Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor; Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin. August 23, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Left (Seat W5, $88.50).

Artists

Susanna Phillips, soprano; Kelly O’Connor, mezzo-soprano; Dimitri Pittas, tenor; Morris Robinson, bass.

Concert Chorale of New York, James Bagwell, director.

Program

Polyptyque: Six Images of the Passion of Christ (1973) by Frank Martin (1890-1974).

Chorales from St. John Passion (1724) by Bach.

Requiem, K.626 (1791) by Mozart.

Tonight’s was the last concert for this season’s M|M Festival.  Anne is in Brazil, so she can’t go.  CS also bought a ticket to the event, so we went up together in his car.  We had dinner at the Hunan restaurant Legend on 72^nd.  I also had time to exchange some of the tickets for the upcoming opera season.  (Out of the series of 7 operas, I may end up exchanging tickets for 6 of them; such are the perils of committing early.  Today I did three.)

The program certainly held a lot of promise.  And it has Langree’s fingerprints all over it.  The piece by Martin was commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the UNESCO-founded International Music Council.  It is for the solo violin, with a double string orchestra.  A similar arrangement (although it was with two “complete” orchestras) was used in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.  Naturally the chorales used for today are from Bach’s other passion: St. John’s.  What Langree did was to put a “relevant” chorale between pairs of Martin’s movements.  This results in the following structure for the first half of the concert:

Image de Rameaux

*Chorale: O grosse Lieb

Image de la Chambre haute

*Chorale: Ach grosser Koenig

Image de Judas

*Chorale: Wer hat dich so geschlagen

Image de Gethsemane

*Chorale: In meines Herzens Grunde

Image du Jugement

*Chorale: Durch dein Gefangnis, Gottes Sohn

Image de la Glorfication

Per Wikipedia, Kopatchinskaja was born in Moldova in 1977.  The violin she plays – an 1834 Pressenda – makes a good but not brilliant sound.  Against a smallish orchestra (actually two smallish orchestras) it worked quite well.  The description in the Playbill (by David Wright) was quite easy to follow, and the sentiments are consistent with the titles of the movements.  One exception is Judas, instead of sinister (Wright describes it as “seethes with barely contained malevolence”) it sounded comical.  I imagine I would have found the piece enjoyable if I had listened to it as one integrated piece; I can’t imagine I would put it on the same level as Bach’s Chaconne, as Menuhin apparently did after premiering it in 1973.

Unfortunately I didn’t listen to the piece as a whole.  Instead it was interrupted again and again by the chorales from St. John’s Passion.  (Some would say Bach's chorales kept being interrupted by Martin.) The idea has some merit to it, but in practice it didn’t work for me at all.  If Langree wanted to incorporate some chorales into the program, perhaps he should have done them on a stand-alone basis.  For me that would make the contrast more apparent, instead of making both parts sound disjoint.

It is a pity that these are the thoughts that stay with me after a day (I am writing this review about 24 hours after the concert.)

When I wrote the review on the Salzburg concert I went to last month, I remarked that it was my first encounter with Mozart’s sacred music.  That was an erroneous statement: I had heard the Requiem before at a New York Philharmonic open rehearsal, in November, 2013.

My reaction to the New York Philharmonic rehearsal was very positive, with me conjecturing that the actual concert would sound “great.”  Tonight’s was a good performance, for sure, but I must say it was nowhere near “great.”  Both the orchestra and the chorale sounded somewhat stretched, the music probably challenged their technical and musical ability: the high notes were a tad too high, the precision in the instruments wasn’t quite there, and balance was somewhat lacking.

The chorale consists of about 45 members.  I saw a couple of women among the men, CS thought men and women seemed to be randomly placed.  If that is so, it must be a great challenge for the conductor.  The four soloists all had good and strong voices, but they didn’t seem to work together, leaving me with the impression they were trying to outdo one another.  Interestingly they were situated between the orchestra and the chorale.

Mozart died with much of the work unfinished.  While a version was soon published with the “blanks” filled in by Mozart’s pupils, with Xaver Sussmayr doing the bulk of the work, performers often have felt free to modify the work to suit their taste.  Langree did that.  I don’t know if it is because of that, or because of the way it was performed, the music didn’t come across as particularly sacred, or requiemesque (if there is such a word.)  Of course the text helped remind me what it was.

The applause afterwards was thunderous and prolonged, and many roses were presented to the soloists, the orchestra members, and the conductor.  I assume this is the audience showing appreciation at the end of the Festival.  These guys put out 10 different programs over the course of 5 weeks, a challenging deed by any measure.

I managed to attend four of the concerts, and am glad I went.  This is a music festival, after all.  New York Times published an online review a few hours ago; the reviewer couldn't quite bring himself around to say "it was a great concert" either.  He provided one example of how Langree modified the Requiem.

Traffic home was quite smooth also.  I got home a bit after 11 pm.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor; Magali Mosnier, flute; Xavier de Maistre, harp. August 15, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Right (Seat P12, $39.50).

Program

Dance of the Furies, from Orphee et Eurydice (1774) by Christoph Gluck (1714-1787).

Concerto in C major for flute and harp, K.299 (1778) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Symphonie fantastique (1830) by Berlioz (1803-1869).

M|M always wants to squeeze in a lot of music into each of their programs.  Tonight’s was no exception: the three pieces were 4 minutes, 30 minutes, and 55 minutes in duration.  With an on-time start, and a short intermission, all that was done in 2 hours, quite a logistics feat.

I am ahead of myself.  In any case, the afternoon started with our leaving the house at about 4:30 pm.  Traffic on Westside Highway was bad until we reached Lincoln Tunnel, so the trip took about 1 ½ hours.  We did find parking on 65^th, and managed a leisurely meal at East Szechuan.

We got to Avery Fisher Hall at about 6:45 pm for the pre-concert recital.  Well, there was no recital today, instead there was a talk on Symphonie fantastique that started at 6:45 pm.  We made our way to The Rose Building, and managed to find seats in the rather crowded auditorium.  Even though I was fighting jetlag (having returned the day before,) I still learned quite a few new things about the composition.  The speaker fumbled a bit with the audio cues, but still managed to get his points across.  I will come back to this in the section on Berlioz.

The one aria I know from Gluck’s Orphee et Eurydice is “J’ai Perdu Mon Eurydice.”  Thus I was a bit disappointed that wasn’t the selection.  Come to think of it, it was unlikely an aria would be chosen for an orchestral performance.  Indeed, the selection with the Furies (demons?) trying to scare Orpheus away is as good as any.  The short piece was enjoyable, with some brass instruments placed in the second tier, and I was amazed at how different Gluck and Mozart sounded even though they were contemporaries (well, Gluck was born 40 some years earlier.)  In doing some background research on this blog entry, I listened to Callas’s rendition of the aria (exquisite), and a performance of the Dance by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.  I must say the youtube performance is more along the lines of what I thought Gluck’s music should sound like: there is a continuo part in it.

Per the program notes (written by Hugh MacDonald,) Mozart may have started to write a flute concerto and a harp concerto for Count Guines and his daughter, who were quite proficient at their respective instrument.  The end result was a delightful concerto for flute and harp which was quite enjoyable.  Not being a player of either instrument, I can’t tell the degree of virtuosity required in the musicians (perhaps Ellie, who took lessons in both, can shed some light on the subject.)  What I could tell was the flutist and the harpist both seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  Again quoting from the annotation, “Brilliance, sentiment, and courtly gallantry are all found in this concerto, a fair reflection of the qualities Mozart felt, with some scorn, to be the predominant features of Parisian society.”  So Mozart may not have been particular fond of the circumstances under which he composed this music, but for an M|M evening it worked very well.

I have always been amazed how one single flute or a single harp can be clearly heard in an orchestra, even a large one, thus it was surprising that both solo instruments sounded a bit weak tonight.  Not so weak that I had to strain to hear them, but not strong enough that they sounded as equal partners to the orchestra.  De Maistre is one of the few men that play the harp, and he naturally was picked up by the Vienna Philharmonic.  (For the confused reader, the Vienna Philharmonic was an all-male ensemble until recently.  The first female member was a harpist.)  Both soloists are French musicians.

The movements of the concerto are Allegro, Andantino, and Rondo: Allegro.  The cadenzas were by Sylvain Blassel.

Despite having heard Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique live only once, I had considered myself reasonably familiar with the piece.  Be that as it may, tonight’s lecture added a lot to my understanding of the music.  While the Program Notes has a more detailed and somewhat different account of the storyline behind the music, the real insight I picked up was the image of “the beloved” as represented in the theme (idée fixe, obsession) used throughout the composition.  Also, in the fifth movement, the plain-chant Dies irae was used to great (and grotesque) effect.  The Symphony was completed in a short three months, although Berlioz used a lot of material he had planned for other works (e.g., The Ball was originally intended for Romeo and Juliet.)  One more piece of information: the harp was used for the first time in a symphonic work.

Idee fixe (obsession) used throughout Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

Dies irae (Days of Wrath).

Given the usual size of the M|M Festival Orchestra, many extras were used in the performance of this large-scale work.  There was a fourth double bass and large percussion and woodwind contingents.  Most web entries mention the use of two harps, here we have four.  Interestingly, all their names are listed in the roster for the evening.

Before I go into any specifics, I must say I enjoyed it.  Being always on the lookout for the theme was interesting, seeing how the oboe (or was it the English Horn) leave to play off-stage was interesting, listening to the church bells was interesting; and the orchestra put in a spirited performance.

Interesting and spirited do not a great performance made.  And this was by no means a great performance.  While an additional string player was added here and there, the string sections were simply too small to hold their own against the orchestra’s other sections.  I felt particularly bad for the cellists who despite pounding away at their instruments simply couldn’t produce loud enough a sound.  I had this complaint before, but the violin sections seemed to be dominated by a few players.  On the other hand, I appreciated how coherent, urgent, and despondent the music sounded.

It is worth repeating the movements of the Symphony: (i) Reveries – Passions: Largo – Allegro agitato e appassionato assai; (ii) Un Bal: Valse: Allegro non troppo; (iii) Scene aux champs: Adagio; (iv) Marche au supplice: Allegretto non troppo; and (v) Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat: Larghetto – Allegro.

As with other M|M concerts, tonight's made for a satisfactory summer concert experience, and that is good enough for me.

Tonight’s tickets were purchased at a discount via Goldstar.  Anne will be out of town next weekend, and I wanted to get a ticket to the last series for this season, with Mozart’s Requiem on the program.  I checked the Lincoln Center website and saw that not too many good seats are left, so I bought a $85 ticket at the box office when I picked up the tickets for tonight.  I just bought a series of tickets to New York Philharmonic’s new season, each of them costs “only” $64.50!

Our drive home was as smooth as it could be, we got back before 11 pm.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor; Christian Tetzlaff, violin. August 5, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat Z114, $39.50).

Program

Moz-Art a la Haydn (1977) by Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998).

Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 207 (1773) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Overture to L’isola disabitata, Hob.Ia.13 (1779) by Haydn (1732-1809).

Symphony No. 38 in D major, K.504 (“Prague”) (1786) by Mozart.

Recently there is an Apple Computer ad on TV “starring” Esa-Pekka Salonen.  It follows how he started with a fragment of a tune and ends with a violin concerto performed by Leila Josefowicz.  Using an iPad, of course.  That may or may not sell an iPad, but certainly illustrated how a contemporary composer may go about his work.

Still, oftentimes I wonder what a composer is trying to say with a particular piece.  I get even more cynical when a supposedly clever title is concocted.  Tonight’s Schnittke piece belongs in that category.  Actually I began with a rather open mind, as the notes (written by Paul Schiavo) made the composition sound intriguing.  At the end of the day, it was modern music with snippets of Mozart melodies buried in it.  Perhaps realizing that there isn’t much there, the composer put in requests that the players (about 14 of them) move about on stage, and that they leave one by one at the end of the piece.  That is supposed to be inspired by Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, I was ready to hum the tune form The Sound of Music.

Two violinists (Concertmaster Ruggero Allifranchini and Principal Laura Frautschi) had lead roles in the music.  There was an annoying hum at the beginning: I just couldn’t tell if it came in from the street or was intentional.

One would think this is how a disaster unfolds.  But I had faith in the rest of the program, in the conductor, and in the soloist.  My faith was rewarded.

Mozart’s violin concertos were standard fare for the violin student, at least when I was one decades ago.  They may present a challenge, but most could put together an decent sounding performance.  Helped by the passage of time, I am sure that is what I did.

A little while back, I was dismayed to learn that all Mozart’s five violin concertos were written before he turned 19 (considered the immature period,) and he was 17 when he completed the first one.  Simply put, it sounded very mature tonight.

Tetzlaff and Langree wove together a beautiful rendition of the piece.  I remarked in my Salzburg Festival blog that I like Mozart light and crisp, and it was light and crisp today.  Tetzlaff’s lines were smooth, runs flawless, technique exquisite, and interpretation inspiring.  There are many ways to interpret Mozart, and this is as good as any.  Tetzlaff played his own encores, but they sounded like they belong in the original composition.

That’s what a Mostly Mozart Festival experience should feel like.

The three movements of the Concerto are Allegro moderato, Adagio, and Presto.

After a couple of curtain calls, he played a encore.  It sounded familiar, but unfortunately I couldn’t place it.  I have to say the real effect of the encore was to get me to look at my watch again and again as I had a 10:18 pm train to catch.  (The next one is an hour later.)

Perhaps everyone was trying to keep to a schedule, so the intermission was relatively short at about 20 minutes.

If I am asked to name a Haydn opera, I won’t be able to.  Evidently he wrote quite a few, mostly for his patron Prince Esterhazy; that they are seldom performed today is attributed to their old-fashioned librettos.  I am paraphrasing Playbill without knowing what it means.  It also says the prelude performed this evening is great symphonic writing, and is popular to this day.  Naturally, this was the first time I heard of it.

Given the opera storyline in the Playbill, and its description of the 8 minute piece, it was quite easy to follow along.  And in this case there was truth in advertisement.  Overall a delightful piece of music, and because of it I might go see a Haydn opera if there is a chance to do so.  I have expressed several times my opinion of Handel’s operas in this blog, how much worse can it be?  (I know I enjoyed Julius Caesar.)

If one thinks about it, the world of Salzburg and Mostly Mozart must collide at some point.  And in this instance it did, as the Prague Symphony.  I heard this performed by the Mozarteumorcher less than two weeks ago, with Honeck conducting.

Had I known this, I would have jotted down more notes in Salzburg: I love the opportunity to compare how different artists interpret the same things.

Like the entire program itself, the symphony didn’t start all that auspiciously.  It just didn’t sound like everyone was on the same page when the playing first started.  However, things improved as the first movement went along.  There was one noticeable flaw: the transitions from one motif to another sounded grafted and abrupt; I remember them as natural in the Salzburg performance.  Despite all that, I was still impressed with how the movement was performed.  Thus it was unfortunate that the second and third movements were not played as well: the second movement sounded dry, and the orchestra muddled through some of the faster runs in the third.

So far this blog has affirmed many of my clichés (e.g., liking Mozart light and crisp.)  Here is another one: I can’t tell a great Mozart performance from a good one.  Tonight I can: overall, I am sure this is a good performance.  Nothing wrong with it though, I come to M|M concerts to relax, not to do heavy intellectual exercises.

The program concluded at around 9:55 pm.  The gentleman sitting next to me also wanted to leave early, so I used him as a blocker to leave the auditorium.  I got to Penn Station at about 10:05 pm, so I could have stayed for a couple of extra minutes.  Anne picked me up at the train station.

Mostly Mozart Festival Pre-concert Recital. Christian Tetzlaff, violin; Caroline Goulding, violin. August 5, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Center, free).

Program

Sonata for two violins in D major, Op. 3, No. 6 (1730) by Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764).

Selections from Forty-four Duos for two violins, BB 104 (1931) by Bartok (1881-1945).

Anne had a class tonight, so I was on my own.  I took the 5:25 pm train which got into New York about 10 minutes late at 6:35 pm.  With a good subway connection, I managed to pick up my ticket for the evening and got into the auditorium with 7 minutes to spare.

The pre-concert program consists of two short pieces.  The Playbill has a short annotation of Leclair’s work.  The most interesting part unfortunately was that he was murdered, probably by his nephew who was also a violinist.

The sonata was short (even shorter than the advertised 12 minutes,) yet consists of four movements: Andante, Allegro, Largo, and Allegro ma non-troppo.  The Playbill annotation made the music quite easy to understand.  It was a delight, and contains some rather challenging passages (the composer was a violinist, after all.)

Someone asked Bartok for permission to transcribe some of his piano compositions into duets for violins.  Bartok countered by writing 44 duets, with most of them (except 2) based on actual folk tunes.  The six selections - some short, others shorter - totaling 9 minutes of play, are: Transylvanian Dance, No. 44; Fairy Tale, No. 19; Burlesque, No. 16; Sorrow, No. 28; New Year’s Greeting I, No. 21; and Arabian Song, No. 42.  Between the titles and the notes, there was no doubt where things were.  Yet there was some hesitation before the audience applauded at the conclusion.

Here Goulding took the lead.  For me this is characteristically Bartok in that I get it (i.e., I can follow the music,) yet I don’t get it (i.e., not sure where he was trying to say.)  At one level I could dismiss them as simply etudes written for student/teacher recitals, but I suspect there is more to the.

When Goulding and Tetzlaff came on stage, I was surprised at how young she looked.  (She was born in 1992, a search of the web revealed.)  A perusal of the Playbill told me she already has quite a few awards under her belt, and that she is Tetzlaff’s student.  Must be a star student for her to be invited along.  She put in a delightful performance, and seems to command a certain stage presence.  I can see her performing on the big stage at some point.

Tetzlaff is known for playing a violin modeled after a Guarnerius.  Goulding performs on a Stradivarius (General Kyd, ca. 1720.)  So it is doubly amazing that Tetzlaff produced a much richer sound than Goulding did.

In the flurries of activities this afternoon (including preparation for my trip to Hong Kong the next day,) I didn’t get to eat anything before I left the house.  So I bought a half sandwich at Avery Fisher, for $6.50.  I am quite sure they were selling whole sandwiches for $8 each the last time I bought something.

The entries for both the pre-concert and the concert were written inside UA117 (EWR-HKG.)  That may explain the more than usual amount of typing and grammatical mistakes.  (Note: I did some proof-reading before posting this blog on August 16.)

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Andrew Manze, conductor; Steven Osborne, piano. August 1, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat O08, $39.50).

Program

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major ,  Op. 73 (“Emperor”) (1809) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 104 in D major (“London”) (1795) by Haydn (1732-1809).

The Playbill has an interesting observation that both compositions represent the last of the composers in that particular category.  It goes on to imply there is something special about the music.  My first instinct was how can that be?  I can see how a composer would pay special attention to a particular composition (Mozart’s requiem, for instance, is a “definite maybe.”)  However, I am quite sure Beethoven didn’t set out to say “this will be my last piano concerto, so I will do something special about it, and I won’t be able to write anything better than this.”  Neither would Haydn say, “I should stop at this nice round number of 104.”

Now that I have gotten that rant out of the way, let me return to my original intent of going to these concerts.  People should try to take things easy in the summer, and that was the thinking behind my purchasing three concerts to this season’s M|M Festival when discount tickets became available on Goldstar.  Given my original travel plans for July and August, I was happy that I could squeeze them in.  Tonight’s concert is less than a week after we returned from Europe, and I am going to the next one the day before I leave for Hong Kong, and the third one the day I come back.  I was counting on some snoozing time during the concerts, and am happy to report that at least for tonight I stayed fully awake for the whole time.

This was the third time this year that we heard the Emperor Concerto.  And I still enjoyed it.  The annotator David Wright provided some interesting observations on technical details that were quite useful as we followed along.  Particularly insightful was how he described this “stumbling over its own feet getting started” at the beginning of the last movement due to the syncopation.  That and other insightful remarks added a lot to my appreciation of tonight’s performance.

This was Steven Osborne’s debut performance at Mostly Mozart.  We did see him last year, in Singapore, of all places, playing Britten’s piano concerto.  Perhaps it was a case of nerves, there was a little bit of “stumbling” when he started the piece.  A pianist must train himself/herself to delineate the multiple lines in the music, but sometimes I felt his two hands were out of sync.  His performance improved as the music moved along.

Actually I really liked how he played the relatively short second movement.  Slow movements tend to be less challenging technically, and the artists must hold the audience (at least the shallower ones in the crowd, like me) with their musicality.  The way Osborne interpreted it really spoke to me.

The last time I heard this was in late June, with Yefim Bronfman as the soloist.  Both Bronfman and Osborne used a Steinway, and I would venture to guess it was the same instrument.  Interestingly they produced very different sounds.  Bronfman’s was richer, and Osborne had a wider dynamic range.  I wonder if that’s attributable to how they approach the piano, or is it because of the acoustics (our seats, location of piano).

Some readers think I can get too critical in these blogs; and there is much truth to that.  On the other hand, I am not perceptive enough to say I like A for the following reasons, B for this different set, and C yet for this third set of reasons; and they are all great.  I can say, however, I know relatively how well I enjoyed the three performances I have heard so far this year (Orpheus/Tsujii, New York Phlharmonic/Bronfman, and Mostly Mozart/Osborne.)  I leave it to the reader to guess.

I am not even sure I have heard 10 of Haydn’s 104 symphonies.  If I have, I certainly can’t tell you which ones.  One characteristic was that the ones I have heard are all easy to get.  The “London,” however, is quite a bit more complex than anything I remember.  David Wright’s notes again make the music easier to follow and to appreciate.  Well, I do think he goes a bit overboard sometimes, such as comparing the opening 5^th and 4^th intervals with Beethoven Fifth’s “fate knocking.”  Also, I didn’t quite get the “reluctance in putting down the pen” and the “unprecedented thematic unity,” statement attributed to Haydn’s biographer H. C. Robbins Landon.

The London Symphony was written by Haydn in 1795, while Beethoven started his First around 1799.  It was interesting to note that at (probably) its most complex, Haydn’s symphonies still sound simpler than Beethoven’s earlier symphonies.  There, my contribution to music analysis.

The symphony has four movements: Adagio – Allegro, Andante, Menuet: Allegro, and Finale: Spiritoso.

We saw Andrew Manze at last year’s M|M festival.  I don’t remember the performance well, but remember enjoying it.  (A re-reading of the blog entry confirms it, and that I have seen him on three prior occasions.)  He conducts with quite a bit of motion, often favoring facing the orchestra sideways (from where I sat.)  There were a few precision problems which perhaps is to be expected.  For this evening I was sure he asked the second violins to come in loud.  As someone who played in that section, I appreciate that.  On the other hand, I thought it was a bit much.

Overall, however, tonight was an enjoyable evening.  Anne helped out in Jersey City today, I met up with her at around 4 pm, and we left for New York at around 4:30 pm.  Despite the busy traffic, we still managed to have a leisurely dinner at Legend (a Sichuan restaurant on 72^nd.)  It is only when we got to the concert hall that we remembered they had a pre-concert at 7 pm!  We will forgo dinner if necessary next time.  The drive home was straight-forward.

Mozarteumorchester Salzburg – Manfred Honeck, conductor. July 20, 2014.

Stiftung Mozarteum, Grosser Saal.  Orchestra (Row 19, Seat 8, 89 Euro.)

Program – Mozart Matinee

Symphony in D Major KV504, “Prague Symphony” (1787) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Regina coeli in C Major KV108 (1771).

Mass in C Major KV317, “Coronation” (1779).

Artists

Eva Liebau, soprano; Judith Schmid, alto; Mauro Peter, tenor; Thomas E. Bauer, bass.

Salzburger Bachchor, Alois Glassner, artistic director.

We are on vacation with our son and his family.  With an 18-month toddler, our days have been slow, which suit us just fine.  Our son was doing the trip planning, and he has us coming to Salzburg on July 19.  Turns out that was the start of this year’s Salzburg Festival.  Anne and I were originally planning to go to one of these touristy type Mozart concerts, and then we found out there were still a few reasonably priced seats available for this concert, so we walked to the ticket office and got (probably) the last two tickets at 89 Euros each.  Tickets at the next tier would have cost 116 Euros each.

We had a little debate on whether we wanted to go to a “genuine” Salzburg festival concert.  We only have tourist clothes, and for some reason people dress up to go to concerts, even more so than what I remember of other European cities (Zurich, Vienna, Paris, London; I think that’s it.)  Actually some even put on lederhosen and dirndls.  We decided we wouldn’t let that bother us.  We also wanted to check off this “Salzburg Festival” as an event we attended.  It turns out with a polo shirt and khaki pants I was probably the third worst dressed man in the audience (the worst had on a black T-shirt and shorts.)  Anne was in the 20^th percentile, let’s say.

The hall seats perhaps 1000, and it was mostly full; we did see an empty seat here and there.  The place looks newly renovated, and is remarkably well-lit.  Not bad for a hall that is about 100 years old (the outside shows the age.)

We ended up enjoying the program very much.  We saw Honeck once when he substituted for Dudamel in a performance with the New York Philharmonic.  Referring to my blog, I enjoyed that performance, calling his interpretation controlled and nuanced.

Today’s performance was also enjoyable, but Honeck’s conducting style was neither controlled nor nuanced.  He actually let it rip, conducting with great motion and eliciting a great sound from the performers.  I usually like Mozart light and crisp, but I didn’t mind the huge amount of stomping today.  No doubt the small size of the hall helped: the acoustics was great.  While Honeck asked for a huge dynamic range from the orchestra, at no point was it too loud.

The soloists are all from this part of Europe.  They did a good job, with great balance among the voices.  The soprano Liebau had to do most of the lifting (only soloist in Regina Coeli, and several solos in the Coronation Mass.)

The choir is rather large, especially considering the size of the orchestra.  Again perhaps due to the size of the hall, their sound carried very well.

The Symphony has three movements: Adagio – Allegro, Andante, and Finale: Presto.  The Mass consists of Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei.

Curtain Call.  Notice the number of cameras out.

I also learned a few new things.  First is that Mozart wrote quite a bit of sacred music, but I believe this was my first encounter with it.  He did it mostly as an obligation to his patron the Archbishop of Salzburg whom Mozart disliked.  A short mass (missa brevis) was used in a church service while the longer mass (missa solemnis) was more a pure form of composition.

I resisted but yet must give in to remark how today’s performers compare with ones I know a bit better.  First is the comparison of the orchestra with Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.  While I have gotten to appreciate the MM Orchestra more over the years (and just bought tickets to 3 concerts yesterday,) today’s performance was better than what I have heard from MM.  In MM’s defense they have a wider repertoire.  The other comparison is between the Bach choirs of Salzburg and Bethlehem.)  Here there is no contest: Salzburg wins hands down.

I continue to be unable to tell a good Mozart performance from a great one.  So what?  This was a really enjoyable concert, and that’s good enough for me.

American Ballet Theatre – Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. June 27, 2014.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat F105, $65.)

Choreography by Kevin McKenzie after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Set and costumes by Zack Brown.

Conductor – Ormsby Wilkins; Odette-Odile – Hee Seo, Prince Siegfried – Herman Cornejo, The Queen Mother – Nancy Raffa, von Rothbart  - Roman Zhurbin and Alexandre Hammoudi.

We came about seeing this ballet in a rather round-about way.  It started with our asking Kimberly – a 10-year old girl from church who takes dance lessons – whether she would like to see Cinderella (the ballet.)  The timing didn’t work out because school was still in session when Cinderella was on, so Anne and I went by ourselves.  This particular performance worked out for her (school concluded the day before,) and I don’t mind seeing it another time.  We ended up going with Kimberly and Agnes.

Hee Seo, who debuted Cinderella earlier this season, was tapped to perform the role of the swan as the guest artist Alina Cojocaru withdrew because of an injury.  Which was perfectly okay with me, as I hadn’t looked into who was going to be in the performance anyway.  Also, one of the two dancers playing von Rothbart (Sascha Radetsky) was replaced.

I did enjoy the performance.  First of all, the music while a bit sugary is very pleasant to hear.  It is one of these ballet scores that can stand on its own.  This is not a given as my experience with Prokofiev’s Cinderella indicates.  The orchestra put in an enjoyable experience.  There are some very familiar passages that get repeated quite often; and I noticed the violinist stood up for the violin solos.

Even though roles such as Prince Siegfried are quite substantial, Odette and Odile are the ballet.  I don’t know if ballerinas keep a few compositions in their repertoire in the way concert soloists do, but Seo put in a performance that one wouldn’t have guessed is by a (last-minute?) substitute.  At least not to a novice observer like myself.  The choreography calls for many dreamy scenes where the dancers imitate swans with the positioning of their arms and bodies.  Even though I am sure everyone does it that way, I must say it works quite well.

Sometimes it seems I sit through a 3-hour opera just so I can hear a couple of familiar arias (Nessum Dorma in Turandot, for instance.)  Similarly, the scene where Odile spins around 30-odd times is the one that’s most anticipated.  Seo did an excellent job, pirouetting more than 30 times.  She did it with some movement around the stage, and I thought she ended a bit wobbly.  I located a clip in Youtube (performed by ABT’s principal dancer Gillian Murphy, starting at around the 4:19 mark) that was simply impressive.  So there is a difference in the level of performance, after all.

How did Kimberly like it?  Well, the first half was a bit difficult, and I was ready to propose we leave if she found it unbearable.  She wanted to stay, and I lent her our binoculars.  She stayed glued to them the whole second half.  Being able to see more clearly, and the simple fact that there is more action in the second half, make it much more enjoyable.

Traffic was reported to be bad when we were driving into New York.  After picking up Anne in Jersey City, we decided to park the car and take PATH into the city.  That unfortunately left us with enough time for only sandwiches at Europan.  By the time we got back to South Amboy, it was past 11:30 pm.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano; Glenn Dicterow, violin; Carter Brey, cello. June 16, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra G115 ($68.50.)

Program: The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival.

Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56 (1804).

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, Emperor (1809).

For me, tonight’s concert is as much about the Emperor Concerto as it is about its being the final program with Glenn Dicterow as the concertmaster.  As music goes, both are easy pieces to enjoy, and the majesty of the Emperor contrasts very well with the genteelness of the Triple.

I have remarked many times on Glenn Dicterow as a soloist, and the comments mostly fall under the “critical” category.  To be fair, that the New York Philharmonic has enjoyed a solid reputation during his 34 years as its concertmaster speaks volumes about his leadership; it is something that he has every right to take credit for, and be proud of.  I joined in the enthusiastic applause as the soloists and Gilbert took the stage; I am sure most of the welcome was directed at Dicterow.

For me the Triple Concerto is best characterized as a Trio played against an orchestra more as an accompaniment than as an equal partner; there are of course some instances that the orchestra asserted itself.  As to the composition itself, a quote from the Playbill is illuminating: the very people who most blame Beethoven for writing below his full powers would be the first to acclaim it as the work of a still greater composer.  Indeed it doesn’t have the “sturm und drang” that characterize so many of the composer’s works; instead it is a light-hearted piece that could even pass itself off as background music.  (I am sure the composition student can find a lot to admire about the work’s details.)

For tonight, it was simply an enjoyable composition played by great musicians.  In case one is wondering, that remark applies to Dicterow too.  One of the constant refrain I have made about Dicterow is his choice of music when he was a soloist: the compositions were chosen more for his fellow musicians and scholars than the typical concert-goer.  I wonder how my opinion would have been shaped if he had performed works by composers such as Lalo, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, instead of Szymanowski and Dutilleux.  I guess we will never know …

The applause was thunderous afterwards.  I seldom stand up during curtain call – as a matter of principle, great performances are expected of world class players – but I did tonight.  I think the appreciation shown by the audience is well-deserved.  As it was, this series also concluded Bronfman’s two-year stint as artist-in-residence.

By the time the Emperor Concerto was premiered in Leipzig, Beethoven’s deafness had advanced such that he couldn’t introduce it as the soloist.  Evidently the concerto got its nickname because someone shouted “C’est l’Empereur!” during its Viennese premiere.  Beethoven by that time was totally disillusioned with Napoleon.

The piece, like his violin concerto, with its great contrasts, is characteristically Beethoven.  Bronfman just sat there and pounded out a great interpretation.  I said after the last concert that his playing reminded me a lot of Emanuel Ax’s; that was reinforced today.

Overall, this was a great way for the orchestra to conclude its regular season.

It was just a great evening of music.  I do want to record a couple of (small) quibbles.  First, I thought Carter Brey’s cello could be a bit louder.  The cello has a prominent role in the Triple Concerto, and Brey’s playing was exquisite, but I would have like to hear more of it.  The other complaint is the Emperor Concerto calls for a lot of majestic playing that sometimes sounded loud instead.  Most of the time Bronfman’s interpretation was majestic, but every now and then some harshness crept in.

For completeness, the three movements of the Triple Concerto are Allegro, Largo, and Rondo alla Polacca, and those of the Emperor Concerto are Allegro, Adagio un poco mosso, and Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo.

The New York Times review spends most of its energy on discussing the various players, dishing out some insider information in the process.  Interestingly the reviewer didn’t have much more to say about the music or the performance either.

We left Boston this morning, after spending a few days helping out with household duties while our son went to Brazil with a group of friends to watch a few FIFA World Cup matches.  It would have been too stressful to drive home and then come back to the city, so we went straight to the city, getting in at around 4:30 pm.  While we were in Rubenstein Atrium having coffee and deciding what to do, the opportunity to meet with Nancy came up.  She was to start her work with a non-profit that we support in a few days, but was still working in mid-town.  Anne and I sat down with her for about an hour to get to know each other.  So we made great use of the idle time, after all.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano. June 19, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra.  (Seat W105, $68.50.)

Program – The Beethoven Piano Concerts, a Philharmonic Festival

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 (ca. 1788-1801) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Songs (2014) by Sean Shepherd (b. 1979).

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 (1796-1803) by Beethoven.

This is the second week of the Philharmonic Festival.  On the menu are two familiar Beethoven concertos (of course one could argue they are all familiar.)

In describing tonight’s program, Gilbert talks about discovering new things in Beethoven’s music.  For me, Beethoven’s music is always enjoyable, although I am still puzzled by the different reactions I get when listening to his work as opposed to contemporary work.

Tonight’s program is a good example.  While I “get” Beethoven, I have never found his music simple – the texture, the dynamics, the virtuosity it requires of its performers.  However, paired with the works by Cheung last week and Shepherd this week, the four piano concertos sounded downright simple.  Complexity comprehension and sense of aesthetics are interesting aspects of the human mind.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me simply say that the “simple” concertos still sounded great with Bronfman at the piano and Gilbert on the podium.  The two interacted seamlessly and effortlessly.  I especially like the dynamic range in the playing, although I would like to hear a louder piano (this may be due to where we were seated.)

I had been remarking how the New York Philharmonic audience had a tendency to applaud after each movement.  Actually they didn’t do it for the first three concertos performed in this Festival.  One could sense an urge to do so, though.  They couldn’t resist after the first movement of No. 3.  I can’t really blame them: it was simply a well-told story.  To me it could well have been Emmanuel Ax – for whom I have the highest regard as an artist – at the piano.

I was initially puzzled by the Playbill’s characterization of the third concerto as the first one that sounds like “fully mature Beethoven.”  After listening to it, I agree.  So even this dense person got to understand something new, after all.

The piece by Shepherd is again commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.  Shepherd got his education at Indiana, Julliard, and Cornell, where he did his doctoral work with Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky.  As he did with Cheung last week, Gilbert had a short interview with Shepherd while the stage was being set up.  What I got out from it was that this is in some sense a palindromic piece designed to fit in between the two Beethoven concertos.  Gilbert further explained that the tempo starts slow, speeds up, and slows down again at the end.

As with the Cheung piece last week, the composition calls for a complex orchestra, with a huge number of percussion instruments, some quite bizarre (such as cabasa, small egg shaker.)  Both Anne and I agree tonight’s piece sounded a lot more interesting than last week’s.  Even though the idea was for the music to get back to where it started, the journey took us somewhere.

Paraphrasing from the Playbill, the piece is structured rather like a song cycle with interconnected movements, with seven episodes suggesting the terrain through which the piece passes: “The Fair,” “The Chapel,” “The Cradle,” “The Cavern,” “The Nursery,” “The Courtyard,” and “The Meadow.”  I would be lying if I say I got them, that’s even with Gilbert and Shepherd providing some listening tips during their short chat.

I am looking forward to next weeks performance of the Emperor and Triple.

The New York Times reviewer liked the third concerto and the Shepherd piece, but was lukewarm towards the first.  I also found another review (at newyorkclassicalreview.com) that panned both concertos, using the word “lackadaisical” to describe the Philharmonic, and complaining that there was no “brio” in the music.  There were a few good words on the Shepherd piece, though.

This summer traffic is getting annoying.  At least by leaving at 4:30 pm, we found off-street parking and time for a relatively leisurely meal at East Szechuan.

New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano. June 12, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra.  (Seat Q114, $68.50.)

Program – The Beethoven Piano Concerts, a Philharmonic Festival

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 (ca. 1795/1800) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Lyra (2013) by Anthony Cheung (b. 1982).

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

Over the course of three weeks, Gilbert and Bronfman will go through all of Beethoven’s piano concertos.  On each of the first two programs will be a world premiere of a composition commissioned by the Philharmonic.  The third week will feature Glen Dicterow and Carter Brey in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto.  We have tickets to all three weeks.

Beethoven’s piano concertos, when played well, are always enjoyable.  Today’s two are no exception.  We have heard Bronfman on multiple occasions before, mostly performing more virtuoso pieces (Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, for instance.)  While the Beethoven concertos surely present their set of challenges, I am sure they are more modest in terms of technical challenges, despite the chromatic runs that take make one hold his breath.  If I remember correctly, Bronfman tends to be quite exaggerated in his movements, often times lifting himself from the bench as he pounded chords out of the keyboard.  Tonight he was considerably more subdued, and instead let the music flow effortlessly from his fingers.

It is interesting to contrast the much more complex fourth concerto with the (close-to) Mozartean first.  (Many think the first (Op. 15) was probably written after the chronologically first piano concerto written by Beethoven.)  The cadenzas, written by Beethoven, require a high level of proficiency.  I don’t remember the one for No. 1 was this long, though.

Sandwiched between the two concertos was the work by Cheung.  The description was certainly quite interesting, with words and phrases like “Orpheus’s lyre,” “Beethoven 4^th’s opening chord,” “instruments tuned a quarter-tone below others,” and “tapestry of luxury.”  Whoever managed to use these phrases in an essay has a much better command of the language than I have.  Cheung’s credentials certainly was impressive: Harvard undergraduate, doctorate from Columbia, and now teaching at University of Chicago.  He was one of the four that Henri Dutilleux to whom distributed prize money the latter won.  The piece is dedicated to Dutilleux’s memory.  As the orchestra was setting up, Gilbert had a short dialog with Cheung that further piqued my interest: there is recorded sound (music?) towards the end that starts as puzzling to the listener but ultimately ties everything together.  Cheung indicated that he researched many prior Orpheus music (Monteverdi, Gluck, and Stravinsky.) He also mentioned (nonchalantly, it would appear) that the audience from the day before seemed to enjoy it.

Cheung can either be a Chinese (Cantonese) or Korean surname.  Anne’s remark is no Cantonese can be that good.  (She was kidding, and we are both Cantonese.)  I couldn’t offer any counter-examples with the possible exception of myself (again kidding.)

The Playbill says the music is about 10 minutes long, but Gilbert announced that it was close to 20 minutes.

What do I think of the piece?  It certainly is interesting.  One regret I have was not having read the Playbill ahead of time so I could remind myself what Beethoven’s concerto sounded like.  With Lyra performed before the concerto, I couldn’t tell at all what the reference was.  The music is generally quite complex, oftentimes players in the same section appeared to be playing different notes.  The list of percussion instruments is long, with many instruments I hadn’t seen before: Thai gongs, sizzle cymbal, spring coil, suspended cymbals, low gongs, low log drums, and large metal sheet.  Too bad our seats did not offer a good view of the stage.  However, the music felt like a Brownian motion: lots of activities without noticeably moving forward; a complex case of Philip Glass, if I may.  When it was over, there was polite applause but certainly not quite what Gilbert's remark would lead one to expect.  I told Anne I was glad Cheung is Korean.

I met up with CS during intermission and talked a bit about Lyra.  He asked me if I could write music like that, I said no, but I could probably play it as anything resembling what he wrote would be okay.  (Actually some passages look quite complex, so if I could play it, it would be with a lot of practice.)  And he told me Cheung is of Chinese descent; oh well.  And to have your composition commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic probably is as good as it gets, and something to be greatly admired.

Here is the New York Times review.  The reviewer liked Bronfman’s playing, and had good things to say about the Cheung piece.

Traffic was again bad going into the city, but we got there in time to find off-street parking and to get takeout food from Europan. The concert was a bit long, and when we got to the Thomas Edison Rest Area on the Turnpike, only Burger King was open.

American Ballet Theatre. Prokofiev’s Cinderella. June 11, 2014.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony.  (Seat C5, $55).

Choreography by Frederick Ashton, Set and costume design by David Walker.

Conductor – Charles Barker; Cinderella – Xiomara Reyes, The Prince – Joseph Gorak, Step-sisters – Kenneth Easter and Thomas Forster, The Fairy Godmother – Devon Teuscher.

Last month I heard the New York Philharmonic perform a selection of music from Prokofiev’s Cinderella, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.  My remarks were the music was nice enough, but it was mostly flat and lacking in dramatic elements.  That encounter raised my interest in the ABT’s production.  While my interest in ballet is at best lukewarm, I was wondering if seeing the whole production would make the experience more compelling.

In two words, it did.

Actually with dancers on stage the music became mostly accompaniment.  To the extent I noticed it, the orchestra put in a great performance.  The most dramatic passage was again the clock ticking and the chimes ringing towards midnight.  With the visual effect, the music just came to life.

The Playbill contains an article on the choreography.  It was done by Ashton a short four years after Prokofiev wrote the music in 1944.   For various reasons (mostly artists’ egos, in my judgment,) this is the first time the choreography is adopted by the ABT.  To me it didn’t look dated at all.  It requires a lot of physicality from the dancers, and contains many elegant patterns and formations.

In reading over the roster, I was surprised to see that Gorak is “only” a member of the Corps de ballet (the higher categories are Principal and Soloist).  That must make him a rising star in the company.  Not that I am in any position to judge, but to me that would be well-deserved.  One could make a case he failed to nail a step here or there, but overall he was a believable prince.  That Reyes is petite (more petite than your typical ballerina) probably made all the lifting Gorak had to do easier.  The two worked well together, and the pas de deux in Act II is as “fairy-tale” as one can expect.  In addition, much athleticism is required of both dancers; in particular, Reyes had to dance around the stage, putting in about 40 spins in the process.

The roles of the step-sisters are traditionally performed by men.  As in the Rossini opera, they provide a comedic element to the story.  The Fairy Godmother is another substantial role.

The plot here hews closely to the version I am familiar with.  The exceptions would be the star fairies and the four season fairies.  I guess adding these roles make for more interesting visual effects.  And there was magic, at least attempts at it, including a beggar transforming into the Fairy Godmother and a pumpkin turning into a coach.  For Cinderella turning back into a village girl at midnight, even though we didn’t see it, we are sure they just had two people on stage at the same time.

So in the recent past I have seen Rossini’s opera Cenerentola, Jurowski’s selection for the orchestra, and the ballet as Prokofiev first imagined it.  If asked which version I prefer, my answer would be the opera.  However, as a general recommendation, I find to my surprise that I would recommend the ballet.

The lengthy New York Times review actually makes for rather interesting reading, providing a good analysis of the history, the performers (it was a different cast), as well as the reviewer’s opinion on many different aspects of the performance.  And it’s amply clear the ballet world has its very own lexicon. I couldn’t tell if the reviewer at the end enjoyed the performance, though.

Early on the day of performance, the ABT website (technically the metopera website) showed quite a few empty seats.  So we basically drove in, expecting to buy tickets at a discount at the Atrium.  ABT, unfortunately, is not in the program, so we ended up buying tickets at full price.  The performance was not well-attended at all, with over half of the seats in the balcony and the family circle unoccupied.

Anne had a class in Atlantic Highlands and we left there at 5:15 pm or so.  Traffic was heavy, we got into town close to 7 pm; I couldn’t find off-street parking so I put my car in the garage, which I hadn’t done for a while.  Anne and I shared a wrap bought at Avery Fisher, and we got some food off a street-vendor on the way back.

Budapest Festival Orchestra – Ivan Fischer, conductor; Garrick Ohlsson, piano. June 1, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat DD104, $63.50).

All Dvorak (1841-1904) Program

Slavonic Dances, Op. 72 (1886-87) Nos. 2 and 1

Piano Concerto in G minor (1876)

Legend No. 6 (1881)

Symphony No. 8 in G major (1889)

If I remember correctly, these tickets were bought during last year’s Thanksgiving sale.  Meanwhile, our church scheduled a Benefits Concert that Anne had to help organize, so she couldn’t come.  CS agreed to come and offered to do the driving.

The program, a combination of the “popular” and the “intellectual,” largely lived up to its promise.  I think it is a great tribute to Fischer and the musicians that an orchestra that started 30 or so years ago now enjoys the reputation it does.

Each of the halves begins with a short lyrical piece that is typically Dvorak.  The Slavonic dances (No. 2. Starodavny; No. 1. Odzernek) are quite popular and pleasant.  Legend is much softer and simpler-sounding than the dances, but equally pleasant.  All three were initially written as four-hand piano pieces and orchestrated by Dvorak later.

Dvorak’s piano concerto is seldom played.  Actually CS’s reaction when I told him about the program was “I didn’t know Dvorak had a piano concerto.”  And his daughter has a doctoral degree in piano performance from Julliard!  One thing about virtuoso techniques that I don’t quite understand is what used to be considered unplayable pieces are now routinely performed.  Many violin concertos fall into that category: Tchaikovsky and Brahms are examples.  It is not like sports where modern techniques can be used to improve posture and nutrition (maybe it is but is kept a secret?)  Not being a pianist, this concerto didn’t look all that different from other difficult ones I have seen performed.  In any case, Ohlsson made it look quite easy.

What was unexpected was the piece didn’t seem to want to go anywhere.  Much of it felt fragmentary, incidental, and seemed only to loiter about.  It was like Dvorak was putting together his individual ideas but failed to make a comprehensive statement out of them.  To the reader who thinks I am nit-picking again, I say this: the sentiments are that of Brahms’ as quoted in the Playbill (slightly edited).  Indeed individual passages or sections sounded quite good, but I couldn’t quite anticipate, nor could I understand, where the music was going next.

Ohlsson played an encore.  I am sure it was a Brahms Intermezzo.  CS was duly impressed when I told him that.  The reason I know is because this was music I happened to study when I was in high school.  Hearing it played well and looking at it as a music score are rather different experiences.

I remember being unpleasantly surprised when I heard Dvorak’s Eighth recently.  I didn’t remember which orchestra played it, so I told CS it might have been the New York Philharmonic.  In any case, today’s experience was completely different.  The symphony was as enjoyable as any other Dvorak composition I have heard (well, there is the New World Symphony, and the string serenade.)  I think Fischer just told a better story.  And – drum roll – I actually had so-so encounters of this symphony played by the NJSO and the NY Phil.

It was overall a good experience.  Interestingly I just got the Great Performers tickets I bought for the following season, and I noticed that one of them is Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.  I feel ambivalent about it, so I probably should temper my assessment somewhat.

We left Middletown at about 1 pm, hoping to catch lunch in Manhattan.  A bus breakdown right at Exit 16E caused such a delay that I only had time to gulp down a sandwich bought at Avery Fisher Hall.  The return trip was quite smooth by comparison, even though there was congestion getting to Lincoln Tunnel.

New Jersey Symphony – Jacques Lacombe, conductor; James Ehnes, violin. May 31, 2014.

Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank.  Balcony Center (Seat J104, $29.)

Program

Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 (1806) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Op. 40 (1898) by Strauss (1864-1949).

There is now no doubt in my mind.  New Jersey Symphony is a much better orchestra under Lacombe.  Tonight’s performance was totally enjoyable.

I am sure I have made similar remarks before.  One summer during graduate school Anne (then my girlfriend) was visiting from California, and we heard the Beethoven violin concerto over and over again.  Even though having a small record collection might have been a reason for the repetition, that recording of David Oistrakh became for me the definitive way the concerto should be played.  I am quite sure my recollection is not accurate, but in my mind I am clear what a great performance of the concerto will sound like.

Other than a slight intonation problem here or there, Ehnes met all my expectations.  The tone from his 1715 “Marsick” Stradivarius was clean, and he made it sing in a most enjoyable way.  From where I sat, the balance between the soloist and the orchestra was just perfect.  The orchestra has its own statements to make, sometimes together with, often times apart from, the soloist.  But neither party overwhelmed the other: an easy accomplishment with an engineered recording, not so easy in a live concert.

It was just beautifully done.

I last heard the Strauss piece played by the New York Philharmonic in December 2013 and remember walking away not particularly impressed one way or another.  Today’s experience was much much better.

A particular standout was how the concertmaster Eric Wyrick played the solo lines in the Hero’s Companion section.  It was so much clearer and cleaner than the way it was done by Glen Dicterow.  I did worry a bit if Wyrick was going to make any mistakes; he didn’t as far as I could tell.  Lacombe asked for, and got, a huge dynamic range from the orchestra, which made the story behind the tone poem come to life.

Interestingly, the Program Notes also speaks to the fact Strauss wrote this about himself when he was only 34 (he lived to be 75.)  The annotator took all that with a grain of salt, attributing the idea behind Strauss’s reverence for Beethoven and the music’s satirical nature (portraying his wife Pauline as a quick-tempered person and his critics in an unflattering light, for instance.)

I got two tickets for this concert at a discount.  Anne couldn’t go because she had to babysit Reid, so I was hoping someone would be asking for a ticket at the venue.  Turns out the concert had many empty seats – the balcony section wasn’t even half full – which was just too bad.  Also, there was more of a tendency for the audience to whisper among themselves during a performance.  I am beginning to feel the same way I do about the Hong Kong Philharmonic – the orchestra deserves a better audience.

I found this review in examiner.com, the reviewer saw the performance on May 30.  He had a lot of good things to say about the performance, which I agree with.  His description of the tone poem is particularly interesting and informative.  Reading the headlines of some of his reviews, he appears to be a fan of the NJSO, and his reviews are all examples of the “it’s all great” category.

Benefit Concert at the Chinese America Bible Church of New Jersey

CABCNJ, Gibson Place, Freehold, NJ

Singers
Ling-Jun Liu
Shane Wu

Our friend Don and Agnes found out about this church and this concert, and I decided to tag along to have a look.  The church uses an old office building, its main sanctuary seats about 150.  Unfortunately for tonight perhaps 30 or so people showed up.  They will tour several local churches, lets hope the attendance ends up being better.

Liu was born in Shanghai, spent some time in Hong Kong, and did her voice training in Taiwan.  She worked mostly as a cabaret singer in the 70s but emigrated to Canada quite early in her career.  She was baptized in 2002 and has since been using her voice as a ministry.  She didn't hesitate to let the audience know that she turned 60 this year.  Shane Wu is a young minister who - per Liu - can sing, can play the piano, and can preach.

The songs sung in the evening were mostly Christian Pop (Chinese), with a couple written by Liu.  She used mostly pre-recorded band accompaniment, with Wu providing piano accompaniment for one of the songs.  This concert was meant to be evangelistic in nature, but I think everyone who attended was already a Christian.

Since Ellie was visiting that evening, and the program started late, I rushed out of there right afterwards.  In exchange for a modest contribution I got a couple of her CDs.

Flyer for the concert.

New York Philharmonic – Vladimir Jurowski, conductor; Nicola Benedetti, violin. May 23, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra 1 (Seat S101, $67.)

Program

Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 (1916) by Szymanowski (1882-1937).

Selections from Cinderella (Zolushka) (1940-44) by Prokofiev (1891-1953).

I didn’t include this concert as part of the season subscription due to two reasons: I didn’t quite get the violin concerto when I heard it performed a couple of years ago by Glenn Dicterow; and though I enjoyed Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (both in concert and as a ballet), I didn’t feel a particular urge to listen to it again.  The astute reader will say “but this is a different ballet.”  Indeed it is, somehow my mental block didn’t clear until a couple of weeks ago.  Meanwhile, NY Phil was offering $59/$39 seats; so the stars are in alignment.  I also found out Janine Jansen, who was on the program, had to withdraw, and Nicola Benedetti would be performing.  Benedetti certainly has an impressive resume, including an appointment as MBE in 2013.

I don’t recall much from Dicterow’s performance, except (perhaps) remarking why would he make such a selection and that the New York Times reviewer says Dicterow “owns” this concerto.  A second hearing does allow one to gain more insight into a particular composition.  Indeed the Playbill notes (which I read online the day before) makes the music quite interesting, describing how Symanowski’s music was influenced by others such as Chopin and Wagner, and how he tried to establish a Polish style.  The concerto was written for his close friend Pawel Kochanski, with the latter contributing most of the cadenza at the end.

In many ways this was a better performance; however, better doesn’t mean good – I was just a little less puzzled by the composition.  Since Benedetti was called upon to play on short notice, use of the music score is understandable; she wasn’t glued to the music as Dicterow was, actually.  There is no doubt the music calls for great virtuosity from the performer with its difficult double stop and harmonics passages; surprisingly there was little use of the pizzicato or staccato.  I also wonder about the need for the cadenza; it didn’t appear to be any more difficult than the composition, and didn’t sound like a recap of the music either.  There was some drama at the end, but not nearly enough to make this sound much more an etude to me.

One other surprise was the violin, a 1717 Stradivarius.  I expected it to sound much fuller and more brilliant than it did.  Benedetto also had more problems with intonation than I expected.  Someone was sound asleep in the audience during a good part of the performance.  I wonder if there is an etiquette to what his (unlikely her) neighbors should do – a gentle poke?

Prokofiev extracted between seven to eight movements of Cinderella to create three different orchestral suites.  He reworked the music for an orchestral presentation without regard for the story.  For this concert Jurowski utilized 21 movements that keeps the story line intact. For completeness, the selections are as follows.  From Act One: Introduction (Andante dolce), Pas de chale (Allegretto), Cinderella (Andante dolce), the Sisters’ New Clothes (Vivo), The Dancing Lesson (Allegretto), Cinderella Dreams of the Ball (Andante dolce), Fairy Godmother Returns (Adagio).  From Act Two: Dance of the Courtiers (Andante grazioso), Mazurka and Entrance of the Prince (Allegretto), Grand Waltz (Allegretto), Promenade (Allegro tranquillo), Duet of the Prince and Cinderella (Adagio), Waltz-Coda (Allegro espressivo), Midnight (Allegro moderato – Moderato).  From Act Three: The Prince’s First Galop (Presto – Andante), Temptation (Moderato – Allegretto), The Prince’s Second Galop (Presto), The Prince’s Visit (Vivace), The Prince Finds Cinderella (Adagio passionate), Amoroso (Andante dolcissimo).

I saw the Rossini opera where the storyline didn’t follow the “traditional” fairy tale.  The movement descriptions above are straightforward enough.  Except oftentimes I couldn’t tell when a movement ends and the next one begins.  Without dancers on stage telling the story, most people probably would find it difficult to reconstruct the narrative.  Actually for most part the music sounded just so-so, without drama.  One notable exception was when mid-night approaches: the tick-tock sound of the wood blocks followed by bells chiming twelve times added quite a bit of urgency (this was lacking in the Rossini opera).  Indeed the music from Act 3 did have some sense of urgency and ecstasy in it.

I was surprised this series of concerts constituted the debut for Jurowski with the New York Philharmonic.  I did watch his brother Dmitri conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic three years ago.  Compared to Dmitri, Vladimir’s movements were more exaggerated.  The orchestra seemed to respond well.  Unfortunately, I do not know the music on today’s program well enough to distinguish between a good and a great performance.

The New York Times reviewer has a lot of good things to say about the Syzmanowski piece.  She isn’t that enamored of the Prokofiev ballet either, opining – among other misgivings – that it is too long.  ABT will be performing this ballet in June.  The ballet is even longer at close to two hours; I am a bit tempted to go see it, though.

I went to the 2 pm concert by myself, taking PATH into the city from Jersey City and going back to New Jersey via NJ Transit.

The USNA Women’s Glee Club Commissioning Week Concert – Cindy Bauchspies, director. May 20, 2014.

Mahan Hall, US Naval Academy.  Orchestra Center (Seat C205, $19.)

Johnny was my high school classmate (in Hong Kong) and college roommate (in Ithaca, NY); we have known each other for about 45 years! His daughter just completed her first year as a midshipman at the USNA, and Johnny flew out to Maryland to meet up with her for a week or so.  I decided to spend a day down there to see them.  Stephanie sings in the Women’s Glee Club, and they have a concert during the week.

There are many events scheduled for the week, my main objective was to catch up with an old friend, so we just spent time walking on the grounds, chatting away as we did.  The Blue Angels were practicing for a show the following day.  I am not a fan of daredevil shows, but still appreciated the precision of this group of highly skilled pilots.  We also visited the dorm, the chapel, and a couple of museums.

The Glee Club consists of about 50 young women, about 11 of them are graduating this year.  They have a rather busy touring schedule, including a visit to the JFK Library in Boston earlier this year.

The program was relatively short at a bit over an hour, with a good mix of traditional music (such as the National Anthem and America the Beautiful) and modern music (Ave verum Corpus by Poulenc, for instance).  They also put on a “staged performance” of “Forget about the Boy” from “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”  Most of the songs were performed a cappella, a few had the piano as accompaniment.

We had a quick snack at about 5 pm at the Chick and Ruth Delly before the concert with a few of Stephanie’s classmates.  The single crab cake platter was a reasonable $16 (or so).  The crab cake was quite filling, but Johnny and I still stopped by Denny’s for an omelet and dessert (respectively) afterwards.

A pleasant day, even though I had to drive close to 200 miles each way.

New York Philharmonic – Bernard Haitink, conductor. May 16, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  First Tier Center (Seat BB113, $54.)

Program

Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1895-96, rev. through 1906) by Mahler (1860-1911).

Artists

Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano; Women of New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director; Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Dianne Berkun-Menaker, artistic director.

At about 100 minutes, this must be the longest symphony I have encountered.  It was last performed by the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, not that long ago.  I did go to a New York Phil concert that month, but it was not the same program (whew.)

When first completed, Mahler provided a program for the symphony as follows.  Part One: Pan awakes.  Summer Marches In. (Pan’s procession) Part Two: What the flowers of the meadow tell me; What the animals of the forest tell me; What man tells me; What the angels tell me; and What love tells me.  The first part is over 30 minutes, about a third of the entire composition.  For whatever reason Mahler withdrew all his program-related markings in the music, and provided rather sterile tempo markings.  Part One: 1. Forcefully, Decisively.  Part Two: 2.  Tempo di minuetto, Moderately; 3. Comodo.  Scherzando.  Unhurriedly; 4. Very slow.  Misterioso.  Pianississimo throughout. (O Mensch! Gib acht! From Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra); 5. Joyous in tempo and jaunty in expression (Bimm bamm – Es sungen drei Engel, from Des Knaben Wunderhorn); 6; Slow.  Calm.  Deeply felt.

I could use the excuse that my memory has faded considerably over the course of the last five days; in actual fact I couldn’t make too many informed remarks about what I heard.

Bernard Haitink has had a long and distinguished career as a conductor.  I thought I had never seen him, but a check of my blog revealed one encounter in November, 2011.  The most salient point is his stamina.  When I saw the stool on the podium, I expected him to walk out in a cane.  He didn’t, and he used the stool only occasionally, in between movements and during some of the slower passages.  He also had a long program in November 2011.  One difference would be how he was treated: like a rock star last time, (only) enthusiastically this time.

This was a debut performance by the Buenos Aires-born Bernarda Fink.  While there was nothing wrong with the performance, and indeed she projected well, the role is quite limited (perhaps less than 15 minutes of singing.)  The chorus part was similarly short in duration.  While Fink only had to come out during Part Two, the poor choral members had to sit through the whole program.  I forgot my binoculars, so couldn’t tell if anyone was falling asleep while waiting.

Playbill describes this long symphony as one of Mahler’s easiest for the audience, and it is indeed so.  It still has a lot of the wanderings that (for me) characterize Mahler’s music, and it also has a heavy dosage of beautiful brass passages.  There are extended passages of relative simplicity that are easy to grasp.  The trombone certainly gets quite a bit of a work out, and there was an offstage trumpet (or rather a "posthorn" per my research) that sang out beautifully.

Two sets of timpani were used in the piece.  At the end they were playing in unison.  I don’t know if it is by design, but one note was slightly off and as a result you hear this quick beat.  Anne did note one of the timpanists feverishly trying to tune his set of drums.  She also observed one of the first violin players broke a string on her instrument, and when Fink came on stage she handed Glenn Dicterow a bag which he in turn gave to the violinist.  Anne kept gesturing that to me, but I didn’t quite know what she was trying to tell me.  So I missed that also.  I guess I was not particularly observant that day.

Overall it was a very enjoyable concert.  Mahler wrote most of his symphonies by the scenic Attersee in Upper Austria.  The Playbill relays a remark he made to Bruno Walter who was enjoying the scenery: “You need not stand staring at that; I have already composed it all.”  Indeed I have described Mahler’s music astaking the listeners on a stroll, but not quite to the level of having “composed it all.”

The New York Times review talks a bit about the orchestras with a Mahler tradition (in addition to New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic), and the reviewer enjoyed this performance.  He actually recalls Haitink conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the Concertgebouw in 1995, that’s quite impressive. 

Perhaps a preview of summer Friday afternoon traffic, it took us a while to drive into the city (from Jersey City), and I had trouble finding off-street parking.  Anne had to box up the food she bought at Europan for me to gulp down in less than 10 minutes.  I still enjoyed the ham and cheese quiche.