Stairwell to Heaven

A case for the Siegfried Idyll as Wagner's best work.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The house in Tribschen (Lucerne) Switzerland where Richard and Cosima Wagner lived in 1870.
It is now the Richard Wagner Museum and you can visit its official site here.

You won't hear it in an opera house. In fact you very rarely hear it performed in a concert hall. The Siegfried Idyll, Wagner's 1869 work for chamber orchestra written as a birthday/Christmas present for his second wife is neither fish nor flesh. It is an orchestral poem that built from the same leitmotivs as the score of Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it very well might be the best thing that Wagner ever wrote.

Concert Review: The Bare Necessities

The New York Philharmonic ends its season without a conductor....without a conductor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Concertmaster Frank Huang (center) led the New York Philharmonic this week.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

Things are settling down at America’s oldest orchestra. Alan Gilbert left the New York Philharmonic a year ago. Jaap van Zweden arrives in a cloud of hullabaloo next September. That said, this particular review, of Friday's matinee performance of their last program of this current season was played without a conductor. This program of string pieces by Mozart and Tchaikovsky had no tuxedo-clad maestro, and there was no post-heroic beating of air with tiny sticks.

Concert Review: Follow the Bouncing Bow

Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Joshua Bell leads his troops. Photo by Erik Kabik © 2018 Erik Kabik.

In the years before the 19th century, the conductor standing before an orchestra, baton in hand, was at best an anachronism. In choosing the American violinist Joshua Bell as its music director, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields flew in the face of that tradition. At Monday night's concert at David Geffen Hall, Mr. Bell chooses to conduct most concerts from the concertmaster's chair (in this case, a piano bench) at the front of the first violins. Alternatively, he stood and led with his instrument in hand, using the tip of his violin bow.

Concert Review: The Gifts of Prometheus

Yannick Nézet-Séguin brings Beethoven to Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo by Chris Alonso.

On Thursday night, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe gave the first of two Mostly Mozart concerts this year under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The fiery young Québécois (who is about to start his first season as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra) led energetic accounts of two Beethoven war-horses: the Violin Concerto (with soloist Lisa Biatishvili) and the Eroica Symphony.

Both pieces (staged on the modest, acoustically crisp stage of Alice Tully Hall) were exceptionally well played by this fine London ensemble, which recorded the complete symphonies 20 years ago under period specialist Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The modest orchestra has some instrumental quirks: small copper-kettle timpanis and a penchant for slide trumpets. This was epic Beethoven: a performance that attendees can annoy their friends (by bragging about) it a decade from now.

Concert Review: Mainly Mozart

Pinchas Zukerman leads the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

And he plays violin too: Pinchas Zukerman. Photo from the National Arts Centre.

The violinist Pinchas Zukerman played the dual roles of soloist and conductor this week at the New York Philharmonic. For these concerts, Mr. Zukerman chose concert repertory more in keeping with the forthcoming Mostly Mozart festival than the big sounds normally associated with this orchestra.

In the world of classical music, the New York Philharmonic looms as a heavyweight ensemble, storming through orchestral showpieces and presenting vast edifices by Mahler and Bruckner. So it was refreshing to hear the skill of its players in a chamber orchestra setting, especially led by a world class soloist.

The results, heard on Thursday night, were a charming combination of Bach, Mozart and Stravinsky. Mr. Zukerman played the solo parts in the Bach Violin Concerto and Mozart's Turkish Concerto, leading the orchestra from the bow of his violin. He then traded bow for baton, leading Stravinsky's Concerto for Orchestra and Mozart's Symphony No. 39. Although the Israeli musician is better known for his solo work, he has over four decades experience as a conductor.

Concert Review: Finnish Tango Takes Manhattan

Avanti! brings a national craze to Zankel Hall.

The veteran: Markus Allan has sung Finnish tangos for 50 years.

On Thursday night, conductor Hannu Lintu led the Finnish chamber ensemble Avanti! in an unexpected and entertaining program focusing on that Argentine musical form turned Finnish national obsession--the tango.

Now, I'm of Finnish descent, but my grandparents got to New York in 1911, two years before the first tango performance in Helsinki introduced this slinky Argentine dance to the Finnish people. My dad had some Finnish tango records, but he also collected polkas by Laase Pilhjama and that's what I think of as traditional Finnish music.

In Finland, the tango caught on in the years following the Winter War with Russia. After fighting both Russian and German forces, the Finns needed a way to decompress. And they found it in slower versions of the tango, almost always in a sad minor key. The national obsession became a craze in the 1990s, with a yearly tango festival in the tiny town of Seinäjoki drawing thousands to dance and compete.

Mr. Lintu led a program that explored the history of the art form in his home country, aided by legendary Finnish singer Markus Allan. Mr. Allan is completing a world tour celebrating 50 years of singing tangos. He proved to have a smooth, engaging baritone voice, and a pleasant onstage manner, capturing the humor and wit in these songs and working closely with the razor-sharp chamber orchestra.

Mr. Allan proved a genial, energetic interpreter, even encouraging the audience to get up and dance. Sadly, only Mr. Hiltunen did, leading a woman from her seat and dancing in the narrow aisle below the lip of the stage.

The singer then took a break to allow Mr. Hintu to present two Finnish waltzes: Oskar Merikanto's Kesäillan Vassi and the most familiar number on the program: Sibelius' Valse Triste, re-arranged for tango orchestra with accordion.

Although constructed on dance rhythms, the melancholy lyrics make these tangos more like lieder. Themes varied, from lost love, to looking toward a better tomorrow (a very Finnish attitude) or reflecting on the natural beauty of the country. 

The program was hosted by actor Tuomas Hiltunen, who provided commentary and context for these marvelous little songs, from the early 1930s tangos of Kullervo Linna and Toivo Kärki, through more modern works that moved a little faster. Highlights included the pensive "Such is the Journey of Life" by Mr. Kärki, and "Fairy Land", which dreams of immigration to abetter world than Finland:  the hills of Sunset Park, the old Finnish neighborhood in Brooklyn.

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.

CD Review: The Italian Wizard

The wizard waves his wand: Claudio Abbado

Mozart's final opera, Die Zauberflöte is both philosophical parable and music-hall comedy. Veteran conductor Claudio Abbado balances those two aspects on this live recording, made in 2005 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and a cast of (mostly) unknown European singers. Abbado brings out the robust energy in this fiery music and drawing an inspired performance from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Christoph Stehl is the best Tamino on record since the untimely death of Fritz Wunderlich. He is a strong, fully realized hero who makes the journey from jüngling to mensch believable over the course of two discs. Stehl has the right voice for this part, and a feel for Mozart's tricky lyric lines.

His counterpart is Hanno Müller-Brachmann, a Papageno who knows the importance of comic timing and connection with the audience. He sings well, draws laughs, and never sounds like a buffoon. And he does the "Mmm mmm mmm" bit with great comic flair. Bass Rene Pape (the one "star" in the cast) is a resonant Sarastro, paternal without sounding ancient.

Dorothea Röschmann has a great voice, but it is an ill fit for Pamina. Her singing is full, rich and loud, an over-sized performance that sounds too big next to the other voices in the cast. Soprano Erika Mikósa is much better as the Queen of the Night, fearless in the two death-defying coloratura arias. She makes this difficult character a real, human woman as well as a bloodthirsty night goddess--not an easy combination when you have to hit all those high Fs.

This was made in front of an audience in Modena Italy. (Stage noises and audience laughter are audible.) The sound is excellent, pulling the listener in with a warm, immediate acoustic that favors the singers. The Arnold Schoenberg Chor sounds distant at their first entry, but rallies with a mighy hymn to Sarastro and a strong conclusion to the opera. The only real flaw in this recording is the spoken dialogue, which is trimmed down and sounds like it was added later in an echo chamber.