Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Elsewhere
My preview of New York University musicologist Suzanne G. Cusick's free talk on "Music and Torture," 3 p.m. Oct. 5 at the University of Richmond's Modlin Arts Center, is in print in Style Weekly, online at:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=17848
Cultural survey
Richmond's Cultural Action Task Force is seeking participants in an online Cultural Census Survey of local interests and preferences in the visual and performing arts. To participate (it takes about 5 minutes), start here:
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:11535.1344053573/rid:4a378d4451ea0359a8a612eb43319df9
(When you've finished the survey, you can sign up for a drawing, with a prize of $250.)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Review: Paley festival
Sept. 27-28, First English Lutheran Church, Richmond
Alexander Paley’s fall-weekend music festivals in Richmond wouldn’t be complete without at least one selection that tested the pianist’s technical and interpretive capacities and the listener’s comprehension and endurance. In this 11th edition of the festival, that piece was Robert Schumann’s
Sonata No. 3 in F minor, known as the "Concerto without Orchestra."
As its nickname implies, the sonata draws upon the full range of tonal, coloristic and dynamic resources that a pianist can summon. Its movements are large, often sprawling, and it makes grand, passionate statements. Its passions are most aroused in the first movement, in which a motif of Beethovenian simplicity is repeated with growing intensity, and in a set of variations on a profoundly desolate theme by Schumann’s wife, Clara Wieck.
Music propelled by huge chords and torrents of notes expressing high passion is what Paley plays best. No wonder he was attracted to the Schumann sonatas, which he presented in chronological order as the opening selections in each concert of this festival. (He plans to play all three in a single program in future recital dates.) The F minor Sonata, which he played Sept. 28 concert, is the most challenging of the three; and while the pianist has almost all of its notes securely under his fingers, some of its contours remain sketchy. He has yet to tame the decorative spinoffs from the allegro’s motif, which sound like digressions, or the finale’s tendency to sound like random, hyperactive noodling.
The Sonata No. 2 in G minor, opening the Sept. 27 program, was played with Schumann’s original, relatively undernourished rondo finale. (Afterward, Paley said he will substitute the later, more developed final movement in future performances.) The pianist emphasized the rhapsodic, Chopinesque quality of the sonata’s first and second movements, shaping the latter’s halting phrases quite effectively, and treated the scherzo with suitable impulsiveness.
The Sept. 27 concert centered on two piano trios, in which Paley was joined by violinist Kathy Judd and cellist Clyde Thomas Shaw. In Mendelssohn’s Trio in D minor, moderate tempos highlighted Shaw’s big, bassy cello tone in the first movement and gave both string players expressive space in the andante. Comparably measured tempos in Schubert’s Trio in B flat major directed the ear to the tonal brilliance of Paley’s Blüthner piano – the Schubert was perhaps the best showcase of this German instrument’s uniquely resonant high register – but also drove home the repetitious quality of this piece. (Is there a more endless movement in all of chamber music than the closing rondo of this trio? You’d swear not as it goes around, comes around, and ’round and ’round . . . )
Clarinetist Charles West, the Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has performed with Paley in all his Richmond festivals, delivered this edition’s most polished chamber performance in the final program, playing Brahms’ Sonata in E flat major, Op. 120, No. 2, as a robust, long-breathed stroll on an Indian summer afternoon. West’s command of his instrument’s tonal and expressive resources was on full display here; Paley was a strong but supportive partner.
Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen, presented another cycle in this edition of the festival, playing Weber’s three sets of short pieces for piano four-hands. The first two sets (Opp. 3 and 10) are light, generally cheerful examples of 19th-century domestic keyboard music, the stuff of courtships in the afternoon and family musicales in the evening. The third set, "Eight Pieces," Op. 60, is a bit grander in dimension and technical challenge. The couple’s Sept. 28 performance peaked in the fourth piece of the set, a quasi-gallop, and in the penultimate march, the tune that more than a century later would be revived as the centerpiece of Hindemith’s "Symphonic Metamorphosis" on Weber themes.
Paley and Chen also played Schumann’s "Bilder von Osten" ("Pictures from the East"), capturing Slavic and Magyar accents lurking within the composer’s high-German musical diction.
The pianist and Linus Ellis, associate minister for music at First English Lutheran Church and chief local organizer of the festival, announced that a 12th edition is planned for the weekend of Sept. 25-27, 2009.
Alexander Paley’s fall-weekend music festivals in Richmond wouldn’t be complete without at least one selection that tested the pianist’s technical and interpretive capacities and the listener’s comprehension and endurance. In this 11th edition of the festival, that piece was Robert Schumann’s
Sonata No. 3 in F minor, known as the "Concerto without Orchestra."As its nickname implies, the sonata draws upon the full range of tonal, coloristic and dynamic resources that a pianist can summon. Its movements are large, often sprawling, and it makes grand, passionate statements. Its passions are most aroused in the first movement, in which a motif of Beethovenian simplicity is repeated with growing intensity, and in a set of variations on a profoundly desolate theme by Schumann’s wife, Clara Wieck.
Music propelled by huge chords and torrents of notes expressing high passion is what Paley plays best. No wonder he was attracted to the Schumann sonatas, which he presented in chronological order as the opening selections in each concert of this festival. (He plans to play all three in a single program in future recital dates.) The F minor Sonata, which he played Sept. 28 concert, is the most challenging of the three; and while the pianist has almost all of its notes securely under his fingers, some of its contours remain sketchy. He has yet to tame the decorative spinoffs from the allegro’s motif, which sound like digressions, or the finale’s tendency to sound like random, hyperactive noodling.
The Sonata No. 2 in G minor, opening the Sept. 27 program, was played with Schumann’s original, relatively undernourished rondo finale. (Afterward, Paley said he will substitute the later, more developed final movement in future performances.) The pianist emphasized the rhapsodic, Chopinesque quality of the sonata’s first and second movements, shaping the latter’s halting phrases quite effectively, and treated the scherzo with suitable impulsiveness.
The Sept. 27 concert centered on two piano trios, in which Paley was joined by violinist Kathy Judd and cellist Clyde Thomas Shaw. In Mendelssohn’s Trio in D minor, moderate tempos highlighted Shaw’s big, bassy cello tone in the first movement and gave both string players expressive space in the andante. Comparably measured tempos in Schubert’s Trio in B flat major directed the ear to the tonal brilliance of Paley’s Blüthner piano – the Schubert was perhaps the best showcase of this German instrument’s uniquely resonant high register – but also drove home the repetitious quality of this piece. (Is there a more endless movement in all of chamber music than the closing rondo of this trio? You’d swear not as it goes around, comes around, and ’round and ’round . . . )
Clarinetist Charles West, the Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has performed with Paley in all his Richmond festivals, delivered this edition’s most polished chamber performance in the final program, playing Brahms’ Sonata in E flat major, Op. 120, No. 2, as a robust, long-breathed stroll on an Indian summer afternoon. West’s command of his instrument’s tonal and expressive resources was on full display here; Paley was a strong but supportive partner.
Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen, presented another cycle in this edition of the festival, playing Weber’s three sets of short pieces for piano four-hands. The first two sets (Opp. 3 and 10) are light, generally cheerful examples of 19th-century domestic keyboard music, the stuff of courtships in the afternoon and family musicales in the evening. The third set, "Eight Pieces," Op. 60, is a bit grander in dimension and technical challenge. The couple’s Sept. 28 performance peaked in the fourth piece of the set, a quasi-gallop, and in the penultimate march, the tune that more than a century later would be revived as the centerpiece of Hindemith’s "Symphonic Metamorphosis" on Weber themes.
Paley and Chen also played Schumann’s "Bilder von Osten" ("Pictures from the East"), capturing Slavic and Magyar accents lurking within the composer’s high-German musical diction.
The pianist and Linus Ellis, associate minister for music at First English Lutheran Church and chief local organizer of the festival, announced that a 12th edition is planned for the weekend of Sept. 25-27, 2009.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Review: Paley Festival
Sept. 26, First English Lutheran Church, Richmond
Pianist Alexander Paley is devoting his 11th music festival in Richmond to solo, duo and trio works of the German romantics, a school that packs as much poetry, earnestness, virtuosity and neurosis – and often as many notes – into small-scale works as large ones. Not for nothing did Robert Schumann call his Third Piano Sonata a "concerto without orchestra."
Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, with which Paley opened the festival, set an appropriate tone for what was to follow on opening night and in two subsequent programs. The piece calls for a musician with abundant technique, which Paley certainly is, as well as volatility, rhetorical flair and the ability and inclination to project a tonal stream of consciousness. Schumann audibly struggles to confine his poetic impulses within sonata form – struggles, even, to end the work in a finale with at least four false climaxes – as he summons all the dynamism and expressive power of the piano. Paley, who is new to this rarely played music, relished its technical and structural challenges.
The heart of the program contrasted two trios with French horn: Johannes Brahms’ familiar Trio in E flat major, Op. 40, for piano, violin and horn, and Carl Reinecke’s obscure Trio, Op. 274, for piano, clarinet and horn. Horn player Patrick Smith, a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University music faculty, brought rich sonority and gratifying technical control to both pieces.
Smith, Paley and violinist Kathy Judd made especially fine work of the Brahms, maintaining balance (always tricky in Brahms’ chamber music with piano, especially so with this combination of instruments) and playing expressively without dragging and, in the scherzo and finale, with real playfulness – a relatively rare commodity in Brahms, but one that needs to be fully exploited when it arises. Judd performed with refinement and assertiveness, notably in the instrument’s lower register, and Paley reined in the piano without underplaying.
Reinecke’s late-romantic opus (written in 1903) is unusual not just in its instrumentation, but in its projection of German-romantic Sturm and pathos without some inner demon guiding the proceedings. The piece is Brahmsian in style, but lacking Brahms’ volatility and emotional nuance. It sounds to be music awaiting a narrative, wanting to tell "a tale" (as Reinecke titles its slow movement), which the composer isn’t quite inspired to supply. Paley, Smith and VCU-based clarinetist Charles West played the piece as a lively, expressive and (when appropriate) stormy exchange.
Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen, closed the opening-night program with the first of three samplings of Carl Maria von Weber’s music for piano four-hands, "Six pieces faciles," Op. 3. The set recalls Mozart and Schubert in its abundance of melody, and is decidedly Mozartian in its joyfully witty interplay. The inevitable highlight of the set its andante, with its variations on a tune that seems to be the source of the "All Things Considered" radio theme. Paley and Chen performed with clarity and affection.
The Alexander Paley Music Festival continues with music of Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Weber at 8 p.m. Sept. 27, and works by Schumann, Brahms and Weber at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 28, at First English Lutheran Church, Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street (Stuart Circle). Admission is by donation. Details: (804) 355-9185; http://personal3.stthomas.edu/mmshvartsman/paleyfest.html
Pianist Alexander Paley is devoting his 11th music festival in Richmond to solo, duo and trio works of the German romantics, a school that packs as much poetry, earnestness, virtuosity and neurosis – and often as many notes – into small-scale works as large ones. Not for nothing did Robert Schumann call his Third Piano Sonata a "concerto without orchestra."
Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, with which Paley opened the festival, set an appropriate tone for what was to follow on opening night and in two subsequent programs. The piece calls for a musician with abundant technique, which Paley certainly is, as well as volatility, rhetorical flair and the ability and inclination to project a tonal stream of consciousness. Schumann audibly struggles to confine his poetic impulses within sonata form – struggles, even, to end the work in a finale with at least four false climaxes – as he summons all the dynamism and expressive power of the piano. Paley, who is new to this rarely played music, relished its technical and structural challenges.
The heart of the program contrasted two trios with French horn: Johannes Brahms’ familiar Trio in E flat major, Op. 40, for piano, violin and horn, and Carl Reinecke’s obscure Trio, Op. 274, for piano, clarinet and horn. Horn player Patrick Smith, a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University music faculty, brought rich sonority and gratifying technical control to both pieces.
Smith, Paley and violinist Kathy Judd made especially fine work of the Brahms, maintaining balance (always tricky in Brahms’ chamber music with piano, especially so with this combination of instruments) and playing expressively without dragging and, in the scherzo and finale, with real playfulness – a relatively rare commodity in Brahms, but one that needs to be fully exploited when it arises. Judd performed with refinement and assertiveness, notably in the instrument’s lower register, and Paley reined in the piano without underplaying.
Reinecke’s late-romantic opus (written in 1903) is unusual not just in its instrumentation, but in its projection of German-romantic Sturm and pathos without some inner demon guiding the proceedings. The piece is Brahmsian in style, but lacking Brahms’ volatility and emotional nuance. It sounds to be music awaiting a narrative, wanting to tell "a tale" (as Reinecke titles its slow movement), which the composer isn’t quite inspired to supply. Paley, Smith and VCU-based clarinetist Charles West played the piece as a lively, expressive and (when appropriate) stormy exchange.
Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen, closed the opening-night program with the first of three samplings of Carl Maria von Weber’s music for piano four-hands, "Six pieces faciles," Op. 3. The set recalls Mozart and Schubert in its abundance of melody, and is decidedly Mozartian in its joyfully witty interplay. The inevitable highlight of the set its andante, with its variations on a tune that seems to be the source of the "All Things Considered" radio theme. Paley and Chen performed with clarity and affection.
The Alexander Paley Music Festival continues with music of Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Weber at 8 p.m. Sept. 27, and works by Schumann, Brahms and Weber at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 28, at First English Lutheran Church, Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street (Stuart Circle). Admission is by donation. Details: (804) 355-9185; http://personal3.stthomas.edu/mmshvartsman/paleyfest.html
Friday, September 26, 2008
NSO taps Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach, formerly music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Houston Symphony, will take on the same role with the National Symphony in Washington. He also will occupy a newly created post, music director of the Kennedy Center.
The 68-year-old German conductor and pianist will serve as the orchestra's music director-designate until Iván Fischer's term as the NSO's principal conductor expires at the end of next season. Eschenbach's initial contract runs from the 2010-11 through 2013-14 seasons, Anne Midgette reports in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504161.html?hpid=topnews
The Post's Marc Fisher liberally links to varying views of Eschenbach in Philadelphia:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/?hpid=topnews
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Likes recording with chocolate
Stephen Hough's secret for summon excitement in recording sessions? “I usually have quite a lot of chocolate around. It is a way to have a bit of manic energy," the pianist tells The Times of London:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4821290.ece
(No word from Hough's dentist.)
Review: Richmond Symphony
Sept. 24, The National
Mikhail Agrest, first-in-line of the nine candidates vying to become the Richmond Symphony’s next music director, led the first of two concerts in his second tryout program in the opening of this season’s Kicked Back Classics casual-concert series. The event also marked the orchestra’s debut at The National, the former movie and vaudeville theater in downtown Richmond that reopened earlier this year as a music hall.
As in his Masterworks concerts, the 33-year-old Russian-American conductor displayed dynamism on the podium and showed himself to be an engaging talker, quick with a joke; at times, though, he seemed so stoked on nervous energy that he didn’t quite finish his thoughts.
Agrest framed the mini-concert with Beethoven, opening with the perhaps obligatory but nonetheless mediocre "Consecration of the House" Overture, closing with the far more substantive and potent finale of the Fourth Symphony. In between came bits of Mozart (the finale of the Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra), Prokofiev (the gavotte from the "Classical" Symphony) and Shostakovich (his orchestration of "Tea for Two"), and several bits of original and adapted Rossini.
Aside from the Beethoven symphony excerpt, the program’s largest-scaled offering was Rossini’s "La gazza ladra" ("The Thieving Magpie") Overture, the first great symphonic treatment of a waltz tune. In his Masterworks dates, Agrest distended the waltz theme of the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony; here, he gave Rossini’s waltz a thoroughly idiomatic swirl across the floor.
Agrest emphasized colorful and characterful details in the Shostakovich and in Benjamin Britten’s potpourri of Rossini themes, "Soirées Musicales." The conductor led animated, interpretively straightforward accounts of the two Beethoven selections and the Mozart, which featured the refined, well-balanced duo of concertmaster Karen Johnson and principal violist Molly Sharp.
The National is an oddly configured space for classical music, with no seating on the ground floor, VIP-only seating in the front balcony (largely vacant on this occasion) and regular seating only in the upper balcony. A lot of empty space separated the orchestra from most of its audience. (The Sunday-afternoon family edition of the series presumably will draw a lot of youngsters who don’t mind sitting on the floor.)
Unamplified orchestral music sounds warm and full-bodied but short on brilliance and resonance in this hall, making The National an acoustical near-twin of the nearby Carpenter Center, at least as it sounded before its closure for renovation. An acoustical upgrade is part of the renovation of that hall, which will be the symphony's principal venue when it reopens as the Carpenter Theatre in the Richmond CenterStage arts complex.
The family edition of this Kicked Back Classics program begins with pre-concert activities at 3 p.m., followed by the concert at 4 p.m., Sept. 28 at The National, 708 E. Broad St. Tickets: $17. Details: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
Mikhail Agrest, first-in-line of the nine candidates vying to become the Richmond Symphony’s next music director, led the first of two concerts in his second tryout program in the opening of this season’s Kicked Back Classics casual-concert series. The event also marked the orchestra’s debut at The National, the former movie and vaudeville theater in downtown Richmond that reopened earlier this year as a music hall.
As in his Masterworks concerts, the 33-year-old Russian-American conductor displayed dynamism on the podium and showed himself to be an engaging talker, quick with a joke; at times, though, he seemed so stoked on nervous energy that he didn’t quite finish his thoughts.
Agrest framed the mini-concert with Beethoven, opening with the perhaps obligatory but nonetheless mediocre "Consecration of the House" Overture, closing with the far more substantive and potent finale of the Fourth Symphony. In between came bits of Mozart (the finale of the Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra), Prokofiev (the gavotte from the "Classical" Symphony) and Shostakovich (his orchestration of "Tea for Two"), and several bits of original and adapted Rossini.
Aside from the Beethoven symphony excerpt, the program’s largest-scaled offering was Rossini’s "La gazza ladra" ("The Thieving Magpie") Overture, the first great symphonic treatment of a waltz tune. In his Masterworks dates, Agrest distended the waltz theme of the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony; here, he gave Rossini’s waltz a thoroughly idiomatic swirl across the floor.
Agrest emphasized colorful and characterful details in the Shostakovich and in Benjamin Britten’s potpourri of Rossini themes, "Soirées Musicales." The conductor led animated, interpretively straightforward accounts of the two Beethoven selections and the Mozart, which featured the refined, well-balanced duo of concertmaster Karen Johnson and principal violist Molly Sharp.
The National is an oddly configured space for classical music, with no seating on the ground floor, VIP-only seating in the front balcony (largely vacant on this occasion) and regular seating only in the upper balcony. A lot of empty space separated the orchestra from most of its audience. (The Sunday-afternoon family edition of the series presumably will draw a lot of youngsters who don’t mind sitting on the floor.)
Unamplified orchestral music sounds warm and full-bodied but short on brilliance and resonance in this hall, making The National an acoustical near-twin of the nearby Carpenter Center, at least as it sounded before its closure for renovation. An acoustical upgrade is part of the renovation of that hall, which will be the symphony's principal venue when it reopens as the Carpenter Theatre in the Richmond CenterStage arts complex.
The family edition of this Kicked Back Classics program begins with pre-concert activities at 3 p.m., followed by the concert at 4 p.m., Sept. 28 at The National, 708 E. Broad St. Tickets: $17. Details: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
New symphony searcher
The Richmond Symphony's principal timpanist, James Jacobson, who was among five orchestra members on the 10-member search committee that is judging nine candidates to become the symphony's next music director, has taken a leave of absence this season to perform with the Honolulu Symphony.
Karen Johnson, the Richmond Symphony's concertmaster, has replaced Jacobson on the search committee.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Maazels launch Virginia festival
Outgoing New York Philharmonic Music Director Lorin Maazel and his wife, Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, will launch a music festival on the grounds of Castleton Farms, their estate in Rappahannock County.
The festival's first season, July 4-19, 2009, will present Benjamin Britten's chamber operas "The Turn of the Screw," "Albert Herring" and "The Rape of Lucretia" and Britten's version of "The Beggar's Opera."
The Maazels have been staging invitational performances by young artists in the 130-seat Theatre House at Castleton Farms since 1997. They are converting a barn into a multi-purpose theater for the new festival.
A fund-raiser for the festival, starring Marvin Hamlisch with a guest appearance by Maazel, will be staged on Oct. 10 at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
More on the festival:
http://chateauville.org/news/show/maazels_announce_castleton_festival_marvin_hamlisch_to_kick_off_fundraising_effort_in_d_c_7
Columbus Symphony revived
The Columbus (OH) Symphony, shut down since June 1, has been revived with approval of a plan that cuts its budget, shortens its season and reduces musicians' salaries:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/09/22/ENCORE.html?sid=101
Musical geniuses
Violinist Leila Josefowicz, San Francisco composer Walter Kitundu and New York-based Puerto Rican jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenon and Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker and author of "The Rest Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century," are among this year's recipients of $500,000 "genius grants" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=avDIe5PUnzP8&refer=muse
Monday, September 22, 2008
Symphony date change
The Richmond Symphony's opening Kicked Back Classics Club concert, originally scheduled for Sept. 25, has been moved to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 24 at The National, 708 E. Broad St. in downtown Richmond. The family version of the program will go on as originally scheduled, at 4 p.m. Sept. 28 at The National.
Mikhail Agrest, first of the nine music-director candidates to appear with the orchestra, will conduct, with violinist Karen Johnson and violist Molly Sharp performing as soloists.
Tickets are $10 for Sept. 24, $17 for Sept. 28. Details: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Review: Richmond Symphony
Sept. 20, First Baptist Church, Richmond
Mikhail Agrest, a 33-year-old Russian-American conductor currently on the staff of the Mariinsky Theater in his
native St. Petersburg, is the first in line – "exhibit A," as he puts it – of nine candidates to succeed Mark Russell Smith as music director of the Richmond Symphony. In selecting Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony as the main attraction of his tryout Masterworks program, Agrest would seem to be playing his strongest suit.
The conductor says the Tchaikovsky Fourth is his favorite symphony, and his affection for it is audible. In the second of three performances with the symphony, no detail of its orchestration eluded him, and he exploited both its drama and its expressive melodies. He also showed a sure grasp of the piece as a musical essay, giving each idea its due without losing sight of the whole.
The most challenging part of the work is its first movement, which Michael Steinberg characterizes as a "large, brooding movement with its latent – and not so latent – waltz content." The composer’s tempo marking, moderato con anima (moderate but animated), compounds the latent with the subjective. Is the big tune a straight-on waltz, or a suggestion of one, or an evocative memory of one? How moderate vs. how animated?
Under Agrest’s direction, it was a very moderately paced, rather delicately phrased suggestion of a waltz. Arguably a nice expressive touch, that pacing and voicing also can sound calculated or artificial. It also can disrupt musical continuity.
This wasn’t the only time in this symphony that the conductor employed old-time "romantic" techniques – slowing down when the music grows more quiet, slowing phrases as they are about to give way to a contrasting (typically louder or more dramatic) section, speeding up in climaxes. Are these interpretive touches that Agrest reserves for Tchaikovsky and other late-19th century Russian music, or does he take a similar approach in the rest of the romantic repertory?
That question wasn’t really answered in the program’s other romantic offering, Verdi’s "La forza del destino" Overture, an episodic piece in which fairly long silences separate stark fanfares and darkly lyrical tunes from the opera. As in the Tchaikovsky, Agrest played up both the dramatic and the lyrical.
The orchestra gave the conductor all he asked for, maybe more. String articulation was crisp and alert, brasses played with rich sonority and fine ensemble, wind solos were expressive and naturally phrased. A largely reconstituted French horn section made a debut of real distinction.
Curiously, some of the most "Russian" sounds obtained by this Russian-born conductor came in an American work, Christopher Rouse’s Trombone Concerto (1991), an alternately somber and explosive contemplation of war. The tonal core of the piece is the combination of low-register trombone with a choir of bassoons (the only woodwinds in Rouse’s orchestration). They give the concerto’s opening and closing sections a dark, fibrous sound, reminiscent of the more ominous atmospherics of Shostakovich’s symphonic music (which Rouse quotes briefly, along with a tune from the "Kaddish" Symphony of Leonard Bernstein, to whom the concerto is dedicated).
Michael Mulcahy, the Australian-born principal trombonist of the Chicago Symphony, was a resolute, necessarily long-breathed presence throughout the Rouse concerto, darkly stoic in its outer movements (marked "dolorous" and "lugubrious," respectively), angst-ridden but not hysterical in its violent central movement, whose battery of percussion – including an oversized hammer pounding what must be a very solid wooden surface – produces some of the loudest music this orchestra has ever played.
Agrest and the symphony were keenly focused collaborators with Mulcahy, giving Rouse’s subtlest effects as much emotional impact as they did his sonic outbursts.
In his introductory comments, Agrest communicated with passion (on music and international politics) and showed a knack for humor. At work, he proved energetic – crouching and springing a lot, going airborne on a few occasions – and seemed to prefer conducting with his hands instead of a baton. Hands can draw smoother, less articulated instrumental sound than a stick does, but not in these performances.
The program repeats at 8 p.m. Sept. 22 at St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road in Glen Allen. Tickets: $28. Information: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
The Sept. 22 concert will be broadcast live on WCVE (88.9 FM).
Note to readers: This season I usually will be reviewing the Richmond Symphony's Saturday night Masterworks concerts. I prefer the acoustics of First Baptist Church, and that venue is closer to home, enabling me to reduce my carbon footprint and to avoid sharing the roads on Friday nights with people who seem to think driving is an extreme sport.
Mikhail Agrest, a 33-year-old Russian-American conductor currently on the staff of the Mariinsky Theater in his
native St. Petersburg, is the first in line – "exhibit A," as he puts it – of nine candidates to succeed Mark Russell Smith as music director of the Richmond Symphony. In selecting Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony as the main attraction of his tryout Masterworks program, Agrest would seem to be playing his strongest suit.The conductor says the Tchaikovsky Fourth is his favorite symphony, and his affection for it is audible. In the second of three performances with the symphony, no detail of its orchestration eluded him, and he exploited both its drama and its expressive melodies. He also showed a sure grasp of the piece as a musical essay, giving each idea its due without losing sight of the whole.
The most challenging part of the work is its first movement, which Michael Steinberg characterizes as a "large, brooding movement with its latent – and not so latent – waltz content." The composer’s tempo marking, moderato con anima (moderate but animated), compounds the latent with the subjective. Is the big tune a straight-on waltz, or a suggestion of one, or an evocative memory of one? How moderate vs. how animated?
Under Agrest’s direction, it was a very moderately paced, rather delicately phrased suggestion of a waltz. Arguably a nice expressive touch, that pacing and voicing also can sound calculated or artificial. It also can disrupt musical continuity.
This wasn’t the only time in this symphony that the conductor employed old-time "romantic" techniques – slowing down when the music grows more quiet, slowing phrases as they are about to give way to a contrasting (typically louder or more dramatic) section, speeding up in climaxes. Are these interpretive touches that Agrest reserves for Tchaikovsky and other late-19th century Russian music, or does he take a similar approach in the rest of the romantic repertory?
That question wasn’t really answered in the program’s other romantic offering, Verdi’s "La forza del destino" Overture, an episodic piece in which fairly long silences separate stark fanfares and darkly lyrical tunes from the opera. As in the Tchaikovsky, Agrest played up both the dramatic and the lyrical.
The orchestra gave the conductor all he asked for, maybe more. String articulation was crisp and alert, brasses played with rich sonority and fine ensemble, wind solos were expressive and naturally phrased. A largely reconstituted French horn section made a debut of real distinction.
Curiously, some of the most "Russian" sounds obtained by this Russian-born conductor came in an American work, Christopher Rouse’s Trombone Concerto (1991), an alternately somber and explosive contemplation of war. The tonal core of the piece is the combination of low-register trombone with a choir of bassoons (the only woodwinds in Rouse’s orchestration). They give the concerto’s opening and closing sections a dark, fibrous sound, reminiscent of the more ominous atmospherics of Shostakovich’s symphonic music (which Rouse quotes briefly, along with a tune from the "Kaddish" Symphony of Leonard Bernstein, to whom the concerto is dedicated).
Michael Mulcahy, the Australian-born principal trombonist of the Chicago Symphony, was a resolute, necessarily long-breathed presence throughout the Rouse concerto, darkly stoic in its outer movements (marked "dolorous" and "lugubrious," respectively), angst-ridden but not hysterical in its violent central movement, whose battery of percussion – including an oversized hammer pounding what must be a very solid wooden surface – produces some of the loudest music this orchestra has ever played.
Agrest and the symphony were keenly focused collaborators with Mulcahy, giving Rouse’s subtlest effects as much emotional impact as they did his sonic outbursts.
In his introductory comments, Agrest communicated with passion (on music and international politics) and showed a knack for humor. At work, he proved energetic – crouching and springing a lot, going airborne on a few occasions – and seemed to prefer conducting with his hands instead of a baton. Hands can draw smoother, less articulated instrumental sound than a stick does, but not in these performances.
The program repeats at 8 p.m. Sept. 22 at St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road in Glen Allen. Tickets: $28. Information: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
The Sept. 22 concert will be broadcast live on WCVE (88.9 FM).
Note to readers: This season I usually will be reviewing the Richmond Symphony's Saturday night Masterworks concerts. I prefer the acoustics of First Baptist Church, and that venue is closer to home, enabling me to reduce my carbon footprint and to avoid sharing the roads on Friday nights with people who seem to think driving is an extreme sport.
Cleveland critic off the case
Donald Rosenberg, longtime music critic of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, has had some less than flattering things to say about the Cleveland Orchestra's music director, Franz Welser-Möst. Rosenberg is hardly alone; and he has been more circumspect than musicians of the London Philharmonic, who in the 1990s nicknamed their then-chief conductor "Frankly Worse than Most."
Rosenberg, however, was critical enough to rile certain Cleveland Orchestra patrons, who apparently know how to get their way with the local paper.
So, Don Rosenberg is no longer reviewing Cleveland Orchestra concerts. That evidently perilous assignment now falls to Zachary Lewis, a shorter-tenured music critic at The Plain Dealer.
I've read, and respect, the writing of both. I'm acquainted with both through our membership in the Music Critics Association of North America. I'm confident that Lewis will be as resistant to pressure as Rosenberg has been.
Their employer deserves no such confidence. This episode invites readers to infer that The Plain Dealer's critics are not free to write unvarnished assessments of the city's cultural institutions, and to wonder what a "review" now amounts to in that paper.
More from the Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith (who suceeded Rosenberg as president of the Music Critics Association):
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/2008/09/critic_who_dared_criticize_cle.html
Update 1: “They’ve taken my career away from me,” Rosenberg says in an interview with The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/arts/music/25crit.html
Update 2: Lewis, Rosenberg's replacement, tallies the plusses and minuses of Welser-Möst in a season preview in The Plain Dealer:
http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/09/cleveland_orchestras_welsermos.html
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Virginia Symphony in the red
Hampton Roads' Virginia Symphony, which began its 2007-08 season with a $6.5 million budget and no debt, begins this season about $1.5 million in the red, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reports:
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/09/virginia-symphony-orchestra-about-15-million-debt
The Richmond Symphony, by contrast, finished last season with a $21,000 surplus on a budget of nearly 4.8 million.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Review: eighth blackbird
Sept. 17, University of Richmond
Dennis DeSantis, the laptop-wielding composer and sound designer, added his voice – or at least his resonations – to several standards of eighth blackbird’s repertory in the opening concert of the ensemble’s fifth season in residence at the University of Richmond.
By his own reckoning, DeSantis was "unobtrusive" in his sonic additions to "Powerless," a four-movement piece he wrote in 2001. The composer electronically enhanced echo effects in string and wind instruments’ responses to jazz-inflected piano figures, compounded the density of the piece’s second movement, "Eel," and enhanced a cello drone in the third movement, "Egis."
As the program progressed through a set of pieces from eighth blackbird’s Grammy Award-winning album "Strange Imaginary Animals," DeSantis’ presence grew. He added subtle atmospherics to the already subtle "evanescence" of Gordon Fitzell (a 2004 adaptation of Fitzell’s 2001-vintage "Violence"), and enhanced resonation and underlined instrumental sound effects in Steven Mackey’s "Indigenous Instruments" (1989).
DeSantis’ contributions were more prominent, more orchestral in scale, in the Radiohead tune "Dollars and Cents" (arranged for this group by Cliff Colnot) and David M. Gordon’s "Friction Systems" (2005). "Strange Imaginary Remix," DeSantis’ quasi-quodlibet of figures and sound effects drawn from several pieces on the album, amounted to a new composition, very much a creature of his own sound environment and his own rhythmic, dance-inflected style.
The members of eighth blackbird – pianist Lisa Kaplan, violinist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, flutist Tim Munro, clarinetist Matthew J. Maccaferri and percussionist Mathew Duvall – sounded energized, engaged with the new sounds and sound combinations that DeSantis brought to mix of pieces that by now must be very familiar to these musicians.
"We want[ed] the margins to be blurred" between electronic and acoustic-instrumental sound, DeSantis said in a post-concert question-and-answer session. Sure enough, listeners often couldn’t tell how much of a sound or sound effect was produced by one of the ’birds or was a product of laptop intervention.
Dennis DeSantis, the laptop-wielding composer and sound designer, added his voice – or at least his resonations – to several standards of eighth blackbird’s repertory in the opening concert of the ensemble’s fifth season in residence at the University of Richmond.
By his own reckoning, DeSantis was "unobtrusive" in his sonic additions to "Powerless," a four-movement piece he wrote in 2001. The composer electronically enhanced echo effects in string and wind instruments’ responses to jazz-inflected piano figures, compounded the density of the piece’s second movement, "Eel," and enhanced a cello drone in the third movement, "Egis."
As the program progressed through a set of pieces from eighth blackbird’s Grammy Award-winning album "Strange Imaginary Animals," DeSantis’ presence grew. He added subtle atmospherics to the already subtle "evanescence" of Gordon Fitzell (a 2004 adaptation of Fitzell’s 2001-vintage "Violence"), and enhanced resonation and underlined instrumental sound effects in Steven Mackey’s "Indigenous Instruments" (1989).
DeSantis’ contributions were more prominent, more orchestral in scale, in the Radiohead tune "Dollars and Cents" (arranged for this group by Cliff Colnot) and David M. Gordon’s "Friction Systems" (2005). "Strange Imaginary Remix," DeSantis’ quasi-quodlibet of figures and sound effects drawn from several pieces on the album, amounted to a new composition, very much a creature of his own sound environment and his own rhythmic, dance-inflected style.
The members of eighth blackbird – pianist Lisa Kaplan, violinist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, flutist Tim Munro, clarinetist Matthew J. Maccaferri and percussionist Mathew Duvall – sounded energized, engaged with the new sounds and sound combinations that DeSantis brought to mix of pieces that by now must be very familiar to these musicians.
"We want[ed] the margins to be blurred" between electronic and acoustic-instrumental sound, DeSantis said in a post-concert question-and-answer session. Sure enough, listeners often couldn’t tell how much of a sound or sound effect was produced by one of the ’birds or was a product of laptop intervention.
Mark reups at Virginia Opera
Peter Mark has renewed his contract as artistic director and principal conductor of the Virginia Opera through 2012.
Mark, a violist-turned-conductor and onetime boy chorister at the Metropolitan Opera, has been the Virginia Opera's artistic chief since its founding in 1975. Verdi's "Il Trovatore," opening the 2008-09 season, will be his 100th production with the company.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Elsewhere
The Richmond Symphony's music director search goes public, in print in Style Weekly, online at:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=17753
(Coming soon in this space: More responses from a questionnaire sent to the six candidates conducting this season.)
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Richmond Philharmonic 2008-09
The Richmond Philharmonic opens its 36th season – and the second for its music director, Robert Mirakian – with a program featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams’ rarely performed "London Symphony" (No. 2) on Oct. 19.
The philharmonic, the area's largest community orchestra, will present two other classical and two pops concerts during the season, and will sample the classical programs in educational concerts at area schools.
The classical concerts will be staged in Vlahcevic Concert Hall of the Singleton Arts Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. A holiday pops concert will be presented in the Atrium of the James Center in downtown Richmond, and a summer concert at the Garden Pavilion of Sunday Park in Brandermill in western Chesterfield County.
The philharmonic also will launch a Concerto Competition for young musicians, with the winner being featured in the winter classical concert.
The concerts are free, with donations requested.
The philharmonic’s 2008-09 programs:
Oct. 19 (4 p.m., VCU) – Mozart: "Abduction from the Seraglio" Overture; Ginastera: four dances from "Estancia;" Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 2 ("A London Symphony"). (Pre-concert talk at 3 p.m.)
Educational concert, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20, Elizabeth Davis Middle School, Chester; instrumental petting zoo at 6:30.
Dec. 8 (7 p.m., James Center) – "Home for the Holidays" pops concert, with works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Vaughan Williams, Leroy Anderson, others, featuring baritone Aaron Ellerbock.
March 15 (4 p.m., VCU) – Johann Strauss II: "On the Beautiful Blue Danube;" concerto TBA (Concert Competition winner); Berlioz: "Symphonie fantastique." (Pre-concert talk at 3 p.m.)
Interactive lecture-performance of "Symphonie fantastique," 7:30 p.m. March 9, location TBA.
May 3 (4 p.m., VCU) – Saint-Saëns: Bachannale from "Samson and Delilah;" Brahms: "Variations on a Theme of Haydn;” Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World"). (Pre-concert talk at 3 p.m.)
Educational concert, 7:30 p.m. May 4, Deep Run High School, Henrico County.
June 21 (6 p.m., Brandermill) – "Just for Fun" pops concert, with music by Grieg, Bizet, Copland, Sousa, Henry Mancini, Duke Ellington, others.
Information: (804) 673-7400.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Review: Daedalus Quartet
Sept. 13, Virginia Commonwealth University, Rchmond
Baring the soul is one thing. Baring the soul and the id is something else altogether, as one discovers in Leoš Janáček’s Second String Quartet (“Intimate Letters”), a tonal diary of the elderly composer’s unconsummated fixation with a much younger woman. There is no other music quite like this. It is not a stylization of physical passion, along the lines of Wagner’s "Tristan und Isolde" or Schoenberg’s "Verklärte Nacht," but an unvarnished expression of spiritual and carnal longing. One can listen to it without feeling like a voyeur, but just barely.
The Daedalus Quartet, a youngish New York ensemble (now in its ninth season), opened the 2008-09 season of Virginia Commonwealth University Rennolds Chamber Concerts with a program centered on the Janáček. The foursome – violinists (and siblings) Kyo-Young Kim and Min-Young Kim, violist Jessica Thompson and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan – delivered a torrid, fiercely concentrated reading of “Intimate Letters” in which high-romantic melodies and Moravian folk-dance rhythms were woven with rarified sound effects and crashing tone clusters without loss of coherence or continuity, in a stream of hyper-consciousness.
Such a memorable performance of such a singularly jolting piece should have overshadowed the rest of the program. Remarkably, though, the Daedalus returned after intermission with an equally absorbing interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 13.
The group played up the turbulence of the first movement (a miniature pre-echo of Mendelssohn’s "Hebrides" Overture), but made its strongest impressions in the variants of the sweetly noble song "Frage" that recur throughout the quartet. Min-Young Kim’s solo statement of the tune in the opening of the intermezzo was a model of sentiment without overstatement, and the group answered in kind in its treatment of subsequent developments of the theme.
The program opened with Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3. That key signature brought out some of the stormiest yet emotionally deep music produced by Haydn, Mozart and other composers of the classical period, and this quartet offers performers some depths to plumb. The Daedalus, however, skimmed along its surface, playing with elegance and transparency but without much energy or tension. It was Haydn without surprises, which isn’t really Haydn.
Baring the soul is one thing. Baring the soul and the id is something else altogether, as one discovers in Leoš Janáček’s Second String Quartet (“Intimate Letters”), a tonal diary of the elderly composer’s unconsummated fixation with a much younger woman. There is no other music quite like this. It is not a stylization of physical passion, along the lines of Wagner’s "Tristan und Isolde" or Schoenberg’s "Verklärte Nacht," but an unvarnished expression of spiritual and carnal longing. One can listen to it without feeling like a voyeur, but just barely.
The Daedalus Quartet, a youngish New York ensemble (now in its ninth season), opened the 2008-09 season of Virginia Commonwealth University Rennolds Chamber Concerts with a program centered on the Janáček. The foursome – violinists (and siblings) Kyo-Young Kim and Min-Young Kim, violist Jessica Thompson and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan – delivered a torrid, fiercely concentrated reading of “Intimate Letters” in which high-romantic melodies and Moravian folk-dance rhythms were woven with rarified sound effects and crashing tone clusters without loss of coherence or continuity, in a stream of hyper-consciousness.
Such a memorable performance of such a singularly jolting piece should have overshadowed the rest of the program. Remarkably, though, the Daedalus returned after intermission with an equally absorbing interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 13.
The group played up the turbulence of the first movement (a miniature pre-echo of Mendelssohn’s "Hebrides" Overture), but made its strongest impressions in the variants of the sweetly noble song "Frage" that recur throughout the quartet. Min-Young Kim’s solo statement of the tune in the opening of the intermezzo was a model of sentiment without overstatement, and the group answered in kind in its treatment of subsequent developments of the theme.
The program opened with Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3. That key signature brought out some of the stormiest yet emotionally deep music produced by Haydn, Mozart and other composers of the classical period, and this quartet offers performers some depths to plumb. The Daedalus, however, skimmed along its surface, playing with elegance and transparency but without much energy or tension. It was Haydn without surprises, which isn’t really Haydn.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Paley: back to basics
Alexander Paley, the Russian-émigré pianist who in 1998 launched a Richmond music festival on his own initiative and with no local institutional support, was ready to call it quits last fall at the end of a
poorly attended 10th anniversary installment.Paley changed his mind over the winter. His frustration over organizational and financial difficulties that plagued the 2007 festival gradually gave way to a desire to continue an event that gives him free rein in program content and in choosing artistic collaborators – a luxury rarely enjoyed by musicians who work mainly as guest soloists – as well as a desire to continue performing in a city that, he says, "taught me a lot of what I know and love about America."
Timely encouragement to return to Richmond came from Linus Ellis, music director at First English Lutheran Church, where Paley’s festival had been staged from 2002 through 2006. Ellis assumed the logistical responsibilities of a board that dissolved after last fall’s festival. Another key helper is Alexander Brusilovsky, the piano technician who will tune and maintain the Blüthner instrument brought in for the festival.
This season's concerts, Sept. 26-28, will focus on German romantic music: Schumann’s three piano sonatas, played by Paley; works for piano four-hands by Schumann and Weber, played by Paley and his wife, Pei-Wen Chen; and small-scaled chamber works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Reinecke, featuring Paley’s longtime collaborators, clarinetist Charles West and violinist Kathy Judd, along with French horn player Patrick Smith and cellist Clyde Thomas Shaw.
"This is music that I love," Paley says, "music of great expression and programs on an intimate scale," which he believes have always been the festival’s strongest suit. "This is the way, I think, for this festival to begin again."
Performances will be at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26 and Saturday, Sept. 27, and at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28. First English Lutheran Church is located at Stuart Circle (Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street). Admission is by donation.
For information, call the church at (804) 355-9185, or visit http://personal3.stthomas.edu/mmshvartsman/paleyfest.html
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Another prize for Wadsworth
Richmond native Zachary Wadsworth, a doctoral student at Cornell University, has won Chamber Music Rochester's
2007-08 College Young Composer Competition.Wadsworth's winning entry, his String Quartet No. 2 (2006), will receive a $1,000 award and a performance during the 2009-10 season of Chamber Music Rochester, an ensemble composed of members of the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic and the Eastman School of Music.
The 25-year-old composer was the winner of the ASCAP Lotte Lehmann Foundation Art Song Competition in 2007 and was the recipient of three Morton Gould Young Composers Awards from ASCAP and the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other awards and commissions.
Here's my profile of Wadsworth from last January in Style Weekly:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=16007
Ruth Ann Skinner (1934-2008)
Ruth Ann Skinner, a former violist in the Richmond Symphony and Roanoke Symphony, has died in Atlanta at the age of 74.
Mrs. Skinner, who grew up in Richmond, was a graduate of Hollins College and studied theology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She served on the boards of trustees of Collegiate Schools in Richmond and Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC, and was active in civic and church groups in Atlanta.
Monday, September 8, 2008
"Funny compared to 'Tosca,' not funny compared to 'Duck Soup' "
Woody Allen directs, and partially rewrites, Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/arts/music/08trit.html
Friday, September 5, 2008
Meet the maestros
The six candidates for music director of the Richmond Symphony appearing this season will be introduced to patrons in cocktail receptions at glavé kocen gallery, 1620 W. Main St.
The first of the series, introducing Mikhail Agrest, will be on Sept. 17. Subsequent events will feature Daniel Meyer, Oct. 8; Steven Smith, Nov.12; Marc Taddei, Jan. 14; Arthur Post, Feb.18; and Dorian Wilson, March 4. All will run from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
The receptions are sponsored by the gallery, Dominion, Seasons Fine Catering and Barboursville Vineyards. Tickets are $60 per person, or $300 for the series.
For information and purchases, call Allison Rollison at (804) 788-4717, ext. 16.
Suffocation by tuxedo?
"The overarching problem of classical music is the tuxedo," The New Yorker's Alex Ross asserts in a book review-essay on the evolution of modern classical concert formatting and etiquette, producing what Ross calls "a culture of conformity encircling an art of untrammelled personal expression":
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/09/08/080908crmu_music_ross
Nutshell counter-argument: Uniform (boring, anonymous) concert attire directs attention away from performers and toward the music. That's also the case for quiet audiences and for visually undistracting, dimly lit performance spaces with good climate control and comfortable seating.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Elsewhere
New music to listen for this fall, in print in Style Weekly, online at:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=17658&letmein=1
(Scroll down for my piece.)
#108
"Appearing to Enjoy Classical Music" hits the charts at No. 108 on the über-hip blog Stuff White People Like:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/09/01/108-appearing-to-enjoy-classical-music/
Monday, September 1, 2008
Two Wagners beat one
Half-sisters Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier will succeed their father, Wolfgang, at the helm of the Bayreuth Festival, turning back a bid (or foiling a coup?) by Wolfgang's niece, Nike Wagner, and Gerard Mortier, incoming general director of the New York City Opera. The New York Times' Daniel J. Wakin sorts out the latest twist in this longest-running of opera soaps:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/arts/music/02bayr.html?hp
September 2008 calendar
Classical performances in and around Richmond, with selected events elsewhere in Virginia and the Washington area. Program information, provided by presenters, is updated as details become available. Adult single-ticket prices are listed; senior, student, group and other discounts may be offered.
SCOUTING REPORT
* In Richmond: The Daedalus String Quartet, one of this country’s most highly touted young chamber ensembles, plays Haydn, Janáček and Mendelssohn in the 2008-09 opener of the Rennolds Chamber Concerts, Sept. 13 at Virginia Commonwealth University. . . . Mikhail Agrest, the young Russian conductor who’s first in line of nine candidates for music director of the Richmond Symphony, leads a Masterworks program highlighted by Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Sept. 19, 20 and 22 at three area churches, and launches the Kicked Back Classics series in its new venue, The National, Sept. Sept. 25 and 28. . . . Alexander Paley returns for the 11th year of his Richmond festival, playing Schumann’s three piano sonatas and, with spouse and piano four hands partner Pei-Wen Chen and friends, music of Weber, Schubert, Reinecke and Brahms, Sept. 26-28 at First English Lutheran Church.
* New and/or different: eighth blackbird reprising works from its Grammy Award-winning album “Strange Imaginary Animals,” with remixes by sound designer Dennis DeSantis, Sept. 17 at the University of Richmond. . . . Michael Mulcahy playing Christopher Rouse’s Trombone Concerto (which won Rouse the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for music) with Agrest and the Richmond Symphony, Sept. 19, 20 and 22. . . . Contemporary works by Eric Moe, Giovanni Sollima and Lou Harrison – plus an improvisation for violin and amplified cardboard tube – alongside Schoenberg and Berg, Mozart and Beethoven, Reger and Enescu, in Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival programs, Sept. 7, 11, 14, 18 and 21 at the University of Virginia. . . . Richmond-bred composer Mason Bates’ “Rusty Air in Carolina,” reprised by the Virginia Symphony with Robert Moody, the conductor who led the 2006 premiere of this tone poem for orchestra and electronica, Sept. 27 at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, Sept. 28 at Christopher Newport University in Newport News.
* Star turns: Elizabeth Futral stars in the Washington National Opera’s season-opening production of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Sept. 13, 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30 (and more dates in October) at the Kennedy Center (many dates already sold out). . . . Violinist-conductor Itzhak Perlan, violist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Alisa Weilerstein play Mozart and Tchaikovsky in the season-opening gala of Washington’s National Symphony, Sept. 20 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The celebrated young violinist Jennifer Koh performs at the Charlottesville Chamber Festival, Sept. 11 at U.Va., and plays Saint-Saëns with the Virginia Symphony, Sept. 27-28 in Norfolk and Newport News.
* Bargains of the month: The Paley Festival, Sept. 26-28 at First English Lutheran. Admission by donation.
* My picks: The Daedalus Quartet, Sept. 13 at VCU. . . . eighth blackbird and DeSantis in “Strange Imaginary Remix,” Sept. 17 at UR. . . . Agrest, Mulcahey and the Richmond Symphony, Sept. 20 at First Baptist Church (best acoustics of the three Masterworks venues). . . . The Washington National Opera production of Bizet’s delightful and rarely staged “The Pearl Fishers,” Sept. 20, 22, 25 and 28 at the Kennedy Center (more dates in October). . . . The Paley Festival’s German romantic cornucopia, Sept. 26-28 at First English Lutheran.
Sept. 7 (3 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival:
Soovin Kim & Timothy Summers, violins
Joel Hunter & Nokuthula Ngwenyama, violas
Raphael Bell & Konstantin Pfiz, cellos
David Cossin, percussion
Cossin-Summers: “Improvisations for Violin and Amplified Cardboard Tube”
Giovanni Sollima: “Spasimo” for solo cello, string trio and percussion
Brahms: Viola Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111
$16-$22
(434) 295-5395
http://www.cvillechambermusic.org/
Sept. 11 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival:
Matthew Hunt, clarinet
Jennifer Koh & Timothy Summers, violins
Joel Hunter, viola
Raphael Bell & Konstantin Pfiz, cellos
Benjamin Hochman, piano
Berg: Adagio from “Kammermusik” for violin, clarinet and piano
Richard Strauss: “Two Pieces” for piano quartet
Beethoven: String Trio in C minor, Op. 9
Mozart: Clarinet Quintet
$16-$22
(434) 295-5395
http://www.cvillechambermusic.org/
Sept. 11 (8 p.m.)
Sept. 12 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Richard Kaufman conducting
“Nights at the Movies: Classical Hollywood”
$20-$65
(800) 44401324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 13 (6 p.m.)
Heritage Amphitheater, Pocahontas State Park, 10301 State Park Road, Chesterfield County
Richmond Symphony
Erin Freeman conducting
Family program TBA
Free
(804) 788-1212
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/
Sept. 13 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Rennolds Chamber Concerts:
Daedalus String Quartet
Haydn: Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3
Janáček: Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”)
Mendelssohn: Quartet in A major, Op. 13
$32
(804) 828-6776
www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/music/concerts/events.html?School=Arts&Dept=Music
Sept. 13 (8 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Sept. 14 (2:30 p.m.)
Sandler Arts Center, 201 S. Market St., Virginia Beach
Sept. 19 (8 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falletta conducting
Copland: “El Salón Mexico”
Dohnányi: Suite in F sharp minor
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Ian Parker, piano
$23-$83
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/
Sept. 13 (7 p.m.)
Sept. 18 (7:30 p.m.)
Sept. 21 (2 p.m.)
Sept. 24 (7:30 p.m.)
Sept. 27 (7:30 p.m.)
Sept. 30 (7:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Dan Ettinger conducting
Verdi: “La Traviata”
Elizabeth Futral (Violetta)
Arturo Chacón-Cruz (Alfredo)
Lado Ataneli (Giorgio Germont)
Margaret Thompson (Flora)
Marta Domingo, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$45-$600 (limited availability)
(800) 876-7372
http://www.dc-opera.org/
Sept. 14 (3 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival:
Júlia Gállego, flute
Matthew Hunt, clarinet
Jennifer Koh & Timothy Summers, violins
Raphael Bell, cello
Benjamin Hochman & Mimi Solomon, pianos
Schubert: Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands
Schoenberg-Webern: Chamber Symphony No. 1
Lou Harrison: Grand Duo for violin and piano
Eric Moe: “Time Will Tell”
$16-$22
(434) 295-5395
http://www.cvillechambermusic.org/
Sept. 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
2008 Marian Anderson Award Recital:
Indira Mahajan, soprano
Pianist TBA
Program TBA
$18
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 17 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
eighth blackbird
Dennis DiSantis, sound design
“Strange Imaginary Remix,” live selections from “Strange Imaginary Animals” album with sound remixes
$20
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/
Sept. 17 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Symphonic Wind Ensemble
Terry Austin directing
Program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/music/concerts/events.html?School=Arts&Dept=Music
Sept. 18 (8 p.m.)
St. Bede Catholic Church, 3686 Ironbound Road, Williamsburg
Sept. 20 (8 p.m.)
Regent University Theatre, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falletta conducting
Rossini: “The Barber of Seville” Overture
Kenneth Fuchs: “Canticle of the Sun” (2005)
David Wick, French horn
Guitar concerto TBA
Guitar Competition winner TBA
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”)
$26-$46
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/
Sept. 19 (8 p.m.)
Second Baptist Church, River and Gaskins roads, Richmond
Sept. 20 (8 p.m.)
First Baptist Church, Boulevard at Monument Avenue, Richmond
Sept. 22 (8 p.m.)
St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road, Glen Allen
Richmond Symphony
Mikhail Agrest conducting
Verdi: “La Forza del Destino” Overture
Christopher Rouse: Trombone Concerto (1993)
Michael Mulcahy, trombone
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
$20-$50
(804) 788-1212
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/
Sept. 20 (7 p.m.)
Sept. 22 (7 p.m.)
Sept. 25 (7:30 p.m.)
Sept. 28 (2 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Giuseppe Grazioli conducting
Bizet: “The Pearl Fishers”
Norah Amsellem (Leïla)
Charles Castronovo (Nadir)
Trevor Scheunemann (Zurga)
Denis Sedov (Nourabad)
Andrew Sinclair, stage direction
in French, English captions
$45-$300
(800) 876-7372
http://www.dc-opera.org/
Sept. 18 (8 p.m.)
Williamsburg Library Theatre, 515 Scotland St.
Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg:
Claremont Piano Trio
Debussy: Piano Trio in G major
Beethoven: Piano Trio in G major, Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu”
Brahms: Piano Trio in C major, Op. 87
$15 (waiting list)
(757) 229-2901
http://www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org/
Sept. 18 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival
Júlia Gállego, flute
Jesse Mills & Timothy Summers, violins
Dov Scheindlin, viola
Raphael Bell, cello
Mimi Solomon, piano
Weber: Trio in G minor for flute, cello and piano
Reger: Serenade for flute, violin and viola
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat major
$16-$22
(434) 295-5395
http://www.cvillechambermusic.org/
Sept. 18 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra Pops
John Nardolillo conducting
Arlo Guthrie, guest star
$20-$65
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 19 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Department of Music Family Weekend Concert
Program TBA
Free
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/
Sept. 20 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Fairfax Symphony
Paul Haas conducting
Joshua Penman: “Songs the Plants Taught Us” (2004)
Rachmaninoff: “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”
Alexander Ghindin, piano
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
$25-$55
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.fairfaxsymphony.org/
Sept. 20 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Itzhak Perlman conducting
Glinka: “Russlan and Ludmilla” Overture
Johann Strauss II: “Wiener Blut”
Tchaikovsky: “Rococo Variations”
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Pinchas Zukerman, viola
Ravel: “Boléro”
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 21 (3 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Virginia Symphony
Matthew Kraemer conducting
“Orchestra Games” family concert
$9-$22
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/
Sept. 21 (3 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival:
Jennifer Frautschi, Colin Jacobsen, Jesse Mills & Timothy Summers, violins
Nicholas Cords & Dov Scheindlin, violas
Raphael Bell & Edward Arron, cellos
Janáček: String Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer Sonata”)
Enescu: String Octet, Op. 7
Mozart: String Quartet in D minor, K. 421
$16-$22
(434) 295-5395
http://www.cvillechambermusic.org/
Sept. 23 (7:30 p.m.)
American Theatre, 125 E. Mellen St., Hampton
St. Petersburg String Quartet
Maxim Mogilevsky, piano
Program TBA
$25-$30
(757) 722-2787
www.hamptonarts.net/american_theatre
Sept. 25 (6:30 p.m.)
Sept. 28 (4 p.m.)
The National, 708 E. Broad St., Richmond
Kicked Back Classics:
Richmond Symphony
Mikhail Agrest conducting
“The Music Effect,” program TBA
$10-$17
(804) 788-1212
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/
Sept. 25 (7 p.m.)
Sept. 26 (8 p.m.)
Sept. 27 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra Pops
Marvin Hamlisch conducting
Linda Eder, vocalist
Songs of Judy Garland
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 26 (8 p.m.)
First English Lutheran Church, Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street (Stuart Circle), Richmond
Alexander Paley Music Festival:
Alexander Paley, piano
Alexander Paley & Pei-Wen Chen, piano four hands
Charles West, clarinet
Patrick Smith, horn
Kathy Judd, violin
Schumann: Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor
Reinecke: Trio, Op. 274, for clarinet, horn and piano
Brahms: Horn Trio
Weber: eight pieces, Op. 60, for piano four hands
Donation requested
(804) 355-9185
Sept. 26 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Guitar Series:
Dennis Koster, flamenco guitar
Program TBA
$5
(Free master class, 11 a.m. Sept. 27, Room B-15, Singleton Center)
(804) 828-6776
www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/music/concerts/events.html?School=Arts&Dept=Music
Sept. 27 (8 p.m.)
First English Lutheran Church, Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street (Stuart Circle), Richmond
Alexander Paley Music Festival:
Alexander Paley, piano
Alexander Paley & Pei-Wen Chen, piano four hands
Charles West, clarinet
Kathy Judd, violin
Clyde Thomas Shaw, cello
Schumann: Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor
Schumann: “Fantasiestücke,” Op. 73, for clarinet and piano
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49
Schubert: Piano Trio in B flat major, Op. 99
Weber: six “Pieces faciles” for piano four hands
Donation requested
(804) 355-9185
Sept. 27 (8 p.m.)
Sept. 28 (3:30 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra
Kate Tamarkin conducting
Argentino: “Valentino Dances”
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra
Max Rabinovitsj, violin
Ayn Balija, viola
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
$10-$35
(434) 924-3984
http://www.cvillesymphony.org/
Sept. 27 (8 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Sept. 28 (2:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Virginia Symphony
Robert Moody conducting
Mason Bates: “Rusty Air in Carolina”
Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto No. 3
Jennifer Koh, violin
Berlioz: “Symphonie fantastique”
$23-$83
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/
Sept. 27 (2 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Anna Vinnitskaya, piano
Gubaidulina: Chaconne
Medtner: “Sonata Reminiscenza,” Op. 38, No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 36
Liszt: Sonata in B minor
$40
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
http://www.wpas.org/
Sept. 28 (3:30 p.m.)
First English Lutheran Church, Monument Avenue at Lombardy Street (Stuart Circle), Richmond
Alexander Paley Music Festival:
Alexander Paley, piano
Alexander Paley & Pei-Wen Chen, piano four hands
Charles West, clarinet
Schumann: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor (“Concerto Without Orchestra”)
Schumann: “Bilder aus Osten,” Op. 66 for piano four hands
Brahms: Sonata in E flat major, Op. 120, No. 2, for clarinet and piano
Weber: six “Pieces faciles,” Op. 3, for piano four hands
Donations requested
(804) 355-9185
Sept. 28 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Shunske Sato, violin
Tao Lin, piano
Lekeu: Sonata in G major
Fauré: Berceuse, Op. 16
Ravel: Tzigane
Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G major
$30
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedycenter.org/
Sept. 28 (4 p.m.)
St. Ann's Catholic Church, 4400 Wisconsin Ave. N.W., Washington
Paul Jacobs, organ
Dupré: Prelude and Fugue in B Major, Op. 7
Vierne: "Naiades," Op. 55, No. 4
Barber: Prelude and Fugue in B Minor (1928)
Sowerby: "Pageant"
Liszt: Fantasia and Fugue on "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam"
$10 donation suggested
(202) 966-6288