Donizetti and Desperation: Some Tracks From This Week | Pandemic Musings

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.

My first day at Kinhaven, circa 2010

Thomas Ford: Since First I Saw Your Face

Kinhaven Virtual Choir

Virtual madrigals were exactly what my aching heart needed this week. Look hard, you might see some familiar faces. (video here)

Some Thoughts on the 2020 Grammys

The nominees for the 62nd Grammy Awards came out a few weeks ago. I was excited. Like, really excited. But of course, as you guys have probably gathered by now, I'm easily excitable.

I sent the link to all of my top contacts. Responses included:

"Oh sick, I'll take a look tomorrow when I'm not stoned out of my mind!"

"Go away, I have a [math words that I don't understand] problem set due in two hours."

"It's 3am, go to sleep dammit!"

Can you guess which one was my mother?

Naturally, I had thoughts -- it's almost a reflex at this point. So, I figured that as long as I have this repository for my unsolicited opinions, I may as well throw these on the pile. So here are a few of my thoughts on the 2020 classical Grammy nominees.

A Big Year for New Music

The Grammys have a category for the best new classical composition of the year -- they've awarded it yearly since 1985 -- so there's always been some representation for new music. But overwhelmingly, contemporary classical music is starting to take over the other categories:

• The LA Phil (woot!) is up for an award for their performance of Andrew Norman's new composition Sustain (also up for best new composition) alongside recordings of Bruckner, Copland, and Stravinsky.
• One of the Best Opera Recording nominees is the world premiere recording of George Benjamin's Lessons in Love & Violence with the original Royal Opera House cast, and they have a good chance of winning, too.
• Four of the five nominees for Best Choral Performance are albums containing world premiere recordings -- and, in my eyes, the fifth album (Duruflé's complete choral works with the Houston Chamber Choir) simply is not going to win.
• Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance is also peppered with world premieres -- a little more on that down below.
• Best Classical Instrumental Solo -- you guessed it -- has three premiere recordings.

The times, they are a-changing. Good thing the Recording Academy recognizes this, too -- fair to say the more conservative members are slowly phasing out and being replaced with credible young voices.

Caroline Shaw. Yes, Again.

The Grammys have proven erratic in the past, but there is one decision upon which I will happily bet money. I think that the Attacca Quartet's May 2019 Caroline Shaw album, entitled Orange, is going to win Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble performance. Never have I seen a classical album that has gone so mainstream as soon as it hit the shelves. I have yet to see a bad review of the album -- it's definitely on my top 10 list for albums of the year, and probably up there on my albums of the decade too.

This is not to detract from the other four nominees, three of which are also world premiere recordings. But I think the buzz that surrounded Orange's release is a good indicator that it's headed straight for Grammy territory -- the Academy loves buzz.

For all the things I don't love about this album, I have to admit

that top-hat-and-ruffles is DEFINITELY Joyce's look

Songplay

I know I'm usually loath to give a negative review. I mean, I'm young. I can't afford to make lifelong enemies. But sometimes, something comes my way that just annoys me so much that I have to say something.

Hey, I'm an anti-establishment 20 year old, so if I'm going to rail on someone it better be someone good. So I'm going to tell you what I really thought of Joyce DiDonato's most recent album, Songplay.

On the off-chance Joyce is reading this (although I'm not going to @ her on Twitter for obvious reasons) I just want to say that I absolutely adore her. Her 2018 live-from-Wigmore recital with the Brentano Quartet was one of the many soundtracks of my past summer of blogging. I will stand by her work forever.

Except for this album.

The thing is, there are so many people right now who are experimenting at the intersection of jazz and early music, and they are succeeding very well. Baroque ensemble L'Arpeggiata has released jazz fusion takes on Monteverdi, Purcell, and Handel, all to great acclaim. Harpsichordist Jean Rondeau will often play the Bach Goldberg Variations at 8pm followed by an improvised jazz piano set at 10:30.

Putting a swing beat behind the 24 Italian Art Songs and Arias doesn't cut it. At least not today.

I'm a quite surprised and a little bit taken aback that this was nominated. It feels like it was perhaps put on the list out of obligation. But think of all the other phenomenal vocal albums from the past year that didn't make the cut. Christian Gerhaher's latest Schumann albums. Iestyn Davies's album of new works for voice and viol consort. For fuck's sake, Lise Davidsen's debut album, which propelled her to the international stage and got her not one, but two features in the New York Times leading up to her Met Premiere.

Yeah, Songplay is kind of a waste of Grammy spot, if you ask me.

Who's SHE?

My Predictions

If I'm going to talk the talk, I figure I should make some predictions for winners in each category.

First, I'm going to say that I rarely agree with the Grammy committee's decisions. They are often reluctant to choose albums from smaller labels -- it all feels a little bit biased from the get-go. That being said, I'll be choosing based on my perception of both the performances at hand and the Grammy committee's selection process. So here goes nothing:

Best Orchestral Performance: Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh have a great Grammy track record, so it wouldn't surprise me if their Bruckner 9 won. That being said, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's nominated album got fabulous press, so that could happen too. Of course, I'm rooting for Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's Weinberg symphonies album, both because it's fabulous album and because the award has never gone to a female-conducted ensemble and it's about f*cking time. Oh, and LA Phil <3.

Best Opera Performance: God, I swear if Lohengrin wins I'm going to kill someone. Especially considering that Christian Thielemann is an expert in Wagner's music partially because he practices his values...ugh. I think the aforementioned George Benjamin recording has a good chance -- Barbara Hannigan is tremendous and beat Joyce against all odds for Best Solo Vocal a couple years ago, so the Grammy committee obviously likes her. But the Academy are suckers for a good Wozzeck...

Best Choral Performance: I would be astonished if the award didn't go to The Crossing for the third year in a row. The Philadelphia-based new music-focused choir is pushing the boundaries of what is and is not singable, and they deserve every ounce of every award they get. Oh, and they're nominated in the category not once, but twice.

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble: see above.

Best Classical Instrumental Solo: Yuja Wang's The Berlin Recital, I think. She's simply beastly. Nothing more to say except that Nicola Benedetti has a chance for her premiere of Wynton Marsalis's new violin concerto (as much as I'm mad at Wynton Marsalis for his views on jazz fusion and free jazz, but that's another story for another day). Would love to see a win for Tessa Lark (I saw her this summer after my big project was over, she was amazing), but I don't think the Academy is going to spring for such a small record label.

Best Classical Solo Vocal Album: I think Matthias Goerne's Schumann album has it in the bag -- it's a ridiculously strong album among many others that are not as remarkable (@Songplay). Would love to see a win for L'Arpeggiata, but I honestly didn't think that their album from last year was as remarkable as some of the others they've done in the past.

Best Classical Compendium: I seriously have no idea. I'm rooting for Harold Meltzer because he's a family friend of sorts (we were reading chamber music together at Bennington and then we discovered that my mother was his first date...small world), but I also don't love Paul Appleby, who was the featured singer on the Meltzer compendium. The Saariaho album has a good chance, I think.

Best Contemporary Classical Composition: I know I said I'd bet money on Caroline Shaw for best chamber album, but I'm not as sure for the composition category, mainly due to Julia Wolfe's Fire In My Mouth, which made a huge splash when it premiered at the NY Phil last winter. I was lucky enough to see it, and it was indeed tremendous. That's where I'm placing my bets.

God, I have a mouth on me. But hey, I'm a 20-something aspiring critic, it's basically my job to have strong and immovable opinions, no?

Review: International Contemporary Ensemble performs George Lewis's "Soundlines"

Peep: Shick and Lewis trying to explain the meaning of music

in half an hour, in terms that a middle schooler could understand

WHO: International Contemporary Ensemble; Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor; Steven Schick, percussion and orator

WHAT: GEORGE LEWIS Soundlines; P. Multitudinis

WHERE: Skirball Center for the Performing Arts @ NYU

WHEN: October 18, 2019 at 7:30pm

One of my friends told me I should drop everything to see this concert. By the time he finished telling me why, my tickets were already bought. I'm easily swayed.

The first amazing thing about this concert was the sheer density of objects and individuals onstage. In addition to the large Skirball stage, a large vertical platform stood front and center -- the kind of platform off of which I flung (and broke) a bow in my freshman year of high school while playing in the orchestra for Pippin. (That was my second broken bow that year. I broke the first by literally sitting on it during an orchestra rehearsal. I was a clumsy child.)

Spilling out of the pitch-black underbelly of said raised platform was a smattering of unusual percussion instruments -- drums, various shakers and rainsticks and whatnot. The conductor sat in the partially-lowered orchestra pit, visible to both those on the platform and on the stage. Basically, I'm trying to say that the setup was weird.

Within the first few measures of Soundlines, two LED panels lit up the dark underside of the platform, revealing the rest of the percussion setup surrounding a blank-faced Steven Schick.

Schick proceeded to tell the tale of an artistic mission upon which he embarked a few years ago: a daring seven-hundred-mile walk from San Diego to San Francisco. George Lewis designates his musical setting of Schick's memoir as a melodrama, but Schick's performance was anything but hyperdramatic. His face remained largely neutral through the piece, one of the more impressive feats of solo performance I've seen in the last year.

Lewis used the vast percussion set to emphasize Schick's oration syllable-for-syllable -- that was where the melodrama of this piece came from. The instrumental accents did not always match the syllable stress of the speech. That was part of the fun. Schick took it all in stride. His body was one, and the hands that operated the mallets were one with the mouth that narrated.

The rest of the ensemble snuck onstage at the end of the piece, and they seamlessly transitioned into P. Multitudinis, more a soundscape than a piece with distinct melody and harmony. The musicians were divided into distinct instrumental groups -- a wind quintet atop the platform, a string quartet stage right, a pianist stage left, a couple of hodgepodge ensembles in the side balconies. Each group had some discrete number of musical modules to play; it wasn't clear exactly how they decided when to switch, but from what I could tell motion was predicated on finger-numbers and Macarena-like hand signals. Conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni kept things moving by slinking around between groups, checking in as a waiter does on a table of guests. Amusing, and who am I to argue with results?

And the best thing about it all was the speech that George Lewis gave afterwards. He was very, very happy. And for me, that enhances the experience so very much. Satisfied composer + satisfied audience = satisfied critic.

Review: The Juilliard Orchestra plays Thorvaldsdottir, Prokofiev, and Bartók

WHO: The Juilliard Orchestra; Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor; Jaewon Wee, violin
WHAT: ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR Metacosmos; PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2; BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra
WHERE: Alice Tully Hall
WHEN: October 17, 2019 at 7:30pm

God, why is the music world so small?

I think I jinxed it by mentioning that I didn't see anyone I knew at the Dover Quartet the other day. But every concert since then, I've randomly run into at least one person I know.

As soon as I'm through Alice Tully security check, I run into a music camp friend. Then another. Then I sit down, and I find out that no fewer than five close music camp friends are in the Juilliard Orchestra for this concert.

Anyway, my last two reviews have been really, really long, so I'm going to try to keep this one relatively short. I saw the Juilliard Orchestra last year with phenom conductor Barbara Hannigan (who was giving a recital across town at the Park Avenue Armory -- sold out to the rafters, naturally), and they sounded tremendous. The centerpiece of that program was also Bartók (his suite from The Miraculous Mandarin), so I figured, why not?

From my sample size of two (2) concerts, I've come to a conclusion about the Juilliard Orchestra: they'll never be bad. It's an orchestra comprised of the best young musicians around. The intention, the musicality, that will always be there.

But sometimes, Juilliard students have busy weeks. That's what this concert sounded like: an orchestra of phenomenal musicians, each of whom had fifteen million other things on their minds this week.

Consequently, the Thorvaldsdottir was probably the best-played thing on the program, and my favorite. Metacosmos sort of smears time in a way, blurring the lines between beats such that precision is not so important as transparent, visceral emotion. That's kind of a given for most of the musicians at Juilliard -- another day at the office.

But the orchestra began to fall apart behind Jaewon Wee's Prokofiev. Some of the orchestra knew the parts, but there was a critical mass of musicians who failed to look at the conductor's beat, resulting in a slow, but steady phasing effect between strings, winds, and brass. Luckily, Wee put up a well-polished performance that all but covered the missteps of the orchestra. I didn't necessarily feel like I was in the palm of her hand, but hey, we can probably blame that on the orchestra.

The Bartók was vigorous, if a little sloppy. The couples in the giuoco delle coppie ("game of the couples" were coordinated and well-rehearsed; the trumpets and trombones deserve a special mention for the chorale at the midpoint of that movement. The principals were all so very well-prepared, every solo sending my jaw straight to the floor. But once again, that phasing effect was persistent and ever-present. Maybe that burden falls on the conductor -- Milarsky's conducting seemed serviceable, though not particularly clear.

So, in conclusion, the Juilliard Orchestra is always worth seeing, even when they're not at their finest. When they bring in big name conductors, the quality is usually better (a friend was telling me about a few weeks ago, when Karina Canellakis conducted Ein Heldenleben -- best concert he'd ever been to). But when it's a staff conductor, just be warned: a bunch of great musicians do not an orchestra make.

For the love of god, Juilliard Orchestra, treat yourselves to a glass of wine, some Real Housewives, and a nap before your next concert. You all deserve it.

[32] Vivica Genaux and New York Baroque Incorporated at Caramoor | #1Summer50Concerts

Her outfits are to die for

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 The Four 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!

[21] The Knights play Jacobsen, Sanna, Britten, Bielawa, and Mendelssohn at Temple Emanu-El | #1Summer50Concerts

The gorgeous (GORGEOUS!!!!) Temple Emanu-El

WHO: The Knights; Colin and Eric Jacobsen, directors; Kristina Nicole Miller, narrator and vocals; Nicholas Cords, viola; Alex Sopp, flute; Michael Atkinson, horn
WHAT: C. JACOBSEN, E. JACOBSEN, KYLE SANNA Compositions after Walt Whitman; BRITTEN Lachrymae; LISA BIELAWA Fictional Migration; MENDELSSOHN Octet, Op. 20
WHERE: Temple Emanu-El
WHEN: June 18, 2019, 7:00pm

"Don't fart."

That's all I can think when I sit in the audience of live-broadcast concerts. A cough is forgivable; a sneeze even more so. But if those WQXR microphones are poised just right, your toot could be the talk of the nine people who still listen to live concerts on the radio.

God, look at me. Potty humor, radio jokes, you'd think I grew up in the 2000's or something.

This concert was the opening of this year's Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, so named for the Naumburg Orchestral Shell in Central Park where they're usually played. However, 114 years of free orchestral concerts can take its toll, and the shell was in dire need of some TLC, so the concerts were moved for this year to the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) Temple Emanu-El on E 65th. Good thing, too -- it was rainy and disgusting while we were standing in the long, long line to get inside.

The Knights are one of the more active independent orchestras in New York City, the kind that starts with friends playing chamber music in someone's living room. This was their tenth consecutive appearance at the Naumburg series, and you could tell they felt right at home. This concert was a dual celebration: first and foremost, they were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth. However, they also managed to get their hands on a tremendous Amati viola which was celebrating its 400th birthday -- move over, Whitman!

The full WQXR broadcast from the other night, fart-free!

Though Kristina Nicole Miller was credited in the program as a "narrator," her singing was one of the highlights of the first half. Kyle Sanna's Whitman composition, after a section of Song of Myself, morphed into something of a Disney-meets-modernism situation -- very interesting indeed. Miller would have been right at home as a Belle or Ariel, but her clear understanding of the complex Whitman propelled her far ahead of any Disney aspiration.

Lisa Bielawa's piece took many a cue from composer and amateur ornithologist Olivier Messiaen, weaving birdsong in and out of the gossamer orchestral texture with impressive aptitude -- though Bielawa's birdsongs were not taken from real birds, they were just as convincing as any material Messiaen drew from. Flautist Alex Sopp channeled her inner avian as though she'd been doing it regularly all her life; hornist Michael Atkinson played similarly well, but the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) Temple Emanu-El's acoustics did him a disservice by swallowing him completely.

The Amati came out in the hands of violist Nicholas Cords for Britten's Lachrymae, a piece modeled after John Dowland's 17th-century consort work of the same name. Cords played ridiculously well, from what I could hear of him -- Emanu-El is harsh on all mid-range instruments, not just horns. Too often, modern reinterpretations of early pieces suffer from hypermodernization; Cords and The Knights, under the functional baton of Eric Jacobsen, infused the Lachrymae with almost as much Dowland as Britten.

As for the Mendelssohn -- well, it certainly did the job. Eric Jacobsen pulled out his cello and joined the lively octet with his brother (concertmaster Colin Jacobsen), Nicholas Cords (400-year-old Amati in his hands), and five others from the orchestra. It was great. It was everything you wanted from chamber music. By the time the ensemble played the final E-flat chord, I was fully convinced that a) they had been playing together as an octet for years, and that b) they were all best of friends. Whether either of those were true, who knows, but that's the kind of emotion they exuded, and let me tell you, I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for the rest of the evening.

Free concerts are always worth it, but that doesn't mean that some free concerts aren't better than others. The Knights have impressed once again that not all great music has to come at a great price; some organizations care more about serving their audiences than they do about turning a profit. All musical ensembles want to serve their communities to at least some extent. And I think the Naumburg series has refined that art down to a T.

Stay tuned for the next Naumburg concert on July 10: Venice Baroque Orchestra with Anna Fusek, recorder!

[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.

[13] Cavalieri's "Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo" at Saint Peter's Church | #1Summer50Concerts

Very Authentic™

WHO: Choir and Period Orchestra of Saint Peter's

WHAT: Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo by Emilio de' Cavalieri

WHERE: Saint Peter's Church

WHEN: June 8, 2019, 4:00pm

My religion of choice is music.

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.

[8] The MET Orchestra and Isabel Leonard perform Debussy, Dutilleux, and Ravel | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: The MET Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Seguin, conductor; Isabel Leonard, soprano

WHAT: DEBUSSY La mer; DUTILLEUX Le temps l'horloge; RAVEL Shéhérazade; RAVEL Suite No. 2 from Daphnis and Chloé
WHERE: Carnegie Hall
WHEN: June 3, 2019, 7:30pm

This past March, I was lucky enough to go see Richard Wagner's Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera. For those of you who don't know, Wagner operas are often all-day affairs, especially at the Met where intermissions are 30 minutes long. The show started at noon; I eventually walked out of the opera house at 5:10pm. The first thing that ran through my head after five hours of watching ladies in breastplates and horns howl their hearts out (yes, really):

"Gee, I want to go see another opera tonight!"

The fact that I had to be awake and singing in New Haven (about a 2hr train ride) at 9am the next day notwithstanding, I bought my standing room ticket for the 8:30pm showing of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, hiked to the top of the Metropolitan Opera House (what is it with me and concerts that require climbing?) and stood at the top for the full two hours. And I loved every second of it.

Yeah, you could say I'm obsessed. Or you could say that I'm a passionate young adult who is invigorated by the intellectual stimulation that opera lends its listeners.

You know, I just read over that again. Let's just go with obsessed.

The most reliable part of the Metropolitan Opera is the orchestra. No matter if it's Mozart or Bartók, the MET orchestra always has their act together, whether they're in hour six of a Wagner or are playing the second show in a double-header.

Unlike most other American opera houses, the MET ends their season early (their last production was in the first week of May or so) because the MET orchestra gives a three-concert series to finish Carnegie Hall's year. Usually, at least one of the concerts has something to do with opera -- usually, they'll invite a couple of MET regulars to sing with the orchestra.

For this concert, the soloist was soprano Isabel Leonard, coming hot off of her recent smash success in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites (think French Revolution, but also nuns, and then everyone dies). I had the opportunity to see her as Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (think love affair, and then everyone dies) earlier this year, and my opinion was pretty ambivalent -- her performance was perfectly fine, but was overshadowed by the sub-par performance of tenor Paul Appleby as Pelléas and the stellar performance of baritone Kyle Ketelsen as Golaud.

I'm sure some French pop star has ripped off the name of that last Dutilleux song...

I think she must have been having a bad night at that performance, because she knocked this one out of the park. Her voice floated easily above the orchestra -- not quite unmoored, but certainly well-lodged in the fantasy realm that French music craves. Gossamer, never heavy, and simply sublime, even in a highly technical passage like at the end of the Dutilleux. The start of her Ravel was also tremendous -- strong, but also supple and soft.

The orchestra's La mer was admittedly mediocre -- it felt like none of the players were taking the responsibility to make the music that Yannick was so expressively conducting. It almost seemed that the orchestra didn't know how to be in the limelight, a common ailment with opera orchestras, though not one that usually plagues the MET.

Luckily, that was just a fluke. Behind Leonard, they were able to spend the next two pieces recalibrating, and their Daphnis and Chloe was absolutely stunning. Special recognition to principal flautist Chelsea Knox, whose solos in both Ravel pieces were about as close to perfect as one can get. Also, she was like 23 when she won the principal spot with the MET orchestra. Feel inadequate yet?

If you haven't been to the MET, go. Standing room tickets are $20, and other tickets occasionally start at $35. And while you're there, I have a game that I like to play, developed with one of my best friends from school. The hoity-toity people at the MET like to spectate the in-house restaurant, which serves one course at each intermission. Stand one or two levels up on the terraces that overlook the restaurant, then try to come up with a backstory for each person. There are only so many business-people you can go through before you decide which of the necktie-wearing old people in the restaurant is the next Walter White.

[3] New York Philharmonic plays Brahms, Mozart, and Corigliano at David Geffen Hall | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: New York Philharmonic; Jaap van Zweden, conductor; David Fray, piano
WHAT: BRAHMS Tragic Overture; MOZART Piano Concerto No. 24; CORIGLIANO Symphony No. 1
WHERE: David Geffen Hall
WHEN: May 30, 2019, 7:30pm

I've been known in the past to give tepid, if not negative reviews of the NY Philharmonic in the past. I saw them a couple times in their last season with Alan Gilbert, and their affect often seemed listless at best. It seemed like a group of accomplished soloists each playing without much regard for what the rest of the orchestra was doing.

I'm glad to say that era is on its way out. Jaap van Zweden, the notoriously fierce Dutch conductor who took over as the Phil's music director this year, is fixing them. The orchestra will almost certainly be back to its Bernstein-era glory in a few years.

Still, though, the Phil is in an intermediate period. There are moments where everything clicks and they sound like the most expressive, polished orchestra on this side of the Atlantic. One of those moments was at the beginning of the Brahms's Tragic Overture, which started this concert. Quite frankly, I find the piece to be very take-it-or-leave-it. Is it better than I could have written? Absolutely. Is it Brahms's magnum opus? Nowhere near. But the Phil brought certain moments to life -- the opening (and the recap) sounded almost like a period ensemble, with hard-sticked timpani and vibrato-less strings, a timbre that van Zweden clearly thought out well. The rest? It was fine.

I suppose I should mention the caveat that I had a TERRIBLE seat for the first half of the concert. The box office refused to sell me a student-priced ticket (even though there were empty seats everywhere?????), so I was stuck with the only other seat that was in my budget: top floor, side boxes, partial view. And it was still twice as expensive. UGH. I moved to a top-floor front-facing seat for the Corigliano (and thank god I did -- that partial view would have blocked out the mandolinists!).

To give you an idea of where I was sitting...Fray, van Zweden, and the orchestra

Both of Mozart soloist David Fray's last two albums have been Bach interpretations -- his concerti for multiple keyboards in 2018 followed by his sonatas with star French violinist Renaud Capuçon. I've like his Bach (much as I usually prefer my Bach on harpsichord), so I was interested to hear his Mozart. His Mozart (the 24th piano concerto) struck me as a little far removed from his Bach; his use of pedal was a little more liberal than I would have liked, though not totally outlandish. That being said, his slow movement was incredible: heartfelt, musical, and not too soupy. Special mention to the wind section Phil for that same slow movement.

I was proven wrong. But I still don't think the mandolins were *totally* necessary.

I really didn't want to like the Corigliano. At first glance, the orchestra seemed too big, almost big for the sake of being big. But John Corigliano himself came onstage and gave some verbal program notes, on the verge of tears as he remembered the people this piece eulogizes, friends of his who died in the AIDS epidemic. Once the piece started, I understood why that orchestra was so huge. Corigliano accurately encompasses so many emotions in this piece -- terror, sadness, wistfulness, nostalgia -- that even the most emotionless of listeners is moved.

The highlight of the piece was the opening of the third movement, in which principal cellist Carter Brey delivered a solo (in commemoration of a cellist friend) that was not only polished, but also so deeply felt that a cavern opened up in my stomach and I was fighting back tears. Overall, a tremendous performance.

If you get a chance to see the NY Phil, certainly do it. While they are not necessarily the best orchestra in NYC (that honor goes to the MET Orchestra), they are definitely worth a visit, even in their acoustically dead hall. But, more importantly, if you get a chance to see John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, jump at it. I hear the Chelsea Symphony is doing it at the end of this month (June 29-30), who's going with me?

[1] S.E.M. Ensemble at Bohemian National Hall | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: S.E.M. Ensemble
WHAT: New York - Ostrava: Influences and Initiatives
WHERE: Bohemian National Hall
WHEN: May 28, 2019, 7:30pm

Yes, last night I chose a new music concert over the New York Phil playing Beethoven's Eroica. But I saw the Phil do Eroica last season. And at this rate, I'll probably get to see it next season. And the next season. Ad nauseum.

Besides which, this concert had the universal college-student trump card: it was free.

As New York's new music ensembles go, S.E.M. is ancient. Founded shortly after Czech composer Petr Kotík moved stateside in 1969, they were -- and are -- closely linked with the American experimentalists that make baby boomers wrinkle their noses. They now perform regularly, mostly in Brooklyn Heights's Willow Place Auditorium (best described as a cross between a parochial school auditorium and a YMCA basketball court -- one of my favorite quirky concert venues in NYC).

Not pictured: the gymnastics mats piled in the back left corner

The program was composed of new pieces written by students of S.E.M.'s biennial Ostrava Days festival along with older stalwarts of the ensemble's repertoire. Particularly of note was violist-and-composer-on-the-side Anna Heflin's Included/Excluded (2019), which found a string quartet sitting with their backs to one another, each playing a fiendishly difficult and independent line. Then, all of a sudden, one of the violinists shouted: "CHAIR!"

"CHAIR!"

I was sort of confused -- maybe she said "share" or something like that? No, she said it again, "CHAIR!" at which point the cellist began clapping at rhythmically constant, but seemingly arbitrary intervals. A couple minutes later, the cellist launched into a tirade about how people who drop dead on the street are still expected to make polite banter with passers-by. It was absurdism at its finest; I found myself scratching my head, but oddly and thoroughly satisfied.

Other highlights included Alvin Lucier's Navigations for Strings (1991), a piece which consists primarily of ever-so-slightly compressing and widening microtones; if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound oscillations getting faster and slower with the changing dissonances. Kotík and Wolff's pairings of pieces each displayed a very distinct narrative of their compositional evolutions.

But, perhaps most amusing of all was the final piece, Earle Brown's Available Forms I (1961). The sheet music of the piece takes the form of six unbound pages, each with five "events." The events can happen in any order, the pages can be played in any order, with any number of repetitions. Kotík had constructed a nifty music stand-mounted cardboard contraption with which he could show the orchestra how to move between pages; the events were shown with the fingers of his non-baton hand.

Overall, a great start to the project. If you're in the mood for something a little weirder, S.E.M. is your group. Oh, and be sure to take a visit to the Bohemian National Hall on E 73rd St -- it's the only consulate-plus-cultural-center-plus-restaurant you'll ever visit, I assure you.