Metropolitan Opera – Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. October 12, 2016.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C107, $92.50).

Story.  The Sultan Mustafa tires of his wife and wants to get rid of her.  He asks Lindoro, someone he captured earlier, to marry her and take her away.  A shipwreck brings ashore Isabella, who is Lindoro’s lover.  Mustafa is taken with Isabella and is willing to be initiated as a Pappataci, which requires him to eat, drink, and keep silent regardless of what is happening.  While that is happening, Lindoro and Isabella sail away, and Mustafa takes Elvira back.

Conductor – James Levine.  Lindoro – Rene Barbera, Isabella – Marianna Pizzolato, Mustafa – Ildar Abdrazakov, Haly – Dwayne Croft, Taddeo – Nicola Alaimo, Elvira -Angela Mannino, Zulma – Rihab Chaieb.

This would be our first encounter with this opera.  The Met last staged this in 2004, and tonight would be the opera’s 74^th appearance on the Met stage.

We got into the hall early enough to see Levine wheeled into the conductor’s position.  This season he will be conducting Nabucco and Idomeneo also.  Not the marathon pieces like Tristan or Isolde, but still a rather demanding schedule.

The last opera we saw was Simon Boccanegra, also conducted by Levine.  Levine was equally energetic with the overture, if not more.  The overture is easy to like, with many catchy melodies. I am sure it took a lot of restraint for the audience not to hum along – I know I had to try hard.  Levine maintained this level of intensity throughout.  While this opera is “only” three hours long (with a 30 minute intermission), it is still two acts at about 75 minutes each.  The days of Levine conducting the Ring may be over, but I certainly will not hesitate seeing him perform Mozart, Rossini, or Verdi.

I don’t care very much for the plot, but it serves as a great canvass for beautiful music, even though the story line is a bit contrived.  One exception I take – despite the Program Note giving it high mark – is the last number in Act I where the principals were just mouthing syllables.  That was supposed to emphasize the confusion, but I didn’t think it was necessary, and am quite sure there are other means to do so.  The orchestra performed crisply throughout, and as needed served as a great backdrop for the action on stage.

The main characters are Lindoro (tenor) and Mustafa (bass-bartone) who both put in excellent performances.  We have heard Abdrazakov sing several different roles before (Prince Igor, for example), and he was always good.  His singing today was commendable, although he was a bit weak with the lower notes.

This was our first encounter with Pizzolato.  She started a bit unsteady but improved greatly as the show progressed.

My expectations with comedies are usually modest in the acting department when it comes to comedies, so I wasn’t disappointed at how wooden the stage play was.  It did take some suspension of belief to envision Barbera and Pizzaloto as these young and attractive lovers.  Now there were some comedic and unsuspected moments.  Lindoro trying to throw flowers into a second story and having them stuck on the window sill is one, the use of a small canon to wreck the boat Isabella is on is another (and it was a loud boom.)

Both Elvira and Zulma have minor roles.  The two singers looked so much alike that I often got them confused.  The singer programmed initially as Elvira was Ying Fang.  Even though the role is minor, I am sure it was a big deal to be on the Met stage.

There were a few songs sung by the chorus – as far as I can tell, only the men sang.  Given our seats in the balcony, we could clearly see the hands of another conductor “hiding” in the prompter’s box.  What was surprising is that his (her?) hands were seen even during the singing by the ensemble of 4.  I am quite sure someone with basic musical skills know when to come in with the right pitch for most of these songs.

All said and done, we walked away satisfied with the performance.

Curtain Call.  From Left: Taddeo, Zulma, Lindoro, Isabella, Mustafa, Elvira, and Haly.

Attendance was low.  The Met seems to have trouble selling tickets for these more standard operas; Tristan and Isolde on the other hand, seems to do relatively well.

The New York Times reviewer was generally positive, and she actually found the story hilarious. Per her remark, the staging was from 1973.  It was surprising that some of the scenes (e.g., men mock-whipping women) are still acceptable today.

We got to the city early enough to have dinner at Dan, a Japanese restaurant, and coffee at Europan before the opera.  The drive home was straight forward also.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – Gemma New, conductor; Stewart Goodyear, piano. October 8, 2016

Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank.  Balcony Center (Seat E108, $38).

Program

Antearoa Overture (1940) by Lilburn (1915-2001).

Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 (1868-69, rev. through 1907) by Grieg (1843-1907).

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (1902) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

The Program Notes describes this as “a program featuring three faces of nationalism.”  The three composers hailed respectively from New Zealand, Norway, and Finland.  From the “One Minute Notes”: Douglas Lilburn’s piece is a musical portrait of the island nation’s breathtaking coastline; Grieg’s ravishing piece is rich with Norwegian melodies and rhythms; and Sibelius’s symphony pulsates with the warmth of the brief sub-arctic summer.

The word coastline evokes in me images of Mendelssohn’s Scottish pieces or Debussy’s La Mer (I know it means “sea”).  With the Maori word for New Zealand in its title, one could also expect some folk native tunes in the piece.  What I heard was a lot of Vaughan Williams’s influence – Lilburn studied in London with him, after all.  And if the piece describes the coastline, it would appear it was on a very calm day with waves gently lapping against a beach rather than a rugged coastline during a stormy night.  Nonetheless, the short piece was performed with a clarity that would rival many better known orchestras.

Grieg premiered his own piano concerto in 1869, when he was 25.  He continued to tinker with the orchestration throughout his life, the 1906-07 version was heard tonight.  The movements are: Allegro molto moderato, Adagio, and Allegro moderato molto e marcato.  This concerto, together with Liszt’s first, were among the few I really liked when I was very young (teens to early twenties.)  Melodies, virtuosity, and a story combined to make these concertos exciting to listen to.  Decades later, I still look forward to listening to them.

Goodyear looked very young (he was a classmate of our friend’s daughter, so in his 30s), and he certainly put in an exhilarating virtuoso performance.  And the melodies sounded as pleasant as ever.  However, I didn’t get the story he was trying to tell.  It was more on the order of “let’s get through these dull intervening passages to get to the next highlight.”  Nonetheless, the melodies and virtuosity made this an overall exciting performance.

In the writeup on an earlier performance of Sibelius’s Second Symphony, I marveled at how complicated the tempo markings were.  The NJSO annotator made the four movements simple: Allegretto; Andante ma rubato; Vivacissimo; and Finale: Allegro moderato.  A bit over-simplified, I think, as there were significant tempo changes within the individual movements.

As with the Grieg piece, this symphony contains lots of difficult passages and pleasant folk-sounding melodies.  One of the most attractive themes appears towards the end where the full melody was teased out after many attempts.  The orchestra tackled the technical aspects well.  However, I am similarly disappointed in that in between the high points it was wandering aimlessly.  What dismayed me the most was the attempts at the final melody were all disjoint: they were played without anticipating what was to come.

Curtain Call after the Grieg Piano Concerto.

When I first started going to NJSO performances regularly I remarked that this was a Jekyll-and-Hyde orchestra, doing well under Lacombe but not so well with other conductors.  I just realized that I hadn’t been wondering about that for a while, and that speaks to the great improvements they have made.  I am not quite back to that view yet, but worry a bit if this will become the norm again.

Several friends took advantage of the sale (ticket prices could be as low as $20), but the balcony was not even 20% filled.  One would think there are more classical music listeners in this part of New Jersey.

Gemma New had been the associate conductor of NJSO for quite a few years.  I assume her departure from the organization is to make room for Zhang to pick an assistant.  I think the same thing happened to Zhang when Maazel left the New York Philharmonic.

We had dinner at church so we could listen to some of the reports on short-term missions.  Concerts in Red Bank and New Brunswick are very convenient for us.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Christopher Martin, trumpet; Lang Lang, piano. October 7, 2016.

Program

Mysteries of the Macabre, for Trumpet and Orchestra (1974-77/1992) by Ligeti (1923-2006).

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 (1806) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, BB 114 (1936) by Bartok (1881-1945).

Le Grand Macabre was an opera written by Gyorgy Ligeti, based on a play by Michel de Ghelderode - which was in turn inspired by the paintings of the 16^th century painter Pieter Breughel and his forebear Hieronymus Bosch.  The absurdist approach endeavors to answer the questions of “what will happen if our world ends soon” with “things would pretty much stay the same.”  While preparing for a concert performance, the coloratura soprano singing the role of Police Chief fell ill and couldn’t perform.  Since there was no understudy, the conductor Howarth – also a trumpet player – decided to have the trumpet as a fill-in.  It worked, and eventually three principal arias were arranged by Howarth into a piece for the trumpet and piano, which was further arranged into what we heard today.

The concert began with Gilbert coming out by himself, seemingly looking for the trumpeter.  At first I thought he was caught up in traffic, which was bad today.  Eventually I realized this was all part of the comedy of the piece.  And it was a comedic piece, as instruments there were crumbling newsprint, whistle, and other non-traditional percussion instruments. (Some of the other non-conventional instruments listed: police whistle, slide whistle, signal pipe, guero, and sandpaper.) Spoken words and shouts by the conductor, soloist, and orchestra members were thrown in for good measure.  There were only three violins as far as we could tell.

Martin is the new trumpet section principal in the orchestra, and he did a remarkable job with the music.  Overall, however, as gallows humor the piece sounded more humor than gallows.

Christopher Martin is the new Principal Horn of the Orchestra.

Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta was commissioned by the billionaire philanthropist Paul Sacher, who also conducted its premiere by the Basel Chamber Orchestra.  Per the Playbill, the piece is a good example of the precision of Bartok’s music, and illustrates it with the principal line used in the fugue of the first movement.  Fair enough: I was able to follow how the music was developed using that particular “melody.”  Unfortunately, there were no corresponding cheat sheets for the other movements, and I was reduced to simply listening to the music, which was quite interesting.  I do wish the annotator had spent more print on the music itself.

The 31-minute duration (per Playbill) piece consists of four movements: Andante tranquillo, Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro molto.  There were two string sections, each with first and second violins, violas, cellos, and basses.  The composer also had a precise plan for how the orchestra members were to be seated.  However, Gilbert seemed to have taken some liberty with those instructions.

These two pieces are heavy duty enough that they could form the backbone of a concert program.  However, the headline for the evening was Lang Lang playing Beethoven, and is undoubtedly the reason why the concert was sold out.

Lang Lang was worth his top billing.  Beethoven’s concertos are warhorses of the concert repertoire, and the fourth is no exception.  Indeed, a search of my blog returned numerous performances, including ones by Bronfman, Watts, Ax, and Ohlsson. The adjectives I would use to describe these performances include smooth, exciting, and compelling.  Lang’s performance was all that, but I would add the word “fresh.”  I don’t necessarily think everything he did was a better choice, but it was an excellent and immensely enjoyable experience to sit through this rendition.  Lang played Beethoven’s cadenzas, and evidently there are two versions for the first one, and the longer version was used tonight.

Curtain Call after Performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.

It was somewhat of a surprise to see Lang performing a piece that is not as virtuoso as what he typically did in the past.  Later this season Trifonov will be playing Mozart.  Perhaps they are out to prove they are more than just great technicians, but great musicians as well?

Here is a October 10 review in the New York Times.  Despite the minor digs at the various pieces, the reviewer was generally positive, describing Martin, Lang, and Gilbert using terms such as "impeccable musicians," "ravishing," and "excellent."

Today was a Friday, and we couldn’t make up our mind whether we should drive in or take the train.  Our decision resulted in one of the longest drives (over 2 hours).  Even though we left at around 5:15 pm, we only had time to buy a sandwich at the Café.  The good thing was we didn’t have to rush to the Penn Station afterwards, instead we bought street food and ate it at Richard Tucker Square.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Magdalena Kozena, mezzo-soprano. October 1, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat T105, $82.50).

Program

Les Nuits d’ete (The Summer Nights), Op. 7 (1840-41; orch. 1843, 1855, 1856) by Berlioz (1803-69).

Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Op. 35 (1888) by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

When one thinks of “summer nights,” various images would come to mind.  They can range from the singing of nightingales, or a bright evening sky, or perhaps a severe thunderstorm.  It took someone like Berlioz to make this about frailty, death, cemetery, and lament.  I didn’t get to read the lyrics until the program was underway, and was quite unprepared for how dark the lyrics were after the first song (Villanelle).  The other songs in this collection are Le Spectre de la rose (The Specter of the Rose); Sur les lagunes: Lamento (On the Lagoons: Lament); Absence; Au cimetiere: Clair de lune (In the Cemetery: Moonlight); and L’ile inconnue (The Unknown Island.)

After reconciling with the fact that this was going to be a dark composition – which happened around the third song – I began to appreciate the music.  The reduced-size orchestra provided a great companion to the soloist.  While I do not know French, the projected surtitles helped my appreciation of the mood tremendously.

Kozena had a strong voice.  Every now and then it sounded a bit on the coarse side, but that just added to the grittiness of the prose.  I enjoyed her singing.

The composition was originally written for voice and piano, and song-by-song orchestrated by Berlioz, starting with Absence.  He modified the songs in other ways as well, including the transposition of two of them: “Le Spectre de la rose” by a minor third, and “Sur les lagunes” by a whole step.

“Absence” was first introduced to the New York Philharmonic by Leopold Damrosch in 1877, together with other works heard in New York for the first time.  The concert wasn’t a box office success, and Damrosch was not invited back.  Perhaps out of spite, Damrosch founded the New York Symphony in in 1878.  After 50 years, the New York Symphony, under the direction of Leopold’s son Walter, would merge with the New York Philharmonic.  Walter was also instrumental in convincing Andrew Carnegie to build Carnegie Hall.

While Scheherazade is probably known to most people, and some of the tunes in it are easily hummable, it is not programmed that frequently in live concerts.  Since I started my blog, this was only my second encounter with the piece.  The four movements are (i) Largo e maestosos – Allegro non troppo; (ii) Lento – Andantino; (iii) Andantino quasi allegretto; and (iv) Allegro molto.  Before it became unfashionable to do so, they also had descriptive titles: (i) The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship; (ii) The Story of the Kalander Prince; (iii) The Young Prince and Princess; and (iv) Festival at Baghdad, the Sea.

It was an enjoyable performance, the mood swung from serene to tempestuous, and the orchestra gave the music its all.  The Program Notes says Rimsky-Korsakov thought it would be sufficient that the listener “carries away the impression that it is beyond doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and fairy-tale wonders …”  That was a relatively low bar.

The soloist violin got quite a bit of workout as the protagonist, and some of the passages were quite challenging.  There were other solo passages from various members of the orchestra also.  Interestingly, only Frank Huang got the billing in the Program.

The audience applauded enthusiastically afterwards, which the orchestra and Gilbert deserved.

Curtain Call after Scheherazade.

A few observations.  First is that Gilbert went back to his baton, which looked more natural. The other was if Huang continues to perform the way he did, people would soon forget about Dicterow.  Lastly, the amount of coughing between movements was close to unbearable.  Perhaps free cough drops should be more readily available at the doors?

We stopped by Jersey City before driving into New York.  Dinner was at Columbus Empire Szechuan which we hadn’t been to for a while.

Marina Young Piano Recital. September 27, 2016.

Community Room, Middletown Township Library, NJ.

Program (see attached)

Mrs. Young was the piano teacher for our children when they were in high school. Every few years she would do a recital.  Anne told me last time she heard her was a joint recital with her husband, a violinist.

Her daughter told the gather audience that it had been over six years since the last concert, and tonight’s concert was dedicated to the memory of her father, who passed away five years ago.

I was able to get a lot of the sheet music on my iPhone as the concert progressed, and being able to follow along added a lot to my enjoyment.

The program was a combination of relatively easy (e.g., Schubert’s Waltzes) and rather difficult (Chopin’s Ballade) pieces.

Mrs. Young initially skipped over the Rachmaninoff Barcarolle, saying she wasn't quite ready to it.  She did perform it after the audience let out a groan.

There were quite a few people in attendance: students, their parents, and many fellow piano teachers.

Reminiscing about her two students from the 90s and early 2000s.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – Teddy Abrams, conductor; Sarah Chang, violin. September 24, 2016.

State Theatre, New Brunswick.  Front Orchestra (Seat L107, $43).

Program

On the Town: Three Dance Episodes (1944) by Bernstein (1918-1990).

The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (1965-70, arr. 1992) by Piazzolla (1921-1992).

Tzigane (1924) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes (1942) by Copland (1900-1990).

After purchasing the NJSO Red Bank series, I never gave the rest of their season any thought.  Earlier this week I got a mailing advertising a sale for their opening weekend concerts.  $40 (plus $3 handling) got us a ticket front and center.

The program consisted of works that all drew heavily on the “common folk.”  On the Town originated as the ballet Fancy Free describing three sailors’ shore leave in New York. It was eventually turned into the Broadway show On the Town.  The three vignettes performed tonight had the self-explanatory titles of The Great Lover, Lonely Town: Pas de Deux and Times Square, 1944.  The other American composition that bookended the concert was originally a ballet describing the love interests of a cowgirl.  The ballet consists of five sections: Buckaroo Holiday, Ranch House Party, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz, and Hoe-Down.  The orchestral suite omits Ranch House Party.  While the two compositions were written within two years of each other, they showed rather different characteristics.  Simplistically, Bernstein’s was jazzy and Copland’s was more “square dance” country.  Anne told me listeners of WQXR would be very familiar with Hoe-Down as it is used often as lead-ins and fade-outs.

Both pieces were enjoyable.  Perhaps to emphasize the jazzy nature of Bernstein’s work, the conductor was sometimes more like a band leader, saying “one-two-three-four” before the third movement.

In the middle part of the program there were two pieces that also had strong national flavors: Piazzolla’s Argentinian and Ravel’s Eastern European.  Of course Ravel wasn’t Romany, but he was inspired by the Hungarian violinst Jelly d’Aranyi (playing in London, of all places) to write Tzigane.

Piazzolla was brought up in New York, and didn’t attempt to incorporate tango characteristics into his music until later in life.  The Four Seasons has both Latin characteristics as well as references to Vivaldi in each of its movements.  The arrangement for violin and string orchestra was commissioned by Gidon Kremer in 1992 after Piazzolla’s death, although the Program Notes reassures us that Piazzolla won’t mind.  The pieces didn’t originate as a group, and weren’t considered by Piazzolla as a complete cycle.  If I remember correctly, Vivaldi didn’t start out to compose a suite called Four Seasons either.

We heard New York Philharmonic’s Frank Huang perform a couple of the movements last summer at Snug Harbor (same arrangement), and another by the Prima Ensemable in Princeton.  Interestingly they didn’t seem as technically challenging as what we heard today.  Perhaps Huang made it look easy, or (more likely) perhaps today we were seated front and center.  And for some reason the quotes from Vivaldi were much more evident.  Tonight's performance wasn’t without its flaws: there were occasional intonation problems with g-string high notes, and the orchestra overwhelmed Chang at times.  However, both the musicians and the audience enjoyed it.  The orchestra parts weren’t pieces of cake either, with some challenging solo passages for the principals; they all did their job superbly.

Curtain call after Piazzolla’s Four Seasons.

It was quite a few years ago when we heard Tzigane played by Vadim Repin in Alice Tully Hall, and more recently by Stefan Jackiw at Count Basie.  Each performance had its share of difficulties.  Chang certainly tackled them better, although not always with ease.  (Again the intonation problems.)

After Ravel’s Tzigane.  Indeed Sarah Chang changed her dress.

From how her violin sounded, it appeared Chang wasn’t using a Stradivarius.  Indeed, a web search confirms that she uses a Guarnerius.  The richer timbre may work with the low notes, but the brilliance and clarity of a Stradivarius would be more suited for a concert hall performance.  She still swung the bow and kicked, but much less than she used to, if memory serves.

This is the opening weekend for the 2016-2017 season, and one has to say the programming is a bit puzzling.  While each of the pieces has an interesting story behind it, none of them is particularly intellectually demanding.

Not that there is anything wrong with Teddy Abrams, but why this conductor, who seems to have no history with NJSO, for the opening concert, no less.  One explanation for both the program and musician choices could be they were put together during the “transition period” between conductors.  Abrams conducted with gusto, but some of his exaggerated movements didn’t quite elicit corresponding strong statements from the orchestra.  He was the first conductor I saw who wore jeans on the podium.

He did talk a bit about the program, and I incorporated some of his remarks into this writeup.

It was a bit disappointing to see the large number of empty seats in the auditorium.  If it bothered the artists, they didn’t let it show.

We didn’t leave the house until about 6:45 pm as Anne had “Middletown Day” duties the whole day, but got to New Brunswick early enough that I could circle around the block (many blocks in fact) to find parking.  It was even more straightforward to return home.

Hong Kong Philharmonic – Yu Long, conductor; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Wu Tong, sheng. September 10, 2016.

H. K. Cultural Center Concert Hall.  Balcony F164 (HK$1040.)

Program

Symphony in C (1855) by Bizet (1838-1875).

Silent Woods, op. 58, no. 5 (1884, arr. 1893) by Dvorak (1841-1904).

Duo (2013) by Zhao Lin (b. 1953).

I am stopping by Hong Kong this weekend on my way to several meetings in Manila next week.  When I decided on the trip, I looked around and found this program that would be the season opener for the Hong Kong Philharmonic.  With Yo-Yo Ma as the headliner, it was close to a no-brainer; more on the “close to” a bit later.

The program started with a symphony Bizet wrote when he was all of 17 years old.  The piece however wasn’t published or performed until 60 years after his death.  I recall hearing Mozart’s first symphony, written when was 8, over the summer.  Perhaps reviving very early work of composers is in vogue nowadays?

The piece was not particularly difficult, except for some very fast passages in the last movement.  However, I wouldn’t have guessed that this was written at the beginning of Bizet’s composition career: the melodies were beautiful, the orchestration quite sophisticated, and there was much contrast; the only complaint I have would be how often some melodies got repeated, they got a little old.  Not necessarily a showcase for the orchestra, especially as a season and concert opener, nor for the conductor, for that matter.  Nonetheless a good way to get the concert started, especially if one didn't have specific expectations.

The Program Notes tries to say something about each of the Bizet movements.  The upside is one knew what to listen for, the downside is that may limit one’s appreciation of the music, the very downside is the disappointment I felt when I couldn’t get the “obvious forerunner of those memorable oboe solos from The Pearl Fishers” (second movement, Adagio) or the “bustling idea which Bizet subsequently adapted for use in Carmen” (fourth movement, Allegro vivace.)  On top of that, I am sure the description of the first movement (Allegro vivo) as “could have come straight from Schubert” would offend both the French and the Austrian.  The only thing I got was the “drone bass” discussed in the third movement (Scherzo – Allegro Vivace.)  So sometimes music can be enjoyed simply for its sake.

After the intermission, Yo-Yo Ma played the Dvorak piece.  It started life as a movement entitled “Silence” in the piano duet “From the Bohemian Forest” composed in 1884.  Dvorak hastily arranged it as a cello and piano piece during his “farewell” concert before he left for the US in 1892.  It was arranged into the current version in 1893.  The piece is relatively short at about 8 minutes.  My seat was in the balcony section, behind the orchestra, so the solo cello was furthest away from me.  As a result I had a bit of trouble picking out the solo's lines, but they sounded beautiful when I could hear them.  And this is one instance where I wished they had a smaller orchestra so they wouldn’t drown out the soloist the way they did.  (It may work very well for audience facing the stage.)

“Duo” was the title in English, translated from the Chinese.  It is based on the story (popularized as Journey to the West, known to most Chinese) that describes how the monk Xuanzang traveled in search of scripture, enduring much hardship in the progress.  The original description of the piece is in Chinese, an English translation (which I went to first) was provided in the program.  It was only when I also read the Chinese that I realized how botched the translation was.  While the description involves some Buddhist concepts, those terms are quite well known and Google Translate should do quite well for them.  Instead, we seem to have whole passages translated by Google Translate, which can’t quite get the idioms and word orders correct in my own experience.  So something that should mean “early days of the Tang Dynasty” got translated as “an early morning during the Tang Dynasty,” and the Chinese title 度 (pronounced “du”) became “duo” in English.  As this was a double concerto, I thought the composer was being unimaginative in naming the piece.  However, in Buddhism “du” means something like “transition” or “salvation.”

The composition consists of three movements played nonstop.  They are all slow, with some fast passages thrown in.  Instead of tempo markings, we have the titles “Form, Happiness, and Awakening.”  A Financial Times critic called the work “more a matter of contemplation and survival than reaching a particular destination.”  On the surface this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it is actually an insightful way to describe the rather pleasant and interesting piece.  If this composition is typical of the young Zhao Lin (趙麟), he is quite a composer.

The Sheng is a Chinese music instrument made of bamboo, and is used in this work to represent the qualities of the gods; the Cello, on the other hand, represents the unquenchable human spirit.  This and other notes in the Program certainly helped one’s appreciation, but the music can be appreciated at an abstract level.  It isn’t modern, not classical, not western, and not Chinese.  A great example of something that is cross-cultural and cross-period (as in classical, romantic, etc.)

This was the first time I was exposed to the Sheng as a solo instrument (I might have heard it in an ensemble before,) and I am impressed by both how versatile the instrument was, and how Wu Tong (吳彤) played it.  It could produce a range of sounds that one wouldn’t think possible from looking at the instrument, even though it looks quite complex.

Yo-Yo Ma was his usual exuberant self, delivering great music while appearing to enjoy it tremendously.  He had to feel particularly good since this piece came out of one of his Silk Road project activities.

The applause was thunderous, and we had two encores.  One was with both instruments, also written by Zhao, that has a drinking cup as its title, which Yo-Yo Ma roughly translated into “drinking song.”  While it sounded nothing like the aria Brindisi in La Traviata, it was capricious and enjoyable.  Ma then played a cello encore; it was a familiar sounding piece, but I do not know its title.  Both encores had orchestra accompaniment.  To Ma's credit, he acknowledged many of the orchestra members, and waved at those seated behind the stage.

Curtain call after "duo."  Yu Long and Wu Tong were wrapping their arms around one another, and Ma - cello in hand - was acknowledging the orchestra.

I have seen the name Yu Long (余隆) in Sydney and New York for quite a while now, mostly to conduct the Chinese New Year programs for the Sydney Symphony and the New York Philharmonic.  Per the Program Notes, he leads in some capacity the China Philharmonic (not the China National Orchestra), the Shanghai Symphony, and the Guangzhou Symphony; those must be among the top orchestras in the entire country, and he rules them all.  Recently he also collected high international honors from France, Germany, and the USA.  The best I can say is I am puzzled how he manages to do all that.  As my seat faces him, I imagined as a member of the orchestra, and felt rather uninspired.  He was a lot better with the Zhao piece, though.

I said earlier that buying a ticket to the concert was “close to” a no-brainer.  One hesitation I had was the Zhao piece, I thought if I were to listen to Ma it should be a famous cello concerto like Dvorak or Shostakovich.  The other hesitation was the price.  The best seats in a typical HK Phil concert costs me around US$50 (with senior discount), for this concert I had to dole out over $130 for a seat in the balcony (I didn’t realize it was behind the stage.)  I am not saying it was worth the money (hard to put a price on art), or that I don’t wish a more standard work was programmed, but I am quite happy with what I heard, and don’t mind how much I paid for the seat.  Of the many HK Phil concerts I have attended, this is the only sold out concert.  So big names matter, and the pricing scheme is market pricing at its best (or worst.)  I do wonder why van Zweden didn't do the opener; he remains the music director of Hong Kong Philharmonic.

It was a short ride back to Causeway Bay.  I am staying up past 2 am to get this finished, despite the considerable jetlag that is hitting me right now.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Jeffrey Kahane, conductor and piano. August 12, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Center (Seat S103, $50.)

Program – All-Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (1785).

Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (1786).

Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K. 482 (1785).

Despite the 1785 and 1786 dates, these piano concertos were written within a year: spring 1785 to spring 1786.  The Snapshot section in the Playbill describes them as “widely varied in their overall character, from the cheerful, bustling C major, K. 467, to the searching, even desolate C minor, K. 491, to the majestic E-flat major, K. 482.”

As I resume writing this entry on August 17, my original assessment that this didn’t leave a lasting impression is confirmed.  I recall No. 21 as being quite familiar (how can it not be, with the well-known slow movement), and being quite surprised how unfamiliar I was with 24 and 22.  To use my old cliché about my not being able to tell a good from a great Mozart performance, I must say this definitely wasn’t in the “great” category.  What I heard from Richard Goode at the last concert was definitely much better in comparison.

Kahane’s lines were simply unsatisfactory to my ears.  The phrasing wasn’t smooth, and he used too much pedal – Anne called it fuzzy playing (she used a Chinese colloquial term which means “unclear.”)  Perhaps he should concentrate on the piano instead of also trying to lead the orchestra?  The cadenzas were his own compositions.

At conclusion of tonight's concert.

The movements of No. 21 are Allegro maestoso, Andante, and Allegro vivace assai; for No. 24, Allegro, Larghetto, and Allegretto; for No. 22, Allegro, Andante, and Allegro.

I have a playlist of Mozart's works that I listen to on these long flights I take, with the hope that the soothing music will help me get some sleep.  That sometimes works.  Tonight reminded me of such a playlist, although I must say I stayed awake the whole time.  But there were times I was asking myself where things were.

Our son and family were visiting, so we took a late afternoon train to get to Lincoln Center.  My using an old train schedule, and that Penn Station was congested meant we had to buy a couple of sandwiches and eat on the subway.  CS was there with a couple of his friends, and he gave us a ride back to NJ.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor; Richard Goode, piano. August 9, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Linoln Center.  Orchestra Left (Seat Z13, $39.50).

Program: All-Mozart

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 (1764-65).

Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414 (1782).

Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 (“Jupiter”) (1788).

This is an unusual program in at least a couple of ways.  First, it’s all-Mozart, which is relatively rare even in a festival headlined as “Mostly Mozart.”  The other is both the first and the last symphonies Mozart wrote would be performed.

There is little doubt that 41 is the last symphony Mozart wrote, even though there is still considerable speculation on why he wrote it, and if any of the group of three he wrote during the summer of 1788 was ever performed during his lifetime.  K. 16 was written when he was eight, on tour in London; the Program Notes paints this beautiful picture of how Mozart’s sister Nannerl helped copy down the music as Mozart was composing it.

The other interesting thing is how Mozart reused one of the motifs in K. 16 (do-re-fa-me) in many of his subsequent works.  One could wax nostalgic how a theme in his first symphony got such a prominent role in his last (of course Mozart didn’t know No. 41 would be his last.)

I read up on the Playbill before the concert, so I was all eager to get the main and subtle points in the Program Notes.  Of course Mozart became a very different composer over the 20-some years between the symphonies.  Indeed No. 1 could be mistaken for a simple Haydn, and No. 41 for Beethoven.  And indeed the do-re-fa-me theme got reused multiple times in the last movement of the Jupiter Symphony.  The short (13 minutes) K. 16 has three movements: Molto allegro, Andante, and Presto; while the 31-minute K. 551 has four: Allegro vivace, Andante cantabile, Menuetto: Allegretto, and Molto allegro.

What I found more interesting was how in Jupiter Mozart built up the contrapuntal complexity by introducing additional themes (four altogether?) into the music one at a time.  Even though I couldn’t follow the exact notes of the different melodies, it was an interesting exercise nonetheless.  It would have been a more fruitful exercise if the annotator wrote down the four lines for us (Paul Schiavo calls them principal melody, counter-theme, and two counter-subjects.)  Indeed the Wikipedia entry on this symphony has markings of the themes which helped me greatly in understanding this.  And it has five of them.

The two symphonies were both delightfully performed.  Perhaps my attempt at analysis helped me overlook some of the sloppiness in the execution.  With the many quick passages (a lot of 8^th notes in 2/2 time, 16^th notes in some places) it may be too much to ask the strings to play as one voice, nonetheless I can imagine a more precise performance.

Sandwiched between the symphonies was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12, performed by Richard Goode.  The last (and only) time I saw him perform was about three years ago, with the New York Philharmonic.  He looked quite a bit older than he did then, if memory serves.  Again he needed the music, although there was no page turner this time, and he did refer to the score very often.  That didn’t detract him from putting in a nice rendition of the piece, with some beautifully executed light-touch passages.  I need to slip back to my “can’t tell great from good” mode, though.  The concerto’s three movements are Allegro, Andante, and Rondeau – Allegretto (oh, the simple markings Mozart used.)  The cadenza was by Mozart.

Richard Goode at conclusion of performance.

The performance was broadcast live on WQXR, and videotaped for a later TV showing.  I wonder if they will edit out Langree’s heavy breathing before a dramatic phrase – I could hear it sitting in row Z!

Overall, the program was captivating enough that I found myself listening intently throughout the evening, which for me is a challenge when it comes to an all-Mozart concert.  Later this week we will hear in one concert three Mozart piano concertos, I wonder how well I will do then.

I have always wondered about the New York audience’s level of sophistication.  There were a few vignettes that were interesting.  Someone was trying to impress his date by explaining K (as in K. 16) stands for catalog, and that the harpsichord was a spinet piano.  Naturally this knowledgeable gentleman gave a standing ovation at the conclusion of the concerto.  Also, after the orchestra was seated for the piano concerto, many applauded as three people came on stage.  Turns out they were the (highly-paid) stage hands who had to move things around a bit to create enough room for the pianist.  Interestingly enough, few applauded after the conclusion of particular movements.

We had two tickets (from Goldstar), Anne had a dinner commitment and thus couldn’t go.  I took the train up and walked to Lincoln Center from Penn Station, grabbing some pizza along the way.  The concert ended early enough that I made the 9:38 pm train by a couple of minutes by taking the subway.  However, the train was held up for 20 minutes as only one tunnel was in use, and it had to wait for the eastbound trains to come through first.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Paavo Jarvi, conductor; Martin Frost, Clarinet. August 5, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Center (Seat Q103, $50).

Pre-concert Recital by Andrew Tyson, piano.

Ballade in A-flat major (1841) by Chopin.

Sonata No. 28 in E-flat major (“Les Adieux”) (1809-10) by Beethoven.

Program

La Sindone (2005/rev. 2015) by Part (b.1935).

Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 (1791) by Mozart.

Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major (1806) by Beethoven.

The first piece probably found its way onto the program because Arvo Part is from Estonia, as is Jarvi.  The word Sindone (no idea what language it is, probably French) means shroud, and specifically refers to the Shroud of Turin.  Part was commissioned to compose a piece for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, and wrote this as “a dark meditation on Christ’s death and burial.”  While I skimmed over the Program Notes before the concert, I forgot about this, and instead tried to listen to a description of the Shroud, including the burned corners.  Of course I didn’t get what I was expecting, and even now (a few hours after the concert) cannot make the connection between what I remember to what Part was trying to convey.  The piece was foreboding enough, and reflected in many instances the minimalist style of Part.  (Of course by the 2000s Part was more into music of a spiritual character.)  The piece called for several percussion instruments (triangle, church bell, bass drum, and others).  Anne’s remark was “not even close to being Mozart.”

Whatever one’s misgivings might be for the first piece, they were all dispersed with a simply delightful rendition of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.  A piece that is easy to like, it was captivating with Martin Frost performing it.  He seemed to enjoy playing it immensely, even though I am sure he has done it countless number of times.  Not a student of the clarinet, I don’t know how difficult this piece is technically, but certainly there were passages that called for adept fingering, long breaths, and large changes in pitches.  Mozart after all wrote it with the virtuoso Anton Stadler in mind.  It is so impressive that I have to withdraw my usual "I-can’t-tell-good-from-great-Mozart-performance" remark to: I can’t imagine seeing another performance of this composition that I would enjoy more.

Frost is Swedish, and his career seems to go beyond being a clarinetist to a conductor and a musicologist.  For encore he played a piece – with orchestra accompaniment - written by his brother Johann called “Don’t Worry” which contains bits of the popular birthday song, in commemoration of this being the 50^th anniversary of the Mostly Mozart Festival.  Evidently he had played something called “Be Happy” on some other occasion.

Curtain call after the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

In looking for a review of this concert (didn't find any), I came across an article on Frost and the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.  One interesting fact is Frost plays this concerto on "a modern replica of a basset clarinet, a longer version that has an expanded bass register."

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony is the little brother (or sister) sandwiched between the Eroica and the Fifth, and is not nearly as popular as those two.  This symphony would dispel the notion that Beethoven’s even-numbered symphonies are much calmer than the odd-numbered ones (musicologists used more sophisticated terms.)  There was a lot of contrast in rhythm, urgency, loudness, and other aspects.  Perhaps not as much as the odd group, but enough to make the piece distinctly Beethoven.

The flute got a lot of workout, especially in the first movement, and it came across dependably all the time, beautifully most of the time.  The concertmaster still dominated.  And there was some loss of control during the fast runs.  I do wonder how this would compare with an Orpheus performance.  Overall it was an enjoyable rendition of the symphony.

Paavo Jarvi is the son of Neeme Jarvi.  He leads the NHK Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles.  His motions were a lot more exaggerated than his father’s (I read up on my writeup on Neeme), and they elicited good responses from the orchestra.

Today we left our house at 4:30 pm and got to the Lincoln Center area at around 6 pm, giving us enough time to eat something simple at Europan before attending the pre-concert recital.

Tyson is a young pianist with quite a list of “wins” to his name, including the Avery Fisher Grant in 2013.  The Chopin ballade was light and cheerful (and difficult.)  I had not heard of Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” sonata before.  There is somewhat of a story behind this.  The first movement (Das Lebewohl, which translates into the French title, Adagio-Allegro) was written to memorialize the departure of Beethoven’s patron Archduke Rudolph from Vienna as Napoleon was about to lay siege to the city.  The second movement Abwesenheit (absence, Andante espressivo) is an expression of grief and loss.  But Das Wiedersehen (seeing someone again, Vivacissimamente) was composed after Rudolph returned to Vienna in 1810 and reflected Beethoven’s happiness.  All that in 17 minutes.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Thierry Fischer, conductor; Martin Helmchen, piano. August 2, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Right (Seat O13, $39.50).

Program

Symphony No. 59 in A major (“Fire”) (c. 1768) by Haydn.

Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503 (1786) by Mozart.

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (1788) by Mozart.

Andres Orozco-Estrada, whom we saw a few years ago in Vienna and currently with the Houston Symphony, was originally on the program. He had a back program, and Fischer, of Utah Symphony stood in for him.

My first thoughts were that we have not had a truly “mostly Mozart” program for a while (the “Illuminated Heart” being an unusual exception,) so was rather looking forward to an evening I could simply sit back and enjoy.

To that end the program succeeded greatly.  The two Mozart pieces were reasonably familiar, and the Haydn one easy enough to grasp.

Per the program annotator, many believe that the Fire Symphony was also used for the play “The Conflagration” staged at Eszterhaza in 1774.  The annotator then proceeds to describe each of the movements in some detail: (1) Presto: flamboyant, octave-leaps, bursts, contrasts, furious; (2) Andante o piu tosto Allegretto: ambivalent, unexpected turns, fortissimo horn call; (3) Menuetto: bare texture, major-minor ambiguity, dance with gracefully taper phrases; and (4) Allegro assai: first and last words by wind instruments, military, fiery, blazing scales.  The performance was all that, as long as one remembers we are talking Haydn (and not Beethoven).  I was wondering how all this could be fitted into the 17 minutes stated in the program.  They didn’t, it took a couple of minutes longer.

Both Anne and I noticed the annoying aspect of a few of the string players dominating the rest of the section.  Today it was the concertmaster (called “First Violin Principal” in the program.)  There were times it sounded as if he was the only one playing and the others were simply going through the motion.  Probably because we were sensitized to that, the problem persisted throughout the evening.  I do have to give the orchestra some credit for sounding quite precise.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 was completed the day before it was scheduled.  My usual remark about Mozart is I can’t tell a good performance from a great one.  Today’s performance probably also falls into that range.  However, I do have gripes at various times that the lines sounded disjoint (which I don’t ever recall saying), or too much pedaling was used.  At about 30 minutes, it was on the long side for Mozart.  The three movements are Allegro maestoso, Andante, and Allegretto.  The cadenza was by Martin Hecker.  The last movement was in rondo form, if not in name.

This is the first time we saw Helmchen, who looked quite young from where we sat.  Despite my misgivings, it was an enjoyable performance.

The program concluded with Mozart’s 40^th Symphony, one of the three Mozart composed in the span of six weeks during the summer of 1788.  The 35-minute work consists of Molto allegro, Andante, Menuetto: Allegretto, and Allegro assai.  It was one of only two minor symphonies Mozart wrote, it might be considered bleak by musicologists, but I suspected it sounded to most listeners as being sunny, as it did me.

Fischer didn’t have a railing behind the platform, and he didn’t need it as his feet was firmly planted on the ground.  However, his upper body motion could be quite exaggerated at times.  I don’t know how long ago he was called to do the conducting, but the orchestra responded to him well.

Thierry Fischer.

This New York Times article contains a one-paragraph review of the concert.  Both Fischer (“stylish”) and Helmchen (“refined”) got good grades.

We left home at around 5 pm today, traffic was bad, and it was around 7 pm that I parked the car and got to Lincoln Center.  The way back was quite straightforward, and we managed to swing by Newark to pick up CS, returning from a San Francisco trip.

Calmus Vocal Quintet. July 27, 2016.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton.  Balcony Left (free).

Members

Anja Poche, soprano; Sebastian Krause, counter-tenor; Tobias Poche, tenor; Ludwig Bohme, baritone; Manuel Helmeke, bass.

Program: ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE - Shakespeare a Capella

The was the fourth and last of the Princeton Summer Free Chamber Music series for this season, and is the third one I attended.  The ensemble is all all-voice group, and I believe this was my first encounter with a group like this (not counting the isolated instances.)

The group at the end of the first half.

While I can carry a tune, I don’t think I have as much appreciation of the voice as an instrument as “instrument” instruments.  So my expectations weren’t that high when I sat down.  Anne and I came away very satisfied, happy that we went even though we couldn’t get tickets on line and had to drive to Princeton without knowing if we would be turned away.  Of course that wasn’t really expected as we had never seen a full auditorium.

The selection of music reminded me of yesterday Mostly Mozart concert.  Yesterday the songs were picked because they had to do with emotions.  For today most of the songs were selected because they were written to Shakespeare’s lyrics.  Many of them were arranged for the quintet by one of the musicians in the group.

The Concert Program.

Each of the members also took turn to talk a bit about the music, which added quite a bit of appreciation when the songs were performed.  There were some musicological insights as well, but I frankly didn’t get all of it, and in any case don’t remember much of it.

The one aspect that was interesting to me was while the pieces range from being written in the 17^th century (or even earlier) to the 20^th, the “styles” were not all that different.  Take as an exmaple the group of three songs chosen for their association with “Twelfth Night.”  One was written by Purcell, the other two were written by the Finnish composer Jaakko Mantyjarvi (b. 1963) and Nancy Wertsch (b.1943).  If I hadn’t read the program, I wouldn’t have placed the composers that far apart.  Now that may just point to my lack of music knowledge, but I certainly won’t make the same mistake with instrumental music, or operas for that matter.

One reason I put forward is one can make an inanimate instrument do all sorts of atonal stuff.  As long as you hit the right key or have the finger in the right place, the music will come out.  With a capella singing however, the artists are limited by more natural intervals (I won’t go into the physics, but octaves, fifths, and thirds are more natural than fourths and sevenths, for instance.)  With instruments provided a reference (from an accompanist, for example), most competent musicians can get the note right.  However, if all you have are other people’s voices, then the music has to be written more “naturally.”  And perhaps all this is nonsense.

Each of the individual voices was great, but when put together they just produced incredibly nice music.  Perhaps due to their German background (the group hails from Leipzig), the singers for the most part just stood there, but the coordination among them was simply incredible, they all did their t’s and d’s and the same time, and ended their notes at the same time.

While the songs were sung in English (it’s Shakespeare after all), I had trouble with a lot of the words.  For encore they sang Brahms’s Waldensnacht, in German of course.  An all-Shakespeare program for a first encounter is a bit on the heavy side, so one wish I have is a more varied program so I could appreciate more the musical range a vocal ensemble can provide.

There is something about Princeton during the summer.  At 9:30 pm there were still lots of people out and about.  Of course there was no one on Broadway when we got back to South Amboy.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor. July 26, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat JJ15, $39.50).

Program

The Illuminated Heart – Selections from Mozart’s Operas

Artists

Kiera Duffy, soprano; Christine Goerke, soprano; Ana Maria Martinez, soprano; Nadine Sierra, soprano, Marianne Crebassa, mezzo-soprano; Daniela Mack, mezzo-soprano; Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Christopher Maltman, Bariton; Peter Mattei, baritone.

There were quite a few sales for Mostly Mozart tickets by Lincoln Center and through Goldstar.com, and I have bought tickets for five of these concerts so far.  We decided we will take advantage of our being in New Jersey through early September.

Having been busy with a couple of issues, I didn’t have the time to research tonight’s program, other than it’s selection from Mozart’s operas.  And I made the mistake of thinking the concert starts at 8:00 pm.  Chung Shu came by to pick us up at 5:30 pm – I having turned down his suggestion of 5 pm because of said mis-conception – and we got to Lincoln Center only a little before 7 pm, so we managed to get into our seats a few minutes before curtain after grabbing a quick meal at Europan.  That also meant I had no time to read the Playbill beforehand.

That might have helped.  I will get back to that later.

The selected pieces are from the operas Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Die Zauberflote (1791), La clemenza di tito (1791), Zaide (1779-80), Don Giovanni (1787), and Idomeneo, re di Creta (1781).  The one opera I had not seen – nor had heard of – is Zaide.

As the opera stage, we have a box that tapers a bit, and for different arias different projections were used to depict scenery for the occasion.  The orchestra occupied the first few rows at the orchestra level.  The singers were all in costumes, most period, but some period-indeterminate (e.g., Idomeneo.)

The stage worked quite well.  Although the projections would fool no one, they did provide proper settings for the arias being sung.  Most interesting was what happened during the overture.  Mozart’s signature was projected on to the back of the box, and as the overture progressed a maid was there erasing the signature, and the signature actually disappeared.  I couldn’t figure out what the trick was.

The overture was delightfully performed.  It also illustrated the limitations of the MM Festival Orchestra: as the pace accelerated towards the end, one sensed that the orchestra was barely hanging on and began to lose the crispness called for in the piece.  Since my attention was on the singers after the overture, I cannot comment on how they did.  To their credit the cooperation with the singers was seamless.

The singers all did well.  The two names I recognized were Goerke and Polenzani.  Turns out I had heard quite a few of them at the Met, mostly in secondary roles.  Sierra was a new name, and I was impressed with how well she sang.

Curtain call.  Singers and Langree on stage.  This is Mostly Mozart's Fiftieth Year.

After the concert both Anne and I thought this was an opportunity lost.  Perhaps it is just us, when we think of these operas (except Zaide that we didn’t know anything about), we all have their iconic arias in mind (e.g., the Queen of the Night song from the Magic Flute) and most of them were not sung.  The program concluded with the Act IV finale from the Marriage of Figaro, where all nine singers were on stage.

Before I wrote the above, I had the chance to read up on a couple of articles in the Playbill.  They added some insight into the selection of pieces: they reflect intense moments in the operas.  Indeed, in the Program Notes there is a short description of each of the arias and the emotions associated with them.  But still I insist there could be a better selection of pieces.

We also wonder how much this set up (it is a debut) cost, and if it could be reused somewhere else.  At least today’s attendance was close to a “full house” (no third tier), but I imagine MM can’t be awash with money.

The New York Times review is based on the Monday performance.  Despite all the praise of the individual aspects of the production and singers, the reviewer in the final analysis panned it, describing the program as “while clearly organized with care, it felt a bit scatter shot.  And also a bit insubstantial …”, concluding with “The performance, attractive and polished, didn’t teach us anything about Mozart that we didn’t already know.” (Ouch!)  I think Woolfe is expecting too much of these events.

The 90-minute program was performed without an intermission, so it was around 10:15 pm when Chung Shu dropped us off at home.

The International Organ Summer Hallgrimskirkja 2016 - Sigrun Magna Thorsteinsdottir, organist. July 7, 2016.

Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik (ISK 2000).

Program

Konan og drekinn by Hildigunnur Runarsdottier (b. 1964)

-          A woman clothed with the Sun

-          The Salvation and the Power

-          Michael’s Angels

Chorale, op. 3, No. 1 in B-dur and Andante, op. 3, No. 5 in a-moll by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1874).
Festal March (1993) and Adoration (1951) by Florence B. Price (1887-1953).
Fiesta by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927).

This church, designed with a basalt theme, is the tallest building in Reykjavik.  The Klais Concert Organ dominates the entry to the building.  Quoting the brochure, the organ has 4 keyboards and pedals, 72 voices and 5275 pipes.  It is 15 meters high, weighs about 25 tons, and the largest pipes are about 10 meters tall.  The brochure makes the further claim that the organ has an international reputation as a magnificent concert instrument.

Hallgrimskirkja.  The columns are supposed to represent basalt lava flows.  One can ride an elevator to the top of the tower and get a 360-degree view of Reykjavik.

The pipe organ dominates the backwall of the nave (i.e. the main entrance).

Closeup view of the keyboard.

During summer various organ concerts are held at the church, including one every Thursday.  We caught this one after our city tour.  We were surprised that there were over 100 people in attendance.

Today’s concert was an all-woman affair.  The soloist is the organist at the Akureyri Church.  There is a short description of each work in the program.  Of note is Florence B. Price, who was African American.  She lived during a period when a black person wasn’t welcome everywhere in the country, and moved around until she settled in Chicago.

We sat very close to the organist, and could see how she worked the different parts of the instrument.  At some point someone had to help with some switches.

They served coffee afterwards, which makes this very much like a church function.  We took the elevator to the top of the tower and had a great view of the city.

Reykjavik Classics @ Harpa – Mozart. July 5, 2016.

Eldborg Hall at Harpa, Reykjavik, Iceland. Orchestra Center (ISK 3500).

Program

Prograasy in D minor, K. 397 by Mozart.

Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285.

Artists.  Nina Magret Grimsdottir.  Ari Thor Vihjalmsson, violin; Ashildur Haraldsdottir, flute; Sigurdur Bjarki Gunnarsson, cello; Thorunn Osk Marinosdottir, viola.

We landed at the airport this morning, and after putting our luggage in a locker, we went on a puffin-seeing cruise before we came to Harpa to purchase tickets.

Harpa was started during Iceland’s halcyon banking days, but work had to stop as many of the banks that funded the project had collapsed during the financial crisis of 2007.  There was much discussion of what should be done with the half-completed building, from tearing it down to repurposing it.  The final decision was to proceed with the $200 million (US) project, but at a lower pace.  Harpa was completed in 2012.

It is a building enclosed by a glass structure consisting of mostly polygons, situated right at the water front.  Most of Reykjavik’s buildings in this area have a conservative design, so the building really stands out.

Harpa as seen from the Harbor.

What we were told was that there was tremendous demand from “international visitors” (tourists?) to hear the acoustics of the hall.  Since there are usually few classical concerts during the summer, this series of short concerts filled the gap.  Hopefully the modest ticket price can provide some struggling artists with support.

Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor is a familiar piece for piano students, and we had heard it practiced multiple times in our house.  Grimsdottir, who is also the artistic director for Reykjavik Classics, was the soloist.

The Mozart piece is mostly flute, with several thematic violin passages.  The players, especially the flutist, put in a spirited performance.  The movements are Allegro, Adagio, and Rondo.

Indeed our seats had great acoustics.  All the musicians, except the violist, were trained at some point in the US.

Curtain Call.

The hall seats 1,800, perhaps 50 people showed up.  The quartet played a short encore piece, thus we end up over the 30-minute time limit by a little.

It was an enjoyable half hour, and we got to see the inside of the concert hall.