Night After Night

Keys to the kingdom.

Marc-André Hamelin at the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at Mannes College
The New York Times, July 30, 2007

Crunch time.

Apologies for the lack of scintillating bloggery this week -- less than a week to go before the big day, and I'm completely manic with work and other planning. Still, I wanted to break radio silence long enough to call attention to two comments, one here on the blog and one received elsewhere.

Earlier in the week Bob Lee e-mailed to amend a statement I made in my post about the upcoming Miller Theatre season. Elliott Carter's opera What Next? will receive what should properly be termed its fully staged New York premiere; Daniel Barenboim led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a semi-staged version at Carnegie Hall on March 5, 2000. Kyle Gann's New York Times review of that event, published two days later, is here. (Kyle's opening line is memorable, to say the least.)

And just yesterday, blogger Andrew added a comment to my previous post about Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland that's well worth reading: an account of the work's more dubious reception among German reviewers and audience members. July 28 update: Both Alex Ross and Brian of Out West Arts have posted valuable additions to this discussion; Brian's thoughtful July 4 review of Alice, which I hadn't seen previously, is here.

Playlist:

Philip Glass - Symphony No. 8 - Bruckner Orchester Linz/Dennis Russell Davies (Orange Mountain Music)

Warren Burt - The Animation of Lists and the Archytan Transpositions (XI)

David Del Tredici - Final Alice - Barbara Hendricks, Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Georg Solti (London)

Slow Six - Nor'easter (New Albion)

Sam Sadigursky - The Words Project (New Amsterdam)

Mogwai - Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (PIAS America)

Philip Glass - Glassworks - Philip Glass Ensemble (CBS Masterworks)

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 6 - London Symphony Orchestra/Adrian Boult; A Song of Thanksgiving*; The Lark Ascending** - Luton Choral Society*, Jean Pougnet**, London Philharmonic Orchestra/Adrian Boult (Dutton)

Gustav Holst - The Planets - London Symphony Orchestra/Gustav Holst (Naxos)

Philip Glass - Akhnaten - Paul Esswood, Melinda Liebermann, Milagro Vargas, Stuttgart State Opera/Dennis Russell Davies (CBS Masterworks)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal - Martha Mödl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra/Hans Knappertsbusch (Naxos)

Philip Glass - Music in Twelve Parts - Philip Glass Ensemble (Nonesuch)

Edward Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius - Helen Watts, Nicolai Gedda, Robert Lloyd, John Alldis Choir, London Philharmonic Choir, New Philharmonia Orchestra/Adrian Boult (EMI Classics)

Chthonic - Seediq Bale (Downport), Relentless Recurrence (SPV)

Alice in my fantasies.

If you, like me, are feeling more than a little bit jealous after reading glowing accounts of Unsuk Chin's new opera Alice in Wonderland from Alex Ross, Mark Swed and Alan Rich, then I'll leave it to you to decide whether to go to this page on the Munich Opera Festival website, where you can stream a short video featuring excerpts from the production. (The link is at the bottom of the page.) It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, what I see and hear echoes the wonderful things those three keen witnesses reported. On the other, now I'm even more sorry that I couldn't attend.

Mark notes that Alice will return to the company in November (the 15th, 17th, 20th and 23rd, according to Boosey), and will also be issued on DVD. Both he and Alan suggest that the Los Angeles Opera -- which originally commissioned this work, then dumped it during a budget crisis (yet kept the turgid Grendel with its lavish, dysfunctional set) -- may yet stage the work.

Meanwhile, over on this page, you can stream excerpts from the other works mentioned in Alex's essay: Wolfgang Rihm's Das Gehege and the William Friedkin production of Salome, the latter complete with not-safe-for-work footage from what appears to be a determinedly unsexy Dance of the Seven Veils.

Playlist:

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucie di Lammermoor - Natalie Dessay, Roberto Alagna, Ludovic Tézier, Lyon Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Evelino Pidò (Virgin)

Roger Sessions - Symphonies 6, 7 & 9 - American Composers Orchestra/Dennis Russell Davies (Argo)

Richard Strauss - Complete Songs 2 - Anne Schwanewilms, Roger Vignoles (Hyperion)

Bela Bartók - Concerto for Orchestra - Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon download via iTunes)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 5 - Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon, due Aug. 20)

Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts, Part 7 - Philip Glass Ensemble (Orange Mountain Music download via iTunes)

John Coltrane - Crescent (Impulse!)

Weather Report - Forecast: Tomorrow - CD 1 (Columbia/Legacy)

Björk - Homogenic (Elektra)

Pandit Pran Nath (with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Terry Riley) - Raga Cycle, Palace Theatre, June 1972 (Sri Moonshine)

Philip Glass - Satyagraha - New York City Opera/Christopher Keene (CBS Masterworks)

Miller time.

The Miller Theatre at Columbia University has just announced its 2007–08 season, and as usual there are some choice events on the horizon. Probably the most important is the local premiere of Elliott Carter's opera What Next?, to be presented by the Juilliard ensemble AXIOM Dec. 7-11.

This year's batch of Composer Portrait concerts includes programs devoted to Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Rihm (the Columbia Sinfonietta playing the exhilarating Jagden und Formen), David Sanford (a big-band project with Matt Haimovitz), Gerald Barry, Philippe Hurel (by the International Contemporary Ensemble), George Crumb (So Percussion) and Peter Lieberson. Three new Pocket Concertos this season are by John Zorn (for vocalist Mike Patton), Laura Elise Schwendinger (for violinist Jennifer Koh) and Ichizo Okashiro (for pianist Christopher Taylor). Elsewhere, there's early music in abundance, and the Pacifica String Quartet will perform a complete Beethoven cycle in a series of free lunchtime concerts. Go, see.

Speaking of the International Contemporary Ensemble, they've got an unusual date coming up in the Spiegeltent, down at the former location of the Fulton Fish Market. On September 4 at 6pm, ICE presents the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Philippe Manoury, featuring the contributions of soprano Tony Arnold (who was riveting in another recent ICE performance) and poet Jerome Rothenberg.

Crowd scene.

Olga Kern at the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at Mannes College
The New York Times, July 23, 2007

Man of our time.

(Posted this afternoon on the TONY Blog)

We can't remember the last time we were more pleased to admit we'd picked the wrong horse in a race. As officially announced in a press conference at Avery Fisher Hall this morning -- although the news actually broke late last night, and had hit blogs by midnight -- the New York Philharmonic has appointed Alan Gilbert (at center, flanked by Zarin Mehta and Paul B. Guenther) its new music director, effective as of the 2009–10 season.

A 40-year-old New York native and the son of two Philharmonic violinists, Gilbert is currently chief conductor and artistic adviser of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. He was also the first music director in the history of the Santa Fe Opera. Gilbert has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic in nearly every season since 2001–02, to widespread admiration.

Choosing a new music director wasn't precisely a do-or-die situation for the Philharmonic, since current music director Lorin Maazel's tenure doesn't conclude until the end of the 2008–09 season. In April, the orchestra announced that it was creating a new position, principal conductor, to go alongside the music director. We actually had a sneaking suspicion that something like this might happen: An illustrious old-line maestro like Riccardo Muti or Daniel Barenboim could be appointed music director for a finite term, while the position of principal conductor could be used to groom the heir apparent -- most likely Gilbert, whose local appearances have been widely admired.

As it happened, precisely the opposite was true. In addition to the news of Gilbert's appointment came the news that Muti had accepted what amounts to principal guest conductor status. As Philharmonic president and executive director Zarin Mehta put it at this morning's press conference, this makes Muti a very happy maestro. He has a set number of engagements per season and will lead the orchestra on selected tours. And that's the end of his responsibilities. No politicking, no fund-raising, just congenial music making.

Since the news had already broken, this morning's press conference was as much a photo opportunity and a getting-to-know you session as anything. With regard to repertoire, future directions, contemporary music and the like, there was precious little to be said as yet; while negotiations have been underway for months, Gilbert's initial five-year contract was nailed down just two weeks ago.

Still, the soft-spoken Gilbert could at least allude to some general possibilities, sometimes in response to gently lobbed, leading questions from Mehta. You've put on several festivals devoted to contemporary composers in Sweden…do you think something like that might work here?

The answer, of course, was, "Why not?" Gilbert's model in Stockholm has been to engage a second orchestra in addition to his own, splitting three orchestral programs consisting of works by one to three contemporary composers. Recent festivals have been devoted to music by John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina and Henri Dutilleux, among others. Those composers have also programmed older and newer music by other composers to surround and contextualize their own works. Chamber-music programs, lectures and films have typically been included in those events, as well.

Gilbert's previous appearances with the New York Philharmonic have been liberally spiced with progressive works. In 2004, he programmed Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces and Ives's Symphony No. 4 on the same concert. 2005 brought Dutilleux's Mystère de l'instant. In 2007, Gilbert led the U.S. premiere of Daniel Börtz's Parodos, as well as a stunning rendition of Ligeti's Violin Concerto with soloist Christian Tetzlaff. In March 2008, he is scheduled to perform Berio's Folk Songs with Audra McDonald, and to conduct the world premiere of Marc Neikrug's Quintessence: Symphony No. 2.

Pressed to mention a few contemporary composers whose work he especially appreciates, Gilbert mentioned Anders Hillborg and Magnus Lindberg, two well-known Scandinavian mavericks with growing international profiles. This led us to inquire as to the status of the third new position announced in April: composer-in-residence. Mehta stated that the search for the right candidate had to wait until the music director position had been filled, since Gilbert will be intimately involved in the selection process. For his part, Gilbert downplayed titles and positions. "We're interested in finding the right people who will enmesh themselves in the New York Philharmonic in the right way," he said. (Hmmmm…where might they find a contemporary composer who has a proven track record, is a known audience builder and has also promoted Hillborg and Lindberg? We wonder.)

Present at the press conference was Gilbert's wife, Kajsa William-Olsson, as well as his parents, Michael Gilbert and Yoko Takebe, both longtime violinists with the Philharmonic (with Michael Gilbert now retired). Also on hand were a healthy number of Philharmonic musicians, most visibly concertmaster Glenn Dicterow—a good sign, given the extent to which a music director's success is intimately tied to his or her relationship with the players.

Mehta mentioned that Gilbert's four living predecessors—Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel—had all been in touch to give their blessing to this new appointment. Gilbert still seemed a bit awestruck to be following in the footsteps of what he called "the most exalted conductors of the last 100 years." His sister, an occasional substitute violinist with the Philharmonic, had run down the same litany of names to him aloud, then put his name on that list, Gilbert related. "Yeah, whatever," she added.

Playlist:

Richard Wagner - Siegfried - Astrid Varnay, Wolfgang Windgassen, Paul Kuen, Hans Hotter, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/Joseph Keilberth (Testament)

Prince - Planet Earth (NPG/Sony, due 7/24)

Fairground Attraction - Kawasaki: Live in Japan 02.07.89 (BMG Japan)

Living in the past.

Bel Canto at Caramoor's Il Trovatore at the Caramoor International Music Festival
The New York Times, July 16, 2007

Clash of the titans.

At 70, Philip Glass is still full of surprises. And it's no exaggeration to state that Book of Longing, his new 105-minute song cycle based on poetry and images from a recent book by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, includes some of the most surprising music he has ever composed.

Specifically, I'm thinking of five unaccompanied instrumental interludes -- one apiece for cellist Wendy Sutter, violinist Tim Fain, oboist Kate St. John, saxophonist Andrew Sterman and double bassist Eleonore Oppenheim -- in which Glass effectively dispensed altogether with the whirling arpeggios and nearly static harmonic progressions on which his style has been based for decades.

Graceful and ruminative, those solo passages seemed to exist in a space where time had been abolished. Sutter's solo acknowledged Bach, while Fain's alluded to the virtuoso cadenza. St. John's section had a snaky, sensuous allure; Sterman's was like overhearing a jazz musician blowing near an open window in a noir soundtrack. Oppenheim's was the most dramatic, melodies playing up and down the entire range of her instrument.

If the rest of Book of Longing was more recognizably the work of Glass, it still stood apart from the bulk of his familiar oeuvre. His ensemble -- the five performers already mentioned, Glass and Michael Riesman on keyboards, and Mick Rossi on keyboard and percussion -- accompanied four vocalists: soprano Dominique Plaisant, mezzo Tara Hugo, tenor Will Erat and bass-baritone Daniel Keeling. The singers, all amplified, performed in a style traditionally associated with musical theater, or even cabaret. Among Glass's works, it was probably closest in style to his 1986 cycle Songs from Liquid Days, but it was closer still in sound to John Adams's 1995 "song-play," I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky.

The singers prowled the stage in front of the musicians in a loose choreography designed by director Susan Marshall; behind the players, designer Christine Jones's backing wall held oversize reproductions of the art-brut sketches from Cohen's book: unflattering self-portraits in styles that resembled Matisse, Picasso, Cocteau and Japanese calligraphy, roughly rendered female backsides, and other small odds and ends. ("Windows into Leonard Cohen's life," my perceptive TONY colleague Gabriella Gershenson suggested.)

Taken on its own, Glass's music was subtle and expressive, and included some of the most beguiling timbral combinations I've ever heard in his work. His text setting was clear and efficient. But what the music lacked was an earthiness that is somewhere near the very core of what makes Cohen's art so effective. Glass's settings worked best when Cohen was in a droll state of mind, as in "This Morning I Woke Up Again," which includes the following memorable passage:

It's fun to run in Heaven
When you're off the beaten track
The Lord is such a monkey
When you've got him on your back

Here, Glass's repetitive structures underscored the absurdity of Cohen's verse. But when Glass took on Cohen's "The Night of Santiago," a vivid poem inspired by Lorca, the composer's idiom was incapable of conveying the erotic undercurrents of Cohen's words. You got the sense that while Cohen might be sweating rather a lot, Glass remained cool and dry.

The singers all did well with their assignments; Hugo and Keeling were especially effective in a full-blown cabaret sort of way, and Glass's ensemble writing was frequently outstanding. The voice truest to Cohen's idiom was, unsurprisingly, his own: heard in a handful of grave, smoky recorded interludes presented without accompaniment. The musicians performed magnificently; I remember wondering at one point whether such romantic effulgence would even have been imaginable during the long-ago loft days of the early Philip Glass Ensemble.

Ultimately, Book of Longing works best when viewed as one artist's affectionate portrait of another, rather than as an actual collaboration. All the facets of Cohen's character were represented: the world-weary stance, the mordant wit, the irreverant view of the sacred, the abundant libido. Glass clearly crafted this portrait with genuine engagement and respect. But in the end, little empathy for Cohen's darker passions came through.

Allan Kozinn took a more positive view in his New York Times review of Saturday night's performance, posted just a few moments ago. As it turned out, my thoughts were more in line with what Greg Quill wrote about the world premiere in the Toronto Star, although I sense that I probably liked it more than he did. For supplemental reading, have a look at this fine Cohen interview that appeared in the London Times on July 1; I'd love to tell you who wrote it, but I can't figure it out from the paper's awful web layout.

Playlist:

Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts, Parts 1-6 (Orange Mountain Music downloads); Music with Changing Parts (Nonesuch); and Koyaaniqatsi (Nonesuch)

Black Friday.

How long does a band actually have to be gone in order for a new tour to be properly billed a reunion? And is an official break-up required to qualify? The Norwegian black-metal trio Immortal called it a day in 2003 after 13 years of steady activity, with members scattering to pursue other projects. It does seem, then, that the current mini-tour -- dubbed "Seven Dates of Blashyrkh" -- is a genuine reunion, even though many groups take longer between regular releases than the entirety of Immortal's absence.

Originally, Immortal's show at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill tonight -- Friday the 13th, appropriately enough -- was to have been the second pillar of what the TONY music staff had declared "the blackest summer in New York history," since the  season would see visits from three seminal black metal bands. Emperor, whose reunion shows here last summer were slightly diminished by a member being barred from entering the country, hit B.B. King's in full force on June 1. The notorious Mayhem was to have completed the hat trick on July 24, but drummer Hellhammer injured his arm at some point during his stint on the most recent Dimmu Borgir tour.

Having passed on Emperor and being deprived of Mayhem, I counted on Immortal to deliver an entire season's worth of brutality and nihilistic catharsis. The Determined Dilettante and I arrived around 8pm, and promptly slithered into our customary position behind the sound board. We missed the opener, local black-metal combo Deimos, but caught the entire set by Annunaki, a fiercely proficient thrash-death band from Bayonne, NJ with a fiery lead guitarist, John Blicharz.

Preceded by the requisite pre-recorded entry fanfare (sweeping strings, whooping French horns, rattling snare drum triplets), Immortal hit the stage at 9pm sharp with a blistering "The Sun No Longer Rises." This being a club date, pyrotechnics and fire-breathing were clearly not forthcoming.

Still, the band got the job done, serving up heated renditions of songs that spanned its entire catalog, from guttural early numbers to proggier later cuts. Singer-guitarist Abbath (Olve Eikemo, seen in the photograph above by Timo Isoaho) basically owned the stage from the moment he strode out. He croaked out one song after another in his gravel-throated growl, while at the same time offering jagged riffs and Philip Glass-on-steroids arpeggios. Bassist Apollyon (Ole Jørgen Moe), on loan from Aura Noir, provided a punchy low end. And drummer Horgh (Reidar Horghagen) played what could only be called honestly: if his bass drums were triggered, it wasn't apparent as these songs blasted and grooved to the variable pulse provided by his four limbs.

Special praise goes to the B.B. King security staff. In almost every single metal show I've ever seen here, mosh pits have been prevented at all cost by big, burly bouncer-types. Here, the stage was protected from intrusion; otherwise, the crowd was allowed to enact whatever mayhem it saw fit: circle pits spawned from time to time on the floor, and bodies surfed without encumbrance. This is as it should be. The air was decidedly warmer and notably more pungent than at any previous metal show I've seen here. Based on tonight's behavior, B.B. King's may yet become the kind of fabled metal haven that CBGB and L'Amours once were.

Set list: recorded intro / The Sun No Longer Rises / Withstand the Fall of Time / Solarfall / Sons of Northern Darkness / Tyrants / One by One / Wrath from Above / Mountains of Might / recorded intro / Unholy Forces of Evil / Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss // Encore: recorded intro / At the Heart of Winter / Battles in the North / Blashrykh (Mighty Ravendark)

This seems like the right moment to mention this afternoon's most valuable discovery: Metalsetlists.com, where you can find out what just about any metal band -- in the broadest sense of the term, apparently, given that Rush is included -- is playing on its current trek. I stumbled upon this site by Googling for a current Immortal set list prior to the show. Once I got home, I registered immediately and posted tonight's set list under what seemed like an appropriate screen name.

Playlist:

Negativa - Demo (Prodisk)

Claudio Monteverdi - Il Sesto Libro de Madrigali - Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini (Naïve)

Prince - 3121 (Universal), One Nite Alone...Live! (NPG) and Shark Tank II: HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA, June 2, 2004 (Freeology) (tip o' the hat to M. C—)

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Phantasy Quintet; String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 - Maggini Quartet (Naxos)

Immortal - Battles in the North (Osmose)

David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir - Hearing Solar Winds (Ocora)

Daily Kyle.

I try to keep up with current political events to the best of my abilities: I'm on all the right mailing lists, I scan breaking news headlines every chance I get, and I've recently started reading The Nation and The New Republic on a regular basis for the first time since my immediate post-college years. The times in which we're living frankly call for no less vigilance.

I have to confess, however, that I spend less time reading Daily Kos, Huffington and the like than I'd wish to. That's why I'm so appreciative that Kyle Gann is peppering his customary musical wonderment with a steady stream of political asides. The most inspiring thing Kyle has presented just recently was a fiery indictment of the Bush justice department written by John S. Koppel, a civil appellate attorney with the D.O.J. since 1981, which appeared in the Denver Post on July 5. But this pithy little bit at the end of Kyle's latest post caught my eye this morning:

There was a wonderfully telling moment in Sara Taylor's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that doesn't seem to have gotten much attention. She started out saying that, as a deputy assistant to the president, she "took an oath. And I take that oath to the president very seriously." Senator Leahy was forced to point out to her that the oath she took was not to the president, but to the Constitution. She conceded her error. Doesn't that just about sum up everything that's been wrong with the Justice Department?

Playlist:

King Crimson - Live in Los Angeles, July 1, 1995 and Live in Warsaw, June 11, 2000 (DGM)

David Garland - Noise in You (Family Vineyard)

Claude Debussy - Préludes - Steven Osborne (Hyperion)

Franz Liszt - Piano Music - Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (MD+G)

Roger Sessions - Violin Concerto; James Bolle - Ritual - Ole Böhn, Monadnock Festival Orchestra/James Bolle (Albany)