September 2010 – Gathering Note

Alan Gilbert on Mahler’s 6th

Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil play Mahler’s 6th Symphony at the end of this month. This short Q&A on the subject comes courtesy of 21C Media Group.

Question: You’ve described the Sixth as possibly your favorite of Mahler’s symphonies. Why?

Alan Gilbert: It’s a very, very pessimistic work that paints a very realistic picture of life’s ups and downs and the search for happiness and meaning. For the particular protagonist in the Sixth Symphony it ends in utter despair, and without hope, which is quite rare in music and art. Usually there is some shred of optimism left! But this piece ends in utter devastation. That’s not what I like about the piece, of course! But the work is such a statement, and is such a powerful expression of life’s experiences; it is an important and indisputably great work.

Q: You’ve already performed the First and Third Symphonies with the New York Philharmonic, and will play the Sixth this week. Later in the season you’ll also do the Fifth. Are you hoping to do all of the Mahler symphonies at some point with the orchestra?
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The Muti era begins

I’m back from a short visit to Chicago. While I was there I had the chance to hear Maestro Muti lead the Chicago Symphony in their first subscription concert of the season. The buzz around Muti and the CSO is intense. Banners with Muti’s mug hang on just about every light pole in the Loop. Bus stop shelters have either audio or video advertisements for the CSO. A week prior 30,000 people ventured downtown to hear Muti lead the CSO in a public concert. All of this attention is expected of course. The CSO is a world class symphony with a world class conductor. The bar for this new partnership is set so high, one wonders whether the CSO and Muti and can meet expectations.

For the first subscription concert Muti reached deep into the bin of neglected scores. What he found was Hector Berlioz’s Lelio or (Return to Life). Lelio is the sequel to Symphonie Fantastique. It is the composer’s story of overcoming unhappiness and a “return to life.” At a basic level, Lelio is Berlioz’s rumination on art, society, and life. In between seemingly random musical interludes are wayward monologues. The monologues themselves are nearly as long as the piece’s music. Compared to Fantastique, Lelio is incongruous, episodic, rambling, and wildly self indulgent.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet opens new season

By R.M. Campbell

Despite the gloom of the economy and its effect on American culture from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Pacific Northwest Ballet opened its current season Friday night at McCall Hall with splendid dancing and splendid choreography.

This is the first year after the company decided, as a means of reducing expenses, to combine opening night, usually on Thursday, with the subsequent Friday night. According to officials, Thursday night was the least attended and the most popular night for trading. Undoubtedly many people complained: No one likes to move involuntarily. Yet, the task was completed and the house looked good. Certainly it was enthusiastic, clapping and laughing at every possible moment.
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SSO opens new subscription season Thursday night

By R.M. Campbell

A world premiere and Brahms symphony aside, the major attraction of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s opening gambit Thursday night at Benaroya Hall was pianist Yefim Bronfman.

Unlike some major pianists who rarely grace the symphony stage, Bronfman is almost a fixture. He made his local debut in the 1970’s as part of the SSO Sunday afternoon series dedicated to up and coming artists. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma also made his local debut on that series. He was a teenager while Bronfman had already crossed into his 20s. Just. Young they may have been but obviously brilliant futures were ahead. Bronfman’s vehicle then was Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. On Thursday, and through Sunday afternoon, it is another Russian composer — Prokofiev.
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Off the shelf: Chicago bound

Next week I take off to Chicago for business and pleasure. The pleasure includes ushering in the Muti era with the CSO and Berlioz’s justly famous (and loved Symphonie Fantastique) and his less known Lelio. The Muti era is sure to build on the successes of Pierre Boulez and Bernard Haitink — the orchestra’s two post Barenboim placeholders. Neither will be gone from the Windy City’s classical music scene however. Boulez is slated to conduct a few weeks while Haitink returns for a series of Mahler concerts toward the end of the season.

Later this month CSO Resound will release a new recording of Verdi’s Requiem. The recording comes from a Muti led concert last season I believe. My favorite recording of the piece has always been Solti’s blazing performance on RCA. I expect this new recording to be as muscular, but with Muti’s signature elan.
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Cappella Romana turns to England

By Philippa Kiraly

As a rule we expect Cappella Romana to enlighten and enthrall us with music of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches from the Middle Ages to the present day. For its first concert of this season, it turned to the English church choral tradition of the Renaissance in a fascinating, moving performance directed by a guest conductor from England, Guy Protheroe.

Choosing Holy Rosary Church in West Seattle for the venue Saturday night, a place where the choir has sung before, gave the requisite reverberation to allow the music to bloom, though it made words very hard to distinguish.
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Schwarz opened his farewell season Saturday night

By R.M. Campbell

After nearly three decades of association with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz is saying goodbye. This season will be his last as music director, although he will return to the SSO podium in subsequent seasons as conductor laureate.

The annual gala Saturday night at Benaroya Hall, which raises several hundred thousand dollars every fall for the orchestra, was dedicated to Schwarz. The first piece, “The Human Spirit,” was written by him, and the second, a cello concerto written by the SSO composer-in-residence Samuel Jones, was performed by Schwarz’ son Julian. The closing work, a suite taken from Strauss’ opera “Der Rosenkavalier,” was arranged by Schwarz. The only piece on the program which did not bear any involvement with Schwarz, except as a conductor, was Mahler’s song cycle “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.”
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Beethoven and Wine festival concludes with the Eighth Symphony and Third Piano Concerto

Beethoven and wine; wine and Beethoven, the Seattle Symphony kicked off the 2010/2011 season with three shorter all-Beethoven concerts preceded by an hour of wine tasting. The Beethoven and Wine festival isn’t new. Last season was its inagueral season. It’s a disappointing world we live in. These days it takes putting “wine” in the title of the program to fill Benaroya to near capacity. Wine and ___ (fill in the blank with a composer or musical period) has proven to be such a successful model that I noticed a new Baroque and wine series has been added to the SSO season. Other orchestras have included wine tasting in their programs as well.
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A remarkable debut with SSO for violinist Augustin Hadelich

By Philippa Kiraly

The Seattle Symphony began its Beethoven and Wine series and its annual season at Benaroya Hall on a high note, with the Seattle Symphony debut of violinist Augustin Hadelich playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and the world premiere of a fine little work by Augusta Read Thomas.

Her composition was the first to be performed of eighteen commissioned from contemporary composers by Agnes Gund and Charles Simonyi to mark the farewell season of artistic director Gerard Schwarz. The list of composers, all working in this country, is a Who’s Who of today’s most respected names in the field Their works will be performed at concerts throughout the season, and this first one will be heard again in each of the remaining Beethoven and Wine concerts, tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow.

Read Thomas describes her five-minute “Of Paradise and Light” as a soulful work of reflection, “as though a sliver of paradise and light came down to shine upon a garden of colorful flowers.” So often a description like this leaves the listener, on hearing the work, wondering just what the composer meant. Not so here. She has captured her words in sound.

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The 2010-2011 concert season opens with I-90 Collective

By Philippa Kiraly

The fall concert season starts with a flurry this year, seemingly in a hurry to get going immediately after Labor Day. The Seattle Symphony has three Beethoven and Wine concerts this week and a gala on Saturday, Cappella Romana gives its first season performance Saturday, and the Early Music Guild got in first with one of its First Tuesday series, the I-90 Collective performing at Trinity Parish Church.

The audience was surprisingly good for an early Tuesday in September and, with its excellent acoustics, the Trinity Parish Hall is becoming known as a fine place to perform.
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