New York's "leading young early-music ensemble" perhaps looking a touch younger than they do today (God, I'm going to get myself killed one of these days...)
For someone who insisted that he was re-taking the classical criticism world by storm, I've been pretty quiet these past five or so weeks. Time, it stops for no one. Motivation has been hard to come by. I know I'll never have more time for personal projects than I do right now, and yet every time I think about, say, writing a full-length article, my stomach turns. I feel somewhere on the cusp of too busy, burnt out, and just plain lazy -- but some of those things are constants in my life.
I've still been going to concerts -- it's not like I have so many other hobbies. A few highlights from the past month:
The Sebastians performing music by Bach and friends with live-produced paintings. Embarrassingly, I actually still owe them a review -- they were kind enough to give me a press ticket. A lovely program, lovely playing, lovely conversation after. You'll read more on them soon, but for now: Daniel, Nick, Ezra, Jeff, and Karl, if you're reading this, consider me your biggest fan.
Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up In My Bones at the Met -- standing room only. Absolutely destroyed my lower back, but well worth the pain.
Voces8 later that same day. My first time seeing them live. Left me conflicted, but satisfied.
Robert Ashley's eL/Aficionado at Roulette in Brooklyn. My date, editor, friend, and once review topic Anna Heflin wrote a phenomenal review that followed the strange format of the piece.
Brahms chamber music with Garrick Ohlsson and the Tákacs Quartet. Tákacs plays Brahms in a way that makes me think they excel at Bártok (they do). Slightly choppy, but hey, Brahms is comfort food -- a slightly soggy French fry is better than no French fry at all.
And then, all of a sudden, it was November. Spooky, huh?
Clearly, I'm a little tired of the conventional review. I mean, the joy of reviewing comes from some idea that one's opinion matters. I've asked myself this question for the the last eighteen months -- why does it matter what I think? -- and I still can't figure it out.
So instead, I'm going to approach the concert from the other side: looking forward. I'm in the process of assembling a list of the concerts that I'm most excited for this month. Think of it as the Classical Music Geek concert calendar, a curated selection from other NYC-area lists, highly targeted Facebook ads, and things my friends are performing. (Just because I'm quick to disclose a conflict of interest doesn't mean I'm not also super excited.) Hopefully, I can provide some value to the reader, not just to the performer -- although, every time a performer quotes me in the Press section of their website, my heart does sing a little bit.
But that's too many words for right now -- first, sleep. Look out for that calendar in the next couple days.
I'm really not sure whether my attention span has increased or decreased since quarantine started.
And with that, Facebook calls. See you in 15 minutes.
Our reward for getting three sentences in: my favorite opera scene EVER,
taken from the production of Les Indes galantes that I briefly discuss below.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, me and my attention span.
But I don't usually have the attention span to sit down and listen to "complete" anything. At concerts, my mind often wanders (yeah, I admit it). My favorite albums usually have a little bit of a lot of things -- just look at what I've reviewed so far.
Lately, though, I've found myself seeking out more "complete" musical experiences. Last week, I listened through all of Britten's Turn of the Screw -- I don't usually listen to operas, it feels like a piece of missing (maybe I like to see staged works?). Just a couple days ago, I made it through the six hours of music that make up Marais's second book of viol pieces. And now, I'm on a recording of Bach's complete keyboard music (volume 3 of many).
I wonder if having more time necessarily translates to more attention. I feel like the answer is no. Then why am I seeking out "completeness" all of a sudden?
Maybe I'm overthinking this. Yeah, I think I'm only seeking out "completeness" because it's new to me and I'm getting bored of only listening to skittish concept albums.
That said, my favorite "complete" experience that everyone should have this break: the Paris National Opera's production of Rameau's Les Indes galantes is available on arte.tv. You need a European VPN, but it's well worth finding one. My friend and I started at 9pm and planned only to watch until the end of act two (the opera is a prologue plus four acts). It was so fantastic we didn't stop until the bitter end. I can't provide the link or else I might be sued, but go. Do it. You have the time.
Remember that time I whined about being in "day umpteen" of quarantine on, like, day 10? Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHA.
Apparently I've been busy, because I haven't written for almost a month. But of course I've still been listening to lots of music -- what else am I going to do while I cook meals for five and then eat the entire pot in one night?
Side note: any of you ever make a whole loaf of bread and then finish it in 24 hours? I'm down to a heel of the focaccia I made yesterday. Note to self: solo quarantine is terrible for the waistline.
Anyway, here are a few memorable bits of music from the past couple weeks.
David Lang: "penance and remorse" from the little match girl passion
Theatre of Voices; Paul Hillier, conductor
A few nights ago, in some sort of tired, cranky, stir-crazy fever dream, I seriously considered mounting this piece as the capstone to my music degree. The next morning, I woke up and decided that maybe post-midnight quarantine Emery shouldn't be calling the shots.
Dieterich Buxtehude: O clemens, o mitis, o coelestis pater
Julie Roset, soprano; Ensemble Clematis
According to Julie Roset's Facebook fanpage, she got her bachelor's in 2019 -- and in Europe, bachelor's degrees are three years. So basically, she's a year older than I am. Her first solo album dropped, like, a week ago. What have I done with my life? (I should mention that the first phrase of this Buxtehude was so perfect that I forgot about the dish I was washing and spent the next fifteen minutes sweeping ceramic shards from my kitchen floor...maybe that says more about me than about Julie Roset though?)
Meredith Monk: "Wa-Lie-Oh" from Songs from the Hill
Marc Mauillon, baritone
An album to be experienced, not to be talked about.
Richard Strauss: the last five minutes of Ein Heldenleben
Gothenburg Symphony; Kent Nagano, conductor
I'm never in the mood to listen to Strauss. Except yesterday, I was. Brought me right back to Disney Hall, watching an aging, but ever lively Zubin Mehta conduct Heldenleben with the LA Phil on the weekend of my 18th birthday. I've said it once and I'll say it again: thank god for the $10 student ticket.
Marin Marais: "La Polonoise" from Suite in d minor (Second Book of Pieces for Viol)
François Joubert-Caillet; L'Achéron
I watched this one video ~20 times the other day. My findings: harp is just so totally the best continuo instrument. Plus, how cool is that 10th century church they're recording in?
Gaetano Donizetti: "Chacun le sait" from La fille du régiment
Erin Morley, soprano and piano; from the Metropolitan Opera's livestreamed gala
I go on a lot of walks in the only New Haven neighborhood with living rooms that big, I wonder if I've walked by Erin Morley's house? (also, what a performance holy crap) (also also, bel canto usually gives me hives but for some reason yesterday I only wanted to listen to music I don't usually like? I think quarantine broke me)
Anaïs Mitchell: Way Down Hadestown
From the original 2010 concept album
There's something so comforting about this original version -- no pomp, no circumstance, no huge swing-band dance number. With the call-and-response, it's almost campfire-y in a way. Intimate, muted, warm, fuzzy.
WHO: Francesca Aspromonte, soprano; Il Pomo d'Oro; Enrico Onofri, director WHAT: Prologues to operas by Monteverdi, Caccini, Cavalli, Landi, Rossi, Cesti, Stradella, and A. Scarlatti RELEASED: May 2018 LABEL: Pentatone
Guys, I'm really fucking bored. My brain is kinda turning to mush. I've turned to practicing cello to give myself something to do. Do you know how much I hate practicing? A lot. I hate practicing a lot.
Anyway, one thing I think we could all use during this weird, crazy time is music to listen to -- according to an email that one of my professors sent a couple hours ago, "music can be at its most powerful in times of crisis and uncertainty." Musicians always know how to cheer up a crowd, huh?
So I'm going to try to review an album every day that I'm stuck inside. No particular theme, just what I happen to be listening to at the moment. They're not going to be long, but hopefully they'll keep me busy and give you some new music to try out.
One thing that you should know about me is that I organize all the music I have yet to listen to into 60 or so playlists according to instrumentation and time period. "Romantic Keyboard"; "20th-Century Choral"; you get the idea. My "Baroque Solo Vocal" list is on the long side -- up around 170 hours (but I'm also terrible about clearing out what I've already listened to).
Today, I wanted Italian baroque opera, probably because I'm mourning the cancellation of Yale's annual baroque opera project (Cavalli's Doriclea, for anyone who cares -- good luck finding a recording). Luckily, this was near the top of my list.
Though prologues have fallen out of fashion in opera today, they were among the most important parts of early operatic structure. An allegorical character -- usually just named "Prologue" -- would come onstage and address the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall and foreshadowing the overarching themes of the plot to come. Usually, this takes the form of a recitative (imagine you're speaking, but while singing one note over and over again) with instrumental interludes (usually ornamented versions of a single theme).
Owning a recitative is hard. I've tried (and failed) myself -- it takes a lot of energy to make a repeated note interesting. You wouldn't know that from Francesca Aspromonte's performance. Recitative is clearly second-nature to her; her text stresses land with gravity, but don't halt forward momentum. Her voice is clear and sweet, blooming beautifully in the brief arias where she has less text to worry about.
Il Pomo d'Oro somehow put out six albums in 2018 alone, and all of the ones I've listened to are fantastic. This pared-down ensemble of a couple violins and a continuo section hits the mark; the violinists clearly play together rather than following one another, and the harpsichordist's improvisations combine pinpoint precision with wild, unhinged improvisation.
"Who had this crazy idea to invent school all of a sudden? Charlemagne!"
I forgot how rough it is to go from doing absolutely nothing to absolutely everything. One day, I'm sitting on the recliner in my room at home watching Netflix, the next day I'm sprawled on my apartment couch after having carried twenty pounds of groceries back from my four classes and three rehearsals. But hey, such is the story of academic vacations.
Anyway, considering that many of you will be dealing with the same thing in the coming weeks, here are five albums that will help you through your first week back on the job (or any rough week, for that matter), whether you're a student or not.
If you ever wanted your classical music with a side of indie (or vice versa): Love I Obey (Rosemary Standley & Helstroffer's Band)
To give you some context, this is the album I listened for comfort when I was stuck on the D train for almost two hours this summer. Rosemary Standley makes her career with indie band Moriarty. Bruno Helstroffer is a blues guitarist who plays early music as a day job. Together, they dreamed up this album of bluesy takes on British Renaissance airs. Standley's voice is (truly, in a non-cliché way) unlike any other singer I've ever heard, throaty and warm with a distinctive twang to the diction. And Helstroffer is just an incredible musician in all respects -- his solo debut is also among my favorite albums ever.
For a really, really good version of a piece you might know: Bach: Motets (Collegium Vocale Gent, cond. Philippe Herreweghe)
This recording is just squeaky clean. Most of the motets are only one singer to a part on this album; the intimate accuracy gives me chills every time. The cast includes Vox Luminis soprano Zsuzsi Tóth; superstar French countertenor Damien Guillon; Bach specialist bass Peter Kooij; and a smattering of other big names in the European early music scene. When I want Bach, this album is my first stop (this version of Jesu, meine Freude is also my go-to tipsy soundtrack, something I can safely say now that I'm 21 😉).
For an album that will replace your dinner party jazz playlist: Jazz på svenska(Jan Johansson, piano; Georg Riedel, bass)
I usually spring for new jazz over old jazz, but this album is a classic (just ask the quarter of a million people who have bought copies). Sparse and smooth, Jan Johansson takes Swedish folk tunes and adapts them for a low-key duo of piano and bass. He treats the original folk tunes with such respect -- from his adaptations, I know exactly how the original was meant to sound. There's a good reason why it's the best-selling Swedish jazz album of all time, and still maintains a degree of relevance more than 55 years after its release.
*swoon*
If you want to hear the best music written for the best instrument you've never heard of: Marais: Pièces favorites (François Joubert-Caillet, viol; L'Achéron)
Marin Marais wrote hours and hours of music for the viol (an earlier predecessor of the modern double bass that looks kind of like a cello -- if you're curious, watch Tous les Matins du Monde starring Gérard Dépardieu). It's all great, but some movements are simply transcendent. François Joubert-Caillet is the single viol player who has most consistently impressed me; here, he's selected a representative sample of Marais's most outstanding works and compiled them onto one phenomenal album. His continuo team is outstanding (continuo is a group of instruments that together comprise accompaniment for baroque music -- usually a melodic instrument and an instrument that plays chords e.g. a second viol and a harpsichord) and help to cement this album among the most satisfying Marais albums on the market today. And if you really like it, you can listen to his most recent album, a six-hour recording of one of Marais's complete books for viol.
I've sung Heinavanker's praises before, but I'm truly hooked on their album. It's the perfect album for a low-key, relaxing evening -- tonight, I put it on while waiting for my focaccia dough to rise. I'd say I listen at least twice a month, if not more. Cannot recommend highly enough. Cook to it. Meditate to it. Sleep to it. Work to it. Seriously.
concert-black-with-pop-of-color should be outlawed.
WHO: Vox Luminis; Lionel Meunier, artistic director
WHAT: ANONYMOUS (XII CENTURY) Lamentation de la Vierge au Croix; LOTTI Crucifixus a 8; MONTEVERDI Lamento della ninfa; Adoramus te Christe; DELLA CIAIA Lamentatio Virginis in despositione Filii de cruce; D. SCARLATTI Stabat Mater for ten voices and basso continuo WHERE: Church of St. Mary the Virgin WHEN: October 19, 2019 at 8pm
When I saw this concert, I had been waiting to see Vox Luminis live for a good long while. I was all slated to go see them last year in southern Connecticut, but a friend called me in at the last second to sub in his run of 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I wasn't angry at the time -- I love that show, and I figured I'd get to see Vox Luminis again relatively soon. They tour the US every year, and always end up in NYC at least once.
Well I ran into that friend on the street a couple weeks ago. And told him very matter-of-factly that I'm now angry that he tore me away from that concert. Retroactively. Because, I've decided, any moment that I don't spend listening to Vox Luminis is necessarily inferior to any moment that I do spend listening to Vox Luminis. And any moment I spend listening to Vox Luminis live is better than any moment I spend doing anything else.
Yeah. This concert made me feel feelings. This concert made me cry tears. This concert might be the best I've reviewed on this site thus far.
Vox Luminis changes size based on the performance. They numbered fifteen in this concert -- eleven rotating singers (SSSSAATTTBB) plus a four-person continuo team. They brought along their own organist and viola da gamba player, they hired a lutenist (one of my professors, as it happens -- hi Grant!) and a harpist from the NYC freelance pool.
The concert started with a 12th century French lamentation, sung facing the altar by Vox Luminis's wondrous first soprano, Zsuzsi Tóth. She's kind of my idol -- the soprano I'd want to be in another life. Her voice is too light to float; it just transcends. She has this perfect straight tone that makes her both an ensemble singer and a soloist. Everything that passes through her vocal chords turns to pure syrupy goodness. I even tolerate the low-def YouTube video of her singing the final lament from Carissimi's Jephthe. Because she's that good. I keep hoping she'll release a solo album of her own, though she hasn't yet; I'd give my left arm to hear her team up with a lutenist to record some Josquin or Dowland.
I've been told we resemble each other -- what do we think, peanut gallery?
Their Lotti Crucifixus was great as always, preceded and followed by profound improvisations by organist Anthony Romaniuk, but the thing that brought tears to my eyes was Lamento della ninfa, Claudio Monteverdi's classic tale of lost love. The narrators, a consort of two tenors and bass, stood behind the continuo team; they set the scene with a short introduction. The continuo then started the Lamento's hallmark tetrachord -- A, G, F, E, repeated ad nauseum. Usually, the soprano (la ninfa) gets at most four bars before she makes her entrance. But this time, seven, eight, nine repetitions, and no sign of the soprano.
But...why were the hairs on my neck standing on end? Why did I have chills up my spine? What was that clicking noise coming from next to me?
Clack. Clack. Clack. The slow steps of Estonian soprano Marta Paklar echoed throughout the sanctuary. The continuo must have done close to twenty cycles before she finally got up to the stage -- just further proof that four chords can get you very, very far in the music world. Anyway, Paklar turned around, her face as if she had just finished crying and was about to start again. And then she started singing. And I welled up with tears because her singing was like the most beautiful sobs you've ever heard.
To cap the concert off, Vox Luminis pulled out their signature piece: Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater for ten voices and basso continuo. This was the piece that inspired Lionel Meunier to bring the ensemble together for the first time fifteen years ago. I first heard it on their premiere album from 2007, and their live version did not disappoint. They're have such a forceful composite sound, and yet each vocalists remains a soloist -- how?
I'm hooked. Vox Luminis is my crack. As soon as I left the concert, I put on one of their albums for the walk home. The next day, another. I'm just counting down the days until their next USA tour -- ten months to go I think?
Oh, and by the way, Lionel Meunier says Yale has been holding out against bring Vox Luminis to campus -- I'm about to @ every Yale music handle on Twitter and see if I can change that. Plus, Lionel said he'd buy me a drink if I convinced Yale to have them for a concert -- help a guy out.
Fun fact: Lionel Meunier also plays recorder. Really well.
One moment before God decides that the Abraham-and-Isaac
telenovela doesn't need to end like Orange is the New Black did
(intentionally vague to avoid spoilers -- if you know, you know)
WHO: American Modern Opera Company (Anthony Roth-Costanzo, countertenor; Paul Appleby, tenor; Matthew Aucoin, piano; Wayne Koestenbaum, narrator) WHAT:Veils for Desire: Works by Britten, Monteverdi, Bach, and Aucoin WHERE: Spanish Courtyard at Caramoor WHEN: July 25, 2019 at 7:00pm
Poolside blogging. I think I've reached a new low.
Just a short one for today, because I reviewed this concert for Opera News (I think it'll be published in October along with my last one?) and I can't release any spoilers! So here are a few things that didn't make it into my review:
I think short-sleeved button downs are the concert dress of the future, especially when they're bright pink like Wayne Koestenbaum's was. Too bad I can't pull one off to save my life.
ARC and Paul Appleby had an interesting father-son chemistry in Britten's Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac -- it worked, to say the least.
Wayne Koestenbaum is a badass. He didn't sing, so I couldn't say much about him in my review. But he had such a cadence to his speech...love at first word.
Caramoor is still absolutely LOVELY. Nature for the win.
I wish trains ran from Katonah more than hourly because I waited on that platform for, like, half an hour and I had about 973 bug bites to show for it.
The review should drop soon! I'll link to it when it does, and you can read it (if you're a subscriber).
WHO: Pauline Kim Harris, violin; Spencer Topel, electronics WHAT: HARRIS/TOPEL Ambient Chaconne; Deo WHERE: The Stone @ The New School WHEN: July 11, 2019 at 8:30pm
In theory, going to concerts shouldn't be tiring. You get to sit. In air-conditioning, usually. Other people do the work of filling your ears with beautiful music. It's all included in the ticket price -- you just sit back and relax.
But going back to what I said a couple posts ago about not being able to turn my critic brain off -- concerts are tiring for me. In my mind, listening to music is synonymous with forming judgments. I don't see that as either a good thing or a bad thing. It just kind of is how I work.
Occasionally, though, I wish that I could lose myself in a concert. Turn off my brain for a few minutes.
I'm not going to tell you that I succeeded. But I came damn close at this concert.
I'm usually not a huge consumer of ambient music, but there are some great classical-ambient crossovers. I think that the Harris/Topel duet is going to join the greats of the genre when their new album comes out in September. Armed with only a violin, a microphone, and a soundboard, the two presented a refreshing take on Bach (and also another composer -- I'll explain in a second).
I can't tell you a whole lot about the music itself. It moved slowly, sometimes changing so slightly over such a long period of time that I couldn't detect the transformation until after it had already happened. There were no jagged new-music-characteristic jump scares; just the sweet tone of Harris's violin, looped and amplified and augmented.
The first piece, Ambient Chaconne, was a transformation of the famous chaconne from Bach's D minor violin partita; bits and pieces were recognizable throughout, but the already-long piece was lengthened from 15 minutes to almost half an hour with a range of clever electronic fillers. (Side note: I turned to my trumpet-playing friend after the performance and asked if he'd heard the original chaconne. Blank stare.)
The second piece was based on a Deo gratias -- I heard the composer as Lachenmann, my friends heard Bach. Neither of those people wrote Deo gratias settings. Phooey. But it was great.
Update: I just looked at the album's liner notes. It was Ockeghem's Deo gratias. I think I was closer.
You can pre-order the album, Heroine, here, or just wait until September 27, when it will hopefully be available on Spotify. Fingers crossed.
EDIT: It's September 27, and the album dropped and is just as good as the live version was!
WHO: Matthew Cramer, bass-baritone; Stephen Gamboa-Diaz, harpsichord; Michael Rigsby, viola da gamba WHAT: Works by Dowland, Lambert, d'Ambruys, Purcell, and Bach WHERE: Bethesda Lutheran Church, New Haven CT WHEN: July 7, 2019 at 4:00pm
Concert #34: In Which I Immediately Review Someone Else I Know, Even Though I Just Said That It's A Bad Idea
I discovered this 4th-of-July weekend that New Haven is a ghost town in the summer. Some students stay behind for research; a moderate horde of high schoolers come for summer sessions. But when you walk around, the thing that strikes you is the quiet -- other than the cars, there's no student chatter around campus. It's part eerie and part relaxing.
I was only there for three days (I took a day go to visit my brother in Boston), but by the time my trip was ending it had been five days since I had seen a concert. Far too long, in my humble opinion.
Luckily, a couple of friends decided to beat the summer boredom (not the heat, mind you -- there is no air conditioning at Bethesda) with a half-hour concert of renaissance and baroque music. It was an intimate affair -- maybe twenty people in the audience, half of them wearing shorts and/or crocs (myself included).
I think Matt Cramer sang it in a better key, to be honest, but this is the best recording out there.
So, again with the reviewing-people-I-know thing -- it feels weird to write formal reviews about friends and colleagues, but here goes nothing. The programming for the concert was fantastic, full of tunes that I heard for the first time that afternoon and am still humming right now. Matt Cramer, though a choral conductor by trade, lent inventive and clearly-sung ornamentations. Stephen Gamboa-Diaz showed his harpsichord prowess both as an accompanist and as a soloist; Michael Rigsby rounded out the crew.
But the charm of this concert came not in the music-making, but in the purpose. This wasn't part of a summer concert series or anything like that. When I asked Stephen what compelled him to put on a concert like this, he shrugged and said, "I don't know, Matt was in town for a little while and it was time to do something other than sightread in our living room." And if that's not inspirational, I don't know what is.
WHO: Vivica Genaux, mezzo-soprano; Aisslinn Nosky, violin; New York Baroque Incorporated WHAT: Works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, Hasse, and Geminiani WHERE: The Venetian Theater at Caramoor WHEN: June 30, 2019 at 4pm
Concert #32: In Which I Was a Bad Gay
June 30, 2019 was World Pride. Four million people poured into the lower quadrant of Manhattan and celebrated with rainbows and glitter and hoopla. I was not one of them. This could just be me, but being stuck in a four-million person crowd with no place to go to the bathroom doesn't exactly sound like my idea of a good day.
Plus, I rationalized, it's not like I hadn't been prideful for the entire month leading up to World Pride. I will direct you to concerts #23 and #25, which literally had the word queer in their names.
The truth is, I actually just made a dumb scheduling mistake. I was 100% convinced that the pride march was on Saturday 6/29, so I made plans with a friend's mother to go see this concert on 6/30 (yes, I'm that kid who makes plans with his friends' parents). Turns out I was wrong, and I decided that I wanted to see Vivica more than I wanted to buy a rainbow shirt and ruin it in one go by standing for eight hours in the sauna that is the West Village. Sue me.
Anyway, I think I made the right choice. Katonah is absolutely gorgeous. Everything is green. The air smells less like garbage (why doesn't NYC have dumpsters???? anyone????). I love NYC, but it's anything but a relaxing place. I took one step off the greenery-lined platform at the Katonah Metro-North stop and it was as if my responsibilities vanished -- crazy considering that I was probably ten concert reviews behind at that point.
Weirdly enough, Vivica Genaux never comes to the US. She made only two appearances stateside this year, and she has not a single one scheduled for the 2019-2020 season. Based out of Italy, she gives most of her concerts in western Europe.
The concert, at face value, looked like old-people bait. That one Corelli concerto grosso that everyone knows (D major, Op. 6, No. 4). The obligatory concerto from TheFour Seasons. Vivaldi. Handel. Vivaldi knockoff. You know.
But New York Baroque Incorporated did a great job of treading the line between crowd- and connoisseur-pleasing. Their Corelli was whimsy and spontaneous as concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky goaded solo second violin Alana Youssefian with a twinkle in her eye; on passages of repeated notes, Nosky dared Youssefian to rival her creative ornamentations (Youssefian obliged with a smirk).
The video looks a little bit like one of my fifth-grade iMovie projects, but the playing is top-notch!
Aisslinn Nosky stole the instrumental portion of the show. When I saw her in ChamberQUEER a few weeks before, her motions were moderate (the audience, after all, was about five feet in front of her), but her playing still effectively colored her the badass-du-jour. On the stage of the Venetian Theater, she let loose. Her stylings on "Winter" from The Four Seasons were agitated and overflowing a controlled, but chaotic energy; Nosky's emotion seemed more like that of a rock guitarist than that of a baroque violinist, her blood-red hair barely keeping its faux-hawk. And though harpsichordist Avi Stein was sitting in the conductor's chair, it was obvious throughout the concert that Nosky actually wore the pants in the ensemble -- once again the badass-du-jour.
Badass-du-jour, of course, apart from Vivica Genaux. As soon as she (and her dress-tail) swept on-stage, the presence was palpable. She alternated with facility between the opera seria archetypes: from lovesick, woebegone, and hopeless to oozing bravura at the very touch. Her technique was a little weird -- she produced vibrato and pitch changes by wobbling her lower lip, so even in the arie di bravura she still looked a little bit sad. But close your eyes, and you couldn't tell the difference. In the second half of the concert, she changed to a white pant-suit to sing Handel's cantata Armida abbandonata, the heart-rending story of a Saracen queen's lost love. She continued on with two encores written for Handel's favorite castrato (look it up if you don't know what it is) Farinelli, each delivered with joy and pizzazz.
Did you know one of the B's in ABBA stands for baroque? True story.
So TL;DR, no, I don't regret my decision. I came back to the city in the late evening and I was hydrated, fed, and had Handel in my ear. I heard World Pride was a spectacle to behold. But honestly, my biggest regret was not seeing the MET float, complete with Anthony Roth-Costanzo in drag and Stephanie Blythe in flashy surrealist garb. All the other corporate BS, I was happy to do without.
Caramoor's summer is almost over -- make sure you stop by before the end of the summer festival or for one of their precious few year-round performances!
Throwback to the short phase where my brother was convinced he
wanted to learn hurdy-gurdy -- talk about college application padding
WHO: ChamberQUEER WHAT: Works by Hildegard, Tallis, Caroline Shaw, Mazz Swift, Cavalli, Saunder Choi, and Monteverdi WHERE: Brooklyn Arts Exchange WHEN: June 22, 2019 at 8:00pm
“this isn’t about god
well it could be about god
it just depends how wide your perception of god is”
We're at the halfway point guys!
I sometimes feel like I need one of those Hermione Granger time-turner gadgets, because choosing between two phenomenal concerts always gets me stressed. In this particular case, it was either the second performance of ChamberQUEER or the Boston Early Music Festival’s stagings of three short French baroque operas. And in the end, I decided to go ChamberQUEER — French baroque opera makes my brain happy, but ChamberQUEER makes my heart happy.
Besides which, after the first concert, I had this lingering feeling that I was going to miss something monumental if I didn’t go to ChamberQUEER. And boy, would I have.
So I arrived back in Park Slope for the second concert, greeted again by the same lovely crew, and sat down in the tiny, stuffy room for another night of great music. Word had gotten out to at least some extent, so the audience was full, and mostly not of the same people from the other night. The performers, too, were all different (with the exception of the founder core and the harpsichordist) — they comprised an octet of singers, a couple of new violinists, and an electric guitarist.
Again, the program was pretty varied — everything from renaissance classics to new pieces, all tremendous. So here goes the laundry list again:
The concert started with a sing-in of original-feminist Hildegard von Bingen’s O quam magnum miraculum, accompanied by a real live hurdy-gurdy (played by harpsichordist extraordinaire Kevin Devine), followed immediately by a lovely Tennyson setting by ChamberQUEER friend and violist Jessica Meyer (she performed extensively at the first concert). A couple in manus tuas followed — first Tallis’s from a quintet of vocalists, then Caroline Shaw’s, as performed by attacca quartet cellist Andrew Yee.
There was only one fully instrumental piece on the entire program: excerpts from Mazz Smith’s 16 Hits or Misses. The name in itself is a disclaimer to the audience, but Smith, a lauded inter-genre violinist, was sure to provide her own warning that this piece “might not be that good.” I don’t know why she bothered to do that — the piece was charming. Modeled after the Bartók violin duos, Smith’s Hits or Misses straddled that ever-growing gap between classical tradition and popular music. I never thought I wanted to hear techno-funk played by two violins. But now I want to hear it again.
The final act of the first half was a series of scenes from Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto — the basic gist being that Calisto rejects Jove, so Jove dresses up like the goddess Diana in hopes of wooing Calisto. Calisto, then wooed, attempts to nuzzle up to the real Diana and is swiftly rebuffed — FIN. Kind of a crazy gender-bent story from the beginning, with a ton of big gay energy (I thought homosexuality was taboo in the renaissance?) — perfect for ChamberQUEER! Mezzo Liz Bouk’s (he/him) passionate Jove was only outdone by his disgusted Diana — he has the PERFECT what-the-fuck face for the role. Danielle Buonaiuto’s (they/she) Calisto was suave and sensual, aided by their complete and utter comfort on the stage. Oh, and the sass-flecked subtitles set on a plain PowerPoint were a riot.
I know I put this in the first review, but I'm going to put it here again
because it's important! Support ChamberQUEER!
A short intermission switched the concert's gears to a cappella choral music sung one-to-a-part. The opener, Saunder Choi's American Breakfast, was a powerful statement about...well, everything. Gun violence, LGBTQ+ issues, all set against a bleak and boring all-American backdrop. It's a piece easily capable of gutting anyone with half a conscience, as it did to me.
The finale to the weekend-long ChamberQUEER experience was a set of four Monteverdi madrigals, but with a “ChamberQUEER twist,” as the founders put it. Guitarist Grey McMurray improvised connective material between each of the pieces, a prospect which bewildered me until the music actually began. McMurray’s experimental interludes essentially filled in all the genres that the Monteverdi couldn’t fill, with looping and microtones and echoes beyond belief — the perfect character foil to the similarly emotional, though stark and strict Monteverdi. The one that particularly stuck with me was the interlude before the final lament, the famous Lamento della ninfa in which a nymph bemoans her unrequited love; McMurray pointed out the essential crux of the renaissance madrigal by repeating the quote above. Lamento della ninfa itself was tremendous, with the nymph represented by countertenor Jonathan May; the gender-bend was refreshing, and May himself only got better as the part extended more into the nymph’s soprano range. Plus, McMurray used some of his pre-recorded loops to fill in the continuo line, which was just another layer of innovation.
Well, let’s just say I got exactly what I expected. The concert was fabulous. My pre- and post-concert banter was tolerated gladly. I turned down drinks again because I had work the next day.
Long story short: ChamberQUEER makes beautiful music in a space that questions the canon that has been shoved forth into our hands since early childhood. They are the future. Keep ChamberQUEER in mind, because one day they will be big. Mark my words.
Welcome to Classical Music Geek's Big Gay Classical Weekend! I saw three concerts last weekend, and only realized after the fact that all of them were queer-themed. And besides which, I'm not going to get to use the hashtag #MyBigGayClassicalWeekend again until they invent time travel to ancient Rome -- as the Romans say, carpe diem.
My lovely date for this concert turned up sick, and I was having some reservations about hiking all the way out to Park Slope to go to a concert alone. Usually, I'm totally fine with going to concerts alone -- it's almost meditative, I find -- but this concert was attached to a mixer and mixing is awkward. Have I mentioned that I'm awkward?
But then my dad made a good point: at a queer-themed chamber music concert, there was practically a 100% chance that I would run into someone I know. Fair enough. I decided to go.
Lo and behold, as soon as I mounted the stairs I ran into someone with whom I went to music camp in 2010 -- we hadn't seen each other since 2013 or so. Absolutely crazy.
The only thing we could think to do after not seeing each other for more
than six years was to take a selfie. Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
And then two minutes later, I heard a familiar voice behind me. Not in the friend's-voice kind of way -- a famous voice. I turn around to queer icon, composer, and youngest-woman-to-ever-win-a-Pulitzer Caroline Shaw, grabbing a drink and chatting with the bartender. Turns out, she was best friends with everyone there.
I did my best to play it cool, even though I really REALLY wanted to accost Caroline Shaw and pathetically fangirl like a 12-year-old-girl meeting One Direction for the first time (dated reference? I don't know, I haven't been up to date on pop culture since my grade's bar mitzvah era). In the end, I chickened out of talking to her at all, even though I had an easy conversation starter because we went to the same music camp when we were younger (about 10 years apart of course) -- Caroline, if you're reading this, the last line of your bio gets me every time. <3 <3 Kinhaven forever
So at this point, I'm just standing there like a bump on a log -- it's not like I KNEW anyone (I didn't officially reunite with my music camp friend until intermission). I must have looked panicked or something, because one of the organizers, soprano Danielle Buonaiuto stormed past, on their way to the drinks table, and then they stopped. In their tracks. And turned around. And started a conversation with me as if they dealt with awkward 20-somethings all day, every day.
Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
Already giddy at Danielle's random act of kindness, I went into the concert room and geared up for what turned out to be one of the best nights of music I've seen this summer.
The program consisted of an eclectic mix of "whatever we feel like." New music, old music, big music, small music, it was just all, in some way or another, LGBTQ+ related. And everything on the concert was tremendous -- so much so that, instead of the highlight reel I usually give right about now, I'm just going to run through a bit of everything.
Cellist and ChamberQUEER founder Andrew Yee's recompositions featured prominently on the program. First was a quilted pastiche of Caroline Shaw's greatest hits (coupled with quilted clips of people talking about their quilting habits -- get it?), followed later in the program by a couple of Schubert songs that Yee had arranged. Originally for four cellos, the songs were performed here by the ChamberQUEER founders in quartet (Buonaiuto, Yee, baritone Brian Mummert, and cellist Julia Biber). The arrangements perfectly preserved Schubert's harmonic framework while adding a quasi-madrigalistic intimacy that the customary voice-and-piano orchestration could never hope to parallel.
One of Andrew Yee's fawn-worthy Schubert arrangements -- I can't stop thinking about them
Alongside the recompositions stood a couple of more recent compositions. inti figgis-vizueta's charged string quartet love reacts only was impressive, but violist-composer-educator Jessica Meyer's song cycle Space, in Chains, written for viola and soprano after poetry by Laura Kasischke, stole the show. As Meyer so eloquently put it, "It's so nice to have this song cycle owned by someone. And Danielle [Buonaiuto] owns it." Buonaiuto's expert tone-coloring aided her comfortable acting to lend drama to even the most sparse moments of the piece; Meyer's writing explored every possible timbre that the duo could produce (it read a bit like the Holst violin-soprano songs, but on steroids). Oh, and she played her part beautifully as well.
And then for the odds and ends -- turns out most historians agree that Arcangelo Corelli was *probably* a closeted homosexual, so they threw one of his trio sonatas on the program. Handel and Haydn Society concertmaster and all-around badass Aisslinn Nosky played the first part (more on her in a week or so), joined by International Contemporary Ensemble member Jen Curtis, harpsichordist Kevin Devine, and Biber playing baroque cello. The interpretation was witty and whimsy, full of spontaneity and those little smirks that chamber musicians make to each other onstage. And then, Nosky, Curtis, Meyer, Yee, and Biber teamed up for British suffragette Ethel Smyth's string quintet. The piece was lovely, but more memorable was the tangible electricity that was running through the room. The energy was contagious.
At this point, I'd been wearing the same shit-eating grin for the entire concert. My face muscles started to seize up, but I couldn't stop smiling. Oh well, at least it was for a good cause.
And, naturally, what better way to end a pride concert than with a Pauline Oliveros audience-participatory piece? It's really been a trend this summer -- either this is part of NYC new music culture, or I'm just really lucky.
It was around this time that I decided I was going to grow a pair and talk to Caroline Shaw after the concert! It was around two minutes later that I decided that wasn't actually going to happen. My mother boo'd me when I told her that I chickened out. Have I mentioned I'm awkward?
This was another one of those concerts where I don't feel like I can do it justice in words. I've been to a lot of concerts this summer, guys. And I've been to a lot of concerts with a lot of young people in the audience, and I've been to a lot of concerts with a lot of queer people in the audience. But this concert? This concert made me feel like I found my people. When I left (instead of going out for drinks, because I'm 20½ and I have a conscience), my heart was full.
With any luck, the ChamberQUEER organizers and performers will be reading this -- I want to personally thank them for creating such an open and hospitable musical environment. I encourage each and every one of you to attend ChamberQUEER's community events during the year, and (hopefully!) their second season next summer.
And, just so that this post will show up next time she googles herself (we all do it, don't lie), I just wanted to say her name one more time: Caroline Shaw.
WHO: Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord WHAT: BYRD Will Yow Walke the Woods soe Wylde; BACH Prelude and Fugue in d minor; BACH English Suite in a minor; BACH Goldberg Variations WHERE: DiMenna Center for Classical Music WHEN: June 19, 2019, 7:30pm
I was SO excited when I heard that the Orchestra of St. Luke's was using June as a Bach celebration month. They had a couple of really interesting programs at Carnegie earlier this summer -- one of Bach orchestral music, one of cantatas -- and I was looking forward to seeing them, until one day I called their box office to get tickets:
ME: Hi, I'd like one student ticket to tonight's concert.
OSL REP: That'll be $65.
ME: *spit take, hang up*
In the end, I decided that my budget allowed me to go to only one of OSL's Bach presentations, and that decision was a no-brainer. Pierre Hantaï is one of the world's best harpsichordists. The Goldberg Variations is one of the world's best pieces. The concert was cheaper than any of the programs OSL was putting on at Carnegie. Win-win-win.
I was stupid. I didn't buy tickets ahead of time, and when we got to DiMenna the tickets were sold out. Even though my brother and I were second in the waitlist line, my heart was still pounding. Hantaï himself came upstairs for a smoke break before the concert started; it took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to approach him and beg on my hands and knees for a ticket. But I played it cool. And we got tickets, along with the 20-some Hunter College students whose professor had forgotten to make reservations even though seeing this performance was required to pass their class.
$40 for the Goldberg Variations seemed like a fair price, but apparently Hantaï didn't think so. He announced a completely separate program for the first half of his concert -- apparently, he likes to "meet ze harpsichord" before deciding on which pieces to pick out of his three-inch black high school binder. He started with the only non-Bach work on the program, citing William Byrd as a "direct predecessor of Bach's," which is a characterization I don't necessarily buy, but whatever. The Byrd theme and variations was fabulous, reserved yet supremely musical.
The prelude, fugue, and suite that followed let Hantaï put his distinctly French musical sensibilities on display. The flow was rhythmic, though not mathematical, and in those rare moments where strict rhythmic accuracy was not appropriate, Hantaï's flourishes were regal and well-organized.
As for Goldberg: of course it's a tremendous piece, but it's also LONG. Hantaï's fingers began to run out of steam in the middle -- an obvious wrong note every now and then. But his brain was in it the whole time. Even the occasional wrong note was masked by his cogent interpretation. I'm not going to mention any specific variations, because I counted about three before I lost track until the last variation, which is my favorite.
Hantaï feels like the kind of guy who can adapt to any environment. I mean, he doesn't get to bring his own instrument, and there's much more variation in the mechanics of a harpsichord than in, say, a piano. Harpsichords can have two separate keyboards stacked upon one another, and any number of levers and buttons to press to achieve the different timbres that it can't get from the player's touch. I don't know whether Hantaï spent 10 minutes or 10 hours learning the ins and outs of the DiMenna harpsichord (a beautifully decorated double-manual instrument), but he played it as if it were an old friend.
Hantaï's masterful performance was accompanied by lighting design by Burke Brown. I was expecting the lighting to be really loud -- a couple months ago, I saw pianist-composer-electronics artist Kelly Moran, whose set was accompanied by abstract animations in neon pinks and greens and blues, which was beautiful but also a lot to take in. Rather than a barrage to the eyes, the lighting read more as a mood intensifier, soft argyles of color on the wooden-slat back wall of the concert hall. Most importantly, the music came first.
I know a lot of people who say they unilaterally don't like the harpsichord because it "sounds like mosquitoes" or something like that. I urge those people to get out and listen to a real harpsichordist play a really good harpsichord. A good player knows how to take advantage of the harpsichord to its fullest, and Hantaï did just that. Not a single tone was left unexplored on that instrument. There may be a new Goldberg king in town -- move over, Glenn Gould.
I know it's a little weird to think of music as a religion, but in my mind it makes perfect sense. I love music unconditionally. Music is often my first thought when I wake up in the morning, and my last thought when I go to sleep. I follow music to great lengths, even when it wrongs me and almost leaves me stranded in Riverdale after a concert because did you know NYC express buses cost $6.25 a pop?
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, religion.
My preferred place of worship for the Church of the Holy Harmonies™ is, naturally, the concert hall. But, sometimes I find myself engaging in religious crossover, so to speak. And that's how I found myself at Saint Peter's for their annual Memorial Vespers service.
What is a memorial vespers? I didn't really know then, and quite frankly I don't really know now. Here's what I do know: I walked into the sanctuary at 4:02pm, after I stupidly chose to climb the stairs at the 53rd/Lex E train station instead of taking the escalator, and we immediately launched into a hymn -- not the Cavalieri itself, mind you, but the thing that was like "okay God, it's Cavalieri time" I guess? At least, that's my agnostic view of it.
No one really performs this Cavalieri, but it has a crucial role in music history as the "first" of so many things: first opera, first sacred opera, first explanation of figured bass notation, the list goes on and on, as I found out by reading the 30 pages of program notes at the back of the 60-page church bulletin.
For what this performance was, I was absolutely blown away. Often, church choirs do a great job of contributing to the worship service, but don't really satisfy beyond that. Cantor Bálint Karosi, a doctoral candidate in composition at Yale, must be a miracle worker, because the mostly-amateur choir sounded fabulous -- prepared, confident, and like they were having the time of their lives.
I'm not really sure what this space is supposed to be -- it's vaguely octagonal at the top, but then
pares down to...a diamond? A square? I don't know, it kinda looks like a sci-fi escape pod.
The professional section leaders from the choir sang most of the solos, but they hired out for a few extra singers to round out the cast. Baritone Anicet Castel (Corpo) and soprano Nola Richardson (Anima) sang and bickered convincingly as the dueling desires of the soul and the body; soaring tenor Elliot Encarnación (Intelletto) set the scene perfectly as an omniscient, intellectual character. The smaller parts of virtues and concepts were all well-sung by members of the choir.
But the highlight came in the form of Filipino-American tenor Enrico Lagasca. I briefly heard Lagasca sing earlier this year in TENET and The Sebastians' performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. He only had a couple small parts in addition to his role in the choir, but when he sang those three or four lines (he was, like, third Nazarene or Pilate after he's eaten but before he's crucified Jesus or something like that), my eyes widened, my ears perked up, and I whispered a big fat "holy SH*T" to the friend sitting next to me. Lagasca, despite his small role in this Cavalieri, gave a performance to remember, his rich bass commanding the attention of the audience without a second thought. He's still pretty young -- I truly can't wait until he (inevitably) makes it big and we can go see him as the headliner on concerts.
The orchestra was mostly area freelancers; they sounded extremely well-polished under Karosi, who conducted from the harpsichord. The continuo team, despite being distributed all over the stage, played like a well-oiled machine, and the Italian wind- and viol-consorts provided impressive variety in color. Violinist Isabelle Seula Lee opened the work with an impressive solo from the top of the choir risers, as if an angel coming down from heaven (at least that's what I assume it's supposed to represent? don't quote me on that).
Overall, big fat yes to this concert. Saint Peter's is programming music that other people don't program, and it's not only expanding the minds of church-goers, but appealing to the musical community as well. Keep on the lookout for their season next year -- I'm expecting great things.
Telemann came at an unfortunate time in music history, at least from a modern perspective. His music is, for the most part, tremendously well-written and creative, but he's been wholly overshadowed by a composer we all know and love: Bach.
The two are, on paper, very similar. They both lived around the same time (though Telemann has a few years over Bach on either end); in fact, Telemann was the first choice for the job of cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, the job that eventually went to Bach and caused him to write so much of his sacred organ and vocal works. Telemann ended up with a similar, better-paid job in Hamburg.
Twelve solo violin works to Bach's six; twelve solo flute works to Bach's one; twelve fantasias for solo bass instrument (viola da gamba as opposed to Bach's cello) to Bach's six; there is no question that Telemann was equally prolific to Bach. And I would argue that Bach is not "better" in the strictest sense, he was just lucky enough to have fiery revivalists on his side (namely Felix Mendelssohn in the 1820s).
I'm always thrilled when people choose to put on Telemann concerts. It feels to me like they're uncovering a hidden gem, one that people don't hear nearly often enough. So I dragged my friend to this lovely, free (free!) Sunday afternoon concert in the West Village. From what I gathered, the concert was another effort of the fine folks over at Gotham Early Music Scene: bringing early music to the masses since who knows when.
On tap were a smattering of Telemann's Paris Quartets, published in two volumes (1730 and 1738). The catch is that Telemann didn't actually visit Paris until 1737; the first set of quartets is no more Parisian than anything else coming out of Hamburg at the time. But, the second set was so associated with Telemann's celebrity visit to Paris that they were all sort of lumped together in history's ever-reductive eye. A few of Telemann's aforementioned solo works rounded out the program.
"What do you mean you've never heard of me? I'll have you know I'm VERY famous in Paris."
Can you tell I resent the fact that we didn't learn about Telemann in my music history class? I'm having flashbacks to the time I asked my TA why we skipped over Telemann and it ended in a ten-minute rant session about how good Telemann is. And that all happened by shouting/sign-languaging across an opera pit. Oop.
Some parts of this particular performance shone brightly. Flautist Immanuel Davis, a frequent duo partner of Berthold Kuijken (a member of the Kuijken family, three of whose five children are partially credited with the recent resurgence of historically-informed performance). His solo pieces, two fantasias played without pause, were impressively virtuosic without compromising the flavor of the music. His slower passages oozed aristocracy and nobility, while his faster runs were nimble and deft. In the quartets, he shone both as a leader and an instrumentalist.
Harpsichordist Dongsok Shin's fulfilled both of his roles in the performance -- first and foremost as an accompanist, but later on also a soloist -- with admirable flair. His continuo underpinnings were never too flashy so as to take away from the solo players, but were always reliable and tactfully timed. As a soloist, he approached his fantasia with restrained abandon, milking every ounce of passion he could out of a temperamental instrument like the harpsichord.
My friend: "That's A LOT of Telemann." Me: "TELEMANN TIME!!!!!"
Motomi Igarashi, the viola da gamba player for this performance, had her highs and lows. In the slower passages, her interpretation and tone were impressively strong; in the faster passages though, the bow seemed to often slip out from under her. Of course, I should give her the benefit of the doubt because the gamba parts for the Paris Quartets are twice as hard as the flute part and the violin part combined -- read: unplayable by mortals. Igarashi is a specialist on the lirone, an instrument that is like if the gamba could only play chords and nothing else; considering her strengths and weaknesses, I can easily see her being a master of this unusual instrument.
Violinist Leah Gale Nelson, though equally impassioned to her peers, fell a bit short in the technique department. It appeared that she was putting an inordinate amount of pressure on her bow, causing notes to crack or -- worse yet -- not to sound at all. That, combined with her sometimes *interpretive* intonation, detracted from an otherwise musical and enjoyable performance.
I'm of the opinion that it's hard to go wrong with a free concert, and I'm very glad I happened upon this one -- shout-out to Fred, the greeter from the Abendmusik concert I went to last Friday, for letting me know about this concert! Overall, I'm glad I went and I'm looking forward to GEMS's next season.
