In her "Danse suppliante" near the end of the second part of the complete ballet music, Chloé expresses her sexuality through an english horn solo where the tempo shifts in every bar--oscillating from quarter note=72 in all the odd numbered bars to quarter note=100 in every even numbered bar. Forever young, Chloé turns 100 this year in Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé, which was written for the 1912 season of the infamous Ballets Russe.
That is she turns 100 if, like me you know her through Ravel. If you know her from the Greek writer Longus she could easily be 1,900 years old, but Chloé hides her real age and will certainly never tell.
The French-Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who will become Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra in September, returned to Berlin to conduct this program with the Berliner Philharmoniker transmitted over the Digital Concert Hall. The program was centered on the complete ballet music for Daphnis et Chloé, which comprised the second half of the event.
Nézet-Séguin uses clean patterns that are energized and clear. This helped the orchestra focus the significant challenges in figuration that this work presents to ensembles. There are so many passages of liquid fast notes, particularly in the woodwinds, that it is easy for orchestras to drift in precision, or to sound like machines. Nézet-Séguin found the right cues, the right eye-contacts, the right smiles. This performance could easily become a study in ensemble coordination.
There were also whimsical moments that the digital concert hall allowed us to see, as well as hear. The huge hand-cranked wind machine was fun to watch in action. But so was the "human cellist capo:"
There is a moment in the Danse de Lycéion, at rehearsal [56], where Ravel asked the solo cellist to retune their G string to G-sharp momentarily so that a particular gesture can end on a natural D# harmonic. Instead of tuning, the solo cellist's stand mate reached over and pressed down the string so that no tuning was necessary. It worked. The whole thing was caught on camera. It was quite an entertaining surprise--thanks Digital Concert Hall! I wonder how common this technique is...do others play it this way? Let me know!
Ravel would have been partly inspired by the Nietzschean view of the Greeks in the "Birth of Tragedy;" the idea that prior to the age of Socratic reasoning that folks found ecstasy easily within the music of their lives. This performance brought the dancing and quickly spirited side of this work to the surface.
The concert began with Luciano Berio's "Sequenza IXa for clarinet" played by the awesome clarinetist Walter Seyfarth. Sayfarth brought out the electronica atmosphere of this completely analog work for solo clarinet. He made multiphonics sound like feedback from Woodstock. In the meditative opening segment he worked with the color of each sustained pitch, and in the conversational development he played crisp and frisky.
Sequenza IXa is a work that ends in its own form of hallucinatory ecstasy with seven loud and piercing A-flats amid quiet incantations. It was an ending that made the Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture, which followed it to complete the first half of the program, sound different as it ended. Tchaikovsky closed the work in B major with the sound of harps implying a realm beyond death in which the lovers would be united.
Heard after Berio, the contrast in metaphysics was powerful. I have to admit that after Berio, I was surprised to hear the fateful sword thrust that felled Romeo as an Ab instead of a G#, as notated. Good programming changes our ears.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Bitte um innern und außern Frieden; Missa Solemnis in the Digital Concert Hall
It means a prayer for both inner and outer peace, and Beethoven wrote the line to help focus the energy he was looking in the Dona Nobis Pacem that brings the great Missa Solemnis to an end. The work is more than 85 minutes of music and it is built with the complexity of design that often reflects both inner and outer struggle.
In a concert simulcast live in the Digital Concert Hall, guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt brought a classical clarity to this great work as he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
On the very edge of turning 85, Blomstedt is probably best known in this country for his tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1985 to 1995. Blomstedt conducted from memory and without a baton and brought a delicious youthful vitality to the event.
During his prerecorded address to the digital audience aired a half-hour before the event itself, Blomstedt emphasized how all levels of this work are "charged with meaning." He handed us neatly wrapped examples of musical motives which he sang, and also unraveled some specific connections to religious symbolism contained in the work.
Soft-edged balances in the Kyrie set the mood for this performance, and Blomstedt placed the opening choral invocations without diminuendi so that the quiet downbeats were subito. This made the soloists seem to emerge from the resonances in the hall and was quite magical even over the internet. Though there were glorious moments in the celebratory Gloria it was the Apollonian quality that Blomstedt created in the Credo that was most memorable.
Guy Braunstein played the extensive solo violin writing in the Benedictus with liquid phrases shaped in lyricism, and made even more poignant by his recent announcement to step down as concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the end of the 2012-2013 season.
The soloists were effective both in individual phrases and in blended ensembles. Soprano Ruth Ziesak was captivating with colors that could pierce any texture and rhythmic buoyancy that drew us close. Tenor Richard Croft showed how a thinking tenor can phrase and blend and still sound effortlessly brilliant. Bass Georg Zeppenfeld and contralto Gerhild Romberger both contributed magical moments to this quartet of soloists.
At the end of the Benedictus, Blomstedt allowed the final fermata to sustain longer than any others in the work. He froze, then with a sudden gesture he seemed to grab the sound with both hands and pulled it inward as the chord was released into silence. Throughout this performance the music felt cherished.
In a concert simulcast live in the Digital Concert Hall, guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt brought a classical clarity to this great work as he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
On the very edge of turning 85, Blomstedt is probably best known in this country for his tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1985 to 1995. Blomstedt conducted from memory and without a baton and brought a delicious youthful vitality to the event.
During his prerecorded address to the digital audience aired a half-hour before the event itself, Blomstedt emphasized how all levels of this work are "charged with meaning." He handed us neatly wrapped examples of musical motives which he sang, and also unraveled some specific connections to religious symbolism contained in the work.
Soft-edged balances in the Kyrie set the mood for this performance, and Blomstedt placed the opening choral invocations without diminuendi so that the quiet downbeats were subito. This made the soloists seem to emerge from the resonances in the hall and was quite magical even over the internet. Though there were glorious moments in the celebratory Gloria it was the Apollonian quality that Blomstedt created in the Credo that was most memorable.
Guy Braunstein played the extensive solo violin writing in the Benedictus with liquid phrases shaped in lyricism, and made even more poignant by his recent announcement to step down as concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the end of the 2012-2013 season.
The soloists were effective both in individual phrases and in blended ensembles. Soprano Ruth Ziesak was captivating with colors that could pierce any texture and rhythmic buoyancy that drew us close. Tenor Richard Croft showed how a thinking tenor can phrase and blend and still sound effortlessly brilliant. Bass Georg Zeppenfeld and contralto Gerhild Romberger both contributed magical moments to this quartet of soloists.
At the end of the Benedictus, Blomstedt allowed the final fermata to sustain longer than any others in the work. He froze, then with a sudden gesture he seemed to grab the sound with both hands and pulled it inward as the chord was released into silence. Throughout this performance the music felt cherished.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
A Two-Hour Apology; Review of "Wagner's Dream" from the Met
"I'm sorry."
They could have just left it at that.
"Wagner's Dream," which was Susan Froemke's documentary about the Lepage Ring, was less about Wagner's dream itself than a two-hour apology for a machine that was never quite right. It drew too much attention to the least successful part of the enterprise and left unspoken many of the elements that did work.
Here was the Met's opportunity to show us what we missed the first time around. I expected to hear insights about how the positions, shapes and colors interacted with Wagner's musical systems, and to hear from many of the excellent singers who populated 16 hours of opera.
Instead, the positioning favored Gelb as a leader in bringing out innovative new productions and in creating a new and vibrant audience for opera, even though this production fell short of its potential. After all, Gelb was tested by a production that was 40,000 pounds overweight and never fully ready for the task at hand. I am a Gelb-ist. I did not need convincing.
The Met crew had fans among those who attended this screening because of their visibility during Live-in-HD interludes. The stress on this crew went far beyond what I had imagined. They remained involved in every detail and stretched this bulky and barely usable system in unbelievable ways to make it work as well as it did.
But even within the realm of the singing itself, this documentary focused too much what did not work. Deborah Voigt was miscast. It did give an appreciation for her professionalism; the sheer ability to continue in spite of all obstacles. But where was Bryn Terfel, Stephanie Blythe, Richard Croft, and Eric Owens? And too much of the footage they had of Jay Hunter Morris was cut...we saw a much more thorough documentation of his arrival during the intermission of the Live-in-HD transmission of Siegfried on November 5, 2011.
Thankfully there were short commentaries from Margaret Juntwait and William Berger, but these should have been extended and further developed. The documentary was intellectually light as a result. It could have been a teachable moment.
I also think more time could have been spent revealing the things that did work in this production--especially the singing. They did focus on the Rhinemaidens in the magnificent opening scene of Rhinegold, which was one of the most impressive moments in the entire cycle, both visually and musically. I was eager to find out more about the interactive projections. Nope. Nothing. Instead we were steeped in the learning curve as the singers discovered how to interact with the machine. Even success felt heavy.
Far from realizing "Wagner's Dream," the machine created its own particular nightmares and this film asked us to sit as insiders and watch them unfold. It did not make me want to see the Lepage productions again.
However, if you have not seen this cycle I would recommend attending. Do not see "Wagner's Dream." See Wagner's dream. Don't think about the machine anymore. It was the non-mechanized magic that was best.
Other reviews about this production on Sonic Labyrinth:
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Almost suffering for the beauty of this music; Gustavo Dudamel Returns to the Digital Concert Hall
"It is such a perfection, such a simplicity, such a beautiful atmosphere," said conductor Gustavo Dudamel about Ma Mère l'Oye by Ravel, the work that opened his concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker transmitted live over the Digital Concert Hall. "Wow! How can I deal with this beauty! Almost...you suffer for the beauty of this music!”
The five movements that comprise Ravel's suite need to come across as a memory of childhood. They need to sound filled with longing for what was once ordinary and domestic. They are always a tall order to open a program because the "excitement of beginning" is the exact opposite of the emotional quality that is required.
Dudamel came to the podium in a very subdued mood and let the music spill naturally, keeping tempos quietly dancing. He connected the second movement to the first with only a breath pause, and though the pauses between other movements were increasinly longer, he maintained a continual sense of energy to unfold without the feel of starting and stopping.
The digital concert hall transmitted the Ravel with too much focus on individual soloists. The highlighting of each solo line with visual solo shot pulled these lines too far from their colorful contexts. In the fourth movement, which portrays the interaction of "beauty and the beast" with a waltz for beauty and the contrabassoon representing the beast, the constant solo shots focused only on "beauty" after the first two entrances of the contrabassoon, and so the interaction between the two was diminished.
Violinist Leonidas Kavakos joined the orchestra as soloist in the Korngold Violin Concerto. Kavakos has a commanding musical presence with razor sharp articulation. He has a wonderful, crazy, Paganini energy--he stands in very relaxed posture, in the complete absence of any showmanship, and lyrical warmness and cerebral technical precision just emanate from him.
I loved the way he voiced the second theme group of the opening movement, the so-called "Juarez complex" of material from Korngold's 1939 film. The line is filled with melodic gaps, and Kavakos edged these gaps to make us clearly aware of what they were missing. The ending gestures of the first movement were fiery from both orchestra and soloist.
The second movement felt like chamber music on an epic scale. It is music of contradiction and too often its surfaces are what attract. This performance dug much deeper into possibilities. The third movement was taken at lightening fast speed and became a jittery jig with a big Hollywood ending. It sounded cool. The work was well received, and Kavakos returned to play the opening movement of the Sonata No. 5 in G major, called "L'Aurore" by Eugène Ysaÿe.
After intermission we heard "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Strauss. The first half of this performance was tightly constructed and the interrelationship of motives was clear and powerfully developed. The extension and development of the Tanzlied lost focus but found its bearings again when the music settled in B major for the Nachtwandlerlied. Dudamel extended the silence after the final unresolved C-naturals that close the work, and he allowed us to contemplate the life out of balance that sounds at the end of this work. There was still music even in this silence.
The five movements that comprise Ravel's suite need to come across as a memory of childhood. They need to sound filled with longing for what was once ordinary and domestic. They are always a tall order to open a program because the "excitement of beginning" is the exact opposite of the emotional quality that is required.
Dudamel came to the podium in a very subdued mood and let the music spill naturally, keeping tempos quietly dancing. He connected the second movement to the first with only a breath pause, and though the pauses between other movements were increasinly longer, he maintained a continual sense of energy to unfold without the feel of starting and stopping.
The digital concert hall transmitted the Ravel with too much focus on individual soloists. The highlighting of each solo line with visual solo shot pulled these lines too far from their colorful contexts. In the fourth movement, which portrays the interaction of "beauty and the beast" with a waltz for beauty and the contrabassoon representing the beast, the constant solo shots focused only on "beauty" after the first two entrances of the contrabassoon, and so the interaction between the two was diminished.
Violinist Leonidas Kavakos joined the orchestra as soloist in the Korngold Violin Concerto. Kavakos has a commanding musical presence with razor sharp articulation. He has a wonderful, crazy, Paganini energy--he stands in very relaxed posture, in the complete absence of any showmanship, and lyrical warmness and cerebral technical precision just emanate from him.
I loved the way he voiced the second theme group of the opening movement, the so-called "Juarez complex" of material from Korngold's 1939 film. The line is filled with melodic gaps, and Kavakos edged these gaps to make us clearly aware of what they were missing. The ending gestures of the first movement were fiery from both orchestra and soloist.
The second movement felt like chamber music on an epic scale. It is music of contradiction and too often its surfaces are what attract. This performance dug much deeper into possibilities. The third movement was taken at lightening fast speed and became a jittery jig with a big Hollywood ending. It sounded cool. The work was well received, and Kavakos returned to play the opening movement of the Sonata No. 5 in G major, called "L'Aurore" by Eugène Ysaÿe.
After intermission we heard "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Strauss. The first half of this performance was tightly constructed and the interrelationship of motives was clear and powerfully developed. The extension and development of the Tanzlied lost focus but found its bearings again when the music settled in B major for the Nachtwandlerlied. Dudamel extended the silence after the final unresolved C-naturals that close the work, and he allowed us to contemplate the life out of balance that sounds at the end of this work. There was still music even in this silence.
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