CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST

Delius 150th anniversary, Royal Festival Hall

2012-02-03T01:13:00.000Z

London's Royal Festival Hall was packed to the rafters, with standing room only, for a concert marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Delius. It also marked on the the rare visits of Sir Andrew Davis to the UK, in an all-English repertoire where he would be very much at home. Soloist as well as conductor would have been a draw for the capacity audience, Julian Lloyd Webber was the cellist in Delius' concerto for that instrument.

This work – which immediately preceded the interval – in fact showcased Delius at arguably his least English, bringing out instead a more obvious comparison (as mentioned on this site before) with Debussy than with the other English composers sharing the programme. It is in fact a rather nebulous and enigmatic work which is not without some difficulties; it could be argued that ideas are introduced which are never fully developed but remain unresolved. Certainly it lacks the easy satisfaction for the listener of the popular orchestral miniatures such as Summer Night on the River or On First Hearing the Cuckoo in Spring. However the opportunity to enjoy the warm and lyrical playing which distinguishes Lloyd Webber's performance more than made up for the challenges of this rarely-heard work.

It was preceded by another very enjoyable performance, an absolutely faultless account of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending. Andrew Davis struck just the right balance between a limpid tone and keeping a sense of movement in the piece, so that the lark soars, but effortlessly and gracefully. Violin soloist was the Philharmonia's leader, Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay.

The second half saw two English sets of variations; Delius being presented in his most English mode, Brigg Fair, a setting for orchestra of a folk song collected in Lincolnshire by the composer's friend Percy Grainger (whose music also features on the forthcoming Stone Records disc). This fundamentally pleasant and likeable work though was perhaps rather overshadowed by an excellent account of Elgar's Enigma Variations which followed it, a work where Andrew Davis was on very firm territory.

Expect plenty more Delius in this anniversary year: the Cello Concerto is to be repeated with the same performers at the Theree Choirs Festival at Hereford, interestingly programmed alongside Debussy's La Mer, and with Sea Drift later in the week. Other works will be included in the Cheltenham Festival and a commemorative event at Cheetham's School of Music in Manchester, where a special feature will be a concert in St George’s Hall,Bradford, Delius’ home town.

From Juliet Williams

Werner Güra - Schubert Wigmore Hall

2012-02-02T16:15:00.005Z

Each year, the Wigmore Hall commemorates Franz Schubert with a high profile recital. This year, Werner Güra and Roger Vignoles presented a recital which was a timely reminder of what Lieder performance should be, in an era when opera values increasingly dominate the genre. There always will be more opera fans than Lieder fans, and operatic performance is easier to relate to than the more introverted values of art song, so perhaps in a few years the true art of Lieder will be obliterated.

But Lieder and opera are different genres, with different values. Lieder is a Germanic tradition which has its roots not in entertainment so much as in the communication of ideas closer to philosophy and spirituality. Significantly, many great Lieder singers come from a background in Bach. Lieder is an inward art of contemplation, where the action isn't in a role or external plot but takes place in the soul.

Werner Güra first appeared at the Wigmore Hall many years ago, when William Lyne discovered him through Peter Schreier, Güra's mentor. Superlative recommendations. I remember that concert, when young Güra was so overawed by the formidable reputation of the Wigmore Hall that he tried too hard to please, and didn't put enough of himself into his performance, though one could hear why Schreier and Lyne were so impressed. Lieder is not about pleasing anyone. It's about emotional integrity and finding a way into each song that's uncompromisingly from within. Years later, Güra's vigorous shock of hair has turned grey, but reflects his artistic maturity. Güra and Vignoles chose popular Schubert songs but presented them with intelligence.

Schubert writes so lyrically that's it's easy to miss the depths of irony in his music. The lilting melody in Alinde (D904, 1827) is deceptive. Utter sweetness of tone, which Güra sang with exquisite grace. Schubert respects the poet's device, where the protagonist asks the same question of people he meets, lulling the listener into thinking this is no more than strophic convention. But each answer is evasive. The answer only comes when the protagonist confronts himself. "Von allen Lebend'gen irr ich allein, bang und beklommen". Vignoles's playing captured the idea of piano as lute, but this song is no serenade. Güra doesn't need to exaggerate the twist in the song, other than by shading his voice at the critical word "Da" in the last verse.

In the early Der Fischer (D225, 1815, Goethe) Schubert's rippling notes describe the sparkling surface of the waters by which the fisherman sits, waiting for a catch. Then a watersprite emerges, scolding him for not respecting her realm. When the rippling melody begins again, Güra lowers his voice so you can "hear" the fisherman, willingly being drawn into the waters and what they symbolize. Again and again, this is a theme in Romantic poetry, which Schubert understands so well : waters as metaphor for the unconscious, for creative renewal beneath surface glitter.

Goethe was Schubert's favourite poet but he set almost as many poems by Johann Mayrhofer, Schubert's strange, difficult friend. Der Schiffer (D536, ?1817) shows another aspect of Mayrhofer's style. This time, the boatman is sailing through a storm, but he's defiant, though soaked to the bone, alert to the dangers of whirlpool and reef. Vignoles evokes the waves vividly, so Güra's voice rises confidently above the tumult. "Ich hasse ein Leben behaglich entrollt", he sings (I hate a snuggly enfolding life) and later sings with firm resolve, "Dem Sturme zu trotzen mit männlicher brust" (to brave the storm with a manly heart).

Der Wanderer (D493,1816, Georg Schmidt von Lübeck) is one of the most iconic Lieder of all. The wanderer is an existential loner. "Ich bin ein Fremdling überall". Psychic emptiness evoked in the dark opening chords, then searching, straining legato. "Wo bist du, wo bist du, mein geliebtes Land?" Güra sang the changing moods with heartfelt sincerity. That floating "immer wo" ! There are many superlative performancs of this song, but this ranked with the best, for Güra expressed the devastating inner landscape so well. "Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück!". (there, where you are not, is happiness). Nothing theatrical, but tinged with the dignified pain of experience.

Schubert was one of the first composers to discover Heinrich Heine, and Heine's ironies inspired some of his finest work. Güra and Vignoles surpassed themelves in the Heine Lieder from Schwanengesang (D957, 1828). Heine's Fischermädchen turns the fisherman/nature spirit concept upside down. Perhaps this time the fisherwoman is discovering sensual delights. The charm of the song lies in its purity which Güra sang with genial warmth. Die Stadt was luminously beautiful, yet chilling, for the vision the poet sees is surreal. What waters are those he's sailing? Where is he heading? Schubert's setting is nebulous, as if sea and horizon are blurred, as is memory. Güra and Vignoles captured the emotional heart of this song, so nebulous and ambiguous it could almost have been written today.

Big, dramatic songs like Der Atlas and Der Doppelgänger lend themselves to overstatement, and heavy voices need exaggeration to kick them into life, but that doesn't mean it's idiomatic. The true horror in these songs, which lies in their psychological truth. Der Doppelgänger isn't a character, he's a vampire only in spirit. "Still ist die Nacht" sang Güra, sibilants sharply sinister, consonants cutting. Stillness is fundamental to this song, whose interpretation depends on senstive observation. Güra's voice curls menacingly, to emphasize the protagonist's psychic dislocation. Güra shapes the climaxes so they feel like stifled cries of agony, too awful to face. Hence the fragementing personality, and the significance of the pauses between notes, which Vignoles brought out so well. Schubert's insight is amazing. Only the shallow hear shallow in Schubert. Güra spits out the words "Du, Doppelgänger!" as if confronting the apparition, "du bleicher Geselle!". But it's the final line that really counts, whispered almost sotto voce, "so manche Nacht, in alter Zeit". With subtle tenderness, Güra reminded us that the protagonist once had a human past:, so its annihilation is all the more terrifying.

Werner Güra's new recording of Schubert songs, Wilkommen und Abschied, with fortepianist Christoph Berner is out soon. Review to follow. More on Lieder and Schubert songs on this site than almost any other.

Bacchus et Ariane

2012-02-02T01:09:00.003Z

What happened to Ariadne after she helped Theseus get away from Crete afer killing her brother The Minotaur? Last chance to hear Albert Roussel's ballet Bacchus et Ariane free, online on BBC Radio 3. Ariadne's stuck on yet another island, Naxos this time, but along comes Bacchus, God of Wine and excess. With alcohol, Ariadne's frigidity dissolves and a kiss from Bacchus makes her immortal.

The music pulsates, with stamping "footprints" . Do they evoke sexual frustration, impatience or sheer physical exhiliration? They're ideal for dancing too. The ballet was choreographed and danced by Serge Lifar in 1930, so perhaps the echoes of The Rite of Spring and L'après-midi d'un faune are deliberate in-jokes. Sets were designed by Georges de Chirico, whose painting of the sleeping.Ariadne is shown here. De Chirico's angles, unnatural lighting and surreal use of space create a curious sense of movement even though the subject is frozen immobile. Modernist art, modernist, modernist music, yet full of life and feeling.

Wagner Rienzi in New York

2012-02-01T20:00:00.003Z

Wagner's Rienzi didn'tr seem to go down too well in New York. Was it the performance? The audience (many of whom weren't specialists)? Or was it the work itself? John Yohalem writes in Opera Today "For the first hour or so of the latest Opera Orchestra of New York venture, a concert performance of Wagner’s Rienzi, I often said to myself, This…isn’t so terrible." . More HERE. (also read about a more successful Deutsche-Oper, Berlin production HERE) That was a superb performance -Torsten Kerl, Camilla Nylund and strong cast. The production was Philip Stölzl - exceptional insights that lift the impact of the opera. It's been 20 plus years since I've read John Deathridge's book on Rienzi and can't remember much, but the Berlin production takes the opera on its own merits and turns it into good theatre. Ultimately, that's what really counts, not what cuts are made etc (most people wouldn't know anyway). For Wagner this was early srteps, and for thatb reason, Rienzi is worthwhil ebecause it shows how his mind, even at this stage is working on ideas that would develop more tightly later. The significance is that he's dealing with Italianate ideas, though many times removed from source. The text was Bulwer Lytton, not authentic Italian, and it's nonsense that Rienzi is "Nazi".

Depths of Der Gondelfahrer - Schubert's soul

2012-01-31T02:25:00.009Z

Today is Schubert's Birthday, but instead of the usual favourites, I'll write about Der Gondelfahrer because it sheds light on Schubert's values. Ostensibly it's a nocturne, set in exotic Venice. Es tanzen Mond und Sterne, Den flücht'gen Geisterreih'n. But don't be fooled. Already, Geister are afoot.

The poet is Johann Baptist Mayrhofer, a complex man, crippled by morbid thoughts and self hate. A contemporary who knew both Schubert and Mayrhofer described the latter as "always ailing, of sickly complexion, bony but with an abnormal nervous system, totally without elasticity, rigid, icy cold. Also, in his poetry : elegaic, misanthropic, rancorous, scolding, sarcastic, symbolically-inclined.....his existence and works were a perpetual frenzied struggle of matter and soul, consumed by tragic fluctuation."

Mayrhofer's career was torturous. He trained as priest, became a lawyer but ended up working for the Imperial Censor, which in Metternich's time was the equivalent of a paranoid police state. Since most of Schubert's circle were politically liberal and religiously lax, such work accentuated Mayrhofer's self-critical doubts. Mayrhofer reflects the dark side of Romanticism, with its "Gothic" fixations on gloom and evil. He drowned himself in 1836 but his life seems to have been one long death wish. We don't know why Schubert suddenly dropped Mayrhofer but he can't have been great company, even for Romantics.

So be alert. The poem goes on: Wer wird von Erdensorgen Befangen immer sein! Du kannst in Mondesstrahlen, (who would by earthly agonies be forever trapped? But Du kannst in Mondesstrahlen (you can sparkle in the moonlight) and on the boat alle Schranken los (all restraints gone). But is this an escapist fantasy? Wiegt dich des Meeres Schoss. Vom Markusturme tönte der spruch der Mitternacht (Cradle yourself in the ocean's womb. From St Mark's Tower tolls the sound of midnight). Longing to return to a time before life, ordained by the dark tolling bells which represent Church and State. Since Venice was occupied by Austria, the political undercurrents are obvious.

Sie schlummern friedlich alle, Und nur der Schiffer wacht. Everyone's sleeping peacefully, except the boatman who is on watch. Who is this boatman? Schubert writes lilting, charming bacarolle, to create the image of gentle waves. By why would a gondolier be awake when all the customers lie in bed? This Gondelfahrer's trips cross Lethe not lagoon. He's always alert for the next customer, who might yet be blissfully unaware. Mayrhofer, for all his personal agonies, was an excellent poet, with a surreal vision that's almost 20th century. If only he'd liked himself more, but OTOH he wasn't a self-satisfied prig. Significantly, after Schubert split from Mayrhofer, he was one of the first composers to embrace Heinrich Heine.

So to Schubert's two setting of the poem. The first D808 for high voice and piano plays along with the surface image of Venice and moonlight. Yet no Romantic would fail to twitch at the discrepancy between outward appearances and inner meaning. This is no lullaby, it's a reminder of the presence of Death. As if to emphasize the disconnect, Schubert's second setting, D809 for male quartet, employs a more vigorous jaunty rhythm. Don't take Schubert at face value. Quite possibly the idea of using male voices is to stress the falsity of butch bonhomie. The piano part is sturdy, like a march so fast it can't be sustained too long. The pace is rigid, unrelentless, until the bellrings, when the piano takes on a cruel, metallic tone. No "womb" here. It's midnight, and the ghosts are prowling, dancing in rows, like the moon and stars. The voices sing decorative rounds, intertwining melodically, but we know from the poem and from the piano, that it's illusion. The Gondelfahrer will get everyone in the end. The version below is the finest of all because it pits solo pianist (Wolfgang Sawallisch) against a small enough group of singers so their jolly, dance-like interweavings shine brightly. Indeed, the cheerfulness seems almost demented once we know what the song is really about. That's the whole idea. Recognize the voices in Capella Bavariae? Peter Schreier and Fischer Dieskau included.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra Ligeti series

2012-01-30T15:08:00.003Z

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra under their youthful and highly talented Principal Conductor, Robin Ticciati,are performing a mini-series of Ligeti this January, with concert performances repeated in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Ligeti is perhaps most widely known for his large-scale works from the1960s such as Requiem and Lux Aeterna as these are used in the soundtracks of Stanley Kubrick's films, most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey. His work for solo piano has also been popularised, albeit perhaps to a more specialist audience though its advocacy by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who was to join the SCO later this week. Please read review here. The focus of these particular Ligeti performances is to champion not only the composer himself, who is arguably underappreciated. This gives the listener the opportunity to broaden their appreciation of this composer's chamber output. The forthcoming performance is of that composer's Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments; last Saturday's performance (Queen's Hall, Edinburgh) featured the 1999 Hamburg Concerto for horn.

This remarkable work consists of a series of 14 very short movements over 15 minutes' total duration, in a wide range of styles. It uses natural harmonics between the solo horn and a quartet of four natural (valveless) horns in the orchestra, giving 'dirty' harmonies which create the very characteristic sound which distinguishes Ligeti's larger works. It has their distinctive sound, whilst also having the compact succinctness of the piano etudes.

It was a night of young high fliers as the evening's soloist, Principal Horn Alec Frank-Gemmill, who already has a string of recordings to his name, is only 26 years of age. He and Robin Ticciati had an obvious rapport which made their skilful performance of this challenging work all the more enjoyable. Further information about the work is given on the orchestra's helpful and informative website where both conductor and soloist give their views on it.

The quality of the orchestra's sound, which was crisp and clear in Edinburgh's Queen's Hall, was apparent from the outset and the opening Kodaly showcased their talents and those of their principal conductor. Brass and flutes particularly shone in this opening work. The multi-talented Ticciati, who also plays violin, percussion and piano was encouraged to conduct and learnt from both Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davis. Remembering as I do (very fondly) the CBSO's tours to London, this conductor easily reminds me of a young Simon Rattle. He has increased both the standard and the repertoire of this orchestra and this is an ambitious programme for him to offer. Ligeti, although he emigrated to the West, was born in Transylvania on the borders of what are now Romania and Hungary. He attended the Budapest Conservatory, where he met and developed a friendship with Kurtag. The concert's programming, subtitled From the Steppes of Central Europe placed his music alongside that of fellow Central Europeans Kodaly (an early influence on Ligeti), whose Dances of Galanta opened the concert and Dvorak, whose Fifth Symphony formed its second half. This enabled the listener to place Ligeti's music in a context of time and place and to see its occasional common ground as well as its obvious differences. For more, see here.

By Juliet Williams

Ligeti in Scotland - Scottish Chamber Orchestra

2012-01-29T23:28:00.004Z

Juliet Williams writes from Edinburgh : Last night saw the second in this concert series, this time in Edinburgh's magnificent and acoustically excellent Usher Hall. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was sadly indisposed due to a hand injury and Tom Poster admirably stepped in to replace him at short notice, and gave a thoroughly enjoyable performance of the second Brahms concerto. Mr Poster was given a generous welcome by an appreciative audience. Poster is a winner of the Scottish International Piano Competition (in 2007) and has toured with the SCO and Robin Ticciati performing Ligeti's demanding and virtuostic concerto. There was clearly a good rapport between orchestra, soloist and conductor.

One of the pleasures of this happy and serene work is its almost chamber-music like equality between orchestra and soloist and here the orchestra gave a very good account of the work, again under Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati, especially the famous scherzo in the second movement. (Brahms said of this work that he had written, “quite a little tender piano concerto with quite a little tender scherzo”.)

The Ligeti piece featured in this second concert of the mini-series, "Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments*, dates from 1970 and represents a transition between the evolution of his first mature style in the 1960s, giving rise to the better- known large scale works such as *Lux Aeterna, *and the greater use of melody which came to characterise his later works, such as the *Hamburg Concerto* featured on Saturday and played so well then by Alec Frank-Gemmill.

This *Concerto* has a four-movement structure (like the Brahms concerto which followed it): an initial opening with layers of texture unfolding from the woodwind; a second movement which is very slow and a fourth movement which is very fast. These are separated by a remarkable third movement with the rubric “preciso e meccanico”, inspired by clocks and machines gradually going wrong. The same precision of approach demonstrated by the orchestra in the earlier perfomance on Saturday served them very well here, and produced an excellent performance of this very challenging work. Although there was a generally high standard of playing, commendation is deserved in particular by the pianist, who at one point has the instruction, 'hammering like a madman', and the trombone, which has a strident melody bursting from the delicate sound textures hitherto to conclude the first movement.

This ambitious programming and consistently high standard of performance across a very varied repertoire is making the SCO an exciting ensemble to follow. More about the Scottish Chamber Orchestra here - their rare appearances iin London are greatly appreciated. For more on the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Ligeti season please see HERE,

Jurowski 's case for Prokofiev proved?

2012-01-29T04:23:00.009Z

In this Prokofiev - man of the people? season at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski has been examining Prokofiev's career after his return to the Soviet Union, placing his later music in context. On 28/1/12, he presented two rarities, one a premiere, focussing on Prokofiev as dramatist. It was a winner. Thrilling music, but also an indication of what the composer might have meant about reaching the people.

Popular art need not be populist. Film was a revolutionary art form because it reached the masses, even those who didn't realize that what they were watching was "art". Eisenstein was an artist, but used mass media to get his messages across. What better way for a man like Prokofiev to use his art to reach millions who might never enter a formal concert hall? In the west, people are perplexed that anyone should leave "freedom" for Communism, but at the time, many intellectuals were idealistic. Stalin was the price they had to pay. Similarly, many Chinese intellectuals returned to China when the country was in need. It was moral imperative, and then the Cultural Revolution.. Maybe it's just not a concept everyone for themselves societies can grasp, but it's not without honour.

"I serve Russia, not myself" to paraphrase Ivan the Terrible in Eisenstein's masterpiece, with score by Prokofiev. The Tsar's primary duty is to serve the people, even if he's bloodthisrty and immoral. Although Soviet censors may have balked at Ivan the Terrible Part II, it doesn't show the tsar as villain so much as an individual motivated by ideals, although he's become twisted with power and intrigue. Curiously, Ivan is an artist, a "man of the people" in his own way.

The world premiere tonight was Levon Atomyan's 1961 version of Prokofiev's score for Ivan The Terrible , condensed into less than an hour. It was approved by the Union of Soviet Composers (one judge being Shostakovich), but Atomyan had a stroke and the work remained in his archive. Although there is another arrangement, by the conductor Abram Stasevich, who recorded the original sound track, Atomyan was a close friend of Prokofiev and influenced his return to Russia.

Atomyan's arragement doesn't follow the narrative in the film, but reshapes the soundtrack in symphonic form in seven movements. While we hear the magnificence which represenst Russian glory, what comes over more prominently is a gentler. more human Ivan.. After the belligerance of the first section, there's a folk song about a beaver who is hunted down for his pelt. Folk melody, perhaps, but brutal. Prokofiev wanted the singer,to sound "as senile as possible, as though holding a cigarette between the lips, as though through a comb", I wouldn't say that was what Ewa Podleś sounded like, for at 60, her voice is still naturally warm and rich, It's the song Yefrovsinya, the Tsar's aunt later sings to her own son, as she plots the Tsar's downfall.

The song of the Oprichniks, the Oprichnina appears in full in the seond part of the film, but its savage pulsating staccato occurs throughout the soundtrack, In this arrangement it's the third segment, enmphasing the primitive power of Ivan's terrifying hitmen. Andrey Breus sang the baritone part, supported by the male voices of the London Philharmonic Choir. One should feel fear and revulsion. but the music is so infectious, you're almost drawn into it, which is rather worrying. But then, that's what mobs are like.

The 4th and 5th movements describe Ivan's marraige to Anastasia, the "swan", whose beauty and purity stand in contrast to the intrigue around them. Would he have turned out differently if she hadn't been murdered? The film links the poisoning of Anastasia to the murder of Ivan's mother, which made the young boy determined to be strong. Atomyan adds Ocean Song for contralto and orchestra, which doesn't appear in the film, but fits the story well, and connects to the song Yefrosinya sings to her son. A vivid depiection of the attack on Kazan, complete with cannons, and the chorus singing a hymn to Russian glory. The gory elements in the film are played down, the orchestration emphasizing quirky good humour. Eisenstein, Prokofiev and Stalin were all dead by 1958, when Ivan the Terrible Part II was unbanned, but the ideas were still dangerous. Atomyan's finale, the Magnifcation for chorus and orchestra, is straightforward glory on Russian themes. It's a watering down of the original for practical/political reasons, but is rousing and entertaining. Populism rather than art.

Atomyan's mediocrity makes one all the more appreciate the courage and artistic integrity of Eisenstein and Prokofiev. Fabulously lively playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Jurowski made his point, with glory!

Simon Callow and Miranda Richardson narrated Prokofiev's Incidental Music to Egyptian Nights. This was an experimental theatre project, directed by Alexander Tairov in 1934, before Prokofiev made his final committment to return to the Soviet Union. Tairov mixed passages from Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw and Pushkin to create a story that covered Cleopatra's life from youth to death. Prokofiev's score runs to 44 numbers, played with verve by the LPO. But all attention was on Callow, who created one figure after another - Julius Caesar as old rake, Caesar as ruler and betrayer, Mark Antony and the Irish-accented fig seller who brings Cleopatra the asp. Callow was wonderful - no stilted RADAisms that some actors might use, but warm, natural, imposing and funny by turns. The script's clunky, but Callow saved it. Richardson's Cleopatra was fun too, though her part's more safe. Although the piece runs for exactly the same time as Ivan The Terrible, the strange hybrid form tends to drag and confuse. But the point is that Prokofiev realized it was "experimental" even as Stalin's purges were kicking in.

Excellent booklet notes. I wish I'd beem to more in this Prokofiev - man of the people? series. Can't wait til Simon Morrison's book on Lina Prokofiev is published later this year. Lina was the one who really sacrificed herself for Russia. Please see my other posts on early art film, music for film, political film, suppressed composers etc.

Пир Ивана Грозного

2012-01-28T14:56:00.002Z

Пир Ивана Грозного - the Dance of the Oprochniks from Sergei Eisensteins' Ivan The Terrible Part 2, music by Sergei Prokofiev. This is a crucial scene. The Tsar, long driven mad by conspiracies around him, is locked in a struggle with his aunt and the boyars. The Oprochniks are his personal henchmen "Tied to him by blood". But as Ivan says, so is his formidable aunt, whom he admires for whacking his men with her staff when they confronted her. The film is stark black and white, to heighten the extreme contrast, and evoke the Tsar's possibly schizoid paranoia. It also means sinister, creeping shadows, stark contrasts between the luxury of the court and ascetic monks. . Ivan slides snake like through maze like corridors, his beard pointing forward, his cloak leaving a wake of menace. Ludicrously stylized shots, but which have purpose : no one acts independently in this world til the director cries "Action" and the actors suddenly stiffen into pose, eyes dilated, hypnotized by fear. There's a masque about fiery angels whom Nebuchadnezzar of the Chaldees could not burn in his furnace. (a pun on Prokofiev's Fiery Angel?) God will prevail over evil rulers. Ivan knows there's a plot to assassinate him so he invites his cousin Vladimir to a party and gets him drunk. Suddenly the film turns into colour. Early technology means the film bleeds red, which is rather appropriate. The Oprochniks dance and sing. Note the "female" mask and outfit. Something terrible is about to happen.

Luigi Dallapiccola Il Prigioniero Salonen South Bank

2012-01-27T04:02:00.015Z

At last, Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero came to the South Bank. How happy Esa-Pekka Salonen must be that he returned to London, where he has a top orchestra in the Philharmonia, who relish exploring new repertoire, and audiences who appreciate what they can do. Il prigioniero is the latest adventure in a series of ground-breaking performances like Gurrelieder, Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony and the Bartók year.

Programming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with Dallapiccola was perceptive. Il prigioniero could be Fidelio with bite. As the inmates at Guantanamo Bay can tell us, happy endings don't happen. However, the Philharmonia put so much effort into Dallapiccola that Beethoven managed to fall flat. Nonetheless we can hear Beethoven any time and can always grab a good CD. Il prigioniero needs to be experienced live.

The Royal Festival Hall was shrouded in atmospheric darkness. (Semi staging by David Edwards, Lighting by David Holmes)The savage, angular opening chords of the Prologue lacerated. When Dallapiccola was writing, most of Europe was one big political prison. No cross-dressing wife, inexplicably fooling prison guards. Instead, a mother wailing at the all powerful Grand Inquisitor, whose head transforms into a skull. No false hopes. Above the stage, a choir sings, and the RFH organ booms menacingly. The Inquisitor holds the reins of Church and State (the setting is the revolt of the Spanish Netherlands). The prisoner sings graphically about suffering - iron and fire, fear of sleep and fear of being awake. He's no Florestan, but an ordinary, terrified man. A warden offers hope. He carries a lighted candle, he calls the prisoner "Fratello" (brother) and tells him about uprisings in Ghent and other cities. The warden sings of a giant bell ringing for freedom, which gives Dallapiccola a chance to write a fugue-like section, full orchestra and organ in full throttle. For a moment the prisoner feels like a hero. Somehow he crawls out of the dungeon and feels fresh air, and thinks of distant mountains. But it's a cynical trap. The prisoner and his fellows are burned at the stake. The cruellest torture is the illusion of hope.

Il prigioniero isn't easy to stage, for it's effectively a one-man opera, with the mother and warden fulfilling limited parts. It's not a chamber opera, either, for the orchestral forces are vast. Indeed, I doubt that full staging would add anything the imagination can't suggest. Lauri Vasar sang the prisoner very effectively, nice ringing tone with just enough desperation at the edges. Paoletta Marrocu sang his mother, veiled in black, gesturing like a figure in a Greek chorus. The Warders/priests were sung by Peter Hoare, Brian Galliford and Francisco Javier Borda. Yet Il prigioniero isn't really a "singing" opera so much as a symphonic work with voices and storyline. Not so different from Fidelio, after all. The performance was vividly dramatic, Salonen firmly keeping the pace with lethal intensity. Moments of wildness leap out from the dark textures, like the fragile candle that brought the prisoner hope. In this opera, the orchestral players are protagonists, and here the members of the Philharmonia were "singing" with individuality and verve.

Generic programme notes are worthless now anyone can search on Wikipedia. Fortunately, Misha Donat's programme notes are superb, informative and filled with the kind of insight that comes from genuine knowledge and experience. Notes like this serve a purpose other than to fill space. Donat describes Dallapiccola's use of dodecaphony, showing that twelve tone series and emotional truth are by no means incompatible. He also recounts the episode when Schoenberg visited Florence in 1924. Most people couldn't get his music at all. As Alban Berg said in 1933, "In Italy they are just discovering Richard Strauss". Two men in the audience, however, were fascinated. One was 20 year old Dallapiccola. The other, a terminally ill Giacomo Puccini, who'd driven 50 miles to get there. Perhaps Il Prigioniero links to Tosca, of all things. It's exactly what happened to Cavaradossi, but Tosca hogs attention. NOW we know whty Salonen was so good in Dallapiccola (apart from the fact he studied the composer in his youth) There's a new recording of Il prigioniero where Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony, LINK HERE

Paavo Berglund has died

2012-01-26T14:27:00.001Z

Kapellimestari Paavo Berglund on kuollut - headlines in Finland. Paavo Berglund has died, 25/1/12, aged 82. Berglund was an extremely important figure in modern Sibelius performance practice. Indeed, I'd suggest, one of the seminal Sibelius conductors of our time. Not comfortable, not romantic, Berglund's Sibelius was elemental and uncompormising. If Adorno had heard Berglund, he might have been converted. Nor was Berglund a man to take things for granted. His second recording of Kullervo, made several years after the score was rediscovered, shows even deeper penetration into the wildness of the piece. Perhaps one of the reasons it was quietly put aside in the first place was because it was so savage, but it held a place in Sibelius's heart. Below, a clip from Berglund's legendary Bournemouth years:

Wolfgang Rihm at 60 - London Sinfonietta

2012-01-26T03:58:00.009Z

Eager anticipation for the London Sinfonietta's Wolfgang Rihm at 60 concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Part of the disappointment was that it wasn't really "Rihm at 60" but a revisting of earlier works. That's not necessarily a minus since Rihm himself loves revisiting familiar work from a wildly new perspective.

Rihm's Nach-Schrift (Eine Chiffre für Ensemble (2004) is an outgrowth from the extensive Chiffre-Zyklus (recording here) written during the course of the 1980's. Chiffre means "cipher", so part of the fun is trying to discern how ideas disguise themselves. Score-studier's paradise. But Rihm himself is a natural anarchist, not a pedant. What's striking about his music is its joyous energy and vigour. In Nach-Schrift, (postscript), do we hear the sound of rushing footsteps in that merry ostinato? It's as if the music were playing hide and seek, teasing us with patterns that seem to repeat but suddenly whisk themselves away when we grasp them. The xylophone keeps things light hearted, despite dense textures. Bright, strident trumpets and giant contrabass trombone. Low murmuring contrabassoon and clarinet, like mysterious voices of darkness.

Will Sound More Again (2011) (an outgrowth of Will Sound, 2005), comes seven years on from Nach-Schrift, and is much more densely orchestrated. Very firm structure, weighted down with tuba, contrabassoon, the winds extended by two cheeky saxophones. This time there's a sense of churning and turning, ideas reverberating in concentric waves. This time there's a new figure in the landscape, struggling against the orchestra. Andrew Zolinsky let the piano taunt and trick, bright, lyrical lines bursting forth with joyous freedom. The orchestra's trying to encircle him but he won't be bound. The title? "Something will sound because it wants to", says Rihm in the notes. "The composer obeys the will and the development and notates the spaces in between". Sometimes it flows undergound, but its trajectory and life-force are not submerged.

Rihm's Ricercare in memoriam Luigi Nono (1990) references Nono's ideas on spatial relationships. The small orchestra is arranged in a semi circle, the usual instrument groups separated, with gaps between, and two percussion desks at each end. Elegant directional flow, high pitched sounds stretching upwards and outwards. Not vintage Rihm, but useful as a reminder of what he - and we - owe Luigi Nono for his concept of music as invisible architecture.

This puts Rebecca Saunders Quartet (1997-8) into context, for Saunders is a master of music as sculptural form. She was one of Rihm's early students but early on developed a totally distinctive, unique style. Her music is almost tactile, as if the notes are tracing curves like fingers exploring their way around an invisble shape by instinct. Quartet is scored for an unusual combination of accordion, bass clarinet, piano and double bass so there's much more than the usual communal listening that makes chamber music so rewarding. The accordion is an ideal instrument for Saunders, as it's like the human body, breathing in and out through "lungs". Saunders's music has a deeply organic pulse, as if she's describing a body at sleep, anchored with a steady heartbeat, but drifting in subconscious dreams. At times the accordion made sounds so ethereal they seemed to come from inside the psyche. Quartet rotates and turns, not like Rihm's churnings, but more intimate and meditative. Indeed, Saunders's music is more spiritually gratifying. once you understand where she's at. She's highly respected in her own right apart from the Rihm connection and has been a regular at the Proms and at Huddersfield.

Jörg Widmann, a much later Rihm pupil, has a high profile because he and his sister, the immensely talented violinist Caroline Widmann, have spent a lot of time in London and are well connected. The South Bank and Wigmore Hall have done a lot for Widmann, whose music fills a niche for audiences not yet ready for Rihm and Saunders. Dubairische Tänze (2009) is a series of 8 unconnected pieces over 18 minutes. A parody of Viennese waltz, of polka, of Bavarian oompah band, then novelty items like two basins of water being splashed about. A new kind of percussion but one that outstays its welcome within seconds. Perhaps there's a Rihm influence in the madcap mayhem of the later segments but they came over more as soundtracks for cartoons. Unusual audience.There were well known composers and musicians present, but also some who probably don't go out much. One woman read a newspaper throughout the concert, while another spent the whole evening playing games on an iPad. Perhaps that accounted for the response - wildly enthusiastic applause and muttered murmurings.

Although I love the London Sinfonietta and once had an unbroken run of every single concert for five years, they didn't sound much like themselves this evening. Even though I wasn't listening from score (often the sign of a Beckmesser) some entries felt wrong and the overall dynamics somewhat muffled. Thierry Fischer, longtime conductor of the BBCNOW in Wales, has a strong interest in modern music but his approach seemed more suited to large ensemble than tight, small scale detail.

Lots about Rihm and Saunders on this site, please search. Rihm was the subject of a Barbican Total Immersion two years ago, which I wrote about here. .

Delius Royal Festival Hall Sunday

2012-01-25T22:25:00.002Z

Sunday 29th January for Delius at the South Bank, with an important AFTERNOON concert at the Royal Festival Hall, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis. Julian Lloyd Webber will play Delius's Cello Concerto, which I always associate with Jacqueline du Pré, though Lloyd Webber loves it dearly and is its current high profile champion. Heavy competition: Ralph Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending, one of the most sublime pieces of music ever, indescribably alluring. Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, soloist.

Delius is also up against Edward Elgar, the Enigma Variations with its expansive sweep of invention. Interesting contrast with Delius Brigg Fair - an English Rhapsody. That's based on a fragment of an old folk tune sung by Josph Taylor to Percy Grainger at Brigg in Lincolnshire around 1906. The recording lasts only 30 seconds and is grainy, given that it was recorded live in the field, using the technology of the time. Grainger made an arrangement of it which was a great success. Taylor was taken to London to hear Grainger's version in 1910 and is said to have said, "that's my song?" (For more, read Georgina Boyes The Imagined Village, revised and reissued in 2010). Delius's Brigg Fair makes no pretensions. It's a lyrical fantasy on the spirit of Englishness, very much in keeping with what he learned from Edvard Grieg and the idea of Norway.

Whatever Englishness may be, for Delius was thoroughly international. His contact with rural English yokels was limited: quite possibly he was more intimate with black Americans (there's a rumour that he had a mixed race daughter). The painting above was by his German wife Jelka, done in their home in France. But Beecham's passionate promotion created Delius as "English" and that's how we've come to hear him. Delius and Debussy were born the same year, 1862, both will be having anniversaries. It would be fascinating to hear Delius compared to Debussy. There's a new recording of Delius piano music (Paul Guinery) which will be reviewed here. It's part of a major traverse around Delius rarities by Stone Records. The complete Delius Songbook (piano and voice) is reviewed HERE and HERE. Me? I'm going to the very important Lieder recital at the Wigmore Hall at exactly the same time, Sunday, but might find a way to get both concerts covered. Keep reading!

Sergei Polunin, wise counsel

2012-01-25T13:39:00.005Z

Shock news of Sergei Polunin's resignation from the Royal Ballet emerged yesterday afternoon, though his final tweets indicate something was on his mind. I have an expensive ticket for the Dream on 1/2, Only two dancers, so without him, can the show go on in quite the same way? On the other hand, the ballet world is completely unnatural. Dancers are hothoused from childhood, because it's the only way to hone them like racehorses. Or turkeys for Xmas. Their shelf life is maximum aged 35, so they are almost programmed to burn out. If animals were treated like dancers, the industry would have been banned long ago. I cannot blame Polunin but respect him for protesting.

Trouble is, a dancer's best years coincide with the time when normal prople are finding themselves as human beings. They're athletes, so they are drilled into constant training. They can't do kid things like go on benders or laze about, or make mistakes like everyone. Maybe sports stars get away with it because sports has street cred, and everyone "knows"sportsmen are buffoons. But a dancer inherits the burden of posterity. He or she has to live up to a tradition of artistic excellence.

In theory, dancers might think in terms of sacrificing their youth so they can look forward to a decent life afterwards. But only the very, very few make enough money for a comfortable retirement (aged 35?).In reality most have wrecked their bodies, which limits job prospects and lifestyle. Other people just don't understand when a young-looking person is crippled by muscle and joint pain. Besides, any decent artist lives for his/her art, so when that's gone, it's horribly frustrating. And every dancer, even at the top, knows it doesn't last.

So Polunin's right, even though his timing isn't. The Royal Ballet is being pretty gracious about the disruption, which is judicious because Polunin is still so young. Artists have temperament, they often don't think strategically, all the more reason they need wise counsel around them. At 21, most people don't know what they want to do, so Polunin's normal. Who hasn't made dramatic decisions regretted in maturity? At least he knows there's something odd about the lifestyle. Those thousands of little girls in pink tutus, pushed by their mothers into Barbie-doll mode, continue to act out the fantasy especially if they don't go on to face the reality of a dancer's life. More power Sergei Polunin, all is not lost yet.

The photo is Nijinsky, L'apres-midi d'un faune. Remember what happened to the faun. And to Nijinsky.

Zum Geburtstag, Friedrich der Große, special concert

2012-01-24T12:24:00.007Z

Happy Birthday, Friedrich der Große! It's Frederick the Great's 300th birthday and even a baroque potentate wouldn't do 300 candles on his cake, especially not someone as ascetic as he was. "Feed it to the horses!" So zum Geburtstag, a special concert of the music Frederick the Great knew, loved and played. That's der alte Fritz himself playing the flute at Sans-Souci in Potsdam.

Click HERE to listen to a the recital online by members of the Berliner Barock Soloisten and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Speakers will read from Friedrich's correspondence with Voltaire, "a unique document of nonchalantly commented contemporary history, full of top-class irony, anecdotes and philosophy.". The programme includes pieces by CPE Bach, Friedrich's court composer Johann Quantz and of course the King's own compositions. He was a virtuoso flautist and wrote many works, many of which are in print and have been recorded (see HERE and Emmauel Pahud HERE) with video clip. "There's a certain weight about the King's music", says Pahud, "that the courtiers don't have". Would that heads of state today had Friedrich's education and breadth of experience. Or even the basic mental discipline of art. Tomorrow, I'll celebrate by watching some of the old UFA films about the king, which are actually very good, though the lessons weren't learned by some of those watching them at the time. Please see my other posts on Frederick the Great, like this. and about West Prussia, various posts like THIS.

How to out Nokia a Nokia

2012-01-23T20:31:00.005Z

What to do with idiots who don't switch off their phones? Rage doesn't work. Wit might. Courtesy of good friend and reader, HERE is a link to a recital in the Orthodox Synagogue in Presov in Slovakia. It's not a huge venue and everyone probably knows everyone. Rather than poison the atmosphere, the soloist Lukas Kmit graciously improvises on the Nokia theme tune. Point made. Nokia owner chastened. This is class.

Most people who forget their phones don't do it on purpose. But those who chat, text etc are boors. Worst of all those who liveblog during performances. Liveblogging breaking news is understandable as no-one knows til later how the bits will fit. Performances, however, are interpretation and can't be evaluated til the end when the whole falls into place. Can't people listen without fidgetting? And what sort of friends can they have who rely on tweets instead of real performance. Even if you corrall livebloggers into special areas, the fact remains - attention defict disorder.

The Enchanted Island at the Met - deeper than expected

2012-01-23T05:52:00.007Z

Extravagance is the essence of baroque, but few houses can do spectacles as well as the Met. So when the Met throws its might behind The Enchanted Island, it can create a spectacle worthy of the genre. At last Met technology put to good use - this is baroque as it should be done! William Christie is one of the great baroque specialists, and a guiding force behind Purcell The Fairy Queen at Glyndebourne in 2009. That may have been part of the inspiration for The Enchanted Island, for both take material from various sources and present them as glorious extravaganza. Christie and the Met also use some of the finest singers in the genre.

Perhaps the idea that The Enchanted Island is a "new" opera panics people. But why not? "Pastiche" carries negative connotations now, but didn't in baroque times when recycling was part of what went into theatre. Recordings didn't exist then, so composers were expected to re-use popular melodies so people could enjoy them again. That's also partly why baroque operas adapt similar ideas over and over. Audiences delighted in new ways of hearing old. How many of Vivaldi's operas were all "new" or even all Vivaldi? And how many adaptations of Ariosto and Tasso? The baroque aesthetic blended characters from ancient antiquity and medieval myth in joyous riot. Even Mozart had no qualms about recycling a good tune. So snobbery about this kind of pastiche is misguided. Indeed, I suspect the choices made in The Enchanted Island are wittier than might be expected.

The secret to The Enchanted Island is to take the story as it comes, just as baroque audiences would have done centuries ago. The basic premise is that Prospero has usurped Sycorax on her island, and pushes his weight around. That's why Shakespeare's The Tempest gets banned in Arizona. It's a simile for what happens when indigenous people are colonized by masters from over the seas. Caliban has long been seen as a metaphor for the Third World. Perhaps Shakespeare wasn't political, but there's no reason why a reworking of the premise shouldn't tease out new meaning from an old story. Handel did it all the time, as did many others. William Christie and Jeremy Sams emphasize the anarchy inherent in the plot. Please read what Sams wrote for the British press here.

Prospero (David Daniels) rules the island but Sycorax (Joyce DiDonato) this time fights back, by simply changing dragon's blood for lizard's blood in the spell Prospero sets for getting off the island. Immediately, we know that this retelling of the basic story will be mischief! So Ariel (Danielle de Niese) conjures up a boat. It's the first of many visual special effects which baroque audiences would have gasped at in admiration. Only it's the wrong boat! It's carrying the lovers from A Midsummers Nights Dream, who've already been cast in several guises before. Ariel connects to Puck, Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) to Bottom. Fun is of the essence. More fool those who can't see the humour in The Enchanted Island. In the cinema where I saw it, the audience was chuckling with delight.

Exceptionally good performances from Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) and Luca Pisaroni (Caliban). DiDonato pretty much creates the part on her own, since it's hardly developed elsewhere, but fundamental to the background of the story. DiDonato is magnificent. Her singing ranges from ethereally high textures to animal-like growls. She's a nature spirit, connected to the mysteries in the jungles of her island. She's also an earth mother who loves her son just as much as Prospero loves Admir'd Miranda (Lisette Oropesa, singing in American). Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) is costumed as half gorilla, but with a sensitive side, (he likes flowers). Pisaroni is a natural actor, moving half crouched and intuitively, like an animal, yet his voice expresses deep emotional feelings. In The Tempest, Prospero holds all the cards. In The Enchanted Island, the underdogs Sycorax and Caliban get a fair chance. This time, they're evenly balanced, and the meaning of the plot enhanced. Incidentally, the plot is driven by pe-existing baroque materials - nothing 21st century added. Sorceresses on enchanted islands abound throughout the genre.

Then, one of the most magnificent coups de théâtre in recent memory. Ariel calls on the God Neptune nd suddenly he arises from the ocean, surrounded by four mermaids, suspended from the roof. It's an image straight out of baroque fantasy, the sort of scene baroque artists used to paint, except this time it's done with modern stage techniques baroque stage designers could only dream of. It's fantastic in the true, baroque meaning of the word, totally artificial and gloriously splendid at the same time. Some of the chorus fill the foreground, others as singing heads in a backdrop that could come right out of an 18th century painted flat. Since when did Gods rise up out of the sea, except in the imagination? And part of the baroque aesthetic is to push the boundaries of imagination. Only a house like the Met can pull scenes like this off so well.

This magnificent scene must have been stunning live, given the gasps from the audience, on screen and in the cinema. But it's absolutely fundamental to the whole concept of the plot. Neptune is the Deus ex machina around whom the resolution pivots. What a wonderful way to make the most of Placido Domingo! He doesn't have to sing much (thankfully) but his acting skills are superb. Again, the anarchic humour in the text. "I'm old, irritable and tired", he sings with a merry grin, "I don't do the high seas". Pun, pun, pun for those who forget he used to be a tenor. It's a measure of Domingo's greatness that he can do acidly witty self parody like this, upstaging the elaborate ostentation around him.

The scene where Pisaroni as Caliban is surrounded by dancers isn't there merely to squeeze in a bit of Rameau but to show how he's "enchanted" by nature spirits half-animal, half-human like himself. It's crucial to the plot because Caliban is trying his hand at magic spells and conjuring a new world, unintended, where things will be more in tune with nature. It won't happen, though, as Prospero won't let it. The proscenuim, which magically transforms throught the evening from dense jungle to baroque fanatsy now turns dark, two glowing orbs like the eyes of a wild animal, the stage like a gigantic mouth swallowing Caliban's dreams. It's time now for Neptune to restore the natural order. In another spectacular scene, Domingo as Neptune conjures up another magnificent boat, complete with the sort of rolling "waves" baroque designers made out of painted horizontal sheets, shaken up and down. At once "traditional" baroque design, with modern technology. At last Ferdinand (Anthony Roth Costanzo) appears. Miranda is saved, and Prospero returned to where he belongs. "Forgive me" he begs Sycorax, and maybe he means it, but our sympathies are with DiDonato's wonderful characterization. But baroque means happy ending, so all join in in standard ensemble, praising new beginnings. Excellent ideas, excellent cast and the Met Orchestra playing idiomatically even though they're using modern instruments (plus harpsichord). The Enchanted Island shows that the Met has huge potential. Had this piece been heard at Glyndebourne, where audiences are receptive to baroque and to innovation, it would have been greeted with the acclaim that The Fairy Queen received. (read more here)

Kung Hei Fat Choy !

2012-01-23T02:40:00.004Z

Kung Hei Fat Choy 恭喜發財, Sun Nien Fai Lok 新年快樂 - Good wishes and Prosperity, Happy New Year. Today is Chinese New year. Today we don't use knives, we live on fruits, candies and nuts. Boxes of clementines with leaves on, red melon seeds, dumplings filled with sugar and black sesame, and eat a soft cake made of glutinous rice called Nien Go. Nowadays these come in all shapes and flavours, the most striking in the shape of two carps, coloured with food colouring red, yellow and white.

Traditionally, fireworks, to scare away the bad vibes of the past. Once, the streets were covered knee high in spent firecracker paper. It's neither safe nor practical so cities mount massive fireworks displays after the main festival day, which is spent with family. The clip above is last year in Hong Kong, bigger and fancier than western new year. 31888 pieces. This display is in 8 parts, each with a different theme and music. One is "I (heart) HK" sung in Mandarin which is significant because that's not the local dialect but national. Another is Placido Domingo, idolized in China. The finale (22.30) is so spectacular that the whole skyline is blitzed out in light and colour, to the 1812 Overture.

How to hate Mozart

2012-01-21T22:46:00.010Z

A season of Mozart's Da Ponte operas at the Royal Opera House started with Don Giovanni. Two casts : Finley, Karnéus, Regazzo or Schrott, Donose, and Esposito (my prefered, I think). For fun, I've been watching the rarely seen Mozart movie, Whom the Gods Love (Basil Dean, 1936).Mozart (played by Stephen Haggard of the Rider Haggard clan) is chatting with a bunch of brain dead bimbos (the Weber family and conveniently, Schikaneder), when they spot a "queer fish". "He looks like a marionette!" squeals Constanze. "Allow me to introduce myself" says the gaunt figure. "I'm Lorenzo da Ponte".

In the next scene Haydn tells Joseph II that Mozart's good. "In that case we shall have him write an opera". The script is based on Constanze's memoirs, coloured as they were by time and vanity. Also, the film was meant as a vehicle for the director's wife, Victoria Hopper. So the emphasis is on Constanze's charms and maipulativeness. One wonders about relationships in the Dean household. Mozart's pretty much in the background, portrayed as an effeminate, stupid child. Mozart was odd, but this film doesn't go into that. When his mother dies he flaps about and postures "Is this Death?", hand raised to his forehead, the frame shot in diagonal, like a parody of art movie. Needless to say, the scenes about the Requiem and the Magic Flute are high camp.

The film isn't very good and isn't commercially available, but it's significant from an educational point of view, and needs to be known. Just as Miloš Forman's Amadeus transformed Mozart and Salieri's public image, many would have taken this earlier film at face value. And it's much better than the portrait of Schubert in Lilac Time, which even Tauber, who appeared in it, thought a joke. That's the nature of movies about composers. They're fiction, not fact. Only the very greatest lift the genre, when they're perceptive about the music and the artistic persona behind it. But many more people see movies than go deeper into the subject. Shallowness sticks. This soundtrack uses clips from Beecham's Mozart and elaborate costumes to give it credibility (especially with 1930's British audiences). But Mozart, it ain't. The answer? Always keep listening, keep learning. Composers, like all human beings, are infinitely complex. Watch the film HERE, it's a public service.

Lots more on this site about music on film, music in movies, documentaries and art film. Some are genuine art, others like The Flying Dutchman meets Carmen and naked Ava Gardner.

Boulez conducts Rameau

2012-01-20T14:48:00.005Z

Boulez conducts Rameau. And why not? I thinik it's interesting because it shows what Boulez is learning from Rameau. Boulez was 40 at the time, well into the Domaines musicales years. Rameau is a good test of structure, precision, and sprightliness. Excellent foundation for most performance. A few years ago, there was a concert where Rameau was on with Mahler 5. Mahler 5 was Kammermusikton, written for the lucidity of chamber like forces. Rameau wrote for elegant, formal dance, full of energy and brightness. Perceptive combination, which enhanced appreciation of both composers. To hear the whole performance, you'll need to sign on and pay but Euro 2.99 is a small price to pay for this perspective.

ENO presents John Cage Musicircus

2012-01-20T00:28:00.008Z

The ENO is the first opera company to present John Cage's legendary Musicircus, for one day only! March 3rd. COMPLETELY FREE !!!! "Cage's idea for the composition was to invite a wide range of musicians and other artists to perform different works simultaneously. Within the limits of a precise structure determined by chance operations this created a unique, exciting and seemingly anarchic sound."

A multitude of people from different walks of life, from Michael Nyman and Led Zeppelin to a botanist from my old college, a Chess Grand Master and someone who plays toy piano. Serendipity, perhaps, but also purposeful, as all were among Cage's interests. Curated by Stephen Montague who worked with Cage for 15 years, it's a multi dimension re-creation of Cage's personality which you absorb as and how you can on different levels. Not so far, conceptually, from how we get to know people. layer by layer.

"The audience is invited to explore an array of performances, installations and experiences, which will create new and unusual relationships and a collision of sound and images." These things do work. I knew of someone who owned a collection of keyboards and had an event where all were played simulateously by different professionals, (no amateurs allowed near these instruments) as if the keyboards were having a conversation, each adding their individual voices. It happened soon after Cage dreamed up Musicircus, so maybe it was influenced by him?

Barbican 2012-13 orchestral

2012-01-19T17:54:00.003Z

Karol Szymanowski everywhere this year! Szymanowski was Poland's "first modernist", a cosmopolitan intellectual and contemporary of Bartók, dismissed by the Communist Party for his aesthetic background. The current Szymanowski revival started in the 1980's with Simon Rattle, who deserves much respect for his support. The Barbican's on the forefront. Boulez is conducting two Szymanowski concerts in May, and in Sept and October Valery Gergiev is conducting Szymanowski with a special study day included. The Barbican schedule suggests two performances of Symphony no 2 which may or may not be correct as Symphony no 3 is the most spectacular. Gergiev is pairing Szymanowski with Brahms throughout, which is interesting. What might that mean? Hearing Szymanowski in context with Scriabin, Stravinsky or other Gergiev favourites might be more stimulating. Jurowski's pairing it with Zemlinsky at the South Bank, and Boulez is doing Szymanowski "pure".

Colin Davis is celebrating his 85th birthday by conducting no less than 12 concerts. Some Davis specialities, like Mozart and Sibelius, some less his regular scene, like Mahler and Britten. Best bet, I think, is the performance version of Elgar's Third, prepared by Anthony Payne on 27/9/12. First heard in 1998.it almost stole the show at the Elgar Centenary Festival in 2007, an outstanding performance (Not Davis but Oramo) with all the big names in Elgar studies gathered. Bernard Haitink returns in February for two Bruckner concerts with the LSO. The LSO makes a brief foray into modern music, first with Daniel Harding in February in a focus on Mark-Anthony Turnage, with a premiere on 7/2/12). Then in April, "LSO Futures week" which basically means François-Xavier Roth conducting Varèse, Coiln Matthews, Boulez, Adams and Stravinsky. He's doing new work by Tansy Davies and Jason Yarde but the LSO hasn't been adventurous for a long time and is getting grey.

The BBCSO programme is very much more exciting. Neeme Järvi is doing Shostakovich 4 on 3/10 and Mark Wigglesworth does Tippett and "The Ring - an orchestrral adventure", arranged by Henk de Vlieger, the Dutch percussionist, which received its Hong Kong premiere in 2008 under Edo de Waart. It tells the whole Ring saga in 50 minutes of orchestral invention. On 18/1/13, Elgar, Haydn and two new Chinese composers. Intriguing titles : Qigang Chen Reflet d’un temps disparu and Raymond Yiu The Londoner Exceedingly Injur’d.

Ilan Volkov pits Schubert on 15/2/13 with a new Schubert-fantasie by Dieter Schnebel and a new work by David Sawer, Flesh and Blood. Sawer's Gold and Straw was a big hit with BCMG/Brabbins,(see my review) so this new piece with Christine Rice and Marcus Farnsworth will be a must.Then, the mercurial Thomas Dausgaard conducts Neilsen 4 on 22/2/13 with Prokofiev and Ernst Bloch's Schelomo, rarely heard but highly regarded. More Tippett in the spring with David Robertson, Alexander Verdernikov, Martyn Brabbins and Andrew Davis - in fact, Tippett spread through the year. Must be an anniversary too. My top pick will be Ingo Metzmacher on 25/5/13 - Shostakovich 11 and Wolfgang Rihm Nähe-Fern-1.

Please also see what I've written on the Barbican's 2012-2013 vocal here and please also see Barbican 2011-2 vocal and Barbican orchestral 2011-2, as 2012 has only just begun! For link, see here.

Barbican 2012 2013 Opera and Vocal

2012-01-18T22:10:00.009Z

Hooray for the Barbican, going for baroque on baroque! The Barbican is ideal - big enough to afford top performers, small enough not to overwhelm the aesthetic. Even though soloists haven't yet been announced, it's likely that Les Talens Lyriques Lully Phaéton, cond. Christophe Rousset on 8/3/13 will be a highlight - just 15 months to go! Another relative rarity - Handel Imeneo on 29/5/13. It's not Blockbuster Handel, but more delicate, and the cast is excellent - Rebecca Bottone, character soprano par excellence who lifts everything she's in. Already I'm looking forward to what Robert Hugill will write about this (read his review of a much less stellar performance).

David Daniels will sing in that and also in Handel Radamisto (10/2/13) with Harry Bicket, English Consort, Luca Pisaroni, Patrica Bardon and Elizabeth Watts - infinitely stronger cast than the ENO staging. Two Les Arts Florissante performances - John Eliot Gardiner conducts Handel Belsahazzar on 13/12/12 and Paul Agnew conducts Monteverdi Madrigals Book 5 on 15/6/13. It's JEG's 75th birthday next March, and he's celebrating by conducting Stravinsky Oedipus Rex.

If baroque don't rock your boat, there's a full Grieg Peer Gynt 15/12/12 with Miah Persson, Ann Hallenberg, Johannes Weisser, BBCSO and BBC Singers and the wonderful Marc Minkowski. Although everyone knows bits of Peer Gynt, hearing it as a whole is extremely rewarding. And just the thought of Miah Persson singing Solvieg's Song gives me goosebumps.

Donizetti's Belisaro (28/10/12) with Mark Elder, BBCSO and an interesting Poulenc Les animaux modèles (26/4/13) with readings and video projections, which can be fine, done well. Stéphane Denève conducts the BBCSO.

Re British opera, you could go for Britten The Turn of the Screw (Andrew Kennedy, Sally Matthews, Colin Davis,16/4/13) but far more unusual would be the Oliver Knussen double bill, Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop! (3/11/12). It's a matinee, because they were inspired by books Knussen's daughter used to read. Although this will be a must for people with kids, it's also a good outing for those who don't have them, since this kind of zany good humour is so Knussenesque. He mostly conducts these days but he's a pretty good composer too.

Wild card: John Adams The Gospel according to the Other Mary, a Barbican co-commission. (16/3/13). Adams can be variable, see Nixon in China, but the subject's very tricky. Gustavo Dudamel's first big, big opera premiere with the LA Phil and Peter Sellars directing. Maybe it will be good, but my gut instincts are that this constellation will bring out fashion victims in force. Two weeks later, Valery Gergiev conducts Szymanowski Stabat Mater and Brahms German Requiem. Will Gergiev bring us back to earth? He has his merits, and could say much in Szymanowski.

Recitals with Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Elina Garanca, Cecelia Bartoli and Magdalena Kozcena.

Tomorrow : Barbican orchestral 2012-3. Please also see Barbican 2011-2 vocal and Barbican orchestral 2011-2, as 2012 has only just begun! For link, see here.

Józef Poniatowski - Pierre de Medicis

2012-01-17T15:23:00.004Z

If the name Poniatowski is familiar, it's because Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763-1813) was one of the great heroes of Polish history. That's his monument in the historic capital, Krakow. Józef Michal Poniatowski (1814-73) was the general's nephew, and grand nephew of King Stanislaus Augustus. Born illegitimate in Italy, Józef Michal became a tenor and composer, who was active in Irtaly and France, though he died in Chislehurst. Tonight after midnight, but available on demand for a week, BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting J M Poniatowski's opera Pierre de Medicis. This is the performance of 23 July 2011 in Krakow, at the Festival of Polish Music in Krakow, the first in modern times.

Cast includes Aleksandra Buczek, whose recording "Poniatowski Rediscovered" came out last year - read more about that HERE. The cover alone looks like fun. Evidently something of a mini-revival as the Krakow Festival also presented Poniatowski 's Missa in F. Below several clips also from the rehearsal of the Krakow performance. Text is in French as the opera was written in France and premiered in 1860.

Intricate Temple

2012-01-17T02:46:00.001Z

Watch this full screen for AMAZING detail. It's the Chan Clan Ancestral Temple in Guangzhou, a magnificent example of Pearl River Delta architecture. Look at the carvings, and the ceramic figures on the roof lintels. The same person behind this has a whole series about the temple, showing different aspects, eg giant demon sculptures, but I specially love the intricate little figures.

Lt. Kijé 1934 full download

2012-01-16T19:41:00.003Z

http://www.archive.org/details/LieutenantKizhe1934Restored

Lieutenant Kizhe (Kijé) aka The Tsar wants to sleep. This is the full movie, directed by Alexander Faintzimmer in 1934, with a score by Sergei Prokofiev. To get English subtitles, press on the tiny CC icon on the right of the screen. Don't worry too much as most of the gags are visual. As long as you know the gist of the story, it's fun. I didn't realize that I was following it in Russian until half way. Note how the dialogue and music are sparsely applied, more like European art film at the time, not like Hollywood scores where the music sometimes overwhelms the action.

Knussen Myaskovsky Goehr Barbican

2012-01-15T21:53:00.015Z

Big publicity for the Prokofiev - man of the people? concert at the South Bank, but the smart money was at the Barbican to hear Prokofiev's contemporary, the rarely heard Nikolay Myaskovsky. Ten years older than Prokofiev, Myaskovsky (1881-1950) knew the brief period when the Soviet Union represented the futurist modernity. A sensitive aesthete with an upper class background, he cloaked himself in inscrutable reticence, which helped him survive the excesses of Stalinism. Oliver Knussen's striking performance of Myaskovsky's 10th Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra showed how much more there is to Myaskovsky than his relative obscurity might suggest.

Myaskovsky's inspiration was Pushkin's story of the Bronze Horseman, where a man, whose lover has died in a terrible flood, rages against fate. The huge bronze statue of Peter the Great comes off its plinth and hunts the man down. Even in Pushkin's time, that could be read as a protest against unfair authority. In 1927, as Stalin was consolidating power, it was shockingly brave of Myaskovsky to choose such a subject.

Furthermore, Oliver Knussen's striking performance brought out the modernist elements in the score much more sharply than Evgeny Svetlanov did in the only readily available recording. One of Knussen's specialities is Futurist music. He underlines the contrast between the "little man" and his beloved, represented by solo violin (Andrew Haveron) and the overwhelming forces against them. Indeed, Myaskovsky was particularly moved by Alexander Benois's illustrations of the story (see above) so Knussen's dynamics carry weight. Rolling waves of brass and timpani vividly evoke the waves of the flood, engulfing the strings, Stark alarums, trumpets screaming anguish. Savage discords that thwack down all opposition. Nothing romantic or populist about this music. Maybe Prokofiev needs to be heard in context with Myaskovsky.

It's Alexander Goehr's 80th birthday this year, honoured by a special BBC commission, When Adam Fell. Numerous composers in the audience, as Goehr is an important figurehead. It's nicely orchestrated. Goehr himself connects it to one of his best known works, The Deluge, using texts by Sergei Eisenstein, evolving like collage in film. Another Prokofiev connection! Knussen, that master of erudite programming must have chuckled. When Adam Fell is lighter and more scintillating, all bright, sparkling sounds, percussion reduced to two desks of marimba and bell-like effects. References, too, to Bach's chorale Durch Adam's Fall ist alles verderbt. (photo Elan Tal)

Goehr studied with Hanns Eisler in East Berlin, who had worked with Schoenberg, as did Goehr's father Walter. Again, Knussen's programming genius came up with Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony no 1, which like Goehr's new work eschews percussion. Full circle, a subtle tribute. Not the usual version this time, but the revison for large orchestra created in 1935 which fleshes out the same basic structure with extra voices. The BBCSO trumpets and horns had a great time, vivacious! One of the joys of the original is its audacious compression, which gets lost with larger forces, but Knussen made it lively and cheerful. Several big names in the audience drifted off after the Goehr piece, but Goehr himself stayed on to listen. Afterwards, his face was lit up with happiness. A good man!

For concision and clarity, though, Niccolò Castiglioni usually surpasses anyone else. Knussen adores him, partly because they have a similar irreverent sense of humour. Castiglioni's music is the perfect antidote to those who think classical music is ponderous and dull, but it isn't performed as often as it should be because it's technically demanding. In another flash of wit, Knussen chose Castiglioni's 1963 Concerto for Orchestra. Again, no timpani. Just as Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie used a small orchestra in big music, Castiglioni uses a big orchestra for music of aphoristic compression. Most of Castiglioni's music is written for soloists or small ensemble, but Concerto is unusual in that it's written for vast forces. Just as Goehr's When Adam Fell quotes from his earlier work The Deluge, Castiglioni's Concerto quotes the first bars of his most famous work Tropi. "Full of light and fantasy and crazy gestures", says Knussen "in an accelerator tunnel ...little fragments which start to multiply". Quick flurries of high pitched sounds, interspersed with silences that Knussen carefully beats out with his baton, so you "hear" the pulse of the work continuing uninterrupted. A very long chord, wavering brass lines, single note interjections from the clarinet, then the whole ensemble storms forward, trumpets blasting like the horn of a train speeding out of control. Silences again, tiny flurries, more clean brass chords, repeated as echoes, and sudden stop. "You know what I'm going to say" said Knussen grinning, because he often reprises works he really loves. Lots more on Castiglioni and Knussen on this site like THIS
LISTEN TO THIS CONCERT on BBC Radio 3 til Friday

Ken Russell - a Bit of a Devil

2012-01-15T00:30:00.013Z

Ken "The Shining" Russell. The documentary "A Bit of the Devil" (watch HERE) was pretty well balanced though a few too many talking heads. Some like Roger Daltrey and Glenda Jackson had constructive things to say. Oliver Reed would have been fascinating but needs a whole film to himself.

Above right, one of my favorites, Ken and Cadaver (a prop) and right, Ken and Shirley, his first wife, whose contribution to the early work was major. Ah, the Zeitgeist of the 70's. Please note, these photos are copyright and used with permission - do not copy !
Lots more on this site about the art of films on music and about making documentaries. Ken was a pioneer. He made films which transcended the original subject and became creative adventures in their own right. The Elgar film, for example got to the heart of what Elgar 's personality and motivations might have been. It doesn't matter whether he rode a horse over the Malverns or not: it was the spirit of freedom it represented. Elgar cycled and hiked for miles, so it's psychologically true. Similarly the last scene, when Elgar's death is suggested by wind blowing through an open window facing the hills. That's poetic licence, much closer to the spirit than faked-up sensation for publicity's sake. Literal and unimaginative films about creative people are stupid. But you can't do imaginative without some inner sense of how people work (not necessarily the subject). That's why I like Christopher Nupen's Sibelius films which are so musically astute. I can't get past the first 1/2 hour of the Ken Russell Mahler film, but respect what Ken was trying to do. The "volcano" sequences express the music but the train scene drives me nuts. OTOH the situation would probably have driven Mahler nuts too, which is why he needed the mountains.

Ken Russell feted BBCTV 2

2012-01-13T13:26:00.004Z

Why is it that great figures don't get respect til they're gone? Ken Russell was a phenomenom who changed so much about British film and, indeed, British attitudes to life and to art. Just as Elizabeth David changed British food by introducing tomatoes, olive oil and (horror!) garlic, Ken brought psychedelic colour to British life. So honour due. Wherever he is, Ken will be snorting and cackling that he gets a night on BBCTV 2 on Saturday 14th January starting 9 pm.

"A Bit of a Devil", a documentary by Alan Yentob and screenings of Women in Love and The Rainbow, both based on DH Lawrence. Remember the scandal Lady Chatterley caused and how that changed things in its time? Ken's whole life pushed boundaries, all the time. Ken's films could drive you crazy but he was never bland. And underneath the wild image, a man of knowledge, sensitivity and depth. Please see THIS for more.

Exsultate, Jubilate Anna Lucia Richter

2012-01-13T00:30:00.005Z

Anna Lucia Richter, so impressive singing Hugo Wolf at the Wigmore Hall, recommended by a friend who was there, too. (My review is HERE) She wore the same dress. Very professionally done video, too. Here she is singing in Aachen in December 2009, when she would have been 19. Give her a few more years....!

Hugo Wolf : Mörike Goethe Prégardien Richter Wigmore Hall

2012-01-12T00:52:00.009Z

Hugo Wolf is a hard sell. Technical expertise isn't enough. The secret to singing Wolf is expressing the unique personality in each song. Wolf, perhaps more than any other composer, creates miniatures that open out into mini-operas when performed well. Singing Wolf can never be generic, so true Wolf specialists are hard to find.

Christoph Prégardien started off the Wigmore Hall's new series of Hugo Wolf Songbooks with Lieder to texts by Mörike and Goethe. Prégardien is one of the best Wolf singers around, with the right combination of timbre and individuality. At his best, he's brilliant. For whatever reason, on this occasion, he wasn't his usual self, the voice sounding tired and occluded. Nonetheless, he has years of experience to fall back on. Intelligent phrasing, the right emphases in the right places, accurate intonation. Yet not the luminous, transcendent tones he's capable of, which lift his performance way above most everyone else. Still, proof that mastery of technique pulls one through. His Feuerreiter was suitably dramatic, though not quite at the demonic level he and some others (especially baritones) can reach. But he brought real drama to Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt, a strophic ballad that can fall flat in the wrong hands (voice) (read more about Feuerreiter here). In Sankt Nepomuks Vorabend, one could hear glimmers of Prégardien's natural translucence, reflecting his youth as a choirboy. "Lichtlein, schwimmen auf dem Strom"

Listen to Prégardien's most recent recording of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch which came out in Spring 2011 on the small label Channel Classics (reviewed here). The soprano on that disc was Julia Kleiter, a fellow Limburger, good for the ensemble work so crucial to the Italian Songbook. But the Mörike and Goethe are much more sharply defined and need great personality. When we heard that Kelier was being replaced ar minimal notice by a singer born in 1990, our hearts dropped. What could any singer that young bring to Hugo Wolf?

Yet Anna Lucia Richter turned out to be the surprise of the evening. Obviously someone aged 21 isn't going to sound polished but Richter turned her youth to advantage. In Nixe Binsefuß, bright, almost staccato notes sparkle like sharp icicles. But this Nixe is a water sprite with attitude who would like to slash the fisherman's nets and liberate the fish. Richter's voice is pure, but has a wild edge totally in keeping with the Nixe's free spirited anarchy. Then, when she sings about the fisherman's daughter, her voice warms. Icicles no more! And so the Nixe flies away as the day breaks. (read more about this song here)

It's difficult to combine the technical demands of Elfenlied with a true sense of innocence, but Richter manages well. Her elf is genuinely naive and she describes his accident with droll humour. Similarly, Richter's Begegnung is turbulent, like the wind and the emotions the young girl experiences. I don't know how long Richter had to prepare, as the programme was printed before she was hired, but she threw herself into the songs with unselfconscious enthusiasm, so they come over extremely well.

No-one at Richter's age, or even ten years older, is going to have finesse, but that will come with experience. It's much better that a singer starts out with enthusiasm, and engages with what she sings, as Richter does. Her voice has colour and range, so she has plenty of potential. Definitely someone to follow. She has dramatic instincts, leaping into some songs in the second part of the programme as an opera singer might, so she will have many options. She's still studying at the Cologne Conservatory but is scheduled to join the company of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf from 2012-13. She's also worked with Prégardien before and recorded Schumann with him."We'd better give the poor girl some help" said Julius Drake before the encore (a Mendelssohn duet). He played gloriously, but part of a song pianist's brief is to work with singers, especially the young.

Thomas Quasthoff retires

2012-01-11T17:38:00.004Z

Sad news of Thomas Quasthoff's retirement, but understandable. TQ was a regular canceller, so you always booked on the off chance that he'd show. In recent years, he's taken to talking a lot through concerts, rather than singing, so it's a wise move. Health matters more than wealth, as does his reputation. I heard his very first London recital, at the Wigmore Hall in the mid 90's. It was weeks after his UK debut at Edinburgh. TQ walked on stage and there was a moment of surprise. No-one realized he was so short. That wasn't prejudice, but realistic. Singing is a tougher profession than outsiders realize. Then he started to sing, with a ferocity you don't usually associate with Schubert. Das Fischermädchen with sly, teasing undercurrents. Erlkönig with genuine malevolence, the final "Tot" spat out with revulsion at the father's naivety, not at the erlking.

Then, Der Zwerg. The dwarf in the song is a sex murderer. It's not a pretty song. Quasthoff sang it like an act of defiance, "Don't write people off because they're physically challenged!" And being challenged doesn't mean you have to keep up a fake "sweet" front to impress the world. Schubert's dwarf was a sexual being, who'd had an affair with the queen before she married the king. As the dwarf strangles her, she doesn't condemn him. Very kinky. Still, he's cursed never to return to shore, forced to be alone forever. But then that's the fate of many people with disabilities and even "normal" infirmities like illness, age and poverty. So TQ was confronting society's expectations. Why should the disabled "have" to be sweet to "be deserving"? They've every right to feel p'd off by fate and to be who they want to be.

Quasthoff was a stage presence who knew how to work an audience. Few singers have that charisma. He used to end recitals in the US with pop songs, which audiences loved because it showed his populist touch. It didn't go down so well in Europe, though he did try it in recent years. He persuaded recording companies to promote his jazz, but it really wasn't his forte however much he might have liked doing it. Recordings weren't his forte either, for somehow technology can't quite pick up the nuances you hear live, and TQ's voice sometimes sounds muffled and unrefined. But those who heard him in his prime have wonderful memories! (photo : Elke Wetzig)

Violent, explosive Má vlast. - Václav Talich

2012-01-09T23:38:00.015Z

Heartfelt thank you to the reader who sent me a copy of the recent Supraphon reissue of Václav Talich's remarkable performance of Smetana Má vlast. This is no ordinary concert, it's a historic moment. It's 5th June 1939. The Germans had occupied Czechoslovakia with the blessing of the British, ending the cultural renaissance that was the first Czech Republic. Conducting Má vlast was symbolic protest and the Prague audience knew it. This performance, the second in a series, was broadcast on Czech radio, and woud have been lost forever had it not been picked up by Norwegian radio, and almost miraculously survived on a pioneer tape recording.

It's an explosive, violent performance. Talich knows that his audience know the piece so well that they can cope with a radically different interpretation. "Our homeland", this performance seems to scream, "betrayed to Hitler"! The audience bursts spontaneously into applause between movements because they, too, are expressing rage at the situation their country faces. This isn't silly "audience participation" but part of the message the Czechs are sending the Nazis. The crowd won't stop, and perhaps some knew they'd soon be silenced forever. So listen to those roaring voices and respect.

The two final movements, Tábor and Blanik, are more than picturesque rural vistas.Tábor was the centre of the Hussite wars in the 15th century which shaped Bohemian identity. So Talich exaggerates the violence in the music, the menacing slow tempi, fast, marching tempi, thunderous timpani like cannon fire, brass that seems to spit flame. The Hussite ancestors of that audience might have used quaint muskets and leather armour. Smetana himself could never have imagined that their descendants would face tanks, planes and bombs. But it works, powerfully. Listen to the "flying" motif repeated all over the orchestra, building in confidence.

Blanik is the mountain where St Wenceslas is supposed to lie asleep until the country needs to be saved.That's the statue in St Wenceslas Square, not far from the concert hall where Talich was conducting. This final movement draws together the whole piece, the idea of the Moldau continuing to flow and fertilze the country, the Hussite hymns and the Wenceslas legend, promising hope. Then the audience spontaneously burts into singing the Czech national anthem. This isn't a concert, it's a statement. Some of that audience would have gone home passing the statue. Few of them would have missed the significance. Seventy three years later, nearly all of them are dead but here they are preserved on tape.

This fantastic disc includes six of Dvořák's Slavonic Dances, recorded on 13th June 1939, a week after that searing Má vlast. Again, the performance is unusally ferocious and defiant. Everyone is listening intently, but they are hearing more than Dvořák. So much of the way we experience any performance is coloured by what is inside ourselves. Lord no, I don't ever want to experience music in such circumstances. Nor are interpretations like this always true to the composer's intent. But by God, we need this recording to remind us what music can mean.

---------------------------

Talich (1883-1961) was a key figure in music circles during the first Czech Republic, a friend of Josef Suk, and of Leoš Janáček, several of whose operas he premiered. Had he been American, German or British, he might be a household name. Talich's reputation isn't what it might be, thanks to internal Czech politics at the time. He didn't get on with a key politician who became culture minister in several governments and was able to stifle those he didn't like, among them Janáček. This politician is caricatured in Janáček's The Excursions of Mr. Brouček (which also refers to the Hussites). After the German surrender, Talich walked back to Prague and was promptly arrested for collaboration. There was no evidence and he was released but Talich's career was blocked. Irony isn't it, that when even the Nazis couldn't completely silence Czech artists, some toadying beetles managed quite well.

Please also read Kapralova - songs of Czech Independence, Bílá nemoc - Hugo and Pavel Haas (Czech anti-Nazi film) and of course lots on Janáček, Smetana, Dvořák, Suk and many, many others suppressed by the Nazis. Interesting too that Má vlast was one of most popular pieces of music in 20th century China. Maybe they were responding to it like Talich did, though with different cultutal landmarks?

Delius Complete Songbook 2 Mark Stone

2012-01-09T00:58:00.005Z

"English music? I don't know what that is", Delius said to Eric Fenby, who very nearly aborted his self-appointed mission to help the composer. But Delius was right. Music is rarely "nationalist"and Delius himself was international. Mark Stone's recording of the Complete Delius Songbook series is a valuable contribution to Delius studies as it includes perfomances of lesser known works and new translations, many by Stone himself.

Listen to the first volume in this series, which I reviewed HERE, where Stone and pianist Stephen Barlow perform Delius's earliest songs. Grieg's music expressed an aesthetic significantly outside the European mainstream. The purity of Norwegian landscape was a metaphor for independence and creative renewal. Delius learned from Grieg not merely the trappings of "Scandinavian" culture, but the concept of individuality. In this second volume in the series, Delius sets Danish, French and German poets, but the style is his own.

Included in this new disc is a piano song version of the Nietzsche setting, Noch ein mal, O Mensch, Gib acht!, which in 1904/5 became part of Delius's A Mass for Life. A version for solo voice, chorus and orchestra was written six years before the song but the version here was found among the composr's papers after his death. It's undated, but possibly predates both other forms. Jelka Delius said it was the earliest version of all. The melodic line is already clear, surprising calm, unlike Mahler's more intense setting in his Symphony no 3. Mark Stone's deep baritone gives gravity.

Delius wrote four more Nietzsche songs around 1898, possibly sketches for large scale works, though they were published decades later as independent songs. Stylistically they connect to A Mass for Life, but they're much stronger musically. Each is a miniature, yet powerfully felt. Although the subject matter is completely different to A Village Romeo and Juliet, completed in 1899, perhaps Delius is thinking in terms of dramatic, declamatory song? Certainly Stone's delivery suggests this. He's an opera singer and brings to these songs much more colour than some of the other songs on this disc can support. The five settings of poems by Verlaine depend more on heavy pedal rather than elegance.

Delius is more in his own element, if that's defined by watercolour lightness of touch in the paler tones of the other songs in this collection. Two groups of songs from the Danish, eleven early songs and other individual pieces. With Autumn, Dreamy Nights, Summer Nights on the sea shore and Summer Landscape we're in that quiet, watchful mood that Delius so often evokes. It's as if time is standing still as the composer meditates on the moment. Below is Silken Shoes, an "expression" as Mark Stone says in his erudite programme notes "of the exquisite...nature of the beloved. Delius uses rising triplets throughout to underline the triumphant nature of this song...and comes to a warm, satisfied ending". Buy the recording DIRECT from Stone Records, or thru the usual sources.

Friedrich ein deutscher König

2012-01-08T07:57:00.000Z

Friedrich ein deutscher König, a new film about Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. Now available on arte.tv "In einem von Militarismus, Tugend und Disziplin beherrschten Mikrokosmos wächst der junge Friedrich auf. Bestrebt aus dem Sohn einen gehorsamen Blaurock zu formen, unterlässt Friedrich Wilhelm I. keinen Versuch, den Willen des Kronprinzen zu brechen. Friedrich sucht sich Weltfluchten in Musik und Literatur, um dem Drill zu entgehen. Die fortwährenden Demütigungen, die auch Königin Sophie Dorothea und Friedrichs Schwester Wilhelmine nicht mildern können, kulminieren in einem missglückten Fluchtversuch Friedrichs - seinerzeit Hochverrat und nach dem ursprünglichen Verdikt des Vaters mit der Todesstrafe zu ahnden."

Drei Könige wandern aus Morgenland

2012-01-07T15:58:00.006Z

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Peter Schreier aged 13 when he was an alto in the Dresdner Kreuzchor. It's the hymn by Peter Cornelius (1824-74) For the Heinrich Heine version, please see HERE

Drei Könige wandern aus Morgenland;
Ein Sternlein führt sie zum Jordanstrand.
In Juda fragen und forschen die drei,
Wo der neugeborene König sei?
Sie wollen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold
Dem Kinde spenden zum Opfersold.

Und hell erglänzet des Sternes Schein:
Zum Stalle gehen die Kön’ge ein;
Das Knäblein schaun sie wonniglich,
Anbetend neigen die Könige sich;
Sie bringen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold
Zum Opfer dar dem Knäblein hold.

O Menschenkind! halte treulich Schritt!
Die Kön’ge wandern, o wandre mit!
Der Stern der Liebe, der Gnade Stern
Erhelle dein Ziel, so du suchst den Herrn,
Und fehlen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold,
Schenke dein Herz dem Knäblein hold!

Luca Pisaroni - the other man from Busseto

2012-01-06T18:32:00.006Z

Luca Pisaroni has arrived. Eighteern months ago he sang Leporello at Glyndebourne, so impressive that I snapped up a chance to hear his Wigmore Hall debut last March. (Read what I wrote here and what Mark Berry wrote here) Guess who was sitting behind us, trying to be incognito and out of Pisaroni's sightlines? At that time I didn't know the connection, so my praise fell on ears that appreciated it greatly. Pisaroni is very good, and he's young enough that there's lots ahead for him. One day, a supreme Don Giovanni?

HERE is a link to a new interview by Olivia Giovetti in Classical Singer. Enjoy! Please also read one of the earliest interviews with Pisaroni in Opera Today.

Furtwängler - the "lost" documentary

2012-01-05T02:12:00.009Z

Might the fabled "lost" documentary about Wilhelm Furtwängler made by his son Florian be about to surface again? Jointly commissioned by Bayerischen Rundfunk and the BBC in 1970, it has circulated in an inferior copy, now withdrawn. Florian (d 1992) was a professional film maker so the film is very well made. In full, in German, it runs over 100 minutes. Although it was made over 40 years ago, it includes unique testimonies from musicians who knew Furtwängler well. Jascha Horenstein, Hans Keller, and Szymon Goldberg, leader of the Berliner Philharmoniker until 1933.

The film firmly places Furtwängler in the context of artistic circles in late 19th century Munich. Furtwängler's father was an eminent archaelogist, his mother a painter. He was home schooled, but absorbed cultural experiences closed to most boys. On a trip to an Italian chapel, in 1902, Furtwängler disaappeared, to be found inside a Michelangelo crypt, inspired to write music that was to become his Te Deum. It's hugely ambitious, with massed choirs : the film shows its first performance, in 1967. (drawing above is by Emil Orlik, 1927)

Furtwängler's first love was composition but his career progressed so rapidly that he became a conductor almost by default. His style was idiosyncrasic. Theres a description of him, complete with action sketches, flailing his arms and legs, expressing the music with his whole being. Fundamental to his style, however, was his conception of what interpretation involved. "The stronger the structure of a piece, and the greater the comnposer's mastery of form", he said "the more clearly defined is the interpreter's task. It is only when he has studied and mastered all the details that his real task begins, which is the weaving of all the particular parts into an organic whole."

Furtwängler's style was controversial. Hans Keller describes Furtwängler at a Toscanini Beethoven 9. After a few bars, Furtwängler stood up, shouting "Bloody time keeper!" and stormed out. Definitely not a troll, but a man who knew his music so well that it hurt him to hear it mangled. Keller then describes the passages from recordings. Toscanini takes the opening sextuplets so carefully that you can hear each note unfold. But Furtwängler smudges the beat so you don't hear the component notes but the "tense, vague beginning before the beginning", as Keller says, expressing their meaning within the context of the passage. There's an ominous rumble, yet nimble and alert, intensifying the outburst when it comes.

Nowadays it's fashionable to judge a performance by tempi alone, but as Keller says, "Tempo in itself is nothing. It is a function of structure", He listens to a recording of Furtwängler conducting Mozart Symphony no 40. In theory, it's so fast that it seems almost impossible to maintain. "I did not believe it possible until I heard it" adds Keller. "You cannot decide tempi unless you experience the structure and understand the phrasing of the interpreter". As for formulaic tempi, Furtwängler himself said simply, "there is no such thing".

In the Berliner Philharmoniker archive, there's a good documentary about what happened to orchestra members when the Nazis came to power. Szymon Goldberg figures in it, though he was forced to emigrate almost immediately. Furtwängler protected those he could, though of course he couldn't protect everyone. He played Mendelssohn in public as late as 1935, and refused to accept pensions and estates from the regime. His high profile defence of Paul Hindemith took courage. Jascha Horenstein says, stiffening up to stress his words, "I would like to say emphatically that Furtwängler was not a Nazi". Furtwängler was on an inevitable collision course with Goebbels so he withdrew from public life, only to return to the podium because he realized that music was a means of standing up to tyranny. The photo above, from the Bundesarkiv shows Furtwängler conducting for factory workers in 1942. Some of them may have been Nazis, but not all and in any case, all were human. The film includes the famous clip of Furtwängler playing Beethoven 9 to the Nazi bigwigs. They're too stupid to know what Beethoven was getting at. Goebbels, who knew his Schiller, must have squirmed in suppressed rage.

By February 1945, Furtwängler heard that he was about to be arrested. He fled to Switzerland and turned again to composition, supported financially by Swiss music lovers. The film emphasizes how much Furtwängler's own music meant to him. A few years ago there were a number of recordings, which I wrote about at the time. The juveniila was surprisingly interesting and the incomplete Symphony no 3 (1954), heard here, is impressive. One day, perhaps, Furtwängler's music will be heard more often.

Aged 12, Daniel Barenboim worked with Furtwängler. It was mutual admiration. "There was always an element of improvisation and surprise in his work", says Barenboim. A member of the Philharmonia who worked with Furtwängler tells how he communicated with the players. He didn't tell them what to do. If he didn't like something, he'd be thinking why, and the orchestra would do so too. "I don't like the word working "under" a conductor. It wasn't like that with Furtwängler". Not mentioned in this film is the anecdote of how Furtwängler walked into a rehearsal and the orchestra lifted their game even though he wasn't conducting.

What made Furtwängler so good? "He risked a lot, as every great artist must", Keller sums up. "It is the easiest thing in the world to always play well. Composers, too. Mozart excepting, their greatness is in direct proportion to their ability to take risks". Furtwängler admired Arnold Schoenberg and sensed in him something exceptional, though he didn't relate to 12 tone theory. But he played Schoenberg, who admired him in return. "Better than all those Toscaninis". One of my conductor friends was given one of Furtwängler's batons as a gesture of respect. Furtwängler had given it to someone he admired, who then passed it on.

Szymanowski broadcast - Antoni Wit

2012-01-04T00:52:00.001Z

"Superbly filmed for Polish Television, Antoni Wit's performances of Karol Szymanowski's third and fourth symphonies embody the distinguished and idiomatic conducting style for which he is widely recognised....An outstanding communicator, Wit exhibits exceptional attention to detail in his rendition of these two great works, recorded while Wit was principal conductor or the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir."

Soloist in the Third Symphony is Rafał Bartmiński, He's very good indeed. HERE is the link on medici.tv

The English Oratorio : a Celebration, Barbican

2012-01-03T01:39:00.002Z

The Barbican celebrates the Englsih oratorio tradition, but in a bold new way. Handel of course is at the heart of the tradition, so the series started with Handel's Saul (read more here) and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (read here). On 14th January, it includes Haydn's Seasons and continues with Elgar, Mendelssohn and Sir Michael Tippett. So the tradition hasn't stood still. Baroque aesthetics gave way to Victorian gigantism, as seen in this 1857 etching of a Handel experience at the Crystal Palace, London. "Concert" is hardly the right word. At the Barbican, we'll be able to hear English oratorio in a setting that might favour the music rather than scale for its own sake, and perhaps gain new perspectives. Please read Claire Seymour's article on English Oratorio and the Barbican season.

Coming up, busy January

2012-01-02T00:25:00.004Z

Lots to look forward to in January in London! The new season starts today (2/1) with another cast of La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. This time, Ermonela Jaho sings Violetta. Jaho stole the show last time she sang the part in this production, and has continued to impress - remember her Suor Angelica? Violetta is a courtesan and hasn't reached the top of her profession by being a moribund victim. In any case, could someone dying of TB sing like that? Paolo Cavanelli's dark Germont will be a good foil to Jaho's passion. Alfredos are Stephen Costello and Vittorio Grigolo.

The Royal Opera House also offers a mini-Mozart festival : Don Giovanni, Le nozze de Figaro and Così fan tutte, all revivals but worth catching for the casts (best prob. Le nozze). See Gerald Finley naked, or hear Erwin Schrott. In February, a controversial new Rusalka!

At the ENO, Der Rosenkavalier revived with big English stars. Or should one say "The Rose Knight"? Strictly Gershwin, an interesting Gershwin themed ballet from English National Ballet starts 4th Jan to extend the party season. Gershwin's a good composer, who should be taken more seriously.

At the South Bank, an important series curated by Vladimir Jurowski, Sergei Prokofiev : a man of the people? Notice the question mark. Why did Prokofiev turn his back on the west and success to return to the Soviet Union? What were his artistic, as well as personal motivations? Hopefully this won't be yet another bland retrospecrive of greatest hits but more stimulating. Jurowski's choice of repertoire is intriguing and indicates a strong line of thought. I've spent time watching Eisenstein's saga of Ivan the Terrible, for which Prokofiev wrote the score, and will be writing about that here soon. Simon Callow is doing readings from Prokofiev's diaries. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the final night on 1st Feb

Extremely important London Sinfonietta gig Wolfgang Rihm at 60, QEH 24/1. Rihm is one of the seminal modern German composers, though sadlu underrated in Britain. Four UK premieres, no less. It will be a great chance to hear the London Sinfonietta in meaty repertoire again, and to prepare for the ENO production of Rihm's very early opera Jakob Lenz in the summer. Indeed, the opera may seem pale compared with what Rihm is doing now, 35 years later.

Much stronger opera-wise will be Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero at RFH on 26th January. Dallapiccola was writing when Mussolini's alliance with Hitler reached its peak in the last years of the war. Il prigioniero is Fidelio without false optimism and contrived happy end. Perhaps that's why Esa Pekka Salonen is conducting Beethoven's Fifth as a kind of extended overture.

Lots on at the Wigmore Hall, too, leading up to Schubert's Birthday on 31/1 which is always a highlight of the WH year. This year, Werner Güra does the honours. William Lyne discovered him 15 years ago, on the recommedation of Peter Schreier. Some pedigree! Güra was so young then that he froze, but since then he's blossomed. Güra shows what Lieder singing is really about. Starting on 10th January is another Wigmore Hall speciality, a three day intensive workshop which really gets to grip with a subject. Focus this time is on is Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale. Nine hours study, one hour concert (2/2) But if something's worth doing, do it well. Also highly recommended: Christoph Prégardien singing Hugo Wolf on 10/1 and a concert with, among others, Stuart Jackson, a very original and distinctive young singer who won 2nd prize at the Wigmore Hall Song Competition. (read more HERE)

The English Oratorio Celebration continues at the Barbican (read more HERE) with Haydn The Seasons with Paul McCreesh. There's a big Total Immersion on Jonathan Harvey, culminating in his Wagner Dream which had extreme notices when it premiered in Amsterdam two years ago. It's not Wagner per se but Harvey, re-examining Wagner through Harvey's Buddhist beliefs. Oliver Knussen doesn't conduct as often as he used to or should, so make a point of going to his Barbican date on 13/1. Excellent programme - Castiglioni, Schoenberg Kammersymphonie, Sandy Goehr premiere and Miakovsky's Symphony no 10. Typical Knussen passions, should be fun.

And if that's not enough, Pau Badura-Skoda makes a rare appearance at Kings Place on 18/1!

Zum neuen Jahr new translation

2012-01-01T16:37:00.011Z

Wie heimlicher Weise
Ein Engelein leise
Mit rosigen Füßen
Die Erde betritt,
So nahte der Morgen.
Jauchzt ihm, ihr Frommen,
Ein heilig Willkommen,
Ein heilig Willkommen!
Herz, jauchze du mit!
In Ihm sei's begonnen,
Der Monde und Sonnen
An blauen Gezelten
Des Himmels bewegt.
Du, Vater, du rate!
Lenke du und wende!
Herr, dir in die Hände
Sei Anfang und Ende,
Sei alles gelegt!

From Heaven's meadows, a gentle angel, with rosy pink feet, descends to earth. Thus came the Morning. Praise him, godly people, a holy welcome ! Hearts, praise Him together.
In Him are all beginnings, the earth and the planets, the blue Universe where Heaven moves. You, Father, you source of wisdom. Guide us, protect us. Lord, in your hands are Beginning and End, and everything between.

Happy New Year from China

2012-01-01T01:12:00.002Z

New Year's Eve in Hong Kong just a few hours ago. This clip is specially atmospheric as it's taken by a local person in the midst of the crowd that throngs the streets. Yet the quality is better than many professionals. Learn to count in Cantonese ! 5 is tricky as it's "Nggg". Hong Kong fireworks are famous, but Beijing might yet top HK. Everyone in Asia envies the HK display but Beijing decided to go anotherr route. This year saw Beijing's first "countdown" with laser and 3D projections on The Temple of Heaven, where the Emperors used to go and give thanks. What is even more significant though, is the rationale behind the Beijing celebrations. Relatively few fireworks, because they're not "green". Instead, light shows, electricty supplied by thousands of students on bicycles. China's environmental record is pretty bad since it's such a vast country and hard to govern. Fireworks have always been part of Chinese culture, so it's an amazing, high profile statement of intent.

Ne me quitte pas

2011-12-30T15:40:00.014Z

What a beautiful song ! As so often, the most famous English version doesn't convey the power of the song. Jacques Brel's phrasing is unconventional, so the lines compress and run over, and the tempo hesitates and speeds up. It feels like conversation, more human and sincere. Sing this in a more formal or "English" way and much of the inner poetry is lost. The inner pulse is 5 syllables around which the words wrap. (Please also see my post on Gloomy Sunday, Song with a Curse)

Here's my attempt at translation, which is tricky as so much of the original depends on allitration and word play. "Don't leave me. It would mean forgetting everything, everything that can be forgotten, which has already flown away. Forget the times of misunderstanding, and le temps.... perdu. How? to forget hours the hours whose memory can kill, sometimes, with the blow of why? The heart of happiness."

"Me ! I could offer you pearls of raindrops from distant lands where it never rains. I'd dig the earth, even after I die, to cover your body with gold and light. I'd create a realm where love would be king, and love would be law and you would be queen."

"I'd invent for you crazy words that you would understand. I'd speak to you then of lovers who've twice seen their hearts embrace. I'd tell you the story of this dead king who was not able to meet you again. Don't leave me."

"One has often seen regenerated, flames of ancient volcanos which seemed too old. It could be that scorched earth gives more wheat than a good April. And when evening comes, in a blazing sunset, don't red and black combine?"

"Don't leave me. I can no longer cry. I can no longer speak. I'll hide myself away where I can watch you dancing and smiling. I'll listen to you sing and laugh Let me become the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog"

Women who have heard it all before might say. "It's all about you, you, you", But it's still such a moving song, especially the way Brel sings it.

New Year Free opera and more

2011-12-29T19:19:00.002Z

TV and Radio treats, most on-demand so they won't hold up your social plans. You could see the New Year in with Lang Lang and Howard Skempton on BBC Radio 3 but for me, from 1800hr, it's La Traviata from The Royal Opera House with Beczala, Perez and Keenlyside. This production has been done so many times that it's become pretty tired, but this second of the four casts was a surprise hit.

The opera is a vehicle for sopranos who always sound amazing, since Violetta is written wonderfully for voice, flatteriung every woman who sings it. Papa Germont is a vehicle for big name baritones because they don't have to sing all that much for their fee and star billing. And Alfredo's are often cast with up and coming media darlings. So along comes Piotr Beczala, and suddenly the perspective switches. It's like hearing the opera with fresh ears, from Alfredo's point of view. Beczala is extremely experienced and has one of the most beautiful lyric voices in the business. When I hear him, I think what Fritz Wunderlich might have been had he lived. Beczala has another advantage in that he understands his roles from within, so the singing flows from deep sources. So La Traviata takes on new life. "It's like falling in love all over again," said a friend. A good experience ! (review here)

On New Year's Day you can catch Maris Janssons live from the Musikverein, Vienna on TV and on Radio from 10.15. The current production of Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Royal Opera House is worth catching at 1445 on January 1st It's enjoyable on its own terms, once you get your head around the fact that it's more good natured Donizetti than Wagner. (review here) It's unidiomatic but but at least genial, and not as bland as Walt Disney Wagner at the Met.

Mozart The Magic Flute from the Lucerne Festival should be worth hearing too. Daniel Harding conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, whose personnel he has been connected with for years. The cast is mostly English or resident in England, which might be interesting.

Wild cards : Kurt Weill's Street Scene, one of his better "American" works, not that that's saying much. Much more unusual is the programme that places Beethoven's Egmont Overture in context, with readings from the original source. It also includes Sibelius's Kung Christian II. The performance isn't particularly rivetting, but the piece is worth hearing, even if it's very early work. It precedes the symphonies and more ambitious works like The Tempest but has affinities with his Kalevala pieces.

(Photo © 2005, 2006, 2007 by Bjørn Erik Pedersen)

Cortot Casals Beethoven Sonata - FULL

2011-12-29T05:18:00.001Z

Pablo Casals and Alfred Cortot play Beethoven, Sonata op 69, It's 1958, one of Cortot's last recitals. What vigour and individuality!

Magical acrobats!

2011-12-28T18:13:00.002Z

Les Kiriki, a 1907 short by Segundo de Chomón (1871-1929) pioneering film maker who worked for Pathé and with other pioneering directors like Abel Gance

Welcome, Massenet Werther!

2011-12-27T20:59:00.004Z

Noël, Noël, Noël sing the children, even tho' it's July. Welcome return for Massenet Werther from ONP Bastille Paris streaming again on medici.tv HERE. This is the fabled performance from early 2010 which won a Diapason d'or when it went onto DVD. Jonas Kaufmann, Sophie Koch, Ludovic Tézier and Anne Catherine Gillet! Just look a that cast and listen to that divine singing! Kaufmann fans will get lots more of their man as Werther than as Cavaradossi. He's ideally suited to the troubled romantic Werther, and there's plenty of room for him to develop the role in all its nuances. What's more, Sophie Koch sings Charlotte with such depth that she's emotionally real. And what perfect, sensitive timbre in all the parts. It's so beautiful, I've been listening again and again, just to soak up this singing and playing (Michel Plasson).

The production and the film are by Benoît Jacquot, which is significant as he's primarily a film director. Don't let that panic you. Unlike most theatre people he's musically literate and sensitive to the inner drama of this almost action-free opera, where most things take place in the protagonists' heads. That's the beauty of this production, which minimizes props to the max so everything's concentrated on the singers. Psychologically true, too, for Werther lives in a world of his own where reality doesn't much intrude. Wide, open vistas on stage, bare but for rustling leaves, or oppressively huge windows that dwarf the singers. Jacquot also directed the film, so he develops the basic concept even further. Often the singers are shown, alone, on the platform with orchestra in view, as if they were in recital. Sometimes we see the back of the props! This Werther is about the singing, and because it concentrates on performance, not trappings, the music speaks all the more deeply. Fundamentalists will moan that it's not "decorative" as they imagine Werther should be (see the original poster here, Eugene Grasset 1893). But think about the plot, and listen to the music. It's not about chintz !
LOTS more on Massenet on this site, like Le jongleur de Notre Dame, Massenet mélodies with Véronique Gens, Cendrillon, Manon and Le portrait de Manon.

Grim Brothers Grimm Hánsel and Gretel free online

2011-12-26T00:02:00.004Z

Indulged too much at Christmas? This is the antidote. Laurent Pelly's radical, pointed Humperdinck Hánsel and Gretel from Glyndebourne 2008. This puts grim back into Brothers Grimm! Watch it HERE free online. A DVD is also available (amazon and other sources) and an audio version can be found if you look round carefully. Here is what Opera Today said :

"Alice Coote, enacted an astonishing metamorphosis to petulant, prepubescent mischief-maker — a touch of attention deficit disorder, perhaps? Coote was exhaustingly hyperactive, even managing to make disappearing into a cardboard box appear interesting and amusing. Her glorious tone was consistently projected with clarity and warmth - one cannot imagine a better Hansel, or a mezzo-soprano who enjoys the role more. Lydia Teuscher, as Gretel, held her own admirably with such a seasoned partner...... "

"Attired in a fluorescent pink two-piece suit and bouffant wig, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke was an eye-watering picture of consumerist and gastronomic greed as the Witch. His ‘Shirley-Bassey’ strutting, brazenly clutching an upturned mop — microphone or broomstick? — raised uncomfortable hackles, and anticipated the exposure of his chilling intent when he whipped off the wig and revealed the sinisterly bare-headed, pot-bellied, knife-wielding monster beneath the deceptively frivolous drag-queen apparel."

The Guardian is streaming next June's big event, The Cunning Little Vixen for free, which means kaput for the small, independent cinemas that will be showing it on the same day. Glyndebourne itself sells out all the time, and, like last year, might not be screening live. Interesting economics. Is there a story?
PS I thought it was odd that Tom Service didn't mention cast or conductor at all in his piece. But there's a good reason !

Richard Tauber can't sing proper !

2011-12-25T03:22:00.003Z

Here is a special gift for those who think accents are more important than anything else. This is Richard Tauber singing "White Christmas". At first he's careful to sound like a clipped upper class Englishman of the 30's. But once he warms into the song his natural instincts take over, and the accent goes haywire. So what? He knows how to sing.

School Choir Xmas with a difference

2011-12-25T00:15:00.001Z

Choral singing is huge in Hong Kong where music education is taken very seriously indeed. At Xmas, one of the popular customs is that school choirs like this sing in public places to raise money for charity. This school's choirs and orchestras (multiple) usually win all the prizes in music festivals all over Asia, but here the girls are singing for pure happiness, which is why they're so good.

Free opera and more - Xmas broadcasts

2011-12-24T03:26:00.007Z

Compensation from not getting out this week? What's on TV and radio? Unmissable Xmas Eve afternoon 1435 on BBCTV2 wil be Tosca from The Royal Opera House with the grande luxe cast - Gheorghiu, Terfel, Kaufmann. Pray for intervals so you can rush off and do tasks. Catch Pappano talking about it from 1335. He's a brillaint speaker, his enthusiasm is infectious. If anyone can persuade you Tosca is more than "shabby little shocker" it's him and this cast. Traditional Carols from Kings in the evening.

Another chance to see the wonderful Royal Ballet Alice in Wonderland on Xmas Day at 1210. Highly recommended. John Rutter to follow and then The Prince and the Composer at 1510. The Prince is now being heavily marketed as a Patron of the Arts, so the film is now being sold as "by" HRH. Which is fine and will please royalists, but poor Hubert Parry is unfortunately remodelled as a servant of the throne. What would Parry have thought of that? Please read what I wrote at the premiere.

Salzburg Festival Mozart Le nozze de Figaro - Keenlyside, Erwin Schrott and other goodies. Alas, no videoo but audio should be rewarding. This only til next Thursday, don't dawdle. Donizetti La fille du regiment from the Met on Xmas Eve at 6pm. In theory you can sit at home and watch/listen all day.

Catch up time for things missed but still available. Priority I think is Massanet's Le Jongleur de Notre Dame available here. It is unusual fare and very good indeed. Read more HERE. It is better than a lot of the heavily promoted glitz. Also, Bach Christmas Oratorio from St Johns Smith Square - James Gilchrist, Iestyn Davies, Neal Davies and Katharine Watson, cond Stephen Layton. I have now listened - it's glorious ! Layton also conducts Benjamin Britten Ceremony of Carols and St Nicolas. There's also Discovering Music programme about it before hand, which is good, as this series is well informed and analytical. Listen to programmes like this while you can. Dumbing down looms close. As for me, I'm increasingly less impressed by the anglophone world these days. So escape to Francesco Cavall La didone on medici TV, semi staged, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. More Massenet, too - Werther with Kaufmann !

Strange Santas - Missionary Christmas

2011-12-23T22:34:00.001Z

A missionary video fromm the early 50's with wonderful shots of Hong Kong as it was. Then it gets odd. Chi Kwong is a small refugee boy who's fascinated by the bizarre customs of Xmas. "Who is that fat man?" asks the kid. Authentic in many ways. The film is made for American audiences, however, so the casual imperialism bugs me. You can see where the term "missionary position" comes from. Nonetheless, it's well meaning and at the end, the narrator admits Xmas isn't about toys but about goodwill. There have been Christian communities in China for hundreds of years.

Massenet - Le Jongleur de Notre Dame

2011-12-23T00:11:00.003Z

Jules Massenet's Le Jongleur de Notre Dame can be heard online internationally HERE til Thursday. Although it's an opera it's very unusual, almost more miracle-play or oratorio than drama. It was first performed in 1902, yet there are moments when the orchestration is so spartan and pure that you think you're listening to Poulenc or Honegger rather than to Massenet. He also makes references to "medieval" sounds and plainchant, though early music wasn't fashionable at the turn of the last century. Perhaps Massenet's ideas grew from church or folk music (at one stage the monks sing a version of Frère Jacques) but that humility is perfect for the story, which has medieval origins. Wonderful preludes and postludes, some of the vocal parts are "framed" as in medieval art. Each part is drolly characterized, with appropriate instruments. Jean, the juggler, for example, with bells and violin, Boniface the solid monk, with timpani.

A man called Jean (tenor) tries to make a living juggling for townsfolk at markets and fairs, but they're more into shopping and mocking, so he starves. The monks of the Notre Dame scold him for singing profane songs and make him repent. Since the monks live well on fat meat, (chorus A table!) it's not a bad deal for Jean, These are fancy monks. One sculpts, one paints, one writes poetry, and they scrap as to who's better at serving God. But one wise monk, Boniface (baritone) has dedicated himself to simple things like cooking. Yet Jean wants to contribute though all he knows is juggling. One night he creeps into the chapel and sings and juggles for the statue of the Virgin Mary. Some of the monks think it's sacrilege. But suddenly a great light emanates from the statue, and the Madonna reaches out to Jean, smiling. He dies, but he's been blessed.

The performance is from 1985. Wonderful, lucid Gerard Garino (tenor: Jean (le jongleur)), Bruno Laplante (baritone: Boniface), David Wilson-Johnson (baritone: Le Prieur), Ad van Baasbank (tenor: Poet-monk), Math Dirks (bar: Painter-monk), Bernard Kuysen (bar: Musician-Monk), David Shapero (bass: Sculptor-Monk), The Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Jean Fournet (conductor)

A perfrormance would run around 75 minutes, no interval needed, so it would be practical to stage with another short opera. Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites would be a bit too overwhelming. But Puccini Suor Angelica which it predates by 16 years) might be a perfect match. They're thematically linked, one mostly female voices, the other most male. But just listen ! Le Jongleur de Notre Dame is understated but in its honest, simple piety lies its beauty.

Champagne and bombs - highs and lows of 2011

2011-12-21T21:50:00.003Z

What fizzed and what fell flat? Some real surprises and not quite what you'd expect. Safe top choice, Gounod Faust at the Royal Opera House. No compromise on the economic mess, top quality production, top quality singing. More adventurous top choice, Puccini Il Trittico, also ROH, and especially Suor Angelica. "ReNUNciation" - a Cinderella opera to the fore, great singing from Anna Larsson and Ermolena Jaho. Another mega hit, Mozart Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Fabulous singing, intelligent staging, provocative approach. When this comes out on DVD, get it.

Productions which help you re-assess wehat you think you knew are usually the most rewarding. We've all seen the same old production of Verdi La Traviata so many times, and Alfredo is almost always a lightweight. So when Piotr Beczala turned the role into a major creation, all assumptions overturned. It was like hearing the opera afresh, from a new perspective. This is a singer who really knows what he's doing and is genuinely well informed about historic tenor style. There is so much hype about these days, but Beczala is the genuine article, who delivers beautifully, without fuss.

For the same reason I loved Wagner Lohengrin from Bayreuth. Hans Neuenfels rats make you realize that the opera is about Brabant and why people want to control it. The rats are funny, tragic, scary, but more "human" than the main characters. It's a completely different perspective and once the shock value wears off, makes the opera much deeper emotionally and intellectually. Obviously we won't get rats again, but this production is seminal because it expands understanding,

For non-staged opera, Handel Alcina at the Barbican, conducted by Marc Minkowski, part of an excellent series there of operas on the theme of Orlando Furioso, which were very good, with specialist French casts and players., At the South Bank, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle. Tomlinson, DeYoung and Salonen showed how it should be heard and the semi staging showed how it can be seen. Probably way above the heads of those who don't relate to the quirkiness of this opera. At the ENO, Rameau's Castor and Pollux was also beyond those who couldn't see past the sex. Shocking, but not wrong. The whole point of the opera is that it's an allegory about the dangers of physical excess! So those who think it "must" be pretty because it's baroque need to study it and its period more carefully.

Popular opinion means nothing. Because Monty Python has many fans, most people loved Terry Gilliams's Berlioz Damnation of Faust for its cheap gags and irony-free racism.Unfortunately it proved Mel Brooks's adage about "Springtime for Hitler". People follow crowds when they don't think, in art as well as in politics. OTOH , I learned to love Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride at the Royal Opera House, not from the dull, lacklustre conducting by Mark Elder but from listening to Russian recordings afterwards, which bring out its true violent pungency. Then the mafia staging made total sense. Pity everyone else seemed to expect Sheherazade. Similarly, to my surprise, I actually got a kick from Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at the ROH despite the first act longeurs. Anna Nicole was hype, so the opera was a daring statement onn the dangers of trash, an irony lost on many.

On the other hand, 2011 saw other mega-hype bubbles burst (while some still grow). Both Havergal Brian and Mieczsyslaw Weinberg have been plagued for decades by "fans" who may not actually know their music but boost their own cachet by pretending to. Brian's Gothic Symphony received its best ever performance and highest profile at the Proms, but killed the myth. Similarly Weinberg's The Passenger (ENO) and The Portrait (Opera North) revealed the music for what it is. Fake fans went ballistic when their bluff was called. That's a good indicator of hype. Genuine music lovers can discuss things rationally. Fashion victims can't. Please see the comments under my post on Dudamel's Mahler at the Proms for more evidence. For much the same reasons, I didn't even bother with Nico Muhly's Two Boys, having spent 18 months trying desperately to make sense of his other music. My theory is that the Met wanted to outdo the ROH's coup in getting a new opera by a major British composer, so the Met invested huge money in creating Muhly. At least Turnage already existed and had a genuine track record.

This year I've done a lot less orchestral music, song and recordings than I used to (well over 400 a year, once). I loved Vladimir Jurowski's Liszt Faust Symphony at the Proms, and Andrew Davis's Elgar Caractacus at the Three Choirs Festival. Also Boulez Pli selon Pli, with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain, though it was the end of a long tour. Earlier performances must have been mind blowing! Although I've been doing Lieder for more than 40 years, most recitals this year were good rather than exceptional, and there were a few disappointments. A quiet patch, maybe. Recordings-wise, I loved José Serebrier's Dvořák Symphony no 9 "The New World", vindicating studio performance as an art form. Best CD of the year, though, has got to be Pierre Boulez's CD of Szymanowski's Symphony no 3 with the Wiener Philharmoniker. This is so astonishing, it ranks among my top favourites of all time. If you think you know Boulez, or if you think you know Szymanowski, listen to this. It's a revelation. Boulez is conducting two concerts at the Barbican next year, one in April with Tetzlaff and Scriabin, the other in May with Znaider and Szymanowski 3. I booked a year ago.

Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Royal Opera House

2011-12-20T22:00:00.009Z

Perhaps it's no accident that Graham Vick's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg returns to the Royal Opera House for the Christmas season. Red, green, gold, sumptuous colours that warm a long, grey evening. This Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a comedy and here it's presented as the ultimate up-market Xmas show. It's extremely enjoyable, and an ideal introduction to the opera experience. Richard Wagner, though, gets sidelined.

Sir John Tomlinson is a definite reason for catching this revival while you can. The days when he could sing Hans Sachs are past, but he creates an unusually vivid Veit Pogner. Tomlinson plays Pogner powerfully, as if he was a former Sachs, whose reasons for committing his daughter to this bizarre marriage make sense. He's dedicating his daughter to art, not to shabby politics. Luckily for him, and for Eva, Walter von Stolzing arrives in the nick of time. Indeed, Beckmesser very nearly persuades the Meistersingers to drive Walter out of town. Things could so easily have turned out quite differently. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg may be comic, but it evolves against a background of tension. At any moment anarchy could break out. Unless the Meistersingers adapt, they might not survive.

Wagner builds dissent into the music. The Meistersingers sing at cross-purposes, and in the riot scene the turbulence of the chorus evokes the violence which comes with all revolution. That's why the Night Watchman sings "bewahrt euch vor Gespenstern und Spuk, dass kein böser Geist eu'r Seel' beruck'!" The music for the apprentice boys is energetic, a warning for those who remember Wagner's protosocialism. This time, however, we're treated to a good-natured Meistersinger, where the apprentices dance with little vigour, and the blows Sachs throws at David have no menace. Antonio Pappano received the longest applause of all on the first night. Most audiences can relate better to joyful Romaticism in music than to Wagner-on-edge, so it's understandable. He clearly enjoys the life-affirming elements in this opera, which come over well. Christmas is not the right time for radical ideas, and this is not a production that would support them.

Graham Vick's riot scene is classic because it's so well imagined. The townsfolk pop out of windows and hang precariously upside down over the stage. One man looks like he's about to lose his footing (this happened in earlier productions, so it was planned) In their nightshirts the townsfolk look like escapees from an asylum, a good idea but not developed. The Festweise scene is masterfully blocked, so each guild is clearly defined. I liked the acrobats in the background, too. But these scenes aren't for entertainment but emphasize the traumas in Nürnberg's past.(Click photo to enlarge, it's wonderful).

Because John Tomlinson so dominates the first Act, Wolfgang Koch's Hans Sach might be overlooked, but Koch understands the role. Sachs is an observer, who stands apart from the crowd, and who thinks before he acts. Koch's Sachs is sung with sensitivity, and would be very effective in a more perceptive production which focusses on Sachs and not the scenery. Koch looks and sounds younger than the other Meistersingers and is rather more lyrical than Simon O'Neill's Walther von Stolzing who is more hoch dramatisch than a true Heldentenor. This was the best performance I've ever heard from O'Neill, and he was good, but it's a part better suited to a more luminous timbre. O'Neill was, however, a good match for Emma Bell's Eva, joyfully created though perhaps more Italianate than Wagnerian. In a cheerful, non-idiomatic production like this, it didn't matter, and they conveyed the story. Popular favourite Toby Spence sang a very good David, but he's more public school than roustabout.

It was good to see many teenagers in the audience, another good reason for having a show like this in holiday time. Last week, my friend took his daughter to Kurt Weill's Magical Night at the Linbury, and she was transfixed. She will never forget! We can give kids toys anytime, but the gift of a magical experiernce is beyond compare. And the same goes for adults, new to opera. This Meistersinger may not tell us much about the opera or about Wagner, but it's an excellent night out. More details soon and full cast list in Opera Today.

photos copyright Clive Barda 2011, details embedded,

Meistersinger von Nürnberg - latterday Lohengrin?

2011-12-20T02:55:00.005Z

Wagner Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Royal Opera House tonight. Tomorrow, a full review, bookmark this site. .Sir John Tomlinson can't sing Sachs any more but my gosh, is he an amazing Veit Pogner. Usually the past fades into the background, but with Tomlinson, Pogner dominates. The whole balance changes when one singer is this good.

This Meistersinger production, (Graham Vick, revived from way back), is an excellent Xmas show, with psychedelic bright colours, that wonderfully humorous riot scene and the brilliant finale. Great fun, but don't expect anarchic or intellectual challenge. Apart from John Tomlinson, there was more grit at Glyndebourne. Oddly enough I kept thinking of baptism that runs throughout this opera like an undercurrent. It starts with the church service, and leads up to the big party on the meadow which celebrates Hans Sachs's nameday. Johannestag, Johannestag! The English translation is misleading. Sure it is midsummer but much more importantly it is the feast of St John. Significantly, Hans Sachs was named (by his apparently single mother) for St John the Baptist, who foretold the coming of someone greater than himself.

This has big implications on how the role of Walther von Stolzing might be interpreted. Sachs, Pogner and the Meistersingers can be gruff and dramatic, but Walther should stand out in a halo of glory, I think, like a latterday Lohengrin, who saves the girl and rejuvenates her whole community. So I thought, very lyrical true Heldentenor, so beautifully sung he's almost divine. So above, John Botha, in 2008. (comparing anyone much earlier isn't right as styles change, even in the way we speak). Ethereal! Close your eyes as the production is awful, but open your ears.

There is a lot on this site about recent Meistersinger von Nürnberg productions like Glyndebourne Gerald Finley and WNO at the Proms (Bryn Terfel) And of course lots more on Wagner.

Véronique Gens Wigmore Hall Massenet Gounod Hahn

2011-12-19T00:38:00.005Z

Véronique Gens is one of the reasons French music is now in a new golden age. Her core repertoire is baroque, so that lucid aesthetic informs her approach, ideally suited to the intelligence of French song. All week I've been enjoying Véronique Gens's recital at the Wigmore Hall still accessible on BBC Radio3 til Xmas Eve. Please listen - it's lovely.

It's unusual too, focussing on songs by Jules Massenet and Charles Gounod, better known outside France for their operas, contrasted with songs by Reynaldo Hahn. It's a good combination because it presents French song in context, and also suggests why French opera is so distinctive.

Massenet's Chant provençal describes a girl so pure she doesn't know her charms. Charlotte or Sophie? The piano part (Susan Manoff) protectively shields Gens's delicate vocal line. True innocence is harder to portray than extravagance. The trite poetry of L'âme des oiseaux is rescued by legato into which Gens breathes, suggesting flight and movement. Altogether more sophisticated is the justly famous La mort de la cigale. It's an observation from nature, hushed in wonder. Only when the cicada is dead can the voice break out in protest. The cicada's life is too short. As is ours.

Soleil couchant is based on a poem by Victor Hugo, who builds inner phrases into each line, creating an inner rhythm which Massenet respects in the range with which he sets each line. Gens is a soprano, but with such depth that she could be a falcon. Nothing simple about this sunset, for night will turn to day, just as rivers flow from mountains to the ocean. "Mais moi, sous chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête, Je passe et, refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, Je m'en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux!" Listen to how Gens shapes the rolling phrases and then breathes expansively into the last three words so they glow, and Manoff's piano cries in affirmation.

Gounod was a generation older than Massenet, and his songs reflect a different sensibilty. Gens sings them elegantly, beautifully decorating the trills in Sérénade. Exquisite singing, reminding me of the "alpine" lines in Schubert Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. This poem is Victor Hugo again, from his drama Mary Tudor. Gounod sets it as a lilting berceuse. It's charming, but we'd best forget what happened to Mary! Including the Lamento by Edmond, Prince de Polignac among the Gounod songs was a good idea. The Lamento is sensual, like a serenade on a lute, but has the air of something alien and and exotic. It connects the mood of Massenet's Nuit d'Espagne and even the open-spirited lyricism of Gounod's Ou voulez-vous aller? with the world of Reynaldo Hahn. One belle époque leading to the next.

Reynaldo Hahn's music evokes for me the luxury of salons graced by such as the Prince de Polignac and his widow Winaretta Singer, friend of Nadia Boulanger and Hugues Cuénod. Hahn's music is highly perfumed but its refinement is by no means merely decorative. A Chloris, for example, the song everyone loves, is based on renaissance court poetry and Bach's Air on the G String, reimagined through the prism of Paris in 1913. Hahn and his circle were fully aware of what Debussy, Stravinsky and others were doing. A Chloris is an exotic hybrid, a hothouse flowering that survived because it catches the imagination. For Véronique Gens, it's a link between her baroque background and her championship of later French repertoire.

Debussy : Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus des maisons

2011-12-18T06:10:00.004Z

We don't have houses anymore, the enemy's taken everything away, even our little bed. They burned our school and our teacher too. They burned the church and Lord Jesus Christ, and a poor old man who couldn't get away.

Vengez les enfants de France!
Les petits Belges, les petits Serbes,
Et les petits Polonais aussi!
Si nous en oublions, pardonnez-nous.
Noël! Noël! surtout, pas de joujoux,
Tâchez de nous redonner le pain quotidien.

Debussy wrote this about Christmas 1915, when the enemies were Les Boches. A hundred years later the enemies are different but children are still homeless and traumatized. Noël! écoutez-nous, nous n'avons plus de petits sabots. Please visit Shelter. Or Crisis or help in any other way you can.

Pickled by Seven Foot Dilly

2011-12-17T13:24:00.006Z

Last night I was at I Fagiolini's 25th anniversary party at Spitalfields Winter Music Festival. A capella close harmony - renaissance and 21st century. The fun thing is the way singers can adapt any music and any style, from Striggio and Monteverdi to tunes by Lennon and McCartney. So maybe Manhattan Transfer and barbershop singing spring from a long tradition? When people get together and sing, they can be creative. What are the origins of hillbilly close harmony? People still clog dance in Appalachia, like their ancestors might have in Ireland or Scotland. Did hillbilly song stem from singing in church? Some of the songs clearly have folk origins. A while back I wrote about Knoxville Girl, whose antecdents go so far back that the idea has morphed into many forms, from Carl Loewe's Edward! Edward! (based on quasi folksy Romantic poetry) to modern punk ballad. Please click on this link for more - great juxtaposition of hillbilly harmony and formal Lieder technique.

Seven Foot Dilly was John Dilleshaw who stood six foot seven. He had a band called the Dill Pickles, whose banjo player was known as "Shorty" for reasons apparent in the photo above. As you can see, they were a string quartet! The song below is interesting because it's just Seven Foot and AA Gray singing a folk tune. Seven Foot strums guitar, AA strums fiddle. Is it Black music, or European folk (religious) music? Seven Foot learned to play from a black musician. Maybe there was a lot more black/white mixing? Fascinating subject for someone interested in cross culture, cross genre.

Dangerous Ravel - Bernarda Fink, Wigmore Hall

2011-12-15T22:39:00.007Z

The Wigmore Hall marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Maurice Ravel with a series of concerts that run through to June 2012. Mixing piano song with chamber music, Bernarda Fink's recital titled "Une rare émotion", placed Ravel's vocal music in the context of his era.

That "rare emotion" was a search for alternatives to mainstream culture, exemplified by exotic, alien places. While British colonialism infantilized other cultures, the French saw in "orientalism" potential for creative growth. Ravel's fascination with non-western concepts wasn't effete, but an act of affirmative courage.

Bernarda Fink began her recital with Ravel's Cinq mélodies populaires grecques Their simplicity is deceptive for they represent a very different aesthetic to the often florid fin de siècle lushness of the time. Perhaps it's significant that the poet who wrote the texts, Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, persuaded Ralph Vaughan Williams to study with Ravel instead of with Vincent d'Indy. Fink and Christopher Glynn, her pianist, are right not to overdo the folk origins of these songs, for they herald Ravel's later work, like Rapsodie espagnol and even Boléro. Perceptively, Fink and Glynn juxtaposed these songs with Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, written only 5 years previously, preceding the sensuality of La Flûte de Pan with Camille Saint-Saëns Une flûte invisible (Flautist : Adam Walker)

More stellar, however, was Fink's performance of Ravel's very early Shéherézade (1903). "Asie, Asie, Asie", she sang, her voice glowing with excitement, "Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice". Then, she intoned the words "Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant", almost parlando, hinting at menacing mysteries. Emotional extremes and daring - Ravel was by no means as mannered as the dandy image might suggest.

Jules Massenet's Élégie (1872) was a reminder of the French Romantic tradition, here transcribed for cello (Marie Bitlloch) which nicely complimented Fink's lower register. The highlight of the evening, nonetheless, was Fink's performance of Ravel's Chansons madécasses (1926). This is Ravel's exoticism in full glory. Fink's singing took on a shimmer that brought out the suppressed erotic tension. Her Aoua! was spectacular, vibrant with horror. "Méfiez-vous des blancs, habitants du rivage", she sang. Beware of the whites, who make enticing promises, but bring carnage. The violence is even more terrifying when Ravel follows this outburst with Il est doux. A man is sitting under a palm tree, a woman is preparing his meal. The music lilts languidly. But who is the man, and who is the woman? After Aoua!, we should beware. Ravel is provocative. Exoticism isn't safe.

Fink and Glynn sang Debussy's Trois mélodies de Paul Verlaine (1891) and a selection of Fauré songs from his op 39 and 76, including the lovely Les roses d'Ispahan which often makes me swoon, but after that Aoua! anything but Ravel seemed tame. Glynn's transcription of Poulenc's Priez pour paix, for voice, piano, flute and cello ended the evening on a less disturbing note. Full review in Opera Today here.

Spitalfields Winter Music Festival - Grisey Vortex temporum

2011-12-14T02:41:00.009Z

Magical night of a different kind when Hugh Brunt conducted the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Spitalfields Winter Music Festival. (Read more about it HERE) Gérard Grisey's Vortex temporum (1996-7) was the centrepiece, for it's one of the classics of contemporary music, brilliantly conceptual, yet rich with imagery and feeling. It's is seminally important and any performance is an event.

Wisely, Hugh Brunt and the London Contemporary Orchestra eased into it with Claude Vivier's Pulau Dewata (1977). Vivier was thoroughly grunge, frequenting rough dives and wearing a sheepskin coat that smelled bad. Then he goes to Bali and immerses himself in a totally different culture. Indonesian music wasn't new to western composers but for Vivier it crystallized ideas. In Pulau Dewata, Vivier uses simple quasi-melodies which pass from player to player, adapting imperceptibly. The music seems to levitate. Imagine a ball parried constantly back and forth until the movement seems to sustain itself.

Gérard Grisey's Vortex temporum is like a perpetual motion installation in sound, infinitely multi-layered. Spiralling patterns, the long planes that stretch plaintively outwards, the piano providing a varied "heartbeat". Incredible incident, suggesting in Grisey's own words, human breathing, sleeping whales, the movements of birds and insects. "In this imagined microscope", he said, "the notes become sound, a chord becomes a spectral complex, and rhythm transforms into a wave of unexpected duration". Much is written about spectralism, but its essence is in exploring the whole spectrum of sound, dissected even beyond normal perception, assembled in music of refreshing freedom. Messaien's legacy, via Stockhausen (Vivier's teacher), expressing the "rhythm of life".

Different concepts of time and consciousness, but other levels of meaning Each of the three parts is dedicated to a composer and references his own music. The first part honours Gérard Zinsstag, and the second Salvatore Sciarrino about whom there is a lot on this site, like HERE and HERE) and the third Helmut Lachenmann (also lots on this site HERE and HERE). Vibrations, oscillations, percussive dotted rhythms, parallel but contrasting tempi, instruments played in unorthodox ways so you hear sounds from new perspectives. Grisey embeds temporal continuity into this work, like spreading ripples. Ostinato suggests intervals of time being measured, as the music shivers off into infinity. Ironically, Grisey died soon after Vortex temporum was written. His three friends are all still alive. To quote Grisey again, "Vortex temporum is perhaps only a history of the arpeggio in in time and space - from the point of view of our own ears".

The London Contemporary Orchestra are young, so it wouldn't be fair to expect a performance that really does justice to the piece, but they deserve respect. The piano part would tax a Nicholas Hodges or Rolf Hind, so Antoine François did well indeed. At times he made the piano resonate like an organ. Perhaps Grisey was thinking of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum? It's perfectly valid. (read more HERE). But these works are very much chamber pieces, so much credit to to the way these musicians interacted. Congratulations to them for having the guts and committment to tackle this demanding music!

Martin Suckling (b 1981) is one of the rising stars of this generation of composers, and it was good to hear his new de sol y grana. It's based on a poem by Antonio Machado, about bubbles rising into the sunlight. It's written in nine segments, as individual as each bubble. It's closer to a concerto than Grisey's unclassifiable work, and Agata Szymczewska played the violin part vivaciously. This piece reflects Grisey and Vivier in the sense that Suckling develops the idea of perpetual motion and interchange. It's joyful, with nice colours, though could do with more translucence. Suckling is very promising indeed, and definitely worth hearing, but no-one compares to Gérard Grisey. On the other hand, I suspect that Grisey would have been delighted to hear this concert at the Spitalfields Winter Music Festival for it proves the basic premise of Vortex temporum, that creativity is a continuum. Artists die, but their ideas pass on to others.

Verdi La Forza del Destino - Paris

2011-12-13T19:24:00.009Z

If you, like me, have a weak spot for Verdi's La Forza del Destino, any production is interesting. It's notoriously hard to stage.Too much realism makes this high kitsch tale wackier than it needs to be. Even Caruso and Ponselle (photo left) make it look camp. But the rousing, hyper-emotional music makes the opera fun.

Please read Jim Sohre's review Drapes 'n' Drops in Paris Forza of the current La Forza del Destino at the Bastille in Paris. Philippe Jordan conducts, brilliantly. Full webcast on Medici TV. Marcelo Alvarez and Violeta Urmana, who has created Leonora several times, and Kwangchul Youn, who must make Fra Melitone an overwhelming figure. I'm now listening to the medici tv webcast, it's WONDERFUL! Orchestrally amazing and very good singing - this score is full of killer star turns, and they all come through. I will watch again and again and write up over Xmas HERE is the link to Jim's review in Opera Today

Magical Night - Linbury, ROH

2011-12-12T13:08:00.002Z

"Kurt Weill in a Tutu" I wrote in April, when the Royal Opera House announced the premiere of Weill's Magical Night (Zaubernacht). It's now on at the Linbury Studio. From word of mouth, it's pretty fantastic. Find a kid, or an excuse, to go. My friend took his little daughter who is or was a staunch fan of Lion King. "Much better (than Disney)", she declared. "I want to go TWO times" (kidspeak for "many" times"). She was so thrilled she couldn't stop talking about it and woke the next morning saying she'd dreamed about the Pink Fairy. "Empowering" said her Dad. They immediately re-booked.

So if you want to give a kid a treat they'll never forget, get to Magical Night at the Linbury. Material toys they can get any time, but this is a unique opportunity to get them hooked on the magic of live theatre.

Magical Night is very early Kurt Weill (1922) so isn't typical of his later work. It premiered in Germany in 1922 and had a US production in 1925 but then disappeared. Meirion Brown did a version in 2000 based on the pianos score and contemporary newspaper descriptions. In 2005, the "lost" orchestral parts were fround in a box in the Weill archive. Since then, there have been two completely different productions, one in April this year in Dessau and this new version at the ROH Linbury. The ROH production is choreographed by Aletta Collins, with an amazing set by Rachael Canning. Giant Robot toys, the Pink Fairy, scary things and real children having fun. It's quite irrelevant to fuss about "period" setting. Children don't really change at heart. If anything, modern kids, bombarded with TV, film and video games, need more than ever to be transported into a "Magical Night" of heightened imagination. Full review to follow soon in Opera Today.

Véronique Gens - Héroïnes romantiques

2011-12-12T02:07:00.007Z

Véronique Gens is singing Massanet, Gounod and Reynaldo Hahn on Monday 12th at the Wigmore Hall. Don't miss this, for Gens is divine in this repertoire (and nearly everything else). She is one of the great things to happen to French repertoire in decades - part of a whole renaissance in French music. I'll write about the Wigmore Hall concert later. But in the meantime, please listen to the Arte-7 broadcast of a concert she gave on 10th November at the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice. "Tragédiennes : Héroïnes romantiques". Christophe Rousset conducts LesTalens Lyriques.

First heroine is Ina, daughter of the King of Scotland in Etienne Méhul's 1799 drama Ariodant. She's on trial for illicit sex. Gens makes every word ring out true and clear, so you know, even if you don't understand French, that the accusations can't be true. Rousset follows this tour de force with the overture from Méhul's Stratonice, extending the mood. Gluck, Gosset, Salieri, Kreutzer, Cherubini, and then "Ah, mon fils" from Meyerbeer's Le prophète. What range ! Then Didon's tragic lament from Berlioz Les Troyennes, "Ah! Ah! Je vais mourir!". Gens's style is so lucid that her voice cuts right through the image of Berlioz as molasses. Then "Toi qui sus le néant" from Verdi’s Don Carlos, better known in Italian, of course, but no less dramatic in French.

Véronique Gens's range is huge but completely unforced, so it flows naturally even though she sings such a variety of extreme personalities. There is a new CD in her series of grand Tragédiennes with Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques from Virgin Classics. (photo : Alexandre Weinberger, Virgin Classics). Most of the pieces in this concert can be found on Volume 3 in the series.

However, enjoy the Arte TV film, because it's made in the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, the Centre de Musique Romantique Française. The building is medieval, and features in John Ruskin's The Stones of Venice. It's been restored in ornate luxury, carvings on the walls, mosaics on the floors. The huge lanterns that light the music salon are striking. Perhaps the composers whose music Gens sings would have known the building and recognize the style.

Youth Orchestra of the Americas tours China

2011-12-10T23:28:00.004Z

The Youth Orchestra of the Americas marks its tenth annivesary by touring China. The orchestra brings together talented young musicans from 20 different countries mainly in Latin America, so they can work together and with experienced professionals like Plácido Domingo, Yo-Yo Ma, Helmut Rilling, Kent Nagano and Philip Glass. High level music education, emphasizing performace, and interaction with other musicians and communities. The mission statement "music transforming lives".

The youth orchestra tradition in Latin America goes back many decades. Sixty years ago in Uruguay, José Serebrier organized a schoolboy orchestra. They had no models to follow. No TV, few international concerts and little formal training. Serebrier was only 11, and his friends were very much younger than youth orchestra members are now. Some still wore short pants and thought they had to play from memory! So it's good that Serebrier will lead the Youth Orchestra of America on its biggest ever tour.

The YOA tour of China starts 14th December with a week long residence in Chongqing at the Sichuan Academy of Arts, associated with a thriving conservatoire. Graduates include Yundi Li, Wen Wei and Ning Fen. After working with their Chinese peers, the YOA weill give two concerts, then move on to Guangzhou where they'll play at the new opera house designed by Zaha Hadid. (read more here) Then they fly up north to Beijing andShanghai, also visiting regional centres like Xian, Dalian and Lanzhou in remote Gansu. For orchestra members it will be an unprecedented opportunity to visit famous sites like the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors but also to to meet young local musicans like themselves. Being an artist is much more than just playing notes. The Youth Orchestra of the America's motto is "Music transforming lives". They aren't likely to forget this experience!

Brilliant Don Giovanni La Scala Milan - Barenboim Netrebko Frittoli Mattei Terfel

2011-12-09T05:54:00.016Z

More than a gala for Milan, and for Italy, this wonderful Mozart Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala, Milan was a gala for all the world, broadcast live internationally. Golden casting: Daniel Barenboim, Peter Mattei, Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Barbara Frittoli, Anna Prohaska, Giuseppe Filianoti, Kwangchul Youn, and Stefan Kocan. Golden performances and a staging that accessed daring levels of meaning.

This production starts controversially. Donna Anna (delicious Anna Netrebko) tussles with Don Giovanni (Peter Mattei) .We assume it's rape, because nice girls don't do sex with strangers. But what is she really objecting to, his presence or his mask? And how did Don Giovanni get past her defences? He's a man for whom the thrill of the chase may be more important than the act. So this Donna Anna seems to be enjoying herself while claiming to object. After all, she has a fiancé and an image to protect. Don Ottavio (Giuseppi Filianotti suspects Donna Anna might not love him. Netrebko sings the recititative and ~~Mi tradì, quell'alma ingrata~~ Non mi dir, bell'idol mio, with such passion that you wonder what private grief she's trying to suppress. Netrebko's Donna Anna is psychologically complex, not simply a victim of an attack, but of the whole repressed, narrow world she lives in. Netrebko's performance was a tour de force of great emotional depth, haloed by exceptionally lustrous orchestral playing.

Don Giovanni is a cad but he's a charmer. Mattei is sexy, and sings with alpha male confidence, but he expresses Don Giovanni's appeal on deeper levels. Don Giovanni embraces life - meals as well as women - and deliberately flouts convention, whereas men like Don Ottavio and Masetto (Stefan Kocan) cling to it. e offers choice. "È aperto a tutti quanti! Viva la libertà!”. Perhaps that's why he only meets his match in The Commendatore (superb Kwangchul Youn) who defies the constraints of death. Mattei's Don Giovanni has animal energy, and glories in it - what kind of man keeps his own studbook? But Mattei also suggests the boyish impishness that some women can't resist. Women like Donna Elvira (Barbara Frittoli) need so much to be needed that they fall for a trite ditty like Deh vieni alla finestra.

Ultimately, Don Giovanni seduces because he fills women's fantasies. He also charms men. Leporello (Bryn Terfel) is culpable for Don Giovanni's misdeeds, but can''t break away. Mattei and Terfel are the same age, and have created both Don Giovanni and Leporello, so it's interesting to hear them together. At first Terfel is costumed like a roughneck, which is a complete mistake. No surprise that Terfel, who knows the opera thoroughly, looks uncomfortable and doesn't sing the catalogue aria as crisply as he has done before. Don Giovanni wouldn't hire a buffoon. Once the silly costume is gone, Terfel shows why he's a match for Mattei. Their different styles bounce off each other, creating dramatic tension. Terfel sounds like he's about to explode with the violence Don Giovanni suppresses under his urbane exterior. Mattei, though, is strong enough to stand up to this savage Leporello, his elegant demeanour barely ruffled, for he knows Leporello isn't so different from Donna Anna and Donna Elvira. They all protest but remain transfixed. The Mattei/Terfel dynamic shows the symbiotic relationship between two strong personalities made uneven because of their social status. The dinner party scene bristles with latent menace.

Everyone's playing mind games in this opera. Zerlina (Anna Prohaska) keeps up an illusion of innocence yet delights in kinky activities (read the text). Zerlina is young, but no puppet. Prohaska's movements are as crisp as her diction, creating a pert, non-victim personality who could quite possibly pull the strings on Don Giovanni if their positions were reversed. Prohaska is a singer to follow. Book now for her recital at the Wigmore Hall on 4th March.

This production, directed by Robert Carsen, emphasizes the games the characters are playing. When Don Giovanni and Leporello change clothes, they aren't really fooling anyone who doesn't want to be fooled. The set (Michael Levine) resembles the curtain at the Teatro alla Scala, which Don Giovanni "pulls" down in replica. The masqueraders emerge from the audience, dressed in velvet, the colour of blood. It's a very good use of the otherwise wasted space right down the middle of the theatre, and dramatically correct for it engages the audience to take a stand on the morality in the opera.

When the Commendatore rises from his grave, Kwangchul Youn's magnificent bass booms across the auditorium. It's terrifying because the audience is disoriented, just like Don Giovanni. Youn is standing in the royal box, with the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. It's a powerful statement, since the Italian president isn't an ordinary politician. Politicians screw around like Don Giovanni, but the President of Italy, like Il Commendatore, is supposed to represent higher ideals. Mattei and Youn struggle with such intensity that it's irelevant whether Youn "is" or isn't a statue. He stabs Don Giovanni through ewith his sword. "Questo è il fin di chi fa mal" sing the ensemble at the end. Often this epilogue feels unnatural after the fireworks that went before. This time there's a twist. Mattei stands on stage, while the ensemble descends into a hole in the ground. In the real world, Commendatores don't appear by magic. Bad guys will win unless we take responsibility against them.

There are clips on Youtube of the broadcast, but boycott them. They're very poor quality and will spoil the experience. So wait for the repeat broadcast (Arte TV soon, I believe) and DVD.

Don Giovanni - La Scala, Milan (1)

2011-12-08T01:37:00.007Z

Click here for the half hour trailer to Don Giovanni from Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The trailer doesn't even come near the full experience. HERE IS MY REVIEW. Please read it, it's quite detailed. The real thing's much better. Don Giovanni is Peter Mattei, in top form. Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Barbara Frittoli, Anna Prohaska, Kwangchul Youn, Giuseppe Filianoti, Stefan Kocan, each one of them superb. The dynamic between Mattei and Terfel is interesting. Both are the same age, both have created both roles memorably, in their own very different styles, and here they are up against each other. Terfel is the last person to be servile, but the casting comes into its own at the end. Daniel Barenboim conducts. Extremely witty staging, Robert Carsen, all is forgiven after the Glyndebourne Rinaldo!

More Josquin Masses - Tallis Scholars

2011-12-06T19:46:00.004Z

From the Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips, a fabulous new recording of two of Josquin des Prés canonic Masses, the Missa de Beata Virgine and the Missa Ave Maris Stella. Any recording by these performers is an event because they're astoundingly good. This release extends their on-going series of Josquin masses, recorded to the highest possible standards by Gimmell Records, with which they are so closely associated.

This disc pairs the Missa de beata virgine, Josquin's greatest contemporary hit, with the early Missa Ave Maris Stella. It's interesting to hear the difference between the tightness of the earlier Mass and the later, which survives in many different sources. We don't know exactly what Josquin might have intended, but this non-dogmatism allows performance freedom. As Philips says in his notes, the Missa De beata virgine doesn't fit modern ideas of unified construction. Perhaps, he suggests,"Josquin was deliberately creating a virtuoso exercise in modal relationships". One of the joys of this recording is the way extra voices blend in into the usual SATB format. The Kyrie and Gloria are beautiful enough, but the Credo and Sanctus expand, and the Agnus Dei has resonant depth, so the soprano voices soar as if they were angels.

Josquin's music grows through ever-inventive paraphrases, basic motifs replicating in myriad patterns. Mandelbrot theory in sound? It's no surprise that many modern composers, like Brian Fernyhough, are drawn to Renaissance polyphony as an alternative to symphonic form. The Missa Ave maris stella is so concise that it's almost a surprise when single voices emerge from the different reiterations. For much the same reason I enjoy the Credo quarti toni (the "Cambrai" Credo) where the voices blend without losing their individuality. It's not as gloriously imaginative as the Missa de beata virgine but what lively energy! Buy DIRECT HERE or through the usual channels.

Quqin Master

2011-12-06T01:42:00.008Z

Master of the Quqin, Zhang Ziqian (张子谦)(1899-1991) plays Pingsha Luoyan (Geese Descending on the Sandbank), (平沙落雁) , one of his great classics. The quqin is a seven stringed instrument, smaller than the guzheng, and without bridges. Zhang came from Yangzhou in Jiangsu, on the coast south of Shanghai. There's a long bio of him on Toudo the Chinese TV clip channel, from which this is taken (for educational and fair use principles). I love the description! Wild geese are flying south for the winter and rest for a moment on a sandbank in the shallows of a river. They are at peace, but alert to their surroundings. Rather a good metaphor for this contemplative but acutely sensitive music.

Aung San Suu Kyi :The Lady and the Peacock

2011-12-05T15:41:00.014Z

How did a North Oxford housewife, cycling in a longyi to Park Town, win a Nobel Prize and this week be feted by Hillary Clinton? Do good this Xmas season and read the new book Aung San Suu Kyi : The Lady and the Peacock ( 2011 398pp).

Peter Popham has interviewed Aung San Suu Ki, been to Burma, and has met many people who knew her when she was young. The nbookim includes first-person accounts not available before, and a good description of events after Suu Kyi returned to Burma. The stand-off at Danubyu in 1989 is vividly described, Suu Kyi was on a progress through rural Burma and forbidden to enter a town under martial law. So she calmly walked down the middle of the road. The military drew their guns but didn't shoot. That tells us a lot about Suu Kyi but also about Burma. In many countries she'd have been disappeared, not held in long-term detention.

Suu Kuyi's father was Aung San, the father of Burmese Independence, who was assassinated with his cabinet in 1947. Because he was such a figurehead, Suu Kyi had moral force, even after the military downplayed the personality cult. But Suu Kyi's achievements are her own, and those of the National League for Democracy, and the thousands of unknown, ordinary Burmese who stood up to the regime. Many died, or still languish in prison. It's still not certain what might happen if Suu Kyi wins the next election. The regime nullified the 1990 election win, and used the ludicrous troll trespass incident of 2009 to extend the term of her house arrest. And government is different to dissent. So no complacency. You need to read this book for background.

Suu Kyi was typical of the educated, idealistic Asian and African elite who studied abroad and went on to challenge traditional parameters. Think Sun Yat Sen, the Nehrus, even Barack Obama's father. Suu Kyi was international, living from the age of 15 for long periods in India, England, Japan, Bhutan and in New York during the Warhol years. Many of her friends, even her brother, did well at university and had glittering careers but Suu Kyi found her niche only in her 40's. Yet the fact that she spent her youth raising a family makes her dedication even more admirable. Mandela and Solzhenitsyn didn't sacrifice in the same way. One of the principles of non-violence is that even the humblest individual can change things.

This book is best where the author has access to good sources, like Bertil Lintner's account of the 1988 revolt and the diary Ma Thanegi kept for Michael Aris. Eventually perhaps, there'll be a more analytical study with more detail on underlying issues. The Burmese regime became "The Albania of South East Asia" for reasons that need to be understood. Suu Kyi's maternal uncle was a leader of the Burmese Communist Party. Similarly, more assessment of relations with Thailand and Japan, the only rwo nations in Asia that escaped colonialism. Suu Kyi's mother's dismay at her marriage reflects fears of cultural dilution in a post-colonial situation. Indeed, the whole idea of colonialism needs to be confronted. It's by no means an issue of the past. It lives on unconsciously in any west-centric account of non-western subjects. The many different varieties of Buddhism, for example, don't need unification any more than the many forms of Judeo-Christian belief.

This is primarliy a book by a journalist, well written in an accessible, direct way. That's important because this book needs to reach general readers everywhere. Later, a more scholarly analysis will be possible, but not yet as the drama still unfolds. Yet Suu Kyi's story resonates with most of us. Inspirational reading for Xmas! Gift this book and make a difference yourself in a small way. Buy it direct from the Burma Campaign UK so profits go towards the cause. As Lord David Steel says it's "a reminder that we, in the comfortable outside, must not let her down.”

Lots more on Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia and non-violence on this site. Please explore.

Sofia Gubaidulina LSO Discovery Day

2011-12-05T13:01:00.003Z

Julie Williams on Sofia Gubaidulina : Last weekend saw the most recent of a series of educational days put on by the LSO at London's Barbican Centre, stepping at least partly into the gap left by the BBC's traditional Composer Weekend there in January, a longtime out-of-season rendezvous for Prommers. The BBC are in fact continuing to offer educational events for music lovers in the winter season, these are now taking the form of a series of 'Composer Portrait' days, concerning perhaps three composers each year, rather than a long weekend covering a single composer as before. In addition to this, the LSO is offering its own series of educational days, of which this is the first of this year's series.

Those expecting a survey of the composer's oeuvre would have been disappointed or at least somewhat misled, as the focus is much more on one particular work itself; its background, its genesis and the performers involved. A helpful and informative film, shot in Germany where the composer now lives, was shown where the composer spoke about the creation of this work and her approach to writing music generally. This made some comparison with her earlier violin concerto. Chamber works for violin and cello were also performed live by the LSOs principals at the St Lukes venue, giving some insight into her repertoire for strings. In a commitment to innovation, the LSO principals took questions not only from a live audience but also by webinar. The commitment to education was admirable, the titling / description of the event was perhaps a little misleading. Gubaidulina has written in a range of styles and genres and this event did not really give an opportunity for those new to her work to appreciate this. Perhaps more than anything else, this shows the limitations of the one-day format of event.

*In tempus praesens * takes the present moment as its theme – ethereal, transient and beautiful. The composer says of this work, “Only in sleep, religious experience and art are we able to experience lasting present time.” The soloist is pitted against a large deliberately over-scored orchestra, heavy on percussion but devoid of any other violins except hers, suggesting a solitary presence against heavy dark forces. The single movement concerto is uncompromising, coming from the most austere and unrelieved aspect of the composer's quite varied work; it has parallels with her *St John Passion* (whose UK premiere was conducted at the BBC Proms by Gergiev), and with her flute concerto for Sharan Bazaly. In many ways it could be considered almost a 21st century 'concerto against the violin', the violin is certainly in clear opposition to the orchestra.

To mark this important composer's 80th birthday was a fitting tribute to an important musical voice of our times. To choose this demanding work would not have been the easiest introduction to her work. The first violin concerto. 'Offertorium' for Gidon Kremer has an easier appeal, at times humorous; the theme of light amidst darkness is given a gentler and more positive treatment in her lovely cello work for Rostropovich, 'Canticle of the Sun' (performed at BBC Chamber Proms this year by Nathalie Klein). One hopes newcomers to her work will explore further for themselves.

Coming up : LSO Discovery Days on Contemporary British Composers (15/1), Pierre Boulez ( 29/4)

First and greatest Traviata of all - 蘇小小

2011-12-04T02:06:00.006Z

Another heroic consum'tive courtesan? Su Xiao Xiao (So Siu Siu, 蘇小小) was a real person though relatively little is known about her since she died aged only 19 around 501 AD. But she inspired some of the greatest poets and artists in China, and helped shape fundamental Chinese values. She's a cultural icon, even after 1500 years. Yet she was born in poverty and sold to a brothel as a child.

Su lived on the banks of West Lake, near Hangzhou, an area celebrated for its beauty. Su became famous as a poet and musician: much more valuable than sex. Her legend, however, revolves on her moral integrity. After enjoying this week's La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, (read more here), I decided to watch the 1962 film 蘇小小 which ar the time was one of the most extravagant Cantonese movies made. Part of it was filmed on location on West Lake, showing its temples, bridges and pavilions and Su's grave, a highly symbolic monument which was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards thought she was bad because she represented Chinese tradition. In fact, her values would easily have fitted socialist ideals.

Su overcame her circumstances by merit, not wealth or connections. The film develops her poem in which two people encounter each other under trees by Xilin bridge. One is in a carriage, the other on a horse. Xiao Xiao (actress 白茵, Pak Yan, not the same as Pak Yin!) is on her way to the temple in her carriage and she meets Yuen Yu (周驄 Chow Hung) who is on a mission for his father, The Prime Minister. They fall in love and marry. Yuen's kept his identity secret becauase he knows Xiao Xiao doesn't trust wealth and power. But when he tells her who he really is, she says "I love you for you, not your Dad". Eventually the Prime Minister arrives and drags the son away fromk the unsuitable match. When the son is married off to a General's daughter, he tries to escape but falls to his death. Xiao Xiao doesn't know but pines for him.

The wicked local governor wants to sleep with Xiao Xiao but she stands up to him. If she writes a good poem, he has to leave her alone. It's so good that he's stunned into submission for a while. Morality and art as weapons.

Xiao Xiao also meets a scholar called Pao Yen (wonderful performance by Cheung Wood-yau 張活游)who's a master at singing and playing the guzheng (table lute). More importantly, he's upright and opposes tyranny and poverty. "Why don't you become an official so you can do something about it", asks Xiao Xiao, ever down to earth. He's too poor to travel to the imperial examinations which qualify men for officaldom, so she gives him the money. No strings attached. Later Xiao Xiao is forced to sing for the wicked governor to raise money to bail out a young prostitute who's in love with a nice young man. By now, she's dying of what seems to be TB, so her song is so sad, the governor can't rape her.

The scholar passes his exams and gets a good job at court. So he returns to thank Ziao Xiao, but confirms that her lover is dead. It's too much and she collapses. Her last wish is that Pao Yuen plays the guzheng once more and sings of the West Lake and Zilin Bridge.

Shaw Brothers Studios used to make historical extravaganzas like this, but 蘇小小 was made by a tiny Cantonese independent called Peacock Productions which soon folded. Yet it's ambitious, shot in colour and has Chinese and English subtitles. If you want to watch it, email me for a link.

You might also like reading about another heroic Chinese Traviata, Lin Dai, in Love Without End.
Tomorrow I will review The Lady and the Peacock : the Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (2011) Please come back. You can see why anyone well versed in Chinese/Buddhist values can relate to Aung San Suu Kyi and the ideas she holds. It's part of a culture that goes back moe than a thousand years.

Aki, nobody knows tomorrow

2011-12-02T19:20:00.008Z

Last year someone did a "life satisfaction" survey and Nigeria came out tops. Here's a classic from Nigeria in the 70's. "This life is wonderful, but don't be proud because you have it, it comes from God" (ie fate) "Almighty" he sings after a short pause "Pickin-o good-o, if you get, if you no gettem.... . "Money is good-o, money good-o, we know, if you get, but don't laugh, many people no get's...but if you no gets, make you no cry, first time is the best. Opportunity comes but once in this world. Who knows tomorrow, my friend? Nobody knows tomorrow...." Prince Nico Mbarga wrote Sweet Mother the all-time iconic African classic, known all over the world now. He didn't make mega money and his music career dropped off the radar. Eventually he was killed in a bike accident, still young. But he lives on in his music. Trusty regular African specialist reader says, "Pickin means child in West African slang, and may come from the Portuguese pequeno. Prince Nico was very family oriented, so to him having children was maybe more valuable than having money."

Berlioz - Béatrice et Bénédict - full download

2011-12-02T02:05:00.004Z

Nicholas Collon conducted Berlioz Béatrice et Bénédict with the Chelsea Opera Group last week at Cadogan Hall., Pleasae read Robert Hugill's review HERE. I've been busy lately, so listened instead to Colin Davis conducting Joyce DiDonato and Charles Workman at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris in 2009. Luxury casting. Listen to the full streaming download HERE in Opera Today. There's a link to the libretto, too. Enjoy!

The picture is by Artuš Scheiner (1863-1938) a contemprary of Janáček and Alfons Mucha. It comes from his illustrations for Much Ado about Nothing, part of a series of translations from Shakespeare. Click on the photo to expand, and see the detail. (Berlioz dropped the Don Juan character from the opera)

Making a difference - Aids and other causes

2011-12-01T21:58:00.011Z

I can remember AIDS even before it had a name. At first it was just rumours and then everyone started to die, even "respectable" homophobes. My Dad had an illness that looked like Karposi's syndrome (it wasn't) and people would run away in the library and in the supermarket. The hysteria! I'd forgotten it was World's Aids Day but never forgotten the people who suffered, those who cared for them and those they left behind. Perhaps Aids is contained in the west because it's high profile and Big Pharma saw money in it. But at least the world was galvanized into taking action, and it's made a difference. One thing Thatcher's government did right was the NHS Aids awareness campaign, so brutal that many objected. Part of the hate directed at Princess Diana was because she had compassion and cared about people whatever their status. But it worked. Sometimes it feels like activism gets nowhere but Aids campaigns show that people can make a change. So many causes still to struggle for, poverty, war, social injustice as well as disease.

I've started to read Peter Popham's Aung San Suu Kyi : The Lady and the Peacock (2011). Very well written and focused. At Christmas, people splash money around. Give this book instead and make a difference. Buy it direct from the Burma Campaign UK so profits get ploughed back to a good cause. (multiple copies to multiple friends, less hassle)

People have asked me what the photo on my logo is. It's a statue that used to stand in Haw Par Yuen, (Tiger Balm Gardens) the home of Au Boon Haw (胡文虎) whose father founded Tiger Balm, still one of the best panaceas for muscle aches, headaches etc The photo above is one of their cars, preserved in Singapore. (photo : Dionisius Purba) The family were Hakka from Fujian, but settled in Burma in the 1860's. Au Boon Haw and his brother were devout Buddhists who used their wealth for philanthropy, in China, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma. But because they refused to support the British during the Second World War they were maligned. But why should they have supported a foreign colonial power? Their primary loyalty was to China. The British were mainly interested in white British POWs not the millions of displaced, destitute locals

Aw Boon Haw supported numerous different charities and funded schools, hospitals and orphanages. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Aw used his clout with the Burmese Chinese rice monopoly to make sure supplies were not completely cut off. He also founded a newspaper empire, aimed at South East Asian Chinese. His flagship title was the Sing Tao Yat Po. After 1945, Aw founded "The Standard" an English language newspaper that wasn't a mouthpiece of the establishment. Someone should use the archives of Chinese charities and study the Aw brothers as Chinese patriots. Indeed, the history of the period would be rewritten if Chinese sources were used.

La Traviata, Royal Opera House - perceptive, different

2011-11-30T02:49:00.006Z

Outstanding Verdi La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, London. Richard Eyre's 1992 staging may have been revived many times, but this production reveals striking new depths of interpretation. Good singing is never routine. this production will be memorable because it highlights deeper aspects of the opera.

Verdi writes gloriously for Violetta, so it's a star vehicle for any soprano. But Violetta doesn't exist in isolation. Although the many great singers who have created the part ensure that Violetta is central to the opera, she doesn't exist in isolation. The drama evolves around the changing relationships between Violetta, Alfredo and Germont. This current production is important because Piotr Beczala's Alfredo brings out the full complexity in Alfredo's personality. Beczala is passionate about historic tenor traditions and this awareness infuses his performance. (Read more about him in this interview). This superb performance proves how important highly experienced high quality casting can be. La Traviata can be as much about Germont family values as it is about Violetta,

We can perhaps understand why Violetta is in her profession, but Alfredo poses more difficult questions. What kind of man gives up family and status for a demi-mondaine? It's much more than youthful lust. Even Violetta doesn't believe him at first, but she's persuaded by his intensity.Verdi pointedly raises the emotional stakes with the rousing Libiam ne'lieti calici. It's more than a drinking song, it's a hymn to life.

Because Beczala takes his cue from the music, his Alfredo is infinitely more than a lightweight charmer. The energy in his singing suggests that Alfredo represents an affirmative life-force, in contrast to the shallowness of life on the party circuit. Verdi is making a strong moral statement. Beczala's Alfredo expresses the strength in the character - firm phrasing, vibrant colour and absolute technical control. Beczala sings the high "Lavero!" at the end of the cabaletta so rings out with a confident flourish. Beczala's lucid elegance shows that Alfredo's emotional depth springs from strength of character.

Beczala's Alfredo also emphasizes the relationship between father and son, a connection sometimes under-estimated. Simon Keenlyside sings Giorgio Germont with gravitas. There's real chemistry between Keenlyside and Beczala. Their dialogues bristle with the bitter energy of shifting father/son power struggle, but the richness of the singing suggests fundamental warmth. One senses that after Violetta is is gone, Alfredo and his father will have an ever stronger connection. Lovely "pura siccome un angelo", so this family will thrive. Keenlyside's acting was stiffer than his singing.. He used his stick, not with a swagger, but more as a crutch, as if he had a real life injury. Keenlyside is an athlete and has mishaps. Usually, he's much more animated..

Expectations were high for Ailyn Peréz after the publicity generated during the Royal Opera House's Japan tour, last year, where she stood in after both Angela Gheorghiu and Ermolena Jaho had to cancel at the last moment. Heroic circumstances. Last month, at the Placido Domingo Celebration, she sang a pleasant if unremarkable Gilda. Her Violetta was attractive enough allowing for uneven intonation and odd phrasing, which she might overcome with experience. One day perhaps she'll be able to act with her voice, so her gestures come from within. The scene where Violetta squirms in horror as Alfredo enters the casino was unconvincing, though Peréz warmed up, ironically, in the final act. Although Violetta's music is so well written it cannot help but impress, the role is complex and by no means "pretty". She's much more than a projection of male fantasy. Violetta fascinates Alfredo because he can sense in her something others can't, so whoever sings the part needs to suggest what that special quality might be.

Rodula Gaitanou was until only last year a Jette Parker Young Artist. Her Haydn L'isola disabitata at the Linbury was extremely mature for someone so young (read about it HERE) so it's good that she's directing a high profile production like this. In a revival, the moves may be the same, but the way they're done makes all the difference between dull repeat and fresh enthusiam. Gaitanou's precision illuminates another sub-theme of this opera that's often overlooked. The gambling table is a metaphor for fate. It's mechanical, and in Eyre's original concept, dominates the stage like a juggernaut. The gypsies dance in strict formation, though they sing of love and freedom. There's something quite sinister about the bacchanale. So the crowd scenes are tightly executed to express this tension, while subsidiary roles like Flora (Hanna Hipp), Gastone (Jin Hyun Kim), D'Obigny (Daniel Grice), Douphol (Eddie Wade), Dr Grenvil (Christophoros Stamboglis) and Annina (Gaynor Keeble) stand out as individuals, doing justice to excellent singing. It's a pity that the conducting (Patrick Lange) was erratic, especially since he comes with good credentials (Chief Conductor at the Komische Oper, Berlin).

There's no such thing as a staging that lets a story tell itself. In a good production, clues are always present if you're alert to them. Bob Crowley's set may look "traditional" but it comments powerfully on the drama. In Act One, the diagonals in the set seem to be caving in on the stage, warning that something's awry. At the centre of the famous country house scene is a doorway which opens onto a trompe-l'œil suggesting many distant doorways beyond. Everything is illusion, even the "books" on the shelves are painted, not real, Grand paintings are haphazardly strewn across the floor. In the final act, behind Violetta's deathbed looms a giant picture frame covered in black, as portraits used to be covered when a person died. For a brief moment, Alfredo's image is projected onto the cloth, but fades. Mirrors, a dressmaking dummy, and huge, overpowering shutters, all of which add to meaning. This is a beautiful production but it's also intelligent. With casts like this, revivals ae fully justified.

A full review will appear shortly in Opera Today.
You might also like: La Traviata and the Credit Crunch and La Traviata as Chinese movie
Photos copyright Catherine Ashmore, coutesy Royal Opera House (details embedded)

La Traviata, Royal Opera House - unusual, different

2011-11-30T02:22:00.005Z

I never thought I'd need to say it, but get to this current run of Verdi La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. Outstanding singing - the best all year. Even more interesting, it's different because Piotr Beczala's Alfredo is so strongly charactrized that for a change, Alfredo is the story. Usually the focus is on Violetta, and often on Germont, so Alfredos get taken by relative lightweights, good on charm but without depth. Beczala on the other hand is one of the most experienced Alfredos around, so the subtle change in balance brings insight. That's why this La Traviata is unique, even though we think we know the opera well.

Who is Alfredo, really? Why has he chosen an unsuitable woman in the first place? Why does he have the strength of character to elope with her and stand up to his father, and defy social convention? As Beczala says in this interview in Opera Today, Alfredo is struggling to make his own way in life, because young people need to rebel to find themselves. But Alfredo is a lot like his father. Both are strong-willed personalities, so sure of themselves they're blind to other people's feelings. Both have tempers. Yet, ultimately both are noble spirits who can change when they learn from their mistakes. So Beczala's interpretation is very deep indeed. And his singing's divine - the high "Lavero!" at the end of the cabaletta rings out with a flourish, totally confident. Read the interview also to see what inspires and motivates Beczala. I've loved his work since his early days with Zurich Opera, and he's developed so well.

Here is a more comprehensive review and fuller still the one which will appear in Opera Today. My way of assessing a performance comes from analysing how and why it expresses an opera. I love this Richard Eyre production because this set silent and very perceptive comment on the story. But you have to be alert to pick up the signals. No matter how many times you've been to this La Traviata, you'll get a lot more from this run than you'd expect !

Ken Russell - 1927-2011

2011-11-28T12:47:00.007Z

Ken Russell could not "pass away". He died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday after a series of strokes which would have felled a lesser man long ago. And he died with a smile on his face. Earlier this year he gave an interview during a break from hospital. Cheerfully drinking wine and living life to the full.

His son Alex has asked, "Please play some music as a prayer for Ken to hear in Heaven". Alex's first choice was Berlioz Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale.I'm trying to think of something. Mephisto Waltz ? Symphonie fantastique? Something quixotic, but which reflects Ken's irrepressible love of life. Strangely my favourite Ken Russell was Song of Summer about Eric Fenby's encounter with Delius. It comes from the same period as Women in Love and The Devils, at the height of the Swinging Sixties, but is completely different. It's a film that shows how deeply sensitive Ken really was. Delicate, thoughtful nuances, you could feel how Fenby felt in the presence of his hero. So maybe the music I'll choose is

Fun Winter in Spitalfields

2011-11-28T02:00:00.008Z

You could spend December with Messiahs back to back. But the Spitalfields Winter Music Festival offers festive cheer and fun music. It even kicks off with a Christmas Market with Outdoor Puppets, early music, story telling, brass bands and gospel choir. Much livelier than commercial tat. And the money goes to Crisis, to help the homeless, not a remote "theoretical" situation these days. That's the real spirit of Christmas, caring for others.

Lots of singing and community events but Spitalfields isn't the average type of place. It's eclectic! The big event on 16/12 is the 25th anniversary of I Fagiolini: Monteverdi, Striggio, Janequin, Britten and "three musical soufflés". I Fagiolini under Robert Holllingworth have a reputation for adventure. Early music isn't "safe". Also off the beaten track is Joglaresa's Yoolis on 19/12. Medieval instruments and quirky medieval humour. "Early music's bit of tough" they describe themselves.

Early music is a Spitalfields thing, but so is contemporary avant garde (it's that kind of neighbourhood). Tickets almost sold out for the London Contemporary Orchestra, whose conductor Hugh Brunt has impressed me a lot in the past. They're doing Claude Vivier Pulau Dewata and Gerard Grisey Vortex Temporum Lots about Vivier and Grisey on this site - my favourites!

Even more eclectic is thew Tom Waits Project. Veteran composer Gavin Bryars has created a "circus band" to bring together "ten songs by Tom Waits, two by Kurt Weill, a sea shanty, a hymn, a couple of instrumental gypsy tangos and a classic Fellini film score", This should be very interesting indeed. Bryars's Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet was the first new music surprise I had when I first came to London, but I took to it like a natural. About ten years ago it was recorded again with Tom Waits singing the slurred drunken refrain, instead of the original loop tape of a London tramp. So Bryars and Waits relate to each other well. Tom Waits is unique. He used to cultivate a street bum persona like someone out of film noir. Now he lives on a ranch near my Dad, but someone like that can't tame at heart. Tom Waits's music is poetry, true art song, but with attitude. Waits himself doesn't deign to tour in London to big houses. So get the experience at Spitalfields.

Oh, and they are doing a Messiah, too!

photo by Steve Cadman

Handel Saul at the Barbican

2011-11-27T03:07:00.001Z

Handel Saul at the Barbican reviewed in Opera Today by Robert Hugill. "The title role is a remarkable portrait of a conflicted personality, and Handel emphasised this by reducing the character's arias and concentrating on recitative (both secco and accompanied). This means that it can be a tricky role to bring off, fatally easy to under play in a concert performance. Peter Purves brought both Handelian bravura and drama to the role, not only acting but reacting, his performance continuing when others were performing, so that Purves showed Saul’s furious reaction to the Israelites praise for David"

La Traviata - moral, universal?

2011-11-26T03:03:00.004Z

Verdi's La Traviata starts its second run of three this year at the Royal Opera House. But please read La Traviata and the Credit Crunch by David Chandler in Opera Today. And my review of the November production with a much stronger cast. "One way of thinking about La Traviata is to consider it as a portrayal of bubble wealth that makes artistic capital from the shimmering, rainbow hues of the surface rather than showing any interest in what sustains the bubble."

Violetta lives the champagne lifestyle to excess because it's like an escape from brutal reality. Like the petals of a camellia which shatter at the height of their beauty, La Dame des Camellias knows she has to live for the moment. Yet she can see the wider situation and the effects on other people. That gives her the true nobility Germont respects.

The lady in the photo is Lin Dai 林黛 (1934-64) perhaps the most celebrated Chinese actress of her time. She came from an upper class background in Guangxi, a poor province ruled by an enlightened, reformist leadership under General Bai Chongxi (father of Professor Pai of Kunqu Opera fame) After the Communists came power, Lin Dai's family became refugees. Lin Dai started making movies at 17 and starred in many great classics from historic costume dramas like The Kingdom and the Beauty to comedies.

In Love Without End (不了情) (1961) Lin Dai plays Qing Qing, an orphan from the country who comes to neon-lit Hong Kong. Wearing a simple qipao, she sings a folksong in a nightclub, but impresses the patrons so much she becomes resident singer. Nightclubs were an important part of social life then, so they represent much more than entertainment. Qing Qing falls in love with Teng Pengnan (Kwan Shan 关山) a rich young man. But Teng's father dies suddenly, leaving huge debts. Pengnan has to save the family business and honour but can't find the funds. So Qing Qing rescues the Tengs by giving them money under a false identity. Qing Qing then seduces Pengnan (shocking in those chaste days) because she wants to lose her virginity with him. She's got to spend a year as the "secretary" of the millionaire who gave her the money but at least her first night will be love. So she's heroic because she sacrifices herself for others. But Pengnan, disgusted and enraged, walks out when he finds out. Eventually they reconcile and are about to marry when Qing Qing discovers that she has a fatal illness. So she runs away to a retreat on a remote island where she's tended by a Catholic priest. In real life, there were Catholic ministries in Hong Kong's outer islands, and Lin Dai was a devout Catholic. But the La Traviata connection is obvious. Pengnan tracks her down, but, as in the opera, it's too late.

Lin Dai is incandescent on screen. She was a "natural girl", whose cheeky charm and perky optimism appealed to audiences in the turbulent 50's and 60's, but she's also an archetype of the ideal Chinese heroine who throughout history sacrifices her beauty for higher causes. So Love Without End is even more in the tradition of Diau Charn (貂蝉) and Beyond the Great Wall. than a mere remake of La Traviata. (Diau Charn falls in love with the general of a despot she's on a mission to destroy. In Beyond the Great Wall, a royal concubine marries a Mongol to save the nation), So Qing Qing in Love Without End is Violetta who can see beyond conspicuous consumption. Consumption got them in other ways! Lin Dai committed suicide at the age of 29. Possibly it was an aberration, an accident that went wrong. Her husband left their room intact until he died last year. Even the hair in her hairbrushes, and lipsticks half used. So maybe life imitates art. The song below (sung by Gu Mei, Lin Dai lip syncs) is so famous that it evokes the whole period.

Please also see Chinese Carmen Wild, Wild Rose and lots more on Chinese film and values on this site.

Cool Dude, Dvořák

2011-11-25T04:23:00.000Z

courtesy of Julian Long, baritone. Dvořák in the 70's the Decade That Taste Forgot

New Life for Hugh the Drover

2011-11-24T14:30:00.007Z

Is English Opera an oxymoron? (other than Benjamin Britten). "Imagine a tuneful eighteenth-century “ballad opera” of country life, say Stephen Storace’s enduringly popular No Song No Supper, cross it with Cavalleria Rusticana, throw in a bit of Rocky for good measure, and you have some idea of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s first opera, Hugh the Drover, a “Romantic Ballad Opera.” writes David Chandler in Opera Today.

Don't laugh too soon! Please read the full review here because it's a erudite analysis on what makes an opera work.

Hugh the Drover would be ridiculous as Grand Opera, but on its own terms there's more to it than reputation would have. The secret is in performances like the recent production by Hampstead Garden Opera, Upstairs at the Gatehouse. "They do not send it up, but they “sub-reference” the audience, to use Charles Lamb’s term, just enough to say “look, this is all tremendous fun, and we’re really enjoying ourselves.”

Context is all. Not long ago, the Royal Opera House considered English operas but dropped plans discreetly. It wasn't cost, but artistic good sense. Even Sir John in Love or A Village Romeo and Juliet wouldn't work in a space more suited to Wagner or Verdi. Why doesn't ENO do more English opera instead of opera in English? The Coliseum has connections with the English Music Hall tradition, and is small enough to suit the domestic nature of the English style. RVW's Riders to the Sea was popular, though it was treated much more as the J M Synge stage play with music than as the opera it is. That's the usual ENO hang-up about theatre rather than music. If the ENO could do musically-literate English opera, that would be a real challenge.

Inside a Fabergé Egg - Bolshoi Ruslan and Lyudmila

2011-11-22T23:29:00.005Z

What must it feel like to be inside a Fabergé egg ? The new Bolshoi Theatre is sumptuous. It's splendid outside, and stunning within. That kind of extravagance is a visionary act of faith in the value of art. For £430 million Moscow has a jewel which enhances the nation's reputation. For £800 million in 2002, London got the Millenium Dome, which continued to bleed money until it became an arena for pop concerts.

Fabergé egg indeed, as the curtain rose on the first full opera, Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila "as iconic in Russia as Carmen is in France" as the host says on Arte TV (watch full video HERE). Make time to listen carefully, luxuriate in the exquisite performance. Vladimir Jurowski conducts. The Bolshoi is in a completely different stratosphere from Glyndebourne and the LPO, with all respect. If they snare him, on the basis of this we're all in for wonderful things.

Ruslan and Lyudmila isn't really medieval Kiev. Indeed, the story bears a striking resemblance to Tasso's Orlando saga which gave rise to works like Armida, Rinaldo, Orlando Furioso, Orlando Paladino and much else. Thwarted lovers, sorcerers and sorceresses good and bad, enchanted palaces, magic gardens. Ruslan and Lyudmila fascinates because it's fairy tale fantasy. So we gasp at the sheer beauty of the wedding feast and suspend belief in plot logic.

Ruslan (Mikhail Petrenko) and Lyudmila (Albina Shagimuratova) seem blissfully happy. But wait! Like any decent fairy-tale, something's not right. Bayan the mystic (Charles Workman who also sings Finn the white witch) warns of danger. Then you notice wedding guests with big head masks. Then, while the guests are dancing, half hidden in the melée, there's a giant head. Friends or foes? Lyudmila gets whisked away in a carpet, as in the original.

More controversially, director Dmitri Tcherniakov and his team show the characters in the following acts in normal "modern" clothes. This isn't wrong, since fairy tales deal with human situations (albeit extreme). Indeed, we can concentrate better on the singing and acting. When Ruslan confronts the Giant Head, it's a human face projected on a backcloth - much more moving than a comedy structure. Given the horizontals that large crowd scenes dictate, film projections are a good way of using this vast stage. But Ruslan's confrontation with the Head is extraordinarily dramatic - one of the best moments inn the whole production,

Rather less effective though are the portrayals of Finn and Naina the Armida-like sorceress, neither demonic nor sympathetic. The scene in Naina's castle is a mess. Can these aimlesss sirens seduce anyone? Their captives look bored out of their heads. On the other hand, had Tcherniakov shown them more forcefully, either as hooker vamps, or sweet nubile babes, it would have upset many in the audience. Compromise isn't a good choice.

Infinitely better are the scenes in Lyudmila's dream-state. Lit in luminous whites and blues, the set seems to float in space, like Lyudmila, bewitched. The dance sequences suggest what might be happening in her mind. Again, the simplicity allows full focus on the singing - Yuri Minenko's Ratmir is divine! Tcherniakov may not please conservatives, but these last two acts are sensitive to the music, movement enphasizing what's in the orchestra. Indeed, throught the opera, solo instruments appear on stage as part of the action, showing how Glinka uses them to spotlight inner states. For example, harpsichord and harp in the banquet scenes. Lyudmila sings her long Act IV aria shadowed by a violinist, the music expressing, perhaps, what's in her psyche.There are things in this Ruslan and Lyudmila that irritate like crazy, but moments like this which make it worthwhile.
Please see also Opera Cake

IRR raves Dvořák 9 Serebrier

2011-11-22T10:15:00.003Z

"Outstanding, should rank with the finest", says Robert Maxwell-Walker in the International Record Review of the new Dvořák Symphony no 9 From the New World by José Serebrier and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. ".... the wood wind, so fresh and intensely musical are the phrases and characterisation both of the principals and as a unit. It is as though they have just discovered the music: there is nothing tired or thoughtlessly predictable about this performance, all the way through – it is deeply impressive, such as to reinforce one’s faith in the classical record business. The conductor’s tempos and internal orchestral balance are flawless. Nor are these musical qualities confined to the performance of the Symphony; the Slavonic Dances which open and close the disc are fresh and lively and intensely musical ; the Czech Suite, likewise, is not ‘run-through’ in any superficial manner; these artists’ individual and corporate respect for all the music here is uplifting to a degree."

I'm thrilled. Please read my review HERE. Serebrier brings such freshness to this performance, I think, because he cares deeply about the music and the concepts behind it. As a young boy in Uruguay he discovered the music of America and formed the first South American youth orchestra in order to get it performed. At 17, he went to study in the US and was mentored by Stokowski. Serebrier assisted Stokowski on the first recording of Charles Ives's Symphony no 4 and later conducted it with the LSO. What I like about Serebrier us that he doesn't follow received wisdom but thinks - and feels - for himself. A true original !

Radical déjeuner

2011-11-21T17:53:00.009Z

Dissident Ai wei wei poses naked with women? Far more radical was this event in the late 1920's in Shanghai where a group of artists posed for (I think) a formal graduation photo and included their life class model. It's a reference to Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe but in China, unlike the west, there's no tradition of classical nudity. These artists were changing values within the society they lived in.

This week, Aung San Suu Kyi announced that she would run for parliament in Burma. This is courageous because she's reaffirming the idea of democracy as "the will of the people". Although the generals mistreated her and other Burmese, she doesn't choose violent overthrow but works to heal from within. How can bad systems really change? Again and again, violence perpetuates regression. Cheer the fall of Gaddafi, but remember what happened after the fall of the Shah. On the other hand, the non-violent collapse of Communism in Europe which really seems to have brought a new, if less secure, era. What brings about fundamental, positive change? I'm wary of rent-a-mob protesters who think protest is cute stunts and don't analyse issue by issue. That's no different from following party lines or demagogue politics. No one country can solve this Economic Collapse, certainly no one person. Real change, I think, will only come through a mature rethink of the fundamentals of the system, not stunts, not violence.

Lonesome Schoenberg's New World

2011-11-20T18:00:00.002Z

"How Schoenberg became Lonely" by the biographer of his American years, Sabine Feisst. "Far from being isolated or alone, he in fact never failed to attract supporters in Europe and America, and scored substantial successes on both continents. Schoenberg’s penchant for the rhetoric of loneliness expressed something deeper than pessimism; it worked along with his unfailing ethical idealism to fuel his fighting spirit, which was the engine of his productivity, creativity, and teaching activities in both Europe and America".

Feisst's book, Schoenberg's New World (OUP, 2011) is an antidote to the demonization of Schoenberg currently fashionable in some circles, as if "disappearing" Schoenberg might somehow magic music back into the 19th century. Rumours are that some want him banned in LA of all places. Feisst demonstrates how integral Schoenberg was to the development of American music as well as European. Myths are made when people rehash the same old stories. A historian's job is to analyse how things come to be known. Please also see this clip of Schoenberg conducting Mahler in LA as early as 1934.

New Dvořák series - Serebrier, Bournemouth, Warner

2011-11-20T08:01:00.007Z

When Dvořák went to America, he was struck by the Shock of the New. In 1893, there was no TV, no film, no mass communication, so the impact of this strange new world must have been extreme. Dvořák's Symphony no 9, "From the New World" op 95 is so familiar now that it's thrilling to hear this new recording, first in a series of Dvořák symphonies from Warner Classics. José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, one of the best outside London (and good enough to show London a thing or two!). If the rest of the series is as good as this disc, Bournemouth will get the respect it deserves.

Serebrier has conducted and recorded Dvořák many times, but this performance is electrified by a glorious sense of discovery. Might this have been what Dvořák and many millions of Europeans before him and after have felt when they encountered America? There are many more venerable recordings, but this bursts with open-hearted exuberance. Serebrier shows what America might have meant for Dvořák, a man steeped in European tradition, from a land-locked country. Expansive, surging crescendi, suggesting wide open spaces, not just physical but as creative opportunity. Vigorous rhythmic power, evoking the liveliness of American "can do" enterprise. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra here is very bright, and very brassy, more like an American orchestra, which suits this symphony well, and they sound invigorated.

Dvořák's big codas dazzle, creating large forms, but above all, Serebrier shows how the essence of this symphony lies in lyrical detail. Mountains, plains, cities and technology - do some of these rhythms suggest trains, and machines ? Yet the symphony's finest moments stress individuality, either human or from nature. Hence the delicate "vernal" motifs like the wonderful English horn motif, now known as "going home". It wasn't borrowed music but Dvořák's own, representing, perhaps, idealistic innocence. That's why it became a spiritual, not the other way round. Serebrier separates notes so each is heard clearly. This creates a magical sense of wonder, but hints at fragility. The Largo dissolves with exquisite tenderness. Even in the vigorous, confident Allegro con fuoco, the pure, clean sounds of solo instrments shine. The sound recording is so good you can hear piccolo and triangle ring. This is where studio recording proves its worth, for that pristine clarity is very much at the heart of this symphony.

It's prescient that this Volume One in Serebrier's Dvořák series with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra starts with the Slavonic Dance op 46 no 1 (presto) because the first chord explodes! It's followed by an unusually alert reading that feels like dance on a grand scale, yet even the tiny whips - like fast moving footsteps - are deftly precise. Surrounding From the New World with the Czech Suite op 39 and the Slavonic Dance op 72 no 2 (allegretto) is perceptive, for it underlines the idea of dance in the symphony. Dance is rhythmic pattern, and movement, and From the New World uses ensemble patterns as well as motivic freedom. Dancers in groups, dancers solo, all functioning in a complex whole. You can almost visualize an American city with teeming traffic in a very un-European grid of streets. Or buildings as hives of activity. Maybe that's what Dvořák really meant about using "Indian" sounds, stomping ostinato as a rhythm of life.

http://www.amazon.com/Dvorak-Symphony-No-New-World/dp/B005MQJPZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321775940&sr=8-1

Mix up matrimony

2011-11-19T15:15:00.003Z

"Racial segregation I can see universally, fading gradually. Mixed marriage is the fashion...the organs are always playing, and the parsons are saying, co-operate and amalgamate..... the races are blending harmoniously, white and coloured people are binding neutrally, it doesn't take no class to see it come to pass, coloured Britons are rising fast." Note the reference to "Chinee man" and the huge (male) Chinese community in the Caribbean.

Sibelius Kullervo on TV tonight

2011-11-18T23:33:00.002Z

Sibelius Kullervo on BBC TV 4 tonight live from the Barbican. Except it's from 1992. Two of the greatest Sibelius singers of all, which makes it worth hearing, Everyone looks so young. Jorma Hynninen is now 70, but here he is still in his prime. Hynninen is perhaps the greatest exponent of Finnish song ever. He recorded the very first Kullervo, with Paavo Berglund in 1985, soon after the work was rediscovered. Anything he does with Kullervo is historic. Soile Isokoski is in her early 30's and looks positively virginal. She's using a score, not that that means anything, because even singers who know their parts well often keep a score handy for security. But this is three years before her 1995 recording of Kullervo with Lief Segerstam. It's good to hear her near the start of her career, now that she's turned Sibelius performance around. Quite possibly no-one has done as many Kullervos, Luonnotars and Sibelius songs as she, though most were live performances, some much better than more formal recordings.

The orchestra really sounds like it's 1992. Sir Colin Davis's Sibelius harks back to early 20th century British practice, which is valid, but smooths out the raw energy in the piece. The first movement is so polite it's dull, but perservere. After the maiden's suicide, Davis responds to the horror the music expresses and things pick up in the "battle" movement. There's almost no way the savagery in this music can be suppressed, so it's still thrilling, though Davis's conducting is very dated and doesn't access the depths of the piece. Sibelius's writing reflects the stylized barbarism of the story. Hard, driving rhythms, dissonaces and relentless pounding. This is way outside the Austro-German mainstream. Sibelius is accessing a far deeper tradition based on the oral tradition from which the Kalevala as we know it now developed. Sibelius is doing what Stravinsky, Ravel and Bartók would be doing decades later. How primal Kullervo must have sounded in 1892.

Perhaps that's why Sibelius suppressed this piece. He was hyper-sensitive, and despite his fame, quite insecure on a deeper level. Even when he was financially secure, he felt impoverished. There is a crackpot theory around that suggests he stopped writing because he got a state pension which shows a complete misunderstanding not only of the man but of the creative mind. Shame on those who perpetuate such nonsense. Because Sibelius was a visionary, he could imagine music so advanced that even he could not achieve what he dreamed of. Hence the "silence of Järvenpää". Because Sibelius was the symbol of Finland to the world, he was always under pressure to excel, and meet public expectations. But an artist needs the freedom to experiment and grow. Listen to Tapiola, the Seventh Symphony and The Tempest. So perhaps Sibelius pulled back from the brink just as he did with Kullervo. Luckily for us, though, he went on to write more, and the manuscript of Kullervo wasn't lost.

Fauré Mirages - filming art song

2011-11-17T13:12:00.004Z

It is my honour to present Gabriel Fauré's Mirages in these videos by Corinne Orde. Art song is poetry expanded through music, expanded further by performance. And in this case, exceptionally vivid filming, which absolutely enhances the experience. So an organic flow between the ideas that inspired the poet (Mme la Baronne Renée de Brimont) to the way Fauré sets the poems, and the way they're expressed in this performance. Study these well, for they are a lesson in how art song interpretation can be extended through intelligent film making. Look how beautiful the camera work is, too! Even the translation is way above average, much more natural and poetic than most available. This one should be the standard. An observant eye for nature, too (nature filning is also a specialist genre). Altogether an impressive Gesammstkunstwerk, extremely sensitive and creative. Not many people possess this wide range of skills. Pretty unique. Just sourcing the locations would be hard work. Please read more about Corinne Orde HERE and explore her other films of French songs (I love her Ravel Histoires naturelles) Here is a link to her youtube channel, to which I've subscribed, but these films are so good that they should be screened in performance events.Please see lots more on nthis site about filming nmusic and music on film,

Missing Sibelius 8 found?

2011-11-16T02:40:00.003Z

Did parts of Sibelius Symphony no 8 escape the flames at Ainola ? There's plenty of evidence that Sibelius did write something, but being a perfectionist who'd suppressed his own work before, he kept the details to himself. Read the evidence in Kari Kilpeläinen's 1995 article in The Finnish Music Quarterly. Something went into the fire, but Sibelius couldn't burn what was not to hand.

On 14/11/11 this article appeared in the Helsingin Sanomat : Sibelius's letters unearthed from document case. The granddaughter of the woman who inherited music copyist Paul Voigt's personal effects contacted Helsingin Sanomat" It's by Vesa Sirén, long-term Sibelius scholar, who's written about Sibelius as conductor. Voigt was Sibelius's copyist and it's known that he had a "cardboard box filled with music" stored away. More background HERE.

Two weeks ago, Sirén wrote about attempts to perform what material that might exist. "Is this the sound of Sibelius's lost 8th Symphony?" (this is the article Sirén sent to Alex Ross). The sound clip is HERE It's in Finnish, but the music starts 2 minutes in and ends at 4.45.

"Incredible. Even the dissonant intervals in the horns have a sensual clarity to them", says a stunned Timo Virtanen (editor of the Sibelius Critical Edition). Adds Sirén "The music is strange, powerful, and with daring, spicy harmonies - a step into the new even after Tapiola and the music for The Tempest."

This ties in with Kari Kilpeläinen's speculation about what might have made Sibelius so cagey about letting the symphony be seen by others.

"It appears from certain late works that Sibelius stood on the brink of a new stylistic era after the 7th Symphony, Tapiola and the Tempest music. This is particularly marked in the opus 114 work for piano (1929), in which he seemed to be progressing towards a more abstract idiom: clear, ethereal images little touched by the human passions.... If the Opus 114 piano pieces are abstractions of this world, the Funeral (op111b) is by comparison like a study of the other world - strange, inexplicable, unconditional yet not frightening. It has been suggested that the Funeral is based on a theme from the 8th symphony, and Aino Sibelius admitted that this might be so. Did the new symphony thus also represent a modern sound unlike that of his previous style, with bleak, open tones and unresolved dissonances?"

Enescu Oedipe La Monnaie broadcast

2011-11-15T12:51:00.002Z

George Enescu's Oedipe (premiered 1936) is at last making its way into the mainstream repertoire. It's not mindless easy listening, because Enescu's dealing with the primeval saga of Oedipus, from birth to death. Oedipus is cursed from the moment he's born. Weary, blind and dispirited, he's welcomed in Athens, but by then it's too late. Oedipus chooses death. Along the way, he's married his mother, killed his father and much else.

The latest production of Enescu Oedipe at La Monnaie/ De Munt in Brussels is now available free HERE until 2nd December. Leo Hussain conducts, which is immediately a plus, as he's very good. This version's infinitely sharper than the 2002 Edinburgh Festival performance which I learned the opera from. Evan Dickerson, the leading Enescu specialist, covered the 2008 Toulouse Production (Steinberg). This cast includes Dietrich Henschel, Jan-Hendrick Rootering, John Graham-Hall, Natasha Petrinsky, Robert Bork, Henk Neven, Ilse Eerens and the remarkable Marie-Nicole Lemieux. Direction and design by Alex Ollé and Valentina Carrsaco, forces behind La Fura dels Baus.

I'd heard horror stories about the production, since La Fura dels Baus are controversial, but it was much better than I feared. Dark and forbidding - but this is a strange world, with irrational curses and tense, brutalized citizens, threatened by plagues, wars and disaster. A whole society in permanent state of anxiety. Of course it's not pretty. Images are glimpsed in shadow, as elusive as images in a nightmare. Yet this reflects Enescu's music, which throbs and flows like an invisible organism, the vocal parts signposts to meaning. (Read NW-Paris's comment on my recent opera dream. Maybe prophecy is still with us.) So I don't have any problem with the Sphinx depicted as old fashioned aeroplane. Planes have wings, too, and often have female names. Sphinxes are quixotic! When Marie-Nicole Lemieux crawls onto the fuselage, she sings with demonic force. Fabulously effective. In a way, one might read the Sphinx as mother/wife. Since she's powerful, and female, she "must" be destroyed.

The production is claustrophobic, but that adds to the sense of foreboding. Jocasta "with the white arms" follows Oedipe in marriage and looks back, her arms now covered in blood. When Oedipus exits life, he walks through a narrow passage into light. Birth canal anxiety? Freud would have read much into this. So watch and listen. I won't say "enjoy", but this is a thoughtful approach to an opera which can be deeply disturbing. Read the plot beforehand as a lifeline.