Concert Review: Her Dark Materials

With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The ten magic fingers of Mitsuko Uchida. Photo by Jean Radel.

The art of conducting a piano concerto from the keyboard, and also playing the fiendishly difficult piano parts written into such a work, sometimes produces conflicting results. Soloists used to the traditional position in front of a conductor may find themselves relying on the bow of their concertmaster. Others may have trouble splitting the tasks of orchestral leadership and visiting virtuoso. None of those problems befell Mitsuko Uchida, who brought her current collaborators in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a concert of Mozart and Berg on Friday night.

Concert Reviews: The Children of Brahms

The Berlin Philharmonic explores the roots of atonality.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sir Simon Rattle. Image © Berlin Philharmonic for the Digital Concert Hall.

Although the composer Johannes Brahms lived a long life, he went to his grave a bachelor and without issue. However, it can be argued that the composers of the Second Viennese School are in some ways his spiritual children. Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg took Brahms' ideas to a logical extreme, with short, aphoristic orchestral pieces that themselves signalled a new kind of music. On Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic offered an ambitious program at Carnegie Hall, placing all four composers side by side to see if this connection would become evident.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Lulu

William Kentridge re-imagines Alban Berg's visionary, violent opera. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Isn't she lovely: Marliss Petersen is the femme fatale in Lulu.
Photo by Kristian Schuller © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

One of the most eagerly anticipated new productions of the 2015 season is Lulu, staged by the South African artist and director William Kentridge. Mr. Kentridge's previous effort for the Met, The Nose met with critical and audience acclaim. Can he do the same for the sordid story of Lulu, the female "earth spirit" who leaves a trail of broken hearts and dead bodies in her wake?

Opera Review: The Ringer Cycle

Matthias Goerne's surprise Wozzeck at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He knows where his towel is: Matthias Goerne in the title role of Wozzeck.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

At 2:10 yesterday afternoon, the Metropolitan Opera announced that Thomas Hampson had withdrawn from Wozzeck. Mr. Hampson's substitute would not be the scheduled (and already contracted) cover, but baritone Matthias Goerne. Mr. Goerne, who has sung the title role to acclaim at other houses, was in New York to sing a lieder recital at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night. Smoke signals went up on the Internet, and a hastily written press release was slipped into thousands of copies of Playbill.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Wozzeck

Berg's blood-soaked psychodrama returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson make their role debuts in Wozzeck March 6.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

Thomas Hampson makes his first appearance in the title role of Wozzeck, the story of a soldier whose lowly life is nothing but suffering. Deborah Voigt appears as Marie, his perpetually unfaithful common-law wife. (Neither artist has sung these difficult roles before.) James Levine is scheduled to conduct these performances.

Opera Review: It's a Gutter Ballet

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Wozzeck at Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baritone Simon Keenlyside sang Wozzeck at Lincoln Center.

On Monday night, Esa-Pekka Salonen led a concert performance of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra and Simon Keenlyside in the title role. Although played in a concert setting, the singers eschewed music stands, playing out the drama in front of the orchestra in a narrow, claustrophobic acting space along the lip of the stage in Avery Fisher Hall.

Berg's opera is a study in contrasts. To set Woyzeck, the sprawling, chaotic play by Georg Büchner that is the opera's source material, the composer relied on an absolute, rigid use of forms. The first act is composed as a suite, with each short scene forming a dance movement of sorts. The second is a miniature symphony of despair. For the work's apocalyptic last act Berg created a series of "Inventions," with each scene based on a different type of musical element.

This rigorous approach paved the way for twelve-tone composition and the serialism that followed, but each piece of math music has its own radiant inner beauty. Mr. Salonen conducted a burly reading of the score that highlighted the chamber-like details and witty parodies that lie buried in this brilliant work. Compressing the three acts into a tight 95 minutes, he drove the performance with deadly precision, allowing the luminous moments in the score their own chances to shine.

Mr. Keenlyside, fresh from his run as Prospero in the Met's new production of The Tempest lay down his staff for Wozzeck's knife, inhabiting the soldier's madness for a harrowing three acts. Indeed, his Wozzeck seems unbalanced from the first few moments, jittering and twitching in the fields with Andreas, and barely interacting wih Marie and their child, here played by empty air.

No Dummy

More Details on Metallica/Lou Reed Collaboration

Metallica and Lou Reed have announced full details and packaging information for Lulu the artists' first collaborative effort.

The album, slated for an Oct. 31 release (Nov. 1 the rest of the world) is a song cycle based on two German plays by Franz Wiedekind. The plays, Erdgeist and Die Buchse der Pandora tell the story of a sexually aggressive woman who leaves a trail of destroyed lovers and corpses as she tears through European society. The plays are fearless in their exploration of bisexuality (one of Lulu's lovers is the lesbian Countess Geschwitz) and the seamier side of life. Eventually, Lulu becomes a prostitute and is killed by a client--Jack the Ripper.

Opera lovers might be familiar with these stories, as they form the basis for another Lulu, the opera by 20th century Austrian composer Alban Berg. Lulu was unfinished at the time of Berg's death, but the three-act version (including an experimental film and the Jack the Ripper scene) has since entered the standard repertory. It was last seen at the Met in 2010.

On the surface, Metallica and Lou Reed seems an unlikely pairing. The artists met when the San Francisco-based metal band backed Mr. Reed on two songs ("White Light, White Heat" and "Sweet Jane") at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden. The collaboration began quietly but hit the press when Mr. Reed was photographed coming out of the band's Marin County headquarters.

Originally, the plan was to record some older, lesser known Lou Reed songs with Metallica's distinctive chug-and-thunder backing. But then the New York-based singer-songwriter came to the band with a different idea--setting song lyrics that he had written for a Robert Wilson production in Berlin of the Lulu plays. James Hetfield told Blabbermouth.net that he relished the opportunity to take off his lyricist hat and concentrate on the music.

Here's the final track list:

01. Brandenburg Gate (4:19)
02. The View (5:17)
03. Pumping Blood (7:24)
04. Mistress Dread (6:52)
05. Iced Honey (4:36)
06. Cheat On Me (11:26)
07. Frustration (8:33)
08. Little Dog (8:01)
09. Dragon (11:08)
10. Junior Dad (19:28)

The standard version of Lulu will be available as a 2CD set in a white DigiPak. Deluxe editions (one with poster tubes, one with a large hardbound 20-page book of photographs) will also be available for order. As with all Metallica releases, Lulu will be available on vinyl. Of course, Amazon will sell Mp3 versions of the record, and Lulu will also be available on ITunes. Lulu can also be ordered through the collaboration's official website, LouReedMetallica.Com.

All album art is by Anton Corbjin, the acclaimed photographer who has worked with Metallica since the 1994 album Load.

Click to listen to "The View", the first release from Lulu.

Pandora's Metal Box

Metallica and Lou Reed Create New Lulu.

The boys in the band: Metallica pose with Lou Reed (center)
L.R.: James Hetfield, Rob Trujillo, Reed, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett.
Photo by Anton Corbijn, © 2011 Metallica and Lou Reed from LouReedMetallica.com

New York songwriter Lou Reed has teamed with Bay area thrashers Metallica to create Lulu, the artists' first collaboration together. Reports indicate that the album, Metallica's tenth studio effort, is complete.


Based on information on the project's official website, Lulu is scheduled for an international release on Oct. 31 and an American release on Nov. 1. Song titles listed include "Junior Dad", "Mistress Dread" and "Pumping Blood". The album, completed at the band's Marin County headquarters, could be Metallica's first concept album or rock opera.

Metallica and Lou Reed first played together at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert in 2008. The quartet backed up performances of "Sweet Jane" and "White Light, White Heat" as part of the marathon show at Madison Square Garden.

Based on the Franz Wiedekind plays Erdgeist and Pandora's Box, Lulu retells the story of a femme fatale who commits murder, adultery and other deadly sins as she leaves a trail of destruction . Ultimately, Lulu becomes a prostitute and meets her fate at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

The two plays inspired Alban Berg to set Lulu as his second opera in 1929. Berg died in 1935, leaving the opera unfinished. In 1976, following the death of the composer's widow Helene Berg, the third act was completed by composer Friedrich Cerha from Berg's sketches.

The band is scheduled to appear in New York on Sept. 14 at Yankee Stadium, as the headlining act in the heavy metal festival known as The Big Four. There is no word as to whether Mr. Reed, a Brooklyn native, will join them onstage again.

Watch Lou Reed perform "Sweet Jane" with Metallica.

Opera Review: The Bloody Return of James Levine

Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera

The Doctor (Walter Fink, standing) reminds Wozzeck (Alan Held) to eat his beans.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2005 The Metropolitan Opera

A revival of Wozzeck is always cause for anticipation and dread: anticipation for those who love the knotty, disturbing opera, and dread for those putting it on who hope that people will come see it. Berg's only completed opera is a work of the highest genius, but it is rarely big box office.

This revival of Mark Lamos' stark, claustrophobic production featured bass-baritone Alan Held in the title role: the hapless soldier driven to murder his common-law wife by jealousy, madness, and forces beyond his control. Mr. Held staked his claim to the role in the opening scene, defending himself from the sarcasm and abuse of his Captain (Gerhard Siegel) even as he held a straight razor to his superior's throat. The scene made effective use of lighting design, as Wozzeck's shadow towered above the pompous officer, a harbinger of the bloodshed to come.

Waltraud Meier's searing interpretation of Marie was long overdue at the Met. You can see from her performance that she too is trapped in this life, caught between Wozzeck's growing madness and the advances, bribes and threats of the Drum Major (Stuart Skelton), Ms. Meier portrayed Marie with full emotional investment, singing with fearless leaps into the complex texture of Berg's sprechstimme. She was particularly moving in the Act III prayer, which serves as a calm prelude to her murder at Wozzeck's hands.

Mr. Held sang with dark nobility in the opening act of the opera, creating a defensive barrier around the character that was slowly torn down by the Captain, his Doctor (the excellent Walter Fink) and his rapidly deteriorating relationship with Marie. Things shattered completely when he was cuckolded in the second act, and then beaten brutally by the Drum Major. In the final act, he brought whoops of despair and madness into his performance, making his final drowning a poignant, pathetic spectacle.


Mr. Held and Ms. Meier were well matched, and supported by committed performances from Gerhard Siegel as the Captain and Walter Fink as the Doctor. House favorite Wendy White made the most of the brief role of Margret, and tenor Stuart Skelton made a compelling company debut as the Drum Major, the pompous bullying ass who thinks that he's the hero of the opera.

Last night, the Metropolitan Opera House was (just about) full, with opera-goers who gave an enthusiastic welcome to the return of music director James Levine after a two-month absence. Mr. Levine didn't disappoint, leading the 113-piece Met orchestra in a Wozzeck that shrieked, snarled and hummed for 90 minutes. It was a performance of great clarity, accelerating in the right places, and slowing for the work's few poignant moments. As the conductor on this train-ride through hell, there is no better.

Unfinished Business: Five Operas Left Incomplete

Modest Mussorgsky, painted by Vadim Repin in his last years.

Just what it sounds like. All five of these operas were left unfinished due to the untimely deaths of their composers. Happily for us musicological types, they were later completed and premiered in full versions, providing endless grist for lengthy caffeine-and-alcohol fueled arguments in the cafés and pubs around Lincoln Center--if we could afford to go to them.

Modest Mussorgsky: Khovanschina
completed by: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky (orchestration)

Mussorgsky's grand drama of Russian politics (the title translates as "The Khovansky Affair") deals with the rise of Peter the Great and the destruction of all those opposed to the new Tsar. Working from historical documents, he wrote the five-act libretto but had only begun the orchestration when he died (from complications due to alcoholism) at the age of 42.

His friend and fellow composer Rimsky-Korsakov finished the first version of the opera, although his version somehow manages an upbeat ending. Igor Stravinsky also took a crack at the score, but from his version, only Act V has survived. (It can be heard on the Abbado recording of the score, pictured at right.) Most opera houses (including the Met and the Kirov) use the Shostakovich orchestration, which is fairly close to Mussorgsky' gloomy conception.

Jacques Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffman
completed by: Ernest Giraud, Fritz Oeser, Michael Kaye, Jean-Christophe Keck, and others.

This is the one "serious" opera from France's leading composer of operetta and light comedies. Hoffman is a cyclical story dealing with the titular poet being thwarted repeatedly by four "evil geniuses" as he pursues his ideal woman. Francois Giraud completed the opera following Offenbach's death, but shortened the "Giulietta" act--which happens to be the opera's climax.

Through the years, sopranos have pushed for the order of acts to be altered, so they can sing the "Antonia" act (with its spectacular death scene) last. This makes nonsense of the plot. Most recordings of this opera feature different performing versions, bastardizations, and alternate endings. In the 20th century, a number of musicologists, including Michael Kaye and Fritz Oeser published different complete versions of the score.

Feruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust
completed by: Philipp Jarnach, later by Anthony Beaumont

This version of Faust by the most Faustian of composers was Busoni's magnum opus. This Italian-born German composer skipped Goethe's version of the story and went directly to the source of the Faust legend, medieval German puppet plays that told the story of a man selling his soul to the devil. Unusually, this version of the story casts a baritone as Faust and a tenor as Mephistopheles.

Busoni worked frantically to finish the opera, but died (from a kidney disease) before he could complete the final act, when Faust's soul is redeemed. Composer Philipp Jarnach's completed version is the repertory standard, although a new completion by Anthony Beaumont is based on Busoni's own sketches for the finale. The Kent Nagano recording of the opera (on Erato) includes both endings.

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot
completed by: Franco Alfano, later by Luciano Berio

Probably the most famous "incomplete" opera on this list. Puccini died in 1924, following complications from surgery to remove his throat cancer before he could complete the last act of Turandot. His final opera is a tale of mythic China in which a mysterious Unknown Prince seeks to melt the heart of the titular Princess before she has his head cut off.

Unfortunately, the composer died before he could write the music in which Turandot's heart melts. In 1926, Puccini's publishers hired composer Franco Alfano to finish the job. At the opera's premiere, Toscanini stopped conducting at the moment where Puccini stopped working and explained "Here, the maestro laid down his pen." The following night, Alfano's completion was performed. Today, most opera houses cut the Alfano music as short as possible. As a result, this grand, complex mythic tale has one of the most abrupt "quick endings" of any opera.

Alban Berg: Lulu
completed by: Friedrich Cerha

Berg died before he could finish the last act of Lulu his opera that explores the power of destruction through seduction. In his original conception, Lulu would sink into prostitution, and would be finally slaughtered by Jack the Ripper. When Berg died, his widow Helene approached Arnold Schoenberg to finish the opera. When he declined, she would not allow anyone else to work on Berg's sketches. As a result, Lulu was premiered in 1937 as a two-act torso. Helene Berg died in 1976. In 1979, Friedrich Cerha completed the opera. The full three-act Lulu was premiered by conductor Pierre Boulez, and proved to be a huge critical success . And yes, these performances are available on CD.

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.