Carnegie Hall: Met Orchestra Performs Schumann and Schubert

On Saturday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear the first of the Met Orchestra's annual end-of-season series.  The guest conductor was the inimatable Valery Gergiev leading the ensemble in a program tht featured works by two great Romantic composers, Schumann and Schubert.

The program opened with Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 (1845) with Daniil Trifonov as soloist.  Although Schumann waited four years before adding the final two movements, the piece was actually begun in 1841 as a one-movement fantasie for piano and orchestra.  It was at his wife Clara's urging that he eventually expanded the piece into a full three-movement concerto.  That and the fact that Breitkopf & Härtel refused to publish the piece without the concluding two movements that Schumann himself viewed primarily as a means of balancing the first. What is unusual is that although Schumann was married to one of Europe's foremost pianists, the work was one of the few concerti written during this period that was not intended as a virtuoso showcase in the manner of those composed by Chopin and Liszt.  Indeed, Liszt condemned the work as "a concerto without piano."  The concerto instead hearkened back to those of Mozart and Beethoven in its integration of the solo and orchestral parts.  Schumann was more successful in accomplishing this feat than one might have expected.  Though he was already experiencing severe psychological problems, as evidenced in his Symphony in C completed at roughly the same time, he was able to fully overcome these obstacles in both the concerto and the symphony.  Of the two, the concerto is by far the more successful work and has since deservedly become one of the most popular in the repertoire.  Certainly Schumann was one of the nineteenth century's greatest composers for piano, and in this work he was able to meld that talent with his formidable ability in symphonic writing, albeit in sparer form, to achieve a remarkable triumph.  Mr. Trifonov was extremely impressive on Saturday evening; after having seen him display his virtuoso fireworks on other occasions, I was honestly surprised that he was able to work so well with the orchestra as he did here.  Even though this concerto lacks any flashy virtuoso turns, the pianist still had ample opportunities to demonstrate his considerable skill at the keyboard.  Of all the performances at which I've seen Mr. Trifonov perform this was definitely the most satisfying.

After intermission, the orchestra returned to perform the second and final work on the program, Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 (1825-1826), justifiably known as the "Great," in part to distinguish it from the composer's Symphony No. 6 in the same key and in part to acknowledge its own magnificence.  Perhaps there exists no more poignant testament to the relative anonymity in which Schubert lived his life than the confusion surrounding the numbering and dating of his symphonies.  Unpublished during his lifetime and even for several decades thereafter, the symphonies' chronologies had to be painstakingly reconstructed after the composer's death.  What a contrast to Beethoven whose works were published and assigned opus numbers almost as soon as he had written them.   It's now generally accepted that the No. 9 is the missing Gmunden-Gastein symphony  from 1824 and that it should therefore more correctly be listed as No.8.  The D. 944 might, in fact, never have come down to us at all if Schumann, during a visit to Vienna, had not fortuitously paid a visit to Schubert's brother Ferdinand who had kept the manuscripts in safekeeping and had even arranged for a performance of the symphony's last movement.  Fortunately, Schumann was as perspicacious a critic as one could hope to find in that period.  Immediately recognizing the symphony's importance, he sent a copy of the manuscript to Mendelssohn who successfully premiered the work with the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1839.  But even then the work was misunderstood by audiences and musicians alike.  The audiences found it far too long and the musicians, particularly in London, thought it unplayable.  It was only in the twentieth century, after Mahler and others had redefined the entire concept of the symphony, that the work finally achieved the popularity and understanding it had deserved all along.

One of the paradoxes of the No. 9 is that although the work is as carefully constructed as any of Beethoven's and scrupulously follows the traditional structure of the Classical symphony in that all four movements are in sonata form, it often strikes the listener as a much more personal statement than the works of Schubert's predecessors to the extent that melody is given greater weight than thematic development.  The orchestration also differs from earlier symphonies in the importance given to the brass section.  This is the first major symphony to make use of trombones as a standard part of the instrumentation rather than merely as a means of adding emphasis.  The writing for the horns especially stands out - the symphony opens with a solo by that instrument - so much so that it's difficult to describe its effect without resorting to the rapturous effusions of Schumann who wrote:

"A horn is heard from a distance.  It seems to come from another sphere. Here everything listens, as if a heavenly spirit were wandering through the orchestra."

In short, the work really is, as Schumann again pointed out, the first true Romantic symphony.  Listening to it, it's difficult at times to believe it was actually written during Beethoven's lifetime.  It seems to belong to another era altogether.

The Met Orchestra is one of the world's great ensembles and under the expert direction of Valery Gergiev it had a chance to shine on Saturday evening, particularly in the second half of the program.  One couldn't have asked for a better performance of Schubert's monumental symphony.  One curious point I noted was that Mr. Gergiev eschewed the use of a podium in the second half of the program and instead stood on the stage floor on the same level as the orchestra.  I'd be very interested to learn why he did that.

Carnegie Hall: Mitsuko Uchida Peforms Schubert

On Saturday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear a  recital given by the great Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida that featured an all-Schubert program.  The three sonatas performed were from various points in the composer's career but all were of the highest quality.

The program opened with the Sonata in A Minor, D. 537  (1817).  This youthful work, written when the composer was only nineteen, is the first piano sonata he actually brought to completion.  It was here that he really discovered his own style when composing for the piano rather than simply following the examples of Mozart and Beethoven in imitative fashion.  This may in part be due to the fact that the composer had recently gained access to an excellent six-octave fortepiano on which to work out his musical ideas.  Still, the D. 537 is not a fully assured work.  Schubert's first three sonatas had all lacked a finale and that presented here is problematic, in particular in the long pauses that punctuate the movement.  Whatever the sonata's faults, however, it is nevertheless thrilling to hear the music of one of the greatest composers for the keyboard at so early a point in his career.

The next work consisted of the first two movements of Schubert's Sonata No. 15 in C major, D. 840 (1825). These were actually the only two movements Schubert troubled to complete. Like the more famous Eighth Symphony, this is an unfinished work, most probably because Schubert was not satisfied with it and put it aside. The work's nickname, Reliquie, was given it by its publisher, C.F. Whistling, in 1861 either because he honestly thought this was Schubert's final work or, more disingenuously, because he wanted to provide to his customers a plausible reason for its incomplete state. But even without the final two movements, this is still a major accomplishment, one that prefigures the late sonatas. The critic Donald Tovey claimed that the first movement was one of Schubert's two most perfect realizations of the sonata form.

After intermission, the recital ended with a performance of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828). While listening to this magisterial work it's difficult to believe that Schubert's sonatas remained unappreciated and rarely played until well into the twentieth century. Even Schumann, who should have known better, had little positive to say about them. Today, of course, the late sonatas are recognized as being among Schubert's greatest creations, comparable in quality to Beethoven's own final works in the genre, and they have become mainstays of the piano repertoire. Taken together, these sonatas reflect the composer's awareness of the shortness of the time left him and convey a sense of resignation underlain by quiet grief. Their meditative aspect can be heard clearly in the opening movement of the D. 960 in which shifts in tonality create in the mind of the listener an illusion of traveling from familiar ground to an unknown destination. While the work may not have been intended by Schubert as a valedictory piece, there is nevertheless within it a keen awareness of individual mortality.

What I enjoyed most about the evening's program was that it featured works from the very beginning of Schubert's career through the very end. The audience was thus able to better understand his development as composer for piano over an eleven year period, an interval that comprised more than one-third of his tragically short life. While the D. 537 showed him still struggling to find his way, the D. 960 revealed him as a master of the medium. And certainly these seminal works could not have had a better performance than that given by Mitsuko Uchida, one of the finest pianists now active. As I've always considered her forte to be the works of Mozart and Schubert, she was on Saturday evening truly in her element . Her playing of the three sonatas can only be described as a revelation. This was without qualification the best recital I've attended this season.

WQXR/Carnegie Hall: Budapest Festival Orchestra Performs Bluebeard's Castle

After having attended a concert on Friday evening given by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the baton of its Music Director Iván Fischer I tuned in Saturday evening to WQXR, New York City's classical music station, to hear a live broadcast of another all-Bartók program that featured the same ensemble.  Once again, Maestro Fischer seemed intent on displaying to the audience as many facets of the composer's genius as possible.

The program opened with performances of  the Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56, BB 68 (1915) and the Hungarian Peasant Songs, Sz. 71, BB 79 (1914-1918).  As is well known, Bartók was not only one of the twentieth century's greatest composers but he could also lay claim to being the world's first ethnomusicologist.  Together with his fellow composer Zoltán Kodály, Bartók traversed the Central European countryside in the early years of the twentieth century recording the regiou's indigenous folk music before it was lost to modernization.  It was from these recordings that Bartók derived the two present pieces.  They were not, however, simply transcriptions of those recordings but rather were reimagined by the composer in his own idiom.  In order to demonstrate the degree to which the original Romanian Folk Dances were reworked by the composer, Maestro Fischer had the orchestra first perform the original dances, even going so far as to make use of the traditional folk instruments that had originally accompanied them, before then playing Bartók's own interpretations.  The conductor did something very similar with the Hungarian Peasant Songs but in this instance brought onstage a Hungarian folk singer, Márta Sebestyén, to sing several of the original songs before the orchestra again went on to Bartók's arrangements.   In both cases it was extremely enlightening to hear the degree to which Bartók adapted the originals and transformed them into something entirely new.

After intermission, the program concluded with a concert performance of the one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle, Sz. 48 (1911-1912, rev.1917) featuring bass Krisztián Cser as Bluebeard and mezzo-soprano Ildikó Komlósi in the role of his latest bride.  This dark work is a thoroughly modern piece whose intensity owes as much to the psychological depth of its libretto as it does to Bartók's fascinating score. The Prologue makes this clear when it asks: "Where is the stage: outside or within, Ladies and Gentlemen?"  As Judith moves from one locked room to the next, the listener understands her horror as she penetrates ever deeper into Bluebeard's subconscious and forces him to reveal to her his innermost secrets.  The use of only two characters heightens the drama and at times creates an almost unbearable sensation of claustrophobia.  The audience begins to feel that they too are confined with a protagonist who may very well be a sadistic madman.  Even if the sinister overtones of sex and violence are never made explicit - the work was, after all, written in 1912 - they still lurk in the shadows and contribute to Judith's growing trepidation.  All the while, Bartók's music enhances the atmosphere of gloom and foreboding.

The libretto, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, was written by Béla Balázs, a friend of both Bartók and Kodály.  Significantly, Balázs based the verses in his libretto on Hungarian folk ballads, a form already of deep interest to Bartók from his ethnological research, and this was no doubt one reason the composer was attracted to the project in the first place.  The references to folk music do not, however, account for the symbolism of the different colored lights each time the door to a new room is opened (with the exception of the sixth), and I've never been able to find a satisfactory explanation for it.

While Bluebeard's Castle is undeniably one of the greatest operatic works in the twentieth century repertoire, I did not think it a good choice for a radio broadcast.  Without being able to see a staged version, or at least the supertitles available to the Carnegie Hall audience, this was an extremely difficult piece to follow, all the more so as it was performed in the original Hungarian.  All the radio audience had to go on was the brief synopsis given by the station's hosts.  At any rate, the archived performance is currently available for listening on WQXR's website.

Carnegie Hall: Budapest Festival Orchestra Performs Bartók

On Friday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear an all-Bartók program at a concert given by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the direction of its Music Director, Iván Fischer.  This was a rare treat as I've always considered this ensemble the foremost interpreters of the great mondernist's music.

The program opened with the suite from The Miraculous Mandarim, Op 19 (1918-1924) that was for me the highlight of the entire concert.  Most concert suites are arranged by their composers after the original works from which they derived had achieved success.  Of this piece, the opposite was true.  So brutal and horrific was the full ballet that it was banned in Germany after its premiere in Cologne, and Bartók found it highly difficult to find other venues that would agree to produce it.  Not only was the plot, taken from a story by the composer's compatriot Melchior Lengyel, truly disturbing in recounting the tale of a victim lured to his death by a prostitute, but the accompanying music was itself appropriately dark and brutal.  At the time of its first performances, it was compared to Stravinsky's "barbaric" ballet music for Le Sacre du printemps.  For those seeking solace in classical music after having just experienced the horrors of World War I it was too much.  Of course, it is exactly the sense of horror expressed so well by the music that makes it attractive to modern audiences.  Filled with dissonance and making use of virtually every modernist technique Bartók could lay his hands on, this is really the soundtrack of a nightmare and, along with the equally dark Bluebeard's Castle, one of the composer's greatest achievements.  It celebrates a world that has grown seriously out of joint and given over to mindless violence and in so doing explores the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind.

The next work featured the Cantemus Choir led by Chorus Master Dénes Szabó and consisted of selections from Twenty-Seven Two- and Three-Part Choruses, BB 111 (1935).  As Maestro Fischer explained to the audience, Bartók was not only a composer but an educator as well and wrote these pieces for children's choir as a means of furthering young students' knowledge and appreciation of music.  Six songs - "Suitor," "Courting," "Jeering," "Enchanting Song," "Regret," and "God be with you!" - were performed a cappella and seven - "Hussar," "Wandering," "Loafers’ Song," "Don’t leave here!," "Don’t leave me!," "Bread-baking" and "Boys’ Teasing Song" - with the accompaniment of a "children's orchestra" whose part was here taken on by members of the BFO itself.  By the time he composed these songs Bartók, considered the world's first ethnomusicologist, had been studying and recording for decades the folk music of his native Hungary.  Here he took texts from this traditional folk music (but did not hesitate to change the wording wherever he saw fit) while freely adapting them to his own original compositions.  Though these compositions were of course also deeply influenced by folk music, they shared other sources as well.  Most notable among these, surprisingly, was the Renaissance music of Palestrina, a master of polyphony.  As a result, the songs possessed an antique flavor strongly reminiscent of centuries old ecclesiastical music.

The program closed with a performance of the Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123 (1943). The work, originally commissioned by Koussevitzky at a time when the composer was ill and badly in need of financial assistance, was so titled because each section of the orchestra is called upon at one point or another to take the part of soloist. This is a colorful work that sums up many of Bartók's concerns as a composer - from the folk melodies in the second movement, to the use of "night music" in the third movement to the dance rhythms in the final movement.  Despite the Concerto's complexity, the music is highly accessible to the point where this has become one of the composer's most popular works.

Friday evening's performance was the first of two devoted entirely to the music of Bartók whose accomplishments were so diverse that a single evening's performance would never have been able to do them justice.  Certainly these works could not have received better or more loving treatment than they were given by this ensemble.

Carnegie Hall: Mitsuko Uchida Performs Mozart Piano Concerti

On Friday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear a concert given by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra that featured the great Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida conducting as well as performing as soloist on two late Mozart concerti that, although written only a year apart, were of highly different character.

The program opened with Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459 (1784).  In contrast to the D minor concerto played later in the concert, the K. 459 is a fairly lighthearted work and perhaps for that reason is not played so often as the composer's other concerti.  Mozart himself thought highly enough of it to perform it at the coronation of the Holy Roman Emporer Leopold II in 1790.  Despite its cheerful nature the concerto is nevertheless a highly complex work, not least in the extensive use of counterpoint in the final movement.  One interesting point is that Mozart, when entering the concerto in his catalog, called for the use of trumpets and tympani which was highly unusual for works he composed in the key of F major.  As it is, no written parts have ever been found for these instruments.

The next piece was Berg's  Lyric Suite (1926).  Although the abstract theoretical nature of the twelve-tone system might lead one to believe that its adherents were a group of dry academics, nothing could be further from the truth.  The private lives of these composers sometimes resembled a soap opera in their romantic entanglements.  In this case, though Berg nominally dedicated his Suite to Alexander von Zemlinsky from whose Lyric Symphony he had taken the title of his own piece, the work actually had a secret program and dedication to the married Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, sister of Franz Werfel, at whose home in Prague Berg had been a guest.  In the annotated score which Berg presented to Hanna, he wrote:

"It has also, my Hanna, allowed me other freedoms! For example, that of secretly inserting our initials, HF and AB, into the music, and relating every movement and every section of every movement to our numbers, 10 and 23. I have written these, and much that has other meanings, into the score for you. ... May it be a small monument to a great love."

It was in 1928 that Berg arranged for string orchestra the second, third and fourth movements of the six-movement quartet.  As one might gather simply from the names of the movements (Andante amoroso; Allegro misterioso – Trio estatico; and Adagio appassionato), the music is highly dramatic.  By abridging the content of the original quartet Berg heightened this drama even further.  At this concert, the piece did not really have any connection to the Mozart music that came before and after it and I suspect was included principally to provide "padding," but it was nonetheless given an excellent performance and was highly enjoyable to hear.

After intermission, the program closed with a performance of the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 (1785).  At the time Mozart composed the K. 466 he was at the height of his popularity in Vienna.  The concerto is actually the first of a several written for a highly remunerative series of subscription concerts.  In 1785, he would write two more, the K. 467 in C major (actually composed the same month as the K. 466) and the K. 482 in E-flat major, while in the following year he would pen the K. 488 in A major, the K. 491 in C minor, and the K. 503 in C major.  Taken together, all of them masterpieces of the genre, these constitute one of Mozart's greatest achievements as a composer.  Of them all, however, the K. 466 was the only one whose popularity was to endure into the nineteenth century's Romantic era.  It's easy to see why this would be the case.  Despite Mozart's new found prosperity, it's a stormy work whose dark musings could not fail to appeal to the Romantic temperament.  This is especially true of the finale, a tempestuous episode that moves from the home key of D minor to G minor before at last finding resolution in the key of D major, a change so abrupt it reminds one of the sun suddenly appearing as the storm clouds that have obscured it finally break.

The first half of Friday evening's concert was highly enjoyable, but it was in the second half that the performance rose to a new level. Mitsuko Uchida is one of the finest interpreters of Mozart's piano music now active, and both she and the orchestra were superb in their rendition of the D minor concerto. The work's continuing popularity - Beethoven routinely included it in his own concerts - is no accident, but it is only in the hands of the most gifted musicians such as Ms. Uchida that its genius can be fully appreciated.

I was fortunate to have attended this concert in person, but it was also broadcast live on WQXR.  The archived performance is currently available for listening on the station's website.

WQXR/Carnegie Hall: Hagen Quartet Performs Dvořák, Widmann and Mozsrt

On Friday evening WQXR, New York City's classical music station, broadcast another recital live from Carnegie Hall, on this occasion from its smaller stage at Zankel Hall.  The featured musicians were the Hagen Quartet - consisting of Lukas Hagen and Rainer Schmidt, violins, Veronika Hagen, viola, and Clemens Hagen, cello - joined by clarinetist and composer Jörg Widmann.

The program opened with four selections - "I know that on my love," "Death reigns," "Here gaze I" and "Nature lies peaceful" - from Dvořák's The Echo of Songs, the composer's 1887 arrangements for string quartet of  twelve songs taken from his 1865 cycle Cypresses.  The original song cycle, written when Dvořák was only 24 years old, was not only a youthful first attempt at composition but was also an intensely personal expression of romantic yearning for his pupil Josefína Čermáková who would eventually become his sister-in-law.  While it was understandable that Dvořák never wished to publish these early songs in their original form during his lifetime (they were, in fact, not published in such form until 2008),  he nevertheless retained a sentimental fondness for them and finally reworked them more than twenty years later into the instrumental movements heard at this recital.  Though the songs, more passionate than accomplished, only hint at the genius the composer would display in his maturity, they are much more polished than they first appear.  They also reveal even at this early date Dvořák's deep interest in Czech folk music.

The next work was the American premiere of a new work, a clarinet quintet by Jörg Widmann that had been co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall.  The last time I heard a work by Mr. Widmann was two years ago when I attended a recital given by the great Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida in which she performed a 2016 piece by Mr. Widmann entitled Sonatina facile, a work inspired by Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 that was also performed by Ms. Uchida at the same recital.  While the clarinet quintet performed on Friday evening did not, as far as I know, claim to take its inspiration from Mozart's K. 581, the very fact that it was placed on the same program with it more or less demanded that comparison be made between the two works.  And therein lay the problem.  No matter how talented a contemporary composer may be, it is highly doubtful that his or her work will possess even a fraction of the genius contained in a Mozart composition, whether it be a piano sonata or a clarinet quintet.  In this instance the quintet turned out to be a highly accessible neo-Romantic piece with some New Age sound effects in the higher registers.  Not surprisingly, a great deal of weight was given to the clarinet part.  The audience enjoyed the performance immensely.

After intermission, the recital concluded with a performance of Mozart's late Quintet in A Major for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581 (1789).  This was one of Mozart's most sublime achievements and without doubt the finest work ever composed for clarinet.  1789 had been a very difficult year for Mozart - he was in dire financial straits and suffering from depression - and one wonders if it were the tribulations the composer was then experiencing that inspired him to his best efforts.  As H.C. Robbins Landon wrote in Mozart: The Golden Years:

"If there is any one work that sums up this unhappy year, this [K. 581] must be it – parts of it seem to reflect a state of aching despair, but the whole is clothed not in some violent minor key, but in radiant A major. The music smiles through the tears…"

The quintet was written for the virtuoso Anton Stadler who performed it at its Vienna premiere on an extended range basset clarinet.  As the Wikipedia article points out, the instrument used by Stadler differed significantly from the standard Viennese basset horn.  It was only in 1992, when illustrated programs from recitals given by Stadler in Riga in 1784 were found, that the appearance of this clarinet could be determined.

Jörg Widmann is an amazing clarinetist, a true virtuoso, and the Hagen Quartet a brilliant chamber ensemble.  Their combined talents came together wonderfully in the performance of the Mozart quintet.  It was definitely one of the finest renditiions of this popular masterpiece I've been fortunate enough to have heard.

Met Opera Announces Flex Subsciptions

Several years ago, the Met Opera, faced with dwindling audiences, responded to the concerns of its subscribers and finally began offering no-fee exchanges.  This year the company has gone one better and is now offering Flex Subscriptions.  It explained the new option in the letter accompanying next season's renewal notice as follows:

"Also new for 2019-20, you have the option of purchasing a Flex Subscription as an alternative to the traditional Series Subscription.  Rather than exchanging operas in your series, you can now curate the 2019-20 lineup exactly as you'd like by selecting between six and nine operas in the season."

This is truly wonderful news for loyal subscribers.  No longer must we queue in long lines to exchange unwanted tickets and risk discovering that tickets to our favorite operas are no longer available.  Now we can simply choose those performances we most wish to attend and then wait for the tickets to arrive.  The only drawback that I can see is that subscribers are no longer guaranteed the same seats for each performance.  For me, at least, this is not a major problem.

I've already chosen the six operas I wish to attend in the coming season.  They are, in chronological order: Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice starring Hei-Kyung Hong and Jamie Barton; a new production of Philip Glass's Akhnaten; The Queen of Spades starring Lise Davidsen; a new production of Handel's Agrippina conducted by Harry Bicket and starring Joyce DiDonato; a new production of Wagner's Der Fliegende Hollander conducted by Valery Gergiev and starring Bryn Terfel; and finally Donizetti's Maria Stuarda starring Diana Damrau.  With such great operas, conductors and singers, it should definitely be a wonderful season.

Carnegie Hall: András Schiff Performs Janáček and Schumann

On Thursday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear a recital given by pianist Sir András Schiff.  The programs consisted of four works, two each by Janáček and Schumann divided evenly between the evening's two halves.

The two works by Janáček were On an Overgrown Path, Book I (1900-1911) and Sonata 1.X.1905, "From the Street" (1905).

Janáček wrote only a few pieces for solo piano; in addition to the two performed at Thursday evening's recital there is really only the 1912 In the Mists.  Nevertheless. these works have been appearing with increasing frequency in recent years in recitals given by virtuoso pianists.  This is all the more interesting considering the extent to which his work was overlooked not only during his lifetime but for many decades following his death.  There are several reasons for this.  First and foremost, as a native of Moravia Janáček was not so much cut off from the musical trends of his time - he did after all study, however unhappily, at both the Leipzig Conservatory and the Vienna Conservatory - as he was indifferent to them.  It is impossible to fully appreciate Janáček's music without understanding the depth of his fervent Czech nationalism as clearly evidenced in the background to the composition of 1.X.1905.  The short, highly emotional work was written in direct response to the stabbing of a Czech activist by an Austrian soldier and as such is one of the most explicit political statements in the entire repertoire.  So traumatized was Janáček by the incident he himself had witnessed that he even attempted to destroy the score.  It was only in 1924, six years after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire, that the composer finally allowed the work to be published when finally informed that the first two movements had in fact survived thanks solely to the efforts of pianist Ludmila Tučková who had secretly copied them in order to save them from Janáček's destructive impulses.

On an Overgrown Path also contains autobiographical elements, but in this case they are far more personal.  One aspect of Janáček's nationalism was his intense study of Moravian folk music, a subject on which he became an expert.  Like Bartók after him, Janáček incorporated many of the elements of this folk music, such as its irregular rhythms, into his own compositions but in his own idiosyncratic style.  These folk influences can clearly be heard in On an Overgrown Path, Book I, of which certain movements - "Words Fail," "Good Night," "Unutterable Anguish" and "In Tears" - constitute his heartfelt response to the death of his daughter Olga.  Even the movement titled "The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away" possesses funereal overtones as it refers to the folk belief that a hovering owl presaged a death in the house.  It should be noted that all these titles were added only after the work had been completed.

Janáček was definitely a musical pioneer, but it is only in recent years that he has begun to receive his due.  As a 2013 master's thesis by Laura Hrivnak points out:

"Janáček was the first composer to do many things. He was collecting folk songs and incorporating their traditions in his music before Bartók. He annotated the 'concrete music of life' in form of intonations derived from speech, sounds in nature, and even birdsong before Messiaen. He experimented in using all twelve tones as a basis for a harmonic system before Schoenberg. His opera, Jenůfa, which closely resembles Berg’s groundbreaking, realist opera, Wozzek, preceded it by eighteen years."

The two Schumann works were Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837) and the Piano Sonata, No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 11 (1832-1835).

Both these works are very early pieces written at a time when Schumann was besotted with the teenage Clara Wieck and, perhaps because Clara was a piano virtuoso, was composing almost solely for the piano.  The self-published Davidsbündlertänze, in particular, was intended as a loving tribute following a period of estrangement.  Schumann began composing it less than a week after after the two had become secretly engaged and he himself referred to it as a Polterabend, a traditional form of party held on the eve of a wedding.  Even more telling was his use in the first movement lebhart of a mazurka composed by Clara for her Soirées musicales, Op 6.  The Op. 11, on which Schumann worked for three years, was also a love letter to Clara even if he did begin composing it while still engaged to Ernestine von Fricken.  Here again Schumann borrowed from Clara in the opening movement allegro vivace, this time from her Dance of the Phantoms.  He then went on to describe the work to Clara as "a cry from my heart to yours."

What's far more striking than Schumann's infatuation with Clara is the presence in both these works of the composer's alter egos, Florestan and Eusebius, their purported composers, who reflected the contrasting aspects of Schumann's personality, i.e., Florestan was disruptive and somewhat manic while Eusebius was calmer and more meditative.  In light of Schumann's mental breakdown two decades later, it's tempting to see these imaginary characters as early symptoms of bipolarity.  The opposing influences they had upon the composer can most easily be found in Davidsbündlertänze in which the movements, each carefully inscribed with the name of the character who inspired it and sometimes the names of both, veer erratically from one mood to another and thus have an unsettling effect on the listener.  While Schumann no doubt intended the references to these characters to be playful, they can also be viewed on a more serious level as indicative of a deep conflict within his own psyche.

Sir András Schiff is a consummate pianist - the recitals of late Brahms pieces I heard last season (see my posts of 4/7/18 and 4/9/18) can only be described as historic - and his performance on Thursday evening was a fine as any I've heard.  If I have a quibble, it's with the program itself.  I would greatly have appreciated more variety.  If I remember correctly, the original program, as announced in the Carnegie Hall subscription renewal package I received in early 2018, called for a performance of the Bartók Piano Sonata, a work I'd honestly much preferred to have heard.  While I greatly enjoyed the Janáček pieces, I was not overly impressed by the Schumann works.  He was without doubt among the finest composers for solo piano - I consider his Fantasie in C major a masterpiece - but I don't believe his genius was fully in evidence in these early pieces.  Nevertheless, it's always a privilege to hear Sir András perform no matter what music he chooses to play.

Jupiter Players Perform Korngold and Schubert

On Monday afternoon I walked down to Good Shepherd Church on West 66th Street to hear a recital given by the Jupiter Players.  On this occasion there were three guest artists - Max Levinson piano, Vadim Gluzman violin, and Kobi Malkin violin - but only two works on the program, one each by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Franz Schubert.

The program opened with Korngold's Piano Trio in D Major Op. 1 (1909-1910).  Most of the pieces I've heard by Korngold were written after he had achieved success in Hollywood and, however well crafted, were too commercial for my taste.  Listening to them, I felt that Korngold had irremediably compromised his integrity as a composer by immersing himself in the Hollywood lifestyle and writing while there some sixteen film scores, two of which won Academy Awards.  To be fair, Korngold did not have much choice in the matter.  As a Jewish fugitive from Nazi persecution he had to earn his living somehow.  Nevertheless, composers such as Shostakovich and Schnittke also wrote film scores out of necessity without allowing this work to interfere with their more serious compositions.  Korngold, on the other hand, embraced popular taste and went so far as to incorporate music from the film scores into his more serious endeavors, such as the Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35.

The Piano Trio, as one might infer from its low opus number, was written long before Korngold first arrived in Hollywood in 1934.  Composed while Korngold was a student of Alexander Zemlinsky (to whom the youngster had been referred by no less a musical authority than Mahler), the four-movement trio was very favorably received when premiered in Vienna by the virtousi Bruno Walter, piano, Arnold Rosé, violin, and Friedrich Buxbaum, cello.  A product of its time, the work, especially in its third movment larghetto, was redolent of the Austrian fin de siècle that was then coming to a close and showed the influence of both Brahms and Strauss.  (Not surprisingly, the latter thought very highly of the piece.)  The extremely polished work would have been a substantial achievement for any composer, but a truly remarkable feat for one then only just entering his teens.  Lush and sensuous, it was also exceptionally melodic and as such showed the first evidence of Korngold's ability to craft winning tunes, an accomplishment that would stand him in good stead decades later in Hollywood.

After intermission the program concluded with Schubert's Octet in F major, D. 803 (1824). The work was commissioned by Ferdinand Troyer, chief steward to Archduke Rudolph, one of Beethoven's most important patrons. It was inspired by Beethoven's Septet, by then almost a quarter century old but still, to the master's chagrin, by far his most popular work. Schubert for the most part adhered to his model's six movement structure and instrumentation but added a second violin to provide an even richer texture. As Troyer was an expert clarinetist, Schubert made sure to give that instrument a prominent part in the composition. Like its predecessor, the Octet is an enjoyable melodic piece that incorporates themes from the composer's lieder. It's in the tradition of the Classical divertimento but of a far more serious nature. Running a full hour in length, it demonstrates great complexity in the interrelationships among the eight instruments and in that sense can be seen as a preparatory study for the Symphony No. 9 composed the following year.

Both pieces were well played, but the performance of the Octet was exceptional. This was among the finest renditions of Schubert's classic that I've heard. I was deeply impressed by the company's musicianship on this long and difficult piece.

Met Opera: Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena Sing in La fille du régiment

On Saturday afternoon I saw the last Met opera I'll be attending this season, La fille du régiment.  In spite of the work's popularity - this is one of Donizetti's finest comic operas - I hadn't seen a performance in many years and had been looking foward to revisiting an old favorite.  I was moreover greatly interested in hearing the singing of its two stars, soprano Pretty Yende and tenor Javier Camarena.

It's hard to believe today that La fille, with libretto by such experienced writers as Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard, could ever have been anything but a huge success. Such, however, was unhappily not the case.  While there may have been some technical difficulties at the 1840 Opéra-Comique premiere - what worse opera for a tenor who could not sing on key? - the real problem was the outrage French critics felt at the adulation accorded this Italian composer ever since the 1837 French premiere of Lucia di Lammermoor.  Hector Berlioz, then still struggling for recogniton of his own compositions, was among the most disgruntled.  And certainly he had reason to be envious.  Donizetti was then at the height of his powers.  Following the retirement of Rossini and the death of Bellini. Donizetti was without question the premiere composer of bel canto opera.  However hostile the critics may have been, Donizetti had no problem whatsoever winning over the French public to the extent that years later La fille's Act II Salut à la France became something of a national anthem.

La fille itself is one of those wonderful comic operas in which a totally clichéd plot, so slight it's not worth describing here, exists only as an excuse for the singing of glorious arias.  And there are certainly no shortage of these, most notably Tonio's Act I crowdpleaser Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme with its fearsome nine high C's that pose a challenge for even the most accomplished tenors.  But there are other arias equally fine if not so riveting.  These include Marie's Act I Il faut partir and Tonio's Act II Pour me rapprocher de Marie.

One could hardly have asked for a finer cast than that which appeared onstage Saturday afternoon.  Tenor Javier Camarena, whom I saw make Met history several years ago when he was called back for an encore at a Rossini performance, had no trouble handling the high C's in Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme.  The aria not surprisingly brought down the house and Camarena once again deservedly performed an encore.  Soprano Pretty Yende, whom I saw on Saturday for the first time at the Met, was a revelation for the ease with which she handled her difficult bel canto arias.  Meanwhile, Met stalwart mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe was so fine as the eccentric Marquise of Berkenfield that one wished the part were larger.  And for a celebrity turn, Hollywood star Kathleen Turner made her Met debut with this opera in the speaking role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp.

Conductor Enrique Mazzola has led a large number of bel canto operas during his career and showed himself quite capable here.  He gave the singers every opportunity to display their vocal prowess.

The one problem I had was that the 2008 production by Laurent Pelly frivolously updated the action of the opera to World War I.  I've never cared in the first place for the practice of updating operas for the sake of novelty.  Though it may not have been apparent in 2008, it was singularly inappropriate this year when the world has only just finished honoring the war's centennial.  The four year observance forced everyone to once again view stories and photos of the horrors unleashed during the second decade of the twentieth century.  We definitely didn't need to be reminded of them at a performance of a comic opera.

Looking back, this was an excellent season at the Met, at least as far as the operas I attended, and I could not have wished for a better way to end it than Saturday's fine performance.

Juilliard Piano Recital: Bach, Beethoven, Szymanowski, Chopin and Zyman

Earlier this week I went to Alice Tully Hall to hear an hour-long piano recital, part of Juilliard's Wednesdays at One series, that featured an eclectic array of short pieces whose dates of composition stretched from the Baroque to the late twentieth century.

The full program was as follows:

J.S. Bach - Toccata in F-sharp minor, BWV 910 (1712) performed by Rixiang Huang. There are questions among musicologists regarding the dating of this piece, and some believe it was assembled in its present form from fragments composed earlier in Bach's career.  The highlight of piece is the final fugue that anticipates the Chromatic Fugue, BWV 903.

Beethoven - Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major, Op. 78 (1809) performed by Anna Han.  Nicknamed "à Thérèse" in honor of its dedicatee, Thérèse von Brunswick, the two-movement sonata was held in quite high esteem by the composer himself.  It is distinguished from many other middle period works by its serenity and lightness of spirit, most especially in the opening adagio cantabile.  It is as though Beethoven had finally found some degree of peace of mind seven years after having penned the despairing Heiligenstadt Testament.

Szymanowski - Four Etudes, Op. 4 (1900-1902) performed by Ryan Soeyadi.  The four - Allegro moderato in E-flat minor;  Allegro molto in G-flat major; Andante in B-flat minor; and Allegro in C major - represent the composer's attempt to follow the form that had been popularized by Chopin decades before.  Szymanowski found his greatest success with the third etude, the B-flat minor, that took on a life of its own independent of the other three.  It became, in fact, so popular a recital piece that for a long while it was the only work for which Szymanowski was known, thus leading him to ruefully comment of it, "Very bad luck to have composed one’s Ninth Symphony while so young!"

Chopin - Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 (1841) performed by Natalie Nedvetsky.  Of all Chopin's pieces for solo piano I've always felt the Ballades to be the most successful.  The No. 3, in particular, is a showcase for pianists to display their virtuosity.  It has an almost playful rollicking rhythm that delights the listener as it gradually builds to a passionate climax.

Chopin - Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20 (1831-1832) performed by Vicky Yin-yu Lam.  I've never really enjoyed hearing this piece - it's simply too depressing and repetitive for my taste.  Some critics have suggested that when Chopin wrote the piece while more or less living in self-imposed exile in Vienna he was downcast by the political turmoil in his native Poland and expressed his unhappiness in his music.  Whether or not there's any truth to that, the work does not possess any of the lightheartedness that the term "scherzo" would normally suggest.

Samuel Zyman - Two Motions in one movement (1996) performed by Athena Tsianos.  Before Wednesday's recital I had never heard any music by Zyman, a long time member of Juilliard's faculty, and I now feel I've been missing something.  The piece played on Wednesday afternoon, though extremly brief, was highly innovative and appeared to hold any number of technical challenges for the pianist.  Both the brevity and the difficulty are almost certainly due to the fact that it was commissioned by the California Music Teachers Association as a required piece to be performed by all participants at a Young Artists competition.  Though the work contained jazz elements, it never strayed far from its sources in twentieth century classical music.  I only wish it had been longer - it ended before I even had time to begin enjoying it.

Juilliard415 Performs German Baroque Chamber Music

After having listened to a broadcast last week of Jordi Savall performing music of the French Baroque (see my last post), I went yesterday afternoon to Holy Trinity Church on Central Park West to hear the Juilliard415, the school's period instrument ensemble, perform masterpieces of the German Baroque in a program that featured works by Johann Rosenmüller, Dieterich Buxtehude, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Friedrich Fasch, and Johann Gottlieb Janitsch.

The full program was as follows:

• Rosenmüller - Sonata No. 10 in F major from Sonate (1682) here arranged for two violins, two violas, cello and harpsichord
• Buxtehude - Sonata in D minor for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo, Op. 1, No. 6 (pub. 1694)
• Telemann - Trio Sonata in G minor, TWV 43:g5 from Essercizii musicale (1739-1740)
• Fasch - Sonata in F major for violin, oboe, bassoon and continuo, FaWV N: F4 (c. 1750)
• Telemann - "Paris" Quartet No. 6 in E minor, TWV43:e4 from Nouveaux quatuors en six suites (1738)
• Janitsch - two movements (largo e cantabile and allegro non troppo) from Sonata a Tre in F sharp minor (n.d.)
• Telemann - Sonata Prima in A major, TWV 43:A1 from Sei Quadri (1730)

The program was an interesting mix of better known and less famous composers. Fasch, much of whose music has been lost, and Janitsch, much of whose music remains unpublished, have both fallen into near total obscurity. If Rosenmüller is remembered at all, it is for all the wrong reasons. A well regarded organist on an upwardly mobile ecclesiastical career path, he was forced to flee Leipzig in 1655 after having been accused of sexual impropriety. In exile in Venice he found a position at St. Mark's and came under the influence of Italian music whose style he then incorporated into his own works.

In contrast to the three composers mentioned above, Dieterich Buxtehude exerted enormous influence on the course of the German Baroque. While organist at St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, he composed a huge number of ecclesiastical works for that instrument, some of which are still used in church services today.  During his lifetime, however, he was most famous for the secular music he composed for the Abendmusik concerts that followed church services on five Sundays each year.  It's thought that J.S. Bach, who famously walked a full 250 miles in order to meet his idol, may have attended one of these concerts.  Most important to Bach was Buxtehude's development of the fugue, a device that became central to Bach's own oeuvre.  On the other hand, the D minor sonata performed at this recital was not something one would have expected of a composer of religious music.  Described admiringly in the program notes as being "adventurous in its convergence of styles and influences, with juxtapositions of music at once restrained and unbridled, sophisticated and crude: the famed stylus phantasticus," the sonata was amazingly entertaining.

After Bach and Handel, the most famous and influential German Baroque composer was certainly Telemann. Incredibly prolific, in part due to the need to pay off his wife's gambling debts, a close enough friend to Bach to serve as godfather to Carl Philipp Emanuel, he held major music positions in both Frankfurt and Hamburg.  But Telemann's influence extended far beyond Germany.  His "Paris Quartets," two of which were performed at this recital, had so great an impact on French musicians they can truly be said to have changed the course of French Baroque music.  As Telemann himself put it: "they won the attention of the ears of the court and the town, and procured for me in a very little time an almost universal renown and increased esteem."

WQXR/Carnegie Hall: Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations

On Thursday evening WQXR, New York's clasical music station, broadcast from Zankel Hall a recital of French Baroque music that featured famed musicologist Jordi Savall and his ensemble Le Concert des Nations performing on original instruments.  The program essentially reprised the soundtrack of the 1991 film Tous les matins du monde for which Mr. Savall, a virtuoso viol pleayer, was awarded the French Academy Award for music.

I saw the film Tous les matins du monde when it was first released, but after the passage of more than a quarter century I have to admit I cannot recall it in any great detail even though I remember having enjoyed seeing it a great deal.  The storyline, romantic subplot aside, dealt primarily with the problematical relationship between the seventeenth century composer Jean de Sainte-Colombe, an acknowledged master of the viol, and the young Marin Marais who would go on to surpass his teacher as a composer for that same instrument.

In addition to the music of the two composers mentioned above, the program also contained works by other masters of the French Baroque, such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Marie Leclair, the last eventually murdered in a truly sensational manner.  (The full program can be seen on WQXR's website at the link shown in the final paragraph.)  Perhaps the most important figure of the French Baroque, however, was neither a professional musician nor composer but rather the ruler who made their accomplishments possible.  Though Louis XIV undoubtedly patronized the arts in part at least to increase his political prestige, it's certain that he did possess a genuine passion for music.  In addition to participating in court ballets, most notably those composed by Lully, Louis also founded the Royal Academy of Music, forerunner to the Paris Opera, and permanently employed 150 to 200 musicians.  He also created the first large ensemble of viol instruments, the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi, that provided music for court ballets and royal entertainments.  Without Louis's patronage it's doubtful that many of the works on Thursday's program would ever have been composed.

Mr. Savall's performance can only be described as extraordinary.  He managed to impart new vitality to centuries old music and made it as vital and appealing to modern audiences as if it had been written yesterday.  He was ably assisted throughout the performance by the excellent musicianship of  his associates in Le Concert des Nations - Manfredo Kraemer, violin, Charles Zebley, flute, Philippe Pierlot, bass viol, Daniel Swenberg, theorbo, and Luca Guglielmi, harpsichord - all of whom were incredibly adept in the use of period instruments that produce a radically different sound than their modern counterparts.

The archived performance is available for listening on WQXR's website.

WQXR/Carnegie Hall: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Performs Beethoven and Strauss

On Friday evening WQXR, New York City's classical music station, broadcast a live concert from Carnegie Hall that featured the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, led by Daniel Harding, a conductor better known in Europe than America who has been rumored as a possible replacement for Daniele Gatti, the orchestra's former chief conductor who was abruptly fired last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

The program opened with the New York premiere of a short work by Guillaume Connesson entitled Eiréné after the Greek goddess of peace.  The single movement work, roughly ten minutes in length, consisted of three themes that the composer, quoted in the program notes, described as follows:

"The first is sinuous and caressing, with ambiguous chromaticism. The second theme—a joyful, spring-like call motif in the Indian Shri mode—symbolizes the awakening of nature, and its dotted rhythm is full of naive joy. The third theme is of a vocal nature, a hymn to newfound peace that still carries past sufferings."

Eiréné, a 2018 commission from the Royal Concertgebouw, began with bell sounds reminiscent of Arvo Pärt's tintinnabular style before mixing uneasily with a neo-romantic string section and then ending with a film score finale.

A quarter centuy ago, one could not go through a season without hearing at least two performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 (1809-1811). With its rousing martial music, the concerto made a fitting end to the composer's middle "heroic" period and was long considered one of his greatest works. In the past several years, however, this same piece, perhaps because it has become overfamiliar, has not been played nearly as often. I have only heard it a handful of times in the past few seasons. Another reason for its absence in concert halls, however, may be that its grand heroic sound is no longer a good fit for the anxious times in which we now live.

In many ways the concerto is a throwback to Beethoven's early "classical" period when he was still heavily under the influence of Mozart and Haydn. Like the Symphony No. 8, written only a year later, the concerto adheres closely to the classical formula. It is in the traditional three fast-slow-fast movements and ends with a rondo. One is tempted to think that Beethoven, about to enter his late period, wanted to revisit the forms he had employed in his youth in order to demonstrate how much better he could handle them at the height of his powers. The fact that the work was written for Beethoven's most important patron, Archduke Rudolf, who played it at its private premiere, may at least partially account for its martial air.

The soloist at Wednesday's performance was Pierre-Laurent Aimard.  His playing was very crisp with each note clearly articulated.  Pianist and orchestra worked extremely well together and managed to create between them an original and striking rendition of a timeless classic.  For an encore Mr. Aimard performed the scherzo from Strauss's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 5.

After intermission the program ended with a performance of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (1898). I have to admit that I have never cared for the majority of Strauss's tone poems, least of all the present work. To my mind, the best one word description for it would be "vainglorious." It's significant that it was composed only a year after the death of Brahms when Strauss suddenly found himself by default the most prominent composer in Europe. He must have felt then, at only age 34, that he had finally arrived and that his place in musical history was secure. No wonder then that the piece is so self-referential. According to Wikipedia, "the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works..." If there were any remaining doubt as to the identity of the unnamed hero, a remark quoted in the Carnegie Hall's program notes should be sufficient to dispell it:

"I don’t see why I shouldn’t compose a symphony about myself,” he [Strauss] told Romain Rolland (after issuing initial disclaimers); “I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander."

At the same time, Strauss's unbounded egotism was merely a reflection of the complacency within his own country. Germany, finally united by Bismarck, was at the turn of the twentieth century the economic and cultural powerhouse of Europe. It was filled with dreams of conquest and empire as it rushed headlong toward the cataclysm waiting to engulf it. It's noteworthy that Strauss never again composed a tone poem following the end of World War I. After 1918 neither Strauss nor Germany would ever again be the same.

The Royal Concertgebouw is a world class orchestra that benefited Wednesday evening from excellent conducting.  Before this concert I had never even heard Mr. Harding's name, but based on the orchestra's performance I think he well deserves the position of chief conductor.

The archived performance is currently available for listening on WQXR's website.

Juilliard Piano Recital: Rachmaninoff and Brahms

On Wednesday afternoon I went to Paul Hall to hear a one-hour recital given by Juilliard's Piano Performance Forum.  The program featured only two works, one each by Rachmaninoff and Brahms.

The recital began with a performance by Chaeyoung Park of Rachmaninoff's Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36 (1913, rev. 1931).  When listening to Rachmaninoff's music, one can't help feeling that he belonged to another era.  Living in exile in Los Angeles, he was an aristocrat with far less connection to twentieth century America than to Czarist Russia, the last traces of which had long since disappeared.  In an age dominated by modernism, even though he was only a year older than Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff clung unapologetically throughout his career to the nineteenth century Romanticism of his mentor Tchaikovsky.  It was Rachmaninoff's genuine devotion to this tradition that makes his music so appealing and refutes those critics who would consider him nothing more than an anachronism.  As Rachmaninoff himself put it, a composer's music should reflect "the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, the pictures he loves."  And Rachmaninoff was as good as his word.  In his music Romanticism is still the vital force it had been in the previous century, and nowhere more so than in the present sonata.  The listener has only to hear the dramatic opening of the first movement to know where the composer's heart lies.  Still another Romantic element is the use of bells throughout the work - Rachmaninoff composed the sonata at the same time as The Bells, Op. 35 - and most noticeably in its closing bars.

The sonata exists in at least three versions.  While the original 1913 version was well received at its premiere, Rachmaninoff decided to make changes.  It may have been that he still lacked confidence in his own judgment after the disastrous premiere years before of his Symphony No. 1, but in any event he "streamlined" the sonata by removing many of the more difficult passages and in so doing shortened it by about five minutes.  Then in 1940 Vladimir Horowitz, with the composer's permission, prepared a third version that incorporated elements of both the 1913 and the 1931.  I have a recording of Horowitz performing this version, and to my mind it's the most satisfactory.  Judging solely by the length of the performance, that played at Wednesday's recital was the 1931.

The second and final work, performed by Sylvia Jiang, was Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24 (1861).  One does not usually associate Brahms with Baroque music, but the nineteenth century composer actually made a deep study of earlier musical forms in order to improve his own compositions.  The Op. 24 is the finest product of his research and he himself regarded it as such at the time of its composition.  Starting from a simple theme from Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B-flat major, HWV 434, Brahms concentrated on the bass line in order to find within it new melodies not previously expressed rather than simply composing variations on the melodies already written out by Handel.  In this way, the variations can actually be viewed as original pieces authored by Brahms himself that nevertheless remain absolutely faithful to their source.  Not only was Brahms seeking inspiration in a work from the Baroque era, but the musical forms he employed in his variations - such as a siciliana and a canon, not to mention the fugue - also derived from that same period.  The irony was that the very concept of a theme and variations, so central to Beethoven's oeuvre, was by the mid-nineteenth century itself considered an outdated form.  Few composers other than Brahms were working in that genre.  It may have been the composer's veneration for Beethoven that caused Brahms to turn it in the first place.  At any rate, he gave it new life, both here and even more famously in his later Variations on a Theme by Haydn.  

Carnegie Hall Announces 2019 - 2020 Season

Last week Carnegie Hall announced its scheduled concerts and recitals for the 2019 - 2020 season and began processing renewal requests from current subscribers.  Various incentives - a complimentary cd featuring Daniil Trifonov performing Rachmaninoff Concerti Nos. 2 and 4 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a chance to win a free subscription - are offered to those who renew before February 15th.

The upcoming season should be particularly exciting as the Hall will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.  There will be many opportunities to hear the immortal composer's music throughout the coming months.

The season's "Perspective" artists will feature several outstanding musicians.  Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will appear in several recitals including a performance of Schubert's Winterreise as well as a rendtion of Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; African vocalist Angélique Kidjo will sing in several concerts including one that celebrates her homeland Benin's independence; conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner will lead the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in several concerts of Beethoven's symphonies; and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin will take the helm of three orchestras including the Met Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It's not possible to list all the wonderful events that will be taking place every week of the season, so I'll only mention those that I am most looking forward to attending.  In no particular order, these include soprano Diana Damrau singing Strauss's Four Last Songs with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing Mozart's Concerti Nos. 17 and 22 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; pianist Sir András Schiff performing Beethoven sonatas; conductor Daniel Barenboim leading the Vienna Philharmonic on Mahler No. 9; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony on Mahler No. 6; and Harry Bicket leading the English Concert in a concert performance of Handel's Rodelinda.  For me, though, the true highlight of the season will come in April when conductor Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony in a concert performance of Act III of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with a cast that features renowned tenor Jonas Kaufmann.

With so much great music on hand, I strongly urge anyone with a love of classical music to attend as many of these events as possible.  I've already renewed all the four series to which I currently subscribe.  Subscriptions should be offered to the general public sometime in March while individual tickets will go on sale in the latter part of August.  Contact Carnegie Hall for details.

Jupiter Players Perform Mozart, Gernsheim and Schumann

On Monday afternoon I went for the first time in almost a year to Good Shepherd Church on West 66th Street to hear a chamber music recital given by the Jupiter Players.  The two hour performance featured works by Mozart, Friedrich Gernsheim and Schumann that showcased the talents of the two guest artists, Miriam Fried, violin, and Drew Petersen, piano.

The program opened with Mozart's Piano Trio in E-flat major, K. 498 (1786) for piano, clarinet and viola.  Long after Mozart's death, the work was given the nickname Kegelstatt by the music's publishers who most likely confused it with the K. 487 composed a month earlier on whose score Mozart had noted that it had been written while playing skittles.  Since it made for a good story, the unlikely name stuck.  Far more important is the work's place to the clarinet repertoire.  At the time, the clarinet was a relatively new instrument.  Haydn only began to make use of it in 1793 when he composed his Symphony No. 99 in preparation for his second London tour.  Probably he viewed it as a novelty that would delight English audiences.  The clarinet might not have made so prominent an appearance in Mozart's later work if it hadn't been for his friendship with Anton Stadler, a dissolute character who was nevertheless the world's first true clarinet virtuoso performing on an instrument of his own design.  As it is, the trio is the first work written for this particular combination of instruments.  The occasion was a private performance at the home of Mozart's friend Nikolaus von Jacquin to whose daughter Mozart had dedicated the work.  The musicians were most likely said daughter Franziska Jacquin on piano, Stadler playing clarinet and Mozart himself performing the viola part.  The composer did not shortchange his friends.  This is one of his finest chamber works and contains several interesting features from the highly unusual use of an andante as an opening movement to the seven part rondo that closes the piece.

The next work was Gernsheim's String Quartet No. 2 in A minor Op. 31 (1875).  In the mid-nineteenth century Gernsheim was a highly respected composer and educator as well as a conductor and concert pianist.  Unfortunately, his Jewish ancestry as well as the occasional choice of Jewish subject matter in his music (e.g., the Symphony No. 3 inspired the Biblical account of Miriam) earned the posthumous ire of the Nazis in their campaign against entartete musik.  His works were banned and all references to him removed from German musical histories.  Like much of Gernsheim's music, the present quartet clearly shows the influence of Brahms but it nevertheless possesses its own highly original and distinctive style.  Gernsheim was a brilliant composer and it would be a shame if the obscurity to which the Nazis condemned his works were allowed to continue.

After intermission, the program closed with a performance of Schumann's Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major Op. 80 (1847).  Both the composser's first two piano trios were composed some five years after his famous Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet and it may have been that he wanted to experiment further with the combination of keyboard and strings.  The Op. 80, in particular, is a self-consciously innovative work characterized by unusual shifts in key and dense contrapuntal writing in both the first and second movements.  At the same time the quotation from his song Dein Bildnis wunderselig, the second of his Liederkreis, Op 39, in the first movement as well as the long lyrical melody that opens the second slow movement combine to make the music much more appealing to the audience than one would expect.  Although when writing for piano and strings Schumann normally gave much greater weight to the piano part, he here surprises the listener by having the strings alone announce the work's opening theme.

This was probably the best program the Jupiter Players have offered in quite some time.  The musicianship of both guest artists and ensemble players was of the highest order.

The Orchestra Now Performs Lyadov, Stravinsky, Ravel and Mussorgsky

On Sunday afternoon I went to Symphony Space on upper Broadway to hear the Orchestra Now, led by its resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman, perform a program of works that all had some relationship, no matter how tenuous, to the Ballets Russes. 

The concert opened with Anatoly Lyadov's The Enchanted Lake, Op. 62 (1909).  Oddly enough, Lyadov is most famous for what he did not compose.  Based on the testimony of his colleagues, he had to have been the laziest and least productive of all the major Russian composers; eventually he became something of a legend for his inability to see through to completion the majority of the musical projects on which he had embarked.  The most famous example, of course, was his fiasco with the Ballets Russes.  Commissioned by Diaghilev to write the original score for The Firebird, Lyadov so endlessly procrastinated that finally Diaghilev, in exasperation, fired him and handed the commission to Stravinsky for whom it proved a breakthrough success.  Though there's no evidence Lyadov ever actually accepted Diaghilev's commission, the story well illustrates the composer's character.  He never managed to complete a full length work (the present piece is only about 7 minutes long) and his complete oeuvre is astonishingly limited.  As for The Enchanted Lake itself, it is an abbreviated tone poem, described by the composer as a "fairy tale scene," that is almost somnolent in character.  That's not to suggest, however, that it's at all unpleasant to hear.  Actually, its gentleness and hushed sense of unreality place it firmly in the tradition of Russian Romanticism.

The next work was a suite taken from Stravinsky's Firebird itself.  As mentioned above, the ballet was the then unknown composer's first commission from the Ballets Russes.  The story had already been developed by Alexandre Benois and choreographer Michel Fokine by the time Stravinsky commenced work on the score.  This was in fact the company's first original score and its success led directly to Stravinsky's later engagements on Petrushka (1911) and Le Sacre du Printemps (1913).  As an early work, The Firebird represents an intermediate period in Stravinsky's career when he had not yet completely freed himself from the Russian Romantic tradition - the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov can easily be distinguished throughout - but was already moving forward in the modernist vein that would become much more apparent in the works immediately following it.

The suite chosen for performance, the 1945, was the last of the three the composer extracted from his ballet.  Of them all, I much prefer the first, the 1910, which is the most faithful to its source. In contrast, the 1945 suite contains orchestral revisions that alter the character of the piece.  To my mind, however, none of the three really does justice to the original work from which they are drawn.

After intermission, the program continued with Ravel's La valse (1919-1920).  Though the piece was originally conceived as a tribute to Johann Strauss and the gaiety of pre-war Vienna, it took on another meaning - no matter how vehemently Ravel may have denied it - when the work finally came to be written in 1919 at a time when Europe was still reeling from the cataclysmic effects of four years of war.  The halcyon days of the Belle Époque that had initially inspired the work seemed impossibly distant from this new vantage point and were looked back upon not so much with nostalgia as with a sense that they had all along been unreal, a veneer thinly covering the strife and discontent that were eventually to rise to the surface and plunge the continent into four years of madness.  Though the piece, which in actuality contains a series of waltzes, begins pleasantly enough, a sense of something not quite right soon makes itself felt, and the work ends with a death-like coda that sounds as if a music box had burst a spring and ended on a false note.  Nevertheless, Ravel himself described the piece as follows:

"Flashes of lightning in turbulent clouds reveal a couple waltzing.  One by one the clouds vanish; a huge ballroom filled by a circling mass is revealed.  The scene gradually becomes illuminated.  The light of chandeliers bursts forth.  An imperial court about 1855."

It was La Valse that ended Ravel's association with the Ballets Russes.  Although Diaghiliev admitted the work was a masterpiece, he then went on to claim that it was not a ballet but "a portrait of ballet."  Ravel was understandably insulted and broke off all contact with the impresario.  So upset was the composer that when he met Diaghilev again years later he wouldn't even shake his hand, an act that led the latter to challenge him to a duel.  One can't blame Ravel for his indignation.  This was one of his finest creations and even today one of his most popular works.

The concert ended with a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874).  Most listeners are familiar with this work through Ravel's superb 1922 orchestration (that performed at this concert), but Mussorgsky originally composed it as a virtuoso piano piece.  As such, it was intended as a tribute to the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann who died of an aneurysm at only age 39,  Like Mussorgsky and the other composers who made up "the Five," Hartmann had been an strong advocate of promoting nationalist themes in Russian art and this had formed the basis of the pair's close friendship.  Upon Hartmann's death, an exhibit of his artwork was staged in Saint Petersburg as a memorial to him.  It was while viewing the exhibit that Mussorgsky hit upon the concept of a musical representation of a viewer passing through the exhibit and pausing to look at one Hartmann picture after another.  Ironically, most of the original artwork has since been lost and it is only through Mussorgsky's music that these paintings now exist.  The music itself is much more powerful in the original piano version; it has a rawness and a hard edge that has been subsumed in Ravel's elegant transcription.

The Orchestra Now is a "training orchestra" made up of graduate students working toward an advanced degree at Bard College. The group was founded by Bard President Leon Botstein who is also Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra.