[18] The MET Orchestra and Elīna Garanča perform Mahler and Bruckner at Carnegie Hall | #1Summer50Concerts

                                           

Look at that SMILE!

WHO: The MET Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Elīna Garanča, mezzo-soprano
WHAT: MAHLER Rückert-Lieder; BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7
WHERE: Carnegie Hall
WHEN: June 14, 2019, 8:00pm

I'm pretty much convinced that Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the perfect human being.

His conducting is fabulous. He is the principal conductor of three orchestras (MET, Philadelphia, and Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal) and everyone in each of those orchestras loves him. He is always smiling. He can light up a room the size of Carnegie Hall. And my friends who have met him have assured me that he's just as nice in person. Even his bald spot is perfectly round.

Yeah, he's kind of my celebrity crush. Don't tell him, though.

I have this weird thing where I love going to see Mahler symphonies live, but I can't bring myself to listen to them in my free time. I'm not exactly sure why -- I obviously like them at least some, but for some reason my idea of "fun listening" (especially background listening) isn't an hour of hyper-dramatic maximalist symphony.

Mahler's song cycles, on the other hand, are far more reserved. Mahler had to tame his bombastic tendencies to fit a whole orchestra underneath a vocal soloist, and it shows. Some of the song cycles have a theme -- for instance, the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children -- super uplifting) -- but others are simply themed with a poet. These five songs, to texts by Friedrich Rückert, fall staunchly in the latter category, and I think they're my favorite thing that Mahler ever wrote. Vivid orchestral color, tear-jerking melodies, equal opportunity for heart-rending theatricism and musical bravura.

So, what do you get when you combine a perfect conductor, a perfect mezzo-soprano, a perfect orchestra, and a perfect piece?

Yup, this performance was damn near perfect. Garanča's tone was always enough to fill the hall, even in the rare moment when she traded her full splendor for a more impish affect. The MET Orchestra sounded like a multi-headed beast, so perfectly attuned to one another that it almost felt like the musicians were being operated by a switchboard backstage -- of course, the musicality remained uncompromised. And Yannick....well, he was perfect.

All was perfect until that moment of silence after the last chord of the piece petered out -- probably my favorite part of the entire song cycle -- when some asshole in the audience shouted "BRAVA!!!!" before Yannick even had a chance to put his arms down. If you're that guy, and you're reading this, then fuck you. Full stop.

Much in the same way that I never listen to Mahler symphonies in my free time, I had never listened to a full Bruckner symphony before this concert. I'd been told that it was like Mahler, but boring -- not my style. But I was pleasantly surprised, not only by the piece, but by how the MET Orchestra worked their magic (I feel like that's a theme, maybe it shouldn't surprise me anymore).

He's like classical music James Corden!

Mahler's big hallmark is the loud-and-louder concept -- louder than loud is louder, louder than louder is blow-your-brains-out loud, and so on and so forth. Bruckner didn't feel like loud and louder. Bruckner felt like deep and deeper. When Bruckner wanted loud, he added an extra instrument or two in a lower or higher octave, maturing the sound. And the MET orchestra highlighted that perfectly. Every member of that orchestra knew the score perfectly, and when it was their turn to play they slipped into the timbre of the chord seamlessly. In any other orchestra, I'd say that was because they'd played it 40 times before, but Yannick himself said from the stage that it was the first time the orchestra had ever played a Bruckner symphony.

And speaking of Yannick: he was perfect.

So I know I made a little bit of a jab at the MET orchestra in my last post for not having a particularly pride-friendly program for this concert. But you know, with a concert of this quality, I really shouldn't complain. Get excited for next MET season -- the orchestra is going to get its chance to shine in a few of the productions (Wozzeck, Flying Dutchman, Rosenkavalier, Káťa Kabanová), so keep an ear out for them.

[2] Uri Caine Trio at The Stone @ Mannes | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: Uri Caine Trio (Uri Caine, piano; Mark Helias, bass; Ben Perowsky, drums)
WHERE: The Stone at The New School
WHEN: May 29, 2019, 8:30pm

I only decided I was going to this concert about 2 hours before it actually started. And I was almost late because I spent too long looking for the nonexistent lunchbox section at TJ Maxx.

Ah, the joys of adulting.

Admittedly, I didn't know a ton about Uri Caine before showing up to his concert last night. I knew was a pianist, and that he had done a jazz Mahler album that I've been meaning to listen to for years, and that was about it. I don't know why his week-long residency at Mannes didn't get more press -- the audience was maybe half full, only about 30 people. But that didn't stop the trio from taking the audience on an adventure to remember.

After sitting down at their instruments, the players began to noodle around, as is common for the first minute or two of a jazz set. But they kept noodling longer than that until eventually Perowsky began to play in something resembling a steady four-beat, seemingly on the fly. The other two adjusted their fooling around slowly, almost imperceptibly, until eventually the entire trio was synced. It was the kind of thing that leaves the audience with jaws on the ground; I know I was in total awe.

*applause* "Quick, take a photo, my phone is dead!" *band starts to pack up* "What, now?" "Yes!" *fumbling with phone*  -- an actual conversation my date and I had yesterday

The word that pops to mind when describing the trio is deft. Their entire set was full of tact and panache, and each player performed to his fullest without detracting from the others. Even at times when the music entered a "free" state similar to the opening of the set, it seemed like the players were aware of each others' improvisations -- perhaps that explains how they always found a common beat after a few seconds, even though Caine's gaze was glued to his hands and Helias never once opened his eyes.

Caine's improvised riffs very much evoked his career as a classical composer; though I didn't know he was classically trained when I saw him, there were a few moments where I turned to my date and mouthed "Debussy? Stravinsky? Messiaen?" and she smiled and nodded in corroboration. A disciple of George Crumb, Caine's claims to fame are his reworkings of classical music: not just Mahler, but Wagner, Schumann, Mozart, and even Bach's Goldberg Variations. One riff in particular from last night's concert evoked a dreaded piano solo from Stravinsky's Petrushka.

Helias's bass lines were creatively realized, if a bit stodgy. He, unlike many jazz bassists, was equally apt with a bow as pizzicato -- his bowed walking bass was refreshing. Perowsky left no timbre unexplored on his kit, from the side of the crash cymbal to the stands of his drums. His wrists alone were something to write home about; when he wanted a crash, but not too loud, he would tense his wrist completely and essentially push the cymbal down with his stick, muffling the sound just enough.

They played for an hour without stopping. The lines between actual charts and improvised filler material were blurry; that being said, the charts ranged from up-tempo rock-with-jazz-chords-sounding romps to the usual swing patterns. The final minute consisted of a series of dominant-tonic progressions -- literally V-I-V-I etc. -- but each time he played it he added more notes until he ended up with cluster-cluster-cluster-cluster. Take that, Mozart.

If you get a chance to see Uri Caine and any cohort of his, you should jump on that opportunity. His music has charisma and charm; it's nouveau-jazz without being inaccessible. And now that I've bought a lunchbox as well, my life is complete -- except for the fact that I forgot to bring it (with my lunch inside) to work today. Sigh.

The trim matches my backpack!