Leonard Link

A Brilliant Night at the NYP with Salonen and Fray

2009-12-05T22:47:35-05:00

Tonight's NY Philharmonic concert, third in a series of four performances of early 20th-century music led by Esa-Pekka Salonen with piano soloist David Fray, was notable particularly for the brilliance of the climaxes in all three works.

Before the intermission, we had Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta (known among abbreviation-prone music lovers as MUSPAC - because life is too short to say Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta every time you want to refer to this piece). After intermission, there was the Ravel Piano Concerto in G and Debussy's La Mer ("The Sea").

It was an occasion for spectacular playing. Every true symphonic movement builds to a climax at some point, a moment of ultimate glory where everything comes together. Sometimes climaxes are quiet, moments of aching beauty, and sometimes they are loud and assertive. This concert featured both, in virtually every movement of all three pieces. But the one that really took my breath away was in the first movement of La Mer. Debussy's description title of this movement is "From Dawn till Noon on the Sea," as translated from the original French in the Philharmonic program book. Never before has it struck me so forcefully that the extraordinary climax, the surge of brilliance from the entire orchestra, shortly before the end of that movement, truly celebrates the sun bursting brightly from its highest point in the sky at noon. The sonic image was startling in its clarity at this performance.

What Salonen brings to these works is a composer's sensibility and desire that all the details tell. With him you don't just get the general picture, you get many felicitous details of figuration and scoring, never detracting from the overall effect, never unduly calling attention to themselves, but all contributing to a very rich awareness of the inner life of the music. I thought there were a very few times in the quieter moments when he let the tension get just slightly too slack, but these were fleeting impressions. On the whole, I think the necessary dynamic tension was maintained, and as noted above, climaxes were truly spectacular.

In the Ravel, of course, this also meant that the piano soloist was quite sympatico with the conductor's approach. I know not how they came to their understandings, but in his Philharmonic debut young David Fray found a perfect collaborator in Salonen for his own individualistic approach to the piece. This concerto is sometimes called a "jazz" concerto for the obvious influences of "Le hot Jazz Americaine" that was all the rage in Paris when the piece was being written. Ravel certainly knew his Gershwin. But on this occasion I was also struck by the notion that Ravel really knew his Prokofiev as well. Ravel was original; nothing in this piece could have been written by anybody else, and yet it is clear that Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 must have been known to Ravel. (Is this possible, chronologically? I think so. The Prokofiev was premiered in Chicago by the composer early in the 1920s, but he must have played it in Paris during that decade, and even if he didn't the piece was published and Ravel could have known it from the sheet music.) In any event, it struck me quite forcibly while listening to the third movement how Prokofiev's keyboard style in his 3rd Concerto bears certain similarities to what Ravel was doing.

At any rate, I was much taken with Fray's playing of the Concerto, especially in the middle movement, where the ability to sustain a long line and to vary it with coloration through touch, accent, slight rhythmic variations, is so important. This young pianist has the touch. I've already enjoyed his Bach and Boulez recordings on Virgin. Hearing him again inspires me to seek out the newest release (Schubert) and to hope he gets to record more French music as well.

And hearing this concert leads me to hope that now that he has retired as music director in L.A., Salonen is more available to guest conduct and will show up more often in New York. His Janacek at the Met this week was marvelous, and his work with the Philharmonic was marvelous as well. Please invite him back, Messrs. Gilbert and Mehta!!

The Truth About Carmina Burana - A New Recording by La Reverdie

2009-12-04T06:57:37-05:00

The title Carmina Burana evokes for modern listeners the "scenic cantata" composed by Carl Orff in the 1930s, which became an international hit upon its recording by Eugene Jochum in the 1950s and, in the age of stereo and then digital recording, became the sonic spectacular to show off high-end audio systems, although some of the pre-digital stereo recordings (Fruhbeck de Burgos, Ozawa) remain among the best available. The melodic sources that Orff used are a bit fuzzy, but the texts are of certain vintage - a medieval manuscript, probably of 14th century origins, discovered at the Abbey of Benedictbeurn in 1806, catalogued as Codex Latinus Monacensis, published in 1847 under the title Carmina Burana.

What many music lovers may not appreciate is that what was published in 1847 was essentially a collection of texts, not a collection of music. The texts are verses that apparently were intended to be sung, but what little indication there is for music in the original manuscript is indecipherable. So where did Orff get his tunes? And, as numerous collections of music described as "Carmina Burana" have been performed and recorded by early music groups over the ensuing decades, where is the music coming from? Most recordings of "Carmina Burana" (not the Orff, the early music groups) purporting to be presenting the original source material for Orff's scenic cantata are obscure about their sources.

A new recording by La Reverdie of 18 selections from Carmina Burana, on the Arcana label, is much more forthcoming. Indeed, the notes provided by La Reverdie are quite frank in admitting that what is being presented is speculative reconstruction. What they have found is that some of the texts in the original manuscript can also be found in other manuscripts of similar vintage, in some cases accompanied by music that can be deciphered today. In other cases, they have sought out contemporary songs and chants to which the verses of Carmina Burana can be fitted, both in terms of their rhythmic implications and the emotion to be communicated by the text. In some cases this involves something as simple as chanting the text in the style of the times with some improvised accompaniment - in one case they describe the result as "medieval rap music." In any case, where other groups have presented a program labelled "Carmina Burana" without necessarily revealing their melodic sources, this recording is presented with refreshing honesty as a reconstruction, with a description of the sources for each piece.

La Reverdie is a talented ensemble of eight early music specialists who play modern copies of various medeival period instruments, and all of whom sing. They recorded this collection in Amena, Italy, from October 13 through 17 in 2008. It has been taken down in clear digital sound that incorporates the reverberant acoustic of the church in a Franciscan convent in that town, but without too much reverberation in light of the need to project the texts clearly.

The performance is spirited but without the excesses characteristic of some Carmina Burana collections, most notably those recorded by Rene Clemencic, which are thrillingly theatrical but at times just simply "over the top" in their colorful "orchestration" and vocal dramatization of the texts. La Reverdie's performances fall more comfortably within the mainstream of what is today considered appropriate performance practice for medieval music. Who can say how "authentic" this is to the originals? Nobody can know for sure, and the real test for a modern music lover is whether this is an absorbing musical experience. For me it is, and I would recommend this new recording to anybody who loves Orff's 20th century gloss on medieval texts and who might be curious about how these texts might have been performed when they were contemporary rather than ancient.

Metropolitan Opera: From the House of the Dead

2009-12-02T23:28:12-05:00

Not the best timing coincidence? - To be down in the dumps about the vote against marriage equality in the New York State Senate this afternoon, and then to attend the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Leos Janacek's opera "From the House of the Dead" this evening. It just reinforces the melancholy.

But I have to say that this is a very powerful production of a very powerful opera. Esa-Pekka Salonen, the brilliant conductor, is making his Met Opera debut in this run of performances (and will be crossing the plaza at Lincoln Center to conduct the NY Philharmonic this weekend - I'm attending on Saturday night), and he was splendid tonight, as was the orchestra. As were all the singers in this huge ensemble. The production is stark, but for this opera that works well, because it is set in a men's prison so the setting should be stark. The male chorus and the soloists moved with wonderful virtuosity and coordination with Janacek's prickly music. This is not a "fun" evening in the opera house, but rather a moody, moving meditation on the vagaries of life and the unfairness of the world. Come to think of it, the coincidence of timing with this afternoon's vote is most appropriate....

NY Senate Marriage List - The Rollcall

2009-12-02T16:10:44-05:00

YES: 24
NO: 38

FULL ROLL CALL

Eric Adams (D) — YES “This is about love.”
Joseph Addabbo (D) — NO
James Alesi (R) — NO
Darrel Aubertine (D) — NO
John Bonacic (R) — NO
Neil Breslin (D) — YES
John DeFrancisco (R) — NO
Ruben Diaz (D) — NO “Sen. Smith, it is better to keep your word.”
Martin Malave Dilan (D) — YES
Tom Duane (D) — YES
Pedro Espada (D) — YES
Hugh Farley (R) — NO
John Flanagan (R) — NO
Brian Foley (D) — YES
Charles Fuschillo, Jr. (R) — NO
Martin Golden (R) — NO
Joseph Griffo (R) — NO
Kemp Hannon (R) — NO
Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D) — YES
Shirley Huntley (D) — NO
Craig Johnson (D) — YES
Owen Johnson (R) — NO
Jeffrey Klein (D) — YES
Liz Krueger (D) — YES
Carl Kruger (D) — NO
Andrew Lanza (R) — NO
Bill Larkin (R) — NO
Kenneth LaValle (R) — NO
Vincent Leibell (R) — NO
Tom Libous (R) — NO
Elizabeth Little (R) — NO
Carl Marcellino (R) — NO
George Maziarz (R) — NO
Roy McDonald (R) — NO
Hiram Monserrate (D) — NO
Velmanette Montgomery (D) — YES
Thomas Morahan (R) — NO
Michael Nozzolio (R) — NO
George Onorato (D) — NO
Suzi Oppenheimer (D) — YES
Frank Padavan (R) — NO
Kevin Parker (D) — YES
Bill Perkins (D) — YES
Michael Ranzenhofer (R) — NO
Joseph Robach (R) — NO
Stephen Saland (R) — NO
John Sampson (D) — YES
Diane Savino (D) — YES
Eric Schneiderman (D) — YES
Jose Serrano (D) — YES
James Seward (R) — NO
Dean Skelos (R) — NO
Malcolm Smith (D) — YES
Daniel Squadron (D) — YES
William Stachowski (D) — NO
Toby Ann Stavisky (D) — YES
Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) — YES
Antoine Thompson (D) — YES
David Valesky (D) — YES
Dale Volker (R) — NO
George Winner (R) — NO
Catherine Young (R) — NO

OK, Log Cabin Republicans, what do you have to say about your heroes in the Senate?

The Day But Not the Day....

2009-12-02T15:03:35-05:00

The NY State Senate finally debated the marriage equality bill but.... it was not the day to pass it, evidently. 24-38. Not even close. But at least the Senators are now on record, and we have an idea who needs to be targeted for the future. What is necessary, to get this passed, is to make it clear that opposing marriage equality is not the winning ticket for re-election in NY State.