Concert Review: Echoes of Broken Glass

The Collegiate Chorale pairs Bruckner and Tippett.

Herschel Grynszpan: his shooting of a German diplomatic official in 1938
was the Nazis excuse for Kristallnacht. Photo from the Holocaust Research Project.

At first glance, there is no connection between Anton Bruckner and Sir Michael Tippett. They were born in different countries and centuries, but both composers wrote music of intense spirituality, the subject of a fascinating program played at Carnegie Hall Friday night. 

The program, which paired Bruckner's Te Deum with Tippett's World War II oratorio A Child of Our Time was mounted by the Collegiate Chorale, an acclaimed vocal ensemble led by James Bagwell, and featured the reliable American Symphony Orchestra. It made a strong case for both works.

The concert opened with Bruckner's Te Deum, a 20-minute paean to God. With its soaring choral parts, pulsing rhythms and deceptively simple harmonies, the Te Deum is like a movement from one of his symphonies, with Latin text added. This was a potent performance. Bruckner's characteristic three-two rhythms had muscle and drive, and the Chorale sang with power and conviction.

John Relyea (center) sings while James Bagwell (left) conducts the
American Symphony Orchestra and the Collegiate Chorale. Russell Thomas looks on.
Photo © 2012 by Erin Baiano courtesy the Collegiate Chorale.

A Child of Our Time was Tippett's attempt to address the horrors of Kristallnacht, the 48-hour assault upon Jews within Nazi Germany, beginning on Nov. 9, 1938. The Nazis unleashed their thugs after Herschel Grynszpan, a displaced 17-year old boy who was about to be expelled from his refuge in France, shot a minor German diplomatic official in Paris. The Nazis used this incident as an excuse to begin the Holocaust. 

Tippett chose Grynszpan's fate as the seed of his oratorio, a moving examination of the suffering of the Jewish people with the promise of peace and a better world to come. To express that coming redemption, the British composer chose to incorporate American spirituals, (including "Steal Away", "Go Down Moses" and "Deep River") using the music of enslaved Africans in America to create a resonant cross-sympathy with the oppression and murder of the Jews under Hitler's regime. It is powerful stuff.

The cast of four soloists sang both works with fervor. Soprano Nicola Cabell sang both pieces with a fine instrument that got better as the evening went on. The same could be said for tenor Russell Thomas. Hard and metallic in the Bruckner, he improved greatly in the second piece, soaring through the phrase "I would know my shadow and my light.. Veteran mezzo Marietta Simpson made the part of the Mother an intense experience. The finest of the four was bass John Relyea, whose big, dark instrument made him a compelling Narrator. 

Mr. Bagwell and his forces delivered a powerful, respectful performance of this tricky score. The orchestra built Tippett's chords in slow, solemn sequence, with steady rhythms in the timpani and sonorous brass playing. The chorus, balanced at 2/3 female voices, 1/3 male made the spirituals move and swell, providing a soothing aural salve at the end of each of the three movements.

Bruckner's music was touted by the Nazis as an "ideal," "Aryan" composer. Hitler was addicted to his symphonies, and accompanied important announcements with excerpts from the Seventh. Tippett was a pacifist, sentenced to prison when he would not do secondary service for Britain in World War II. But he found his voice as an important English composer with the oratorio A Child of Our Time In bringing together these two vastly different usicians, Mr. Bagwell created an evening that was a thoughtful analysis of World War II, and ultimately, a success.

Concert Review: When Manny met Manfred

The London Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

A man and a piano: the phenomenal Emanuel Ax. Photo © Sony Classical.

On Thursday night, the London Philharmonic Orchestra offered its second of two concerts at Carnegie Hall this week under music director Vladimir Jurowski.. The program featured Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with soloist Emmanuel Ax, paired with the Manfred Symphony, a little-known example of Tchaikovsky at his most bombastic. Each piece displayed the  orchestra's characteristic sound, a rich, thick texture of brass and strings, burnished to a warm, crowd-pleasing glow.

Emanuel Ax has over 100 guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic. But the genial pianist is a welcome visitor to any orchestra, taking a scholarly, yet light-hearted approach to Beethoven's great concerto. In the Emperor, his playing was straightforward and lyrical, grounded in solid musicianship. He generated a lovely, singing tone in the first movement, bringing out the humanism in some of Beethoven's best writing.

The slow central section was languid, almost dreamily played. Mysterious passages came to light thanks to the pianist bringing out the fine details of this movement. Under Mr. Jurowski's baton, the LPO gathered itself for the leap into the finale. Again, Mr. Ax proved his mastery of every technical challenge thrown at the soloist. This was a technical, yet thrilling performance of Beethoven's mightiest concerto, a work that looks forward to the romantic excesses to come in the 19th century.

Speaking of which: Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony is never counted among the composer's six examples of that genre, and remains the least performed of the composer's major works for orchestra. The work is from his middle period, an effort to combine the profound inner turmoil of the later symphonies with the aural assault of the 1812 Overture. There were no cannons in this performance, but with a gigantic brass section, three percussion players and an organ, Mr. Jurowski had plenty of artillery at his disposal.

Mr. Jurowski did his best to make a case for Manfred. The argument was helped by brilliant playing from the LPO woodwinds and brass, who led the aural assault with bright tones and skilled playing. The fiery conductor did his best to balance the strings with the brass, creating a coherent aural picture of Byron's romantic hero. The first movement, a tone poem in itself, pulled the listener into the protagonist's emotional tumult. The second was a scherzo on a huge scale, depicting idyllic peasants gamboling in an Alpine village. The third continued this dreamy idyll with Berlioz-like writing centered around an idée fixe. 

Working hard on the podium, Mr. Jurowski pulled out all the stops for the turbulent finale, a lengthy depcition of soe apocalyptic event leading up to Manfred's death. This is Tchaikovsky at his most Wagnerian, with descending motifs that recall certain pages of Rheingold. In the end, the organ led the strings in an elegy for the deceased Manfred. Perhaps he met his end from sitting too close to the trombones.

Opera Review: Never Listen to the Tenor

The Collegiate Chorale presents Moïse et Phaoron.

Moses supposes: James Morris utters prophecies in Moïse. 
To his right, Ginger Costa-Jackson as Marie. Photo by Erin Baiano, © 2011 The Collegiate Chorale.

James Bagwell led the Collegiate Chorale and an all-star cast of singers across the Red Sea last night. The ensemble kicked off its 2011 season at Carnegie Hall with the 1827 Rossini rarity Moïse et Phaoron. The concert performance featured bass-baritone James Morris as Moses, Rising sopranos Angela Meade and Marina Rebekah sang key supporting roles.

Rossini first wrote Mosé en Egitto for the Italian stage in 1817. Ten years later, the French version was reworked and revised for Parisian sensibilities. The result is unique Rossini: a four-act retelling of the Book of Exodus that inserts a conventional love story in between scenes of chained Israelites and Egyptians battling the ten plagues. At the climax, the Pharaoh charges into the waves of the Red Sea at his son's urging. The moral is: never listen to the tenor.

Marina Rebekah and Erik Cutler in Moïse.
Photo by Erin Baiano, © 2011 The Collegiate Chorale.

A crack cast was on hand to do justice to Rossini's work. Bass-baritone James Morris was imposing as Wotan, using his rich, still pliant baritone to lead his people out of bondage. Bass-barihunk Kyle Ketelsen was impressive as the Pharaoh, and more than a match for Mr. Morris until meeting his watery end.

This is French opera, which means you need two divas, not one for the principal female roles. Angela Meade was Sinaide, the Pharaoh's wife. This was another triumph for the fast-rising American singer, who displayed rich, potent tone in the slow section of her big Act III aria. She was a little more steely in the fast second section, a duet with tenor Erik Cutler, but one wished she had more music to sing.

In the larger soprano role of Anaïs, soprano Maria Rebekah was not to be outdone. Another fast-rising star (last heard as Donna Anna in the Met's middling new production of Don Giovanni, she made the most of the big Act IV aria "Quelle horrible destinée." She shared good onstage chemistry with tenor Erik Cutler despite the narrow concert setting and Mr. Cutler's constant fiddling with a creaky music stand.

As the Pharaoh's son Amenophis. Mr. Cutler met the most difficult casting requirement in this opera, an old-fashioned bel canto tenor who can sing with pliability, accuracy and still be heard over the orchestra. He did a splendid job, despite looking corralled in the close quarters of the concert seating.

The American Symphony Orchestra was on hand to play this score, which is one of Rossini's most innovative. It points the way forward to works like Verdi's Nabucco and Berlioz' Les Troyens, particulary with its use of woodwind textures, rhythms in the strings, accenting harp and heavy brass. This last was represented by the ophicleide, an archaic tuba that lends the music a different tonal quality than modern brass.

Mr. Bagwell commanded these forces in a vibrant, though cut reading of this fascinating score. He was helped by a superb performance from the Collegiate Chorale, who took on the roles of chained Hebrews or oppressive Egyptians as necessary. Though they played both sides of this Biblical drama, they did so with maximum commitment to the truth and power of this little-heard music.

Concert Review: The Martyr Complex

Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul Pelkonen.

Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake
by Hermann Stilke.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday night at Carnegie Hall featured a  New York appearance from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, performing Arthur Honegger's equally rare Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher, a 1935 dramatic oratorio depicting the martyrization of Joan of Arc. Marin Alsop conducted.

This  unconventional oratorio requires vast resources, superbly commanded here by Ms. Alsop. Honegger wrote for a giant orchestra, a three-part chorus, and the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument whose eerie, swooping sound represents both the barking of dogs around Joan's stake and the onslaught of divine intervention.

Honegger is chiefly remembered today for his membership in Les Six, the handful of France-based composers who modernized music in the first half of the 20th century. His work is tonal, rising from the minor-key darkness of the prologue (added when the work was revised in 1946.

The music veers into a satiric, jazz-inflected voice in the description of Joan's trial (her prosecutor is a pig, the judge depicted as a sheep) and the "game of cards" where Kings and Queens shuffle and cut for the right to kill the innocent Joan. Ms. Alsop kept taut control over the tricky rhythms and the shifts in mood, with characterful contributions from the large cast of singers and actors.

The work achieves an ecstatic height in its last sections, starting with the passage where Brother Dominic (Ronald Guttman) grills Joan about the discovery of her sword. At this point, the music shifts heavenward, with overwhelming, rising passages that depict the religious fervor of Joan and influence of a higher power on her short life. 

Right before the burning, a medieval folk-dance, Tirazo is added to the orchestral fabric. Like the Turkish march in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the dance drives the work to a higher energy level, for the difficult, emotionally wrenching depiction of the burning itself. This final sequence rises to an extraordinary height, with the orchestra thundering, the chorus providing support and the soprano voice of the Virgin welcoming Joan to Heaven. 

Jeanne d'Arc requires a large cast. Soprano Tamara Wilson was potent as the voice of the Virgin Mary, although she fought to get over the huge orchestra in the last pages. Tenor Timothy Fallon was squally and bleating, appropriate to the part of the porcine prosecutor. Bass Morris Robinson made a strong impression in his short passages. 

The part of Joan is spoken. Actress Caroline Dhavernas was a powerful, dramatic force. Her hair bound up and her dress plain (historically accurate, as Joan was tried wearing men's clothing), Ms. Dhavernas became a simple figure of faith standing up for injustice. The contemporary, political resonance of this image only added to the overwhelming strength of this performance.

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

Concert Review: The Rising Force

The Budapest Festival Orchestra takes Carnegie Hall.

Budapest Festival Orchestra conductor Iván Fischer.

This year the Budapest Festival Orchestra has built a strong reputation with New York audiences. Last spring, Iván Fischer's band roared through The Rite of Spring.  Last summer, they offered a compelling, fully-staged Don Giovanni at Mostly Mozart. Saturday night's concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring the music of Bartók and Schubert only added to that legacy.

Mr. Fischer chose an unusual seating arrangement for his players. Woodwinds were placed at the front, with the principal oboe in front of the concertmaster. All the bassists used five-string instruments. They were dead center, behind the brass. Other players moved around depending on which piece was being played.

The program opened with a Bartók rarity: settings of Hungarian Peasant Songs. These works were played with firm brass tones (especially from the trombones) and delicate, playful work from the oboe and clarinet. The tuba, moved to the front for these pieces enjoyed great prominence. Following what seems to be a trend among orchestras this year, Mr. Fischer had his violins and violas play these songs standing up.

The orchestra was joined by soloist András Schiff for Bartók's Second Piano Concerto. Mr. Schiff remains a sublime pianist, bringing out the lyric beauty in Bartok's high-speed, staccato keyboard figures and displaying a smooth legato. The solo part seemed to spill from his fingers in the slow second movement, accompanied by Mr. Fischer with a delicate, pointillist beauty. It's not surprising that these two Hungarian musicians work in a smooth tandem--they recorded all three Bartók concertos together for Teldec. Moreover, they were at school together.

Mr. Schiff held the Hall rapt in the last movement. His hands fluttered and dove over the keyboard, at one point bouncing out the melody in the high register with his right as his left raced up the lower regions. It was stunning playing, met with an enthusiastic reception. The soloist obliged the adulation with a pair of encores: a Schubert Impromptu and Liszt's lyrical Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5.

Schubert's Ninth Symphony sat in a drawer at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna for a decade. In 1838, ten years after Schubert's death, it was shown to composer/critic Robert Schumann. Dubbed the "Great" Symphony, the Ninth has since become an orchestra standard, the most popular Schubert symphony besides the "Unfinished."

Mr. Fischer's interpretation did much to blow the dust from this well-traveled score. Schubert's innovative combination of wind, horns and trombone stands at the core of this work, and Mr. Fischer's choice to move the winds forward led to a superbly balanced sound. 

A noble, searching horn theme started the first movement, taken here at a slightly fast pace. Mr. Fischer maintained this momentum through the work, letting the eloquence of Schubert's echoing conversation between winds and strings speak for itself. The climax of the opening movement surged with joy and power that belied the composer's dire last years. 

The two dance movements, a fleet-footed Andante and joyful Scherzo also featured expert playing from the Budapest winds. Mr. Fischer drew extra reserves of power for the final Allegro, bringing the argument of this long symphony to a giddy climax. The last phrases, with staccato trumpets and stomping tuba sounded like a happy round dance, a rustic celebration in the tradition of Beethoven's Sixth.

The orchestra ended with what Mr. Fischer announced as their traditional encore: a cheerful and very Hungarian dance. It was a strong end to a solid program, another feather in the cap for this excellent, innovative and rapidly rising European orchestra.