Concert Review: A Journey Into Mystery

Matthias Goerne at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baritone Matthias Goerne joined the New York Philharmonic for a set of Schubert and Strauss lieder.
Photo by Caroline de Bon.

For their last program before the annual dive into holiday season concerts (carols, brass concerts, Messiah, Renée Fleming)  Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic gave their audience something unique: a song cycle created from the work of two composers and featuring the voice of Matthais Goerne, the German lieder specialist who sings Wotan on Mr. van Zweden's new recording of Wagner's Ring.

Concert Review: Taming the Savage Beast

A scuffle mars Thursday's Mostly Mozart concert.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Louis Langrée led Thursday's Mostly Mozart concert at Alice Tully Hall.
Photo © 2014 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Normally, a review of a performance like last night's concert at Alice Tully Hall featuring the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra with guest pianist Leif Ove Andsnes would confine itself to the music that was played onstage. However, an incident in the house before the concert must be mentioned first. It happened during the introductory lecture by festival music director Louis Langrée. An ugly, violent moment, it may serve as a launch point to discuss the importance and necessity of the music of Mozart and Bach, civilized art that can tame the restless hearts of New Yorkers trapped in an extended wave of humidity and heat.

Concert Review: The Grand Master

Bernard Haitink returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bernard Haitink celebrates 60 years on the podium this season.
Photo by Creutziger courtesy New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic celebrates Bernard Haitink's sixtieth year as an orchestra conductor this month, inviting the 85-year old Dutch maestro to Avery Fisher Hall for two weeks of concerts. On Saturday night, Mr. Haitink capped the first of his two concert programs with a program divided neatly between the Second Viennese School and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Concert Review: From Atonality to Whipped Cream

The Vienna Philharmonic bids farewell to the City of Dreams.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Handy dandy: Diana Damrau takes over podium duties from Zubin Mehta (left) as
Vienna: City of Dreams comes to a riotous end at Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Steve J. Sherman © 2014 courtesy Carnegie Hall.

The Vienna Philharmonic drew the curtain on Carnegie Hall's three-week Vienna: City of Dreams festival with a massive Sunday night concert featuring a sweeping survey of that city's disparate musical history. Spanning from the choral music of Mozart to the 20th century experiments of Webern and Korngold, the orchestra players showed their affinity for dance music, opera, operetta, orchestral music, and even atonality in a sprawling program that at least, never proved dull. The inspired choice for leading this program: former New York Philharmonic music director Zubin Mehta, a beloved figure in this city.

Concert Review: The Last Party Hats

The American Symphony Orchestra fétes John Cage.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

John Cage turned 100 this year. We celebrate with this photo of him in a hat.
Image © The Estate of John Cage.

In New York City, the year 2012 will be remembered for natural disasters, pseudo-Mayan hysteria and the cheerful mayhem caused in the city's concert and recital halls by due to the observance of the 100th birthday of John Cage.

On Friday night, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra acknowledged the centennial of that iconoclastic American composer with The Cage Concert at Carnegie Hall. The performance, which is (as far as we know) the last major concert of the year to feature Cage's music, included the New York premieres of two late works.

Unlike some concerts which rely on this composer's vast output to stand by itself, Dr. Botstein chose to place John Cage in a context of important musical directions of the 20th century. In encyclopedic fashion, the set list covered minimalism, indeterminacy, 12-tone serial organization and a healthy sense of the absurd, before culminating in the performance of three Cage compositions.

The performance opened with the most conventional music of the night: Anton Webern's Symphony. An example of Webern's intricate 12-tone style, this two-movement ten-minute work creates spidery, delicate textures, a brush of bassoon, a short series of notes on the strings, and (most importantly) a breath of empty space between the notes, the rests themselves forming part of the work's integral fabric.

CD Review: Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays Ein Heldenleben

Bernard Haitink

This live recording pairs Richard Strauss' self-regarding tone poem Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life") with Anton Webern's lush Im Sommerwind. It is a showcase for the 81-year old conductor Bernard Haitink, who draws beautiful sounds from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Haitink, who is finishing up a 4-year run as the CSO's Principal Conductor, has a particular touch for the late Romantics, with an affinity for Strauss' music. (His 1991 recording of Der Rosenkavalier is one of the finest in the catalogue.)


Ein Heldenleben is one of three autobiographical tone poems written by Strauss, that chronicle various aspects of his life in an odd form of "musical journalism" for large orchestra. (The other two are the Sinfonia domestica and the Alpine Symphony.) It is a popular Strauss work, but one that is regarded as "problematic" by music critics. That might be because the ever-blunt Strauss included a withering portrait of journalists in the second movement: "The Hero's Adversaries."

Mr. Haitink conducts Ein Heldenleben with passion and conviction. The opening is a stirring experience. The Love Scene is a mini-violin concerto within the work (really a portrait of the composer's wife, Pauline). Soloist Robert Chen plays with elegance, drawing out the long melodic lines that recall the best passages of Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau Ohne Schatten Everything is perfectly balanced in The Hero's Battles, as surges of trumpets and horns clash with the string section in full flight. The winds take center stage for The Hero's Works of Peace, which quotes liberally from earlier Strauss works.

Im Sommerwind is the last gasp of tonality from Anton Webern before he embraced the discordant musical ideas of his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. This 12-minute tone poem demands the full resources of both the orchestra and listener. Written in Webern's characteristic, compressed style, there is enough music here for an entire symphony. The work shifts between bird calls, percussive scrapes, and the buzzing of cicadas in the low winds. Lyric passages in the strings depict the rustle of leaves and grass, and the whole has a golden sheen of a hot day when the passing wind brings no cooling relief. It is a perfect pairing with Ein Heldenleben and rounds out this excellent document of Mr. Haitink and his Chicago forces in their element.