Music that lives dangerously

Alex Ross, in The New Yorker, revisits the music of the Danish late romantic/early modern Carl Nielsen, arguably the most underrated composer of the past 100 years:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/02/25/080225crmu_music_ross

"Given the blazing individuality of Nielsen’s voice, it’s puzzling that he has yet to find a firm place in the international repertory," Ross writes.

The solution to the puzzle comes later in the essay: "Players need to believe fervently in this music if they are to bring it fully to life." That's true of any music, of course, but especially so of Nielsen's, which cannot be played convincingly with the detached refinement that is the default mode of most classical performers today.

Musicians – and listeners – who aren't prepared to live dangerously, to harness the energy of primal forces, aren't ready for Carl Nielsen.

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Among the Nielsen discs that Ross cites, the one I would start with is an incandescent Fourth Symphony ("Inextinguishable") recorded in 1966 by the Chicago Symphony, Jean Martinon conducting (RCA 76237), which also includes fine performances of the Second Symphony ("The Four Temperaments") and "Helios" Overture, recorded in Chicago around the same time with Martinon and Morton Gould conducting, and a 1980s performance of the miniature "The Fog Is Lifting" by flutist James Galway and harpist Sioned Williams.

Elsewhere

My profile of composer Osvaldo Golijov, whose "Ayre" will be performed by soprano Dawn Upshaw, members of eighth blackbird and friends on Feb. 22 at the University of Richmond's Modlin Center, is in print in Style Weekly, online at:

http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=16366

Review: Yuja Wang

Feb. 13, University of Richmond

Yuja Wang is mortal after all.

The 20-year-old Chinese pianist, who performed in Richmond with the Shanghai Quartet in November and stunned the audience with her virtuosity and musicianship, showed some flaws – not grievous, but significant ones – in a return engagement.

Wang, booked on short notice to replace an indisposed Piotr Anderszewski, played the most demanding parts (on herself and on listeners) of the solo repertory she has presented in recent tour performances – fibrously complex etudes by György Ligeti, the massive Liszt Sonata in B minor and the abruptly expressive, sonically jangling Bartók Sonata (1926), with lyrical but still energized interludes in Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor and Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s "Midsummer Night’s Dream" music, topped off by the Prokofiev Toccata.

Not surprisingly, given the scope of that program, the sheer quantity of notes and often colossal demands on technique, Wang sounded thoroughly juiced on nervous energy. Outside the Chopin, she rarely produced a truly singing tone; and, except in the Mendelssohn, didn’t offer much range of dynamic contrast. It was a brilliant display of pianisim. It was also a feeding frenzy.

The Liszt suffered the most from Wang’s evident inability to relax and go with the musical flow. She pounced on the sonata’s big chords and grand gestures, but seemed impatient and emotionally detached in its lyrical passages, especially in the central section of the piece. Only toward the end did she connect with the heart, as well as the stormy rhetoric, of this music.

Nervy propulsiveness similarly intruded on her readings of Ligeti’s Etude No. 10 ("The Sorcerer’s Apprentice"), whose whimsical character was lost in the rush, and the middle movement of the Bartók, in which she emphasized pesante (heavy) over sostenuto (sustained, smooth), coming across as brittle.

Wang was most fully engaged, and showed the most engaging side of her musical personality, in dance-inspired pieces – the Chopin and Mendelssohn, the first movement of the Bartók – and in the rhythmically driven Prokofiev and Ligeti Etude No. 4 ("Fanfares").

In her November appearance, Wang seemed to have it all. This time, she showed she has a great deal, but still has some growing to do.

eighth blackbird wins Grammy

"Strange Imaginary Animals," the Cedille album by eighth blackbird, the new-music sextet in residence at the University of Richmond, has won a Grammy Award for best chamber music performance.

Judith Sherman won the classical producer of the year Grammy for "Strange Imaginary Animals" and four other recordings.

The big classical Grammy winner was Joan Tower's "Made in America," recorded for Naxos by Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony, which won best classical album, best orchestral performance and best classical contemporary composition. In the latter category, Tower won over Jennifer Higdon's "Zaka," included on the eighth blackbird album, and Peter Lieberson's "Neruda Songs," which was the critical favorite for the award.

"Neruda Songs," recorded for Nonesuch by the composer's late wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, won best classical vocal performance.

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Sen. Barack Obama won a spoken-word recording Grammy for his reading of his book "The Audacity of Hope." This and a previous Grammy for his recording of his first book, "Dreams from My Father," puts Obama up 2-to-1 over his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won a Grammy for her reading of "It Takes a Village." Former president Bill Clinton has two Grammys to his credit. (via The New York Times)

Honor, with misgivings

Pianist Leon Fleisher, one of the recipients of the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors, recounts his reluctant appearance at the White House ceremony:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020802979.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Wang returns to UR; Dinnerstein in Bach at U.Va.

Yuja Wang, the acclaimed young Chinese pianist who performed in November with the Shanghai Quartet at the University of Richmond, will return to UR’s Modlin Arts Center for a solo recital at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13. She replaces Piotr Anderszewski, who canceled because of illness.

Wang will play Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, Bartók’s Piano Sonata, György Ligeti’s etudes No. 4 ("Fanfares") and No. 10 ("The Sorcerer’s Apprentice"), Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor, Prokofiev’s Toccata and Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s incidental music for "A Midsummer Night’s Dream."

Tickets issued for the Anderszewski recital will be honored for Wang’s performance. About 200 tickets ($30) remained available when the substitution was announced.

To order tickets, call the Modlin Center box office at (804) 289-8980; http://modlin.richmond.edu/

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The American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Anderszewski's replacement in a Tuesday Evening Concerts Series date at 8 p.m. Feb. 12 in Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. She will play Bach's "Goldberg" Variations.

Tickets are $21-$25 (waiting list). Details: (434) 924-3984; http://www.tecs.org/

Delight us, dammit

In a post on NewMusicBox, Jeremy Denk, the pianist and musical über-blogger, engagingly harrumphs about excessively calculated, soul-numbing contemporary composition; and in the process, issues a manifesto for a contemporary music that, well . . . take over, Jeremy:

"I would like to propose 'delight' as a value, as a frequent ingredient of the durably new — the delightful as opposed to the agreeable, as opposed even perhaps (but not often) to the enjoyable. Delight is more muted than joy, it is not quite ecstasy (thank God, I can only take so much ecstasy). I'll take a stab at defining it: a combination of discovery with pleasure, a kind of mental activity brought to bear upon pleasure, running into it as if in a traffic accident where no one gets hurt. It's the brain slamming into the obstacle of beauty, waking up, rubbing its eyes."

Read "A Subtle Analysis of Composer-Performer Resentment," divining of Haydn's harmonic entrails and all:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=5426