Giuseppe Verdi, Falstaff at Met

Kentaro Ogasawara March 12, 2023

https://open.qobuz.com/album/0814337012854

Sir John Falstaff, the most compelling characters: aging, vain, dishonest, a bit crass, prodigiously self-indulgent—but also curiously philosophical.

50 years earlier, Falstaff’s supremely well-crafted score shows that the composer was continuing to grow as an artist even as he entered the ninth decade of his life. It is an astounding work and among the greatest operatic comedies of all time.

The Setting

The current Met production places the action in mid–20th-century England, after the Second World War—an era when longestablished social norms were rapidly changing and the aristocracy lost much of their wealth and influence.

what makes Falstaff unique is the abundance of lyricism within a structure that almost completely avoids traditional arias.

Several brief but notable vocal solos stand out, among them the title character’s playfully comic recollection of his youth in Act II and his melancholy soliloquy on aging in Act III, as well as the young Fenton’s serenade in the last scene.

But the bulk of the singing happens in ensembles that, despite their highly sophisticated musical structure, seem as natural as speech and adhere perfectly to the lines of the text.

The complex counterrhythms of the ensemble that ends Act I are both funny and the perfect depiction of people at cross-purposes. The opera’s celebrated finale is a fugue in which all the characters take part, each one both a perpetrator and the butt of the “great joke of life” that Falstaff evokes in his final words.

Verdi, for his part, had long harbored a desire to prove that the scope of his art extended beyond the dramas of gloomy passion with which he had built his reputation.

Falstaff dispenses entirely with any hint of a prelude or choral scene setting. Instead, he launches the opera in a metrically tripping scherzo mode that almost immediately gives voice to the rapid patter of dialogue—a strategy from which Puccini, for one, would learn much.

Think of the brief pockets of lyricism introduced by the young pair of lovers, Nannetta and Fenton, which Boito suggested would be more effective when “sprinkled” throughout the opera, “like powdered sugar on a cake,” in contrast to a standard drawn-out duet.

Or take the rhetoric of the revenge aria in which Ford momentarily channels a hint of the jealous Moor. The climactic comic frenzy of the second act’s finale resembles a mashup of the most dazzling moment of Rossinian “organized chaos” with a sturdily constructed Mozartean ensemble.

Verdi’s music distils and juxtaposes the divergent perspectives that comprise the opera: the idealistic young lovers, the farcical plot set in motion by Alice (Verdi describes her role as “stirring the porridge”), the dramatic conflict introduced by her husband, Ford, who conspires with Dr. Caius, and the self-serving natural force embodied by Falstaff himself, omnipresent throughout the opera—even when Sir John is off stage.

In the third act, in which the comic momentum of the first two yields to a more ritualistic atmosphere for the final scene, Verdi counters the graphic “realism” of his prismatic orchestration with something new: a miraculous evocation of the numinous world that surrounds that society and Falstaff alike. His music for the fearful specters that are summoned to Herne’s Oak and then comically revealed pays tribute to the sources of early Romanticism and its penchant for midsummer magic. But as in the finale of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, the long night’s comedy of errors serves as the prelude to a reconciliation: The fat knight’s “lesson” prepares the way for the young generation to be recognized and securely united in love. Verdi then gathers all the riotous energy of what has preceded and reconfigures it as a fugue, that emblem of strictly organized discipline—his greatest joke of all.

—Thomas May

https://www.metopera.org/season/2022-23-season/falstaff/

Met

Giuseppe Verdi

Falstaf

conductor

Daniele Rustioni

dr. caius

Carlo Bosi

conductor

Daniele Rustioni

sir john falstaff

Michael Volle

meg page

Jennifer Johnson Cano*

alice ford

Ailyn Pérez

mistress quickly

Marie-Nicole Lemieux

nannet ta

Hera Hyesang Park*

fenton

Bogdan Volkov

ford

Christopher Maltman

Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida, Concert at Carnegie Hall 3.9.2023

Kentaro Ogasawara March 7, 2023

“Compositions which I keep for myself or for a small circle of music-lovers and connoisseurs (who promise not to let them out of their hands).” by Mozart

With the 2022–2023 season, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) celebrates its 25th birthday.

Carnegie Hall Presents

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano and Director

Mitsuko Uchida is an incomparable interpreter of Mozart. From her deeply studied readings and performances to her leadership of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard, there is no better way to experience this repertoire. The program boasts two of Mozart’s late piano concertos, each of them a standout work even among the master’s timeless oeuvre. Also featured is Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie No. 1, a work of constant motion and flowing interplay. by Justin Pumfrey / Decca

Performers

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano and Director

José Maria Blumenschein, Concertmaster and Leader

This concert presents two late Mozart piano concertos that represent Viennese Classicism at its peak of perfection. One of 12 piano concertos written by Mozart between 1784 and 1786, No. 25 is imperious and commanding, a forerunner of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto. No. 27—Mozart’s last piano concerto—is a work of great intimacy and repose, premiered the last year of his short life. Between the two concertos on the program is Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie No. 1, Op. 9, an important landmark in the journey of the New Viennese School from late Romanticism to modernism and atonality. Its extreme concision is unique, and its turbulent sound world seems disconnected from the world of the piano concertos. Yet Schoenberg was a Classicist as well as a modernist—as demonstrated by the symphony’s compressed sonata form—and he regarded himself as “a pupil of Mozart.”

このコンサートでは、完成度の高いウィーンの古典主義を代表する後期モーツァルトのピアノ協奏曲を 2 曲紹介します。モーツァルトが 1784 年から 1786 年の間に書いた 12 のピアノ協奏曲の 1 つである第 25 番は、ベートーベンの「皇帝」ピアノ協奏曲の前身であり、威厳があり威厳があります。第27番—モーツァルトの最後のピアノ協奏曲—は、彼の短い人生の最後の年に初演された、非常に親密で安らかな作品です。プログラムの 2 つの協奏曲の間には、シェーンベルクの室内交響曲第 1 番 Op. 9、後期ロマン主義からモダニズムと無調への新ウィーン学派の旅の重要なランドマーク。その極端なまでの簡潔さは独特で、その乱れた音世界はピアノ協奏曲の世界から切り離されているように見えます。それでもシェーンベルクは、交響曲の圧縮されたソナタ形式が示すように、古典主義者であると同時にモダニストでもあり、自分自身を「モーツァルトの弟子」と見なしていました。

Program

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503

https://play.qobuz.com/album/0002894702872

Track4

Score

https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nma_cont.php?vsep=157&gen=edition&l=1&p1=163

Allegro maestoso
Andante in F
Allegretto

A Jubilant Concerto

Piano Concerto No. 25 was the last in this series. Written in 1786—the same year as The Marriage of Figaro—it has been compared by some to his final symphony, the “Jupiter,” and by others to Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto. Certainly, the piece looks forward in its ambition, assertiveness, and sense of scale. It is Mozart’s most grandiose concerto, opening with a C-major theme for trumpets and drums that is imperious and commanding, one that makes us sit up in our chairs, followed by a poignant and gentle melody, a dramatic juxtaposition in a work full of contrasts. The pianist’s entrance is virtuosic and cadenza-like—no written-out cadenza exists for this concerto, as Mozart wrote it for himself—and the excitement never lets up. This is very much a work of C-major jubilation, including a march that sounds a bit like the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” but here and in the other movements the piece subtly shifts in and out of minor-key melancholy, delivering the emotional complexity that by now was common in Mozart’s major works. Even the rapidly moving sonata-rondo finale, which takes the excitement of the opening movement to a new level, has a sudden drooping melody near the end that is so tender it nearly steals the show before the final rush toward the finish. The slow movement is a tranquil contrast, with delicate woodwind writing and a sparse piano line that looks forward to the simplicity of Mozart’s final works.

ピアノ協奏曲第25番はこのシリーズの最後でした。フィガロの結婚と同じ年である 1786 年に書かれたこの曲は、彼の最後の交響曲「ジュピター」と比較される人もいれば、ベートーベンのピアノ協奏曲「皇帝」と比較される人もいます。確かに、この作品はその野心、自己主張、スケール感において先を見据えています。それはモーツァルトの最も壮大な協奏曲であり、トランペットとドラムのための威厳と威厳のあるハ長調のテーマで始まり、私たちを椅子に座らせ、その後に感動的で優しい旋律が続きます。対照的です。ピアニストの登場は名人芸的でカデンツァのようであり、モーツァルトが自分で書いたように、この協奏曲には書き下ろしのカデンツァはありません。これは、フランスの国歌「ラ・マルセイエーズ」に少し似た行進曲を含む、ハ長調の歓喜の作品ですが、ここや他の楽章では、マイナーキーのメランコリーに微妙にシフトします。モーツァルトの主要な作品で今では一般的だった感情的な複雑さを提供します. オープニング楽章の興奮を新しいレベルに引き上げる急速に変化するソナタ・ロンド・フィナーレでさえ、終わり近くで突然垂れ下がったメロディーがあり、フィニッシュに向かう最後のラッシュの前にショーを盗みそうになります。ゆっくりとした楽章は、モーツァルトの最終作品のシンプルさを期待させる繊細な木管楽器とまばらなピアノの旋律との静かなコントラストです。

SCHOENBERG Kammersymphonie No. 1

https://play.qobuz.com/album/piq6dvbaog7rb

Track1

Fanatical Concision

Schoenberg wrote that his goal in composing this 1906 Chamber Symphony was to create “a style of concision and brevity in which every technical or structural necessity was carried out without unnecessary extension, in which every single unit is supposed to be functional.” This manifesto of brevity and functionality may sound cold, but the emotional impact of the piece is strong, the melodies distinctive, even though they are radically compressed and economically organized. In a single 20-minute movement, we get a short introduction ending in a deceptively gentle major chord, a frenetic exposition presenting one idea after another, a rapid-fire scherzo, an intricate development, a dream-like adagio, and an affirmative finale that recapitulates everything and builds toward hard-earned triumph. The disguised “movements” come one after another, with little room to breathe between them, and despite the wealth of thought and feeling, the piece is over before we know it.

シェーンベルクは、この 1906 年の室内交響曲を作曲する際の目標は、「あらゆる技術的または構造的な必要性が不必要な拡張なしに実行され、すべてのユニットが機能することになっている、簡潔で簡潔なスタイル」を作成することであると書いています。この簡潔さと機能性のマニフェストは冷たく聞こえるかもしれませんが、根本的に圧縮され、経済的に編成されているにもかかわらず、作品の感情的な影響は強く、メロディーは独特です. 20 分間の 1 つの楽章の中で、一見穏やかなメジャーコードで終わる短いイントロダクション、次から次へとアイデアを提示する熱狂的な説明、急速なスケルツォ、複雑な展開、夢のようなアダージョ、そして肯定的なフィナーレが得られます。それはすべてを要約し、苦労して獲得した勝利に向けて構築されます。偽装された「動き」が息をつく間も無く次々とやってきて、思考と感情の豊かさにもかかわらず、作品はいつの間にか終わってしまう。

Virtuosity from Every Player

It’s hard to expect any listener to take in all the work’s complex interrelations in a first hearing; there are multiple ideas tossed out breathlessly and mashed together, instantly vanishing only to reappear later in different contexts. Nonetheless, the visceral excitement of the piece, the sense of forward movement even in the wispy slow section, makes it one of Schoenberg’s most thrilling and accessible pieces despite its complexity. The melodies and motifs keep reappearing in new ingenious forms, a technique going back to Liszt, though he used thematic transformation in a far more expansive way. The final major chord toward which everything builds is jubilant, though like everything else, it is terse.

すべてのプレーヤーの妙技

最初の聴聞会で、作品の複雑な相互関係をすべて聞き取れるとは期待しがたい。複数のアイデアが息を切らして放り出され、マッシュアップされ、すぐに消えて、後で別のコンテキストで再び現れるだけです。それにもかかわらず、曲の本能的な興奮、わずかに遅いセクションでも前進する感覚は、その複雑さにもかかわらず、シェーンベルクの最もスリリングでアクセスしやすい作品の1つにします. メロディーとモチーフは新しい独創的な形で再登場し続けています。これはリストにまでさかのぼるテクニックですが、彼ははるかに広範な方法で主題の変換を使用しました。すべてが構築される最後の主要な和音は歓喜ですが、他のすべてと同様に簡潔です。

Another attraction is the constant virtuosity required of every player, both in ensembles and solos. The heroic horn calls in the finale are particularly breathtaking; the string sighs in the slow movement—ghostly echoes of Mahler—require extreme subtlety and soulful repose. Schoenberg was aware of what he required of players and was frequently disappointed, though the precision of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and other contemporary ensembles who are now accustomed to his extreme demands would probably make him smile. “My music is not modern,” he famously complained, “it is merely badly played.”

もう 1 つの魅力は、アンサンブルとソロの両方で、すべてのプレーヤーに求められる絶え間ない妙技です。フィナーレの英雄的なホーンコールは特に息をのむほどです。弦はゆっくりとした動きの中でため息をつきます—マーラーの幽霊のような反響—極度の繊細さと魂のこもった休息が必要です。シェーンベルクは、彼が奏者に何を求めているかを認識しており、しばしば失望していましたが、彼の極端な要求に慣れているマーラー室内管弦楽団や他の現代のアンサンブルの正確さは、おそらく彼を笑顔にするでしょう. 「私の音楽は現代的ではありません」と彼は有名に不平を言いました。

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595

https://play.qobuz.com/album/0002894683672

Track4

Score

https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No.27_in_B-flat_major%2C_K.595_(Mozart%2C_Wolfgang_Amadeus)

Allegro
Larghetto in E♭ major
Allegro

A Spiritual Farewell?

Perhaps no other Mozart piano concerto presents a more radical juxtaposition of simplicity and sophistication than his final one. The former is apparent in the lack of flash and pomp (the kind we hear in Piano Concerto No. 25 on this program) and in the innocent charm of the themes, including a children’s song; Charles Rosen writes in The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven that the slow movement attains “a condition of absolute simplicity.” Yet the concerto also has a subtle continuity—everything seems to flow together, even though Mozart uses Classical structures—and the harmonies are often daring.

おそらくモーツァルトの最後のピアノ協奏曲ほど、シンプルさと洗練が過激に並置されているものはないでしょう。前者は、フラッシュと威風堂々の欠如 (この番組のピアノ協奏曲第 25 番で聞くようなもの) と、童謡を含むテーマの無邪気な魅力に明らかです。チャールズ・ローゼンは『クラシック・スタイル: ハイドン、モーツァルト、ベートーベン』の中で、ゆっくりとした楽章は「絶対的な単純さの状態」に達すると書いています。しかし、協奏曲には微妙な連続性もあり、モーツァルトは古典的な構造を使用していますが、すべてが一緒に流れているように見え、ハーモニーはしばしば大胆です.

Current scholars scoff at previous writers who hear in the work a farewell to the world—Alfred Einstein, for example, writing that the concerto “stands at the gate of heaven”—pointing out that Mozart had no idea he would die within a year. Yet from the opening sighs until the final gentle affirmation, there is something otherworldly about the piece. Mitsuko Uchida, tonight’s soloist, finds this quality to be unmistakable, though she believes it shouldn’t be taken too far. “I do have a sense of spiritual farewell playing it,” she says, “though the B-flat Piano Sonata, K. 570, of 1789 has the same flavor, as a warning that we shouldn’t hear it as a premonition.”

現在の学者は、作品の中で世界との別れを聞いた以前の作家を嘲笑し、たとえば、アルフレッド・アインシュタインは協奏曲が「天国の門に立っている」と書いています。しかし、冒頭のため息から最後の穏やかな肯定まで、作品には別世界の何かがあります。今夜のソリストである内田光子は、このクオリティは紛れもないものだと感じていますが、行き過ぎてはいけないと彼女は信じています。「私はそれを演奏することで精神的な別れの感覚を持っています」と彼女は言います。」

Piano Concerto No. 27 is one of two piano concertos composed after No. 25, the last of the 12 written in Vienna between 1784 and 1786. It is part of a stream of final masterpieces, many his greatest works, including the G-minor and “Jupiter” symphonies, the E-Flat String Quintet, the Clarinet Concerto, and The Magic Flute. Again, practical considerations were the inspirati on. Burdened by debt and depressed by the collapse of his independently organized concerts, Mozart needed more pieces to play; he completed the work in 1791 after he was presented with a concerto opportunity on a program given by clarinetist Joseph Bahr. Despite his declining popularity, he was still revered by many, as was reported in the Wiener Zeitung: “Herr Kapellmeister Mozart played a concerto on the fortepiano, and everyone admired his art, in composition as well as performance …”

ピアノ協奏曲第 27 番は、第 25 番の後に作曲された 2 つのピアノ協奏曲のうちの 1 つであり、1784 年から 1786 年の間にウィーンで書かれた 12 曲の最後のものです。「Jupiter」交響曲、E-フラット弦楽五重奏曲、クラリネット協奏曲、魔笛。繰り返しになりますが、実用的な考慮事項がインスピレーションでした。借金に悩まされ、独立して組織したコンサートの崩壊に落ち込んでいたモーツァルトは、もっと多くの曲を演奏する必要がありました。彼は、クラリネット奏者ジョセフ・バールのプログラムで協奏曲を演奏する機会を与えられた後、1791 年に作品を完成させました。人気の衰えにもかかわらず、ウィーン・ツァイトゥング紙に次のように報じられたように、彼は依然として多くの人々から尊敬されていました。

Despite its lack of overt drama—it omits the trumpets and drums of Piano Concerto No. 25—this concerto offers considerable harmonic experimentation, with intriguing modulations throughout the first movement, especially in the unpredictable development section where soloist and orchestra seem to be talking to each other from different harmonic worlds. The intimate slow movement, with its supple main tune, communicates the tenderness we find in so much late Mozart. The rondo finale dances in with a children’s song, “Longing for Spring,” one of a series Mozart wrote for publication in Vienna. Many scholars view this choice not only as hope for better weather in the chill of winter but optimism about a brighter future. It ends the concerto, like all three pieces on this concert, with joyful affirmation.

Program note from Carnegie Hall

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/03/09/Mahler-Chamber-Orchestra-Mitsuko-Uchida-Piano-and-Director-0800PM

Since 2016, Ms. Uchida has been an artistic partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which she is currently engaged on a multi-season touring project in Europe, Japan, and North America. She also appears regularly in recital in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York, and Tokyo, and is a frequent guest at the Salzburg Mozart Week and Festival.

Born in 1985, Mr. Blumenschein received his first violin lesson at the age of four in Freiburg, Germany, at the Pflüger Institute for Highly Gifted Children. In 1990, he began studies with Vera Kramarowa in Mannheim. In 2001, Mr. Blumenschein was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with conductor and violinist Joseph Silverstein and served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.

With the 2022–2023 season, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) celebrates its 25th birthday.

The MCO was founded in 1997 based on the shared vision of being a free and international ensemble, dedicated to creating and sharing exceptional experiences in classical music. With 45 members spanning 20 different countries at its core, the MCO works as a nomadic collective, uniting for specific tours in Europe and across the world. It is governed collectively by its management team and orchestra board.

The 25th season kicked off with the finale of the Mozart Momentum 1785/1786 project, with Leif Ove Andsnes taking the stage at the BBC Proms. Traveling extensively through Europe and the US, the MCO reunites with Mitsuko Uchida. Innovation through exploring new concert formats and rethinking tradition will be a focal point in the orchestra’s meeting with Pekka Kuusisto, resulting in an event at the Radialsystem in Berlin where the audience can experience the orchestra both live and in virtual reality. The orchestra returns to the Festival of Aix-en-Provence in July for the creation of George Benjamin’s newest opera, Picture a Day like this. Before that, the orchestra embarks on a tour across some of the most prestigious venues in Europe with Andris Nelsons, Lang Lang, and Christiane Karg. A new horizon appears in the 2024 season, when the MCO becomes artistic director of the Musikwoche Hitzacker for a period of five years.

https://mahlerchamber.com/

Arms outstretched before their first chords, she seemed about to give her colleagues a whopping hug. Given their staggering musicianship during this concert, I’d have happily hugged them myself.”

https://imgartists.com/news/alls-right-with-the-world-mitsuko-uchida-and-mahler-chamber-orchestra-magnificent-at-royal-festival-hall/

https://seenandheard-international.com/2023/02/uchida-and-the-mco-mellifluous-mozart-and-searing-schoenberg-combine-to-lift-the-heart/

Vienna Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann at Carnegie Hall 3.3-5

Kentaro Ogasawara March 1, 2023

Carnegie Hall Presents

Vienna Philharmonic

Christian Thielemann, Conductor

Program

Friday, March 3, 2023 8 PM

SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht

Verklärte Nacht was originally written for chamber ensemble and expanded for string orchestra in 1917. The narrative behind the notes, based on a poem from Richard Dehmel’s Weib und Welt (Woman and World), depicts two lovers in a moonlit forest. In anxiety and remorse, the woman confesses that she is pregnant by a previous lover; though she fears her current lover’s reaction, she hopes that motherhood will at least instill a purpose in life. The man’s reaction is unexpected: The beauty of the forest inspires him to rise to the occasion and proclaim that love will unite them and make the child genuinely their own. At the end, he embraces her and they continue their nocturnal walk.

The music paints a dark, ominous forest, then proceeds with two sonata structures: the first depicting the anxious, confessing woman, the second her warm, emphatic lover. The delicate coda shimmering over pizzicato notes provides a magical rejoinder to anyone who thinks Schoenberg was incapable of writing beautiful music. Like the abstract modern painter whose early works show that he certainly could paint representational pictures, Schoenberg demonstrates here that before he ventured into new worlds of sound, he could compose lush, Romantic melodies with the best of them.

R. STRAUSS Eine Alpensinfonie

https://open.qobuz.com/album/4035719001242

Eine Alpensinfonie had a dark genesis for such a brilliantly affirmative work. Strauss began sketches in 1900 under the title Tragedy of an Artist, a memorial to painter Karl Stauffer-Bern, who had committed suicide. Another death—that of Gustav Mahler, Strauss’s friend and colleague—was the catalyst for taking up the project again in 1911. Yet there was nothing Mahlerian about the odd new title, The Antichrist, after Nietzsche’s work of the same name; the piece was now, Strauss wrote in 1911, meant to represent “moral purification through one’s own strength, liberation through work, [and] worship of eternal, magnificent nature.” Strauss finally decided to use only the nature theme, changing the title to An Alpine Symphony.

Strauss eventually became a Wagnerian himself, but was overtaken by a sudden turn in musical history—one foreseen by Debussy, who declared that Wagner was a “beautiful sunset who has been taken for a sunrise.” The truth of this striking assessment is tellingly apparent in Strauss’s Wagnerian tone poems, which were considered modern when they first appeared at the end of the 19th century, but became old-fashioned soon after in the face of newer revolutions wrought by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Debussy himself. By 1915, when Eine Alpensinfonie was completed, this type of piece was considered deeply reactionary.

Strauss also revered Beethoven, a revolutionary who, “for a new content,” had to “devise a new form.” Strauss’s own goal was also, he wrote, “to create a correspondingly new form for every new subject.” In Eine Alpensinfonie, he created an epic depiction of a mountain climber in the Alps gradually reaching the peak and descending during a terrifying storm—a vast arc that begins in the primordial darkness of “Night,” rises to the heights, and sinks back into blackness at the end. Like Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Liszt’s Faust Symphony, Strauss called the piece a “symphony” even though it behaves like a tone poem.

Saturday, March 4, 2023 8 PM

At a Glance

This concert presents three masterpieces of 19th-century Romanticism, two by Felix Mendelssohn, an early master of the aesthetic, and one by Brahms, one of its last standard-bearers. Mendelssohn wrote both the Hebrides Overture and the “Scottish” Symphony following an inspirational trip to Scotland in 1829 when he was only 20, though he put off completing the symphony until 1842. Both works have an aura of mystery, and both have Mendelssohn’s signature refinement. Brahms was a huge admirer of Mendelssohn, going so far as to say, “I would gladly give all I have written to have composed something like the Hebrides Overture.” Like Mendelssohn, he was a Romantic who stuck with Classical structures, including sonata form. The Second is the most mellow and spontaneous of his four symphonies, yet written with his characteristic formal rigor. The orchestration has a crystalline transparency, and the brassy fourth movement is the composer’s most viscerally exciting finale, rivalling the thrilling coda at the end of the “Scottish” Symphony.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN Hebrides Overture, Op. 26

FELIX MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3, "Scottish"

In the deep twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved...The chapel below is now roofless. Grass and ivy thrive there and at the broken altar where Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is ruined, decayed, and the clear heavens pour in. I think I have found there the beginning of my "Scottish" Symphony.

1. Andante con moto — Allegro un poco agitato (in A minor and in sonata form with introduction)

2. Vivace non troppo (in F major and in sonata form)

3. Adagio (in A major and in abridged sonata form)

4. Allegro vivacissimo — Allegro maestoso assai (in A minor → A major and in sonata form)

BRAHMS Symphony No. 2

he did write it in four months on a summer vacation in the town of Pörtschach in southern Austria, obviously an inspiring location: Brahms quickly wrote his Violin Concerto there the next year, describing Pörtschach as “a place with so many melodies flying around.

1. Allegro non troppo (D major)

2. Adagio non troppo (B major)

3. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino) (G major)

4. Allegro con spirito (D major)

Sunday, March 5, 2023 2 PM

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 8

https://open.qobuz.com/album/aulh5souuabha

Score

https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/d/d8/IMSLP562832-PMLP16220-Bruckner_-_Symphonies_-_8_-_1887-90_version_(ed._Haas_1935).pdf

“This art has no tricks.”- Donald Francis Tovey

“Broadly and freely in a state of bliss, released from earthly cares, fulfillment without sentimentality, without calculation.” -Wilhelm Furtwängler

1. Allegro moderato (C minor)

2. Scherzo: Allegro moderato — Trio: Langsam (C minor → C major, Trio in A♭ major)

3. Adagio: Feierlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend (D♭ major)

4. Finale: Feierlich, nicht schnell (C minor → C major)

All of Bruckner’s signatures are here, in their most uncompromising manifestations: massive brass sonorities, Gothic spires of sound, organ-like pedal points and chorales, sudden climaxes in the midst of Olympian calm, fearsome chromatic complexities alternating with primitive octaves and unisons. Bruckner is famous for transporting the listener into a so-called cathedral of sound; nowhere is this mystical sense of space more vast than in the Eighth.

The tension between a starkness reminiscent of ancient church music and a staggeringly complex motivic network is explained by Bruckner’s protégé Franz Schalk: “Bruckner’s forms were so simple, so direct that at first people overlooked them, as if they were not there. People wailed about chaotic incoherence, about pointless climaxes … As people finally began to comprehend Bruckner’s works as wholes, suddenly they stood clear in their primitive symmetry … in dimensions no one could grasp up close.”

Thielemann makes you a believer.

Thielemann is one of the few contemporary conductors to use the Haas edition of Bruckner’s 1890 revision of the Eighth (like Karajan and Furtwängler before him), rather than the later Nowak. The Haas incorporates some passages from the original 1887 version.

Program note form Carnegie Hall

3.3.2023

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/03/03/Vienna-Philharmonic-0800PM

3.4.2023

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/03/04/Vienna-Philharmonic-0800PM

3.5.2023

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/03/05/Vienna-Philharmonic-0200PM

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano Recital at Carnegie Hall 2.24.2023

Kentaro Ogasawara February 21, 2023

“Music is the essence of humanlife and it becomes more beautifu all the time” Mitsuko Uchida

Her recording of Beethoven’s last 3 sonata was released on 2006

https://play.qobuz.com/album/0002894756935

“So—if we want to improvise in the best, truest manner in public—we should give ourselves over freely to what comes to mind.” Beethoven

By the time Beethoven wrote the last of his 32 piano sonatas in the early 1820s, he was an aging warrior battered by illness and emotional trauma. Finding social intercourse arduous, Beethoven turned increasingly inward in the works of his late period; his last three piano sonatas—opp. 109, 110, and 111—are characterized by intense soul searching.

All article from Program Notes

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/02/24/Mitsuko-Uchida-Piano-0800PM

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

A battle-scarred warrior whose indomitable spirit shines through in the incandescent slow movement of the E-Major Sonata.

Moderato cantabile molto espressivo

Allegro molto

Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro ma non troppo

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110

One often has the sense that the composer is feeling his way from one idea to the next, the notes forming themselves soundlessly under his fingers, detached from their auditory moorings.

There is no overlooking the inwardness of his extraordinary late works, with their radical discontinuities, far-flung tonal relationships, and bold reconfigurations of musical time and space.

Moderato cantabile molto espressivo

Allegro molto

Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro ma non troppo

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

The music teacher in Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus describes the closing passage as “the most moving, consolatory, pathetically reconciling thing in the world. It is like having one’s hair or cheek stroked, lovingly, understandingly, like a deep and silent farewell look.”

In his last sonata, Beethoven painted on a more monumental scale than in its two predecessors. Yet in its way, Op. 111 is also a marvel of compression. Its two-movement format was sufficiently unorthodox that the son of Beethoven’s publisher wrote to inquire if the copyist had inadvertently overlooked the finale.

Maestoso – Allegro con brio ed appassionato

Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile

Listening

Artur Schnabel

https://open.qobuz.com/album/g7qreg18yi7uc

You don’t listen for machinelike piano technique when Mitsuko Uchida plays, nor will you find a musical personality that blazes wide, new paths.

内田光子が演奏するとき、機械のようなピアノのテクニックに耳を傾けたり、広く新しい道を切り開く音楽的個性を見つけたりすることはありません。

And yet, surprises pop up in the pianist’s interpretations — revelations that change your musty old notion of how a certain phase should go. There’s considerable charisma in both her playing and her stage presence.

それでも、ピアニストの解釈には驚きが現れます。特定のフェーズがどのように進むべきかという、かび臭い古い概念を変える啓示です。彼女の演奏とステージでの存在感にはかなりのカリスマ性があります。

Musicians from Marlboro at Carnegie Hall 2.17.2022

Kentaro Ogasawara February 14, 2023

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran was in residence at Marlboro in 2018 and worked extensively on her music with these artists in Vermont. Ran’s Moon Songs for soprano, flute, cello, and piano are at the center of this program

Performers

Kristina Bachrach, Soprano

https://www.kristinabachrach.com/

Giorgio Consolati, Flute

https://www.giorgioconsolati.eu/

Joseph Lin, Violin

https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/lin-joseph

En-Chi Cheng, Viola

https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/about/artists/strings/en-chi-cheng/

Brannon Cho, Cello

https://brannoncho.com/about

Matt Zalkind, Cello

http://matthewzalkind.com/

Lydia Brown, Piano

https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/brown-lydia#:~:text=Pianist%20Lydia%20Brown%20has%20achieved,of%20Music%20and%20Yale%20University.

https://www.metmusicstaff.com/about/brown.html

Program

HAYDN String Trio in G Major, Op. 53, No. 1

Three String Trios for Violin, Viola & Cello, Op.53

Josef Haydn (1732-1809) needs no introduction. While most chamber music players have either played or heard his string quartets, few are familiar with his string trios. Among the best are his Op.53, each of two movements.

Haydn's trios have their origins in the music of the divertimento. Haydn was a leader in the development of the string trio at that time, as in that of the string quartet. About 80 trios by him for various combinations are known, as well as some 126 trios with baryton composed by Haydn for his patron Prince Esterhazy, who loved to play the baryton, an 18th-century bowed stringed instrument similar to the bass viol. The three trios of Opus 53 are identical with a set piano sonatas which Haydn wrote in 1784. It is not known which version was original. As piano works they are pleasant, but in the string versions they gain significance and depth through the more colorful part writing.

These trios are historically important as they are among the first in the emerging Vienna Classical Style. However, they can stand on their own and make fine program choices where a shorter trio is required.

SHULAMIT RAN Moon Songs

MOZART Divertimento in E-flat Major, K. 563

Allegro

Adagio

Menuetto (Allegretto)

Andante

Menuetto

Allegro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divertimento_for_String_Trio_(Mozart)

https://www.marlboromusic.org/tours/

Leading professionals from both solo and orchestral positions work with young musicians of the highest promise and achievement, who must pass through a rigorous audition process to be accepted. Prominent musicians associated with Marlboro have included Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Jonathan Biss, Anner Bylsma, Pablo Casals, Jeremy Denk, Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman, Hilary Hahn, Mieczysław Horszowski, Gilbert Kalish, Anton Kuerti, Lang Lang, James Levine, Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Viktoria Mullova, Siegfried Palm, Murray Perahia, Lara St. John, Richard Stoltzman, and Sándor Végh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro_Music_School_and_Festival

Midori, Violin Recital at Carnegie Hall New York 2.9.2023

Kentaro Ogasawara February 7, 2023

Bach, Sonata and Partita

https://open.qobuz.com/album/8800404123280

Midori is a visionary artist, activist, and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience while breaking with traditional boundaries.

Program note

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/02/09/Midori-Violin-0730PM

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003

I. Grave

II. Fuga

III. Andante

IV. Allegro

Breathtaking contrapuntal and harmonic complexity by means of a single melodic instrument.

Although a number of composers had written music for solo violin in the 17th century, none was on the scale that Bach attempted. Nor had anyone achieved such breathtaking contrapuntal and harmonic complexity by means of a single melodic instrument.So combined in a single part all the notes required to make the modulations complete that a second part is neither necessary nor desirable.

An open-sounding cadence on a unison E ushers in one of Bach’s longest (286 bars) and most elaborate fugues. A densely woven tapestry of short rhythmic and melodic motifs, the music shifts restlessly from one tonal center to another, alternating between brilliant intensity and quiet reflection, finally coming to rest on a resounding A-major chord. A sharp contrast is in store in the Andante, a luminous aria that gently ebbs and flows above a steady current of pulsing eighth notes. Each of the movement’s two parts is repeated, inviting the performer to embellish Bach’s rather austere melodic line. Then comes another surprise: a burst of pent-up energy in racing 16th notes, each of the opening phrases followed by an echo, and each half of the movement played twice. The tension and momentum build inexorably until the Allegro reaches its exhilarating climax.

THIERRY ESCAICH

Nun komm

http://www.escaich.org/en/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PqWSfo-9w

Nun komm, composed in 2001 for violinist David Grimal, is a short, phantasmagorical rumination on the Lutheran chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (“Savior of the Nations, Come”).

Escaich’s violin solo calls for an array of extended instrumental techniques, as well as updated versions of some of the compositional techniques that Bach used in his mighty D-Minor Chaconne, to be heard at the end of tonight’s concert.

2001年にバイオリニストのデビッド・グリマルのために作曲されたNun kommは、ルター派の合唱曲「Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland」（「諸国民の救世主よ、来てください」）の短い幻想的な反芻です。

エスカイクのヴァイオリンソロは、卓越した名手であり、バッハが強力なニ短調シャコンヌで使用したいくつかの作曲テクニックの更新版だけでなく、一連の拡張された楽器テクニックを必要とし、今夜のコンサートの最後に聞くことができます。

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005

I. Adagio

II. Fuga: Allabreve

III. Largo

IV. Allegro assai

The opening Adagio features a quietly insistent thematic motive—a repeated oscillating figure in dotted rhythm that wanders imperturbably from register to register, its stately progress interrupted by an occasional flourish. Once again, Bach starts the Fuga on the dominant (the fifth degree of the scale), taking a placid chorale melody for his theme. But it soon becomes apparent that this fugue has not one but two subjects; it is, in fact, a double fugue, and its intricate design and monumental proportions make it a tour de force for both composer and performer. After these exertions the violinist deserves a rest, and Bach provides one in the Largo, a lyrical and richly expressive meditation in F major. The concluding Allegro assai is brisk and businesslike, characterized by propulsive motor rhythms, long sequences (the same music played at different pitches), and showy bariolages (a technique in which the player moves rapidly between static and changing notes).

oscillate 振動する

breve 短く

propulsive

bariolage 不調和な配色

JOHN ZORN

Passagen

Like Escaich’s Nun komm, Passagen—the German term for musical “runs,” or rapid sequences of notes—showcases both the player’s chops and the violin’s sonic resources. By turns calm and frenetic, abrasive and lyrical, Zorn’s piece is dedicated to Elliott Carter, whose works are notable for their rhythmic complexity and densely contrapuntal textures. Passagen is similarly packed with musical ideas and allusions to a wide swath of violin repertoire, from J. S. Bach to Luciano Berio.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

I. Allemande

II. Courante

III. Sarabande

IV. Gigue

V. Ciaccona

Plangent, dark-hued Allemande, a somewhat lighter-spirited Courante, a grave and intense Sarabande, and an agile, high-stepping Gigue. All begin with the same sequence of chords, whose slow-moving base line (D–C-sharp–D–B-flat–A) serves as a kind of a unifying “head-motif.” This recurring bass pattern is easiest to hear in the concluding Chaconne, a highly elaborate version of a popular dance imported from Latin America by way of Spain and originally performed by voice and guitar. Often performed on its own, the Chaconne is one of Bach’s noblest and most celebrated creations. Its monumental architecture rests on a simple but sturdy foundation: The ever-changing ostinato bass provides the harmonic underpinning for a series of 32 stunningly imaginative variations, ranging in length from four to 12 bars.

Partita = division

plangent やかましくて、鳴り響く

プランジェントで暗い色のアルマンド、やや明るく元気なクーランテ、厳粛で強烈なサラバンド、そして機敏でハイステップのジーグ。すべてが同じ一連のコードで始まり、ゆっくりと動くベースライン (D-C-シャープ-D-B-フラット-A) が一種の統一的な「ヘッドモチーフ」として機能します。この繰り返されるベースパターンは、スペイン経由でラテンアメリカから輸入され、元々は声とギターで演奏された人気のあるダンスの非常に精巧なバージョンである、最後のシャコンヌで最も聞き取りやすくなっています。単独で演奏されることが多いシャコンヌは、バッハの最も高貴で最も有名な作品の 1 つです。その記念碑的な構造は、シンプルでありながら頑丈な土台の上に成り立っています。絶え間なく変化するオスティナートベースは、4 小節から 12 小節の長さの 32 の驚くほど想像力に富んだ一連のバリエーションのハーモニーを支えます。

Midori’s own word

At first hearing, the listener could be completely taken by the timelessness the apparent contemporary feel of each of these works, and in practicing them, one loses oneself in the passing of time.

This is music that presents each listener and performer with an intense experience that cannot be replicated, requiring complete abandonment to the music and the workings of a mind so transcendent.

一聴しただけで、聴衆はこれらの作品の時代を超越した現代的な感覚にすっかりとらわれ、実践していると時間の経過に我を忘れてしまいます。

これは、音楽への完全な放棄と超越的な精神の働きを必要とする、複製することのできない強烈な体験を各リスナーとパフォーマーに提示する音楽です。

As a performer strives to simplify and organize the lines, that player's ears and fingers are sharpened and trained in the mental quest to present relationships between notes, lines, voices, and sections that can be both coherent and/or in contrast with each other.

パフォーマーがセリフを単純化して整理しようと努力するにつれて、演奏者の耳と指は研ぎ澄まされ、音符、セリフ、声、セクションの間の関係を、一貫性があり、かつ/または互いに対照的に表現できる精神的な探求において訓練されます。

This is music that invokes compassion and has the capacity to reach the deepest and the most inner core of each person's soul.

これは思いやりを呼び起こす音楽であり、各人の魂の最も深く、最も内側の核心に到達する能力を持っています.

This is music of human dimension.

これは人間の次元の音楽です。

Bach was given to normal emotions: We are aware of his frustrations in some career situations, and knowing he had a huge family, we may imagine the demands such a home life placed on him.

バッハは平凡な感情を持っていました。キャリアの状況によっては彼がフラストレーションを感じていたことを私たちは知っています。彼には大家族がいたことを知っているので、そのような家庭生活が彼に課せられた要求を想像するかもしれません。

they have been played ever since by very human musicians for "normal" listeners. Yet amidst all this normalcy is the humbling beauty of this music, a gift we gratefully accept.

それらは「普通の」リスナーのために非常に人間的なミュージシャンによって演奏されてきた.しかし、このすべての正常さの中に、この音楽の謙虚な美しさがあります。

Dreamily kaleidoscopic, Recital by Leif Ove Andsnes at Carnegie Hall 1.31.2023

Kentaro Ogasawara January 30, 2023

If one can find a relevant conversation with the music that we do and what is going on with the world, it’s wonderful, but I wouldn’t want to always look for something. It can be fabricated.

by Andsnes

Program

VUSTIN Lamento

JANÁČEK Sonata 1.X.1905, "From the Street"

VALENTIN SILVESTROV Bagatelle, Op. 1, No. 3

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, "Pathétique"

DVOŘÁK Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85

Detail and From the program note

https://www.carnegiehall.org/api/sitecore/eventseries/eventprogramnotes?eventid=44017

Alexander Vustin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Vustin

Lamento

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NQclGV1DrM

At once dramatic and hauntingly atmospheric, is typical of Vustin’s richly evocative soundscapes: a flighty, clangorous melody, replete with angular leaps and flowing roulades, stands out in sharp relief against an undertow of softly pulsating chords, creating a tension that the final, lingering consonance fails to resolve.

Came his peak in 60-70's

Uesed serialism

Halfway house between traditional Slavic mysticism and the tightly organized rationalism promulgated by the postwar Euro-American avant-garde.

Leoš Janáček

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo%C5%A1_Jan%C3%A1%C4%8Dek

Sonata 1.X.1905

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqPHe3ZIn14

Autobiographical

“Here an ordinary worker František Pavlík falls, stained with blood,”

The composer seems to have harbored a death wish for his own creation: He burned the original finale just before the premiere, and later tried to drown the remaining two movements in the Vltava River.

The two movements are united by their elegiac mood and somber E-flat–minor tonality. “Presentiment” opens with a tender, plangent melody.

“Death” is by turns serene and agitated, its hollow octaves and irregular rhythms conveying a sense of resignation and anguish.

Valentin Silvestrov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentyn_Silvestrov

Bagatelle, Op. 1, No. 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeu-wXD8-nM

Like walking through a forest, light shining through the boughs

Silvestrov’s deceptively simple miniatures is a poetic essay in easy-on-the-ear tonal harmonies, delicate, pointillistic patterns, and lingering resonances.

“A remembrance of things past”

Silvestrov’s Prayer for Ukraine

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, “Pathétique”

Approach to the keyboard, which wreaked havoc on the light-framed fortepianos of the day

“greater eloquence, weightier ideas, and is more expressive—in short, he is more for the heart.”

Crazy music, in opposition to all rule

In them found a solace and a delight such as no other composer afforded me.

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85

About Pianist

‘The Great Czech Piano Cycle’ Arrives at Carnegie Hall

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/arts/music/leif-ove-andsnes-dvorak.html

By David Allen

Jan. 29, 2023

Andsnes has known the work since he was a boy; his father had one of its few recordings in his collection. But he came to study it properly only in the time afforded by the pandemic.

a picture of Czech life. What I love about the cycle is, you have very spiritual pieces, the mystery of “The Old Castle” and “Twilight Way,” and on the other hand you have a piece called “Toying.” Another piece is called “Tittle-Tattle.” It’s everyday life, which you also have in “Pictures at an Exhibition,” or even in late Beethoven.

Dvorak always suffers a bit in comparison with Brahms, because they were contemporaries and admired each other. Brahms has this obvious counterpoint and resistance in the music, we always feel that every voice is so rich. Dvorak doesn’t have that, and one can feel that the music is a little bit too easy to swallow. It depends on the performer to bring out all these subtleties.

And in grim times, we often turn to Beethoven.

So often there is a feeling of going through struggle, or fight in Beethoven’s music, trying to find solutions, or answers, or victory — somehow.

by David Alen

https://davidallenhistory.com/music/

If one can find a relevant conversation with the music that we do and what is going on with the world, it’s wonderful, but I wouldn’t want to always look for something. It can be fabricated.

by Andsnes

Review by Joshua Barone

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/arts/music/leif-ove-andsnes-carnegie-hall-review.html

At Carnegie Hall until Tuesday evening, as the dreamily kaleidoscopic, recital by Leif Ove Andsnes.

Folk tune or a naïve melody, a solemn march, or a sentimental dance.

Vustin, a Russian composer who is thought to have died of complications from Covid-19 early in the pandemic, straddled tonality and the avant-garde fashions of post-World War II music.

Vustin, “Lamento,” Andsnes’s left hand faintly beat chords of shifting harmonies, while his right one, more angular and unpredictable, entered with a trill before letting out atonal flourishes and chirping interjections — but never for long, like fervent ideas held back from full expression.

By the end, all that remains are the chords, at a whisper, which on Tuesday led naturally into the quiet, pained opening of Janacek’s sonata “1.X.1905, ‘From the Street,’” written in memory of a 20-year-old Czech worker who was killed — pointlessly, Janacek believed — by a German soldier during a political demonstration. Here, it was as if the sentiment of “Lamento” had surfaced in mournful lyricism and waves of rage.

Valentin Silvestrov, Ukraine’s pre-eminent composer. Like many Silvestrov pieces, after the Janacek, its insistent serenity came off as a plea for beauty, if not for peace.

“Twilight Way,” the first of the “Poetic Tone Pictures.” (Hardly representational, Dvorak’s character pieces would be better served by a more literal translation from their Czech title, “Poetic Moods.”) From there, Andsnes was a masterly shepherd of this score, never losing sight of its sometimes obscured line and maintaining control of its agonizingly tricky articulations to bring out the reverent dignity of “In the Old Castle”; the sweet, I-could-have-danced-all-night shadow of a melody in “Furiant”; and the shards of light cutting through a chorale in “On the Holy Mountain.”

Gustavo Dudamel, Music Directer of LA Phil

Guest User October 23, 2022

Through his dynamic presence on the podium and his tireless advocacy for arts education, Dudamel has introduced classical music to new audiences around the globe and has helped to provide access to the arts for countless people in underserved communities.

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York 10.22.2022

Guest User October 23, 2022

Performers

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, Principal Guest Conductor

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Cello

Program

ELGAR Cello Concerto in E Minor

THOMAS ADÈS The Exterminating Angel Symphony (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

DEBUSSY La mer

Note

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2022/10/22/City-of-Birmingham-Symphony-Orchestra-0800PM

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla,when she is calm, the music flows as a river does, on its purposeful own, leaving a lingering impression of quiet awe.

There may be no player smaller than she is, but on the podium her arms seem as though they can reach out and touch any musician, no matter how far away. Her gestures are raptly expressive and sweeping, as though she is not so much creating sound but embracing it and those who make it.

Debussy’s sensuous evocations of the play of the waves and the dialogue of the wind and the sea took on an aura of climate change. By the striking final climax, louder than any Debussy I have ever heard, a conductor who is a force of nature met Mother Nature.

-LA Times 10.14.2022

Whole review

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-10-14/commentary-mirga-grazinyta