The David S Operaworld blog

A series of commentary on the world of opera and of serious music hopefully with links to items of broader cultural interest, correlation with the subject at hand. There is plenty of room here for a certain amount of clowning around and general irreverence - not exclusive to me - but of course no trollers or spam please. Blog for coverage of the BBC PROMS 2010 - with thoroughly proofread/upgraded coverage of the 2009 Proms and of much else.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

BBC - CBSO Birmingham: Harrowing memorial Bach's St Matthew Passion - Simon Rattle, C Gerhaber, C Tilling, M Padmore, T Quasthoff - 06.03.10

Performances of music from before time of Beethoven have frequently been taken over by the authentic performance practice movement - long by now called ‘period’ for short. Linear clarity for Bach choral music (i.e. for interwoven lines for winds through body of strings), intimacy of feeling, and clear exposure of what feeling gets invested all are positive results. Such exposure is assured in place of the padding the old Romantic sonorities of the past sometimes provided in their stead.

There is also however in ‘period’ risk of quickly becoming smug and accepting new tradition just as deleterious, deadly to performing Bach as old ways may have been. There is still not any getting around considerations of form, good rhythm, and valid expression as to what should happen, especially considering something like St Matthew Passion. When is however the last time you have felt urge to pull out the Solti, Bernstein, or if such exists, version sung by Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

It is always highly anticipated for Simon Rattle to re-appear at site of his old day job, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, thanks to his many years there before. For event at hand to have been dubbed ‘Rattle’s Bach’ however rings false; calling it that does not give Sir Simon ultimately credit for much. If one sought something uniquely Rattle’s own, one must have left disappointed. That fortunately was not modus operandi or impetus toward what happened here; the utter necessity with which Simon Rattle infused so much of performing St Matthew Passion just simply spoke for itself.

If there was musically some message to Rattle’s interpreting St Matthew Passion, it was of consolidation. There were obviously large choral forces on stage, two hundred and forty, including fifty children – part of very fine accessory to the City of Birmingham SO chorus. This so well drew somewhat too from the good old bad Romantic past - to underscore, as stated in interview, equally 'period' important theological underpinnings to what Bach wrote; much musical 'period' conscientiousness on part of Rattle and all the rest certainly played into this as well. Pardoning occasional oversights, Rattle and company found good qualified success here.

The project of doing the St Matthew Passion moves on to Berlin, where it is joined by semi-staging of sorts by Peter Sellars. This will be curious - an experience I hope not attempted to be abetted by Mark Morris choreography or gimmicks along such lines so obviously American vernacular as that. It was hard to tell without having been there what diluted or dilated the expressive impact of hearing a W Meier/Heppner Tristan und Isolde, whether the Bill Viola videos Sellars employed, or just all-purpose bland conducting by Esa-Pekka Salonen – to be getting off-topic momentarily.

Listening to Part One of Herbert von Karajan’s 1972 DGG Matthew Passion, the opening chorus “Kommt, ihr Tochter’ especially, made me think of Brahms – without my being reminded of what Harnoncourt said about old Bach performances. Harnoncourt’s second or third take on the Matthew for Teldec with adults singing all the solo parts is certainly mildly recidivist in including a few suspicious Brahmsian accents. The affectation of childlike voice by Christine Schafer is annoyingly just that, in an early soprano aria - Dorothea Roschmann hardly less culpable. Next to Ann Monoyios and Barbara Bonney for John Eliot Gardiner, (Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo for Gardiner on nearly as bad behavior), Schafer and Roschmann seem more out of place than to have sung it for John Eliot Gardiner on his highly overrated recording. Several arias on Gardiner give off coyness, bathos better fitting ‘Summer of ’42 or ‘Love Story’ than it does Bach. Among period recordings, my favorite remains the path-breaking 1970 Harnoncourt (Teldec).

Rattle’s ‘Kommt, ihr Tochter’ will most likely further tighten with time and several more chances at it. It got the evening off slightly tentatively. There was indeed here a hint of Brahmsian hemiola within the choral lines, and also a little clumsiness in differentiating accenting between the two choruses - between sections of divided double chorus on stage. There was also here some sway to the forward motion, but fortunately without losing sight of goal as to where the musical line is going or its expressive agenda but intermittently. Rattle then took the final chorale chorus ‘O Mensch bewein’ of Part One breezily. It lacked what expressive freedom, even for chance to make some use of rubato Rattle could have instead invested therein

One anticipates depiction of greater suffering upon hearing ‘O Mensch bewein.” The quite rapid stepwise motion in dyads in the violins, when taken quickly, should not have us entirely as far down the line psychologically as the invitations from solo voices toward end of Part Two - in mind of the benefits of the finished work on the Cross - so soon. There are still other things to take into consideration here. Rattle was not quite so two-dimensional as to thoroughly ignore the line in the lower choral parts in effect halting or holding back forward motion. Such writing eloquently speaks of Man’s responsibility for the Cross, in gentle, but still quite stern admonition to close Part One. Certainly this performance of the lengthy Gethsamane portion of Part One that had just passed was powerfully effective so that time for some balm with ‘O Mensch, bewein’ had arrived.

Once into opening sequence of events, to which ‘Kommt ihr Tochter’ is prologue (and also parenthetical glimpse into sequence of events near crucifixion), things started going for Simon Rattle et al alarmingly well – through interchange of recitatives, arias, dialogues, chorales, turbae, etc. Mark Padmore was the sweet-toned, but always directly expressive Evangelist, giving his lines the right immediacy of feeling, emotion called for. He discreetly judged - gauging things at every point - at how much distance to how involved he should divest of this great narrative to us. His work here also showed very fine growth in vocal and expressive maturity in singing this, compared with his attempts at Evangelist in also the St. John ten years earlier. Those lines calling for pause for introspection he did so here with nary a hint of self-consciousness. This was a sterling performance certainly going the distance toward defining standard for performing this part. His sweetness of tone for making several reaches over the crest of his lines, where not to be incisive, beguilingly increased involvement in the narrative.

Christian Gerhaber was hardly less fine as the Christus, if next to Padmore intermittently self-conscious about his assignment. Word emphasis, with certainly near as much flexibility rhetorically as Padmore, was paramount, even through Last Supper arioso, without hectoring or excessively breaking up the line for the latter – nothing cloying to any of it. Most telling was his draining of all vibrato from his sound, unconventionally so, for harrowing line at Gethsemane where Jesus speaks of His great heaviness of spirit. This moment, unwittingly or not, brought to mind similar recourse to such for two particular lines as Faust for Metzmacher in Schumann a week earlier in Berlin. Without help of any props, the mostly soft-grained voice of Gerhaber supplied Christ with all fitting poise, dignity, reserve. Though he employed a little distancing of the text he was singing at times, he also conveyed doting care we expect of his lines for his disciples, mankind, even for those who deny or victimize who is portrayed here. Gerhaber’s tone of despondent resignation for accepting what lay before Christ was very moving.

With voice of perfect melos, Camilla Tilling proved very fine as soprano soloist – very occasional unsteadiness at the break aside. Her brief portrayals of Pilate’s Wife and maiden deriding Peter’s hasty denials sounded incipiently tense, incisive, respectively. That in the wrong hands can easily turn into ‘Summer of ’42 bathos (with bassetchen accompaniment – i.e. bass line in the treble register), ‘Aus Liebe’ accompanied by solo flute and oboes made for utter paragon of beseeching simplicity. Infusion of vibrato into long cantilena and withdrawal of such for darker sound was both subtle and supple as best served the text. In spirit of desolation, it uniquely conveys, captured so well here, the great love of Christ, His motivation for going to the Cross. Tilling, also notably very well played the Angel in Messiaen’s St Francois d’Assissi for Metzmacher in Holland two years ago. The innocence, direct simplicity with which she sang “Ich will dir meine Herze’ with very fine oboe obbligato was also ideal. Her flexible darkening of tone to match Kozena for dialogue with chorus near end of Part One beautifully enhanced this passage – close to as lightly accompanied as ‘Aus Liebe.’. No less than with any of the rest, the fugato turba that followed sounded forthrightly decisive, in its strong accenting. From deft guidance of former to decisive of the latter, Rattle was most adept.

The least among altogether fine team of soloists ultimately turned out to be Magdalena Kozena. Through into so far as a fine ‘Erbame dich’ in Part 2, with fine, highly expressive yet reserved obbligato from Laurence Jackson, hootiness intermittently from Kozena could be overlooked for the emotion she invested into it all. One or two later passages, past unforgettably choked final note of ‘Erbame dich,’ revealed however fallacy in taking such all-holds-barred approach to Bach. For one thing, if the soloist (or conductor) sweats too much, then the audience, invited by Bach to fully, psychologically partake in this, gets denied. The sincerity of Ms Kozena was never in doubt, neither likely was the mental, vocal fatigue by which time she got to ‘Ach, Golgotha’ and great aria following it.

‘Sehet Jesus hat die Hand,’ with its very long reaching melisma off opening quarter note, almost explicitly comes with the warning that better to take such on lightly than to lean on it so as did Kozena, Whatever a Sellars/Rattle ecumenical message of sorts is out there, this is not Bach’s ‘Mater dolorosa.’ Since it happens at point which this narrative reaches the Cross, one might easily be led so astray. The reaching out of the arms of Christ while in egregious pain and state of open shame, to all those in his midst both physically and otherwise, is the very selfless invitation it is and message here. It is the more greatly moving this way; it is also the way Bach wrote it, very much on purpose as true to what Luther taught in his sermons as well. After, nearly on pitch, bawling the opening line, Kozena did lighten up some, but for this piece, too little, too late. Jerkily accompanied, layered on approach to “Erbarm’es Gott” (right before just passable ‘Koennen Thranen’) also misfired – on part of both Kozena and Rattle.

Topi Lehtipuu, giving Padmore a much deserved rest, made most earnest, direct expression of his ‘O Schmerz’, followed by noble etching of his two arias ‘Ich will bei meinen Jesus’ and ‘Geduld.’ For crest of his lines in especially his opening recitative, he openly sounded forth a fast but controlled vibrato with fine expressive abandon, to complement Padmore’s Evangelist in a telling way. He thus filled out right what Padmore was conscientious on most lines to restrain.

If anyone might have been deduced to be both soloist and resident theologian in one on stage at Birmingham Symphony Hall for this, look no further than Thomas Quasthoff. He achieved as close to humanly possible a definitive interpretation of bass soloist. If you remain convinced after this that such a thing as a small part exists, here is who among two people I would have you meet - except that the great Alec Guinness is no longer with us. The varying and highly variable moods, attitudes, temperaments of Pilate, Judas, Peter, false witness, Caiaphas Quasthoff made all so very telling, incisive – to make it easy to guess there being several singers on stage acting these parts instead.

Simplest of all, Quasthoff was unabashedly direct with ‘Geht mir meinem Jesum’, matched well by equally unabashed virtuosic obbligato from (co-concertmaster) Catherine Arlidge. He sang with well gauged legato and fine pointing of words, but austerely his opening ‘Gerne will ich mich” and with deep feeling and introspection to distinctively very fine, ruddy toned viola da gamba obbligato (Richard Tunniliffe - also to be cited here for special praise), ‘Komm, susse Kreuz.' The latter made one out of three peaks achieved for Part 2 in this performance, ‘Aus Liebe’ (Tilling) and Quasthoff again for an absolutely definitive interpretation of his closing aria, ‘Mache dich mein Herze’ the others. A young Matti Salminen sounds richer on Karl Richter’s valedictory recording, and for first time I heard it, I thought perhaps as far as anyone could take the final aria. However then there is Thomas Quasthoff, who eschewed making so much of a fine range of well varied sonority from deep low notes to freely expressive top, for sake of its simple message. One needlessly feared that Quasthoff’s final line would be for Pilate at his most petty. Bach assuages our fears with series of final brief Adieu’s to for the moment dead Christ – and so did Quasthoff.

Simon Rattle closed with a well measured, proportioned final chorus - choral preparation by Simon Halsey absolutely first-rate throughout – including in scaling down so far the sound of so many voices on stage. If Rattle’s interpretation of St Matthew at times sounded mildly unvaried in color and emphasis, it was even instead perhaps always the most conscientious. The dark color for extended flat and sharp keys during Gethsemane, for instance, registered in full, as did nearly so, the silences between passages at, around Golgotha. Pacing, other than questioned momentarily once or twice, was most intelligent. Rattle managed to keep lean both the orchestral and choral textures for solo lines within to emerge clearly and with expressive point. He minded very well good tenets of baroque performance practice both texturally and for most solo work from his principals. His differentiation of pace, one chorale to another was very adept. ‘Bin ich gleich’ especially and ‘Befiehl von der Wege’ flowed purposefully forward with practical application of their texts forefront. Hushed stance for both ‘O Haupt’ and “Wenn ich einmal” toward the end was equally fine.

The news of the sudden passing of Phillip Langridge had to be a blow, in anticipation of already a fine event - now one very fittingly dedicated to his memory. While in grade school, KLEF-FM played new recordings of both Christmas Oratorio and Messiah of his – artist new to me - each opposite Elly Ameling. He made his mark so distinctively also in Britten, Janacek, as Idomeneo and Loge, through with great aplomb, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, the latter that famously belied his having been pushing seventy. It added on to already a very well varied repertoire that he always delivered with fine technique, musicality and great expressivity. All best condolences are to extend to Ann Murray - distinctively passionate Elvira and Ariodante on disc - and to all the rest of those who loved him and will miss him dearly. Mark Padmore, singing Evangelist from memory very well, famously did memory of Langridge the honors such deserves.

As afterthought, who knows what Peter Sellars might have in mind for St. Matthew Passion? However, for sake of those who might carp or criticize, take for example the bass aria, as sung by Walter Berry, ‘Gerne will ich’ – on what we surmise is traditional Bach interpretation. The aria invites us on personal level to identify with the suffering of Christ. Taken at a funereal Adagio, it was as though Karajan could have just consulted his Zen master over this. How much more of a revisionist stance could one ever expect? Berry is (posthumously) to be lauded for his breath control to have courageously sustained the aria so well. As for Sellars and Simon Rattle, we can just hope for what will further our insight into this great masterpiece instead of hindering it. There is strong hope that there will be – Rattle has conducted the St John Passion before – more for Rattle to bring into his work in other repertoire from this, instead of being any the lesser for such involvement he availed of himself here.

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Monday, March 22, 2010

DSO Berlin: Schumann Szenen aus Goethes Faust - in most holistic perspective - Ingo Metzmacher, Christian Gerhaber - Philharmonie 26.02.2010

One of the most unqualified triumphs that Ingo Metzmacher has had in the U.S. was his rendition of Der Paradies und die Peri with San Francisco in 2006 – work he repeated two years later in Berlin very successfully as well. That now makes it that I have heard very nearly complete both Schumann oratorios from him. No (other) conductor I can recall has recorded both oratorios. Giuseppe Sinopoli certainly would have found his way to Scenes from Faust, had he lived longer - having only instead recorded the earlier oratorio of the two – based on Persian Islamic morality tale of sorts.

I have yet to hear Metzmacher on any of the symphonies; a friend of mine in Florence heard him conduct the Rhenish with the May festival orchestra there last fall. Perhaps the most elusive among Schumann’s choral works, most aesthetically fulfilling too is indeed Scenes from Faust. It is intriguing how with dulled mind he suffered that Schumann accomplished – process disjunct over period of years – so very much in writing it.

What attempts there have been at Schumann’s Faust on disc have been curious thus far. Most eccentric in forcing conformism with personal model of historically informed practice, though on modern instruments, is Harnoncourt with Concertgebouw. Abbado, sensitive to other elements, impetus with this music, also ultimately comes across a little self-conscious this way too. Boulez, in 1973 from BBC, combines being literal minded with making a little extra special effort to indicate what progressive tendencies the music contains, in classic teleological fashion common during earlier (and more fiery) phase of his conducting career. Bernhard Klee, at least superficially, sounds most at ease with Schumann. Just about enlightened enough Kapellmeister to conduct this, Klee does so just about competently. He misses some elements of this score, that without Metzmacher today, we might not suspect are there.

Wolfgang Marx’s annotation for Abbado (Sony) raises several interesting points. Schumann first set to music the final scene of Faust and somewhat thus from the get-go had the theme of redemption, Marx explains, in mind as paramount. Schumann’s great respect for Goethe’s text is also cited. Starting off from just these two facts alone, our information about this piece will still most certainly be incomplete - of how to effectively approach it. Whatever mental lapse Schumann may have suffered during the late 1840’s, this work certainly must have given him both some respite and some hope. Very seldom in either pedantic or servile way does the music only serve the text. Marx speaks of the very through composed setting of the ‘Mater dolorosa’ scene for Gretchen. Metzmacher uncannily found way through rests, not missing them, of connecting disjunct violas' upbeats in introduction to overall orchestral line for this scene - very hard to hear achieved this well elsewhere.

A more strophic form setting of this scene would not have served Schumann’s purposes, toward adequately depicting the shifting psychological map that he explored in further revealing Gretchen here. Important too, the transfiguration scene, though this portion of it written before the fact, with subtlety cross-references back to early scenes of this oratorio. Schumann, though somewhat (Lutheran) tradition bound to even Christologize Faust at end of Part 2 with ‘Es ist vollbracht’ for Mephisto (quoting Christ's last words from John's Gospel), definitely had his mind too, in how he crafted this work, on the visionary qualities of Goethe's Faust. He clearly did set such genius to music in such a way that indeed would see ahead – and so subtly certainly partly succeeded in doing so.

Ingo Metzmacher is clearly who to seek toward getting get Schumann’s Faust in way that takes absolutely nothing for granted. In achieving such a fine interpretation of this (qualified) masterpiece, he has also avoided seeking any kind of personal stamp to place on it, to mark as anything belonging to him. He goes about it, keeping in mind very well the utter simplicity of some of the writing, with the same respect as has come from him before for Berg’s Wozzeck. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go about Scenes from Faust as being felicitously Biedermeier for much of it; Metzmacher just would have been the last person around to have stood for doing so.

The overture to Scenes from Faust was composed last, and derives sturm und drang elements from both Faust’s dichotomous, fractious scene in Part 2 of debate with the ‘superstitions’ and from example of composing the Manfred overture. At little more than half of Manfred’s length, Schumann did so in a perplexing compact manner. Metzmacher announced from the outset, without either compromising line or weighing the music down, much interest in reaching from just slightly beneath the lowest recesses of sonorities from amidst his forces for proper impetus to propel this music forward. He also thus gave sufficient weight to what framing Schumann's overall harmonic scheme and patterns thereby provides so well. He then was able to eschew having to overtly prove how supple a hand he has at making transitions between theme groups in this sinfonia.

Most notable therein was achievement of strong dramatic contrasts, i.e. two or three subito’s toward change of tempo that happened very effectively. Propulsion through violin section tremolo runs, abetted by flowing rubato through second theme group each time, carried forward to an elementally exciting conclusion to such perilous example of a Schumann overture. Warm glow throughout DSO Berlin remained confidently assured the entire way through this.

Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund, so experienced in heavier repertoire, was the Gretchen. Nylund conveyed very well the conversational tone in Schumann’s writing, very winningly during early courtship with Faust, and element of Gretchen’s self-doubt as well. Expansion, filling out passages of anxiety made for a little heavy going around a slightly tremulous break for her; working with such optimum cushion behind her from DSO Berlin, she fearlessly took on the high B-Flat at end of the ‘Mater dolorosa’ scene with fine assurance. The confidence she took forward from this with long rest in-between reassured Nylund an excellently achieved beseeching tone for Gretchen’s entreaties as Penitent (“Neige, neige”) in Part Three.

Werner Gura made a most confident Ariel, Gura a tenor whose voice can take on some hardness in its middle to upper reaches. He avoided all that, even in skillfully making Pater Ecstaticus’s Part 3 opening lines – and something incisive as well of depicting a fairy’s cramp-stiffened limbs within fresh naivete of Ariel’s music. Gura reveled in the warmth of Elysian atmosphere, sonorous plush all about (though with harps slightly obscured in Philharmonie acoustic behind strings and flutes). With spirit ears well tuned, Gura as Ariel greeted dawning of a new day with both lyrical and heroic assurance.

Mojca Erdmann made her sweet toned higher lyric soprano ideal in this cast of soloists, with only slight hint of acid to her sound as Sorge (Worry) - leading superstition vis-à-vis Faust at midnight. Such amounted to little more than just a fine, though sharply applied Vienniese accent to her diction and production. Making for foreign, contrasting color to more Northern accents all about, it worked ideally well. Georg Zeppenfeld made subtle, straightforward, case for nemesis to Faust. While showing himself always ready to stand his ground to Gerhaber’s Faust, he very prudently waited all the way to very close to end of Fausts Tod (end of Part 2) to show his fangs otherwise. He then provided fine sonority, introspective gravitas for Pater Profondus; his voice blending very well with Gerhaber soon thereafter. Ingeborg Danz provided steady hand and voice for supplemental mezzo parts, including Mater Gloriosa near the end – part to help one also recall the ethereally written similar moment in finale to the Mahler Eighth Symphony.

Any baritone, taking on Faust, is prone to look to Fischer-Dieskau as model. Christian Gerhaber proved hardly any exception. His is a lighter voice than that of Fischer-Dieskau – such to at times work somewhat to his advantage in some repertoire. Results for him for at least the first two parts of the Harnoncourt concerts in Amsterdam were curiously similar, very choppy, to those for Fischer-Dieskau (other than his fine Dr. Marianus) in 1973 with Pierre Boulez –only time I recall hearing these two artists together (as caught on reissued BBC air-check of this).

Gerhaber made very clear and welcome well inflected eager, ardent suitor of Faust to open this in Berlin. Taking in Alpine meadows, peaks and valleys in Faust’s midst filled Gerhaber’s voice with wonder and awe, following cushioned relaxation into Faust's opening lines. Like the Ariel right before, Gerhaber so freshly greeted the dawning of a new day. One hardly ever misses certain qualities from an often overbearing Fischer-Dieskau. Making recall of, as Queen Victoria assessed, Disraeli’s manner of addressing her, Bryn Terfel (Abbado) most certainly has done just that. Gerhaber, with der selige knaben round about, gently proved school-marmish as anybody else as Pater Seraphicus. It is curious that he must show up again moments later as Dr. Marianus, part which Gerhaber endowed mellifluously with fine legato and rarified sense of having acquired a higher level of wisdom than Faust could ever humanly know. His sensitivity to dynamics, simplicity of manner during Parts 1 and 2 was consistently highly assured.

In addressing the superstitions for 'Mitternacht', Gerhaber revealed a gift for scaling his voice way down to a vibrato-less pianissimo, while keeping his tone still alive - even again through very long held note at end of Part 2. Gerhaber made so clear Faust’s greater wisdom of distinguishing between what of superstition to shake off and then of what is valuable to be reckoned from it.

Through both stated and implied excursions through the Neapolitan, Schumann proves most subtly an adept player of opposites, vis-à-vis one another, in setting up modulation here for instance from B Minor to, tritone apart, F Major. This modulation is achieved at “Das war ich sonst” during 'Mitternacht.' Gerhaber made Faust’s finding rest to his soul, concerning what he should reckon, both benevolently reassuring and not. Other conductors who have recorded this pass over this transition as merely incidental. Metzmacher hears such a place as essential piece to the internal musical and psychological fabric of both this scene and oratorio at large. It also simultaneously became so clear here how much Gerhaber was committed to and giving the fullest sense I have encountered thus far of living the part of Faust, as set to music here.

Metzmacher made build-up to climaxes for “Hinaufgeschaut’ (within Faust’s Ariel scene monologue) turn out ideal. Metzmacher managed to deftly draw out so much color and find most aesthetically achieved and characterful placement of so much contrasting going on. One had DSO bassoons heard just a little above doubling basses and cellos – and also violins on yielding offbeats in mid-ground all just absolutely supple and succinct. Mendelssohnian filigree for strings starting ‘Mitternacht’ (with the superstitions) was perfectly light and incisive, to resemble flickering of light much more than mere note-spinning. Rundfunk Chor Berlin, including always fine choral and other soloists, was always euphonious and strong in rhythmic profile; childrens’ chorus (or seemingly so) varied ideally well from sounding on purpose raspy, mischievously so, to perfectly cherubic or seraphic only page different between such contrasts. Metzmacher found much spring and lift to what he took on as dance rhythms, even almost as well for his very forthright, swift pace through Dies irae’s in the cathedral scene.

Anything that sounded detached never detracted from dramatic argument overall There were several places that momentarily Metzmacher seemed to find no better solution than to understate the case, for good of the longer view or bigger picture. Such that did occur this way only turned out more the exception than the rule. Even so, in addressing there being an element of dance in Schumann’s oratorio, most obvious for instance in the scene with Ariel, but also in the transfiguration scene, one was not about to address a newly found ‘jolly Roger’ take on Schumann, such as with early Norrington or from John Eliot Gardiner - what is so frankly two-dimensional as such. The simplicity with which Metzmacher infused this certain extra lift to animated passages he did so unabashedly, unapologetically.

It was even to holistically achieved extent - what spiritually hieratic elements are in play - that Metzmacher even continued with such infusion of dance for extended episode or two in the Chorus Mysticus – all toward bringing it and whole oratorio to a most harmonious, internally restful close. Boulez, at other extreme from for instance Norrington, kept his perception to hieratically the worked out harmonic scheme to the final chorus, until accelerando toward climax right before the end. He thereby missed some of the overt joy or making heard satisfaction what goal musically and psychologically is achieved - in which Metzmacher and his forces indulged so very well.

Through substance of melodic motif, not yet leitmotif, and overall harmonic structure, and ever subtle layout of dualism in Schumann’s conception of Goethe, it is obvious this is music demanding some reading between the lines. It still seems almost miraculous that we can have ourselves provided such this well as have Metzmacher and his forces on this occasion. The quality of what ear and intellect was at play in taking on Scenes from Faust was very clear. What also became so evidently clear was the dualism in the inspiration of Robert Schumann, touching upon traditional spiritual qualities in both verbal and musical text vis-à-vis more progressive, futuristic qualities infusing it as well.

Here was indeed a veritable feast aurally laid out before us. There was something of the idyllic world to contrast with, yet informed by the demonic, the earthly and then also the spiritual or transcendent - all as though dialectically part of one and the same. It is all there to so richly unveil what it does indeed mean to be fully human. Scenes from Faust proves so very well a most satisfactory culmination to Schumann’s art starting back so far as the early piano masterpieces we know and love. Its relative neglect, even patronization, has been ill-founded for such long stretches of time until recently.

Whoever has even minimal interest in Schumann scholarship should join in calling for this to get released on disc; failure for positive outcome would certainly make for serious gap in what Schumann exists before us today. Such would be the least way this experience - encountered so recently over Deutschland Radio – www.dradio.de - could have been so valuable.

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Friday, March 12, 2010

Cleveland Orchestra: DVD promo on NPR - Franz Welser-Most's Guide Away From Strange Places - Bruckner Ninth Symphony

Here was the presentation of one of the two crowning masterpieces among the Bruckner symphonies that proved fairly much a consolidation of something interpretively that is just simply not quite there yet.

One could admire today a certain tightness of ensemble that Franz Welser-Most was able to draw out of the Cleveland Orchestra on this venture into late Bruckner – replacing what at times has been at times from him kind of an internally shallow-depth linear/rhythmic flaccidity he has now aspired to replace with tighter control, as though to achieve greater musical profundity, interpretative depth this way. He has instead achieved here, especially in something so multi-layered as the Bruckner Ninth, a more gaping hollowness and so much empty bombast.

I debated whether or not I should post this review here; the performance under review dates from Fall 2007 and dvd release from the following year. In addition though to there being the dvd release, the Cleveland Orchestra has picked up a residency at Lincoln Center to do four of the Bruckner symphonies there this summer, paired with a selection of American works to straddle right beside them - plus lectures to help explain it all.

One missed in this Bruckner a certain suppleness of line and thus flexible enough negotiation of the vast architectonics of the Bruckner Ninth Symphony. The vestiges of a strong interpretation of the Bruckner Ninth Symphony are certainly in the employ of Mr.Welser-Most – what he has been able to draw from the cultural feeling he brings to the podium and his experience, including in conducting Bruckner, for a number of years now. It, though certainly preventing disaster in approaching such a summit or valediction as this, is just simply not quite enough.

It seems in taking on this score so directly that Welser-Most was intent on eschewing his concept of performing Bruckner as being too tied to the past, tradition of the past. If so, he was found here to be very self-conscious in the way he has gone about it, even if conspicuously so to only those of us intimately familiar with the work at hand. Christoph von Dohnanyi, when he recorded the same music in Cleveland a little over twenty years ago – his Bruckner conducting debut on disc – he also was tuned into by and large the progressive tendencies of this music. In order to avoid rigidity, any notion thereof, he is also found to employ a very apt degree of rubato at times, such as is placed in highly exemplary fashion and in such a way that avoids eschewing modernism stated therein in full relief – what Dohnanyi would subtly make focus of our attention.

Welser-Most appeared to be trying to take some of what Dohnanyi brings to it another step or two further. He has aspired toward something more strictly classical than Dohnanyi in what sound he requests out of Cleveland, less diaphanous for instance for passages of lyricism therein. What has resulted here are numerous passages, especially in its outer two movements, that move in hard chunks, partitions of sound. What has resulted also makes something a little wonky out of a number of transitions between sections, to at times quite curious effect indeed. It is all even perhaps according to a painstaking literalism, such as Dohnanyi avoids partly out of fear of compromising what he does, and that, as an aside here, Hans Graf took to almost absurd lengths with his Schubert Ninth in Berlin last month.

The first movement of this sounded certainly a little rushed ieven also a little into the incendiary breath that fuels at least somewhat the pulsation that in the best Bruckner Ninths is heard indeed to get under way immediately. By rushing into things, overlooking others, the air of mystery and incendiary impetus to this music can get short-circuited, as it did here. All this was achieved without coarse breaking of the line – comical attempt at Bruckner Nine with Eschenbach and Pittsburgh immediately comes to mind - but the laendler accents to violin consequents to introductory statements by brass only enhanced what sounded here to be certainly the start to a very earthbound journey through this piece. Hard plucked pizzicati from the violins moments later excessively understated the variety of dynamics written in the score and varied placement acoustically vis-à-vis winds and brass that usually make for so much subtlety here. As an aside, Christoph Eschenbach was heard again eleven years later on Bruckner 9, as played by the New York Philharmonic, no natural at playing Bruckner either; it especially being so, he halfway succeeded, if still a little eccentrically, at conducting it.

Especially for how it got played in the Exposition, the Tristan-esque second theme group ambled by almost entirely lacking in any sensuality or hint thereof, even with Cleveland string section certainly still sounding cohesive, solid enough. The third theme group, after transition to it (highly interesting place in the Exposition as such) just going acceptably enough, basically went past as just one faceless chunk or block of sound. What idea really dominates it lacked all shape.

The Development, with oboe's reprise of the Introduction, soon thereafter pressed urgently forward. With the exception of keeping ensemble firmly together, for what strands interweave the oboes from the strings, all came across again as entirely lacking in character. Contrasts got minimized for the rest of the section; rushing downward strings for opening of the Recapitulation sounded impressive, but impressive practically in just their own right alone – as quite detached from the overall musical argument. Transition into the harrowing and here understated real (secondary development) climax in F Minor came a bit untethered; both dynamics and weary tone of descending strings off an immensely terrifying chord got entirely missed, in making transition to where reprise of the second theme is due.

Welser-Most also let the pianissimo markings in the violins to just simply go unnoticed by him for opening of the coda after aptly paced, otherwise unremarkable transition into it. Enharmonic spellings in violin section’s strife in achieving one last harrowing cadence before the coda section might have as well been more conventionally spelled by Bruckner for how so few of them got heard. It may be remarkable to point out such a subtlety as this, but long by this point, it had become remarkable to me how much I was becoming reminded of the late 1970’s DGG late Beethoven by La Salle Quartet – while also technically adept, how very hollow, two-dimensional, interpretatively inept, albeit with clearer goal in mind than here.

Mystery and even the demonic quality to opening and also spinning out of the scherzo went by the sidelines in self-consciously hatcheted, even almost clipped attacks by Cleveland strings through so many pizzicati, then especially through the following chord progressions. Equally vain as heard on 1970’s DGG Berlin PO/Karajan, the allmahlich in Allmahlich Bewegter for overt accelerando instead in both, was so little as to no longer be allmahlich in either (i.e., transition into scherzo recapitulation). With too much swinging lift from strings on phrase endings and flute and clarinet principals - flute most brutally rushed through his arpeggi - the trio of this scherzo went by simply too fast - disproportionately so.

After non-focused, slovenly start to the Adagio, much of it went better than the two earlier movements. Welser-Most was found to be especially cozy with the second theme group, with what bucolic accents it offers therein. Arch over huge crest in the line in first paragraph of the Adagio went surprisingly well, given how things had started for it. Cleveland horns proved the very paragon of warmth in making very long legato out of long phrase endings to transition out of first theme group. Strings, attempting any similar warmth later on, rustically proved almost cross between Elgarian and Ivesian in attempting similarly fine rhetoric – enough to please John Adams (see below)- to have aspired to anything Ivesian. Adams occasionally has made himself self-proclaimed devotee of the music of Charles Ives.

Welser-Most handled transition back to first group with just about enough good spacing, but then pedantically scrupulizing it so and rendering it flat; reprise of the first theme and spinning out from that improved from how such transpired earlier. Welser-Most conducted trumpet led inversion in B Minor of the first theme with allargando offbeat string accents supplementing it in such a routine manner that all placement, purpose for it got lost.

A bit too self-conscious to make anything of the on purpose psychologically negating deterioration, decay that Bruckner imposes upon his material, much of the rest of the Adagio proceeded just about as routinely as possible. It also missed proper perspective for the sublime strands of vainly continuing to develop previous material, even forcing me to check score for dynamics on the long weary descent by the strings over brass making cadence into finally achieving E Major. Such is of course the key of the Seventh Symphony, first theme of this with which the coda to this Adagio closes. Welser-Most framed it lovely enough, but by then - too late.

One might rather hear a Bruckner Ninth that fails with panache. I fail to make it more than a minute into the Adagio when such occurs – place where I tuned out on Eschenbach/Pittsburgh so long ago. Still, if the better can be the enemy of the good, so perhaps can the failure with panache be the enemy of the mediocre – the truly mediocre such as this. I just so happen to love the Adagio too much, but have to ask, where was the love here? Where was also the courage of the Cleveland Orchestra and Welser-Most’s convictions in not programming for this broadcast of the Bruckner – not to mention the dvd producers who shortchange us in truly same odd way - John Adams's Guide to Strange Places? Neither has included John Adams’s twenty-minute guide on with the Bruckner Ninth, played alongside it at the Musikverein at end of October, 2007. After all, Welser-Most in statement previewing his Lincoln Center Bruckner this summer has called John Adams the musical grandson of the Austrian master. Indeed, Welser-Most really may have achieved something, in having provided us such sanitized Bruckner.

In order to further shoot themselves in the foot, Cleveland Orchestra broadcast producers pulled out of archive a 2003 Sibelius Fourth with again Welser-Most and Cleveland, that is in places quite a terse statement as this piece is or can be indeed. Welser-Most at the time certainly allowed less room for error than in the Bruckner here. He and his forces were found here more supple, expressive - all of the Scherzo to the Sibelius and wonky accent or two aside, much of the finale closing it too that went very well indeed.

The first movement proved in Welser-Most’s pacing of it only intermittently prolix and diffuse, but not enough to detract attention from overall line – in part too making something diaphanously, gently impressionistic out of the mysterious tremoli that take over during the Development. The tragic slow movement was good, but lacking sufficient space to envelope a few lines therein sufficiently, if as proved perhaps apt preview for the Bruckner. Welser-Most is hardly known as more to the manner born for doing Sibelius than Bruckner, but no matter. Such has been just as it has seemed as of late.

As for recommending a dvd of the Bruckner Ninth, there is Karajan/VPO on DGG also from the Musikverein paired with his Linz cathedral also VPO Bruckner Eighth - the august Austrian maestro at the height of his powers. As guide away from strange places – with as someone buying on Amazon commented, hard chunks of sound hurled at Messieanesque birdsong in the flutes therein for the unheard Adams on this broadcast (for which I had to refer to the Robertson/St Louis on Nonesuch) – this Bruckner Ninth in all quite narrow perspective filled the bill indeed - and as the work of musical, spiritual mentor, or whatever, to John Adams indeed. John Adams should indeed be very proud. After all, this is the new music director (replacing a considerably finer and quite vastly underrated Brucknerian in Seiji Ozawa – whose Bruckner at times has been better than his Mahler) of the Vienna State Opera conducting Bruckner.

Here was however a Bruckner Ninth, to contradict Nikolaus Harnoncourt, never but barely touched by any portion of asteroid, space junk, or by matter anywhere outside of Earth’s atmosphere at all – ‘moon rock’ that Harnoncourt said imaginatively enough to have found the piece – ‘moon rock’ that the more senior Austrian master certainly himself would have found Harnoncourt’s interpretation of his Ninth Symphony.

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Sunday, March 7, 2010

Met: Verdi's Attila - a Met first - Ricccardo Muti (debut) conducts new Audi production - Verdi's scourge on early 21st century voices

It has always slightly baffled me that Attila has received as much currency as it has for even early Verdi, as opposed to several other operas that never get staged here. It does have its commercial appeal - its choruses, ieading bass part, larger than life notoriety of the great Hun. It even contains a few pet would-be Wagernisms, while still safe for Verdi to include such resemblances in his work. How many times have we heard, quite mistakenly that Otello and Falstaff owe a debt to the Nordic bard? No debt here is really owed anybody either, but naïve choral writing a few places, not to mention invocations to Wotan, Valhalla, other Norse symbology, does crop up.

Attila, along with the immature Oberto, is one of only two operas by Verdi in which the leading character is a bass. Today it begins to get easier to name what even early Verdi operas the Met has never put on instead of those the Met has, this is the Met’s first Attila, in new plenty abstract production by Pierre Audi. Playing it safe instead of choosing a work more obviously complex than this one is Riccardo Muti, who chose Attila as his Met conducting and broadcast debut. I still await the Met’s first Battaglia di Legnano and I Due Foscari, but listening to Meg and Ira prattle on yesterday, one might think that Attila holds a place close to that of Simon Boccanegra in the Verdi canon.

Riccardo Muti, during intermission, invited perhaps us a little too well to see perhaps an error in conceptualization or two in how he and the Met went about doing Verdi’s Attila. First of all, to roughly paraphrase what he said, a good approach to even Attila begins from the podium. Even though Muti is right, there is with a piece like this only so far one can go this way without missing something entirely. With the new abstract production the Met has put on - explained in part by either Muti or somebody for what spiritual values might get brought to the fore this way - there is something here too that can too readily invite misperception. In the ways that Wagner, Weber, Verdi coincide, better elucidated by Julian Budden than even I can muster, the naivete on Verdi’s part is obvious. Certainly there are some moments in Attila where Verdi pulls off a certain gravitas for lines for mostly his principal characters, but there are also stretches therein where such inspiration runs thin, even precariously so occasionally.

Remarkable about Attila, to distinguish it from Nabucco and other early Risorgimento classics, is at least underneath the surface here the betrayal at least to critical ears some loss of confidence in the movement - even as to why to compose for it and so brashly. Orchestra and chorus, to help make Muti’s argument, rose prominently to the fore - even exaggeratedly so at times for such brashness and foursquare construction to come across as two-dimensional as certainly it does. Consider Il Trovatore of six or seven years later, Trovatore is characterized, much of it, by a thrust, drive, projection forward that begins to engulf the characters just starting to get swallowed up in vortex of the action involving their very selves. Verdi, in closing Attila, chose the option of quartet for principals, involving expression of their individual emotions, reaction to what is going on, over nationalistic hymn. In doing so, even for Attila, he chose wisely – only to lightly contradict how one still should most likely characterize Attila.

Here is the rub. It is a given that one is not going to make Attila work from just having a strong presence on the podium and accompanying attitude of high seriousness in any form so much. Of course, in terms of tight rhythm, making the more subtle pages of Attila count, such finesse as Muti calls for is to be reckoned extremely valuable. One though, including even Muti, must keep a little of the naivete in mind, or else one will come up with somewhat stilted results. Such is a trap, even after all the years Muti has conducted Verdi that he did not quite entirely avoid here. The thing most lacking in this Attila for either Muti or it was heroic voices. More than anything else, this was what was lacking.

Julian Budden cites Marini as being either the first or a very early Attila, a basso cantante for the part – in discussing the prologue duet between Roman general and Attila. Ildar Abdrazakov filled this bill somewhere between halfway and two-thirds well, depending on one’s perspective. He clearly sounded the Attila of the cantante variety, not the profondo;’ most of the duet with baritone Ezio, fluidly moving about in thirds worked very well for him. Otherwise, before ensemble following the papal confrontation at end of Act One for instance, Abdrazakov tended to push, and then his voice immediately became tremulous, wobbly, lacking in true line or legato. I even perhaps detected a few accents of the Sam Ramey interpretation and type of production Abdrazakov apparently had invited or sneaked in here and there. Sure enough, at end of Act One, there was Sam Ramey to stand right before this new Attila at the Met. Making way out of this moment and into later scenes, Abadrazakov more effortlessly relied upon naturally dark color and more relaxed means of production, attitude of sobriety to make something haunting out of much that followed. The part does in places hold promise for what is to come in mature Verdi – Fiesco, Guardiano, Procida, Ramfis, etc.

I speculate here, but what could have perhaps prompted an immediate rethink on Abadrazakov’s part, approximately halfway through Saturday was the brief stand-off with Ramey as Leone and anticipation thereof from his aria “Mentre gonfiarsi.” Muti gave the underpinning of “Di flagellar” all the forza one could ask for, but Abadrazakov lightly splayed on the D-flats to extent that practically all weight to his lines dissipated, giving ‘Di flagellar’ something of a Flying Nun intensity. Ramey’s Leone, once down several notes to A-flat from D-flat may have disintegrated into wobble, but his initial top D-flat or two matched Muti for sufficient heft with which Muti backed him.

Odabella is a part hybrid between Abigaille warrior maiden and lirico spinto. Violeta Urmana is more convincing as the former, but perhaps not by much. Her top, when not pressed upon, does sound lyric, much as Jessye Norman could often sound like a lyric soprano above the staff, and a mezzo much of the rest of the way down. Norman, however, stayed away from Odabella and similar. These are, after all, still two quite different singers. For more heroic accents in Odabella, Urmana mostly has them as far as making it to top of the staff, but above the staff, the tone turns hard, tight, and when pushed, really strident. Some of Odabella’s tessitura is slightly above where height of it should normally be for Urmana. By contrast, lower notes sounded full with time to prepare them well, but while rapidly so instead, slightly wan.

Most curious, in taking on such a part, Urmana’s voice now starts to show breaks between what might be detected to be as many as four, perhaps five different registers. There was in a way more of an Amneris on stage for this than really an Odabella, except when notes at the break, for instance F’s at end of ensemble closing Act Two, would also go slightly loose on Miss Urmana. In leading choral, ensemble passages, one or two in unison with the Foresto of Ramon Vargas, had both of their voices blend into, instead of lead the ensemble - such as to end the banquet scene (Act Two). The great romanza that opens Act One came across slightly cloudy – decent expression, legato otherwise – with smudged, yodeled sextuplets in cadenza toward its conclusion.

Foresto again was entrusted to quite pure Rossini-Donizetti lyric Ramon Vargas, whose top has already appeared to have again come a bit loose from middle and below, as it had often early on. I found it curious how fine a match he and Urmana made, with what heavier assignments are commonplace for her, throughout this. Vargas relaxed well on lyrical pages, such as especially for romanza to open the final scene of the opera. Notes, even for such, were at once both lightly bench-pressed and placed in head voice. Whatever forza Foresto must get across that a secure lyric spinto tenor like Bergonzi mustered very well, was nowhere to be found, however valiantly attempted.. Such valor brought from Vargas the bitter fruit of choppy line and at times questionable intonation. The Manrico-Leonora type cabaletta ending one long duet had to rest content for Urmana and Vargas to merely coast through it.

Most successful of the four principals was a relative unknown in Giovanni Meoni, to replace Carlos Alvarez on short notice, as Ezio. Nothing occurred here to overwhelm one’s impression of Abdrazakov; one sensed from Meoni too a little squeeze above the staff in reaching notes there. He had the most comfortable time though, essaying his lines, finding fine variety of color to nuance them and make, if a somewhat lean, still a forceful impression, even at the Met. The fine bloom on his voice, musical sensitivity and fine profiling of his lines throughout the brief afternoon made a few passages of Ezio’s music sound the best that they could. Russell Thomas was the equally incisive Uldino to the Foresto of Ramon Vargas, though obviously assigned the simpler task – Thomas first introduced to many of us at the Met in HD Macbeth as Malcolm.

The prelude to Attila started things off well, with good ominous color from lower reaches. Color Muti drew especially out of the Met winds and mostly flexible support he very capably gave all his cast offered much promise.. Even if this could have been an Attila without singers, Muti’s success with Attila one would still best judge as qualified – even with his having made his work in Verdi of practically legendary status at La Scala, drawing higher standards of playing and choral singing there than is most likely still possible today. If there was way in which one found a lapse in the quality of Muti’s work, it was not all due to Muti curiously not placing it quite entirely in perspective the thinness of inspiration in some of Verdi’s writing here. Such first became conspicuous from clean, but wan sounding violins during the prelude on their unison lines over brass.

Imbalance of voices toward end of Act Two that failed to make ensemble closing it calibrate as well as it should have was beyond Muti’s control, as was Abadrazakov’s solo entry of recitative between mostly a cappella concertato and stretto therein, restoring intonation back up almost a quarter-tone to where it belonged. Instability of Met tenors and at times of Met chorus overall was practically as disturbing as usual; this could only be fairly referred to as an internal problem.

Excessive clipping of part of the storm interlude toward the end of the Prologue was however mostly indiscretion on Muti’s part; towards what, it was hard to tell – except for pedantic accenting of major choral announcements moments later also evident. Much compartmentalization of rehearsal time that has taken place at the Met as of late is also likely a culprit. If however he did not secure optimum tone from his choral forces, Muti showed particular insistence on tight rhythmic accuracy and point from them, such that was very clear and very welcome. Muti managed to make closing passages of Attila cohere very well, with fine cumulative sense to them well anticipated and delivered.

Most of all, this Attila lacked voices – juice that must flow from such quintessential for really practically any Verdi - Otello and Falstaff only being partial exceptions.

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