Fall Movements

-I blogged about Christian Thielemann's abrupt contract termination in the summer. Despite several prominent musicians (among whom Daniel Barenboim and Plácido Domingo) signing a petition for the City of Munich to reopen negotiations with Mr Thielemann, the Dresden Semperoper undertook action fast as expected, and has signed Christian Thielemann to a contract starting 2012.

-In sad news, Alicia de Larrocha passed away about two months ago. Her interpretation of Piano Concerto No. 25 was one of the essential steps towards my (still nascent) appreciation of the Mozart concertos. Witness this performance (embedding disabled) at the Mostly Mozart Festival.

-The Low Countries have a detrimental effect on conductors. Leonard Slatkin suffered a heart attack while conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Not wanting to be upstaged by Joyce DiDonato, he too finished his concert before going to the hospital. Now that's commitment. Unfortunately, the somewhat plagued Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where Slatkin is now Music Director, will have to miss him for two weeks of subscription concerts.

Vienna: Back in time and back in temperature

Fall really hit hard in an Allerheiligen trip to Vienna. Gusty winds, sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures and overcast skies (despite the weatherman's promise of a wolkenlos weekend) confronted me with the harsh reality of winter knocking on the door.

I don't really know what to make of Vienna. On one hand, it's a city well past its prime, a sort of open-air museum (to the left, Beethoven's grave) struggling for 21st-century relevance. On the other hand, as far as classical music is concerned (though certainly not contemporary classical music), it's perhaps one of the three (New York and London come to mind) most important cities in the world.

Suffocatingly reactionary mores aside, the weekend was an overwhelming musical success, not in the least because of the 20th century's greatest composer, Dmitry Shostakovich.






The Cleveland Orchestra
Under the baton of Austrian Franz Welser-Möst, the Cleveland Orchestra has established a biennial residency at the Musikverein, a hall that may rank first in acoustics and gaudiness alike. The second of their four concerts consisted of Mitsuko Uchida's painfully delicate reading of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. She hesitated before playing the opening solo as if to convey just how intimate this piece is to her, and I suspect a lot of listeners. The orchestra followed Dame Uchida's gentle lead after a few glimpses of domination in the first movement.








The pairing with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 proved a jarring contrast. The opening lament was raw and extroverted, the exact opposite of what Beethoven had delivered before intermission. The Cleveland Orchestra played with remarkable control, Welser-Möst needing only restrained gestures. The famous fourth movement was perfect; every single instrument was audible, and relevant within the chaos; of the Big Five, only the CSO rivals the Cleveland Orchestra in clarity. It was a performance that showcased Shostakovich as the last of the great symphonists, notwithstanding all the torment audible just below the surface. The final fanfare was a physical experience for me, leaving me in tears. As always with Shostakovich the ensuing applause seemed inappropriate to me. Welser-Möst obliged the standing ovation (I don't know if that means anything in Austria or not) crowd with the Vorspiel to Lohengrin, admittedly a beautiful, serene piece of music, though all had been said with Shostakovich. 4.5/5





Fidelio
I have always loved Fidelio and dismissed criticisms of its imperfections, but this Staatsoper performance made me realize that Beethoven, perhaps, just wasn't cut out to be an opera composer. I still think the music is fantastic, but as conductor Peter Schneider shone, as he did all night, in a Wagnerian treatment of the Leonore 3 overture between the two scenes of the second act, I couldn't help but wonder: why not end here?

Up until that point, everything goes swimmingly; there's a story of romantic loyalty, a touch of comedy and a dramatic meeting-cum-gunpoint scene. This is then cemented by the playing of the alternate overture, in which the narrative is replayed musically, with a festive climax. Sure, there are plot holes if you end the opera here, but none of them get resolved in Beethoven's version either; particularly, I find the lack of resolution with Marzelline and Jaquino disappointing. The only problem with my regie is: what do we do with all that fantastic music that accompanies the lame finale? I guess we should leave Fidelio as is.

Peter Seiffert (middle) was phenomenal as Florestan in his dungeon scene, but lost some accuracy later. His real-life and operatic wife Petra Maria Schnitzer (second from left) sang adequately, though I found her phrasing a bit weird. Juha Uusitalo's Rocco (second from right) was an audience favorite, but I don't understand why; his low register was inaudible from my seat. In the pit, Schneider's only fault was to overwhelm the singers at times, though I didn't mind because of the lush sound he created. Otto Schenk's production is literalist, with lots of grey surfaces, not unlike his gloomy now-defunct Met Ring. 4/5

Lady Macbeth of Mtensk
Last up, the music that prompted the writing of Shostakovich' Fifth. Stalin famously denounced Shostakovich for Lady Macbeth, a bleak story of a murder; the composer sketches the circumstances in which we might acquit the titular character of her crime. In the end, does everyone feel guilty for the lot of a murderer like I did?

Angela Denoke (second from left) was phenomenal in the main role. Embodying torment, anguish and eventually hopelessness both vocally and theatrically, she alone is worth a trip to Vienna. The supporting cast (Kurt Rydl and Misha Didyk) sang well but seemd only supplementary to Denoke. Ingo Metzmacher took over from an indisposed Vassily Sinaisky on short notice but got all the exciting stuff out of the score, without stealing Denoke's thunder. Matthias Hartmann's production was a little monochrome in the first two acts, but got more engaging in the second half, with a stirring setting of the prisoners' camp where the murderers ends up. In a nod to the piece's political consequences, in the second act Lady Macbeth retrieves rat poison out of a fallen bust of Stalin center-stage.

Especially having seen Fidelio there the night before, I experienced Lady Macbeth as a coherent, thrilling piece of drama. However, even if I am a self-admitted Shostakovich groupie, I have a harder time getting into his early, rhythm-heavy, more erratic musical idiom than his more famous middle period style.

Wait, did I just say I'm with Stalin on this one? 3.5/5

"Armistice" Day in Belgium

Belgium's most famous classical music export, conductor Philippe Herreweghe, fell victim to a brutal break-in, being robbed of his Audi A8 at gunpoint and locked up in his bathroom for hours in the middle of the night. Police think Herreweghe became a target by perhaps naively giving 40 euros to a begging girl at his doorstep a few days ago (supposedly for her sick brother's medical bills).

Nonetheless, as only a true melomaniac would, Herreweghe stepped onto the Bozar stage that very same day, celebrating the patron saint of music (a good week early) with Purcell's Ode to Saint Cecilia.

I really wish I could be unreservedly laudatory about the performance, out of sheer sympathy and respect for Herreweghe's insistence on having the performance. Unfortunately, I can't.

De Standaard's Stefan Grondelaers noted (in Dutch) that Herreweghe couldn't seem to grasp Who can from joy refrain? and the Te Deum which had preceded in the all-Purcell performance. Things picked up in the Ode to Saint Cecilia, though it is clear that the real strength of the Collegium Vocale lies in the (heavenly) voices and not in the orchestra, where sloppy playing and imprecise attacks prevailed. The ode itself is a little pompous, a rare piece where the timpanist (in this case the first time I've seen a woman on that instrument) has a thicker score than the first violins.

The instrumentation leads me to a side question: Why do historically-informed performers insist on having natural trumpets, when it's pretty clear the required skill to play that instrument just isn't prevalent? I can deal with minor flubs and such, but that's one thing and consistent intonation and volume issues are another.

Anyways, the soloists did well, Robin Blaze sang confidently but fellow countertenor Damien Guillon was even more impressive, his sweet and fragile tone perhaps a mismatch for the music. Dutch bass Peter Kooij was particularly commanding in the final scene.

The audience gave a standing ovation to the Collegium Vocale, Herreweghe was clearly taken aback (perhaps still traumatized from the break-in). When he took his curtain call with the soloists, he directed them back to their stands, which the audience (mis)interpreted as the launch to an encore. Herreweghe hadn't prepared anything so he reprised the Ode's finale, causing many unprepared singers to share scores as some had already left them backstage. 2/5

In search of the perfect Brahms' First

Brahms' Symphony No. 1 is one of those rare pieces I can listen to over and over again, without ever getting bored. There's so much drama, anxiety and (eventually) affirmation in the piece that I would gladly travel abroad to hear different performances of it. So I did.

Brahms' First is often mockingly called Beethoven's Tenth, so it was a fitting conclusion to Bonn's Beethovenfest last month. The 50-year-old Beethovenhalle in the former West-German capital is an ugly and dated barn with poor sightlines and only okay acoustics. A new hall is planned, and several submissions by famous architects were on display. A decision regarding a new Beethovenhalle is expected shortly. I personally like Richard Meier's design best overall, though Zada Hadid's interior is certainly most striking. Detailed renderings of all four contestants can be found here.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), the elite touring orchestra founded by the nowadays elusive Claudio Abbado in 1997, was led by Calfiornian Kent Nagano for this outing. Under him, Brahms lost all pretention and genteelness. What the listener got was a frantic version with plenty of rough edges. The MCO played well, though I'm not convinced this piece lends itself well to chamber-sized forces.

Before intermission, we (again fittingly) got one of Beethoven's last completed works, the Große Fuge, in (I believe) Leopold Stokowski's string orchestration - again I wasn't convinced this is the optimal instrumentation - in my experience the sharp edges and "ugly" extremities and contrasts of the piece are muted by increased size. Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, a 1945 eulogy for the destroyed Munich Opera House (the so-called Goethehaus) scored for just 23 strings, meandered too much, conveying to the public too little of its acute sense of loss. 3/5

By contrast, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Brahms 1st in Paris featured 60 players in the string section alone (though also just 20 other instrumentalists). With Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink at the helm, this indeed was the stately and perhaps genteel Brahms that made (and still make) him to be considered a bit of a musical conservative. Nonetheless, with an orchestra as resounding and technically flawless as Chicago's (by far America's best to my ears), there is no need for adventuresome interpretations - one had the feeling this is simply how the music was written, played to perfection.

Flutist Mathieu Dufour's ability to soar over the 60-strong string orchestra was baffling, and his fluid lines were delightful. The famous Chicago brass delivered with its chorale in the finale, at first allowing the slightest hesitation only to respond as affirmatively in the few bars before Haitink lowered his baton to accept a tumultuous standing ovation. No such ovation had taken place after the first half, a dry performance of Mozart's Symphony No. 41 that suggested once more that it's not until the big Romantic works that classic orchestras like the CSO are in their element. 4/5

I feel compelled to add a little coda on the French: while I still find several aspects of the France and the French insufferable (such as unfathomable rudeness, dirty streets, the poor quality of information and communication, the proliferation of loitering youths, the pervasive smell of urine and the French' ardent commitment to monoculturalism and all things French being superior), I have to say I did appreciate two things in my recent travels to Belgium's southerly neighbor:






- Audiences were particularly well-behaved in both Paris and Lille, with very limited coughing, whispering, etc. Furthermore, French audiences know how to dress up. Effortless style seems innate here where it would seem artificial in Germany, Holland and Belgium. Moreover, there is no stuck-up Besserwisserschaft in France like there is in Germany or Austria. Audiences are sincere and jovial, won't shush you preemptively or unnecessarily. I also think it's worth a mention that the French have moving to better (emtpy) seats down to an art, with proper audience migrations during the pre-concert announcements.













- Both the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Opéra in Lille are beautiful, recently renovated buildings. Classical music may not be as engrained in everyday life here the way it is in Germany, France certainly is making inroads. Furthermore, the physical surroundings of the above buildings, the French inner city, is making great strides in livability and environmental awareness, as cars (even those cute deux-chevaux) are slowly but surely banished.

Thus concludes my ode to the French, an overdue reevaluation of a country that I will never be on the best of terms with, but admittedly isn't without its good sides, (cheap shot alert) unlike New Jersey.

Contemporary music takes its toll

Celebrating my birthday with a goofy timpanist video, courtesy of Failblog. I'll be back soon with a report from my weekend trip to Vienna.

Rare and New Operas 2009/10

Operabase, an opera database (duh) that claims to keep track of 25,000 performances annually, has a phenomenal publication on all world premieres and performances of rare operas (including a not quite comprehensive list of rare operas in concert version) this current season.

Say you really couldn't live another year without seeing John Adams' Doctor Atomic? Off to Saarbrücken you are. While you're there, you might as well take in Schubert's Sakontala as well.

You feel the same way about a Meyerbeer work, or in fact any Meyerbeer work? No such luck, it seems.

I wish I'd known about this publication earlier, so I could have considered planning to travel, to give a few examples, to Morton Feldman's Neither in Madrid, Antonio Caldara's Der Menschenfeind (I believe originally I Disingannati) in Weimar, Leos Janáček's Šárka at La Fenice or Giuseppe's Porsile's Spartaco in Heidelberg.

Operabase knows of 60 world premieres this season between last month's Kepler by Philip Glass in Linz and the July 24 premiere of Lewis Spratlan's Life is a Dream in Santa Fe.

The French go Baroque

In the last couple of weeks, four baroque operas came my way - or rather, I went their way. While the Talens Lyriques came to Brussels to open De Munt's season with Handel's Semele, I went to Lille (opera chandelier to the left) to see Rameau's Dardanus with the Concert d'Astrée, and to Paris for a concert version of Vivaldi's Armida by the Concerto Italiano. Lastly, the Henry Le Boeufzaal in Brussels celebrated its 80 years of existence with a concert performance of Grétry's Andromaque.

For Belgian standards, a big stink was made about Semele, with overall positive reviews for the strange East-meets-West production of Handel's 1743 oratorio. I, unfortunately, thought the production was a piece of disingenuous Orientalist kitsch - particularly Act II went overboard on gratuitous weirdness, e.g. sumo wrestlers - in the program notes, director Zhang Huan justified them as being "a symbol for physical lust" (my translation). Particularly irritating were the director's changes to the opera's music, interjecting traditional Mongolian music in the score, as if Handel's opera's dramatic structure and musical narrative somehow didn't matter, or make sense. Huan said he chose to omit the final chorus scene because "I thought the original ending was too beautiful and decided to give the audience a darker finale" (my translation again). I guess the death of a titular character is not dark enough for Mr Huan. Try a Ring Cycle, perhaps (doesn't everybody die in that one?), so repertoire I'm interested in isn't subject to bogus regie.

Nonetheless, I'm very glad I didn't skip Semele, as Christophe Rousset's Talens Lyriques were simply phenomenal. The baroque group's string section alone was worth the lousy production and unimpressive cast. 3/5 on the strength of the orchestra.

In Paris then for Vivaldi's Armida, a 3 hour-45 minute affair that's about to get its first recording by the Concerto Italiano. Once again this opera left me flabbergasted about the fact that Vivaldi is so out of repertoire, and that he is still considered by some to be a somewhat inferior composer of baroque music. I do concede, though, that Vivaldi's plots tend to be far-fetched and convoluted, even within the realm of baroque opera.

The second act of Armida is missing; what we heard was the world premiere of the reconstruction made by conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini and musicologist Frédéric Delamea. I sure couldn't tell the difference between original and reconstruction (though I am probably easily fooled in such matters), and in fact thought the second act had some of the best music (I'm assuming the reconstruction made on the basis other Vivaldi works).

The orchestra played exceedingly well, with particularly pleasing woodwinds (Vivaldi always has great bassoon parts) and layered strings, though the very limited appearance of natural horns reinforced once more how difficult intonation is on that instrument.

Countertenor Martin Oro stood out from the cast, possessing a loud and versatile instrument, rich in dynamic contrasts though perhaps not quite as clear in intonation as standard-bearer Andreas Scholl. I came to the realization that mezzo Romina Basso wasn't ill when I saw her in Amsterdam this past May, but that her deep voice just sounds like it's underwater naturally. I rarely actively dislike voices like hers, particularly when I can have no technical qualms about her singing (apart from an excessive reliance on vibrato). Singing the title role, contralto Sara Mingardo wasn't an unreserved success either, lacking power in her low register. Baritone Furio Zanasi and mezzo Marina Comparato had pleasing voices. Mezzo Monica Bacelli had a fine voice but tended to fall behind the music, which forced her to swallow some syllables. Raffaella Milanesi's Erminia was but a small part, but sung with a winning angelic calmness. 3/5

Off to the Opéra de Lille then for Dardanus. As far as setting goes, this recently renovated theater, which seats 1,138, was the best acoustic fit for a baroque opera. Despite a rather dull production, Dardanus is a convincing piece of French baroque fare, equal parts ballet and tragedy. Emmanuelle Haïm led a vigorous performance; it was quite captivating to see her, black dress and red hair, wave her arms over the orchestra as if she was casting spells. The cast was a mixed bag; bass François Lis was on top of his game, a commanding presence as Teucer, upstaging baritone Trevor Scheunemann. As Dardanus, Anders Dahlin started unsteady but grew with the performance. Sonya Yoncheva, and to a lesser extent Ingrid Perruche, struggled with some shrillness and pitch problems. 3/5

Lastly, the French ensemble Le Concert Spirituel came to Brussels to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Le Boeufzaal, Bozar's 2,200-seater. A rare art deco jewel in the heart of Brussels, the building's pleasing aesthetics and resonant acoustics are a definitive perk to life in the Belgian capital.

No better way to celebrate a Belgian monument than with some Belgian music. André-Modest-Ernest Grétry, a Liégeois composer who spent most of his time in France, received a commission to set Andromaque to music after losing the Iphigénie en Tauride commission to Christoph von Gluck. Unlike the latter, Andromaque has never been performed since its premiere over 200 years ago, giving the audience Monday night a premiere of sorts.

Although 1780 would dictate a musical language closer to Classicism than baroque, the most obvious influence in the music was Jean-Philippe Rameau, from the perky tempi and rapid-fire strings to pictorial music of battles and storms and brass-heavy finales. Despite the rather conservative musical idiom, this music never exhibited gratuitous pomp and is certainly worth hearing. Hervé Niquet, donning a flashy burgundy coat (left bottom), led his specialist Le Concert Spirituel with startling intensity. Sébastien Guèze was the standout in a good cast, and Les Chantres du Centre de Musique de Versailles sang together nicely, with the added bonus of native diction. Overall a nice birthday present for the venue, all the more because of the high turnout on a Monday night. 3.5/5

Horum Omnium Fortissimi sunt Belgae

The five words constituting this post's title are probably as famous as any Latin phrase will ever become in Belgium. Taken from Caesar's Comentarii de Bello Gallico, the phrase translates to "of all of these [Gauls] the Belgae are the bravest", although in translation we conveniently replace Belgae with Belgians.

Interestingly, Caesar didn't quite end his sentence there, adding

propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important, proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt.

which translates to

because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war.

Basically, we like to brag that Caesar thought of us as being the bravest of all, but fail to add that his opinion was such because he also thought we were naive, barbaric warmongers.

Where am I going with this? Well, we're 2,000 years beyond de Bello Gallico, but little has changed. In 57 BC, Ambiorix, the leader of the Eburons (one of the tribes considered Belgae), managed to ambush the invading Romans only to be ruthlessly retaliated against. Nevertheless, in Ambiorix's hometown of Tongeren, he remains a David vs. Goliath-style hero, honored by the pictured statue on the central square of Tongeren, Belgium's oldest town.

The painful irony of all of this is that when the Symphonic Orchestra of Flanders visits Tongeren, as happened last Friday, less people show up than there are musicians on stage (that might be an exaggeration, but there were less than 100 audience members present for the second half). We're no closer to civilization and refinement than when we were, in fact, occupied with unstrategically ambushing Romans and waging war with nearby fiends.

There are no extenuating circumstances either. It was opening night for the local cultural center's season. There were two Beethoven pieces on the program. It was a Saturday night. Over a million people live in a 30-mile radius around the city in places such as Liège, Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Aachen (Germany). So why did nobody show up? I have no freaking clue, but all I can think of is: Caesar knew what he was talking about.

Ning Kam played Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 2, a technically demanding piece with few rewards, though for full disclosure I should add I am neither a fan of the genre (violin concerto) nor the composer. In the second half, Borodin's Symphony No. 2 sounded almost stereotypically Russian, though never insincerely so. The brass section went full force without straying into blaring territory. Conductor Etienne Siebens opened each half with a Beethoven overture, first the Coriolan which lacked dramatic tension between the two antagonistic themes, and later the Egmont, where the orchestra (particularly the strings) sounded much more together, the triumphant finale a common goal. 2.5/5

Youtube's wicked sense of humor

Or are they prescient?

I warned you about that woman!

Joke Schauvliege, the Flemish Minister of Culture who couldn't remember the name of any book she'd read recently, announced that her coalition party (which misspelled the very word Culture) has decided to cut culture funding by 5%.

In the meantime, Didier Reynders, finance minister of the federal government, announced that there ought to be budgetary room left for a reduction in value-added tax from 21% to 6% for all restaurants, bars and hotels.

Just the type of measure we need in a country that is #12 in the world in per capita alcohol consumption. A quick comparison shows the Netherlands has 50% more people than Belgium, yet has over a 1,000 fewer bars. So forgive me for suggesting that our priorities might be a little off.