Posted by A.C. Douglas on 21 November 2009 | Permalink
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 17 November 2009 | Permalink
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 10 November 2009 | Permalink
Deutsche Bank will present a free webcast of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle performing Brahms’ Third and Fourth Symphonies on Monday, 9 November 2009 at 8 PM EST (GMT-5) on its website. To register for the free webcast, follow the link to the webcast on the Deutsche Bank homepage. Click here for the Deutsche Bank website (www.db.com).
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 06 November 2009 | Permalink
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 04 November 2009 | Permalink
We've just finished watching a video of Duddy's (that's Gustavo Dudamel to you) much and widely ballyhooed inaugural concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as its new Music Director, the video courtesy of the LAP's website (and with thanks to classical music critic and blogger Robert D. Thomas of Class Act for the heads-up and the link). The single work given (or at least the single work on the video) was Beethoven's No. 9, and it was not, how shall we put it, a performance for the ages — a performance twice jarringly interrupted by inappropriate applause (don't get us started!) — notwithstanding the fireworks show accompanying an encore of the choral section of the last movement. (The concert, we hasten to add for those who've been living under a rock for the past couple months, was given free at the Hollywood Bowl, and, no, we're not going to give you all the gory details of the performance. Watch and listen to the video for yourselves if you're interested.)
But there's time for stellar performances by Duddy and the LAP of No. 9 and of other great music. What was extraordinary about this concert was not the performance or the fireworks in the sky, but the fireworks in the audience. One would have thought Duddy a rock star of the very first magnitude so charged-up and unrestrainedly enthusiastic were they. And this for a mere conductor of a symphony orchestra!
Go figure.
Things seem to be looking up thanks to a gifted, charismatic, 28-year-old, afro-coiffed Latino.
Who woulda thought.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 04 October 2009 | Permalink
[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 1:44 PM Eastern on 25 Apr. See below.]
This afternoon, beginning 12:00 PM EDT, the Met closes its current Ring cycle with a performance of Götterdämmerung which performance will be aired via the Met's regular Saturday afternoon opera broadcast, and also via the Met's own webcast which can be accessed here. For some of you, this 2005 commentary on Götterdämmerung titled, "The Trouble With Götterdämmerung", might be of some small interest, and so we accordingly recommend it to your attention.
Update (1:44 PM Eastern on 25 Apr): After hearing the Norns episode, we thought there might be a chance for this performance. No such luck. The thing is a veritable train wreck — from Levine on down. We're off. We've had it. We're no masochist.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 25 April 2009 | Permalink
After hearing the rousing audience reception of Die Walküre tonight, we're forced to the sad conclusion that the Met's audience has got to be among the most undiscerning opera audiences in the world.
Has it always been thus?
Our memory is not what it used to be, but we don't think so.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 06 April 2009 | Permalink
Here's a video of an extraordinary conversation which yesterday aired on an extraordinary segment of (and for) PBS's Charlie Rose Show in celebration of the 100th birthday of composer Elliott Carter: A Conversation With Elliott Carter, Daniel Barenboim, and James Levine. Carter showed himself to be still sharp as a tack mentally, and, if you ask us, doesn't look a day over 80.
For us, one of the most telling moments of that conversation was Barenboim's explanation of why Carter's notoriously complex atonal music is perceived by audiences as genuine music. His explanation — which runs from 13:25-15:10 on the video — although expressed more eloquently, sounded remarkably like what we had to say in our 24 April 2008 post, "On Music And Gibberish"; viz.,
It's not atonality per se — i.e., the music's lack of a triadic tonal center(s); a "home base," so to speak — [that makes so much of atonal music sound so unmusical; even non-music], nor is it the almost unrelenting, unresolved harmonic dissonance that's the hallmark of the atonal. It's something much more fundamental: the lack of a perceptible and coherent musical narrative from work's beginning to end, which is to say the lack of the work's saying comprehensibly something beyond and exclusive of commentary on its own processes and methods which are — or ought to have been and be — but mere tools used in its making.[...]
To put the matter more bluntly and much less eloquently, a composition absent a perceptible and coherent musical narrative from beginning to end is gibberish and not music.
[...]
And that's the test — the touchstone — that determines whether a work as a whole is genuine music or gibberish. Flashes of musical brilliance — even a sustained series of such flashes from work's start to finish — simply won't do to make that work a work of genuine music unless those flashes conspire to produce a perceptible and coherent musical narrative [from work's beginning to end].
[...]
That's genuine music's sine qua non — even its very definition.
This exceptional 32-minute video is well worth your time viewing in toto.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 11 December 2008 | Permalink
There's no way to discuss this matter without its seeming to come off appearing a thoroughly petty complaint when measured against the larger achievement, but it's so remarkable a matter that we simply can't let it pass absent remark.
We're talking about the absolutely wrong and wrongheaded realization, musically and dramatically, of the critically important opening two-measure phrase of the opening ten-measure paragraph of the Vorspiel to Act III of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and the two-measure phrase's following second statement (as well as the second statement of the entire paragraph some six measures after the first) as they were realized by Daniel Barenboim in his debut on the Met's podium on 28 November; a realization repeated this past Saturday for the broadcast matinée.
That opening ten-measure paragraph is one of the small wonders in an opera filled with manifold wonders of magnitudes large and small, and which paragraph is perhaps the most concise, deeply affecting, and profound evocation of utter desolation and despair, external and internal, to be found in all of opera, perhaps even in all of music. And much of that paragraph's effect (and affect) can be attributed directly to its opening four measures — i.e., its repeated opening two-measure phrase — ergo, the critical importance of those measures, and the reason for this article which by its very nature cannot help but be somewhat technical, for which, our apologies.
Wagner notates the tempo for the Vorspiel, Mäßig langsam (moderately slow; the German, langsam, is roughly equivalent to the Italian, largo), and the meter, common time (4/4). The Vorspiel's opening ten-measure paragraph is played by the orchestra's string choir (violins, violas, cellos, and contrabasses) alone, and its opening four measures are hugely and hollowly dissonant the hollowness of that dissonance due largely (but not entirely) the violins sounding its prolonged, dissonant major-second G against the F tonic sounded in the rest of the string choir using the G of the violin's lowest open (i.e., unstopped) string. That open-string G is so important to the sound and sense of the Vorspiel's opening paragraph and of the Vorspiel itself that we'd almost be willing to declare that Wagner chose the nominal minor key of the Vorspiel (f-minor) precisely in order that the strongest dissonance of its opening paragraph would be produced using that hollow-sounding open-string G.
And what does Wagner write for the opening four measures of that opening ten-measure paragraph to produce its magic? It's utterly simple. The violas, cellos and contrabasses sound a chordal pedal using the tonic, sixth, fourth, and fifth degrees of the f-minor scale, while above, after a quarter rest, the first violins join them by first sounding a hollowly and hugely dissonant tied half-note and eighth open-string G, with the second violins joining at the same time sounding a dotted half-note open-string G which is tied to another dotted half-note open-string G in the following second measure of the two-measure phrase the entire string choir resolving at phrase's close in an f-minor triad, the triad's uneasy fifth degree sounding prominently on top.
When taken at Wagner's indicated tempo, the prolonged, major-second dissonance of that hollow-sounding open-string G produces a sense of desolation that's all but unbearable which is precisely the effect it was intended to produce. In fact, experienced Wagner conductors typically prolong that hollow open-string dissonance slightly beyond the notated time value of the notes by introducing a slight rubato or quasi-fermata on the open-string G in the first measure of the two-measure phrase.
Which brings us to Mr. Barenboim's realization of those critical four measures.
First, he ignores Wagner's tempo marking entirely, and takes that opening ten-measure paragraph almost Alla breve. As if that weren't wrongheaded enough, he treats the tied half-note plus eighth open-string G in the first violins in the first measure of that repeated opening two-measure phrase almost as if it were a tied eighth plus sixteenth, thereby destroying utterly the effect intended by Wagner as indicated in the score.
Now, nothing could make those opening four measures and the remaining six of that ten-measure paragraph sound anything but doleful. That's a function of the notes themselves no matter what the tempo taken. But Wagner didn't intend to express the merely doleful. He intended to express an external and internal landscape of utter desolation and despair as we've noted above. A sympathetic reading of the score tells us that, and all one need do to realize in performance what Wagner intended is to follow his notation as written. Mr. Barenboim, however, and for reasons which elude us entirely, chose not to do so, and instead of evoking a landscape of utter desolation and despair, ended up evoking a landscape merely doleful which robs the Vorspiel of its special genius, and the closing act of the opera a fair measure of its opening gravitas which is a matter not to be taken lightly (NPI); ergo, this complaint. And if the complaint appears petty measured against the larger achievement, well, then, so be it. We lodge it that notwithstanding.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 07 December 2008 | Permalink
This PR release just received from American Public Media:
(St. Paul, Minn.) August 27, 2008—Capping a 53-year career, one of the world’s best-loved chamber ensembles, the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, played its final American concert on Thursday, August 21. American Public Media’s Performance Today is offering an exclusive podcast of this historic concert. Beginning on Wednesday, August 27, the concert at Massachusetts’ Tanglewood Music Festival will be available in its entirety, in two segments, by visiting www.performancetoday.org.Led for more than half a century by pianist Menahem Pressler, the legendary Beaux Arts Trio will disband after a series of European concerts in September. With the concert at Tanglewood, the ensemble returned to its place of origin — it played its first concerts there in 1955. The occasion also marked a return to repertoire it made American audiences familiar with over the decades: Franz Schubert’s magisterial Opus 99 and Opus 100 piano trios. The group’s three encores will also be included in the podcast.
Fred Child, host of Performance Today, served as host for an exclusive live Webcast of the August 21 concert, and he’ll provide commentary, features and interviews with the members of the trio: pianist Menahem Pressler, violinist Daniel Hope and cellist Antonio Meneses.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 27 August 2008 | Permalink
We've just been made aware of what turns out to be a valuable online classical music resource. It's a new website called Classical DJ, and the name is most apt. Classical DJ is a worldwide compendium of online commercial (broadcast) classical music radio stations neatly organized and hyperlinked for your convenience. We've added Classical DJ to our exclusive listing of Culture Sites on our left-hand sidebar.
(Note to those contemplating eMailing us to announce the existence of a new website or blog and requesting a link on Sounds & Fury in exchange for a link to S&F on the new website or blog.
Although we're most gratified when linked to by others, we don't engage in link trading on S&F. We almost dumped the eMail that came to us announcing the above website as it suggested such a link exchange. If you have a new website or blog that you think would be of interest or use to S&F's readers, by all means let us know about it. If we think the website or blog worthy of a listing on S&F, we'll list it. If not, not, regardless of whether you post a link to S&F on your website or blog or not. We trust we make ourselves clear.)
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 09 June 2008 | Permalink
I don’t care what the Met program listing says, or what the broadcast announcer announced. The Met substituted a ringer on the podium for the second act of this afternoon’s broadcast of Die Walküre. I’ve not a shadow of a doubt that Lorin Maazel was on the podium for Acts I and III. His infuriating and willfully quirky fingerprints were all over both acts with predictably deleterious effect. But Act II, if not altogether perfect (much of the Todesverkündigung flirted perilously with the ponderous in attempting the required grave and solemn, and Wotan’s final exit lacked the fury the drama and the music demand), was conducted by a Wagner conductor who knows his business even if not quite a possessor of that rarest of rarities, the “Wagner Gene”. By contrast, Maazel screwed up Act I royally by sentimentalizing almost all of it, and by fracturing this most perfect single act in all the Ring, and among the most perfect in all of opera, into a series of mini-episodes with no sense whatever of the sweep of the musico-dramatic arc of the whole. And he did violence to Act III by taking liberties of tempi that were simply egregious, and by altering Wagner’s score to the extent of interjecting his own full-measure-rests for the entire orchestra into that seamless, heart- and gut-wrenchingly sublime 24-measure orchestral sequence — perhaps the most heart- and gut-wrenching passage in all of opera — that follows Wotan’s, “Denn einer nur freie die Braut, der freier als ich, der Gott!” (For only one shall win the bride, one freer than I, the god!), and by so doing destroyed utterly the sequence's overwhelming emotional impact.
What’s that? You think my claiming the substitution of a podium ringer for Act II makes me out to be a nut case conspiracy theorist?
Oh yeah? Well, then, you come up with a more plausible explanation. I can’t.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 02 February 2008 | Permalink
We listened to the BBC Radio 3 live webcast of the BBC Proms concert performance of Wagner's Götterdämmerung today, and the conductor, Donald Runnicles, acquitted himself most splendidly for the most part as did the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, and BBC Symphony Chorus. While we're not ready to declare Mr. Runnicles a card-carrying member of that rarest of conductor breeds, a possessor of the "Wagner Gene" (we'd need to hear his readings of the rest of the Ring and of Tristan before we could even consider doing that), his showing today was most encouraging in that direction.
As for today's solo singers (see above link for the cast list), they were all, also for the most part, just competent — when they weren't being thoroughly dreadful, that is. Their best showing was seemingly reserved for Act III in which all the solo singers did their very best work of the day.
As we've here several times before noted, in those cases where the opera is a genuine example of opera as dramma per musica and therefore more than merely a showcase for songbirds, we just know there has to be a way to do opera without any solo singers whatsoever.
We're still working on it.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 12 August 2007 | Permalink
[Note: This post has been updated (3) as of 4:50 PM Eastern on 25 Jul. See below.]
Today is the opening day of the 2007 Bayreuther Festspiele with a new production of Die Meistersinger directed by Wagner great-granddaughter and potential heir to the directorship of the Festival, Katharina Wagner, kicking off the festivities. The audio of the performance will be streamed live on a number of outlets beginning at 9:55 AM EST. Click on the appropriate entry in our schedule on the right sidebar for full details.
Update (12:46 PM Eastern on 25 Jul): Leave it to a pro like Alex Ross to find a really chock full of information and pics site relating to this.
Update 2 (3:07 PM Eastern on 25 Jul): Here's a revealing video of a rehearsal for this new production of Meistersinger; revealing even if one can't understand German. On the evidence of the video, the Konzept, from the little I can grasp of it from this brief fragment, appears not altogether ridiculous to me. Here are some stills.
Update 3 (4:50 PM Eastern on 25 Jul): And now for the obligatory critique of the performance musically.
«yawn»
Chorus wasn't bad, though, and Vogt as Walther, although his German tenor is too light and Italianate-sounding for the role, was pretty good. I trust Herr Weigle, however, has employment on the podium in other than Wagnerian venues. (Late Note (26 July, 3:41 AM Eastern): Alex Ross also has some postmortem thoughts on the performance musically in an update to this post.)
For press reports and reaction to the production, see here.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 25 July 2007 | Permalink
The schedule for the live webcasts of the opening week of the 2007 Bayreuther Festspiele is now up at the top of our right sidebar. Follow the links to see the available webcasts as well as the cast list for each opera.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 16 July 2007 | Permalink
We suspect the following somehow got its data packets reshuffled or rerouted somewhere in cyberspace, and what was supposed to show up online in the pages of The Onion instead got routed to The New York Times:
In an unusually blunt session [at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers] today, several of Hollywood’s highest-ranking executives called for the end of the entertainment industry’s decades-old system of paying what are called residuals to writers, actors and directors for the re-use of movie and television programs after their initial showings.The executives stopped short of saying they would demand an immediate end to residual payments in the upcoming, probably difficult negotiations with writers, actors and directors. But they were emphatic in calling for the dismantling of a system under which specific payments are made when movies and shows are released on DVD, shown abroad or otherwise resold. Instead, they want to pool such revenue and recover their costs before sharing any of the profit with the talent.
Yeah, right. When pigs fly maybe.
RTWT here.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 11 July 2007 | Permalink
What most promises that the domain of classical music can look forward to a bright future entirely on its own terms despite repeated squawking by legions of Chicken Littles to the contrary, and not to the corrupt, pop-culture-denatured future envisioned for it by the perverse, pop-culture-contaminated imaginings of some music pundits?
Peter Gelb's innovations at the Met? Glowing anecdotal accounts of success by well-intentioned, warm 'n fuzzy but ineluctably effete Take A Friend To A Concert type campaigns? The widespread downloading of classical music from the Web?
None of the above. It's this. If you've never heard it, or heard of it, it's time you did. It can be heard on WQXR at 7 o'clock EST every Saturday evening at wqxr.com, or on your local NPR outlet in many areas of the country. It's easily one of the most encouraging and most delightful hours in the world of classical music today.
I promise you.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 03 February 2007 | Permalink
Not only is she the most phenomenally gifted fiddler to appear on the solo concert scene since Heifetz and Milstein, she's intelligent, charming, beautiful, and a first-rate and knowledgeable musician. We're speaking, of course, of Anne-Sophie Mutter whose fiddle playing is a whole order of magnitude beyond her formidably gifted fellow concert fiddlers of which there's perhaps more in number today than at any time in the past century, and most of them female (What's up with that?).
The above remarks are occasioned by our stumbling upon a recording of an excellent half-hour interview with Ms. Mutter by WQXR's Jeff Spurgeon this past March which can be heard here (Windows Media Player or RealPlayer required).
Well worth your time.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 16 December 2006 | Permalink


On The Road To Prohibition
Los Angeles Opera's James Conlon
* The webcast was by Los Angeles public radio station KUSC, "the largest and most listened-to public radio and non-profit classical music station in the country" which is webcasting recorded live performances of each of the four music dramas of the LAO Ring each Saturday at 1:00 PM (EDT), this Saturday having been the first in the webcast series which series will continue over the next three Saturdays.
We trust the foregoing will forestall any further admonitory e-missives along this line.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 29 May 2010 | Permalink