Symphony Hall

Last night I attended a concert at Boston's famous Symphony Hall. Despite having watched in my youth "Evenings at Pops" and telecasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Seiji Ozawa, music director, as William Pierce always added) and thinking I had a pretty good idea of what the hall looked like, I was completely surprised to discover a gallery of statuary above the uppermost balcony. What a crazy thing! I was not sure whether the statues were meant to be listening in rapt attention, or whether they portrayed audience members petrified by boredom. (Above, the picture I took with the lousy camera of my cell phone.)

The hall lived up to its renowned reputation. It's a nice antidote to our overly bright New York halls, and that includes renovated Carnegie. The acoustic flatters the orchestra and hides blemishes such as lapses in ensemble or shrillness in violins or high winds.

We in New York City are so used to trumpeting our best-in-everythingness that we take on, despite all our cosmopolitanism, a kind of provincialism. So it is with some humility that I have to admit that the concert experience I had last night was superior in many ways to some recent concert outings of mine in New York City.

Let's start with the program book. Rather than the useless throwaways that litter our concert halls, the BSO's program is produced by the BSO itself. It features a long essay on the concert program, not a puff piece about upcoming events. Steven Ledbetter's program notes are extensive and well written and contain a guide to further reading (and listening). No where is there a presumption of cultural or musical illiteracy.

Levine, much to his credit, eschews "thematic" programming, although the pieces he chose for Thursday's concert had much in common: Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A; Berg's Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with Thirteen Wind Instruments; and Brahms's Serenade No. 2, in A. All three pieces are for reduced forces; all of them are by composers who were resident in Vienna for much of their careers; and while the Berg is atonal, it is anchored, if not in the key, than on the note A.

Levine is a great conductor because he brings a forceful musical personality to everything he touches. (How deep that musical personality goes is another matter.) He is a master of dramatic momentum, and he knows how to unleash the fullness of an orchestra's sound without losing textural clarity. At their best, Levine's performances bring together intensity and richness of sound, while still maintaining enough flexibility to bring out a musical detail. (I write this as someone who has probably heard live more Levine performances than those of any other conductor--most of those performances at the Met).

The danger with this approach is that not every piece of music sustains dramatic momentum. A case in point is the Berg Chamber Concerto. The last movement, with its abrupt stoppages and whispered coda, resists the usual musical narrative. Levine really could not recover after an explosive first movement and a deeply felt, ruminative second; the last movement had nowhere left to go. Perhaps in future performances, Levine will solve this problem.

To the Mozart, Levine brought the zest and vigor that is his custom in such music; the Andante especially was beautifully played, marred only by too-loud horns towards the end. The central movement in the Brahms is its sublime Adagio, and Levine resisted the temptation to draw it out endlessly, instead eliciting ravishing playing from the orchestra and letting the music make its point.

I can attest to what has been said of Levine lately: that he has revitalized the BSO, and vice versa; that he has managed to keep off most of the weight he recently shed; and that he is bringing a new seriousness and a commitment to modern and contemporary works to these concerts. Bostonians are lucky to have music-making of such a high level, and such a great hall to hear it in.

I Love Alex Ross, but ...

I'm not buying what he's selling on Messiaen. By rights, I should be a Messiaen fan: he's French, he's avant-garde, he's a teacher and inspirer of Boulez and Stockhausen. But I've never been a fan. So I'm glad everyone had a good time at the St. Louis concert the other night; but I'm also glad that I missed it.

Iron Man of the Met

Marcello Giordani is on the cover of the March Opera News, and the article about him quotes him as saying that he's "old-fashioned"--in that he stays at one company for most of the season, as the pre-jet-age singers did. The company happens to be the Met, of course, who is no doubt glad to have him. Using the Met Archives, I've tallied his performances this season. As of February 16, 2008, he has sung 16 performances of four roles: Edgardo, a last-minute Romeo, a last-minute Pinkerton, and, currently, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut. Coming up this season is Ernani, and any other role that might need a last-minute replacement.

Coleridge's Translation of Goethe's "Faust"

Apparently, Coleridge did indeed translate Goethe's play, and published it anonymously, in 1821. For years scholars had thought Coleridge had washed his hands of trying to translate it, but the evidence is compelling that this anonymous version is indeed the master's. Oxford University Press has just published a new edition, and it sounds as though it is the English translation to own.

Prescription for Valentine's Day

Find a recording of Magnard's Hymne a Venus (this is a good one) and play it, at full volume, preferably with the one you love. Magnard wrote it as a paean to his wife. But it's suitable for any "other of significance."

Bloggers Move Product

According to this article, blog mentions help drive album sales. Any record execs reading this blog: starting sending me promotional CDs!

(Via ArtsJournal.)

Met "Otello" Netcast

I just was listening to the Met's season premiere of Otello on Sirius and quite enjoyed it. Johan Botha did not have the forza of del Monaco, or the dramatic intensity of Vickers, or the heroic plangency of Domingo. But he sang beautifully and, what's more, sensitively--not a quality one usually associates with this role. He excelled in the lyric passages, particularly the love duet; when he tried to push his voice the tone coarsened, although that effect did add to his characterization of the role.

Renee Fleming was in great voice. Ravishing, creamy tone from top to bottom, evocative use of chest voice, never a shriek or a croon.

Best of all was Semyon Bychkov's conducting. The orchestra had proper Verdian crispness, but it also sounded "voiced" somewhat differently--deeper, somehow, with the center of gravity a little lower than we're used to, giving the score a kind of ballast. Bychkov's tempi seemed completely spot-on to me: brisk and unfussy, but flexible enough to follow the voices. He kept the tension from first note to last in the fourth act, not an easy trick. And the Met Orchestra played beautifully for him. Good for the Met for engaging him!

Osmo-sis

Osmo Vanska is getting a lot of attention these days for his revitalization of the Minnesota Orchestra. And why not? His performances are generating excitement, he's brought them into the recording studio, and he's a hockey fan (occasionally seen at Minnesota Wild games).

His Beethoven cycle, on the Bis label, with the Minnesotans has been celebrated, so I took the opportunity the other night to check out the Eroica. There's no doubt that he has worked wonders with the orchestra: they sound marvelous. As for Vanska's reading, he went for clarity and balance. From an architectonic point of view, it was impeccable. He essentially grouped the movements into three sections of roughly equal length (the scherzo and finale having the weight of a single unit, even if not performed that way).

That sense of proportion was evident within each movement as well; nothing was distended or distorted. But Vanska didn't apply a straitjacket to the rhythm either.

I thought, though, that the recording was a disappointment. Balance and proportion are nice in Mendelsohn. But this is Beethoven. There was too little edginess; the catharsis of the last movement failed to come off. I didn't hear any creative risks--or, for that matter, anything so new or unique as to justify yet another recording of this familiar music.

Bruges in the News

Isn't it odd how you don't think about or hear about something or someone or some place, and then, all of a sudden, that's all you're hearing about?

Opera lovers know the Belgian city of Bruges as the setting of Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt. And on the day that the film In Bruges, a crime caper starring Colin Farrell, opens, I come across this story in Le Monde about this dead, and otherwise unremarked-upon, city.

According to the news account, an American man, Jewish, an Auschwitz survivor, was refused service at a Bruges establishment because he was wearing a yarmulke. His attempts to find redress were rebuffed at several turns. After finally being reported in a Dutch magazine, the incident is now being investigated by Bruges' tourist office.

If Korngold's opera hadn't turned me off to the possibility of visiting Bruges, this story certainly does.

Nico Muhly: Correction

A kind reader emails me that The New Yorker did indeed post Rebecca Mead's Nico Muhly article on their website--it's just not accessible from their contents page. Here is the link. My apologies to The New Yorker for my snarky comment.

The reader who let me know of my error has her own blog. It reports on new music and shows how far is the reach of Nico Muhly's "ecumenical" (Mead's word) appeal. She has some fun Muhly stuff as well.