Tag: New York

Alan Gilbert on Mahler’s 6th

Alan Gilbert

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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Quarter notes: Le Grand


Gyorgy Ligeti supposedly spent the last years of his life worried that when he died no one would remember him or his music. His worries weren’t entirely unjustified. The work of many, many composers has slipped into obscurity. For Ligeti, an artist on the fringes of the musical mainstream, the possibility of anonymity is even more pronounced.

Thank goodness for the NY Philharmonic then, which is preparing a concert performance of Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre May 27-29. When the opera hits the concert stage later this month it will be the NY premiere of this 20th Century masterpiece. To prep listeners, the orchestras have released three new videos in their FlipCam series.

Doug Fitch, Le Grand’s director, takes the Phil’s FlipCam camera man (or woman) on a tour of his studio and reveals some of the designs that will be used.

The NY Phil has a number of other videos — non FlipCam — worth investigating too. In this video, Douglas Fitch and Edourad Getaz give an overview of the opera and the project.

In another video (a non FlipCam video) Alan Gilbert shares his own thoughts on Le Grand.

The adventurous can always download (or buy a CD version) of Sony’s EP Salonen led performance of the piece.

Closer to home, don’t forget Seattle Opera’s Amelia which will be unveiled to the concert going public for the first time tonight. Amelia, unlike the photo of Ligeti at the top of this post, is guaranteed not to frighten (that’s my own personal guarantee not Hagen’s or SO’s.) There is lots of good information about the opera (especially J. Dean’s listening guide) over at . If you don’t like to read, here is the final video is SO’s series.

Jordi Savall’s Jerusalem at Lincoln Center

By Gigi Yellen

With his characteristic blend of deep research and virtuosic performance, historical accuracy and jazzlike improvisation, Jordi Savall and his band have created in “Jerusalem: City of Heavenly and Earthly Peace” a mesmerizing and troubling contemporary performance piece. Maestro Savall, esteemed creator of over 160 honored recordings of early music, combines ancient instruments, chants, recitations of sacred texts, folk tunes and even a Sufi dance in this concert (based on his 2008 2-CD set of the same name), which I was privileged to see performed on May 5 as the focus of a three-day “Jerusalem” event at New York’s Lincoln Center. I wanted to share with you some impressions and some thoughts about this most unusual Savall project.

Silhouetted against a huge dawn-like screen, a robed man blows an immensely long, grandly twisted shofar, the flawless opening notes of a fanfare that expands to include half a dozen players of these beautiful ram’s horns and as many players of the equally long, impossibly slender Arabic trumpets called annafirs. The shofar, a wake-up call most associated in our time with synagogue High Holiday services, is played by the Israeli virtuoso Yagel Harel, one of a collection of multi-ethnic players Savall has carefully gathered to demonstrate how historic enemies can melt their differences in the warm light of their musical similarities.
Continue reading Jordi Savall’s Jerusalem at Lincoln Center

Jordi Savall’s Jerusalem seeks to mend cultural fabric

Jordi Savall

By Gigi Yellen

The pre-eminent early-music artist of our time has to be the tireless Jordi Savall, whose combination of scholarship, musicianship, and visionary good will has produced over 150 important recordings. Many of these center on a theme. When this year’s US tour brought Savall and his band, Hesperion XXI, to Seattle (Town Hall, via Early Music Guild) in March, they offered a women-themed program based on their album “Lux Feminae.” Gathering Note’s R.M. Campbell called that concert “a kind of rare adventure.”

New York’s Lincoln Center is hosting Savall and company in another kind of rare adventure, a three-evening series, “Jordi Savall: Jerusalem” part of its Great Performers season. Two of the evenings are concerts based on Savall’s recordings: Sunday May 2, the 2006 album “Orient-Occident,” and Monday, the 2008 2-CD set “Jerusalem: City of Double Peace: Heavenly Peace and Earthly Peace.” It’s my good fortune to be in NY for these, and I want to share with you some of the experience of this series.
Continue reading Jordi Savall’s Jerusalem seeks to mend cultural fabric

Alan Gilbert and New York Phil make CONTACT!

By Gigi Yellen

Writing from New York, where an exemplary innovation in music programming launched tonight in a hall you might know as the home of that radio show “Selected Shorts.” The Peter Norton Symphony Space holds about 750 people; looked like at least 600 came out for the launch of “Contact!” a new-music series conceived by New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert and curated by the Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence, Magnus Lindberg.

The composers Arlene Sierra, Lei Liang, Marc-André Dalbavie and Arthur Kampela received the commissions for this first pair of concerts in the series. (The concert repeats Dec. 20 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) Dressed in casual black like the musicians (and all but one of the composers—hang on), Lindberg addressed the audience, introducing each piece by doing a short interview with its composer: a couple of hand-held microphones, a couple of stools stage left, a couple of comfortable minutes.

Continue reading Alan Gilbert and New York Phil make CONTACT!

NY Phil season pass

An interesting concept has come from the New York Philharmonic — a NY Phil season pass on iTunes.  Everyone knows iTunes is a destination point for downloading music, but it has also become a source for downloading just about every other type of content as well (from podcasts to television shows).  Until know, iTunes season passes were primarily used for television shows and other serial media.  This season, the NY Phil is experimenting with selling a pass for the orchestra’s concert season.  The concept of having concert performances available for download soon after a concert is over has been kicking around for sometime now.  Some, like the Berlin Philharmonic, are making concert broadcasts available online and the Metropolitan Opera offers current HD productions as well as a vast catalog of previously recorded operas available for viewing.  Both come at a cost and both enrich the audio experience with visuals.  I believe the NY Phil’s iTunes season pass is the first to offer a subscription for audio recordings only.

The season pass makes perfect sense and I hope the NY Phil continues to offer season passes in future seasons. For many orchestras, concerts over the course of a season, aren’t always just a string of stand-alone musical events.  Concerts reinforce and build off of one another.  In Seattle a few years ago, the SSO had a season highlighting music by composers who emigrated to the United States.  Alan Gilbert’s first season on the podium may not be defined by one, overarching musical idea, but that’s not to say future seasons won’t be.  Where seasons are tied together by one idea or series of ideas, a season pass would be an invaluable tool to experience the artistic concept as it evolved over a series of months.