The Year in Reviews: Concerts and Recitals in 2011

The year of the "new jack" maestro.

Life saver: Sean Newhouse (left) stepped in for James Levine.
Here, he conducts Prokofiev with pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.
Photo by Stu Rosner © 2011 Boston Symphony Orchestra.

With disasters striking down a number of prominent conductors this year (Seiji Ozawa's battle with cancer, Riccardo Muti's fall and injury, and a whole stack of misfortunes for James Levine), 2011 was the year that young conductors stepped up to the podium and took charge. From Sean Newhouse in Boston to Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Philadelphia, this was the year of a continued youth movement on North American podiums.

It was also a busy season for your favorite classical music blog. 94 concerts in four different cities. And seeing one more this week to make it 95. On to 2012!


Budapest Festival Orchestra: The Rite of Spring (Jan. 27)
"Under Iván Fischer's direction, the taut polyrhythms and blasts of brass acquired a fearsome, battering force, hammering at the senses in a frenzied dance. A reprieve came with the second section of the ballet, but it was not to last."

Boston Symphony Orchestra: Sean Newhouse's Boston debut (Feb. 27)
"Mr. Newhouse proved himself up to the task on Saturday night, leading a vigorous performance that balanced the extremes of this long, difficult work. The young conductor did more than just beat time--he offered his own interpretation of the work, making Mahler's last completed symphony a profound and deeply humanistic statement."

Louis Lortie plays Liszt (March 11)
"The pianist took his audience on a detailed tour of Liszt's travels in Switzerland. He drove the piano, playing from his shoulders, crossing hands for the most difficult passages and ranging across his instrument as Liszt traversed the Alps."

Leif Ove Andsnes at Carnegie Hall (April 9) 
"Mr. Andsnes brought a fiery approach to the first movement, conjuring up the stormy figures and near-fugal textures common to late Beethoven. The second movement was far more lyrical. The slow Arietta was played with quiet, poetic restraint."


Cleveland Orchestra: Bruckner Eighth. (July 17)
"Mr. Welser-Möst took a surprising, fast tempo for the opening movement, creating driving figures in the strings that moved the work forward and opened vast sonic vistas for the listener. This enabled the full 18-piece Cleveland brass section to cut loose with massive, block chords, voiced in stately, organ-like tones by horns, trombones and Wagner tubas."

New York Philharmonic: A Concert for New York (Sept. 11)
"The heavy, stentorian opening blared out with emphatic force. Mr. Gilbert drew inspired music-making from the veteran winds and strings, playing the uplifting main themes with emotion missing with some other conductors."

Cleveland Orchestra: Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky (Oct. 9)
Mr. Welser-Möst brought maximum clarity to this work, which had not been heard at Severance Hall in nearly four decades. The orchestra responded brilliantly, as the knotty musical lines untangled themselves and the work coalesced. The brass, asked to make difficult contributions in this work, responded admirably, as did the superb woodwind section.


Yuja Wang's Debut at Carnegie Hall (Oct. 21)
"Ms. Wang dived into the opening theme (a representation of Mephistopheles) and brought the wild energy of Faust's ill-fated adventures out in the early pages. The plunge into the abyss was chilling, ending in grim, matter-of-fact low notes."

London Symphony Orchestra And Chorus: War Requiem (Oct. 24)
"The London Symphony Chorus was a force unto itself, declaiming the Latin text of the mass with the authority of the Metatron. The fiery incantations of the Dies Irae blazed forth with power. They were also key contributors to the success of the later movements, especially the slow-moving setting of the Agnus Dei."

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Garrick Ohlsson: Rachmaninoff Three (Nov. 7)
"The first movement's complicated cadenza held the audience breathless. The slow Intermezzo sang a sad Russian song. And the pell-mell finale, calling for the greatest degree of virtuosity from the pianist proved a thrilling experience."

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (Nov. 21)
"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."


Visit the rest of the 2011 Year in Reviews, our account of the year that went to "'11".

Hatchet Job

Fabio Luisi appointment triggers Roman blood-bath

Fabio Luisi. Photo by Matthias Creutziger courtesy IMG Artists.

The Met's recent decision to elevate Fabio Luisi to the post of Principal Conductor is having repercussions in Europe.

In a recent press conference, the Metropolitan Opera announced that the maestro had been promoted from Principal Guest Conductor, and would be taking over for James Levine in the Met's new productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Wagner's Siegfried, premiering next month.


Mr. Luisi's appointment to the role of Principal Conductor (a job previously held by Mr. Levine in the 1970s) has brought relief to New York opera lovers worried about the health and status of the company's music director. In recent years, James Levine has battled cancer, back probems and a shoulder injury. Last year, Mr. Levine ceded his postion as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a prestigous post that he held concurrently with his job at the Met.

But the announcement and extended commitment at the Met has met with blowback and disapproval from European houses, particularly the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. The Roman house had hired Mr. Luisi to conduct its forthcoming staging of Elektra. Mr. Luisi has also been forced to nix engagements with the Vienna Symphony, the Teatro San Carlo Fellice in Genoa, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Luisi's cancellation came as a shock to the Roman house. Elektra is slotted to open on Sept. 30.

In a statement, the Teatro dell'Opera condemned Mr. Luis's last-minute cancellation as "an unfortunate affair that harms the world of classical music and opera. The direction of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, in stigmatizing the incident, is considering actions to be taken to protect the image of the Foundation, its workers, and their audience."

62-year old Hungarian conductor Stefan Soltesz, music director of the Opera Theater in Essen, Germany is slotted to step in. The cast features Eva Johannson in the title role, Felicity Palmer as Klytämnestra, and Melanie Dehner as Chrysothemis. The staging, first seen at the Salzburg Festival, is directed by Nikolaus Lehnoff.

Ten Super Conductors

The Top Ten Maestros I've Seen

Claudio Abbado at work.

Hi folks. I finally got to hear Gustavo Dudamel conduct this weekend. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to put up my top ten list of great conductors that I've seen lead an orchestra or an opera.

I'll try to add what I've seen them conduct, as I can best remember it. In a few cases, there are just too many performances, so I've picked a notable one. Oh and the order is completely arbitrary as I thought of them for the list.


1) Claudio Abbado: Berlin Philharmonic, Mahler Symphony No. 3; Bruckner Symphony No. 9

2) Giuseppe Sinopoli: Dresden Staatskapelle. Tone poems and opera excerpts by Richard Strauss. Sinopoli is one of my favorite, underrated composers. He died in 2001, collapsing in the pit while conducting Act III of Aida in Berlin.

3) Daniel Barenboim: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Tristan und Isolde; Mahler 5 and 7 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

4) Pierre Boulez: Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortileges with the Cleveland Orchestra and Suzanne Mentzer.

5) Riccardo Chailly: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: Mahler Symphony No. 7

6) James Levine: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra. More performances that I can count at the Met, but all of the Wagner operas, especially Parsifal and Lohengrin.

7) Bernard Haitink: Mahler Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At Symphony Hall when I lived in Boston, probably in 1996.

8) Sir Colin Davis: Program of English music with the New York Philharmonic featuring works by Vaughan Williams (the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis) Michael Tippett and Edward Elgar.

9) Kurt Masur: Many performances with the New York Philharmonic. Pressed to pick one: The St. Matthew Passion or Debussy's La Mer. And he led a superb Bruckner Seventh last season.

10) Riccardo Muti:"The Pines of Rome" with the New York Philharmonic. Simply devastating.

The Next Ten: Alan Gilbert, Christian Thielemann, William Christie, Zdenek Macal, Valery Gergiev. Seiji Ozawa, John Eliot Gardiner, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Gustavo Dudamel and Sir Simon Rattle.

The Return of Seiji Ozawa

Seiji Ozawa, the internationally acclaimed conductor whose career has been interrupted by a battle with esophageal cancer, is the subject of a fascinating interview in today's New York Times.

Seiji Ozawa.

The 75-year old Japanese maestro previously served as the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, holding the Boston post for 29 years. He is also the former chief conductor of the Vienna State Opera, although he was forced to cancel all of his 2010 appearances for medical reasons.

Mr. Ozawa's career began as music director of the Toronto Symnphony Orchestra, helping to put that ensemble on the musical map. A pupil of Leonard Bernstein's, his distinctive skill with the romantic works of Beethoven and Mahler made him a podium star. And his interactions with students at the BSO's Tanglewood campus made him a beloved figure.

Although continued frail health has forced Mr. Ozawa to cancel his remaining concerts for 2010, he plans to return to Carnegie Hall in 2011 to conduct Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. He cannot walk for more than five minutes at a time, and has to sit down to conduct.

This month also marks the release of a career retrospective for Mr. Ozawa, the Anniversary boxed set on Decca. Mr. Ozawa made many recordings for Philips during the classical music "CD boom" of the 1990s. However, with the folding of the Philips label, a lot of these are out of print. The eleven-disc set features Mr. Ozawa's readings of Strauss' Alpine Symphony and Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, along with major works by Poulenc, Rimsky-Korsakov, Berlioz and Leonard Bernstein. A complete track listing is available here on the Decca Classics website.