the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.
Reviews
Berliner Philharmoniker Present Rachmaninoff & More at Carnegie Hall
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 22 November 2024 15:57
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Rob Davidson
At Carnegie Hall’s exceptional Stern Auditorium, on two consecutive days beginning on the afternoon of Sunday, November 17th, I had the enormous pleasure to attend two extraordinary concerts of late Romantic music presented by the outstanding musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker, under the brilliant direction of its Chief Conductor, Kirill Petrenko.
The first event started marvelously with a highly accomplished reading of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s haunting and magnificent The Isle the Dead, Op. 29, from 1909–which is one of the composer’s greatest works, arguably comparable in achievement to his Second and Third Symphonies. In a useful note on the program, Jack Sullivan provided some useful background on the piece:
Rachmaninoff’s hypnotic tone poem was also directly inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting Die Toteninsel (The Isle of the Dead), depicting a small boat carrying a coffin and a mysterious figure in white arriving at a sinister island. This painting, which Böcklin called a “dream image,” was enormously popular, with reproductions appearing across Europe. Rachmaninoff saw the painting in Paris in 1907; it was still vividly in his mind when he got around to composing The Isle of the Dead in 1909, conducting the premiere in Moscow himself. What he originally saw was a black-and-white reproduction, but when he viewed the color original, he was dismayed: The spell was broken, so much so that he commented, “If I had seen first the original, I probably would have not written my Isle of the Dead. I like it in black and white.”
(One version of Böcklin’s amazing painting is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a part of its permanent collection.)
An excellent soloist, Vilde Frang—here replacing the celebrated Hilary Hahn—then entered the stage for a thrilling—indeed, probably the finest I have yet heard—performance of Erich Korngold’s superb and undervalued Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, from 1945. The annotator again offered some informative remarks:
Korngold called movies a new form of opera. He believed that at its best, film scores could hold up as concert pieces, and many of his finest concert scores are based on his film music, the most popular today being his sensuous Violin Concerto, which borrows material from Juarez, Anthony Adverse, The Prince and the Pauper, and Another Dawn.
The initial, Moderato nobile movement— which is at times incredibly beautiful—opens lyrically, quickly becoming more playful and animated—it features an impassioned cadenza—and closes triumphantly. The Andante Romance that follows has a hushed, even mysterious beginning and is more inward in character but is not without emotional intensity or free of eccentricities; it ends softly. The often dazzling and exuberant Finale, marked Allegro assai vivace, has some subdued passages and concludes jubilantly. Enthusiastic applause elicited a wonderful encore from the violinist: the lively, ultimately enchanting Giga (Senza Basso) from the Violin Sonata in D Minor by the Italian Baroque composer Antonio Montanari.
The second half of the event was similarly transporting, consisting of a sterling realization of Antonín Dvořák’s amazing Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70, also possibly the best I have yet encountered in the concert hall. Sullivan reports that:
Donald Francis Tovey set the Seventh alongside the C-Major Symphony of Schubert and the four symphonies of Brahms as “among the greatest and purest examples of this art form since Beethoven.”
Dvořák himself regarded the piece as a breakthrough work. It was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London (now the Royal Philharmonic Society), which in 1884 invited Dvořák to become an honorary member in return for a new symphony. This was Dvorak’s only symphonic commission, and it clearly inspired him. He set about the composition with great seriousness, determined to create a symphony “capable of moving the world” and conducting the premiere himself in 1885.
The piece has developed a reputation as a “tragic” symphony, though the emotional variety does not really justify this label. Certainly, it has tragic elements in the first and last movements, perhaps attributable to Dvořák’s sadness over the recent death of his mother. The formal sophistication and largeness of design were more deliberate, an attempt to move beyond the folkloristic, “Bohemian” perspective of his earlier (and immensely popular) works. As Dvořák himself admitted, the D-Minor Symphony represented his bid to become “respectable” in the European music world.
Dvořák’s apparent model in the symphony was Brahms, whom he deeply admired and whose Third Symphony he had heard Brahms play on the piano.
He adds:
Tovey said it best when he commented that despite the work’s unusual formal strength, it offers the supreme specimen of Dvořák’s unique syntax: “The long meandering sentence that ramifies into countless afterthoughts.”
The first, Allegro maestoso movement, which is often dynamic, is brooding if exciting at the outset, while much of it has a pastoral quality; it finishes gently. The ensuing slow movement—marked Poco adagio—which, according to Sullivan, has a reference to Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde of 1859, is largely graceful and dance-like, becoming more expansive and then more forceful, although with almost bucolic moments; it too closes quietly. The thoroughly captivating Vivace Scherzo is ebullient and charming but not lacking in weight; the Poco meno mosso Trio is more tentative in expression but the movement ends powerfully. The Finale opens solemnly but is nonetheless melodious and exhilarating, although there are reflective interludes; it has a noble conclusion.
The next evening’s concert was also stellar—it was an unforgettable account of the original version of Antonio Bruckner’s glorious Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major. Annotator Janet E. Bedell explains that, “This is the only symphony Bruckner begins with a formal slow introduction,” marked Adagio, which creates an almost religious atmosphere. Portentous music inaugurates the Allegro movement’s main body which then acquires a certain urgency that pervades it, although the emergence of its tertiary theme projects a recurring sense of serenity. Wagnerian echoes can be perceived here and the movement finishes dramatically.
The succeeding, song-like Adagio has some of the work’s most exquisite passages; on the whole, it radiates grace but tension builds across this movement, which ends suddenly and very quietly. The Molto vivace Scherzo is energetic, even rambunctious, and not without extravagance even, and the influence of Ludwig van Beethoven is most clearly discernible here; its contrasting Ländler theme is bewitching while the delightful Trio entrances as well. The Finale—which the composer called his “contrapuntal masterpiece”—recapitulates much of the motivic material from earlier in the symphony, mockingly answered by the clarinet; it is miraculous in its fugal intricacy and has a tremendous, stunning, inexorable climax. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.
November '24 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 22 November 2024 01:18
- Written by Kevin Filipski
A Melodic Evening with The Knights at Zankel Hall
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 21 November 2024 15:31
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Jennifer Taylor
At Zankel Hall on the night of Thursday, October 24th, I had the considerable pleasure of attending an excellent concert presented by the orchestral ensemble, The Knights, conducted by Artistic Director Eric Jacobsen.
The event began enjoyably with a performance of George Gershwin’s perennially popular Rhapsody in Blue, from 1924, featuring pianist Aaron Diehl, in an arrangement by Michael P. Atkinson. In a useful program note by Jack Sullivan, he provides some interesting background on the piece’s genesis:
Gershwin didn’t know he was writing Rhapsody in Blue until he read about it in the paper. The New York Tribune proclaimed that Gershwin was composing a jazz concerto for an “Experiment in Modern Music” organized by the popular Paul Whiteman dance band. Although he had not agreed to anything of the kind (though he vaguely recalled speaking with Whiteman about a concerto), Gershwin decided to compose the work anyway, despite having basically a month to write it.
About it, the composer said, “I tried to express our manner of living, the tempo of our modern life with its speed and chaos and vitality,” elsewhere describing it as “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.”
Even more impressive was a confident account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s marvelous, underappreciated Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60–from 1806–which Robert Schumann compared to a “slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants,” while Sir George Grove analogized its movements to “the limbs and features of a lovely statue; and, full of fire and invention as they are, all is subordinated to conciseness, grace, and beauty.” Sullivan records that:
Beethoven wrote the Fourth in 1806 during a happy spring and summer spent as a houseguest in the castle of Count Franz von Oppersdorff, to whom it is dedicated. Beethoven premiered it in 1807 at a private concert in Vienna alongside the first performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto.
The initial movement’s Adagio introduction is quiet and lugubrious, but the main body of the movement, marked Allegro vivace, is ebullient, indeed irrepressible, with an almost pastoral, even Mozartean, character. Hector Berlioz observed that its second crescendo is “one of the most skillfully conceived effects we know of in all music.” The Adagio movement that follows is graceful and dance-like with lyrical moments, concluding with surprising force. About this movement, the critic Richard Gilman stated that it is “unmatched in Beethoven’s scores,” while Berlioz asserted that it “eludes analysis,” adding:
Its form is so pure and the expression of its melody so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness that the prodigious art by which this perfection is attained disappears completely. From the very first bars we are overtaken by an emotion which, toward the close, becomes overpowering in its intensity … Only among the giants of poetry can we find anything to compare with this sublime page of the giant of music.
The ensuing Scherzo, another Allegro vivace, is exuberant, with subdued passages; Berlioz commented that its march-like and joyous Trio sections have a “delicious freshness.” The Allegro ma non troppo finale is effervescent and melodious but with darker passages; Berlioz called it “one animated swarm of sparkling notes” interrupted by “the angry introspections which we have already had occasion to mention as peculiar to this composer.”
The second half of the evening was also memorable beginning with the world premiere of Atkinson’s exquisite arrangement of a Suite from Book of Ways by the celebrated jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett, featuring Diehl on harpsichord. I reproduce the arranger’s note on the work:
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist, composer, and improviser. He is well known across the globe through an extensive recording catalog spanning nearly 50 years and more than 100 albums. His 1975 album The Köln Concertremains the best-selling solo piano record of all time.
Book of Ways was recorded for ECM on July 14, 1986, in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Jarrett reflected on the process:
“We had three clavichords in the studio, two of which were angled together so that I could play them both simultaneously, and the third off to the side. Also we miked the instruments very closely so that the full range of dynamics could be used (clavichords are very quiet and cannot be heard more than a few feet away). […] No material was organized beforehand. Everything was spontaneous. The recording was done in four hours.”
The result is an impressive series of 19 separate improvisations totaling 100 minutes. Jarrett takes the clavichords through a vast range of styles, ranging from Neo-Baroque to avant-garde. He creates totally unique resonances and techniques within complex polyphonic musical structures, many of which have symphonic qualities, which is what sparked my interest as an arranger.
Three of these improvisations are presented here in a concerto grosso setting, with the harpsichord playing a continuo-like role in the outer movements, and primary soloist in the middle movement.
The first movement, entitled “4,” has a sprightly quality and is reminiscent of Aaron Copland, while the second, “14,” is more reflective; the last movement, “15,” is evocative of the music of Maurice Ravel and builds in intensity.
The concert ended splendidly with another world premiere: Michael Schachter’s Being and Becoming, Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra—co-commissioned by this ensemble with Carnegie Hall and Pro Musica, in honor of the centennial of Rhapsody in Blue—with Diehl again as soloist. Below is the program note of the composer, who introduced the performance, which is distinctive for its range of moods:
In my rhapsody, I set out not to create a pastiche of Gershwin’s New York, but rather to take the context of his rhapsodic project as impetus to reckon with the here and now, availing myself of the embarrassment of riches in working with The Knights and Aaron Diehl, collaborators as fearless and generous as one could dream up.
Through these priorities and more, my piece came to life as a proper, old-school rhapsody, an extension of a through-line from Liszt through Bartók and Gershwin to the Beatles, Queen, and Radiohead: a single-movement work, tuneful and vernacular, moving more by the hot thrill of impulse than the cool logic of austere design.
Across the escalation of themes and grooves, the piano and orchestra examine what it means to make acoustic music—vibrations, bodies, resonance in a space together—in the digital age, with the internet dissolving time- and place-based locality, the history of the world’s music in our pockets, and the rise of social media / short-form “content” evoking a pendulum swing back to the variety show of the vaudeville/silent era. And in loving rebuke to Gershwin, who spoke of freeing the rhapsody from “cling[ing] to dance rhythms,” encouraging piano and orchestra to embrace the ecstatic flow state that only arises through the deep embrace of rhythmic pocket and dance.
The title Being and Becoming refers not only to the kaleidoscopic form of the rhapsody, but more broadly to the inescapable interplay between presence and transience. In a sense, each of us is a collective—a partnership of particles and spirit, held together in that dynamic combination of consistency and change that we call the self, experiencing an impulsive, episodic assortment of infinite present moments, until we eventually dissipate and return to the source.
We know little. But we do know that we are here, together, now. Being, and becoming.
This piece is dedicated to Aaron Diehl for his artistry and grace; Faina and Aaron Kofman for dooming me to a life in music; my parents, the original “B&B” for everything I am; and Allie, Ronan, and Elliott for everything I have and will become.
The artists deservedly received an enthusiastic ovation.
"Fountain of Youth" with the New York Philharmonic
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 15:13
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Chris Lee
At Lincoln Center’s splendid David Geffen Hall on the night of Tuesday, November 12th, I had the exceptional privilege to attend an extraordinary concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the superb direction of Santtu-Matias Rouvali.
The event began brilliantly with a stellar account of Julianne Wolfe’s thrilling Fountain of Youth from 2019, which shows the influence of rock music. (This ensemble has previously commissioned two works from this composer: Fire in my mouth from 2018 and unEarth from 2023) At the end of the piece, Wolfe entered the stage to receive the audience’s acclaim.
The magnificent soprano Miah Persson—who looked fabulous in a stunning, burgundy gown—then joined the artists to exquisitely perform Richard Strauss’s glorious Four Last Songs from 1948. The first three songs are settings of poems by Hermann Hesse, beginning with the most affirmative, Frühling (“Spring”), followed by the more resigned September. The next son— the celestial and Wagnerian Beim Schlafengehen (“Going to Sleep”)—features “a violin solo derived from the final trio of Der Rosenkavalier,” according to the excellent note for the program by James M. Keller. About the final song, the irenic and radiant Im Abendrot (“In the Sunset Glow”)—which is from a text by Joseph von Eichendorff—Keller says that that it quotes “the transfiguration motif” from the composer’s marvelous tone poem, Tod und Verklärung (“Death and Transfiguration”).
The second half of the evening was comparable in power: an awesome rendition of the magisterial Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82, by Jean Sibelius. Keller explains: “The Finnish government commissioned Sibelius's Fifth Symphony to mark the composer's 50th birthday in 1915.” And he adds:
Sibelius's Fifth Symphony occupied the composer for seven years, since he probably began sketching it as early as 1912 and revised it considerably following the provisional premiere, which he conducted in Helsinki on his 50th birthday. A second version was unveiled in 1916, and then, after still more work, the Fifth Symphony reached its final form in 1919.
The composer wrote in a letter in 1918:
My new works, partly sketched and planned. The Fifth Symphony in a new form — practically composed anew — I work daily … The whole — if I may say so — a spirited intensification to the end (climax). Triumphal.
The annotator reports: “Sibelius goes on to tell his correspondent that two of the other pieces currently in his thoughts are his Sixth and Seventh Symphonies.” He comments that the composer recorded “in a notebook in late 1914”:
I begin to see dimly the mountain I shall ascend. God opens His door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.
The initial movement which begins majestically traverses a considerable range of moods becoming portentous, suspenseful, and heroic before an inchoate section; the gloom ultimately recedes and the music acquires a celebratory ethos, concluding exultantly. The slow movement—marked Andante mosso, quasi allegretto—has a dance-like character—sometimes recalling Sibelius’s transcendent Valse triste—with strong Romantic inflections, and is almost carefree at times, closing somewhat abruptly. The exalting finale, which is quietly exciting at its outset, is not without lyricism, much of it having a propulsive rhythm, and it ends joyously. The artists were enthusiastically applauded.
