program Notes (which is free, by the way), his inspiration for the orchestral piece came from the unspeakable tragedies that occurred recently, including the disappearance of MH370, 9/11, people being beheaded, and the human race’s ignorance towards ecological disaster.  Lentz wants people to heed Blake’s warning in Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion: “Awake! Awake Jerusalem!”  I may or may not have heard these statements in the music, but must say as modern music goes it was okay, even considering it was quite long at over 20 minutes.  As is typical of this genre, there are non-traditional arrangements such as the placement of seven brass instruments in the back of the hall, the use of three piccolos, an electronic track, and a metal sheet.  There were seven cell phones that were supposed to represent the phone calls that never came for those on MH370, but neither Anne nor I could hear the ring.  Also, some credit must be given to the percussionists who managed to quietly stow the metal sheet after it came off the stand.

This is Robertson’s second year as the music director and chief conductor of SSO, and he seems to have settled in well.  Perhaps it was his programming expertise, or perhaps anything would sound “romantic” after the Lentz piece, I really enjoyed Schumann’s Fourth Symphony.  This work was first composed during Schumann’s first year of marriage to Clara and reflected the happiness he felt.  It was originally published as the second symphony but was later revised substantially and retitled the fourth. While I don’t remember having heard it many times before, the movements all sounded familiar.  As with some of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, many of the themes were reused over and over; they were all very nice tunes, so I welcomed them.  The movements are listed as follows in the Program: Ziemlich langsam [Rather slow] – Lebhaft [Lively] – Romanze [Ziemlich langsam] – Scherzo [Lebhaft] – Langsam [Slow] – Lebhaft.  Indeed the movements were played without break, but there were still clear demarcations between them.

There was a child sitting behind us that complained quite a bit during the performance.  Given where he was sitting, I am sure he disturbed the entire audience and the orchestra.  But their seats were such that for them to leave during the performance would have been even more distracting.  There are legitimate reasons why there should be some age restrictions.  The parents were considerate enough that they left after the conclusion of the first half of the program.

In comparison I wasn’t at all familiar with the third symphony, written during Schumann’s stay in Dusseldorf.  There was certainly much less repetition of the themes (perhaps I failed to catch them?)  The symphony is somewhat unusual in that it has five movements (i) Lebhaft [Lively], (ii) Scherzo [Sehr massig] [Very moderately], (iii) Nicht schnell [Not fast], (iv) Feierlich [Ceremonially], and (v) Lebhaft.  Even though the Program contains a rather detailed description of the movements, I must say I had trouble following it, and that includes this description of the third movement which “according to Jonathan Kramer is too songlike and direct to be a real slow movement, and therefore establishing the need for an additional movement, a true adagio.” Wow!

Here is a review from the Sydney Morning Herald on a concert where the 2 symphonies were paired with a violin concerto.  Frankly I am not sure if the reviewer liked the performance.  The reviewer concedes the program was brilliantly conceived but may be too advanced for the average listener, and she also remarked how Robertson leapt of the podium at some point.  Well, they have snobs (not necessarily a bad word) in Australia, and she should know by now Robertson is one of those "energetic" conductors - he jumps around even if the music is not Schumann.

I posted this event on my Facebook page, including the words “the sound of the hall is too clean,” which Chung Shu wanted me to explain.  By most measures the acoustics in the hall is excellent, Carnegie Hall-excellent, one might say.  However, the sound has such an engineered quality to it that not much “rawness” comes through.

Attendance was quite respectable with the hall being 80 to 90% full in my estimation.

The SSO is a world-class orchestra.  Being so far from other major cities, they probably will remain only a regional powerhouse, which is a real pity.

New York Philharmonic – David Zinman, conductor; Lisa Batiashvili, violin. February 6, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat S108, $64.50.)

Program

Iscariot (1989) by Christopher Rouse (b. 1949).

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14 (1939-40/1948) by Barber (1910-81).

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1906-08) by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).

Due to various unforeseen circumstances, including an unplanned, last-minute trip to Hong Kong, it had been a while (relatively speaking, it’s not quite three weeks) that we went to a concert.  Having just gotten back to NJ after essentially a two-week absence, my mind hadn’t quite swung back to “routine” yet.  Thus I never got to read up on the program notes until I got the Playbill at about 7:30 pm.  There was not a lot that I could gleam from the notes that would help in my understanding of the music, although the annotator did put the compositions somewhat in context, which at least got my curiosity piqued.

Rouse is finishing up his last (of three) years as composer-in-residence at New York Philharmonic.  While his music is generally accessible on the first hearing, it is seldom – if ever – exciting.  That it began on a Mahler Sixth-like quintuple-f certainly was unusual, and the loud beat made by the bass drum (and hammer, per Playbill, although I couldn’t tell) certainly caught everyone’s attention.  It is not always that I can correlate the music with the sketch in the Playbill, but for this piece it was actually quite easy – from the Parsifal-like strings and the clock-chiming harmonics.  I do not know much about some of the other musical references though, and these include “Es ist genug” in a Lutheran chorale used by Bach, Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety by Feldman, and Unanswered Question by Ives.  The most puzzling, however, are the references to the terms “strophe” and “antistrophe.”  Now I know the terms refers to sections of an ancient Greek chorale ode, but neither Anne nor I could figure out what the terms meant during the concert.  This recalls a similar situation on Thursday: we went to MoMA to look at Matisse’s cutout exhibit, and the term “maquette” was used all over the exhibition, and we had no idea what it meant.  At least we could google it in real time and found out it meant a scale model.

I could make some remarks about the music.  While pleasant and interesting enough (these are relative terms, of course,) I couldn’t quite understand how the different strophes and antistrophes are linked together to describe Judas Iscariot.  The images that the name evokes are most likely betrayal, death, greed, and disappointment.  Many of these can be associated with the music, but taken as a whole I suspect Iscariot isn’t the title that the ordinary listener will come up with.  The music is by-and-large tonal, but there are sections that the bowing in the strings is not the same for some members of the sections.  That is a technique used by Karel Husa in some of his works, and Rouse studied under Husa for a while.

We had heard the Barber violin concerto once before (at least,) and I remember the soloist as Gil Shaham.  The Playbill does say it was last performed by Shaham in December, 2012; we were out of town during that time.  A search of this blog clears it up: Shaham also played this in 2010.  (Of course that begs the question of why.)  I will go back and look at my entry later, but after four or five years I don’t have much recollection of it; if I had to guess I would say it was not particularly memorable.  Barber provided a commentary, quoted in the Playbill, that was very helpful in following the performance.

Today’s performance by Batiashvili (also artist-in-residence at the Philharmonic, as it happens) was quite enjoyable.  From what I could tell, the first two movements (Allegro and Andante) are not particularly challenging technically, but the last movement (Presto in moto perpetuo) calls for such speed that you root for the soloist not to slip.  Other than some minor intonation problems, she didn’t have trouble at all.  Per Playbill she plays the 1739 “del Gesu” Guarnerius which has a rich and deep sound on the G-string.  I was impressed with how well it sounded overall against a large orchestra (although described as moderate-sized by Barber.)

[After having finished the above I went back to my blog entry on the 2/27/2010 concert.  My impression was quite different: among other things, the Program Notes had more interesting things to say about the “controversy” of the work, and that Shaham’s Stradivarius was sometimes overwhelmed by the orchestra.]

The name Rachmaninoff usually makes one think of romanticism, nice melodies, complex harmony, and virtuosity.  For some reason the second symphony doesn’t quite elicit those comments from me.  Not that it was boring, it was just not as exciting as some of the composer’s other works.  This is a rather long symphony at 65 minutes, and the four movements are (i) Largo – Allegro moderato; (ii) Allegro molto – Meno mosso – Tempo I; (iii) Adagio; and (iv) Allegro vivace – Adagio – Tempo precedente.  (That begs the question, what is the difference between Tempo I and Tempo precedente?)  Of course the Adagio movement is quite popular.  Anticipating it is like looking forward to Nessun Dorma by sitting through the entire Turandot; the Adagio is at least 15 minutes or so long.

The New YorkTimes reviewer is very positive on all aspects of the concert.  While I didn’t find Zinman’s interpretation particularly compelling, she used words such as exuberant, deft, and passion in her description of his conducting.

During intermission I notice an email from New York Philharmonic announcing the resignation of Alan Gilbert after the 2016/17 season.  That caught me by surprise.  I looked up the on-line news items: most repeat the same basic facts, with Gilbert saying if he doesn’t leave after the 16/17 season, then he will probably have to stay through 2021 to provide continuity through the Avery Fisher Hall renovation.  The only article that raised the possibility of palace intrigue is the one in Washington Post; the writer has a rather low view of Gilbert.

I have been going to New York Philharmonic concerts for many years, these times have been the most tumultuous.  I do hope the organization emerges stronger because of them.

It has been very cold this season, so traffic was lighter than usual.  Our ride into town was uneventful until we got to the West Side.  Many local streets had at least one lane blocked because of snow, which made traffic very slow.  We ended waiting at one of the “free after 7 pm” spots on Amsterdam.  Our ride back was quick.

Budapest Festival Orchestra – Ivan Fischer, conductor; Anna Lucia Richter, soprano; Isabelle Faust, violin. January 18, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat T12, $65.)

Program

Three Songs (arr. Sandor Balogh) by Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847).

Violin Concerto in E minor (1844) by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

Symphony No. 3 in F major (1883) by Brahms.

I knew that Fanny Mendelssohn was a great musician, but didn’t know (or forgot) that she was also a prolific conductor.  As it was deemed unseemly for a woman in then bourgeois Germany society (this term from Playbill) to have a professional career, much of her work was unpublished, and the first publications were under Felix’s name.  This also explains why there was no date associated with these songs.  It was only when the dates were put right next to each other that I realized Fanny and Felix died in the same year.

Ivan Fischer explained he picked Fanny Mendelssohn’s work to encourage women composers.  I would think a better message would be sent by programming works by women that are still living.  But who am I to argue with interesting programming?

The three songs are Die Mainacht (May Night), Ferne (Distance), and Gondellied (Song of the the Gondolier).  The lyrics are all in the “lovelorn” category, the music generally is sweet and pensive.  I do like songs like this (Tchaikovsky’s “None but the lonely heart” comes to mind), but probably need to give them a chance to grow on me.  The soloist Richter is young (a New York Times article put her at 24 as of October, 2014), and she sang quite clearly, albeit a tad unrefined.  I liked it.

This was also the first time I heard the German violinist Isabelle Faust.  Overall it was an enjoyable performance, a result of a competent performance.  The last time I heard this concerto was Gil Shaham with the New Jersey Symphony.  Shaham has this habit of moving around a lot while he performs; Faust was practically glued to the stage.  Other than some problems with the loud double stops at the end, she performed without a glitch.  However, it was a good performance, but not an inspired one.  She plays the “Sleeping Beauty” 1704 Stradivarius.  The instrument sounded surprisingly weak, although its clear tone would confirm it’s being a Strad.

Neither Anne nor I was familiar with the Brahm’s symphony, with the exception of the third movement.  I would agree with the Playbills description: “more than one commentator has described this work as ‘Olympian,’ a sobriquet that is not inapt …” I am not the only wishy-washy person out there.  In any case, it was an easy piece to enjoy on the first hearing, even though I didn’t get the “ascending three-note motif” that opens the symphony.  The orchestra sounded sloppy at times, but responded well to Fischer’s direction.

After a couple of curtain calls, Fischer said he would conclude with another composition by Fanny Mendelssohn.  When the orchestra members stood up, and Richter returned to the stage, I thought it was going to be an a cappella solo piece.  It turns out to be a choral piece, with all the orchestra musician doing the singing.  And they did it so well that I whispered to Anne: who needs the New York Choral Artists?

The New York Timesreview is quite positive.  The review calls Faust’s performance “reticent,” explained that it was Sandor Balogh that did the orchestration, and that the encore piece was “Morgengruss,” one of Fanny Mendelssohn’s six “Gartenlieder” (“Garden Songs”) for a cappella choir; all in all very educational.

Being a rainy Sunday, we couldn’t find off-street parking.  ICON still offered coupons that beat parking at the Lincoln Center garage.  On our way back we stopped by Jersey City to have dinner with Ellie, Kuau, and Reid.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor. January 16, 2015.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor.  January 16, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 2 Left (Seat BB104, $67.00).

Program

Requiem Mass (1873-1875) by Verdi (1813-1901).

Artists

Angela Meade, soprano; Lilli Paasikivi, mezzo-soprano; Russell Thomas, tenor; Eric Owens, bass-baritone.

New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director.

I am typing this on January 19, only 3 days after the concert itself, but need to be brief as I also wanted to finish up the review on a January 18 concert.

Another reason for the brevity of course was that we saw this concert last April with the New Jersey Symphony, conducted by Lacombe.  What I want to do here is mostly to contrast how I feel about the two concerts, for which I need to refer back to my blog on the NJ Symphony performance as my recollection of the specifics is vague.

Avery Fisher Hall is much bigger than State Theater, so the sounds were naturally quite different.  While State Theater felt more intimate, Avery Fisher’s size somehow conveyed more of the solemnity of the occasion; consequently the warmer sound in the State Theater was an interesting contrast to Avery Fisher.  I am okay with either “arrangement.”

The soloists all did well.  Both Angela Meade and Eric Owens are well-known figures from the opera stage.  Russell Thomas was a stand-in for the scheduled tenor, it turns out we heard him at the NJ Symphony performance.

I enjoyed the concert, even though it was on a solemn subject.  After giving it considerable thought, I decided not to declare a “winner” between the NY Philharmonic and NJ Symphony: they were both enjoyable in their own ways.

The gentleman auditioning for the concertmaster’s position was leading the orchestra again.  I have found out more information about him since: his name is Frank Huang, and he is currently the concert master at Houston Symphony, he was born in Beijing in 1978 and came to the USA when he was seven.

The New YorkTimes review is brief but generally positive, describing the performance as “powerful” but not quite “transcendent.”  The critic had positive things to say about all the soloists, with only some reservation accorded Thomas.

Reid wasn’t feeling very well, so we picked him up from day care at around noon time.  After we were “off duty” we got into New York City early enough to have dinner at Hunan on 72^nd Street.  The trip home was a breeze also.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Anthony McGill, clarinet. January 9, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 1 (Seat M5, $52.50).

Program

Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911/12) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 57 (1928) by Nielson (1865-1931).

Selections from Swan Lake, Op. 20 (1875-76) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

When I got around to buying tickets as part of a 50% off sale by New York Philharmonic, there were not that many seats left.  So offering incentives does seem to draw in additional concert-goers.  The seats were a bit too close to the stage to our liking, but for tonight’s performance they worked quite well.

Tonight’s program was a mixture of knowns and lesser-knowns.  It is interesting how different the pieces sound even though the three composers had lives that overlapped each other.  I could make out Ravel’s piece being French, and Tchaikovsky’s being Russian (well, the popularity of Swan Lake also gives it away.)  This is the first I heard of Nielsen, a Danish composer who was a contemporary of Sibelius; I can’t say Nielsen reminds me of Sibelius though.

I didn’t read the Program Notes until I got to Avery Fisher, and have to say the title of Ravel’s piece didn’t ring any bell at first.  As I read the notes describing all the flowers, I remembered that I blogged about this piece and found a picture of tuberose to go with that write-up.  Alas, even though I remembered the occasion, I didn’t remember what the music sounded like.  Looking through my old blog, my complaint was that I couldn’t correlate the music with the description.  This time I fared better, not so much I could tell what flower was being described, but that I found the music to be quite accessible.  It’s been about 10 years since that encounter – which was also the last time the orchestra performed it – I wonder if it is due to my different level of music appreciation, or I was simply in a different listening mode.  If it is the former, then I have made some progress, although some would argue pitifully little.  One thing I am sure, the Program Notes are different.  I certainly don’t recall reading “… stands as a seminal work in Ravel’s oeuvre, a distillation of his harmonic practices and his distinctive expression,” or this statement attributed to Debussy: “this is the most subtle ear that can ever have existed.”  If this had been in that Playbill, I wouldn’t have gotten it; neither did I get it this evening.

The waltzes were played without pause, and the movements are: Modere (moderate); Asses lent (rather slow); Modere (moderate); Asses anime (rather animated); Presque lent (almost slow); Asses vif (rather lively); Moins vif (less lively); and Epilogue: Lent (Slow.)

I am writing this blog six days after the concert, and beyond what I said at the outset I don’t have much recollection of the Nielsen piece.  I do remember a couple of themes that got repeated quite often, and remarking to myself that Shostakovich did much better with his 4-note theme for the cello concerto.  McGill – like Cobb of the bass section – are “transfers” from the Metropolitan Opera.  He certainly handled the piece with ease, although other than rapid notes and long breaths I don’t know what constitutes virtuoso clarinet playing.  The piece is not short at about 24 minutes, and is played as one movement.

Over the last several years or so Gilbert has led this revival of Nielsen’s music by programming his six symphonies and three concertos at New York Philharmonic concerts, as well as embarking on a recording project including tonight’s performance.  This was the first concert I attended with Nielsen on the program, and I can only say from this experience that I won’t actively avoid his work.  I wonder how good the record sales are for these recordings.  All I can say is the Nielsen CDs all get high ratings at Amazon.

In writing about Wagner’s Meistersinger, I was wondering whether it would be scandalous to excerpt a famous composer’s work; tonight’s selections offer up a good example.  Tchaikovsky may have intended to extract an orchestral suite from Swan Lake but he never got around to doing it.  The movements played tonight comprised both the excerpts done by the publishers Jurgenson and Muzgis, with the exception that Danse napolitaine was replaced by Danse russe.  The selections played tonight were: (i) Scene; (ii) Valse (Waltz); (iii) Danse des Cygnes (Dance of the Young Swans); (iv) Pas d’action (White Swan); (v) Czardas – Danse hongroise (Hungarian Dances); (vi) Danse espagnole (Spanish dance); (vii) Danse russe (Russian Dance); (viii) Mazurka; and (ix) Scene et Finale.

It is a bit interesting why Gilbert has chosen to include this relatively simple-minded composition in the program.  Simple-minded but enjoyable, I must add.  We last saw the ballet in June, 2014, which we liked.  However, with a full orchestra on center stage, the music came to its own.  I was a bit puzzled by a couple of issues.  The most famous scene in the entire ballet is the Coda where Odile does an amazing number of turns (fouettes), and that wasn’t in the program.  The reason why Danse russe was programmed instead became clear when it was played: it was a chance for Staples to showcase her skills as a concertmaster.

New York Philharmonic haven’t announced their new concertmaster yet, and I wonder if Staples is in the running at all.  In any case, she had to play quite a few solos at the last concert also.  Do these constitute an audition, or are they letting her shine before ceding the acting chair to the new leader?  Oh the intrigue.

I like how she did, and Danse Russe calls on considerable virtuoso skills.  I have remarked many times before that I thought her intonation was much better than that of Dicterow’s, that view was confirmed tonight.  Two areas for improvement, first of which was the weak sound, which might just be the acoustics of our seats or the instrument.  The other one is more subjective: she left both Anne and me sitting on the edges of our seats.  She didn’t make any mistakes as far as I could tell, but there was not the level of confidence that Dicterow would garner – but then he had been at it for decades.

The New YorkTimes review has a lot of good things to say about Gilbert and his Nielsen project.

I was in Lancaster, PA the prior evening, and drove back to NJ this morning.  Anne was in Jersey City babysitting Reid as he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go to daycare.  I took the train up to meet up with her and drove into the City together.  Traffic was okay both ways; this was the middle of winter, afterall.

New York Philharmonic – Juanjo Mena, conductor; Daniil Trifonov, piano. January 6, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra 2 (Seat BB11, $64.50).

Program

Capriccio espangnol, Op. 34 (1887) by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 (1890-91; rev. 1917) by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).

Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathetique (1893) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

This is a (nearly) all-Russian program.  Two popular pieces by well-known Russian composers, a virtuoso piano concerto played by an up and coming superstar: ingredients for a great concert.

It was only a good concert when measured against my extremely high expectations.  I was thinking about this during the concert and afterwards.  Even for a tough grader like me, New York Philharmonic concerts would (say) earn an average grade of 95.  The great ones would score a 98, the really “bad” ones would get a 92.  I was hoping for a 99, but thought it rated a 96 only.

Capriccio espangnol supposedly is orchestrated “to the highest degree of perfection,” by a composer well-known for his orchestration skills.  This is a familiar piece that contains five self-explanatory movements: (i) Alborada (Morning Song) (Vivo e strepitos); (ii) Variazioni (Variations) (Andante con moto); (iii) Alborada; (iv) Scena e canto Gitano (Scene and Gypsy Song) (Allegretto); and (v) Fandango asturiano (Asturian Fandango.)  I cannot argue with all the accolades in the Playbill about how great this piece is (e.g., the quote that it is a brilliant composition for the orchestra,) but I must say it didn’t come across as such.  The beginning was simply uninspired, and Staples’s solos while crisp and elegant, sounded too soft.  During the faster runs the music sounded muddled.  Things improved considerably as the piece progressed, and it actually ended very well.  The movements were to be played through without pause; however, that was not to be as many thought the piece came to an end at the end of the third (?) movement which ended in a flourish.

Rachmaninoff started on his first piano concerto when he was 17, still a student.  It was revised extensively nearly thirty years later, but kept its Op. 1 designation.  It certainly has not enjoyed the same level of popularity as his second and third concertos.  While I do have a copy of it on my iTunes, I don’t remember ever listening to it.  It is relatively unpopular for good reason, at least as far as I am concerned.  There is no doubt that this is a virtuoso piece, some passages call for such rapid finger and hand movements that they looked like a blur from where I sat.  However, it lacks the melodies and structures of the other concertos that would immediate grip the listener.  There is a rather long cadenza that left me scratching my head: it didn’t look or sound any more difficult than the “regular” concerto.  The Playbill indicates there are some subtleties that require the performer to make choices, and naturally I don’t know what they are.

I still remember being greatly wowed by Trifonov when I first heard him a couple of years ago.  I remember (without looking at my blog entry) that his play was so amazing and confident that while I was mesmerized I was not at all worried that he would get the notes out correctly.  There were no such concerns today either; but sadly the thrill was greatly diminished.  I still admired how easy he made the playing look, but there was not as much story-telling as I thought there should be.  Somehow the lines sounded a bit disjoint, and the balance with the orchestra was problematic at times.

One thing I didn’t notice last time was his playing stance.  It reminded me of Linus of Peanuts’ cartoon fame hunching over the piano.  Okay when one is thin and young; let’s hope this posture won’t give him problems when he is 30 pounds heavier and 30 years older.  One can avoid the former, but there is no fighting with Father Time.

In any case, the audience gave an enthusiastic applause afterwards, and Trifonov played an encore.  I have no idea what the piece is, but would characterize it as Debussy on steroids.

The Tchaikovsky symphony lived up to its billing (Pathetique).  This excerpt from the Playbill hints at the program in the composer’s mind: “The ultimate essence of the thirst for activity.  Must be short.  (Finale DEATH – result of collapse.) Second movement, love; third, disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short.)”  Well, short is subjective; the symphony is about 45 minutes long, after all.  The four movements are (i) Adagio – Allegro non troppo – Andante – Allegro vivo – Andante come prima – Andante mosso; (ii) Allegro con grazia; (iii) Allegro molto vivace; and (iv) Adagio lamentoso – Andante.

This series is the debut for the Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena, music director of the BBC Philharmonic.  For the symphony he didn’t need the music, and got good response from the orchestra.  As advertised, the music took the listener through different emotion highs and lows, and ended on a whisper, held there by the still-raised arms of the conductor for perhaps a few seconds too long.  The enthusiastic response from the audience was well-deserved, although I felt more despondent after the BSO performance a few years back, if memory serves.

The New York Times review contains many flowery words for Trifonov's performance, so I guess the reviewer like it.  He also had good words to say about Mena, but shared my sentiment about the Tchaikovsky piece: "without quite letting in the degree of intensity its composer intended."  Indeed the encore by Trifonov is by Debussy (if the same piece was played.)

After the concert, we stopped by Newark Airport to pick up CS and Shirley who returned from a 12-day trip to the West Coast.  Traffic was no problem in both directions.

Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg. December 23, 2014.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat B25, $87.50).

Story.  There are basically two storylines in the opera.  The first is how the self-taught poet-composer young knight Walther von Stolzing defies the tradition of how meistersongs are composed and still manage to win the Meistersinger contest.  The other is the love story between the two couples Walther and Eva, and David (Sachs’ apprentice) and Magdalene (Eva’s attendant).  The main character, however, is Hans Sachs who is involved in both stories.  Sachs helps in Walther’s win by coaching him on how to write the song, and by foiling the attempt by Beckmesser to win the contest by stealing Walther’s work.  In the love story, he is for a while the love interest of Eva, but he directs Eva’s love towards the younger Walther.

Conductor – James Levine.  Walther von Stolzing – Johan Botha, Eva Pogner – Annette Dasch, Magdalene (Eva’s daughter) – Karen Cargill, David (Sachs’ apprentice) – Paul Appleby, Veit Pogner – Hans-Peter Konig, Sixtus Beckmesser – Johannes Martin Kranzle, Hans Sachs (shoemaker) – James Morris.

Let us first dispense with the length of this opera, which is billed as a 6-hour event on the Met’s website (from 6 pm to 12 midnight).  In reality it is not quite that long: the opera started at about 6:10, and there were two intermissions of 45 minutes and 40 minutes. That leaves 4:25 hours as the actual performance time; still a lengthy one, but not overly so compared to some other Wagner operas (Gotterdammerung and Tristan and Isolde come to mind.)

The other issue is the story.  What I wrote above captures the gist of the plot.  However, it doesn’t do justice to the details Wagner wove into the opera.  First, he describes in considerable detail the Meistersinger competition process, from what the rules are and how the winning Morning Dream Song (Selige Morgentraumdeut-Weise) gets composed.  The main character, Sachs, also does a lot of introspections, one of which is “Madness, madness, everywhere madness” (Wahn, Wahn, uberall Wahn.)  At the beginning of the last Act the audience is also introduced to the different guilds of the period: for each of them a banner is trotted out by a group of artisans of that particular craft.

I often joke that Wagner, being his own librettist, probably had no one to help with editing his story; and he really liked his own writing.  As with many of his other operas, an aggressive editor could have condensed the work considerably without leaving out much of the drama or the music.  Lest this be considered a scandalous statement, people (Maazel and Gilbert come to mind) have one-hour versions of the Ring, and some composers would condense their own music (Stravinsky’s Firebird and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake are well-known examples.)

The sets were nicely designed.  Realistic, not like those undefined sets of the Ring and Tristan and Isolde, and quite elaborate.  The scene for Act 2 reminds both Anne and me (independently) of what we saw in Oberammergau, and the tradesmen and their banners remind me of the Maypoles we saw on the same trip; yes, I know Bavaria and Nuremberg are rather different regions.  I traveled quite often to Nuremberg on business in the 1990s, and remember well the city wall (Act 3) around the city.  I wonder how they manage to keep the flag on the wall flapping.

 The set for Act 2 depicts Hans Sachs' workshop.  It reminds both Anne and I of this 3-D frame we got when we visited Bavaria during the summer.

In the last scene different banners for different guilds were brought onto the stage.  Something similar to maypoles being erected.  This one is from Schwangau.

In the Playbill, Michael Volle discusses how he needs to pace himself in order to last the entire performance as Sachs.  I was wondering why that was so after the first act, not knowing the character had so much singing to do in Acts 2 and 3.  For this performance James Morris sang the role of Sachs, and he did well overall.  One could make a case that he was indeed holding back a little so he could go the distance, but who could blame him?  Johan Botha as Walther did an excellent job singing, but given his enormous size, it really took a lot of “suspension of reality” to think of him as Eva’s young love interest.  Konig as Viet Pogner, Kranzle as Beckmesser, and Appleby as David had relatively minor roles compared to Morris and Botha, but they came through.  The one disappointment was Dasch singing the role of Eva; her voice was simply no match for the strong male voices around her.

I was worried and curious how Levine would do, given the state of his health the last ten or so years.  Very well, thank you … at least from what where I sat.  He still needed to use the special chair made for him, but he was energetic and engaged.  Perhaps the longer than usual intermissions were put in to give him time to recuperate, but they are well worth it if they indeed make conducting such monumental compositions possible.

This is billed as a comedy; to me it is only true in the Shakespearean sense of a play’s being either a comedy or a tragedy.  There are some funny moments in the story, such as the riot scene that ends Act 2 or how Beckmesser made a fool of himself in Act 3, but they don’t dominate the story.  For me the other aspects of the story do not carry enough drama to make the opera riveting.  As for me, even though I did lose concentration a few times, I didn’t nod off at all.  The music is quite lyrical, especially considering the period in Wagner’s career it was composed, but sounded straightforward to the first time casual listener.  The storyline is simple despite the details introduced, and not the usual myths that characterize so much of Wagner’s work.  Many theses doubtlessly have been written to analyze these differences, but they remain academic for someone who sees this (at most) a few times.  In that sense this opera is a disappointment.

The final scene has Walther initially rejecting the title of Meistersinger.  Hans goes into this long spiel of how important it is for the glorious German traditions to be upheld.  If I had been Wagner’s editor, I definitely would have cut this out.  I am a bit surprised that subsequent editors have not excised this from the opera, especially given Wagner’s notoriety as an anti-Semite.  Even the Playbill acknowledges that this is an issue.

The New YorkTimes review is generally positive, but the reviewer seems to think Levine has lost some of the energy he had when he last led this show.  There was also an article on James Morris; he and Volle were called in after the originally program tenor withdrew.  I didn’t realize he will turn 68 shortly!  Amazing.  Also, this set will be retired after this run, and will be “replaced by a fanciful production by Stefan Herheim” in 2019.  Altogether a rather poignant moment.  Morris also made the statement that “there’s not one note in the opera that I would cut.”

We went up together with CS, with me driving his car.  We found to our delight free parking on 65^th and got in early enough to grab something to eat at Europan.  CS’s is a $25 rush ticket in the orchestra area.  There were quite a few empty seats tonight, so Anne and I moved downstairs (right side of row Y) after Act 1.  The acoustics were so much better that I am (i) tempted to get some rush tickets; and (ii) consider upgrading my subscription in the future.

New Jersey Symphony – Jacques Lacombe, conductor. December 21, 2014.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Newark, NJ.  Tier 4 (Seat D101, $26.10).

Program

Handel’s MESSIAH

Artists

Nathalie Paulin, soprano; Mireille Lebel, mezzo-soprano; Isaiah Bell, tenor; Gordon Bintner, bass-baritone.

Montclair State University Singers, Heather J. Buchanan, director.

About 20 people from church, most associated with our Youth Choir, attended this concert.  Anne got these (already) inexpensive tickets at a group discount, and we were able to get parking vouchers at $10 per car (thus saving $6 per car.)  All in all a great deal.  As it happens, another 15 or so people from our church went to the performance in Neptune the night before.

I was pleased to see that the attendance was quite good, at least in the Tier we were in.  We had a great view of the stage, but it was so far enough away that I could barely make out the different people on it.

The sound was a bit on the soft side, but came across quite well, as expected.  I also noticed that the cello was used more in the continuo (compared to New York Philharmonic, which also used the bass.)  Also here the same person played both the harpsichord and the organ, and he had to move from one bench to the other frequently, carrying the music with him.

Overall it was a good performance.  Nothing fancy like what the New York Philharmonic was trying to do, just a competent rendition of the oratorio.  I am sure anyone listening carefully can find some issues, but I had no problem sitting through the entire event even though it heard it only a few days ago.

And the verdict?  On the occasion where I could do a head-to-head comparison, I thought this was a better overall performance than the New York Philharmonic one.

Holiday Express Benefit Concert. December 18, 2014.

Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ.  Balcony (Seat K-106, $52.)

Lorinda and I have the same birthday, and she decided that we should celebrate it together by inviting Anne and me to dinner at Soul Kitchen and this benefit concert.  Traffic in Red Bank was congested during the evening rush hour, so we got to the restaurant late.  This restaurant is founded by Jon Bon Jovi’s wife as a charity where people who cannot afford to eat out can do so by working for the meal (one hour’s work for a dinner for four.)  Those too lazy to work can pay $10 each; those more generous are welcome to pay more.  Having said all that, it looks like everyone that evening was ready to pay for their dinner.  The food is best characterized as “diner quality.”

Holiday Express has been operating in New Jersey for over 20 years, yet this was my first encounter with them.  I had not been to a pop or rock concert all my life, so didn’t know what to expect.  This one started at 7:45 pm or so, and went non-stop until about 10:15 pm, and it was loud, very loud.  No wonder people can lose their hearing if they go to these events too often.

The songs are season-appropriate; I was surprised that some were overtly religious (e.g., Silent Night.)  Not a follower of the pop or rock and roll scene, I didn’t know how well-known the performers were (and still don’t.)  After the first half-hour or so I came to the conclusion that being able to carry a tune was optional, and being overweight helped.  As I got into it, I began to appreciate the stamina involved, most of the performers had to stand there either playing their instruments or singing backup, for over two hours.  And there were some individual instrument and vocal numbers that were quite well done.

In the middle and towards the end of the program several people in wheel chairs were brought out and they joined in the singing.  I am usually uncomfortable with having these displays that in my view don’t show enough respect for the dignity of the unfortunate.  However, seeing them in real life and how they enjoyed themselves, perhaps it was good that for a few moments they could forget their problems and got into the spirit of the season.  In any case, as people (myself included) go about enjoying this time of the year, it is good to remind them that we should remember those in need.

There were at least a few widely known performers in the group.  One of them was Mary D’arcy who among other roles played Christina in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.  The other was Ben E King who wrote the well-known song “Stand by me.”  There were announcers and DJs from a local FM station 101.5 FM.

At the end of the evening, Anne and I thanked our hosts Lorinda and Henry for a lovely evening, and that I got to experience something new.

New York Philharmonic – Gary Thor Wedow, conductor. December 17, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra 2 Left (Seat S8, $62.50).

Program

Messiah (1741) by Handel (1685-1759).

Artists

Camilla Tilling, soprano; Iestyn Davies, countertenor; Michael Slattery, tenor; James Westman, baritone; Conner Tsui, boy soprano.

Westminster Symphonic Choir, Joe Miller, director.

Continuo: Carter Brey, cello; Max Zeugner, bass; Kim Laskowski, bassoon; Daniel Swenberg, theorbo; Matthew Muckey, trumpet; Gary Thor Wedow, virginal; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord; Kent Tritle, organ.

CS suggested this concert as Max will be the principal bass in this series.  We quickly agreed even though we got back from Asia only a few days ago and we do plan on attending a New Jersey Symphony one this Sunday; that we could get some discount via Travelzoo helped.

With the day billed as a gridlock alert day, CS and Shirley came by a little after 4 pm to drive into the city.  Traffic was exceptionally good, naturally, and we got to the West Side at around 5:30 pm.  Looking back on my blog entry for last year, the same thing happened!  Perhaps they should declare gridlock alert more often so only the intrepid would drive on the streets of New York.

In any case, that allowed us enough time to have dinner at Fiorello’s, and for me to pick up the tickets and do some ticket exchanges at the Met.

One would think I would be an expert on Messiah as I have heard it many times in concert and have on occasion sung some selections as a choir member.  I may or may not be an expert, but I still learned a few things this time around.  While there is no surprise there are many editions of the score, and indeed Handel himself made several, today’s calls for a countertenor (instead of an alto) and a boy soprano.  In the continuo section there is this instrument called a theorbo (most people would simply call that a lute.)  Another instrument listed is the virginal.  A search of the web says it is a harpsichord-like instrument, and the artist listed next to it is Wedow the conductor.  I didn’t see the instrument, and didn’t see the conductor performing on it.  The concert (with intermission) lasted close to 2 hours 45 minutes, about 15 minutes longer than the one we heard last year.  The libretto in the Program Notes contains markings for Part and Scene, which greatly helped make sense of the choice of scripture.

All the mechanics aside, my overall assessment of tonight’s concert was one of disappointment.  Early into the program, it was already evident that Wedow was going to be very deliberate in the approach.  A less charitable adjective would be timid.  (That may account for a good deal of the extra 15 minutes.)  While the reduced dynamic range may well be a “period” interpretation of how Messiah was played in Handel’s time, I doubt deliberate ritardandos were used very much at that time.  It could well be Wedow got it right, but this performance in so many ways different from what I (and most people, no doubt) think Messiah should sound, that the changes just sounded unnatural.

The soloists got the job done, but except for a burst of energy here or there, their performance was unremarkable.  Although Handel wrote a lot of countertenor parts in his operas (Julius Caesar comes to mind), this was my first encounter with one in Messiah.  Davies’ rendition sounded a bit forced.  I remember being very impressed with Slattery when he sang Britten’s Serenade on one day’s notice; today he wasn’t at all exceptional.  The air “I know that my redeemer liveth” is one of the defining moments in the oratorio, Tilling mostly muddled through it.  Westman was generally okay, but his baritone voice sounded weak at the lower notes.  Tsui as the boy soprano had only a few lines, in this case perhaps showing up (at 11 years old) is remarkable enough.

All these criticisms would turn into praises if it were not for the fact that this was a New York Philharmonic concert, and that I have heard much better from them before.  And overall, I was quite happy to have attended this concert; after all is said and done, it was still performed by a group of accomplished artists at a high level of expertise.

This coming Sunday I will be doing this all over again, this time with New Jersey Symphony at NJPAC.

Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra – Shao-Chia Lu, conductor; Baiba Skride, violin. December 11, 2014.

National Concert Hall, Taipei.  Fourth floor, Row 12, Seat 26 (NT$320.)

Program: Symphonic Poem Series – An Orchestral Spectacular

Symphonia Domestica, Op. 53 by Richard Strauss (1864-1949).

Violin Concerto, Op. 77 by Brahms (1833-1897).

 The CKS Memorial is flanked by the National Theatre (left) and the National Concert Hall.

The huge stage of the National Concert Hall is dominated by the pipe organ.

My sister, her husband, and I are visiting Taiwan for a couple of days.  While having dinner at the food court at Taipei 101, I browsed the web and noticed that this concert was on at 7:30 pm.  I said goodbye to them and took the short subway ride to the concert hall, getting there at about 7:10 pm.  As I walked to the box office area, a group of young students said they got an extra group ticket which they got at 20% group discount.  At first I wanted to get a better seat, but relented after a while.  Turns out the seat was located at the last row of the rather cavernous concert hall, and I was among a large group of high school music students.

The concert hall has been around since the late 80s, and I had seen but not visited it on many prior visits to Taipei.  While large, it seats a surprisingly small number of people – about 2000.  The seats are large and quite comfortable.  This is the first concert hall I ever visited that I could rest my head against the back of the seat.  Attendance was only so-so, with many seats empty at our level.  I couldn’t see the orchestra level too well, but there were quite a few empty seats in the first few rows that I did see.  Not good.

In my rush to get to my seat, I didn’t have time to get a program.  (I did get one during the intermission, and it cost NT$30.)  But being the Strauss "expert" (after all, I visited Garmisch recently) that I am, I remember this as “a day in the lives of the Strausses” kind of tone poem, and that there would be baby crying and being calmed, Strauss’s wife scolding someone, and a romantic episode where more babies are expected to be conceived.  Turns out it’s not that far from what is in the Program Notes.  What I missed were the details, and the introduction of the baby’s aunts and uncles.  The Program Notes also mentions the father as having the last word – naturally – in the triumphant closing bars.

The word "expert" was properly enclosed in quotes as I don’t remember any of the music.  I am not creative enough to supply a narrative even though I knew the composition of the main characters.  The Notes devotes a whole page to outline the music, complete with whom the specific instruments represent.  Given how complex it reads, I am not sure I would have been able to follow along even if I had had the program in front of me.

This is my first encounter with the venue and the orchestra, so I can’t quite decide how good they are.  The acoustics as heard from the last row certainly was good, but that tends to be the case as the sound gets funneled by the relatively low ceiling.  The stage is huge, there was still lots of floor space left with over 100 musicians on stage.  An organ occupies the entire width of the stage.  Somehow I think the sound may come across crispier if they had put panels between the orchestra and the organ – of course the stage wouldn’t look as impressive with the organ blocked from view.  The orchestra certainly got all the mechanics right, but the performance didn’t bowl me over with how good the story was being told.  In their defense Strauss isn’t easy for this “expert” to grasp.

After the intermission I found myself an empty seat in the second row, which has a much better view of the stage.

Baiba Skride is a 33-year old, Latvian-born violinist who currently lives in Germany.  She plays the ‘Ex Baron Feilitzsch’ Stradivarius (1734) loaned to her by Gidon Kremer.  While the Program lists some impressive conductors and orchestras she has worked with, this was my first encounter of her performance.

The Brahms violin concerto is easy to like, and this performance is no exception.  While not unexpected, I was still disappointed by the poorer acoustics at the closer-in seat, and had trouble at times picking out the solo violin.  Skride had some minor problems with intonation, but put in an overall enjoyable and virtuoso performance.  The violin's lower registers sounded better than the higher registers, which is unusual for a Strad.  She also played a short piece as an encore.

The concert lasted a bit over two hours.

Hong Kong Philharmonic – Lawrence Foster, conductor; Li Biao, percussion. December 6, 2014.

H.K. Cultural Centre Concert Hall.  Stalls 1 (Seat A19, $160.)

Program – Radio 4 Live! A Birthday Celebration

Commentaries (first performance) by Richard Tsang.

-          Kathy Lam and Jonathan Douglas, narrators.

Percussion Concerto by Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943).

Symphony no. 9 in E minor, op. 95, From the New World by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904).

Anne and I were visiting Hong Kong for a few days, and our friend David L was also in town.  I found out about the concert by looking at the HK Phil website, and David went ahead and bought 3 tickets (with senior discount) for the evening.  David and I met up late afternoon, Anne joined us for dinner, and we then went to this concert together.  Our seats were in the first row of the auditorium.  I would have preferred a seat in an area that gave a better view of the stage, but all things considered, they were okay.

My recent reviews of the Hong Kong Philharmonic were enthusiastic, and it is for this orchestra that I coined the phrase “the orchestra deserves a better audience.”  Unfortunately after tonight’s performance, that assessment is now subject to review.  I hope it was a glitch (or combination of glitches) that caused this revision in my opinion, but only future concerts will tell.

Frankly the program wasn’t all that interesting.  It began with two esoteric pieces: one by a local composer writing to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of RTHK Radio 4, and one a percussion concerto premiered in 1995 at the New York Philharmonic.  With Dvorak’s New World on the program, I at least expected to get some enjoyment out of the evening.

What went wrong?  Not much, actually.  However, nothing went that “right” either.

First the commemorative piece.  In all the program listings of works by living composers I see dates of birth for the composers.  Not so with Mr. Tsang.  I didn’t look carefully, since it wasn’t worth my time to do so, only the German wiki entry in the search results gave his birthday as 1952, making him a tad over sixty.  This wasn’t that original a piece either, as he took the piece he wrote 10 years ago (naturally for the orchestra’s 30^th anniversary) and embellished it with some extra material and the addition of two narrators.  To illustrate the depth of the work, let me quote the last few lines of the composer’s (in this case the author’s) poem (or is it prose) called “The Chant:” Differences enable CHANGE, Changes define TIME, And TIME defines EXISTENCE.  (But what if TIME doesn’t really exist?)  Mixed in this brilliant poem (to the causal reader of the blog, I am being sarcastic) are quotes from various people ranging from Dr. Seuss (Don’t cry because it’s over – Smile, because it happened) to Friedrich Nietzsche (Invisible threads are the strongest ties.)

Typing this a week later, I recall very little of the music other than it wasn’t unbearable.  Which may be a compliment after all.  And if I happen to be in Hong Kong ten years from now, and am still in the concert-going mood, I probably won’t let the next version deter me from going to a concert, provided that it is kept to about the same duration of 12 minutes.  Radio 4 used to be an all-classical radio station.  It is now labeled as a “classical music and fine arts” station.

The only aspect that I distinctly remember is the lady narrator’s voice.  She spoke mostly the Chinese portion of the narration, and her voice kept reminding me of the women that would dub various TV programs (such as Bonaza) into English when I was growing up in Hong Kong.  She is too young to be doing it then; but perhaps like broadcasters she was trained to speak in a certain way.  The composer also came out for the curtain call.

It is so much easier to make complaints as I also have a lot to say about the percussion concerto.  It is great that the percussionist can occasionally be made into the soloist.  I remember as a young boy being very impressed with what drummers (pop music at that) could do with their sets.  However, 30 minutes of that is just too much.  The concerto is in three movements: Con forza – ‘In Memoriam:’ Misterioso – Ritmico con brio (with restrained energy) con forza.  It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered by Richard Lamb, who remains with the orchestra to this day.

During the first movement, the soloist played together with other percussionists.  For the second movement, written as a memorial to Schwantner’s fellow composer Stephen Albert, the soloist stood in the front.  He continued to shake the (for lack of a better name) salt shakers as he moved to the back for the third movement.  The instruments I could see (and listed in the program notes) were a vibraphone (played with mallets and with a contrabass bow), a rack of nine Almglocken, a high-octave set of crotales (played with beaters and with a bow), two triangles, two cymbals, a water gong (a tam-tam lowered into a large kettledrum – in this case just a regular plastic container – filled with water), a concert bass drum, and a tenor drum.  Indeed the Program Notes contains a detailed description of the music, but it didn’t help.

I subscribe to the view that any craft at its best is impressive.  Again that must be revised after today.  Taking away nothing from how difficult the piece is, I wasn’t impressed.  And why else would someone write such a piece?  I enjoyed it for 10 minutes or so, and then it sounded repetitive bordering on boring despite the different timbres and pitches provided by the huge set of instruments.

Li played an encore written by his friend I vaguely recall had something to do with jazz and blues.  Surprisingly he doesn’t have a gig with a symphonic orchestra but does solo recitals and heads up a group of percussionists.

I hadn’t seen (nor heard of) Lawrence Foster before.  He is 73 years old, born in Los Angeles, and since 2013 owns the city of Marseille as leader of both the Opera Company and Philharmonic Orchestra.  After the first half of the program, all I could conclude was that he was a meticulous time-keeper.  I did not see any evidence he was trying to shape the music at all.

It takes a lot to butcher the New World Symphony.  And the orchestra didn’t.  The symphony is easy to enjoy, and I enjoyed it.  Not without misgivings, though.  The many folk tunes make it a natural vehicle to tell a story, and one could envision the scenes that go with the movements.  Such attentive listening inevitably would make one cringe as the orchestra muddled through some passages.

Perhaps this is an example to prove that the conductor matters?  I am sure the Hong Kong Philharmonic could have done a much better job with the music (even the first half), or at least I fervently hope so.

Today’s attendance was atrocious.  A generous estimate would be 50% of the seats were filled.  This reminds me of the time that they put out a program called “Russian Shakespeare” which probably scared a lot of people away.  Time to go back to the basics?