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New York Philharmonic Features Guest Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 27 May 2024 16:22
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen with the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Brandon Patoc.
At Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on the night of Saturday, May 4th, I had the pleasure to attend a splendid concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the superb direction of the eminent guest conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The events began promisingly with an excellent account of Dmitri Shostakovich’s admirable Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 107, from 1959, featuring the talented soloist, Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Program annotator James M. Keller records that, “The cellist Mstislav Rostropovich collaborated closely with Shostakovich on several works through the years, and it was for him that the composer wrote both of his cello concertos, seven years apart.” In his book Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, Russia, Music, and Liberty: Conversations with Claude Samuel, the cellist commented:
I have a particularly curious recollection about the Shostakovich First Concerto. When I performed the work for the first time, Shostakovich felt I had come out right all along the line, so he adopted the tempos of my interpretation for the published version of the score. However, five years later, I changed my own interpretation, specifically by speeding up the first movement, which to me seemed better suited to the spirit of the music. In any case, I considered that modification an improvement, and I think Shostakovich shared that feeling. But the “error” of my first interpretation remained in print for posterity.
The initial, Allegretto movement opens playfully—although the propulsive music rapidly becomes more serious—and ends abruptly, while the Moderato that follows is solemn, even lugubrious, and meditative, if with sardonic moments; it builds in intensity before reverting to a more subdued register. The succeeding Cadenza movement is also grave in character, if eventually quite animated and virtuosic. Keller reports that, “In the last movement Shostakovich even worked in a subtle quotation of the Russian folk tune ‘Suliko,’ Stalin's favorite piece of music.” Rostropovich said:
These allusions are undoubtedly not accidental, but they are camouflaged so craftily that even I didn't notice them to begin with. … I doubt if I would have detected this quotation if Dmitri Dmitriyevich hadn't pointed it out to me.
This Allegro con moto becomes spirited, if maybe not without irony. Abundant applause elicited a brief, lovely encore from Kanneh-Mason: his own composition, “Melody.”
The second half of the evening was even more memorable, a marvelous performance of Hector Berlioz’s magnificent Symphonie fantastique: Episode de la vie d'un artiste, Op. 14. The composer prepared a scenario for the premiere of the piece, beginning with this section for the first movement:
Part One: Reveries, Passions — The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted with that moral disease that a well-known writer calls the vague des passions, sees for the first time a woman who embodies all the charms of the ideal being he has imagined in his dreams, and he falls desperately in love with her. Through an odd whim, whenever the beloved image appears before the mind's eye of the artist, it is linked with a musical thought whose character, passionate but at the same time noble and shy, he finds similar to the one he attributes to his beloved.
This melodic image and the model it reflects pursue him incessantly like a double idée fixe.That is the reason for the constant appearance, in every movement of the symphony, of the melody that begins the first Allegro. The passage from this state of melancholy reverie, interrupted by a few fits of groundless joy, to one of frenzied passion, with its gestures of fury, of jealousy, its return of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations.
The movement opens softly with a brief introduction, then becomes energetic—even, eventually, exuberant—although with reflective passages. This is the section of the scenario for the second movement:
Part Two: A Ball — The artist finds himself in the most varied situations — in the midst of the tumult of a party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beauties of nature; but everywhere, in town, in the country, the beloved image appears before him and disturbs his peace of mind.
This movement, an Allegro non troppo waltz, is melodious and charming and reaches a celebratory climax. Here is the next section of the scenario:
Part Three: Scene in the Fields — Finding himself one evening in the country, he hears in the distance two shepherds piping a ranz des vaches in dialogue. This pastoral duet, the scenery, the quiet rustling of the trees gently brushed by the wind, the hopes he has recently found some reason to entertain — all concur in affording his heart an unaccustomed calm, and in giving a more cheerful color to his ideas. He reflects upon his isolation; he hopes that his loneliness will soon be over. — But what if she were deceiving him! — This mingling of hope and fear, form the subject of the Adagio. At the end, one of the shepherds again takes up theranz des vaches; the other no longer replies.
The third movement—which was influenced by the Andante from Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony—has a gentle and bucolic, extended introduction, and then becomes increasingly dramatic, eventually returning to the world of its outset, but now with portentous intimations. Here is the following section from the scenario:
Part Four: March to the Scaffold — Convinced that his love is unappreciated, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose, too weak to kill him, plunges him into a sleep accompanied by the most horrible visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned and led to the scaffold, and that he is witnessing his own execution. The procession moves forward to the sounds of a march that is now somber and fierce, now brilliant and solemn, in which the muffled noise of heavy steps gives way without transition to the noisiest clamor. At the end of the march the first four measures of the idée fixe reappear.
This exhilarating, even boisterous, march has an appropriately driving rhythm. The final section of the scenario reads thus:
Part Five: Dream of a Witches' Sabbath — He sees himself at the sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troop of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind, come together for his funeral. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries which other cries seem to answer. The beloved melody appears again, but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it is no more than a dance tune, mean, trivial, and grotesque: it is she, coming to join the sabbath. — A roar of joy at her arrival. — She takes part in the devilish orgy. — Funeral knell, burlesque parody of the Dies Irae, sabbath round-dance. The sabbath round and the Dies Irae are combined.
The sinister music here becomes tumultuous, concluding forcefully. The artists deservedly received an enthusiastic ovation.
Juilliard Orchestra Present Strauss & Bartók
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Saturday, 25 May 2024 11:56
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Claudio Papapietro
At Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on the evening of Thursday, May 23rd, I had the great pleasure to attend the superb—if brief—commencement concert presented by the remarkably precocious players of the Juilliard Orchestra under the sterling direction of an eminent conductor, Marin Alsop.
The event started brilliantly with a thrilling realization—and the world premiere—of contemporary composer Hilary Purrington’s excellent, exquisitely scored Sercy—commissioned by this ensemble—which somewhat recalls the works of Aaron Copland’s middle, “American” period. In a useful note on the program by Juiiliard student Carys Sutherland, she records that “In the southern U.S., ‘sercy’ refers to a small, unexpected gift.” Purrington comments: “My time at Juilliard was an immense gift, so composing this work really does come from a place of gratitude.”
At least equally impressive was a marvelous version of Richard Strauss’s extraordinary, imaginative tone-poem from 1889, Don Juan, Op. 20. A brash opening rapidly leads to a sumptuous, neo-Wagnerian, Romantic theme; a lyrical ethos returns after an interval, interrupted by a passage in the more dramatic and playful style of the piece’s beginning which comes to dominate as the music builds in intensity until its unexpectedly quiet conclusion. Experiencing Don Juan again prompted a question: what explains the composer’s seemingly strong attraction to the picaresque—as seen also in his Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Don Quixote—in this relatively early phase of his career?
The performance concluded magnificently with an outstanding rendition of Béla Bartók’s astonishing Concerto for Orchestra, which after innumerable encounters remains consistently surprising. The Introduzione has a somewhat hushed and uncanny—even sinister—beginning; the music becomes more forceful and agonized, while a more gentle interlude—featuring the oboe—that is partly recapitulated later in this movement—which closes powerfully—suggests a more affirmative outlook. The ensuing Giuocco delle coppie—marked Allegretto scherzando—unsurprisingly projects a more comic sensibility, gaining in momentum but ending softly. The Elegia that follows—with an Andante non troppo tempo—at its outset is solemn, mysterious, evocative, and Impressionistic but quickly becomes highly charged. The succeeding Intermezzo interrotto—an Allegretto—is ludic, enchanting and hauntingly beautiful, before becoming overtly satirical, and the Finale is propulsive, dynamic and joyful, with some eccentricities and folk-like interludes—it is completed in an exuberant manner.
The artists deservedly received an enthusiastic ovation.
May '24 Digital Week IV
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 22 May 2024 16:55
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Plays Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 22 May 2024 14:05
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Baritone Lester Lynch and Chief Conductor Sir Simon Rattle of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Steve J. Sherman.
At Stern Auditorium on two consecutive evenings beginning on Thursday, May 2nd, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend two amazing concerts—the first one presented as a part of Carnegie Hall’s current festival, “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice”—played by the outstanding musicians of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the brilliant direction of its Chief Conductor, Sir Simon Rattle.
The first program began exuberantly with a superb realization of Paul Hindemith’s raucous, arresting Ragtime (Well-Tempered) from 1921, about which the composer said:
Do you think that Bach is turning in his grave? On the contrary: If Bach had been alive today, he might very well have invented the shimmy or at least incorporated it in respectable music. And perhaps, in doing so, he might have used a theme from The Well-Tempered Clavier by a composer who had Bach’s standing in his eyes.
The excellent baritone, Lester Lynch, then entered the stage to admirably perform Alexander Zemlinsky’s solemn, powerful, impressively orchestrated Symphonische Gesänge, Op. 20, from 1929. According to the note by Jack Sullivan on this song-cycle, “Zemlinsky selected his texts from the remarkable anthology Afrika singt—a large collection of Black American poetry from 1929, translated to German—that circulated in Germany and Austria.” The work begins lugubriously with “Song for a Dark Girl” by the celebrated Langston Hughes, followed by the impassioned “Cotton Song” by Jean Toomer, whose 1923 novel, Cane, has attained canonical status. The next selection, the mournful “A Brown Girl Dead,” is from a poem by Countee Cullen, who was distinctive for his preference for classical verse forms. Three more Hughes songs ensue in succession, beginning with “Bad Man,” which is animated, in contrast, and caustic, preceding the poignant “Disillusion” and the forceful “Danse Africaine.” The set is completed by the more lively—if dark—“Arabesque,” by the Harlem Renaissance author, Frank Smith Horne.
It was the second half of the event that was especially memorable, however—a magnificent account of Gustav Mahler’s glorious Symphony No. 6 in A Minor. The opening movement—marked Allegro energico, ma non troppo—startsdramatically with a recurrent, dynamic, driving march but then becomes first subdued and then expansive, if with lyrical and Romantic moments, and also pastoral elements that return throughout the piece; it builds to a dazzling conclusion. The unusual second movement, an Andante moderato, is utterly enchanting and has an almost celestial character for much of its length; the music grows in intensity and then ends quietly. The eccentric, turbulent Scherzo has gentler, playful interludes as well as some portentous intimations, but closes softly. The phantasmagorical, tumultuous, and suspenseful Finale, an Allegro moderato, is mesmerizing, if sinister at times, but is not without affirmative, song-like passages, and it too concludes softly. The artists received abundant applause.
The second program was also wonderful, starting with a marvelous version of Richard Wagner’s sublime Prelude and Liebestod from his landmark 1859 opera, Tristan and Isolde. Also remarkable was the US Premiere of the in its way enthralling Aquifer—co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and this ensemble—by contemporary composer Thomas Adès. According to Sullivan:
Sir Simon Rattle has championed Adès and his work for more than a quarter century. In 1997, he commissioned Asyla for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and conducted it internationally more than 35 times, including at his 2002 inaugural concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom he later premiered Tevot in 2007. In 2020, Mr. Rattle conducted the world premiere of Adès’s Dawn with the London Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms.
The composer has provided this description of the piece:
The title refers to a geological structure that can transmit water. It is cast in one movement built from seven sections. It begins by welling up from the deepest notes, before the theme is presented first by the flutes, building to three statements that use more and more of the orchestra. After a breakdown, the theme returns in a slower second section, albeit with more unstable rhythms and harmony; the third section is built on a crawling chromatic bass line. It accelerates into the fast-flowing fourth section, from which emerges a mysterious stillness. The fifth section builds towards a return of the opening material, lapsing then—as before—into a darker slow section with a dragging character. The fast-flowing music breaks through again, culminating in an ecstatic coda.
The event ended splendidly with a terrific rendition of Ludwig van Beethoven’s entrancing Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, the “Pastoral,” from 1808. About the initial movement, marked Allegro ma non troppo and titled “Awakening of Cheerful Feelings upon Arriving in the Country,” Sullivan astutely says it has “none of the dramatic contrasts in mood that Beethoven normally builds into first movements”; ebullient and melodious with proto-Mendelssohnian qualities, some of it even recalls a Baroque idiom. The ensuing “Scene by the Brook”—an Andante molto mosso—which was an influence on Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, is graceful, with a quasi-Mozartean ethos. The “Merry Gathering of Country Folk,” an Allegro, is vivacious and exultant, briefly interrupted by the thrilling “Thunderstorm,” which has the same tempo marking. The Allegretto finale, the “Shepherd’s Song—Happy and Thankful Feelings After the Storm,” according to the annotator, “builds a soaring crescendo—one of Beethoven’s most ecstatic premonitions of Romanticism”; it is jubilant, although not without serious undercurrents, and concludes ethereally. An enthusiastic ovation was rewarded with a delightful encore: the Slavonic Dance in C Major, Op. 72, No. 7, by Antonín Dvořák.
