Concert Previews: Fall 2007

Here’s a look at some of the Concert Previews (e.g., pre-concert lectures) I’ll be giving for subscribers to the concert season of the Washington Performing Arts Society:

Wednesday, October 10, 8:00 pm The Music Center at Strathmore

La Scala PhilharmonicRiccardo Chailly, conductorThe long-awaited D.C.-area debut of the La Scala Philharmonic, led by the charismatic Riccardo Chailly, the ensemble plays beloved works and classic Italian repertoire. Founded in 1982 by conductor Claudio Abbado, the orchestra has since been led by such renowned directors as Lorin Maazel and Wolfgang Sawallisch. “Chailly is a first-class interpreter of Italian repertoire.” (The Irish Times)

ROSSINI Overture to William Tell

ROTA La Strada Ballet Suite

RESPIGHI The Fountains of Rome

RESPIGHI The Pines of Rome

Monday, October 15, 8:00 pm Kennedy Center Concert Hall

The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Most, conductor

Music director Franz Welser-Möst led this venerable orchestra in a journey throughout centuries of musical composition, from Mozart’s delicate Symphony No. 28 to Adams’ contemporary composition.

Mozart: Symphony No. 28 in C Major

John Adams: Guide to Strange Places

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”

Thursday, October 18, 8:00 pm The Music Center at Strathmore

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Yefim Bronfman, piano

This celebrated conductor-less ensemble continues tackles Brahms’ mighty Piano Concerto with Yefim Bronfman….

Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 3, and 10

Schoenberg: Kammersymphonie No. 1, Op. 9

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15R

Tuesday, October 23, 8:00 pm Kennedy Center Concert Hall

St. Petersburg Philharmonic

Yuri Temirkanov, conductor

Julia Fischer, violin

Young violinist and WPAS Kreeger Series alumna Julia Fischer joins the former Baltimore SO conductor and one of the most storied orchestras in the world…

Mozart: Marriage of Figaro Overture

Beethoven: Concerto for Violin in D Major, Op. 61

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5, Op. 100

Monday, November 12, 8:00 pm Kennedy Center Concert Hall

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Kathryn Stott, piano

Yo-Yo Ma and one of his favorite collaborators in the world, English Kathryn Stott, in a breathtaking program of music from France from the southern hemisphere…

Tuesday, November 20, 8:00 pm The Music Center at Strathmore

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone

Academy of Choral Art

Moscow Chamber Orchestra

Constantin Orbelian, conductor

“From Russia with Love:” A range of songs and opera from Russia old and new from Opera star Dmitri Hvorostovsky and a hand-picked choir.P

Thursday, December 6, 8:00 pm Kennedy Center Concert Hal

lThe Philadelphia Orchestra

James Conlon, conductorHélène Grimaud, piano

The Fabulous Philadelphians return for their annual concert under the leadership of guest conductor James Conlon. Fresh off the release of her new recording of the Emperor Concerto, Hélène Grimaud performs the Beethoven concerto live with the Philadelphians. The orchestra also plays for just the second time a work by Edgard Varese they commissioned in 1924…

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”

Varèse: Amériques

Ravel: La Valse

Fireworks on the Radio – A Capitol Fourth

One of my summertime rituals during my days at the downtown network was to produce the radio version of A Capitol Fourth, the annual music, dance, and fireworks extravaganza originating from the West Lawn of the Capitol building and broadcast around the world. And, in truth, it was an event I produced with a certain amount of heart-in-mouth trepidation, owing to its typically all-over-the-map lineup of “star” performers (some “ripped from the headlines,” some Aging Artists You Gotta Respect), resulting in a musical event that veered between the sublime and the ridiculous, and usually settled on the purely kitschy. (I was somewhat cheered to see those concerns echoed by critic Tim Page the other day.)

Besides the, er, music mix, there’s the fun – and terror – of it being an absolutely live event. And, this being DC in midsummer, thunderstorms are always a distinct possibility. Live or not, however, props to the folks at Jerry Colbert’s Capital Concerts, who have been doing the show for 25 years and really know their stuff. Anyway, it was an odd sensation to hear.

So admittedly not my preferred bottle of Moxie, but the show gets huge numbers and it’s as American as…well, fireworks over the Washington Monument. So this year, I got to listen to the show unspool on the radio in real time. Random notes:

*Ain’t live great? What an antidote to the dipped-in-formaldehyde sound of perfection that usually emerges from public radio. Nice to hear people out of breath and stumble over lines from time to time – it somehow makes the event seem a lot more real and immediate.

*That said, as a master of this somewhat peculiar hosting idiom Tony Danza (VERY short of breath and TelePrompTer-challenged) can’t hold a candle to Barry Bostwick.

*Hayden Panettiere (a/k/a this year’s “We gotta have a breakout TV star on the show”) may be pretty and talented, but she sure can’t sing.

*Little Richard, on the other hand, still rocks the house. Close your eyes and you can still hear him in a Macon, Georgia juke joint. By my ears the biggest ovation of the night. (Full disclosure: at a tender age my eyes’n’ears were permanently warped by watching L.R. co-host the Mike Douglas Show some decades ago – a riveting week of live television if there ever was one!)

*So, too, can Yolanda Adams. THOSE are pipes, Hayden!

*And Leonard Bernstein. Despite some rather stilted introductions from Tony D. and conductor Erich Kunzel, the National Symphony Orchestra got the chance to stretch out a bit with a 50th-anniversary performance of a suite from West Side Story. A great thing to hear on the Fourth, and makes you marvel at Lenny’s genius all over again. Call it pop, call it Broadway, call it classical – it’s music that will last and last, and that’s what matters.

*But Tell Tchaikovsky the News: We Gotta Go! (See Live concert, above). Despite the fact that they even went to the trouble to bring in the Choral Arts Society to back up the NSO for the Grand Finale, we were treated to what had to have been the World’s Shortest Performance of the 1812 Overture, an already-in-progress performance that gave us about the last 2 minutes of the whole shebang. And then the bim bam boom of the fireworks drowned the whole thing out, and it was a wrap.

At the end of his preview/rant about the Capitol 4th, Tim Page wrote,

“..My guess is that after you’ve watched A Capitol Fourth, you’ll want to play some music.”
A little snarky, perhaps, but not far off the mark…my reward for keeping the radio dial on 90.9 through the rest of the night was hearing, at about 11:00 pm, a performance of the Second Symphony by American maverick Charles Ives. Brilliant, deep, evocative, cheeky, and utterly American. Don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it so much. And I’m sure Ives would’ve been tapping his foot to the Capitol Fourth, for that matter.

Critics and Clapping

Woke up this morning thinking about the old saw, attributed to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius to “Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic.” (Though actually Alex Ross went out and found three not long ago….)

Anyway. The Sibelius quote comes to mind as I process a couple of unusually churlish reviews of the concert I blogged about a few days ago – the DC debut of the National Philharmonic of Russia, a/k/a the “other” NPR. First, Robert Battey in the Monday (3/26) Washington Post griped that “Woodwind and brass entries were often slightly staggered. The percussion missed cues. The strings were energetic but displayed little homogeneity, either in vibrato or bowing, with a concertmaster who appeared past his prime. The NPR, in short, lacks refinement.” But that was more charitable than what Jens Laurson had to say in the generally-fine ionarts blog: he essentially said phooey and left at intermission.

Which is too bad, since he missed – and IMHO the Post reviewer was not of a mind to hear – an absolutely riveting performance of the Shostakovich 5th Symphony. Comparing what I heard and they wrote, in both cases I couldn’t help but feel the reviews were mostly written before the orchestra had played a note; one seeing the whole thing in the dark context of Putin-as-Stalin and the revival of Soviet-style “Russian propaganda,” the other, once you parsed the review a bit, clearly bothered by a conductor’s interpretation of a piece (the Shostakovich symphony) that differed from his own:

“But the pith of the conductor’s job in this sprawling work lies in subtler tasks — building and releasing tension on large time scales, creating internal episodes and relating them to the whole. Shostakovich’s incessant dactylic rhythms often just sat there, and Spivakov brought none of Mstislav Rostropovich’s anguish to the Largo (let alone Leonard Bernstein’s). Overall, a long afternoon.”

Well. I didn’t even know that use of the word “dactylic” was permitted in a family newspaper! I for one found the (other) NPR’s take on the Shostakovich 5th was pretty compelling — even thinking to myself at one point about what a coherent statement Spivakov and the orchestra were making, and I could feel the audience with them the whole way (noticeable lack of coughing and fidgeting). But no, not the way that Rostropovich would conduct it. Hey – I get that. I grew up with an LP by Istvan Kertesz conducting the Dvorak “New World” Symphony and I remember being shocked the first time I heard it being conducted “differently” than that classic recording.

I think it’s connected, in fact, to what Washpost columnist Richard Cohen was calling “emotional truth,” what often veers significantly away from intellectual truth. Cohen was connecting a key moment in his life when he was inspired to become a writer to a turning point in candidate Barack Obama‘s young life that made him keenly aware of the consequence of skin color for the very first time. Only maybe it didn’t happen. I think a lot of our musical memories (and thus lifetime musical convictions) are formed the same way:

“Indeed, the memory of the event/non-event is so firmly planted in Obama’s mind that it seems to have become an emotional truth for him, far more powerful than an intellectual truth. Two and two are four. That’s an intellectual truth for you. But America is a uniquely great country. That’s an emotional truth, and I’m far more likely to die for the latter than the former. So, I suspect, are you.”

My own emotional truth concerns Penny and her father. Years later, when I reconnected with Penny, I mentioned that day on the porch and how much it meant to me. No such porch, she told me. I insisted otherwise and did not relent until she sent me a picture of the home. No porch. Still . . . I like the story my way. In Obama’s case — and maybe my own — there might be something more than foggy memory at work.

I think so. So my crystalline-at-this-point memory was that I was in a shared experience in a sold-out Kennedy Center Concert Hall where I witnessed 108 musicians creating a remarkable performance that required them to think and act as one. And we stomped and hooted and cheered. But I think what will linger the most in my mind is observing the genuine affection and mutual respect in this orchestra. (Check out the backstage photo from their performance in Boston!) When it came time for bows, Vladimir Spivakov asked first the principle players to stand – the French horn, the clarinet, the trumpet, and so on. And to a man, and woman – they did something I have never seen an orchestra of professionals do before….they clapped back. For Spivakov, for their fellow performers, for the audience. A remarkable contrast to the general slouch/wisecracking/ignoring the audience that infects a lot of orchestras at curtain-call time. It was a remarkable and genuinely moving gesture.

Slava!

Can’t forget to note that today is also the 80th birthday of Russian cellist & conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. Performance Today is doing a series of tributes all this week – today featuring a brief interview with Emerson quartet cellist David Finckel, along with a classic Slava performance (from 1964) of the finale of the Dvorak cello concerto – what critic and author Ted Libbey has called “THE great cello concerto.” Talk about a living legacy… when I produced an interview with Rostropovich at Tanglewood a few years ago he noted that he’s recorded the Dvorak concerto eight times – the first time with the Czech Philharmonic in 1951! Sure enough, he played the Dvorak concerto with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra that day – and while far from note-perfect, it was classic Rostropovich – warm, big-hearted, and that incredible sound from the upper range of his instrument.
So today I’ll listen to Ted’s pick for the definitive Rostropovich recording – a DG recording from 1968 with the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan – one of the “PT 50″ picks we put together a few years back. There’s also news today that EMI and DG are reissuing a whole bunch of classic Rostropovich recordings – and in fact put his entire EMI catalogue on iTunes – including “11 currently unvailable albums, two of which have never been issued on CD.” And I would remiss if I didn’t note that you can watch portions of Rostropovich playing the concerto on YouTube with Carlo Mara Giulini and the London Philharmonic – a 1977 recording that’s on DVD.

The Global Village of Music

And now for something completely different: Delighted by a trio of great stories emanting from my old network the past few days. Car horns and tire rims making beautiful music from Ghana, Arkansas high school choristers giving it all they’ve got at the National High School Choral Festival at Carnegie Hall, and Marin Alsop digging her hands into the primordial Russian soil to dissect Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Brilliant pieces all…and I guarantee the video of the Ghanaian “Por Por Music” on the excellent Smithsonian Global Sound web site will bring a smile to your face. Tag it and share it!
As for the other two audio pieces, Jeff Lunden’s piece on the high schoolers really captures the nervous energy, excitement, and awestruck sensation of what it’s like to be sixteen and stepping out on to a big stage. As for Alsop (I’m a fan, as noted elsewhere in this space) she has both some fascinating observations about the Rite, and as a bonus you get to hear her conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the

Peabody Conservatory students in a complete performance.

A Tale of Two Orchestras: the "other" NPR

Terrific review (more of a commentary, actually) by Bernard Holland in the New York Times the other day about the duelling Russian Orchestras currently touring the US – the Russian National Orchestra, (sometimes called the RNO), and the recently-constituted National Philharmonic of Russia, a/k/a the NPR. Common to both of them is violinist and conductor
Vladimir Spivakov. He used to lead the Russian National Orchestra until he had some sort of falling out with the management, so he persuaded the Russian government to start the “NPR” – although they originally called themselves the “Russian National Philharmonic” (RNP?) until the RNO objected. With me so far? (Sorta reminds me of the old Monty Python skit of the “People’s Front of Judea” battling the “Judean People’s Front” in the Life of Brian. Just to make things more confusing, Spivakov also heads the Moscow Virtuosi, a chamber-orchestra that features members from both groups, as well as other Russian ensembles.

Anyway, these days you’re as likely to see the RNO and the NPR outside of Moscow as you are in it; and both groups are spending days – weeks – on end chasing the American entertainment dollar. With – you guessed it – a mighty handful of Russian works with high-powered soloists. And their paths happened to overlap in New York earlier this week, prompting Holland’s commentareview: Tasting menu:

Every time you look up there is another Russian orchestra onstage. Russia’s newfound free-market economy and the resulting scramble for financial survival must be a shock to a lot of them. Evidently the National Philharmonic is in a cozier spot, having President

Vladimir V. Putin as its personal godfather. Still, export or die seems the motto for this parade of visitors, whose rivals seem not to be other international orchestras but one another. Getting together and comparing travel schedules might be helpful.When they come, we know what we are going to get: big Russian music conveyed by big Russian sound reinforced by oversized string sections. (Monday’s program listed 32 violins, but I thought I counted more.) Often attached to these events are Russian pianists or violinists of howitzerlike virtuosity. Tender foreign sensibilities are not used to such firepower.

Roedeo, inc. is a not-disinterested observer to all of this: I do a lot of the “concert previews” for the Washington Performing Arts Society‘s terrific subscription season. So I’m doing a lot of thinking about the “other” NPR’s concert at the Kennedy Center on Saturday. Despite the fact that the orchestra’s is designed to signal “the rebirth of the Russian post-reconstruction State,” the repertory for their US tour is almost exclusively limited to works that are at least half-a-century old: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich. The DC performance will also feature Van Cliburn Competition winner Olga Kern (pictured above) playing the same “Rocky 2” she’s been playing everywhere on this tour – and the Shostakovich 5th Symphony. I’m especially interested in hearing how the NPR plays the Shostakovich Symphony…the one the composer, in one of the most difficult years of his life, subtitled “A Soviet Artist’s Practical Creative Reply to Just Criticism.’‘ Last time I heard this symphony was in Moscow, at one of the most emotionally-draining concerts I have ever witnessed: a Winter of 1990 appearance by Mstislav Rostropovich, conducting Washington’s own National Symphony Orchestra in a program that also included the Barber “Adagio for Strings,” the Death of Tybalt from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, “Aase’s Death” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt, and the Tchaikovsky “Pathetique” Symphony. As my Russian friends said, the entire concert had a “Tyema Smyert,” – theme of Death. But the playing – and atmosphere in the “Bolshoi Zahl” of the Moscow Conservatory was absolutely electric. Sony made a outstanding documentary (directed by new MET Opera chief Peter Gelb, among others) called Soldiers of Music about Rostropovich and the NSO’s Russian experience, and likewise released a now-out-of-print CD called “Rostropovich: Return to Russia.” Some of the best playing the Rostropovich-era NSO ever did on record, IMHO; but unfortunately the Shostakovich 5th was left off of the disc. If you’re a fan at all of Russian music – and of Cold War history, for that matter – both the DVD and CD are worth your attention. And Rostropovich turns 80 next week! Check back in and I’ll tell you how the concert turned out…

Living Beethovens

The consistently interesting conductor Marin Alsop‘s debut season as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s new Music Director promises to be one of the most interesting seasons in Bawlmur in years. Tim Smith in today’s Baltimore Sun has all the details. Sample grab:
“With cheap seats, conversations with high-profile composers and programming that includes a CSI-style forensics exploration of Beethoven next season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will challenge two of the most common complaints about classical music – that it’s too expensive and too old-fashioned. As part of a strategy unveiled yesterday to bolster attendance, the BSO will reduce the average subscription cost to classical and pops programs by 40 percent. New and current subscribers to the BSO’s 2007-2008 season, the inaugural season of music director Marin Alsop, will pay only $25 per concert for seats anywhere in Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, including the usually pricey box seats.”

CSI business aside (which may be a little gimmicky), what caught my eye was Alsop’s “Living Beethovens” initiative – putting some of today’s most accomplished contemporary composers on programs cheek-by-jowl with ol’ Ludwig himself – and even inviting the composers to conduct! So, for 25 bucks a pop, you’ll be able to see John Adams conduct both his own works, as well as Beethoven’s 7th Symphony – a terrific idea. 17 contemporary compositions in all, by the likes of Adams, Tan Dun, and Aaron Jay Kernis. I like what Marin said to the Sun:

For Alsop, the aim of mixing “standard repertoire with something new is to hear the old in a different light. It’s like seeing a Rembrandt next to a Jackson Pollock.”