Night After Night

Social media.

Portrait of the author hard at work during Inuksuit. Photograph by Bonnie Wright.

Tomorrow (March 1) from 3 to 5pm, I'll slip off the manacles binding me to my desk at the Time Out New York compound and head across town to St. Peter's Church (619 Lexington Ave. at 54th St.), where I'll be participating in an event presented by Chamber Music America as part of its regular "First Tuesdays" series. For a program titled "Meet the Music Press," I'll be teaming up with fellow New York Times contributor Nate Chinen to answer questions about the most effective ways that musicians and organizations can get their information to the press folks who need it—not always an easy thing, but hardly an insurmountable challenge.

At this event I'll be wearing my classical-music hat and Nate will be the jazz guy. But we both cover a lot more ground than those categories suggest, as do an ever-increasing number of artists. Since the gray area between genres, styles and practices is a major preoccupation of mine, I'd expect that it will be a component of the conversation to some extent.

Over at Sequenza 21, where Jerry Bowles generously posted news of this event last week (kindly boosted on Twitter by Christian Carey yesterday), composer Chris Becker has weighed in with some provocative food for thought in the comments field. Most arts organizations are now using social-media tools to reach audiences directly. But can social-media platforms replace mass media outright? The pros and cons of that particular issue are worth mulling even if you don't plan to attend tomorrow's seminar.

CMA members who can't attend tomorrow's event will be able to request audio recordings of the whole shebang, free of charge.

Playlist:

Gian Carlo Menotti - The Saint of Bleecker Street - Gabrielle Ruggiero, Gloria Lane, David Poleri, Leon Lishner, Catherine Akos, Maria Di Gerlando, chorus and orchestra/Thomas Schippers (Heristal)

Philip Glass - String Quartets Nos. 1-5; Suite from Bent - Brooklyn Rider (Orange Mountain Music)

Marillion - Friends (Racket)

Hector Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique; La Mort de Cléopâtre - Anna Caterina Antonacci, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Bis)

Florent Schmitt - La tragédie de Salomé; César Franck - Symphony in D minor - Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Atma Classique)

Jean Sibelius - Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7; Tapiola - Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä (Bis)

Marillion - Family (Racket)

Franz Schubert - String Quartets in D minor (D. 810, "Death and the Maiden") and A minor (D. 804, "Rosamunde") - Takács Quartet (Hyperion)

Peanut Butter Wolf - 666 Mix (Stones Throw)

Walter Piston - Symphony No. 2 - Seattle Symphony/Gerard Schwarz (Naxos)

Walter Piston - Violin Concerto No. 1 - James Oliver Buswell, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine/Theodor Kuchar (Naxos)

Walter Piston - Symphony No. 4 - Seattle Symphony/Gerard Schwarz (Naxos)

Moritz von Oswald Trio - Horizontal Structures (Honest Jon's)

Joseph Haydn - The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross - Lisa Milne, Ruxandra Donose, Andrew Kennedy, Christopher Maltman, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir/Vladimir Jurowski (LPO)

Three by four.

Takács Quartet at the 92nd Street Y
The New York Times, February 28, 2011

Even if you're not all that interested in reading about one of the world's finest string quartets burning down the house with three works by Schubert, click through long enough to have a look at Times photographer Brian Harkin's amazing shot of the group in action. While I'm on the subject, I'll add that Ruby Washington captured exactly the right moment in the photo that accompanied my review of The Saint of Bleecker Street at the Dicapo Opera Theatre, which ran on Saturday.

Waiting for the miracle.

Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street at Dicapo Opera Theatre
The New York Times, February 26, 2011

Small caveats aside, this really is one of the best productions I've seen at the Dicapo Opera, a company that seems to be finding an identity of its own in part by preserving and celebrating mainstream American operas marginalized elsewhere. That composer Tobias Picker serves as an artistic consultant for the company must surely have something to do with it, but whatever the case, it's been a welcome development in the New York operatic community. There are three two performances remaining: tonight (February 26), next Friday (March 4) and next Sunday (March 6).

Party crashers.

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
The New York Times, February 24, 2011

Images of the street protest mentioned in my review can be seen at Adalah-NY. I've posted my sole iPhone snap here, but I wish I'd gotten close enough to see the clever violin-shaped signs visible in the linked slideshow.

Playlist:

ProjeKct Three - Live in Alexandria, VA, March 3, 2003 (DGM)

John Adams - Doctor Atomic - Gerald Finley, Richard Paul Fink, Eric Owens, Thomas Glenn, Jessica Rivera, Netherlands Opera Chorus, Netherlands Philharmonic/Lawrence Renes (Opus Arte)

King Crimson - Greek Theatre, University of California-Berkeley, August 13, 1982 (DGM Live)

Randy Gibson - Aqua Madora (Avantmedia)

American Music Club - Mercury (Reprise)

Liturgy - Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey; out May 10)

Jeremy Pelt - The Talented Mr. Pelt (Highnote)

King Crimson - Poplar Creek Music Theatre, Hoffman Estates, IL, June 22, 1984 (DGM Live)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Sinfonia concertante in E-flat (K. 364); Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde - Stefan Jackiw, Richard Yongjae O'Neill, Sarah Connolly, Toby Spence, London Philharmonic Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (LPO Listen Again; available thru March 10)

Weather report.

Tune-In Music Festival: Inuksuit at the Park Avenue Armory
The New York Times, February 22, 2011

Some scenes from the performance:

The drill hall, viewed from the east end.

John Luther Adams (left), rapt.

David T. Little at work.

Nicholas Photinos of eighth blackbird in a stairwell.

Looking down from behind Steven Schick, west-end gallery.

Great leap forward.

The Juilliard Orchestra with John Adams at Carnegie Hall
The New York Times, February 21, 2011

The night after this concert, I finally got to see the Metropolitan Opera's new production of John Adams's opera Nixon in China, presented in the original 1987 staging by Peter Sellars--more or less. Many reviews appeared after the premiere earlier this month, including those by my friends and colleagues Tony Tommasini, Zachary Woolfe and Anne Midgette. I don't feel any real urge to add my voice to that critical matrix, though my sympathies are most closely reflected in Anne's review.

[Update Feb. 22, 2011: Daniel Stephen Johnson steps into the mix with an outstanding, must-read blog essay on Nixon, here.]

But I've definitely been thinking about the differences between this revival and the original Houston Grand Opera presentation in 1987, when, as a college student enrolled at Trinity University in San Antonio, I flew home to Houston to attend the very first performance. No real operaphile yet, I was spurred by Adams's first few recordings on the Nonesuch and ECM labels, and not much more.

When I mentioned my attendance to Sellars during his visit to Trinity less than a week after the prima, he acted aghast. "Oh, you must come back and see it again," he exclaimed. "We've fixed everything!"

But at the Met, nearly a quarter century later, Sellars was still finding things to revise. Among the things discussed in my Time Out New York interview with Sellars and Adams was the fact that we have all learned so much more about the opera's real-life protagonists since Nixon first appeared. I based this on having read shortly before the interview Mao: The Unknown Story, an inflammatory and, according to some, overly biased biography by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.

Sellars replied that the Met revival would take into account all the revelations that have come to light since Nixon was created. "You will see a very different Chou En-lai," he said. "You will see a very different Mao. You’ll see a very different Madame Mao. And you will see a very different Pat and Dick."

All of which was true, to varying degrees. Chou seemed changed least, apart from Russell Braun affecting the premier's lame right arm and adopting a generally sterner demeanor than did the role's creator, Sanford Sylvan. Mao, played at the Met by Robert Brubaker, was aged and doddering, a rightly decrepit echo of the heroic mien John Duykers bore in 1987.

Richard Paul Fink's Kissinger at the Met wasn't so very far from that of Thomas Hammons at HGO, though Fink threw himself into the second act's climactic ballet sequences with a more reckless gusto. Janis Kelly's Pat Nixon, a sterling portrayal, offered a character more vulnerable and pained than the girlish innocent of Carolann Page's creation. More sympathetic, too--and more surprisingly so--was the Madame Mao of Kathleen Kim, lent more nuance in the last act than was Trudy Ellen Craney in the original staging.

Common to Houston in 1987 and the Met in 2011 was James Maddalena as Nixon. True to all reports, Maddalena's voice is not in the same hale condition it was at the role's inception. How could it be? But along with the mixed reviews of his performance during the Met prima came suggestions that he was suffering from a cold; during Saturday's final performance Maddalena's voice showed the effects of years passed, but this, for me, enriched his portrayal rather than diminishing it.

In terms of Sellars's direction, I was surprised by the absence of any substantial changes during the first and second acts. Knowing the piece so well didn't diminish its impact--if anything, the shiver I felt during the early chorus "The people are the heroes now" was even more profound--nor did awareness of the stagy artificiality with which Air Force One would descend from the rafters make its arrival any less triumphant.

During the busy banquet in Act Two, I delighted in details I'd missed before, if in fact they were there. (It's hard to tell in a worn VHS recording of the 1987 PBS Great Performers telecast.) I was charmed to notice how Mao's secretaries, when miming translations of speeches in English to an imaginary mass-media audience, mouthed words in English, and how they hesitated to translate Nixon's impromptu "I opposed China," then beamed as they mouthed his next words: "I was wrong."

The biggest changes came during the third act, though even these were not so sweeping as to constitute a wholesale reconception. The core of the staging remained five characters on individual beds, reflecting on events of this monumental visit, and on their paths leading up to it.

Anyone following Twitter during the Met prima knows that the most contentious additions were the simulated sex acts performed upon Mao by a secretary while his wife--dressed in slinky night wear, rather than the business suit Craney wore to bed--sang dolefully nearby. But this, however egregious or offensive it might have seemed to many observers, at least felt consistent with a reappraisal of Mao as a narcissist and womanizer four times married. (That Mao also simulated a sex act upon his wife seems to have gone unmentioned.)

Surrounding Chou's bed with lilies, left by a solemn procession, and having both his body and Mao's draped, corpselike, with Chinese flags, offered wayward visual counterpoint to the last act's stream-of-consciousness poetry. On the other hand, incorporating props and bits of scenery from previous acts into a silent background parade seemed effective: a dreamlike profusion of impressions playing out quietly, just below the surface of the tangled memories and emotions the characters express as they process the historic event in which they've just participated.

Wonderland in Alice.

"At Tully Hall, the Norm Is a Festival"
The New York Times, February 20, 2011

A very short preview of Lincoln Center's Tully Scope Festival, which celebrates the diverse range of things that Alice Tully Hall already does well, while also suggesting some of the ways in which Lincoln Center is trying to make better use of its beautifully refurbished space. Like I said in the article, pretty much every single event in this 14-concert monthlong series is a highlight, and some seem downright imperative.

At this point I have no idea which concerts I'll get to attend, on duty or off. I will say, though, that I'm sorry I won't be able to see the first two performances. On Tuesday, the International Contemporary Ensemble commemorates the fateful night in 1950 when John Cage and Morton Feldman bonded over a New York Philharmonic performance of Anton Webern's Symphony, Op. 21, performing pieces by all three composers, a bit of Iannis Xenakis and a pre-concert premiere by Nathan Davis.

And on Thursday, Jeffrey Milarsky conducts Juilliard's amazing Axiom in more Feldman -- including the gorgeous Rothko Chapel with the Clarion Choir -- plus a pair of pieces by György Kurtág.

Just due.

 

CD REVIEW: Ben Johnston: String Quartets 1, 5, 10
Kepler Quartet
New World Records 80693-2; CD.
The New York Times, February 20, 2011

Amazon / Ariama / ArkivMusic / Forced Exposure / H&B Recordings Direct

A review of the second volume in an invaluable series devoted to the complete string quartets of Ben Johnston, an amazing, undersung American maverick who's passed through neo-Classical and serialist phases on his path toward microtonality, just intonation and an entirely original voice.

You can read more about Johnston and these specific pieces on the New World site, and about the Kepler Quartet, the outstanding ensemble behind this important series, on the group's homepage. You'll find my Time Out New York review of the previous installment -- String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 9, issued in 2006 -- right here.

With luck, it won't take another five years to see the Keplers cross the finish line. Meanwhile, if you're intrigued and have some time on your hands, here's a lengthy video in which Johnston explains his work and influences, in particular Harry Partch, during a lecture at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, date unknown.

Surprise symphony.

The New York Philharmonic with Branford Marsalis at Avery Fisher Hall
The New York Times, February 19, 2011

I rarely receive feedback on my reviews from strangers, directly, but every time I do, I learn something valuable. After this review appeared in print this morning, I got an e-mail from someone who attended the matinee performance of the same program on Friday.

This reader described to me something shocking and unprecedented she'd witnessed: midway through the performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 60, "Il distratto," the violins played a shockingly discordant chord. Andrey Boreyko, the conductor, evidently perturbed by what he heard, cut off the performance and waited impatiently as the violinists retuned their instruments.

As it happened, everything the reader described was precisely what Haydn wrote into this most unusual piece, embellished with a bit of play-acting from Mr. Boreyko and the musicians. This particular symphony originated in Haydn's 1774 incidental music for a stage play, Le Distrait (in German, Der Zerstreute; English translation, "The Absent-Minded Man"). In fashioning the six-movement symphony, Haydn preserved many of the musical effects he'd packed into his clever, evocative stage score. In the review, I describe some of those effects like so:

...inattentive fritters and jolts in the opening Allegro; robust brass interruptions in the Andante; an awkward retuning by the violins in the Finale. Mr. Boreyko contributed to that last bit of shtick with stagy shrugs and gestures of impatience.

This, I reckoned, would be enough for anyone who had a working knowledge of the symphony or had scanned James Keller's program notes (PDF). But this reader's note was a timely and welcome reminder that not everyone comes to a performance armed with the same facts and experience. Part of my job, ideally, ought to be explaining things in a manner that leaves less room for confusion.

At the very least I might have mentioned that the music comes to a literally screeching halt, then resumes, chastened. Being reminded of points like that is precisely what's most valuable about getting feedback from readers, and why I'll always welcome it.

Playlist:

Lamb of God - Hourglass (Epic)

R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros., out Mar. 8)

Donwill - Don Cusack in High Fidelity (Bandcamp download)

Motörhead - No Remorse (Sanctuary)

Jennifer Higdon - On a Wire; Michael Gandolfi - Q.E.D.: Engaging Richard Feynman - eighth blackbird, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Robert Spano (ASO Media, out Feb. 22)

Marillion - Front Row Club 019 Wolverhampton November 4, 1998 (Racket download)

Zach Miskin - For Your Safety (Naïve)

Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 2; Anton Webern - Six Bagatelles, Op. 9; Alban Berg - Lyric Suite - Sandrine Piau, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Quatuor Diotima (Naïve)

Rick Ross - Teflon Don (Island Def Jam)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Symphonies Nos. 38-41 - Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Charles Mackerras (Linn)

Cradle of Filth - Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa (Nuclear Blast)

Peter Brötzmann/Fred Van Hove/Han Bennink - Balls (FMP/Atavistic UMS)

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (Waste)

Todd Reynolds - Outerborough (Innova)

Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No. 1; Lyrical Waltz; Giya Kancheli - V & V; Arvo Pärt - Spiegel im Spiegel; Sergei Rachmaninoff - Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 - Lisa Batiashvili, Hélène Grimaud, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen (Deutsche Grammophon)

John Adams - City Noir - Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon download)

Aribert Reimann - Medea - Marlis Petersen, Michael Selinger, Elisabeth Kulman, Michael Roider, Adrian Eröd, Max Emanuel Cencic, Vienna State Opera/Marco Arturo Marelli (Arthaus Musik)

Wedding party.

The Bartered Bride at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater
The New York Times, February 17, 2011

The first full-scale collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard School, this was both an accomplished production and a plain-old delight. The performance drew a house packed with luminaries, including Mark Morris, Brian Dickie and, naturally, Peter Gelb. There are two more performances on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon; I believe they're both sold out, but you can always take a chance on the stand-by line.

When I set out to write this review, I'd originally intended to quote at least a few lines from J.D. McClatchy's playful translation, which I'd scribbled in the dark but wanted to check against a primary source. A tight deadline, alas, forced me to file before a requested libretto arrived.

But here, at least, is one of my favorite excerpts. These lines come from the terzetto in which the marriage-fixer Kecal describes to Ludmila and Krušina the various virtues of Vašek, the sheltered, stuttering lad to who he intends to wed their daughter, Mařenka:

He's such a fine lad,
and somewhat good-looking.

Altogether out of the ordinary, you'd say.

Voice a bit oddish,
but manners exquisitely modest.

Not grim and gruff-ish.
Diamond in the rough-ish!

In time, Kecal's hard-sell tactics approach the breakaway velocity of a Gilbert & Sullivan patter song:

Temperament reliable, and
virtues undeniable, and...

...income certifiable, and
habits modifable, and...

...defects rectifiable, and
brilliance amplifiable, and...

...assets multipliable, and rivals
all good-bye-able, oh, very justifiable, yes!

Presumably when an expanded version of this Bartered Bride reaches the Met in a season to come -- 2014-15, says one authoritative source -- the opera will be sung in Czech. Still, I'm glad to have heard the McClatchy translation, and I hope it gets taken up elsewhere.