classicasobi, musicans and the lovers
https://www.concertgebouw.nl/concerten-en-tickets?date=2025-05-16
We will see Bartok from Cleveland and Berlin. Welser Most and Petrenko will be on air.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
KRENEK Kleine Symphonie
MAHLER Adagio from Symphony No. 10
BARTÓK String Quartet No. 3 (arr. for string orchestra)
BARTÓK Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin
Radio Streaming WCLV 1.13.2024 8pm EST
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko conductor
Henri Dutilleux
Symphony No. 1
Béla Bartók
The Wooden Prince, Pantomime Ballet Music, Sz 60
Schenk's Tannhäuser, which premiered in 1977 at the Metropolitan Opera on December 2023, was a real song contest by all singers and related artists. They were polishing each other on each stage, relishing their roles, and the last one was memorable, especially the Pilgrims’ Chorus.Tannhauser is not religious teachings or confirmation of personal identity because I am not both Christian or German, but “Discover in Tannhäuser an emotional purgative or therapy – it powerfully exercises feelings of compassion.” Thanks to Joe Horowitz's review (the link at the bottom).
He mentioned Andrew Porter's review in 1977, “To do a Wagner opera in the way Wagner asked for it to be done.” also said, “Schenk Tannhäuser, proves just as presentable — and arguably more necessary — in 2023.”
He explained about Schenk's production, “Many points of conjunction between what the ear hears and the eye sees are unforgettably clinched. The action begins with the erotic Venusberg. Wagner asks for “a wide grotto which, as it curves towards the right in the background, seems to be prolonged till the eye loses it in the distance. From an opening in the rocks, through which the daylight filters dimly, a greenish waterfall plunges down the whole height of the grotto, foaming wildly over the rocks; out of the basin that receives the water a brook flows to the further background; it there forms into a lake, in which Naiads are seen bathing, while Sirens recline on its banks.” Schneider-Siemssen wisely doesn’t attempt all of this – but he poetically renders enough of it to get the job done. At the climax of the Venusberg orgy, Wagner makes everything suddenly and cataclysmically vanish, to be replaced by “a green valley. . . blue sky, bright sun. In the foreground is a shrine to the Virgin. A Shepherd Boy is blowing his pipe and singing.” A credulous rendering of this transformation, abetted by Wagner’s musical imagination, proves as breathtaking today as half a century ago.”
“The arts are today vanishing from the American experience. There is a crisis in cultural memory. How best keep Tannhäuser alive? Flooded with neophytes, the Metropolitan Opera audience is very different from audiences just a few decades ago. What I observed at the end of Tannhäuser was an ambushed audience thrilled and surprised. The Met is cultivating newcomers with new operas that aren’t very good. A more momentous long-term strategy, it seems to me, would be to present great operas staged in a manner that reinforces – rather than challenges or critiques or refreshes – the intended marriage of words and music. For newcomers to Wagner, an updated Tannhäuser would almost certainly possess less “relevance” than Schenk’s 46-year-old staging – if relevance is to be measured in terms of sheer visceral impact. ”
The main artists were, Andreas Schager, Tannhauser, the passionate Wagner voice, "his artistry ran the gamut from joy to despair." Christian Gerhaher, wolfram, "an elegant and intelligent lieder singer, his easy projection was a revelation, carrying the gentleness of his tone and impeccable articulation. Such a feeling of intimate connection to a voice is rare in this enormous building." Ekaterina Gubanova, Venus, "voluptuous sound was thrilling." Elza van den Heever, Elisabeth, " guileless faith with a light, shining tone and feathery vibrato - effortless projection. " Donald Runnicles, the conductor, "keeps an ideal pace, and the orchestra plays with a near-magical blend of color and warmth, full of details, glowing. "
After Gerhaher as Wolfram, sang "Abendstern" at 3rd act, it was tranquillo, the serenity. I've never felt my heart empty at Met like that. Then the key changed, suggesting Sharger Tannhauser's conflicts. He told the story about Rome. His serious Wagner singing was all coming into me because Gerhaher made me ready to observe Sharger's Wagnl art. In the one before the last performance, he was more emotional like Mime in Siegfried. The last day's Van den Heever's openness! I felt her concentration from pianissimo to fortissimo. It was the extra glossy voice, really bravissimo. I saw her mouth open and her jaw almost came off, but such effortless innocence notes and operatic dynamics were naturally associated with her characteristics and the role. Gubanova as Venus, mainly sings in 1st act. There is the famous aria, but I found her beauty in the later when she sang with Scharger, mid-long note, vibrato was more than Van den Heever has. I saw her 1st class mezzo vocal art.
Schager left his message on his SNS, “Being able to stand on stage in front of almost 4,000 enthusiastic visitors every time is something special. Here people laugh, cry and clap during the performance. I think that's great and this energy reaches us on stage and inspires us. Art, which is so often declared dead, is alive, and what's more, it shows us a way in which coexistence among people can work. Art is about emotions and skill and in the end a huge amount of effort goes into making the audience happy and moving.“
This is his word from the heart and We can see that the world's best musicians, audiences, and critics share a common awareness. It is a light in the people who are passionate about classical music.
Lastly, Met Choir's Pilgrims’ Chorus. The amount of voice replaced my all-good memory at Met in 20 years. It remains overwhelming.
Links
Beglückt darf nun dich, o Heimat, ich schauen,
und grüssen froh deine lieblichen Auen;
You can now be happy, O homeland, I look,
and greet your lovely meadows with joy;
nun lass' ich ruhn den Wanderstab,
weil Gott getreu ich gepilgert hab'.
now I'll let the walking stick rest,
because I have made a pilgrimage true to God.
Durch Sühn' und Buss' hab' ich versöhnt
den Herren, dem mein Herze frönt,
I have reconciled through atonement and repentance
the Lord, in whom my heart indulges,
der meine Reu' mit Segen krönt,
den Herren, dem mein Lied ertönt.
who crowns my repentance with blessing,
the Lord to whom my song sounds.
Der Gnade Heil ist dem Büsser beschieden,
er geht einst ein in der Seligen Frieden!
Salvation is granted to the penitent by grace,
He will one day enter blessed peace!
Vor Höll' und Tod ist ihm nicht bang,
drum preis' ich Gott mein Lebelang.
He is not afraid of hell and death,
Therefore I will praise God as long as I live.
Halleluja in Ewigkeit!
Halleluja in Ewigkeit!
O du, mein holder Abendstern,
wohl grüsst' ich immer dich so gern:
vom Herzen, das sie nie verriet,
grüss sie, wenn sie vorbei dir zieht,
wenn sie entschwebt dem Tal der Erden,
ein sel'ger Engel dort zu werden!
Oh thou my fair evening star,
I'm always happy to greet you:
from the heart that never betrayed her,
greet her when she passes you,
when she floats away from the valley of the earth,
to become a blessed angel there!
おお、我が美しい宵の明星よ、
いつも喜んでご挨拶させていただきます:
彼女を決して裏切らなかった心から、
彼女があなたとすれ違ったら挨拶してください。
彼女が地の谷から漂っていくとき、
そこで祝福された天使になるために！
Dich, teure Halle, grüss' ich wieder,
froh grüss' ich dich, geliebter Raum!
I greet you again, dear Halle,
I greet you with joy, beloved space!
もう一度ご挨拶します、親愛なるハレ、
喜びをもってあなたをお迎えします、最愛の空間！
In dir erwachen seine Lieder,
und wecken mich aus düstrem Traum. -
Da er aus dir geschieden,
wie öd' erschienst du mir!
Aus mir entfloh der Frieden,
die Freude zog aus dir. -
His songs awaken in you,
and wake me from a dark dream. -
Since he left you,
how desolate you seemed to me!
Peace escaped from me,
the joy came from you. -
彼の歌があなたの中で目覚め、
そして暗い夢から私を目覚めさせてください。 -
彼があなたと別れてから、
あなたは私にはなんと寂しいように見えたのでしょう！
平和が私から逃げ出し、
喜びはあなたから来ました。 -
Wie jetzt mein Busen hoch sich hebet,
so scheinst du jetzt mir stolz und hehr;
der dich und mich so neu belebet,
nicht länger weilt er ferne mehr.
As my bosom now heaves high,
you now seem proud and noble to me;
that revitalizes you and me so much,
He no longer lingers far away.
私の胸が今高く盛り上がるにつれて、
あなたは今、私にとって誇り高く高貴に見えます。
それはあなたと私をとても活気づけます、
彼はもう遠くに留まることはありません。
Sei mir gegrüsst! sei mir gegrüsst!
Greetings! Greetings!
こんにちは！ こんにちは！
Geliebter, komm! Sieh dort die Grotte,
von ros'gen Düften mild durchwallt!
Beloved, come! See the grotto there,
Mildly suffused with rosy scents!
愛する人よ、来てください！ そこの洞窟を見て、
ほんのりバラの香りが漂います！
Entzücken böt selbst einem Gotte
der süss'sten Freuden Aufenthalt:
Even a god can be delighted
the sweetest joys stay:
神様も喜ぶ
最も甘い喜びが残ります:
besänftigt auf dem weichsten Pfühle
flieh' deine Glieder jeder Schmerz,
soothed on the softest of beds
flee your limbs from every pain,
最も柔らかいベッドで癒されました
あらゆる痛みから手足を逃れ、
dein brennend Haupt umwehe Kühle,
wonnige Glut durchschwell' dein Herz.
let coolness blow around your burning head,
blissful glow swells through your heart.
燃える頭の周りに涼しさを吹き込みましょう。
至福の輝きがあなたの心に広がります
Aus holder Ferne mahnen süsse Klänge,
dass dich mein Arm in trauter Näh' umschlänge:
Sweet sounds remind us from a gentle distance,
that my arm would wrap around you in intimate closeness:
優しい距離から甘い音が思い出させてくれる、
私の腕が親密にあなたを包み込みますように。
von meinen Lippen schlürfst du Göttertrank,
aus meinen Augen strahlt dir Liebesdank: -
from my lips you sip the drink of the gods,
Thanks to you shines from my eyes: -
あなたは私の唇から神の飲み物を飲みます、
あなたのおかげで私の目は輝きます: -
ein Freudenfest soll unsrem Bund entstehen,
der Liebe Feier lass uns froh begehen!
there shall be a celebration of joy for our covenant,
Let us celebrate the celebration of love with joy!
私たちの契約に対する喜びの祝賀が行われます。
愛の祭典を喜びをもって祝いましょう！
Nicht sollst du ihr ein scheues Opfer weihn, -
nein! - mit der Liebe Göttin schwelge im Verein.
You shouldn't offer her a shy victim, -
no! - revel in the association with the love goddess.
彼女に内気な犠牲者を差し出すべきではない -
いいえ！ - 愛の女神とのつながりを楽しみましょう。
Mein Ritter! Mein Geliebter! Willst du fliehn?
My knight! My beloved! Do you want to escape?
私の騎士よ！ 私の愛する人よ！ 逃げたいですか？
-11:00
He was considered a classical music concert pianist, but just a contemporary artist to me. His live art would fundamentally change New York's commercial art scene, but it was taken place at Carnegie Hall on 12.12.2023.
Hammerklavier sounded like paint being thrown onto a huge canvas.
It was a sound installation that blew away my knowledge and experience.
"Finger is heart", he said in this interview. What I saw was like his spirit through Steinway.
Program and Program note
RAMEAU Suite in A Minor from Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin
MOZART Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 332
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Variations sérieuses
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier"
Encores:
GREEN "I Cover the Waterfront" (after Tatum)
SCRIABIN Andante from Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 23
MOMPOU Excerpts from Variations on a Theme of Chopin
*Link
"His greatest strengths lie in how he revels in the soft and pristine. His slow movements routinely resonate with an uncannily haunting distance. What’s more, he lingers tastefully in all the right places; this is virtuosity that emanates as much inward solace as outward extravagance." -Aaron Keebaugh
“Trifonov’s risk-taking: “You feel like you’re almost going off the rails, but he knows what he’s doing.” -Gilbert
“He has tenderness and also the demonic element.” -Argerich
Johnny Green/Art Tatum, I Cover the Waterfront
Fresh Bruckner 8th by Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Donald Runnicles. So precious to have their discovery and sensation together under amazing the maestro’s navigation.
Juilliard Orchestra
Donald Runnicles, Conductor
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 8 in C Minor
Crypt=Tomb
The Crypt Session, Andrew Ousley curated, a tiny-sized but intimate super essential musical session with about 40-50 audience at a church basement somewhere in Manhattan on December Friday night
Four Voces and Minimized Effective Instruments one-hour work by David Lang,
“Everytihing was essencial to me. They were very well prepared to provide us with a good environment to have good music. I can touch every note, acoustic by curved stones. The sound layer shows over 2000 Westan musical development to David by Ekmeles. The feeling and story came through my whole body and the sound touched me differently from any designed concert hall and as precious as the sound experience in New York.”
Artist
Jeffrey Gavett, conductor
Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Amber Evans, soprano
Tomás Cruz, tenor
Steven Hrycelak, bass
In the Crypt Session
12.8.2023
David Lang, The Little Match Girl Passion
ekmeles
Brahms's architecture reminded me of "With all manner of subtle symmetries", his integration of Bach's structure, Beethoven dynamism, Schubert's lyricism, Schumann's romanticism, and his deep respect for German folk music. Also, their play evoked Wagner and Strauss's modernity to me. Brahms also had a deep respect for the Baroque style such as Schütz, Gabriel, and Handel, which was not common for his time.
Staatskapelle Berlin had all Brahms’s symphony Concerts at Carnegie Hall with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. New York Times said, "sometimes excitingly volatile, sometimes unsettled." But my focus was Brahms's integration and innovation as the Symphonist and this is once in a while to experience the artist's whole cycle together. Daniel Barenboim and his orchestra also carried all Schumann, Beethoven, Mahler, and Bruckner to New York in the last 20 years.
Jack Sullivan explained, "his music has dark sonorities with brightly sensuous moments. The sound has a density, not found in Beethoven, even though Brahms did not favor the increasingly large orchestras that came into vogue during his lifetime. He also mentioned "Hanslick, Brahms supporter, explained the passacaglia finale on the 4th as “a dark well”, and he said, "the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.” I felt also Schoenburg, the untraditional who was "passionate admirer" because of its architectural complexity, and he was often regarded as too cerebral for large audiences." Those make sense to his favorite phrase "Frei aber Einsamkeit"
Each orchestra member gave life to Brahms by their body with the New York Opera Maestro. There were some moments, when his idea just happened in front of me, especially the last movement of the 2nd symphony, "Sturm und Drang" turbulence with daunting power. In the different part, with the very stable support with Cello and Base, the passage was projected by soloists, sometimes, virtuosic and very Operatic especially, Viola and 1st violin principals. The unison of the flute reminds me of Strauss's Rosenkavarier. The choral brass section reminds me of the very end of Wagner's ring. the part of the 1st symphony was Schenburg. The sound blending of Obe and Flute was one of the top beauties and senses in my life. It was touching to Brahms's humanity as well as all musicians and audiences to share the nights.
Concert Credit
Staatskapelle Berlin
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor
11.30.2023
12.1.2023
ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 4
Concert detail
How those were sounded to Brahms in his time
In András Schiff's recital at Carnegie Hall without program announcement, it was so at home with his audience. He talked and played. But his sound was, "In experiencing Mr. Schiff at the piano — spilling out all this Bach from memory; looking preternaturally confident and relaxed, to the extent of spreading his right leg in a sort of sprawl, and exuding a proprietary air; sounding utterly spontaneous in his little embellishments — you felt that you were observing old Bach himself, making things up on the spot." Oestreich mentioned at New York Times review on Nov. 1, 2013.
This is not only Bach.
Especially Mendelssohn and Haydn "sounded utterly spontaneous"
He takes care of each voice line clearly, and simply, but so bold, that we can see the storyline very easily, and his play is very open so it is to many different type of people who have their own taste.
"Hope and doubt, spirituality, and worldliness, and it's this ambivalence that, I think, gives his music its great humanity."
"Whenever I hear Bach, I always feel like my soul opens it's music that lifts us up and always, even in its darkest moments exhibits confidence and a basic trust that the world is good and meaningful the way it is Bach's music can give us strength and solace."
Nosrati talks about Bach in the clip. This is not only about Bach but her humanity connects to her program on her debut recital at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall. She was so symphonic, with dramatic dynamics and temps on these,
J. S. BACH Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28, "Pastoral"
HAYDN Fantasia in C Major
ALKAN Symphony for Solo Piano from 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys, Op. 39
In her play, her mentor, Barenboim's Dynamics, and Schiff's clarity came to me at the same time as if they were playing together and more such her gifted humanity projected her vision through the works.
It was incredible. I have never felt the sound feeling in the passage and harmonies that she created. Those are not the amount of volume or her technique, but her innermost connection to Beethoven, for example, how she produces the beginning of the Pastoral sound, how she feels Haydon's evenness of tremolo, and Her unlimited curiosity about Alkan's Piano Symphony. I saw the full concert Steinway was shaking at Weill Recital Hall first time, but again, that was not how loud but how deeply she generated her art.
She gifted us two Encores,
ALKAN Barcarolle from Troisième recueil de chants, Op. 65, No. 6
HAYDN Finale (Presto) from Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 52
After Alkan, those two sounded like Symphonic works, all instruments had resonated inside of me.
11.13.2023 at Weill Recital Hall
Symphonic Artist, Schaghajegh Nosrati, Carnegie Debut 11.13.2023 by classicasobi
Anna Vinnitskaya from Claas Abert on Vimeo.
Tchikovsky’s Piano Concert is heard at the beginning of this clip. “Scherzo-like interlude in the middle of the second movement is a song, “Il fau s’amuser, danser et rire,” from the repertoire of Désirée Artôt, a superb Belgian soprano whom Tchaikovsky courted briefly in the winter of 1868-69. Vinnitsukaya said ”Singing is most important for me” in the clip. I was in front of her and heard her singing in Boston. The review says “There’s a rhapsodic freedom to her playing that’s never self-indulgent“
She played her Appassionato as "a seething, eruptive outburst of an inner monologue" by Rachmaninoff Étude-tableau in E-flat Minor Op. 39, No. 5 for the encore, that was what I heard Babayan playing two days ago in his recital in New York. "Babayan's playing rejects the cliché of the late romantic gesture", Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing, and breathtaking virtuosity.”
Yes, Babayan was, but I filled up with Vinnitsukaya’s passion with no reason at Boston.
11.4.2023
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Joana Mallwitz, conductor
Anna Vinnitskaya, piano
KODÁLY Dances of Galánta
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1
SCHUBERT Symphony in C, The Great
Why Mallwitz’s Schubert is so good? From Schubert's 9th - 4th movement, the string keeps playing dotted rhythms, brass softly starts singing, then gradually connecting to the String by crescendo, becoming to massive sound wave as if I am in Ocian exposing myself to the symphonic point. Boston sound provided Schubert’s Freunde soul by Malwitz’s positive energy take me to its summit, his joy - finally reached after demonic unfinished symphony. She was sending us super positive and active energy throughout the piece. Mallwitz's inspiration for Schubert wasn't affected by other repertoires in a little later period until Brahms.
This is a super interesting point of this work by Jan Swafford from the program note, "It did not really find a place in the repertoire until the early 20th century— and still longer for the Unfinished, premiered at last in 1865. These works never had the influence on the mid-century Romantic symphonies they could have had. It was only with the arrival of Brahms that a composer of genius absorbed them and knew what to do with the directions they pointed: Beethoven plus Schubert is the essence of Brahms’s creative foundation."
Other points why this work and Mallwitz works-
"His path guided by his fertile gift for melody"
Schubert handles the old outlines with great freedom, taking them in his own directions to what Robert Schumann, who discovered the piece years later, called “heavenly length.”
Its distinctive sound is the steady presence of trombones.
Just when the listener is settling into this music, with its lyricism alternating with orchestral explosions, an Allegro non troppo erupts with a furious burst of energy that never flags through the course of a huge movement.
Sudden orchestral explosions, dotted rhythms, a tendency to divert in a flash to unexpected keys.
It was a lavish display in the symphony.
Mallwitz made her Salzburg debut in 2020, Gramophone mentioned her conducting, "Mallwitz really makes Mozart’s score zing, keeping the Vienna Philharmonic light on their toes. I’ve been super-impressed with her conducting in a number of lockdown streams during the past year. Currently music director at Staatstheater Nürnberg, she is certainly one to watch."
She will record Kurt Weill and Haydn for DG, and will make her concert debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker early in 2024, during the Salzburg Mozartwoche, and will conduct the Berliner Philharmoniker for the first time in 2025. London audiences will have the opportunity to hear her in July when she conducts six performances of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in Sir David Vickers's production.
11.4.2023
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Joana Mallwitz, conductor
Anna Vinnitskaya, piano
KODÁLY Dances of Galánta
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1
SCHUBERT Symphony in C, The Great
Broadcasting and Her interview
Carnegie Hall audiences last heard Sergei Babayan in jaw-dropping concerts with his protégé, Daniil Trifonov. The veteran pianist returns in a recital comprising some of his most-celebrated repertoire. It begins with Liszt’s second ballade, as notable for its aching restraint as its thunderous eruptions; short piano works by Rachmaninoff, a composer especially close to Babayan’s heart; and a fantasia by Vladimir Ryabov, which, after a recent performance by Babayan, was called “the most startling discovery of the evening … something strikingly novel” (Bachtrack). The second half of the concert features a series of songs by Schubert, popularly transcribed for solo piano by Liszt, and Robert Schumann’s dramatic and many-faceted Kreisleriana, one of the composer's favorite works.
Thursday, November 2, 2023 7:30 PM Zankel Hall
Performers
Sergei Babayan, Piano
Program
LISZT Ballade No. 2 in B Minor
VLADIMIR RYABOV Fantasia in C Minor
RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in E-flat Minor, Op. 39, No. 5
RACHMANINOFF Étude-tableau in C Minor, Op. 39, No. 1
RACHMANINOFF Allegretto in E-flat Minor from Moments musicaux, Op. 16, No. 2
RACHMANINOFF Maestoso in C Major from Moments musicaux, Op. 16, No. 6
LISZT "Der Müller und der Bach" from Müllerlieder von Franz Schubert
LISZT "Aufenthalt" from Lieder aus Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang
LISZT "Auf dem Wasser zu singen" from 12 Lieder von Franz Schubert
LISZT "Die Stadt" from Lieder aus Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang
LISZT "Gretchen am Spinnrade" from 12 Lieder von Franz Schubert
R. SCHUMANN Kreisleriana
Rachmaninoff put it, music is the sister of poetry, but her mother is sorrow.”
Despite all his virtuosity, Babayan's playing rejects the cliché of the late romantic gesture. This technically brilliant pianist responds to the emotional turmoil of the first (Allegro agitato) or the fifth (Appassionato) piece from the Etudes Tableaux op. 39 with a turbulently speaking musical design, rather than with a thundering paw. This sounds like a seething, eruptive outburst of an inner monologue. At the same time, his playing can get lost in a wonderfully glittering manner in the impressionistically lit inner landscapes of the slow pieces. All beauty is at the same time permeated by deep melancholy, according to Rachmaninoff's statement that music is the sister of poetry, but its mother is grief. (Deutsche Grammophon)
Sergei Babayan is one of the leading pianists of our time. Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy and remarkable levels of color, Sergei Babayan brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally diverse repertoire. Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing and breathtaking virtuosity.” Le Devoir from Montreal put it simply: “Sergei Babayan is a genius. Period.”
Feels to honor Muti and his warm and encouraging message for new discovery in the contemporaries of this program - classicasobi
Revered conductor Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony, Richard Strauss’s Aus Italien, and a New York premiere by Philip Glass inspired by Italy and written to honor Muti. Mendelssohn’s sunny Fourth Symphony is a hugely popular work, and it serves as a companion piece to Strauss’s rarely heard “symphonic fantasy,” last performed at Carnegie Hall nearly 50 years ago. In both pieces, the great German composers distill eye-opening travels across Italy into wonderfully evocative music.
Thursday, October 5, 2023 8 PM
Performers
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Program
PHILIP GLASS The Triumph of the Octagon (NY Premiere)
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4, "Italian"
R. STRAUSS Aus Italien
PHILIP GLASS The Triumph of the Octagon
New premire, written to honor Muti honor Muti. A structure built of sustained chords and rolling arpeggios rather than blocks of limestone.
“While I have written music about people, places, events, and cultures, I cannot recall ever composing a piece about a building. What became clear was that I was not writing a piece about Castel del Monte per se, but rather about one’s imagination when we consider such a place.
I dedicate this work to Maestro Muti, in honor of his many successes as conductor of the CSO and important contributions to the world of music.”
—Philip Glass
F. MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, “Italian”
“Most cheerful piece I have yet composed.” - MENDELSSOHN, once tried, with utter failure, to interest the 80-year-old Goethe in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But Goethe recommended to go to Italy to him.
After Mendelssohn’s premature death in 1847, several of his scores, including the “Italian” Symphony, were finally published, widely performed, and welcomed into the repertoire.
Unlike either, and going against the grain of virtually all symphonic finales known to Mendelssohn, this dance begins in the minor mode and stays there to the last chord. Despite its bitter cast, it makes a brilliant and decisive ending.
R. STRAUSS Aus Italien, Op. 16
“The connecting link between the old and the new methods” - Strauss, his first tone poem, himself found the work itself as new and revolutionary,
“I will never be converted to Italian music,” Richard Strauss wrote to his father during his first trip to Italy in the summer of 1886. But Aus Italien, the large-scale symphonic work he began sketching as soon as he arrived
“Immensely proud” of the controversy it stirred: “Some people applauded lustily, others hissed loudly, but finally the applause won the day,” Strauss said after the premiere.
There is no escaping a new influence on Strauss, as well: On his way home from Italy, Strauss stopped over in Bayreuth to hear Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal.
-Edited by classicasobi
“Direct, unaffected, and unflinchingly honest—but not without a deep understanding of the heart and humanity inside each one of us”.
-From the program note
And also-
The story concerns Prejean’s introduction to the world of capital punishment, first as a spiritual advisor to a single inmate and then slowly, inexorably, as an advocate on behalf of all individuals condemned to death. What made the book and film capture national and global attention was precisely what made the subject matter a natural candidate for the operatic stage—the moral complexity and deep nuance of its themes and characters.
In depicting this quintessentially American story, Heggie composed a score immersed in an American musical vernacular built around the characters and their inner conflicts, rather than an overt debate about capital punishment. The role of Sister Helen is scored for a lyric mezzo-soprano, with a lower tessitura depicting the character’s essential earthiness but also calling upon the singer’s upper range to express the character’s idealism. Joseph De Rocher’s music initially depicts him as a hardened criminal—with jagged, curt phrases—but gradually reveals his fears, fragility, and inherent humanity. Both roles require classic operatic vocalism, nowhere more than in their climactic Act II duet, as they relive the details of Joseph’s horrific crimes and the resulting emotions.
The important role of Mrs. De Rocher, Joseph’s mother, was composed for a mezzo-soprano who could convey deep pathos in her tone as well as being able to express both the text and subtext in her music. The score, however, does not stop at character portrayals: Ambient music plays a large role as well, including songs on a car radio, rock ’n’ roll in the style of Elvis Presley, and a traditional-sounding hymn (an invention of the composer’s) whose impact changes when heard in different treatments—a joyous celebration when sung by a choir of schoolchildren but a profound meditation when intoned a cappella by Sister Helen at the opera’s close
Premiere: Court Opera, Dresden, 1911
Strauss’s most popular opera was an instant success at its premiere, earning a secure spot in the repertory that has not wavered in the century since. Set in an idealized Vienna of the mid-18th century, it concerns a wise woman of the worldwho is involved with a much younger lover. Over the course of the opera, she is forced to confront and ultimately accept the laws of time, giving him up to a pretty young heiress. Octavian, the titular “Knight of the Rose,” is sung by a woman—partly as an homage to Mozart’s Cherubino and partly as a nod to the power of illusion, which emerges as an important theme in the opera. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who would go on to work with Strauss on four more operas, created a fascinating libretto that deftly combines comedy (of both the sophisticated and the slapstick varieties), dreamy nostalgic fantasy, genuine human drama, and light-but-striking touches of philosophy and social commentary. Strauss’s magnificent score, likewise, works on several levels, combining the refinement of Mozart with the epic grandeur of Wagner. The result is a unique achievement: a grand opera that is as vast and complex as it is humane and charming.
The Creators
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works and songs before turning to opera. After two early failures, Strauss caused a theatrical sensation with Salome (1905), and from then on, the balance of his long career was largely dedicated to the stage. His next opera, Elektra (1909), was his first collaboration with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), a partnership that became one of the most remarkable in theater history.
Hofmannsthal emerged as an author and poet within the fervent intellectual atmosphere of Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. Their personalities were very different—Hofmannsthal enjoyed the world of abstract ideas, while Strauss was famously simple in his tastes—which makes their collaboration all the more extraordinary.
The Setting
The opera was originally set in Vienna in the 1740s. Genuine historical references (to the Empress Maria Theresa, the wars in the Low Countries, and the Imperial “Morals Police”) are merged with fictitious inventions (like the “noble custom” of the presentation of the silver rose to a fiancée) and anachronisms (such as the Viennese Waltz, which did not yet exist). It’s a mixture that creates a seductive mythical landscape, a ceremonious and impossibly beautiful Vienna-that-never-was.The Met’s current production moves the timeframe to 1911, the year of the opera’s premiere, amidst a declining Habsburg Empire.
The Music
The score of Der Rosenkavalier is lush, rich, and romantic to an extraordinary degree—perhaps surprisingly so, considering that the composer had written the disturbingly edgy and modern Elektra only two years earlier. The presentation of the rose, with its soaring vocal lines sprinkled with chromatic figures reflecting the shimmering of the silver rose (a motif that reappears with renewed poignancy at the very end) is ravishingly beautiful. Waltzes appear frequently, sometimes bumptious, sometimes elegant: Ochs’s musings at the end of Act II are both. In fact, the relationship between the banal and the sublime is expressed through the music as well as the libretto: The clunky tune of the tavern music in the early part of Act III later assumes a different texture and becomes the famous final trio, a gorgeous blend of female voices that is among the supreme accomplishments of lyric theater. The score also contains comic depictions of chaos and confusion, like the various characters competing for the Marschallin’s attention in Act I, the skirt-chasing lackeys of Act II, and, most of all, the screaming children and ghostly apparitions of Act III. The seemingly effortless musical craft of thesepassages masks the fact that the score is devilishly difficult to perform, ranked by instrumentalists among the most demanding in the repertory.
“Speaking as a professional, Rigoletto, speaking as an amateur, La Traviata.” by Verdi
Conductor
Nicola Luisotti
Violet ta valéry
Angel Blue
Alfredo Germont
Dmytro Popov
Giorgio Germont
Artur Ruciński
Premiere: Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1853
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (1810–76), Verdi’s librettist for La Traviata, collaborated with him on ten works, including Ernani, Rigoletto, La Forza del Destino, and the original versions of Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra.
The Setting
With La Traviata, Verdi and Piave fashioned an opera from a play set in contemporary times—an anomaly in the composer’s long career. Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias was a meditation on (and reinterpretation of) the author’s youthful affair with the celebrated courtesan Marie Duplessis, known as a sophisticated and well-read woman whose charms and tact far surpassed her station.
The Music
Verdi’s musical-dramatic ability to portray the individual in a marginalized relationship to society keeps this work a mainstay on the world’s stages— according to popular lore. The vocal and emotional scope of the title character is enormous: Compare the defiant fireworks in the showstopping Act I aria “Sempre libera degg’io” to the haunting regret of Act III’s “Addio, del passato.” The dramatic demands continue in Violetta’s interactions with others, most notably in the extended Act II confrontation with her lover’s father, Germont. Often cited as the emotional core of La Traviata, it is one of the most resoundingly truthful scenes in opera. Germont embodies the double-faced morality of the bourgeoisie, and Violetta’s interactions with him parallel her precarious dealings with society in general. She begins with defiance, becomes desperate, and finishes defeated. It is a vast journey within a single scene.
Note,
La Traviata, the result is an appealing intimacy of tone, an exploration in music of the vulnerable human heart.
A subject for the age, indeed: In the wake of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, a newly heterogeneous, parvenu Parisian society indulged in the hedonism of every kind. The bourgeoisie claimed its right to privileges formerly reserved for the elite, and men and women alike were on the make. By the midcentury, prostitution was linked to the concept of modernity as part of burgeoning social mobility and opportunism in cities, far from the moral strictures in country villages. As Dumas fils observed in his 1842 Streetwalkers, Lorettes [middle-class kept women], and Courtesans, it was more profitable for a lower-class girl than factory work or shoplifting. If there was misery aplenty for lowly streetwalkers, the courtesans often lived lives of luxury. The real-life inspiration for Violetta was Marie Duplessis, and she was the mistress of, among others, Count Ferdinand Montguyon, Antoine Agenor de Guiche, the elderly Baltic German Count Gustav Ernst von Stackelberg, and Count Edouard de Perregaux, who eventually married her. She died in February 1847, at age 23, of tuberculosis.
Dumas had an affair in 1844–45 with Duplessis that ended badly. In a mixture of myth and the transformation of real life, he wrote his novel La Dame aux Camélias in 1848, then turned it into a drama in 1852. In the play, Dumas toned down the promiscuity of Marguerite (as Duplessis’s stand-in was named), deleted the red camellia that was her code for menstruation and hence unavailability for lovemaking (the white camellia had the opposite meaning), and made her kinder, more loving, than her earlier incarnation. If Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave are faithful to the play in many respects, they carry the idealization of their heroine Violetta Valéry much farther than Dumas did, and the results of their shared labors are greater by far than either the novel or the play.
In Verdi’s music, Violetta is at the center of it all from the beginning: Take, for example, the divided high strings that bespeak her frailty in the opening orchestral prelude and the violins’ lyrical melody that follows, evocative of her grace and sweetness. But she is also part of a glittering social scene. The music we hear in the beginning is borrowed in part from Verdi’s 1841 opera Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, and it showcases Violetta’s charming coquetry. When the partygoers call for a brindisi (drinking song), Alfredo obliges with one of the opera’s most famous numbers, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici,” to which Violetta responds in kind. Waltzes by the banda (the stage band playing music that the characters hear) are punctuated by Violetta’s spell of faintness and Alfredo’s concern.
A similar intimacy marks his pizzicato-accompanied lyrical song “De’ miei bollenti spiriti” at the start of Act II, although a fiery and conventional cabaletta, ”Oh mio rimorso!,” follows. When the partygoers depart the first act, Violetta sings the renowned cavatina-cabaletta paired arias that tell of her divided soul: the tender, loving creature who wants to believe the ardent young man (“Ah fors’è lui”) and the pleasure-loving cocotte who would be “Sempre libera” (“Always free”), set to some of the most giddily febrile coloratura ever created.
The duet between Germont and Violetta in Act II is the heart of the opera. Here, Verdi moves from recitative (more speech-like) through arioso (a melodic style midway between recitative and aria) to the duet proper, beginning with Germont’s “Pura siccome un angelo” and proceeding through seven sections in which Violetta traverses almost every tragic emotion possible. By the end of this complex scene, Germont has come to understand Violetta’s true love for his son. He will display that understanding at the end of the act in the big ensemble finale, its climax the moment of outrage when Alfredo vents his unwarranted contempt for Violetta by throwing his winnings at her.
The final emphatic passage in the slow concerted ensemble section of the finale.The father’s sorrowful nobility, Alfredo’s shame and confusion, and Violetta’s pathos are each distinct in this ensemble, which ends with the kind of lyrical transfiguration that we expect from Verdi at such moments.
After a French revival of this opera in 1864 by impresario Léon Carvalho, Verdi was asked which of his operas thus far he liked best. He replied, “Speaking as a professional, Rigoletto, speaking as an amateur, La Traviata.” Thereafter, this composer, who both adhered to Italy’s operatic traditions and reinvented them throughout his long life, would avail himself of French grand opera traits, but La Traviata is sui generis in the way it speaks to the heart. No wonder that the “amateur” Verdi loved it, and so do we.
https://www.metopera.org/globalassets/season/2022-23/traviata-la/programs/031123-la-traviata.pdf
The ultimate bel canto
Conductor
Maurizio Benini
Oroveso
Christian Van Horn
Pollione
Michael Spyres
Flavio
Yongzhao Yu
Norma
Sonya Yoncheva
Adalgisa
Ekaterina Gubanova
Clotilde
Brittany Olivia Logan
PRODUCTION
David McVicar
Norma is the one which unites the richest flow of melody with the deepest glow of truth: a great score that speaks to the heart, a work of genius.” - Wagner
“I love the beautiful, wherever it is to be found. I do not like the intransigence of the classicists, but neither do I like the extreme lack of restraint of the ultra-romantics.” -Belini
Premiere: Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1831
Norma is an extraordinary fusion of sublime melody, vocal challenge, and dramatic power. It examines an ageless and archetypal situation: A powerful woman compromises her ideals for love, only to find herself betrayed by her lover. But this is only one aspect of her dilemma. Equally gripping is her relationship with the younger woman who is the new object of her former lover’s attention and in whom Norma sees both a rival and a second self. The title role demands dramatic vocal power combined with the agility and technique of a coloratura singer. It is a daunting challenge to which few can rise; those who have are part of operatic lore.
Norma is the ultimate bel canto (from the Italian for “beautiful singing”) opera, a style of singing that flourished in Italy in the 18th and early19th centuries. Its principal features are beauty of tone, legato phrasing, and the delivery of florid ornamentation. Throughout the score, Bellini punctuates breathtaking melody with sharp moments of raw drama. The primary functions of the clear orchestral writing are to move the drama along with vigorous rhythm and to imbue certain moments with feeling and emotion, such as the superb flute accompaniment to the soprano’s Act I aria “Casta diva.”
For Bellini, only one thing was important: conveying the drama through the music, which for him meant through the voice. “Engrave on your mind in indelible letters: In opera, it is the singing that moves to tears, that arouses terror, that inspires death,” he told a librettist. “Simplicity is the keynote … if the heart is moved, then one can’t go wrong.”
“The piece was appreciated more and more each evening. … Norma’s music is declamatory; it fits intelligently to the words, and precisely because this music follows a road that has long been disused, our ears need a longer time to listen to it in order to judge it honestly. For this reason, part of the score didn’t please us at the first hearing and met with universal approval after the passage of time.”
Bellini died just four years after Norma’s premiere, six weeks shy of his 34th birthday.
Synopsis
https://www.metopera.org/discover/synopses/norma/
Production Detail
https://www.metopera.org/season/2022-23-season/norma/
Program note
https://www.metopera.org/globalassets/season/2022-23/norma/programs/022823-norma.pdf
Review
https://observer.com/2023/03/review-mcvicars-norma-opera-met/#:~:text=Yoncheva's%20Norma%20looks%20and%20feels,where%20they%20don't%20belong.