Opera Review: Something Almost Being Said

The Met revives Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fixer-upper opportunity: Isabel Leonard and Paul Appleby in Pélleas et Mélisande.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Claude Debussy only wrote one opera. Pélleas et Mélisande (based on a symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck) succeeds by destroying many of the conventions of the genre to which it belongs. On Tuesday night, the Met unveiled its revival of Pélleas, another acid test for its new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and a younger generation of singers wandering through the hazy, maze-y woods of the mythical kingdom of Allemonde. Here, those woods are represented in a production by Jonathan Miller: a series of big chilly rooms in a manor house, using the Met turntable to cope with the shifting settings and moods.

Concert Review: Teachable Moments

Stephen Hough returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The pianist Stephen Hough makes a point.
Photo from CM Management.

A New York recital by the pianist Stephen Hough is more than a pleasant evening at a concert hall, it is the opportunity to experience one of the most acute musical minds working today. Mr. Hough is a composer, author, and scholar and last Saturday night's Carnegie Hall program, fiercely independent in his approach to traditional repertory and yet grounded in a solid academic understanding of the great works. For his first solo appearance at that venue in two years was a deep delve into the music of two very different Paris-based composers: Frederic Chopin and Claude Debussy.

Recordngs Review: The Water is Fine

Daniele Gatti conducts Debussy.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Is this a baton I see before me? Conductor Daniele Gatti.
Photo © 2011 Sony Classical.

This new recording from Sony Classical consists of familiar repertory by Claude Debussy, played by the Orchestre National de France under the baton of their music director, Daniele Gatti.

Debussy's major orchestral works are practically required in the catalogue of any conductor aspiring to the major leagues. That means that there are a lot of bad recordings about. Mr. Gatti's effort is a rewarding one, crisply played by an orchestra that sounds very comfortable in the studio environment. 

This recording has a blossoming, blooming low end, with the deep Tristan-esque throbs of cellos and basses The atmospheric, wide-ranging acoustic centers firmly on the ONF cellos, with occasional comments from warm, rich brass and finely detailed woodwinds. The clarinet playing is a simple pleasure.

Concert Review: The Return of Lorin Maazel

Former Philharmonic maestro returns with cheerful Mozart and Debussy.

Lorin Maazel and the wooden railing. Photo by Chris Lee © New York Philharmonic.

One of the highlights of the 2011-2012 New York Philharmonic schedule is the return of the three "M's": former Philharmonic music directors Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, and Zubin Mehta to the podium in Avery Fisher Hall. Mr. Maazel is the first of these. On Friday afternoon, the conductor appeared at Avery Fisher Hall for the first time in three years. This was his second concert of the weekend, a pleasant, if unadventurous program of works by Mozart and Debussy.

The concert opened with a broad reading of Mozart's Prague Symphony, the composer's 38th. Mr. Maazel and the orchestra sounded relaxed and genial in the opening movement, following the stirring slow introduction with a joyful leap into the main theme of the Allegro. Mr. Maazel was loose on the podium, sometimes using minimal movements of his long white baton, sometimes leading with one hand on the wooden railing behind him.

The conductor seemed happy to be back. The orchestra offered the same genial impression. The central slow movement was played with lush, almost hypnotic textures from the orchestra's wind section. The strings sounded crisp, but never stiff or hurried in the final movement, as the band flew through the pages of the Rondo, driven with a steady tick of the white baton.

The rarely heard Concerto for Flute and Harp followed. Mozart wrote this double concerto when he was 21, for a French nobleman (and flautist) whose harp-playing daughter was one of his music students. Pairing it with the "Prague" established contrast between the composer's more familiar, mature style and the galant music expected by his French clients. 

Flautist Robert Langevin and harpist Nancy Allen created a unique sound as they played together, using cadenzas that were written, not by Mozart but by Karl Hermann Pillney. The flute-and-harp combination wove melodic lines together creating a celestial texture against the expertly played orchestral accompaniment.

The second half of the program featured two contrasting works by Debussy. Jeux is one of the French composer's most demanding scores, an abstract ballet that has an almost total absence of melody. It's all little fragments of sound, arranged artfully in an aural shimmer.  Little stabs of struck cymbal and tambourine penetrate the complex fabric, alternating with short lines for winds and horns. Mr. Maazel led this difficult music in an engaging manner, opening up the sound-world of the piece and letting Debussy's inspired writing speak for itself.

Iberia is ten years older, a colorful work found in the larger collection Images.. This work, originally conceived as a piano duet finds Debussy in "tour guide" mode with sound-pictures of France's southern neighbor. (Ironically, the composer had not visited Spain before writing the piece!)

The work offers impressions of scenes in Spanish city life. Portraits of a street scene and a nocturne gave plenty of opportunity for orchestral color and shape. The Philharmonic responded admirably in these movements. The festive finale was dominated by the brass and percussion, in the manner of many past concerts under Mr. Maazel's baton.

Classical Music Goes to the Movies...Again

(or..."Hey, isn't that Sibelius?")

Classical music has been a big part of film ever since the early days of silent movies played to piano accompaniment. But works by the great masters show up in some pretty unexpected places. Here's a quick look at some (less than) famous appearances of the great composers' works in Hollywood.

On the run, with a cello. James Bond (Timothy Dalton)
and Kara Milovy (Maryam D'Abo) in The Living Daylights. 
© 1987 EON Productions/MGM-United Artists/Danjaq S.A.

The Living Daylights (1987)
Timothy Dalton's first Bond film was John Barry's las, and the late great British soundtrack composer loaded it with classical music. There's excerpts from Act II of Le Nozze di Figaro, the andante from Borodin's String Quartet No. 2, and the finale of Dvorak's Cello Concerto. Small wonder: the "Bond girl" in Daylights is a Czech cellist played by Maryam D'Abo.

The movie's most memorable music-related image: Dalton and D'Abo escaping into Austria...riding on a speeding cello case.

Die Hard 2 (1990)
Michael Kamen's score for the first Die Hard movie made extensive use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to accompany its tale of a lone-wolf cop (Bruce Willis) trapped by terrorists in an L.A. skyscraper. The sequel (yes it's also known as "Die Harder") was directed by Finnish filmmaker Renny Harlin.

"Whaddya mean there's no Beethoven in this one?" Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2.
© 1990 20th Century Fox/Silver Pictures

Like the first, Die Harder is set at Christmas. Our hero is at Dulles Airport, during a snow storm, when it gets taken over by (you guessed it) terrorists. Inspired by the winter setting (and possibly the Finnish director) Kamen chose to make Finlandia, the nine-minute tone poem by Jean Sibelius, the heart of the soundtrack. The ominous opening chords accompany the terrorist takeover, while the triumphant final march section bursts forth as Bruce Willis (once again) saves the day.


Anaconda (1997)
Verdi's least popular, least-performed opera, Alzira, is set in South America. But that didn't stop the makers of Anaconda from using the opera composer's music in their film about hapless explorers and one very big, very hungry computer-generated snake.

As their boat chugs up the river, one of the characters blasts ""Dio Che Nell'alma Infondere", the friendship duet that comes early in Don Carlo. It's the Metropolitan Opera recording with Michael Sylvester as the Don and Vladimir Chernov as the Marquis de Posa. The giant snake doesn't attack during this scene. Guess it liked opera.

The fountain scene from Ocean's 11. © 2001 Warner Brothers Pictures.

Ocean's 11 (2001)
This star-studded remake of the classic Vegas heist flick makes extensive use of Debussy's Clair de lune from the Suite Bergamesque. It first appears on the soundtrack in a modified electronic version when Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts) makes her entrance, and represents her character throughout the movie.

Later, you hear Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in the orchestral version of the piece, as the gang celebrates a successful triple casino robbery by standing and contemplating the fountains in front of the Bellagio. If this seems familiar it is: director Steven Soderbergh included the scene as an homage to the ending of The Right Stuff.

xXx (2002)

Vin Diesel's hyperkinetic take on spy movies and extreme sports culture features live performances by German metal band Rammstein and the British electronica duo Orbital. But when he's brought in for a briefing with the "M"-like Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) you hear...Mozart?

"Oh you've gotta be kidding me." Vin Diesel as Xander Cage (Agent XXX) in xXx.
Frame capture from xXx, © 2002 Revolution Studios.

Gibbons conducts his briefing in a Prague opera house, where he's enjoying a dress rehearsal of Don Giovanni. (Never mind that these two guys are talking through the first act.) Vin's response to this cultural exposure? The famous "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."

Concert Review: There is Nothing like a Dame

Mitsuko Uchida at Carnegie Hall

Even Knight Commanders have a sense of humor: Dame Mitsuko Uchida.

The acclaimed concert pianist Dame Mitsuko Uchida made a triumphant appearance at Carnegie Hall on Friday night. The program: a celebration of the pianistic innovations of Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin. Although these are three familiar composers, Ms. Uchida's interpretation made these familiar works sound cutting-edge.

For two hours, Ms. Uchida (currently touring to promote a CD of Schumann recordings) enthralled the capacity audience, which included last-minute audience seating on the famed Carnegie stage. Throughout, she played these Romantic works with a delicate, neo-classical approach, leaning on the pedal and brushing the keys with a gossamer touch.


On her previous visit to Carnegie Hall, Ms. Uchida played the last three Beethoven sonatas. For this concert, she chose No. 27, the two-movement E minor sonata, which stands on the cusp between the composer's 'heroic' middle period and the experimentation of his last years. Hers was a fresh interpretation, playing Beethoven's passages with a gentle, flowing legato Even though she bareley seemed to move her hands, a shower of silver sounds poured forth.

Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertanze (Dances of the Group of David) chronicle the internal struggle between Schumann's two writing aliases: Florestan and Eusubius. Ms. Uchida played the "Florestan" pieces with playful aggression, attacking the fast tempos with zeal. The more sedate "Eusebius" works were more reflective, with her trademark, limpid approach to the music. As the two "voices" alternated throughout the 18 dances, a fascinating internal argument developed, allowing the listener to almost hear Schumann's subconscious thoughts.

The second half of the evening opened with the rarely played Prelude in C Sharp Minor by Frederic Chopin. This is one of Chopin's most groundbreaking compositions: a complex, amorphous little piece with only hints of melody in its shifting tonality. It served as a true prelude, to the Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, the last, and most popular of that composer's entries in the genre.

Once again, legato and an emphasis on the lyricism in Chopin's writing governed Ms. Uchida's performance of the heroic first movement. The brief scherzo was enchanting, a miniature masterpiece. She stretched out the tempo in the Andante, taking a languid tour through Chopin's imagination. The final Rondo was played at dizzying speed, nearly slipping in one of the pell-mell runs down the keyboard. The encore was Schumann's "Aveu" from Carnival and the Andante from Mozart's Sonata No. 15 in C Major, played with liquid grace.

Concert Review: Cleveland Orchestra: A Hero Falls at Carnegie Hall

Franz Welser-Möst leads the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Pete Checchia © 2006 The Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra arrived at Carnegie Hall on Friday night with a program featuring the New York premiere of Woven Dreams, a new work by Japanese composer Toshio Hosakawa. It was bookended by sturdy 20th century works by Debussy and Richard Strauss, under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The evening opened with a shimmering account of the Prelude a les apres-midi d'un Faune. Mr. Welser-Möst led this familiar Debussy work with a quicksilver pace and great clarity of texture. This bright to light some fresh aural treasures hidden by the composer, including a subtle Wagner quotation in the final bars. The orchestra played with languid ease in the opening phrases for solo flute and winds, riding the waves of Debussy's score to a surging, impressive climax.

Mr. Hosakawa's work bore some resemblance to the Debussy. It too starts from a soft, almost murmuring figure, evoking the bliss of the unborn child in his mother's womb. The rest of the orchestra intrudes on that simple warmth, as winds, brass and percussion evoke the awakening of the senses and the first response to outside stimulus. Traditional Japanese themes and rhythms, drawn from gegaku music, build slowly as the work develops. The work's climax is a mighty birth: as the full wash of sound breaks forth, the child is born.

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) is one of Strauss' autobiographical tone poems. It casts the composer as a mythic hero grappling with forces out to destroy him (the critics) and those he cannot conquer (his wife.) Mr. Welser-Möst charged into the breach with the opening of The Hero, taking a fast tempo and urging the orchestra through the work's first movement. This approach obscured much of the detail of Strauss' score, as the brass and percussion crashed headlong in an attempt to keep up with the maestro's furious pace.

Things improved considerably with The Hero's Adversaries--where music critics are depicted as squabbling woodwinds--and The Hero's Companion, a tender movement dedicated to Pauline Strauss. This is effectively a miniature violin concerto hidden within the larger tone-poem. Concertmaster William Preucil played the violin soliloquy with warmth and passion, and the entire orchestra eased back to a more moderate tempo.

The maestro hit the orchestral overdrive for The Hero's Battlefield reducing Strauss' mock combat to an ugly clash of percussion and brass. The orchestra stopped and started, lurching to a halt in the pauses and taking too long to recover its momentum. In the final sections of the piece, (with the familiar self-quotes from Don Juan and Also Sprach Zarathustra) peace broke out at last, and the whole came to a close in a series of thunderous chords.

Redemption for this aggressive Heldenleben came in the form of the encore: an orchestral transcription of Traumerei, an early Strauss work for the piano. This was played with dignity and grace, producing a hushed effect that recalled the opening Debussy piece.