Month: June 2010

Measuring Morlot

Ludovic Morlot at work

The Seattle Symphony has a new music director and his name is Ludovic Morlot. The announcement came over my iPhone in an email during a meeting late this afternoon.  I scrolled and skimmed my way through its contents and began to count the hours until I could sit in front of a computer to write.  My editor at City Arts asked me in his own email “what do you think?” I punched out a vague answer while driving (don’t text and drive!) to which he responded “you are an enigma.” The truth is I have been processing the choice for a few hours now. My opinions about Morlot are as enigmatic as the man who becomes music director designate next year. The choice of Morlot is as tantalizing as it is ordinary. There is tangible promise in the choice but also uncertainty. But, when all is said and done, the choice is wise for what the orchestra wants to become.

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The last word on Leonard Bernstein this season…

A young Lenny.

“I have rarely met a composer who is so faithfully mirrored in his music; the man is the music. We are all familiar with the attributes generally ascribed to his compositions: vitality, optimism, enthusiasm, long lyrical line, rhythmic impetuosity, bristling counterpoint, brilliant textures, dynamic tension. But what is not so often remarked is what I treasure most: the human qualities that flow directly from the man into the works – compassion, fidelity, insight, and total honesty.”

Glitter and be gay

By Philippa Kiraly

Seattle Men’s Chorus celebrated the end of its 30th anniversary year with a gala concert this past weekend at McCaw Hall. Together with its seven-year-old sister group, Seattle Women’s Chorus, it used the opportunity to enhance the occasion with a grand finale to the city’s three-month long tribute to Leonard Bernstein, joining him with colleague composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

Both Friday’s and Saturday’s concerts were virtually sold out, the audiences in a mood to party and, as always, the Choruses delivered in spades.

What struck the mind first was the extraordinary discipline of the singers.
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Bernstein and Schuman close out SSO season, Bernstein festival, highlighting Schwarz’s legacy

William Schuman

To close the Seattle Symphony’s current season, Schwarz assembled a program of Leonard Bernstein and William Schuman works. This season finale also closes out the Seattle Celebrates Bernstein festival — a city wide effort to honor the 20th anniversary of Bernstein’s death. Personal struggle has been a theme in season finales over the last few seasons. With the help of Schwarz and the SSO, audiences have probed Mahler’s despairing Sixth Symphony and last year Aaron Jay Kernis’ pleading Third Symphony, a world premiere. Leonard Bernstein’s personal torment, doubt, and faith, embodied by his Second Symphony, were the fundamental qualities of Friday’s struggle.

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Off the shelf

Maya Beiser

Two innovative new releases highlight the course of classical music in the 21st Century: Cortical Songs (Nonclassical) by the duo John Matthias and Nick Ryan and Provenance (Innova) cellist, Maya Beiser’s new album. Both albums underscore a growing desire by musicians and composers to avoid confining forms, formats, and labels. Both releases come right up to the classical music line; neither crosses it.
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The Onyx Chamber Players end their season with Haydn and Mendelssohn at Town Hall

By Dana Wen

One of the great joys of chamber music is the conversation that unfolds between the musicians on stage. Each performer is given a chance to contribute to the musical dialogue in a very prominent way. In such an intimate environment, the personality of each musician inevitably emerges. Sometimes the going gets rough, and personalities will clash. But other times, especially with a group of musicians who have been playing together for a while, watching a performance can feel like sitting in on a lively conversation between old friends. When this happens, it’s a treat for the performers and the audience alike.
Continue reading The Onyx Chamber Players end their season with Haydn and Mendelssohn at Town Hall

Barber’s songs take center stage at the Good Shepherd Center

In this, the Barber anniversary year, mezzo-soprano Janna Wachter paid homage to the creative partnership of Samuel Barber and his long time partner Gian Carlo Menotti with a recital of songs, piano works, and chamber operas by the two composers. Wachter’s Saturday evening tribute concert on June 19th was a first for the season. With the exception of The Esoterics, no other local ensemble has delved into Barber’s music for voice or vocal ensembles. And, to my knowledge no one has explored Barber’s formidable songs until this Wachter’s recital this past Saturday.

For her recital, Wachter enlisted the help of a number of local musicians. Roger Nelson provided confident accompaniment throughout the night. While the voices changed, Nelson’s contributions were consistently reliable. Nelson even took the spotlight himself on a couple of occasions playing Barber’s character shifting Nocturne and Menotti’s own Nocturne with searching aplomb.

The best and worst of the night were reserved for A Hand of Bridge and Knoxville Summer 1915. To close the evening, Wachter showed Unabridged, Curtis Taylor’s movie reproduction of A Hand of Bridge. Eric Banks and Glen Guhr sang roles in the chamber opera along with Wachter and Avinger. These four card players represent the composer’s inner circle. Each singer takes turns exploring the personal world of the card player they depict. Thoughts range from the vacuous to the perverse. Taylor’s visuals were a witty compliment to the four singers and the libretto. Taylor’s movie was the night’s high point. By contrast, Anneliese von Goerken’s rendition of Knoxville Summer 1915 was the night’s low-point. You would expect, in a small space like the Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center, clarity wouldn’t have been issue. For this performance it was. The lines of James Agee’s poem blurred. Goerken chose mawkish grandeur that might have worked on a concert stage, with a full orchestra, and an audience that gives the sung text at best casual attention. Scott Garlund arranged each piece’s instrumental music for saxophone ensemble. The arrangement was seductive in its simplicity but I still prefer Barber’s instrumentation better.

Wagner and Mendelssohn paired on symphony program

By R.M. Campbell

Nearing the end of its current season, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra is pairing the famous with the obscure for three concerts at Benaroya Hall starting Thursday night.

Both composers are in the pantheon of Western icons — Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn — but the works offered are less obvious. Wagner’s “Parsifal” rings through Western civilization. For some it carries too much weight, but, in fact, it is a profound piece of art. The opera opened McCaw Hall, in 2003, a new production by Seattle Opera, which completed the company’s survey the composer’s canon of 10 operas. Thursday night was not the same as viewing, and hearing the entire opera, but the performance had the merit of simply being with this music another time. Gerard Schwarz, SSO music director, chose three excerpts: the preludes to Act I and III and the “Good Friday Spell.” To the good particularly were the warm string sound and long, seamless phrases. On the not-so-good side were inexact attacks and sloppy phrases. Not enough rehearsal perhaps?

Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” is on the other side of the aisle of popularity. Performances are rare: most people probably have never heard it. There are reasons for that. It is a remarkably uninteresting piece of music in spite of expansive choral writing and effective vocal writing for the three soloists, all of whom were excellent at Benaroya: sopranos Christine Goerke and Holli Harrison and tenor Vinson Cole. The Seattle Symphony Chorale was in generally good shape, sound well-assembled, balance keen. The orchestra played well. The only difficulty was the piece itself. For a man of such felicity, “Lobesang” (“Hymn of Praise”) caught Mendelssohn on his day off. It is always good to hear music that is not performed with any regularity, but the reasons for that are often because it is simply not very good. Such is this piece.

Quarter notes: YNS edition

YNS

By now most people have heard the Philadelphia Orchestra has found a new music director. – YNS for short. He is a predictable choice given the youth movement afoot these days. Chicago bucked the trend by appointing Ricardo Muti. They are the only orchestra which ignored the orchestra group think these days (does that make the Muti choice revolutionary?) Maybe, before Dudamel, before Gilbert, and before the small army of sub-forty year olds took over a number orchestras in the UK the choice would have shocked or inspired. At best, Philadelphia has recruited the next big thing. At worst, the orchestra has found a music director for the next seven years.

(Sorry, but the section on James Garlick has been redacted.)

More contributor news. Did you read Michael Upchurch’s Seattle Times piece on the Toy Box Trio? No? Then ! Keep it up Dana and Harlan.

Did anyone notice Terry Teachout’s piece in the this past weekend? He wonders whether we even need regional orchestras in the digital age. With definitive recordings of just about every piece of standard repertory just a click away, why would anyone go hear a middle of the road performance of the same repertory with a local orchestra? It is an interesting thought experiment. I get hung up on what defines a regional orchestra. The Seattle Symphony is certainly a regional orchestra. So is the Oregon Symphony. Neither have the stature of America’s Big Five, or Big Seven if you include LA and San Francisco and both cater to audiences which stretch beyond the urban centers of Seattle and Portland. Maybe the answer isn’t to allow orchestras to die, or to load a season with pops concerts, but to reexamine the role and mission of the orchestra in the community?  Playing the same old music doesn’t seem to be cutting it anymore.