May '24 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 15 May 2024 15:32

Written by Kevin Filipski

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Dune—Part Two 

One From the Heart 

In-Theater Release of the Week

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Das Rheingold 

CD Release of the Week 

Juilliard Orchestra Are In "Absolute Jest"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 13 May 2024 14:48

Written by Jack Angstreich

Juilliard Orchestra conducted by John Adams. Photo by Rosalie O'Connor

At Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on the night of Monday, April 29th, I had the privilege of attending an excellent concert presented by the precocious members of the Juilliard Orchestra under the assured baton of guest conductor—and eminent composer—John Adams.

The event began auspiciously with a pleasurable account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s marvelous Overture to his opera Fidelio, Op. 72. In her note for the program, Georgeanne Banker—who holds a Master of Music degree in Historical Performance from Juilliard—provides some useful background: “With a libretto derived from Jean-Nicolas Bouilly's 1798 play Léonore, ou L'amour con-jugal, the opera follows its titular heroine, disguised as a man named Fidelio, on her quest to rescue her husband Florestan from the depths of a Spanish prison.” She goes on to quote the composer:

“The affair of the opera is the most troublesome in the world, and there is scarcely one part of it which quite satisfies me now,” Beethoven wrote to Georg Friedrich Treitschke, who edited its libretto in 1814. “But what a difference between this and giving oneself up to freely flowing thought and inspiration!”

And she adds:

The first iteration of the opera premiered in 1805 to a hall of French soldiers in occupied Vienna. After years of revisions (and after composing Symphonies 4 through 8), Fidelio in its final form was revived in May 1814, just weeks after Napoleon Bonaparte was shipped off to Elba. 

In his quest to revise the opera, Beethoven prepared no fewer than four distinct overtures for it.

The ensemble was then joined by the accomplished musicians of the string quartet, The Dolphins—with violinists Luke Henderson and Isaac Park, violist James Preucil, and cellist Ian Maloney—for a rewarding performance of Adams’s own ambitious Absolute Jest from 2012. About the piece, he wrote that its “creation was for me a thrilling lesson in counterpoint, in thematic transformation and formal design. The ‘jest' of the title should be understood in terms of its Latin meaning, ‘gesta': doings, deeds, exploits. I like to think of ‘jest' as indicating an exercising of one's wit by means of imagination and invention.” 

Banker explains, “Composed in six movements, Absolute Jest is scored for a solo string quartet and large orchestra with harp and piano tuned in meantone temperament.” Adams records: “The rolling 6/8 patterns recall the same Ninth Symphony scherzo but also summon up other references—of the Hammerklavier Sonata, of the Eighth Symphony, and other archetypal Beethoven motives that come and go like cameo appearances on a stage.” 

The composer also said: 

The high-spirited triple-time scherzo to the F-major Opus 135 (Beethoven's final work in that medium) enters about a third of the way through Absolute Jest and becomes the dominant motivic material for the remainder of the piece, interrupted only by a brief slow section that interweaves fragments of the Grosse Fuge with the opening fugue theme of the C-minor quartet. A final furious coda features the solo string quartet charging ahead at full speed over an extended orchestral pedal based on the famous Waldstein Sonata harmonic progressions.

Banker concludes, “The final Prestissimo, running straight out of the preceding Vivacissimo, distills motifs from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135, to their elemental state, rallying the orchestral forces in a sort of maximal minimalism that brings Absolute Jest to a close.”

Although certainly distinguished, this is not one of my very favorite pieces by Adams but it does build to a thrilling climax with a quiet ending. Reflection upon the work elicits the thought that much of its effectiveness depends on the rhetorical figure of allusion which, for it to fulfill its purpose, requires recognition of its antecedent—in Absolute Jest, this affords considerable enjoyment.

The second half of the evening would have been extraordinary even if only for what began it, a sterling version of Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun from 1894, one of the most glorious compositions in the canon of Western symphonic music. Also admirable was the final selection, a compelling realization of the same composer’s beautifully scored Ibéria from his orchestral work, Images. About the piece, Manuel de Falla recounted:

However, as far as Ibéria is concerned, Claude Debussy expressly said, at the time of its first performance, that he had not intended to make Spanish music, but rather to translate into music the impressions that Spain awakened in him. Let us hasten to add that this was achieved in a magnificent manner. The echoes of the villages, including a kind of sevillana—the work's theme—seem to float in a clear atmosphere of sparkling light; the intoxicating magic of Andalusian nights, the joy of a festive people marching and dancing to the joyous chords of a banda of guitarras and bandurrias ... all this swirls in the air, approaching and receding, and our imagination, constantly on the alert, remains dazzled by the strong virtues of an intensely expressive and richly nuanced music.

The initial movement, entitled “In the Streets and Byways,” is ebullient on the whole, although with some more subdued episodes, while the ensuing movement, “The Fragrances of the Night,” is more meditative, purely impressionistic, and anticipatory. The final movement, “The Morning of a Festival Day,” is propulsive and dance-like, with some gentler interludes; it concludes forcefully. 

The artists were enthusiastically applauded.

The final Juilliard Orchestra concert of the season, which will be conducted by Marin Alsop, will occur on May 23rd at Alice Tully Hall.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s Presents Brahms at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 11 May 2024 11:10

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium on the evening of Thursday, May 9th, I had the enormous pleasure of attending a fabulous concert of choral music written by Johannes Brahms and performed by the superb musicians  of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—here accompanied by the wonderful La Chapelle de Québec along with the Ensemble Altera—under the inspired direction of Xian Zhang, who was replacing Bernard Labadie.

The event began magnificently with a sterling realization of the seldom played, glorious Begräbnisgesang, Op. 13, which is evocative of medieval music. In useful notes for the program, Ryan M. Prendergast records as follows:

Begräbnisgesang (Burial Song) in C minor dates from 1858, the same year Brahms composed hisAve Maria, Op. 12.He scored the piece for a reserved palette of instruments: oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trombones, tuba, and timpani. At times, the timbre evokes a military band, and Brahms heads the score with the marking “tempo of a funeral march.” The text for Begräbnisgesang is the hymn “Nun lasst uns den Leib begraben” by the 16th-century Protestant reformer and theologian Michael Weiße.

He here provides an excellent description of the composition:

The first section of Begräbnisgesang grows from the chant-like opening through the chorus’s statement of the textWenn Gottes Posaun wird angehn. The phrase would usually be rendered in English as “when God’s trumpet sounds,” but since the German word Posaun means “trombone,” Brahms gives these instruments full voice. The second section comprises the next three stanzas, reflecting on the departed spirit’s rest. The final stanza brings the figurative burial ritual to an end, and the music recedes with the mourners.

Also extraordinary was the major work on the program, an incredibly beautiful rendition of the astonishing Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45—featuring the marvelous soprano Erin Morley and the fine baritone Andrè Schuen—which along with his third and fourth symphonies, is arguably the composer’s greatest achievement. The annotator writes:

Brahms embarked upon the composition of the Requiem in 1865 following the death of his mother, Johanna, an event conventionally considered to be the work’s catalyst. He completed all but the fifth movement by the end of the following year. A partial (and decidedly mixed) premiere in Vienna during the winter of 1867 was followed by a triumphant performance of six of the piece’s movements in Bremen on Good Friday in 1868 for a benefit concert under Brahms’s baton. A month after this performance, Brahms completed a new movement for soprano soloist, which premiered on its own in September 1868. This was added to the full score as the fifth movement, and the complete version ofEin deutsches Requiem premiered in Leipzig in February 1869.

I here quote Prendergast’s remarks on the movements interspersed with my comments.

In the first movement, the orchestral forces (notably minus the violins) support Brahms’s chorale-like setting in F major of the second Beatitude from the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Brahms then inserts the text of Psalm 126, providing a joyous outburst in the contrasting middle section. Brahms sets the tone for his choral writing at the outset of this movement, keeping the texture restrained and deliberate.

This movement, titled “Blessed are they who mourn,” is solemn but exalted. 

An imposing dirge in B-flat minor is the central musical idea of the second movement. Brahms builds up the sobering proclamations of “For all flesh is as grass” from the First Epistle of Peter. These laments are tempered with texts from James and later Isaiah, which counter the inevitability of decline with the hope of deliverance with triumphal gestures. 

This movement, “For all flesh is as grass,” maintains a sense of gravity but becomes progressively joyous.

The third movement introduces the baritone soloist, and the text of Psalm 39 marks the first time the singers refer to themselves in the first person. Taking up the promise of hope in the Lord, this movement presents the first great fugue of the Requiem, celebrating the souls of the righteous.

This movement, “Lord, teach me yet.” is also exultant,

The central fourth movement brings the choral forces back into play, combining serene contemplation with robust polyphony in the text from Psalm 84. 

This movement, “How lovely are thy dwellings,” is graceful and melodious, building in intensity.

After this cascade of voices, Brahms next draws out a solo soprano for another movement of personal address, the chorus intoning a beautiful setting of “As one who comforts their mother, so will I comfort you.” 

This movement, “You now have sorrow,” is the most lyrical and ethereal.

Visions of the Resurrection occupy the sixth movement, and here, the composer unleashes his full contrapuntal fury, taunting Death and Hell and lauding the power of the Lord. 

This movement, “For here we have no continuing city,” begins gently, if rhythmically, becomes more urgent with the entry of the baritone, and then more dramatic and dynamic.

The majestic final movement unites the choir in a sublime conclusion that returns to the themes of the work’s opening, including the first word,selig (“blessed”). 

This movement, “Blessed are the dead,” is lofty—indeed celestial—and concludes softly.

The artists deservedly received an enthusiastic ovation.