October '24 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 24 October 2024 01:42

Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Release of the Week 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Twisters 

Streaming Release of the Week

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Exhuma 

Pandora’s Box 

Veep—Complete Series 

DVD Release of the Week 

CD Release of the Week

London Philharmonic Orchestra Perform León & Britten at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 23 October 2024 14:13

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Marco Borggreve

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium on the night of Saturday, October 19th, I had the great privilege to attend a superb concert presented by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the distinguished direction of its Principal Conductor, Edward Gardner.

The evening began splendidly with a confident account of Benjamin Britten’s extraordinary Sinfonia da Requiem, from 1940, which was a highlight of the event if only because it’s so seldom performed. In a useful program note, Keith Anderson provides some interesting background:

The Sinfonia da Requiem was written in response to a commission in the autumn of 1939 from the Japanese government for a work to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the imperial dynasty. The occasion was to include new compositions by Richard Strauss, Jacques Ibert, and Sándor Veress, but Britten's symphony was rejected by the commissioning committee, who took exception to the nature of the work and its apparent Christian content, although it had initially received approval. Britten had, in any case, resolved to write a composition imbued with as much of the spirit of pacifism as was possible. The official concert duly took place in Tokyo, with Britain unrepresented, and Strauss at his most bombastic. In the event, the Sinfonia da Requiem, dedicated to the memory of Britten's parents, had its first performance in March 1941 here at New York's Carnegie Hall, with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli.

The initial, solemn Lacrymosa movement opens portentously and maintains a sense of drama throughout, building to a powerful climax before seamlessly transitioning to the intensely turbulent Dies irae and the gentle, affirmative Requiem aeternam, which has a quiet close.

An impressive soloist, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, then entered the stage for a compelling rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich’s striking Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 77. According to the annotator, Gavin Plumley, the composer was inspired by violinist David Oistrakh, “to whom the Concerto was dedicated and who gave the premiere”; he adds, “That first performance in Leningrad had to wait until 1955, however, after the deaths of both Zhdanov and Stalin, though the Concerto was soon performed elsewhere, including in New York, where Oistrakh made a crucial recording with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Dimtri Mitropoulos.”

The Nocturne, marked Moderato, that begins the piece, starts very lugubriously with an extreme gravity that is sustained across the entire movement and ends softly. The Scherzo that follows, an Allegro, is characteristically playful but paradoxically also deeply serious; it acquires a whirling energy before finishing suddenly. In the most beautiful of the movements, the succeeding Passacaglia, an Andante, the mood of sobriety continues even as the music becomes more forceful; a more subdued passage ensues, leading to a virtuosic cadenza. The propulsive, pleasurable, and ultimately dazzling finale is more celebratory in tone and ends abruptly.

The second half of the concert was even stronger, starting with an assured realization of Tania León’s intriguing Raíces. The program reported that:

Raíces was co-commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Concertgebouw Brugge. The London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner gave the world premiere on March 6, 2024 at London's Royal Festival Hall. 

Below I reproduce what the composer said about it in a conversation with Paul Griffiths from February 2024:

The title of this work is a Spanish word that means “roots” or “origins.” I prefer “origins,” because it's more general. It's also a word I've used before as a title, in my Origines for brass and percussion, which I wrote in 2012. In the case of this new piece, the origins are partly mine and therefore very mixed, for, like many people in Cuba, where I come from, I have quite a lot in my heritage: Spanish, Cuban, Chinese, and French. Like a jambalaya. That's why I'm not threatened by any culture; in fact, I'm very curious, and I want to learn. Living now in the US, there's a lot I have absorbed, to the point that when I go back to Cuba they think I'm from Arizona!

Every time I read a book by Gabriel García Márquez it's like going back home to my childhood. I grew up in a poor neighborhood and there was always a tapestry of sound in the background; somebody always had a radio on. Also, in Cuba, and indeed all over Latin America, we have a very strong dance element in our culture, and that's how I grew up: dancing—Cuban, Spanish, even Scottish dancing. You'll certainly hear dancing in this piece. And then there's a touch of Latin America in the orchestra, including an instrument that I'm using for the first time, which is a chime made from animal nails. It's found in various areas of Peru and Colombia.

The piece is in three main sections, but first of all there's a short introduction, which I've marked “Calm.” It's scored for the strings, playing harmonics, and it has an internal character. It's a state I try to find in myself: contemplative. Even when the music is much more active, this contemplation is going on behind the scenes. Towards the end of the second section it comes right forward. When the introduction has come to a stop there's a pause and then the big first section comes in, with the marking “Jovial.” It's a dance-inspired movement that explodes. This is where I really went ethnic, especially in the transition at the end, where the piano and percussion continue but in the strings, especially the basses, you immediately recognise a Cuban style of syncopation. And then it totally disappears and goes into the second section.

This is really for the woodwinds, under the heading “Enchanted,” it's like a forest. And then the brass come in, like the wind, that pushes things. I didn't use the trumpets so much here, because I was reserving them for the finale. It's like a walk through a forest. It always impressed me tremendously, something I heard as a child, that Beethoven used to walk through the forest to gain inspiration. Whenever I have the opportunity, I do that. Also, I owed a lot to Hans Werner Henze, and when we first met, and were discussing how we composed, we did so as we walked through a forest. He invited me to come and see him in Castel Gandolfo. He sent me a fax, and I thought it was a prank until I telephoned him. We spoke in Spanish, and he asked me to be on the jury at his Munich Biennale in 1992. From then on he became like a father to me in Europe.

The last part of the piece is very upbeat. It's a conversation between Latin American influences and jazz influences. It's a way of questioning everything that I have become. And it's a way of leaving the stage.

Raíces begins impressionistically, even inchoately, and finishes inconclusively. León entered the stage to receive the audience’s acclaim.

The pinnacle of the event was reached with its closing selection: a sterling version of the titanic, enthralling Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82, from 1915, of Jean Sibelius. As the work was forming, the composer wrote, “In a deep mire again, but already I am beginning to see dimly the mountain that I shall ascend, God opens his door for a moment and his orchestra is playing the Fifth Symphony.” In a program note by Andre Mellor, he remarks that “on April 12, 1914, Sibelius witnessed a sight that would affect him profoundly and write the Fifth Symphony's main theme for him. It was a flock of 16 swans, soaring upwards from the Järvenpää lake for their migration.” The composer recorded in his diary, “One of my greatest experiences, the Fifth Symphony's final theme … legato in the trumpets.” 

A stirring, stunning opening, marked Tempo molto moderato, ushers in a somewhat amorphous, extended section that eventually coalesces into music with a driving rhythm and an understatedly exultant quality, before long attaining a dynamic ending. This precedes the slow movement (Andante mosso, quasi allegretto) which is lighter and more charming, again employing seductive—here almost waltz-like—rhythms, with highly lyrical moments. The sensational finale has an insistent, forward momentum and quickly soars into an atmosphere of celestial majesty, diverted by some more terrestrial interludes and passages of pure Romanticism; the music at last ascends to an epic grandeur before its surprising conclusion. Enthusiastic applause elicited a magnificent encore: the glorious “Nimrod” section of Edward Elgar’s classic “Enigma” Variations.

Philadelphia Orchestra Perform Mahler

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 22 October 2024 17:33

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, on the evening of Tuesday, October 15th, I had the extravagant pleasure to hear the estimable Philadelphia Orchestra—illustriously conducted by Music and Artistic Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin—confidently perform Gustav Mahler’s seldom played, magnificent and monumental Symphony No. 3—this was the first of three symphonies by the composer that will be presented by the ensemble this season at this venue. The orchestra was beautifully complemented by the incomparable mezzo-soprano and Metropolitan Opera star, Joyce DiDonato, as well as sopranos and altos from the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir under the direction of Joe Miller, the Philadelphia Girls Choir directed by Nathan Wadley, and the Philadelphia Boys Choir led by Jeffrey R. Smith.

According to the useful program notes by Christopher H. Gibbs:

After the work was finished, [Mahler] told a colleague he “imagined the constantly increasing articulation of feeling, from the muted, rigid, merely elemental form of existence (the forces of Nature) to the delicate structure of the human heart, which in its turn reaches further still, pointing beyond (to God).”

Mahler wrote the following to archeologist Friedrich Löhr:

My new symphony will take approximately 1½ hours—it is all in grand symphonic form.

The emphasis on my personal experiences (that is, what things tell me) corresponds to the peculiar ideas embodied in the whole work. Movements II–V are meant to express the hierarchy of organisms ...

The First Movement, “Summer Marches In,” is intended to hint at the humorously subjective content. Summer is conceived in the role of victor—amidst all that grows and flowers, creeps and flies, thinks and yearns, and finally all that of which we have only an intuitive inkling (angels—bells—transcendental).

Eternal love spins its web within us, over and above all else—as rays flow together into a focal point. Now do you understand?

It is my most individual and my richest work …

As he was completing the symphony, he stated: “My symphony will be unlike anything the world has ever heard! All of nature speaks in it, telling deep secrets that one might guess only in a dream!” He also remarked, “It begins with lifeless Nature and rises to God’s love!” In this connection he said:

Of course no one gets an inkling that for me Nature includes all that is terrifying, great and also lovely (it is precisely this that I wanted to express in the whole work, a kind of evolutionary development). I always feel it strange when most people speak of “Nature” what they mean is flowers, little birds, the scent of the pinewoods, etc. No one knows the god Dionysus, or great Pan. Well there you have a kind of program—i.e. a sample of how I compose. Always and everywhere it is the very sound of Nature!

About the immense first movement, he told his confidant Natalie Bauer-Lechner:

It’s frightening the way this movement seems to grow of its own accord more than anything else I have done … It is in every sense larger than life … Real horror seizes me when I see where it is leading.

The movement begins regally and then becomes protractedly portentous; a brief, transitional, almost pastoral section ultimately leads to an affirmative, indeed cheerful, episode succeeded by music of a more neo-Wagnerian character and then by much in a more popular vein. Some recapitulation and transmutation of earlier material ensues, building to a dynamic conclusion.

About the later movements, the composer wrote, “They are as infinite in their variety as the world itself, reaching their final culmination, their liberating resolution, in the ‘Love’ movement.” 

The second part of the symphony starts with the “Flower Piece,” which begins as a charming minuet that acquires a hurried, propulsive manner. It precedes a characteristically playful scherzo—based on one of his settings of poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, “Ablösung im Sommer”—that is energetic although with two solemn interludes as well as a short, frenzied passage—about which Mahler declared, “We once again feel the heavy shadow of lifeless nature, of as yet uncrystallized, inorganic matter”—approaching the movement’s emphatic close. Gibbs comments that the composer said that “he had in mind ‘Der Postillon,’ a poem by Nikolaus Lenau.”

The final three movements, performed without pause, are especially glorious. DiDonato stunningly sang the “Midnight Song” from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra in the fourth movement, a magisterial setting that exudes a celestial gravity. The chorus then joined the singer for a setting of “Es sungen drei Engel” (“Three Angels Sang”) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which is joyous and celebratory although darker currents move to the fore at moments.

According to Gibbs, the “dramatic soprano Anna von Mildenburg, with whom Mahler was romantically involved at the time, was understandably interested in this finale.” Mahler wrote to her:

You would like to know “What Love Tells Me?” Dearest Annerl, love tells me very beautiful things! And when love speaks to me now it always talks about you! But the love in my symphony is one different from what you suppose. The [motto] of this movement … is:

Father, behold the wounds I bear!

Let no creature be lost!

Now do you understand what it is about? It is an attempt to show the summit, the highest level from which the world can be surveyed. I could equally well call the movement something like “What God Tells Me!” And so my work is a musical poem that goes through all the stages of evolution, step by step. It begins with inanimate Nature and progresses to God’s love! People will need time to crack the nuts I am shaking down from the tree for them …

He told Bauer-Lechner:

In the Adagio, everything is resolved into quiet ‘being’; the Ixion-wheel of appearances has at last been brought to a standstill. But in the fast movements, the Minuet and Allegro (and even in the Andante, according to my tempos) everything is flow, movement, ‘becoming.’ So, contrary to custom—and without knowing why, at the time—I concluded my Second and Third symphonies with Adagios: that is, with a higher as opposed to a lower form.

This exalting movement is unearthly too and grows in intensity, finally attaining an astonishing climax

The artists were deservedly rewarded with a very enthusiastic, standing ovation.