DC Opera takeover?

The Washington National Opera is currently in negotiations with the Kennedy Center on continued use of the center as its home venue.

The Wall Street Journal's Erica Orden is told the talks are turning to merger:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704532204575397620488218174.html

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette writes that "there are some who have suggested, even behind the scenes, that the Kennedy Center take over the financially troubled company." WNO President Kenneth R. Feinberg tells Midgette that "all options are on the table" . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072906601.html

What's being considered, apparently, is an administrative partnership similar to the one that exists between the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Unintentional mezzo joke

Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Andersson, the Swedish electro-pop duo known as The Knife, are introducing their opera "Tomorrow, in a Year" in London.

"I didn't have any knowledge of opera," Karin tells The Guardian's Priya Elan, and goes on to prove it by saying the piece is scored for "a mezzo-soprano, an opera singer and an actress" . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/28/knife-opera

. . . bringing to mind the old joke about a male vocal quartet being composed of "three men and a tenor."

Castleton's winning finale

The 2010 Castleton Festival, staged on Lorin and Dietlinde Maazel's estate in Rappahannock County, closed over the weekend with a double-bill of Igor Stravinsky's
"L'histoire du Soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale") and Manuel de Falla's "Master Pedro's Puppet Show."

Here's a review of the productions by The Washington Post's Anne Midgette:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502616.html

* * *

The New York Times reports that Lorin Maazel was paid $3.3 million in his last season (2008-09) as music director of the New York Philharmonic. His earnings from the Castleton Festival? Zero.

In 1999, then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told Virginians that they should gratefully accept the city's garbage in this state's commercial landfills because, as he said on PBS' NewsHour, "we're a cultural center, because we're a business center. . . . So this is a reciprocal relationship."

Reciprocally, then, the big bucks that New Yorkers paid for Maazel's services now subsidize a first-rate music festival in the hill country of Virginia.

Proms online

The Proms, the classical concert series staged each summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, is under way again, and the performances are being streamed online. The BBC's overview of the 2010 festival, which runs through Sept. 11, is here:

www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/

BBC3's broadcasts of the concerts (UK time is five hours ahead of US Eastern time) can be accessed here:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

Previous broadcasts are archived for one week here:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t02py/episodes/player

txt @ concert :(

At its recent Central Park concert with pianist Lang Lang and the Shanghai Symphony, the New York Philharmonic invited concertgoers to vote for an encore via text-messages. Voters got a reply offering a discount on the pianist's next recording and directing them to his Facebook page. Other such interactions have gotten texters offers of ticket discounts and solicitations for donations, Daniel J. Wakin reports in The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/arts/music/22text.html?_r=1&hp

Am I the only one feeling nostalgic about "please turn off your electronic devices?"

ANOTHER VIEW: Highbrow groups, "which we'd wager are struggling just as much as any other sector in this economy, are no longer willing to thumb their noses at cell phone spam if it means any kind of positive return," Matthew Zuras writes for the online magazine Switched:

http://www.switched.com/2010/07/23/fancy-orchestra-goers-disturbed-by-lowly-text-marketing/

'Last man standing'

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette interviews Klaus Heymann, founder and CEO of Naxos, who aims to be "the last man standing" in the business of recording classical music:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/2010/07/the_future_of_the_recording_in.html#more

Note Heymann's remarks on the recession: "The 2008 recession hit manufacturing. People in manufacturing don’t buy classical music. . . . But in the [U.S.], if they start firing school teachers and government employees, that will affect classical music sales."

BACKLOG: Naxos has "149 orchestral recordings in the pipeline now; 174 chamber music, 148 instrumental, 85 vocal/choral. More than 700 in all. I told my staff not to take on new projects for a year, maybe a year and a half," Heymann tells The Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/2010/07/naxos_founder_klaus_heymann_up.html

Charles Mackerras (1925-2010)

Charles Mackerras, the conductor esteemed for his mastery of orchestral and operatic repertory from the baroque to the modern, has died at the age of 84.

Born in Schenectady, NY, to Australian parents, Mackerras was reared, received his early music education and began his career as an oboist in Australia. He moved to Great Britain in 1947, and subsequently studied conducting with Vaclav Talich in Prague.

He remained an authority on Czech music, notably the operas of Leos Janáček, throughout his career. He was also among the leading interpreters of Handel and Mozart in the opera house and concert hall.

Mackerras was one of the first conductors to alternate freely between modern- and period-instruments ensembles, and one of the first "mainstream" musical figures to apply historically informed performance practices to 19th-century repertory – for example, leading Brahms’ symphonies with the smaller orchestra that the composer would have known in his lifetime.

Mackerras was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, but continued to perform. He had been scheduled to conduct two concerts this summer in the Proms series in London.

An obituary by The Guardian’s Matthew Weaver:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/15/conductor-charles-mackerras-dies

Alan Blyth, who died in 2007, left this more extensive obituary, also published by The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/15/sir-charles-mackerras-obituary

All nine

The Guardian's Tom Service mulls the musician and listener stamina required for a marathon performance of all nine Beethoven symphonies by conductor Martyn Brabbins and the Salomon Orchestra:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jul/13/brabbins-beethoven-nine-symphonies

H.L. Mencken and his friends in Baltimore's Saturday Evening Music Club thought they had to answer to getting through all nine: plenty of beer. They made it through the Sixth, but then . . .

Un-Policed

Sting, when he was lead singer of the rock band The Police, had to be discreet about his love of classical music. "It was frowned upon, and that’s the whole ridiculous premise of rock 'n' roll becoming this Taliban-esque, closed thing. 'You can’t do that, you can’t do that.' What’s the spirit of rock 'n' roll except freedom," he wonders aloud to The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/music/13sting.html?ref=music

The un-Policed Sting sings orchestrated versions of his songs (soon to be released on disc) tonight and tomorrow with the Royal Philharmonic at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. With his wife, Trudie Styler, Sting recently performed in "Twin Spirits," a theater piece on Robert and Clara Schumann.

* * *

Rufus Wainwright, a second-generation pop singer-songwriter (son of Loudon Wainwright III and the late Kate McGarrigle), recently introduced his opera "Prima Donna" in Canada.

He recalls being introduced to the art form in his teenage: "[I]t was as if I was being poisoned, or virused or developing scales. My whole body was shifting, and by the end I knew that opera was my main squeeze. It became my religion and my language," Wainwright tells Marcia Adair in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-rufus-wainwright-20100711,0,4487567.story

Waiting for Boulez

The Guardian's Tom Service outs the rumor that Pierre Boulez will write an opera on Samuel Becket's "Waiting for Godot" . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jul/09/pierre-boulez-opera-waiting-for-godot

. . . begging the obvious question: Is that a threat or a promise?

Fading to black

Musicians of the bankrupt, in-limbo Honolulu Symphony have rejected a "best and final contract offer" that would effectively reduce their incomes by 92 percent, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports:

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/98218374.html

The Richardson (TX) Symphony, a part-time orchestra currently running a $100,000 deficit on a $700,000 operating budget, is "pushing players to sign a new non-union contract by Thursday [July 15]," Scott Cantrell reports in The Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/071010dngdrso.1a72a75.html

And then there’s the Charleston (SC) Symphony, another in-limbo operation, which tried and failed to persuade its musicians to accept pay cuts of more than 80 percent.

Do three episodes make a trend? If so, the trend here seems to be conversion of extant orchestras into pickup bands – with freelancers hired as needed, concert-by-concert – and/or conversion of professional orchestras into semi-pro (soon to be amateur?) orchestras.

Merchants and manufacturers may shrink their ways through hard times successfully. Not so symphony orchestras and other labor-intensive performing-arts groups. Fading to black, as opposed to just shutting down, wastes resources and discourages audiences and patrons, making some future revival or the formation of successor groups that much harder.

Choral director sought

The Central Virginia Masterworks Chorale of Ashland is seeking a new director to begin work in the fall.

The chorus, which has about 40 members, presents two concerts a year, as well as short performances at various community events. It rehearses on Monday nights from mid-August to December and mid-January to May.

Applications for the director's post are due by Aug. 15, and may be submitted to: billo165@aol.com Finalists will be invited to audition with the chorus' search committee.

For more information on the chorus, visit its website at: www.cvamc.org

A virtual composer

The Observer's Tim Adams profiles David Cope, the composer-turned-programmer of "Emily Howell," his compositional computer code. "People tell me they don't hear soul in the music. When they do that, I pull out a page of notes and ask them to show me where the soul is," Cope says:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/11/david-cope-computer-composer

Highbrow hipsters?

The median age of the classical audience – 49, according to recent research by the League of American Orchestras and the National Endowment for the Arts – is lower than the median age of prime-time television viewers, Alex Ross notes:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2010/07/classical-music-younger-hipper-than-latenight-tv.html

Being slightly younger than TV grazers may or may not make highbrows "hipper," as Ross contends. Depends on how one defines highbrow and hip.

Unwieldy instruments in the news

John Adams looks into the works of the bandoneón, the accordion cousin played by Astor Piazzolla and other Argentine tango masters: "[I]t has a single push-button for each pitch—33 for the left hand and 38 for the right, a total of 71 buttons. The player cannot see these buttons while playing, and their physical arrangement is a confusing matrix that, at least on first encounter, seems to defy logic. . . . [T]he buttons change pitch depending on whether the bellows are being opened or closed. AND the left hand is tuned to F while the right hand is tuned to G. Got it? It’s enough to make you wonder if all those military coups in Argentina weren’t carried out by frustrated bandoneón players who’d gone postal trying to figure out the instrument."

Plus, it weighs 22 pounds:

http://www.earbox.com/posts/91

* * *

In The Washington Post, Anne Midgette samples the American Guild of Organists' convention in DC this week:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070704949.html

The organ, Midgette observes, is "big, temperamental, idiosyncratic. Its performers play with feet and hands, balanced like bugs on a narrow seat before multiple keyboards, one above the other. And those performers have to adapt to the instrument. One organ may have three manuals (or keyboards), another five, and each has its own panoply of stops – that is, buttons on the console that enable a player to choose a range of sounds to blend in different parts of the piece."

* * *

Joseph Bertolozzi, who "hammered on I-beams and guardrails, whacked thick cables, sent steel pellets down the inside of a bridge tower" of the Roosevelt Bridge near Poughkeepsie, NY, for his composition "Bridge Music," now proposes a similar project with the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The proposal is "being taken seriously" by Paris authorities, The New York Times reports:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/after-music-from-a-bridge-why-not-a-tower/

* * *

And a belated link to Don Harrison’s Style Weekly profile of Larry Robinson, maestro of what may be Richmond’s largest musical instrument, certainly its most highly elevated: the Carillon in Byrd Park:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=DB7D237D74E04C40992FB222DD380D26&AudID=C3A7C1EDE4E54E24AF4637F9AAFFD1B6

Where words leave off

The communicative and emotional power of music is felt by people even in a vegetative state, according to a study conducted by the Santa Anna Institute in Crotone, Italy. Wendy Zukerman reports in New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19123-classical-music-moves-the-heart-in-vegetative-patients.html

Modernity's adolescent

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Mahler. Many are marking the occasion as The Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith does, with a testimonial on the way that Mahler’s music proved to be life-changing:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/

Thinking back on my life and music’s role in it, I can’t say that Mahler was pivotal emotionally. Brahms, Bruckner, Nielsen and Vaughan Williams hit me at my most impressionable and vulnerable.

Mahler did provide my christening in large-scale symphonic music played to roof-rattling effect. As a not-quite-teenager, I saw and heard Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic in Mahler’s First Symphony at the old Mosque (now Landmark Theater) in Richmond. That performance was my first experience of being swept along in a torrent of orchestral sound.

Had puberty hit me a little sooner, or had Bernstein conducted the Mahler First here a little later, I very likely would hear – and feel – this composer quite differently. His music is about coming of age emotionally and spiritually, about viewing the present and anticipating the future through the lens of the past – perhaps a lens tinted by an imagined rather than real past.

The fundamental tension in Mahler comes from his brooding, impatiently breaking out of it, falling back in, breaking out – a cycle familiar to anyone who’s lived through adolescence.

Reading European history and listening to Mahler, it’s tempting to characterize him as the premier artistic adolescent of modernity. By the time Mahler came of age, all the key components and big differences of modern life were in place: rapidly advancing science and technology, urbanization, mobility, the withering of old roots, hierarchies and identities. Their consequences were beginning to be felt, and the sense that some great hammer was about to fall was widespread during Mahler’s working lifetime; but, dying in 1911, he didn’t live to experience the cataclysmic transformation of the old world into the new.

So, much like an adolescent going through the initiations of adulthood and obsessing on his doubts and anxieties, Mahler is all about anticipation, looking ahead with a mixture of hope and fear, looking back keenly sensitive to the loss of innocence, negotiating the present unsteadily, living as much or more in the imagination as in physical reality.

Listen to the final movement, the famous "dying away," of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, and then listen to Richard Strauss’ "Metamorphosen;" of, if you prefer, to "Der Abschied" from Mahler’s "Das Lied von der Erde" and then the "Four Last Songs" of Strauss. Both composers speak to the demise of the old order and the old way of life in the West; but Mahler does so in anticipation – i.e., in his imagination – and consequently with more ambiguity, while Strauss speaks more bluntly from eye-witness experience.

As the adolescent is a rough sketch of the adult, Mahler is a sketch of modernity, in both the musical and emotional-spiritual senses. Today’s listener knows what Mahler could only imagine; and so it is up to the listener to fill in the details, to clarify the colors and contours, of the picture.

With Mahler, as with few other composers, you have to invest your emotions and life experience to get the benefit of his.

Pianist faces pedophilia charge

Mikhail Pletnev, the pianist and founder and artistic director the Russian National Orchestra, has been charged with sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy in Thailand. The accusation, which Pletnev denies, stems from an investigation by Thai police of a suspected pedophile ring in the resort town of Pattaya, where the 53-year-old musician has a home and owns several businesses.

The Guardian's Tom Parfitt reports on the case:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/mikhail-pletnev-child-molesting-thailand

Cesare Siepi (1923-2010)

Cesare Siepi, the Italian bass who was the pre-eminent mid-20th century voice and figure of Don Giovanni in the Mozart opera, and also excelled in roles such as Mefistofeles in Gounod's "Faust" and Don Basilio in Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," has died at the age of 87.

An obituary by David Ng in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-cesare-siepi-20100706,0,7859813.story

On disc: Bruckner, differently

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic") – Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä (BIS 1746)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 – Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Paavo Järvi (RCA Red Seal 88697389972)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 – Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Paavo Järvi (RCA Red Seal 88697542572)

The customary aural vision of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, as bequeathed by Wilhelm Furtwängler, Eugen Jochum and other German Brucknerians of the early and mid-20th century, is expansive in tempo, declarative in tone, "mystical" (or, at least, mystique-susceptible) in conception. These new discs alter that sound-picture in significant ways.

The first interpretive choice that a conductor makes with Bruckner is textual: Which of several editions, or what combination of them, will be used for the performance?

For his Minnesota Orchestra recording of Bruckner’s Fourth ("Romantic") Symphony, Osmo Vänskä chooses the third version of 1888, long derided as "inauthentic" by musicologists but lately receiving more positive appraisals. Paavo Järvi, meanwhile, uses an edition by Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs in his recording of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. The Järvi-Frankfurt disc of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony uses the familiar Leopold Nowak edition.

What these choices mean, for the non-musicologist listener, is that the conductors opted for tightly constructed (well, tightly for Bruckner), less thematically rambling versions of these symphonies.

Not that we’re talking no-surprises Bruckner. Vänskä and the Minnesotans pace and articulate the Fourth almost as if it were Schubert – or even, at times, as if it were Haydn! This is one of the most vividly animated performances of a Bruckner symphony ever recorded; consequently it will strike some listeners as sounding less "romantic." The work stands up well to this brisk, rhythmically precise treatment, much better than Bruckner’s Third Symphony fared in a comparably crisp, animated reading that Vänskä recorded 10 years ago for Hyperion.

I wouldn’t make this my reference interpretation of the Fourth, but I’ll be tempted to make this BIS Super-Audio disc my reference recording of Bruckner in general. Järvi's Frankfurt discs are also Super-Audio, but not as strikingly "super" as the BIS recording.

Järvi and the Frankfurters – known at home as the HR (Hessischer Rundfunk) Sinfonie Orchester – gravitate in a slower, gentler direction, sublimating meter and treating long-breathed phrases, including brassy ones, with a high-romantic sighing character, more commonly heard in Wagner or Tchaikovsky. Järvi also tends to blur contrasts between fast and slow tempos, giving these symphonies a tone of voice that's more dreamy than dramatic.

This approach is more successful in the Seventh, which could have been called the "Romantic" had Bruckner not already given that title to the Fourth. The pronounced influence of Wagner on this symphony, both in phrasing and motific writing, is accentuated in Järvi’s interpretation. The Frankfurt horns breathe wondrously in the longer-than-usual notes and phrases required of them.

The notes for Järvi’s recording of the Bruckner Ninth say nothing about the Cohrs edition being used. Cohrs is a conductor and musicologist, co-editor since 1995 of the Anton Bruckner Complete Edition, of which this score, from 1998, is part. (He also participated in a "completion" of a final fourth movement for the Ninth Symphony, not played on this disc.) I haven’t parsed this version in comparison with others, but I hear no startling differences.

I do hear Järvi’s brand of expansiveness, and the orchestra’s refined and blended tone, sapping this music of much of its emotional intensity.

From ArkivMusic (Bruckner Fourth):
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?ordertag=Comprecom1598-494821&album_id=502943

From Amazon.com (Bruckner Fourth):
www.amazon.com/Symphony-No-4-Hybr-Bruckner/dp/B003PBYTA8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278436818&sr=1-1

From ArkivMusic (Bruckner Seventh):
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=1598&name_role1=1&comp_id=8323&bcorder=15&name_id=57504&name_role=3

From Amazon.com (Bruckner Seventh):
www.amazon.com/Bruckner-Symphony-No-SACD-HYBRID/dp/B001H26FZE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278436881&sr=1-1

From ArkivMusic (Bruckner Ninth):
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=1598&name_role1=1&comp_id=670&bcorder=15&name_id=57504&name_role=3

From Amazon.com (Bruckner Ninth):
www.amazon.com/Bruckner-Symphony-No-SACD-HYRBID/dp/B002K9C0Q6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278436881&sr=1-2

On disc: Gershwin via Grofé

Gershwin-Grofé: "Rhapsody in Blue," Piano Concerto in F major; Gershwin: "I Got Rhythm" Variations – Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop (Decca B0014091-02)

This disc will stir some Richmonders’ memories. On Oct. 17, 1988, Marin Alsop, at the time the Richmond Symphony’s newly minted assistant conductor, led a program of long-lost orchestrations of George Gershwin’s concert and show music. The highlight was the Piano Concerto in F major, as orchestrated by Ferde Grofé, who had orchestrated "Rhapsody in Blue" for its 1924 premiere with Paul Whiteman’s jazz band, and would produce the familiar symphonic orchestration of the rhapsody in the 1940s, after Gershwin’s death.

Alsop subsequently led a recording of the Grofé-orchestrated concerto, with pianist Leslie Stifelman, who had performed in the Richmond concert. (That 1993 EMI Classics disc is available on an ArkivMusic reissue: www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=167254)

Now, Alsop returns to the Gershwin-Grofé scores with her Baltimore Symphony and Jean-Yves Thibaudet as the piano soloist.

Thibaudet is the big-time concert pianist of choice for jazz and jazz-inflected compositions. His interpretations of Bill Evans and Duke Ellington echo in these performances, especially in Gershwin’s more lyrical material, which few pianists on record have phrased as flexibly. Thibaudet’s interpretive bent, as well as the rarely heard Grofé version of the Gershwin concerto, make this disc unique.

Grofé was working with an ensemble that was hardly a symphony orchestra; but Whiteman's group also was unlike later jazz bands in that it had strings and more "orchestral" wind choirs and percussion. The sound texture of the ensemble was edgier and more transparent than that of swing-era bands, and less plush than a symphony orchestra’s.

Gershwin exploited this hybrid orchestral sound in the rhapsody; but he had symphonic forces in mind when composing – and preparing his own orchestration of – the concerto. Grofé’s orchestration, made for Whiteman, was not approved by the composer, and went unplayed for more than 50 years after Gershwin’s death.

Thibaudet and Alsop make a persuasive case for the Grofé-orchestrated concerto; but this piece is almost certainly destined for a half-life as an alternative version (for one thing, few orchestras are going to bring in the extra saxophones it requires). It’s different enough, and Thibaudet’s interpretation is distinctive enough, to earn this disc shelf space alongside a standard version. (The vintage RCA Victor recordings by pianist Earl Wild with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops still pace the pack.)

The Thibaudet-Alsop readings of the "jazz-band" version of "Rhapsody in Blue" holds its own against competitors such as Michael Tilson Thomas (RCA and Sony Classical), Lincoln Mayorga (Harmonia Mundi) and Peter Donohoe (EMI Classics); and this production’s use of the original manuscript version of the "I Got Rhythm" Variations is a plus, albeit a minor one.

These recordings, from concerts last November at Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Hall, offer good concert-hall aural perspective.

From ArkivMusic:
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=4337&name_role1=1&comp_id=1093&bcorder=15&name_id=58841&name_role=3

From Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/Gershwin-Piano-Concerto-Rhapsody-Blue/dp/B0035F0MU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278429894&sr=1-1

Symphony Chorus auditions

The Richmond Symphony Chorus will audition singers on the evenings of Aug. 3 and 17 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Grove Avenue at Three Chopt Road.

The chorus, led by Erin R. Freeman, rehearses on Tuesday evenings at Richmond CenterStage downtown. Its repertory for the 2010-11 season includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and "Missa Solemnis," Holst’s "The Planets," Handel’s "Messiah" and opera choruses by Beethoven, Bizet and Verdi.

For audition requirements and other information, visit www.richmondsymphony.com and click on "Get Involved." The deadline for submitting an audition request is July 23.

On disc: 'Drottningholm Music'

Johan Helmich Roman: "Drottningholmsmusiken (Music for a Royal Wedding)" – Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Manze (BIS 1062)

Over the last half-century, one of the most agreeable bodies of music to be (re)introduced to the repertory is the baroque orchestral suite – basically, a decorous overture followed by a suite of dance tunes.

Listeners’ exposure to this form once was limited to occasional performances of one of the four suites by Bach – usually the Third, home of "Air on a G String" – and Handel’s "Water Music" and "Royal Fireworks Music," typically in Hamilton Harty’s symphonic arrangements. More recently, especially since 1980 or so, we’ve been introduced to "overtures" and dance suites from theater works by Purcell, Telemann, Heinchen, Zelenka, Lully, Rameau, Gluck and a host of other composers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

This is not, for the most part, Great Music. A lot of it, however, is ingenious music, full of unexpected twists, raucous bursts of energy, atmospheric effects, emotional affect. It can tootle along pleasantly in the background – as it typically was written to do – but there is enough going on to engage listeners’ imaginations, and certainly to get their toes tapping.

I’ve often prescribed baroque orchestral suites as a musical purgative for summer heat. They are light-textured, rarely dwell on dark tone colors, have the kind of melodies you might sing and the kind of rhythms you might dance to (assuming you could get sarabande and gavotte lessons.)

Violinist-conductor Andrew Manze and the Helsingborg Symphony have released a new recording (BIS 1602) of one of my favorite baroque suites: Johann Helmich Roman’s "Drottningholm Music," a large collection of processional pieces and dances written in 1744 for the multi-day wedding festivities of Crown Prince Adolf Frederik of Sweden and Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia.

Even if we didn’t have written accounts of the occasion, Roman’s music could tell us that this was a truly over-the-top fancy dress, high-courtly event, among the most lavish of the time. (Also quite the crowd scene – the couple apparently were expected to meet everyone who mattered in Sweden, aristos and commoners alike.)

Much of this took place on or within sight of water, and Roman gave a liquid quality to rhythms, bass lines, even some harmonies, in his dances. The "Drottningholm Music" sounds more consistently "afloat" than Handel’s "Water Music" or the several water-related suites that Telemann wrote for Hamburg.

The Manze performance is less bouyant, at least in the representationally liquid sense, than the recording that introduced me to this music, a 1982 disc of Claude Génetay’s arrangement of the suite with the Chamber Orchestra of the National Museum, Stockholm (Polar Music 361 – out of print but obtainable on the used-disc market).

Génetay emphasizes the rhythmic swing of this music, almost as if the suite were a set of variations on a barcarolle. Manze adorns pieces with more high-baroque touches – rhythmic pointing, ornamentation, heightened affectus in phrasing and harmonic emphasis – at some cost to the "grooves" that Génetay mined from Roman.

The Helsingborg orchestra, like Génetay’s Stockholm ensemble, is a modern-instruments band; but under Manze’s direction, the Helsingborgers are more attuned to historically informed performance practices. Their blend and timbres are barely distinguishable from those of period-instruments bands.

Sound and production quality are up to the BIS standard – a realistic, brightly resonant room acoustic, very high fidelity. This is a standard-digital, not super-audio, release, but it’s hard to imagine it sounding appreciably better.

If you don’t know the "Drottningholm Music," Manze and Helsingborg offer a highly listenable and sonically brilliant introduction.

From ArkivMusic:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=10296&name_role1=1&comp_id=14752&bcorder=15&name_id=20201&name_role=3

From Amazon.com:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=10296&name_role1=1&comp_id=14752&bcorder=15&name_id=20201&name_role=3

Sing along with the tsar

On Sunday, throughout the United States, bands and orchestras will mark the Fourth of July by playing Tchaikovsky’s "1812 Overture." Celebrating our Independence Day with a musical depiction of the victory of tsarist Russia over Napoleon's invading army is a pretty weird practice – and the standard follow-up, John Philip Sousa’s "The Stars and Stripes Forever," doesn’t really mitigate the weirdness.

How about an arrangement of the old American folk song "Bonaparte's Retreat" between the Tchaikovsky and Sousa?

Anyway, the "1812" on the Fourth represents This Great Country of Ours at its pragmatic best: Until some homegrown composer and/or pyrotechnician comes up with a better musical platform for firing artillery and shooting off fireworks, this will do.

It would be nice to hear the choral version more often. Tchaikovsky's quotations of the Russian anthems "God Save the Tsar" and "God Protect Thy People" really hit the spot when they're sung.

POSTSCRIPT: The Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith proposes rewriting the overture "so that the structure and length stay the same, along with as much as the original musical material as possible, but all French and Russian allusions are transformed into appropriate British and American counterparts. No more 'Marseillaise.' No more Russian hymns." . . .

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/2010/06/wanted_an_1812_overture_to_cal.html#more

. . . so we'd hear "God Save the Queen" vs. "My Country 'Tis of Thee" . . . no, wait, same tune . . . or "To Anacreon in Heaven" vs. "The Star-Spangled Banner" . . . oops, same tune again . . . "Rule Brittania" vs. "The Battle of New Orleans?" Umm . . .

Until we grow our own "1812" (paging John Williams?), I think we'd better stick with undoctored Tchaikovsky.

Coming attraction

The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt reviews "Mahler on the Couch," by the German film-makers Percy and Felix Adlon, dramatizing the tempestuous marriage of Gustav and Alma Mahler in the midst of a "crowded cocktail party of famous names" – Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, Walter Gropius – in fin de siècle Vienna:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/mahler-on-the-couch-film-review-1004100365.story

Coming soon to a theater near you? Probably not; wait for the DVD.

Catchy numbers

Jay Kennedy of Britain's University of Manchester posits that Plato composed his dialogues "according to a 12-note musical scale, attributed to Pythagoras," Julian Baggini reports in The Guardian . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/plato-mathematical-musical-code

. . . which prompts Tom Service, The Guardian's classical-music blogger, to survey composers, from Bach to John Zorn, who've coded their music numerically:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jul/01/composers-clandestine-codes-plato

One of the catchiest, yet bummer, numbers in music is the minor third. Research by Meagan Curtis of Tufts University's Music Cognition Lab finds that this interval conveys sadness in both music and speech. Ferris Jabr reports in Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=music-and-speech-share-a-code-for-c-2010-06-17

CAUTION: Do not try to make Pythagorean sense of that graphic. Chaos theory might work, though.

July 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/youth, group and other discounts may be offered.

SCOUTING REPORT

* Away: Virginia’s classical center of gravity shifts west and north this month, to: Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival of opera and symphonic music, opening July 2 with Puccini’s "Il Trittico," continuing through July 25 with stagings of Britten’s "The Turn of the Screw" and his version of "The Beggar’s Opera," a double-bill of Igor Stravinsky’s "L’histoire du soldat" ("The Soldier’s Tale") and Manuel de Falla’s "Master Pedro’s Puppet Show," and four orchestra concerts, at Castleton Farms, about 20 miles northwest of Culpeper in Rappahannock County. . . . The summer chamber-music festival at Garth Newel Music Center in Bath County, opening July 3 with a French program and July 4 with violinist-fiddler Mark O’Connor, continuing through the month with chamber programs on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. . . . Ash Lawn Opera’s productions of Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" on July 3 and 7, and the Lerner & Loewe musical "Brigadoon" on July 17-18, at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville. . . . Classical and pops programs throughout the month by the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap in Northern Virginia and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore in the Maryland suburbs of DC.

* Select weekend road trips: Berlioz, Debussy and Ravel by Lorin Maazel and the Castleton Festival Orchestra on July 10, and "gypsy" music by Haydn, Schubert, Bartók, Liszt and Brahms with pianist Adam Golka and members of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet on July 11. . . . Violinist Joshua Bell playing Bruch's "Scottish Rhapsody" with the National Symphony Orchestra, July 22 at Wolf Trap, and Maazel conducting the Castleton Festival Opera in the Stravinsky-de Falla double bill, July 23. . . . A Shenandoah Valley Music Festival performance by the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra with pianist Alon Goldstein, July 30 at the Orkney Springs Hotel Pavilion, and a troupe of musicians playing Schoenberg’s "Transfigured Night" and works by Webern and Zemlinsky, July 31 at Garth Newel.


July 2 (7 p.m.)
July 4 (2 p.m.)
July 18 (2 p.m.)
July 24 (7 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Puccini: "Il Trittico:" "Il Tabarro," "Suor Angelica," "Gianni Schicchi"
casts TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in Italian
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 3 (7:30 p.m.)
July 10 (7:30 p.m.)
Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Charlottesville
Ash Lawn Opera
Christopher Larkin conducting
Mozart: "Don Giovanni"
Christopher Burchett (Don Giovanni)
Seth Mease Carico (Leporello)
Aundi Marie Moore (Donna Elvira)
Liam Moran (Masetto/Commendatore)
Janette Zilioli (Donna Anna)
other cast members TBA
Nick Olcott, stage director
in English
$35-$40
(434) 979-1333
www.theparamount.net

July 3 (5 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin
Stravinsky: "Suite Italienne"
Cassado: Suite for solo cello
Milhaud: "La création du monde"
Ravel: Sonata for violin and piano
Gershwin-Heifetz: Three preludes for violin and piano
$10-$22 (concert only)
$53-$75 (concert with dinner following)
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 3 (2 p.m.)
July 8 (7:30 p.m.)
July 11 (7 p.m.)
Theatre House, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Timothy Myers conducting
Britten: "The Turn of the Screw"
cast TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in English
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 3 (7:30 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Orchestra
Lorin Maazel conducting
Respighi: "The Pines of Rome," "The Fountains of Rome"
works TBA by Rossini, Verdi, Puccini
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 4 (7:15 p.m.)
Dogwood Dell, Byrd Park, Richmond
Richmond Pops Band
Mark W. Poland directing
Fourth of July patriotic program TBA, with fireworks following
Free
(804) 646-1437
http://www.richmondgov.com/parks/programmingDogwoodDell.aspx

July 4 (3 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Mark O’Connor, violin/fiddle
folk-classical program TBA
$35-$50
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 8 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
George Fenton conducting
" ‘Planet Earth’ Live," BBC documentary with music by Fenton
$18.50-$62
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony box office)
www.strathmore.org

July 9 (7:30 p.m.)
July 11 (2 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Puccini: "Il Tabarro," "Gianni Schicchi"
casts TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in Italian
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 10 (5 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Adam Golka, piano
all-Chopin program TBA
$10-$22 (concert only)
$53-$75 (concert with dinner following)
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 10 (2 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Puccini: "Suor Angelica"
cast TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in Italian
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 10 (7 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Orchestra
Lorin Maazel conducting
works TBA by Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 11 (3 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Adam Golka, piano
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
Haydn: Piano Trio in G major ("Gypsy")
Schubert: "Hungarian Melody" in B minor for piano
Bartók: "Romanian Dance," Op. 8a, No. 1, for piano
Liszt: "Hungarian Rhapsody" No. 6 in D flat major for piano
Brahms: Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25
$10-$22
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 15 (7 p.m.)
July 17 (7 p.m.)
Theatre House, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Gay-Britten: "The Beggar’s Opera"
cast TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in English
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 16 (7:30 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Orchestra
Lorin Maazel & members of Maazel Master Class conducting
Gershwin: "An American in Paris"
works TBA by Barber, Bernstein, Copland
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 16 (8:15 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou conducting
singers from Wolf Trap Opera Company
works by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Gounod, Bernstein
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

July 17 (7:30 p.m.)
July 18 (2 p.m.)
Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Charlottesville
Ash Lawn Opera
Christopher Larkin conducting
Lerner & Loewe: "Brigadoon"
David Barron (Mr. Lundie)
Alicia Berneche (Fiona MacLaren)
Christopher Burchett (Tommy Albright)
Seth Mease Carico (Jeff Douglas)
Jonathan Smucker (Charlie Dalrymple)
Lynn Summerall (Mr. MacLaren)
Dan Stern (Archie Beaton)
other cast members TBA
Dorothy Danner, stage direction
$35-$40
(434) 979-1333
www.theparamount.net

July 17 (5 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
James Stern, violin
Rachel Young, cello
Tony Manzo, double-bass
Robbie Merfeld, piano
Bach: "Crab Canon" from "The Musical Offering"
Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 50, No. 6 ("Frog")
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major ("Trout")
$10-$22 (concert only)
$53-$75 (concert with dinner following)
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 17 (8:15 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Marvin Hamlisch conducting
Idina Menzel, guest star
pops program TBA
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

July 17 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Christian Colberg, violin & conductor
Tchaikovsky: "Capriccio Italien"
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Sirena Huang, violin
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Conrad Tao, piano
$25-$55
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony box office)
www.strathmore.org

July 18 (3 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
James Stern, violin
Rachel Young, cello
Tony Manzo, double-bass
Robbie Merfeld, piano
Bridge: "Miniatures" for violin, cello and piano
Schnittke: "Four Hymns" for cello and double-bass
Glière: "Two Pieces," Op. 9, for double-bass and piano
Poulenc: Sonata for piano four-hands
Beethoven: Piano Trio in E flat major, Op. 70, No. 2
$10-$22
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 22 (7:30 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Puccini: "Suor Angelica," "Gianni Schicchi"
casts TBA
William Kerley, stage director
in Italian
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 22 (8:15 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou conducting
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Gershwin: "Cuban" Overture
Bruch: "Scottish Fantasy"
Joshua Bell, violin
Respighi: "Roman Festivals"
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

July 23 (7:30 p.m.)
July 25 (2 p.m.)
Theatre House, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Lorin Maazel conducting
Stravinsky: "L’histoire du soldat" ("The Soldier’s Tale")
cast TBA
De Falla: "Master Pedro’s Puppet Show"
Emily De Cola & Eric Wright (The Puppet Kitchen), puppeteers
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 23 (8:15 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou conducting
Lisa Vroman, soprano
Gary Mauer, tenor
William Michaels, baritone
The Washington Chorus
Julian Wachner directing
"A Rodgers & Hammerstein Celebration"
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

July 24 (4 p.m.)
Theatre House, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Opera
Han-Na Chang conducting
De Falla: "Master Pedro’s Puppet Show"
Emily De Cola & Eric Wright (The Puppet Kitchen), puppeteers
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 24 (5 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
Robbie Merfeld, piano
William Hite, tenor
Schumann: "Märchenbilder," Op. 113, for viola and piano
Schumann: "Dichterliebe," Op. 48
Schumann: Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63
$10-$22 (concert only)
$53-$75 (concert with dinner following)
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 25 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Guitar & Other Strings series:
VCU Community Guitar Ensemble
John Patykula directing
program TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

July 25 (3 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
Robbie Merfeld, piano
Schumann: "Waldszenen," Op. 82, for piano
Schumann: "Fantasiestücke," Op. 73, for cello and piano
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47
$10-$22
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 25 (7 p.m.)
Festival Tent, Castleton Farms, Route 617 (Castleton View Road), Rappahannock County
Castleton Festival Orchestra
Lorin Maazel conducting
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica")
$20-$85
(866) 974-0767
http://chateauville.org/

July 25 (4 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Opera International
Edward Roberts conducting
Verdi: "La Traviata" (semi-staged production)
Jessica Stecklein (Violetta)
Yingxi Zhang (Alfredo)
Chen-ye Yuan (Germont)
Muriel Von Villas, stage direction
in Italian, English captions
$20-$50
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

July 30 (8 p.m.)
Orkney Springs Hotel Pavilion, Route 263 (Orkney Grade), 12 miles west of Mount Jackson
Shenandoah Valley Music Festival:
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Zimmerman conducting
Milhaud: "The Creation of the World"
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Alon Goldstein, piano
De Falla: "Ritual Fire Dance" from "L'amor brujo"
Honegger: "Summer Pastoral"
De Falla: "The Three-Cornered Hat" Suite No. 1
Rachimaninoff: Vocalise
Piazzolla: Sinfonietta
$30-$40
(800) 459-3396
www.musicfest.org

July 30 (8:30 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Arnie Roth conducting
"Distant Worlds: Music from ‘Final Fantasy’ "
Nobuo Uematsu: "Final Fantasy XIV"
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

July 31 (5 p.m.)
Herter Hall, Garth Newel Music Center, Route 220 between Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County
Garth Newel Piano Quartet
Rick Faria, clarinet
Aaron Berofsky, violin
Kathryn Votapek, violin/viola
Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello
Robbie Merfeld, piano
Webern: "Langsamer Satz" for string quartet
Webern: "Drei kleine Stücke," Op. 11, for cello and piano
Zemlinsky: Clarinet Trio in D minor, Op. 3
Schoenberg: "Verklärte Nacht" ("Transfigured Night") for string sextet
$10-$22 (concert only)
$53-$75 (concert with dinner following)
(877) 558-1689
www.garthnewel.org

July 31 (8 p.m.)
Orkney Springs Hotel Pavilion, Route 263 (Orkney Grade), 12 miles west of Mount Jackson
Shenandoah Valley Music Festival:
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Zimmerman conducting
Rossini: "The Barber of Seville" Overture
Sibelius: "Valse triste"
Rachmaninoff: Vocalise
Bizet: "Carmen" Suite
$30-$40
(800) 459-3396
http://www.musicfest.org/

July 31 (8:30 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
National Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou conducting
"The Planets in HD"
Holst: "The Planets," with films by José Francisco Salgado
$20-$52
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org