The Bitter Fruit of Obsessive Love

Some thoughts on Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Detail from a caricature of Hector Berlioz by Anton Elfinger.
The caption read: "Heureusement la salle est solide... elle résiste." © 1982 University of Chicago Press.

If you've read Superconductor since the beginning you know that this blog has spent a lot of column length on the music of Hector Berlioz. Berlioz was an author and a music critic (much like your humble narrator.) He was also a revolutionary and romantic composer who cut an eccentric but fearless path through the cutthroat world of the Paris music scene in his lifetime. His Symphonie-fantastique, which burst upon the world in 1829, was one of the reasons for the rise of program music in the 19th century. Even more revolutionary was his use of a recurring motif or idée-fixe, whose development over the course of five movements predicted the Wagnerian idea of leitmotif.

Concert Review: In Their Darkest Hour

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The redoubtable Sir Simon Rattle brought the Berlin Philharmonic back to New York this week.
Photo by Thomas Rabsch © Thomas Rabsch licensed to Warner Brothers Classics.

The tenure of British conductor Sir Simon Rattle at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic is coming to an end. Starting next season, the Liverpool-born conductor prepares to mount the podium of another legendary ensemble: the London Symphony Orchestra. Before that happy event, there is the business of a North American tour with the Berliners, a tour which stopped at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night for the first of two concerts this week.

Obituary: Pierre Boulez (1925-2015)

The French conductor, composer, creative force was 90.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pierre Boulez on the podium. He never used a baton.
Photo © Universal Music Group.

Pierre Boulez died yesterday. He passed at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany, according to a report published on the  The French composer and conductor was a key figure in shaping the music and performance style of the latter half of the 20th century. He was 90 years old.

The Year in Reviews: The Concerts of 2015

The best concerts and recitals of the year that was.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Mysingsö Beach Chair (pictured above) was a key component of
Goldberg, the experimental presentation of Bach at the Park Avenue Armory.
Photo from IKEA.com © IKEA.

2015 was a year of farewells. Pierre Boulez, having turned 90 quietly stepped off the podium. Kurt Masur passed away. Valery Gergiev ended his term with the London Symphony Orchestra and Alan Gilbert announced that he would be moving on from the New York Philharmonic. However it was also a very good year for concert music.

This year's concerts were in a variety of settings: Lincoln Center, NJPAC and even a beach chair in the middle of the darkness of the Park Avenue Armory. All that and more is in the list of the ten best concert experiences I had in 2015. All links lead to full reviews and all quotes below are taken from Superconductor articles.

A Symphony Should Be Like the World

Some essential Mahler grooves.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gustav Mahler, out for a walk.

July 7 marked the 155th birthday of composer, conductor and former Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic music director Gustav Mahler. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Mahler is now revered as the father of the 20th century symphonist, a forward thinker whose death at the age of 50 robbed the world of his own unique, driven genius. In celebration of his birth here are my favorite recordings of each of the ten Mahler symphonies plus Das Lied von der Erde, a symphony in all but name.

Concert Review: In Praise of the Creator

Conor Hanick and the Met Museum celebrate Pierre Boulez.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The pianist Conor Hanick. Photo by Jonathan Waiter

There is no living figure in the music of the second half of the 20th century than Pierre Boulez. On Thursday afternoon, the Metropolitan Museum of Art offered Pierre Boulez: A 90th Birthday Celebration  with a triptych of works played by pianist Conor Hanick. This concert, featuring Mr. Boulez' first published works alongside 21st century compositions showed that the French composer's influence on the development of piano repertory remains strong into the modern age.

Happy Birthday, Pierre Boulez!

The super conductor turns 90. Here is a list of his best recordings.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pierre Boulez.

"I love to conduct but I feel that it is no longer necessary."--Pierre Boulez

The great Pierre Boulez turns 90 years old today and we would like to celebrate with a list of the composer-conductor's greatest efforts on disc. Boulez is a composer first, a creator of new traditions and a breaker of old ones. His early music spawned the sound of the second half of the 20th century, his later works mark his status as an original thinker and tireless seeker.

Concert Review: Blocks, Points and High Explosives

The Piano Music of Pierre Boulez at Zankel Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich played Pierre Boulez' piano works
on Monday night at Zankel Hall. Photo by Neda Navae © 2015 ECM Records.

There are many words that can be used to describe Pierre Boulez. Composer, innovator, iconoclast, maverick, visionary all come immediately to mind following Monday night's recital at Zankel Hall. At this concert, pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich had agreed to perform the difficult feat of playing the composer's complete repertory for solo piano as part of their current North American tour.

Concert Review: A Fixed Explosion of Ideas

The Orchestra of St. Luke's plays Pierre Boulez.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

 Pierre Boulez and his student the conductor Pablo Heras-Casado.
Photo by Priska Ketterer © 2012 The Lucerne Festival.

From his heaven-storming early piano works to his current place as a grand statesman of modern music, there is no overstating the importance of composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. On Saturday afternoon at the Rose Theater in the Time Warner Center, the Orchestra of St. Luke's unveiled their first concert of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL: Circles of Influence: Pierre Boulez. This concert celebrated recent works (including four U.S. premieres) and examined the Boulezian influence on contemporary European composers.

Pierre Boulez Nixes BBC Proms

Composer will not conduct his Le marteau sans maître.

Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

A recent report on Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc revealed that Pierre Boulez, one of the most important conductors and composers still active on the international classical music circuit, has been forced to withdraw from this year's BBC Proms He is unable to fly to the United Kingdom due to recent eye surgery.

Francis Xavier-Roth will take his place on the podium, leading Boulez' iconic Le marteau sans maître ("The Hammer without a Master") on July 26. Other concerts, featuring Boulez' experimental music paired with Beethoven symphonies, will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Concert Review: When the Flutes Exploded

The New York Philharmonic makes CONTACT!
by Paul Pelkonen

Conductor David Robertson.

At New York Philharmonic subscription concerts, the performance of new music or works by still-living composers can be an afterthought, wedged between familiar slabs of Brahms and Beethoven. The CONTACT! concerts are different. They take place away from Avery Fisher Hall, and offer nothing but modern music. Saturday night's concert was at Symphony Space.

This spring's CONTACT! program, curated by Philharmonic composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg and led by conductor David Robertson, featured two premieres. opened with a Philharmonic commission from New York's own Elliott Carter: Two Controversies and a Confrontation. Mr. Carter is one of this city's most celebrated composers, and at 103 years old, the dean of modern American music.

Concert Review: Celestial Mechanics

The American Symphony Orchestra plays George Crumb.

by Paul Pelkonen

An appearance by composer George Crumb...
on a t-shirt. Image © Zazzle.com.

The American Symphony Orchestra specializes in "deep cuts": unusual pieces from outside the repertory. Occasionally, though, music director Leon Botstein focuses on contemporary American masters. At Carnegie Hall on Thursday night, Dr. Botstein presented the major orchestral works of George Crumb. The composer was in attendance.

This is unusual music, and Dr. Botstein had his players seated in an unusual configuration on the Carnegie Hall stage. Woodwinds formed a line across the front, with French horns on extreme stage left opposite a complicated percussion station. The double basses were in the back, changing the balance of sound considerably.

Dr. Crumb is best known for his quirky works for solo piano and chamber ensemble. The concert opened with his Variazioni, a work that served as the young composer's doctoral thesis at the University of Michigan. It starts with a simple, Bach-like theme that forms a tone-row, a serialist technique where notes are arranged in a manner ignoring the conventional system of scales and keys. 

This plaintive, moving theme served as a digression point for the rest of the work. At one point, the brass play a stately toccata. Strings intertwine with unusual percussion instruments, creating unearthly soundscapes. The piece ended where it began, with a reprise of the original theme. Dr. Botstein spoke briefly to the audience, and reprised the Toccata one more time.

Echoes of Time and the River shows the maturing composer experimentingfurther wih percussion. Gongs are crucial to this work, stationed on either side of the stage and carried about by musicians in a strange series of processions, either through the house or across the stage. These little parade maneuvers were announced with the ring of antique cymbals, echoed by gongs and the shake of a sistrum-like Chinese bell-tree. 

Echoes is part tone poem and part performance art, with interspersed sprechstimme texts. The brass joined the parade, forming a line across stage left, aiming the bells of their instruments squarely at the listeners, and then breathing through them, a hollow, ghostly sound familiar to anyone who has learned trombone. A little procession of wind players appeared too, gathering around a piano and playing short melodic lines as if to entertain the musician manning the keyboard. 

The orchestra was re-arranged again for Star-Child an apocalyptic oratorio-like piece that depicts a Biblical end to the world in terms familiar to listeners who know the Mahler Resurrection and the Berlioz Requiem. A rarity because of its staging challenges, this piece was originally commissioned by the New York Philharmonic during Pierre Boulez' fearlessly experimental administration.

This massive work features, in addition to a large orchestra,  small ensembles and soloists scattered about Carnegie Hall, seven trumpets (some using disposable aluminum pie plates as mutes) soprano soloist Audrey Luna, and two choral groups: the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the men of the Collegiate Chorale.

This enormous piece begins with Music of the Spheres, a celestial drone on the strings and wind that permeates the entire 30-minute work. A dialogue began, with Ms. Luna pleading for divine mercy. She was  answered (in a manner recalling the old Peanuts® cartoons) by a trombonist using a metal mute to make his instrument sound voice-like.

The crushing second section (Musica Apocalyptica) featured the actual apocalypse in Mahlerian terms, with batteries of percussion, skittering strings and the seven spatially arranged trumpets who remained strangely silent during the Tuba Mirum. At this point, the still-silent Brooklyn Youth Chorus looked genuinely scared at the unfamiliar sonorities whirling forth from the orchestra.

The children finally sang in the last movement, another series of hymn-like calls and responses. They answered in clear, angelic voice, responding to the Latin text sung by Ms. Luna. She hit the dizzy heights required by the score, as the work swelled to a series of massive, celestial climaxes. Eventually, the drone faded into silence, and the composer rose from his box seat to receive the roar of approval from the audience.

Concert Review: The Pierre Boulez Time Machine

The composer receives a birthday tribute at Columbia. 
 by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pierre Boulez.
Photo by Harald Hoffmann © 2010 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Group

The life and career of French composer Pierre Boulez career was the subject of Monday night's Composer Portrait at Miller Theater. The composer himself attended. The concert, (which celebrated his 85th birthday) was a career retrospective featuring the skilled chamber musicians of the Talea Ensemble under the direction of percussionist James Baker.

The evening opened with Dérive No. 1, a work which arranges Boulez' trademark serial technique for a small chamber ensemble and piano. Written in 1984, the composition creates shimmering structures of sound with occasional spikes of non-melodic sound. It served as an excellent introduction to Boulez' complex, cerebral style and made the audience ready for the "time machine" tour of his catalogue that was to follow.

Pierre Boulez based his work on his early studies with Olivier Messiaen, but soon struck out fearlessly into the uncharted waters of serialism. He chose to expand the serial approach, rearranging the basic tone-rows that are used to construct music--a technique invented by Arnold Schoenberg. But Boulez innovated further, using this mathematical approach on intervals and rhythms to create unique sonic landscapes. Although his work bristles with complexity, the effect is shimmering and surprisinly seductive.

The next work was Boulez' first published piece, the 12 Notations for solo piano from 1945. This is Boulez as the angry young man, writing works that veer between dreamy, impressionistic landscapes and raw power. They also provide a great challenge for the pianist. Anthony Cheung played each Notation admirably, expressing poetry in the context of works that are only twelve bars in length.

Soprano Mary Elizabeth MacKenzie joined the group for two Improvisations, based on the poetry of Stephan Mallarmé. The French text was stretched and distorted into new sounds, against a background of chamber instruments and tuned percussion. Ms. MacKenzie specializes in this sort of "new" music (the works actually date from 1957) and she coped ably with the challenges presented by the two works.

The composer himself took the stage next, sitting down for an interview. He covered some fascinating insights to his creative process, comparing the long developmnt (and in some cases, total reconstruction) of his music to the lengthty gestation of Wagner's Ring Cycle, a work which he conducted at Bayreuth in 1976.

The evening concluded with the New York premiere of the revised, expanded version of Derivé No. 2, a massive tone poem for winds, horn tuned percussion, piano and a minimal string section. This piece unfolded as a series of complex blocks of sound, from which instruemtns emerged gradually to make their induvudual voices heard with solos of their own. Surprisingly, passages of the work sounded Beethovenian, but maybe that was the lengthy cadenza played by the English horn.

DVD Review: The Boulez Ring: Das Rheingold

Hang fire: Heinz Zednik as Loge in Das Rheingold

This is the opening opera of the famous 1976 "centennial" Ring, a collaboration between conductor Pierre Boulez and enfant terrible director Patrice Chéreau, filmed in 1980 at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The first of many "high concept" Ring cycles at Bayreuth, this production moves the action to Wagner's own lifetime and stages the work as a struggle between the oppressed working class (the Nibelungs) and the patrician Gods who are moving into their new manor house (Valhalla) among a bevy of suitcases and hat-boxes.

Donald McIntyre plays Wotan as an embodiment of Wagner himself. It's all there: the majestic shock of grey hair, the penchant for silk dressing gowns and the tendency to destroy everything and everyone in his path. The voice is all there too, with mellow rich tones that momentarily put the listener under his sway.

Throughout, the New Zealand-born bass is a terrific actor as well as a commanding vocal presence, conveying the angst and guilt that consumes the King of the Gods as his wheelings and dealings fall apart. The moment where he takes the Ring (by literally hacking off the finger of Alberich, played by Hermann Becht) is chilling.

On this DVD (and throughout the Chéreau Ring) there is a greater emphasis on acting than vocal ability. However there are standouts. Hanna Schwarz sings the first of her many recorded outings as Fricka. Also among the Gods is future heldentenor Siegfried Jerusalem as Froh.

His performances as his namesake would become a Bayreuth staple. Heinz Zednik (who would go on to play Mime opposite Jerusalem) is an interesting choice as Loge, the "disreputable uncle" in this very dysfunctional family. His is an intelligent performance that brings much-needed panache to the goings-on. Finally, a young Matti Salminen is an excellent Fasolt, paired with the gruff Fafner of Fritz Hübner.

From the opening scene (staged with the Rhine held back by a giant hydroelectric dam), Pierre Boulez conducts a light-footed, idiosyncratic performance of the score. Boulez' steady approach keeps a foot on the acceerator so that certain momments (the revalation of the Rhinegold, the Giants' entrance) seem to flash by. Under his baton, some beautiful details and textures of the score reveal themselves, helped by the perfect acoustics of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. This is an essential document for Wagner lovers and one that must be seen to understand the growth of opera staging in the late 20th century.




The Gods enter Valhalla

DVD Review: The Boulez Ring: Götterdämmerung

Siegfried (Manfred Jung) hooks up with Gutrune
(Jeanine Altmeyer) in Act II of Götterdämmerung.
Photo © 1979 Bayreuth Festival

The entry of the chorus in Act II of the final installment of Patrice Chéreau's Ring cycle marks the rise of the proletariat working class, under the leadership of Hagen, a political boss in a cheap suit. Their importance is emphasized in the third act, as they stare mutely, accusingly at the audience as Siegfried's body is carried off the stage, and as the old patrician order of the Gods perishes in flames. Unfortunately, weak vocal performances mean that this cycle ends not with a bang, but with a whimper in D major.

The biggest problem with this Götterdämmerung is Manfred Jung as Siegfried. While he managed in the first opera, its sequel finds the singer completely out of his depth. He doesn't even attempt the two most difficult moments in the score. One is the passage at the end of Act I where Siegfried, (disguised as Gunther) must pretend to be a baritone, singing a full octave below his range.

The other is in Act II, when he sings a full octave leap on a sixteenth note. (This often makes Siegfrieds sound like they are strangling cats instead of killing dragons.) Considering that this performance was done for posterity in front of an empty Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the absence of these difficult moments is inexcusable.

The Gibichungs are also weak. Fritz Hüber lacks the low, menacing bass notes required to sing Hagen, and he shouts himself hoarse in the second act. Franz Mazura looks corrupt as Gunther, and gives a convincing portrait of the King as a twisted old man desperate to marry. Jeanine Altmeyer, who sang Sieglinde earlier in this cycle, is a strong Gutrune. One wonders if the casting of the same actress who played Siegfried's mother was an innovative Oedipal twist on the part of the director.

Siegfried gets killed by Hagen (Fritz Hübner) in Götterdämmerung.

These performances were filmed and recorded a year before the other three operas in the cycle. Gwyneth Jones is shrill and occasionally suffers from wobble as Brunnhilde. However, her acting and interactions with Manfred Jung remain thrilling theatrical moments. Gwendolyn Killebrew is also an excellent Waltraute, making her long dialogue with Brunnhilde one of the riveting moments in this very long evening. It is also interesting to note future valkyrie Gabriela Schnaut in the cast--she sings the Second Norn.

Hagen summons the Gibichung vassals in Act II of Götterdämmerung

All photos and video © 1979 Unitel/Deutsche Grammophon.

DVD Review: The Boulez Ring: Siegfried

Workin' man: Manfred Jung at the forge in Act I of Siegfried

Technology and the industrial revolution seem to be the focus of this Siegfried, the third installment from Patrice Chéreau's landmark staging of Wagner's Ring cycle. Wotan (disguised as the Wanderer) seeking to help Siegfried with the forging of the sword Nothung, leaves an industrial-sized drop-forge in Mime's cave in order to automate the process. Fafner rolls into battle inside an enormous wheeled steel dragon. And the old order passes as Siegfried, the young lower-class proletarian, acquired the sword, the ring and the girl in rapid succession.


Vocally, this performance is something of a mixed bag, and a lot of its success hinges on the title character, played by veteran tenor Manfred Jung. Jung, a steely-voiced singer, is capable and energetic as Siegfried, playing the hero as a wide-eyed bumpkin at loose in the world. It;s not a bad conception. To some degree, he is outshone by Heinz Zednik, who here switches to the role of Mime and delivers a fine character tenor performances in this difficult, unsympathetic role.

Donald McIntyre is better suited to the Wanderer, the lowest of the three Wotan parts. His confrontations throughout the opera--with Mime in the Riddle Scene, with Alberich in the forest, and finally with Erda (Ortrud Wenkel) and Siegfried in the last act, are among the most electric scenes in this Siegfried.

Hermann Becht is vocally harsh as Alberich. Along with the Wanderer, he spends a lot of time hiding in the trees as Siegfried confronts Fafner. Fritz Hübner is a solid, if unmemorable dragon. This was one of the first productions to have the character show up in giant form after Siegfried slays the "dragon", and the image of his dead body lying across the forest floor reminds the viewer that Fafner got the Ring by killing his brother in the first place.

Ecstasy: Gwyneth Jones and Manfred Jung in Act III of Siegfried

Siegfried has always been the least popular of the four Ring operas. That may have something to do with there being no women (except for the offstage Forest Bird) in the first two acts. When Gwyneth Jones awakens in Act III, she sings with sharp, bracing clarity in this, the most challenging of the three Brunnhilde roles. The wobble that plagued her voice later on is not present here, and she is a fine actress. Manfred Jung manages to hold his own in their 37-minute duet, and the opera comes to a glorious close as they sing with radiance.




Heinz Zednik and Manfred Jung in the Forging Song from Act I of Siegfried

Twelve Is the Magic Number

Self-portrait in blue by Arnold Schoenberg
© The Arnold Schoenberg Foundation

Arnold Schoenberg and the Birth of Serialism.
by Paul Pelkonen.
One hundred years ago, Arnold Schoenberg took the "rule book" of music, and blew it to smithereens. Schoenberg started out as a late example of the post-Romantic sound, writing gorgeous tone poems (among them, Verklaerte Nacht) for huge orchestral forces. His biggest work, the choral cycle Gurrelieder requires a small army of musicians. But, faced with a musical dead end, Schoenberg struck a different path and changed music forever.


With the premiere of the song cycle Pierrot Lunaire, Schoenberg created a new system that inspired composers in the 20th century to push the envelope and change the way music sounded. He fused the chromaticism of Richard Wagner with the post-classical complexities of Johannes Brahms, Schoenberg wrote music that was atonal (without tonality or a fixed key). Eventually, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone system.Schoenberg, and his two famous students (Anton Webern and Alban Berg) are referred to as the Second Viennese School.

Here's how it works. Take a 12-note scale starting with C:



C-C#-D-E♭-E-F-F#-G-A♭-A-B♭-B
Now, instead of that "normal" order, the composer takes the twelve tones and rearranges them to create a note row in any order he wishes. Sometimes, the note rows are based on strict mathematics. Sometimes, they are just the composer's own arrangement. Here's an example.



F-C-B♭-D-A-E♭-B-G-F#-A♭-E-C#
(This is not an actual note-row, just a hypothetical) This new tone row can then be played retrograde (backward), inverted) upside-down or in other permutations. The composer can also organize or "serialize" the rests between the notes, the intervals, or any other aspect of the composition that can be thought of. All these techniques together are known as serialism.

The idea of "atonal" or "serial" music can intimidate the first-time listener. Once the ears adjust to the fact that this music is not following the "traditional" mold, new sonic possibilities open up. Schoenberg, and his two famous students Alban Berg and Anton Webern are among the most important composers in the repertory.

To start exploring, check out these recordings:

Schoenberg: Piano Works, Maurizio Pollini, Piano
Verklaerte Nacht, Pelleas et Melisande, Philharmonia Orchestra, cond. Giuseppe Sinopoli (Deutsche Grammophon)

The Pollini disc is an essential one-disc survey of Schoenberg's complex, spidery piano works. It was recently reissued as part of DG's Maurizio Pollini Edition. Top-notch playing, and crystalline sound. Next, check out Schoenberg's early, post-romantic period, try the excellent Philharmonia Orchestra recordings of the composer's two major tone poems. The late Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts.

Berg: Violin Concerto, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond. James Levine (Deutsche Grammophon)
Berg's concerto, written in 1935 and dedicated "To the Memory of an Angel" is one of the composer's most emotional, yet accessible works. Of the many fine recordings in the catalogue, this one leads the pack. The disc also includes Time Chant by contemporary German composer Wolfgang Rihm. The Mutter recording of the Concerto is also available on the 8-disc "Alban Berg Collection" box set, which includes most of the composer's major compositions, including the operas Lulu and Wozzeck.

Boulez Conducts Webern, Vols. 1-3 Various singers and ensembles, cond. Pierre Boulez (Deutsche Grammophon)
One of the most important composers of the 20th century in his own right, Pierre Boulez recorded the complete works of Webern twice, once for Sony and later for Deutsche Grammophon. The DG recordings are preferable. Instead of getting the three individual Volumes, you can pick up the six-disc Complete Webern box set which gives you the Emerson String Quartet's recordings of Webern's chamber music.


Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.