I just finished reading Laurence Vittes’ article in the June Gramophone on alternative classical venues. Since it’s a topic that I have a particular interest in, I felt compelled to post something on the topic. First, it’s nice to see a mainstream classical music publication take on the trend. Though they’re a bit late to the party, I’m glad to see it get covered. What is most interesting is that, for those of us that live in New York and sample the diversifying concert scene here, this is not news. The alt-classical scene has been taking off in New York, London and Berlin for quite some time. I felt the need to chime in on the topic, not because I take issue with anything said in the article, but to underscore what I think is a hugely important development in classical music presentation over the past few years. Greg Sandow has written eloquently on the topic several times.

Last week I attended a release party for composer/conductor/arranger Peter Breiner and the release of his latest Naxos disc, a wonderful recording of orchestral suites arranged from the operas of Leos Janacek. The event, like others we at Naxos have done, took place at Le Poisson Rouge, specifically in the bar portion. I can’t overstate the pleasure in listening to great music in a public drinking space, and on an excellent sound system that manages to not sound obtrusive but succeeds in cutting through any conversation. LPR’s Justin Kantor has invested heavily in this crucial aspect which naturally means that they’re a great place for events centered around listening. Through LPR’s extensive social network we turned out a respectable crowd, many of them Czechs interested in the music of this fascinating composer. LPR, along with many other venues, have found real success in promoting their events not by advertising in the traditional print publications, but relying on their extensive fan and friend lists on Facebook, MySpace, LastFM and others to spread the word on concerts and gatherings. I’ve attended several shows there and I’ve never seen anything that wasn’t sold out or nearly. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a concert there where I’ve been able to sit down. Amazing how alcohol and interesting music seem to bring people together.

Like many of my friends, I came to classical music through the back door. I grew up playing the electric guitar in imitation of the guitar gods like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. In my mid-teens I discovered the progressive rock of King Crimson and the punk spirit of the Clash. At some point around then I heard the Rite of Spring for the first time and, though it might sound cliche, it changed my life forever. The Shostakovich Fifth, especially in context of what I learned of the composer’s life, had a similar effect. Even more life-changing was a trip to see the Chicago Symphony for the first time when I was sixteen. The sight of a primarily empty orchestra stage as a setting for Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments will always stay with me. The unique sound world of that particular piece still has the echoes of Symphony Hall in my ears. At that moment, at least in my mind, I set down the guitar and decided to become a composer. All of this is to say that, if such places as LPR existed in my hometown way back when, I might have taken in my first non-rock concert not on a stiff-back chair, but on a barstool. Okay, that doesn’t sound like the right place for a teenager.

In terms of New York, Vittes could have listed many more places such as The Stone, Barbes, Galapagos, the Nabi Gallery and others, all of them regularly showcasing chamber music, opera and most importantly, new music. I’m amazed at the reception of new works by these audiences, especially in comparison to the crowd at Avery Fisher who can often only manage polite applause for a new piece after unwrapping their throat lozenge. It’s of course important to note that many composers, in great DIY fashion, got their start performing or having their works performed in alternative spaces (some of them private or semi-private and many certainly non-commercial) from the 60’s through the 80s.

All of this is to say that I applaud any venue of any kind that programs classical music or invites new music to be a part – however small – of the overall programming and presentation of music of any kind. My hope is that these kind of multi-genre, multi-generational venues proliferate elsewhere.

Last night, as I was watching the documentary film

‘Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris

these ads from my youth randomly popped into my head. I could see Jackie Paris wrapped in a Blackglama® Mink coat with that famous caption above his head—but, of course, that ad never happened.

The film made me think on many levels. I couldn’t help but think how operatic Jackie Paris’ story was; Jackie Paris: The Opera was the second thing that popped into my head. Of course, it would have to be a jazz opera. But the broken family with a history of drug addiction, the wives and womanizing, the refusal to cooperate with the mob, performing with the greatest jazz legends … and, of course, the last hook: wife no. 1 running off with the child he denied fathering (but had.) What a story. That’s the stuff of opera.

So, why did Jackie Paris fall into obscurity while so many other singers of the era sauntered about in Blackglama® Mink ads? (Peggy Lee and Lena Horne did, and while there were very few men who made it, Ray Charles did). The film posits several plausible theories, including his arrogance, temper, timing … and even the fact that he wouldn’t cooperate with the mob. I now have a few theories of my own.

Being a “musician’s musician” or a “singer’s singer” isn’t always the kiss of death, but it can push you to the background–just look at the career of Marni Nixon, the singing voice of so many great movie musicals, like My Fair Lady. The truth is that Paris’ singing had a certain level of sophistication and polish, which sometimes took his performances out of the realm of merely popular, and some of material he recorded didn’t scream “HIT.” Jackie Paris straddled the worlds of serious black jazz artists (with whom he performed and hung out) and the more “Hollywood” performers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee (who got him an audition at Capital Records), and, of course Nat King Cole. But he was never able to translate that sophistication into the movie stardom those artists achieved. Paris was in an odd position: how do you bridge the gap between Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker and Frank Sinatra or Peggy Lee? At that point in history, it probably wasn’t possible to do it successfully. And I’m not convinced after seeing the film that he exactly knew what he wanted either, which may explain why his career faltered by the mid-1970s.  

In a way, this extraordinary artist suffered a similar fate to many composers, who–though beloved by their colleagues–didn’t become legends until after their deaths. Of course, the problem for a singer is, unless there are a lot of recordings and film footage left behind, it can be pretty hard to become a legend posthumously. 

Now I can’t really talk about jazz music, as it is not my area of expertise. But I do know great singers. Jackie Paris hung with the best, sang with the best, and was able to “inhabit a song,” as I’ve come to refer to it. (When you hear it, you just know it.) And even in his seventies, when he made a comeback just before his death, he sang the song “Tis Autumn” like he was at the beginning of a promising career, rather than doomed to posthumous recognition. A man with a tremendous ego, he must have loved having a film made about him. And, in the end, who knows? He still may achieve the “legend” status that so eluded him during his life.

Morricone has so many AMAZING soundtracks in which to draw from, a few of my other favorite western titles are:

Il Grande Silnezio (The Great Silence): a brutal and dark film with an unexpectedly Somber and BEAUTIFUL soundtrack. The main theme to this film is perhaps one of my favorite Morricone musical moments.

I Crudeli (known as The Hellbenders in the US): When I first watched this film and heard the soundtrack I was pretty so so about it…until the final scene when an aging and defeated Joseph Cotton realizes that everything has gone terribly wrong and he simply gives up and slides large dirt mound. That THEME made me rethink and rehear the entire soundtrack.

Le Resa Die Conti (The Big Gundown): Not only does Morricone draw upon the theme from Beethoven’s Fur Elise (but with a Spanish guitar twist!), but he also includes one of the most driving and harsh guitar pieces in western cinema history.

One of Morricone’s few and true equals (and also a good friend) was composer Bruno Nicolai, he and composer Marcello Giombini scored a series of films know in the US as the Sabata trilogy. In this case I can say that the scores are far superior to the films themselves (this is not uncommon for this period). Nicolai also conducted many of Morricone’s scores.

Perhaps the GROOVIEST of all of the composers of this period was Piero Piccioni. What he brought to the genre was a real zest for funk and pure acid. His scores still sound as modern and fierce as the day they were recorded.

Definitely one of my favorite soundtracks of all time is Riz Ortalani’s score to the film “Day of Anger”. It’s a perfect combo of Morricone like orchestration with BOMBASTIC John Barry-like strings and that same amazing and harsh western surf guitar. A TRUE Masterwork.

So what is it exactly that makes this music so special? Well perhaps it’s the truly unique / postmodern approach to the compositions, the combinations of Spanish / Mexican Trumpet, gritty surf-like guitar, the lonesome whistle, the angelic choruses and ethereal voices, the almost pop melodies. All of these elements combine to make a kind of music never before heard and impossible to repeat.

In February of this year I began an email exchange with composer (and Bang on a Can) member David Lang. A few months previous (November of ‘08) Naxos released a fantastic and intriguing CD of David’s compositions titled Pierced. Then in January of ‘09 Medici Arts / EUROARTS released Bang on a Can’s Music for Airports DVD (a brilliant aural and visual experience based upon the Eno composition of course) which aslo came through Naxos of America. It was in fact this email exchange with David and our discussion about his music that inspired me to do this series of artist interviews.

What I find so fascinating about David’s music is its direct sonic link to what we now call “Indie Rock”. His homage to the Velvet Underground is a fine illustration of this link. It is however pieces like Pierced and Cheating, Lying, Stealing with their organic and almost awkward loops, the spaces and hesitations that flow within that circular-like sound which really grab and propell the listener. There are moments where I feel like I’m listening to some form of post-modernly abstract electronica. Enough of this! Here’s David.

CR: What are 5 recordings (different genres if possible) that shaped / shapes your personal musical landscape?
DAVID:-The Joseph Papp production of the Ralph Mannheim translation of Brecht / Weill Three Penny Opera
-The (1973?) Steve Reich recording of Violin Phase and It’s Gonna Rain
-Leonard Bernstein’s first recordings of Shostakovich’s 1st and 9th Symphonies
-The first Velvet Underground record, with the Andy Warhol yellow banana cover
-Bob Dylan – World Gone Wrong

CR: Now speaking specifically about “Classical Music” what pieces / composers have totally blown your mind and helped shape who you are sonically today?
DAVID:
Glass – Einstein on the Beach
Reich – Drumming
Stockhausen – Stimmung
Berlioz – Harold in Italy
Machaut – Messe de Notre Dame
Andreissen – De Staat
Bach – Goldberg Variations

CR: Can you give us 5 visuals that helped shape that person that is you….these could be moments, a cereal box, a toy, a piece of art, a movie, a television show…whatever…
DAVID: I am not at all a visual person.

CR: We talk a lot about cultures and sub-cultures and how it pertains to music and art, what “culture” do you see you and your music being part of? What “Sub-culture / Subcultures” do you or have you indentified with and why / how?
DAVID: My sub-culture is a kind of no-mans-land between experimental classical and experimental pop musics. One of the interesting things going on right now is that classical music’s gravitational field is pretty weak, and creative young musicians who in past centuries would have been steered towards classical music now go straight to indie pop. there is now a growing part of the pop world that wants its music to be questioning, unusual, uncompromising, not always easy or pleasant to listen to. Those are all the traits we used to want from new classical music as well….

CR: Can you put into words your creative process?
DAVID: I like to think about why I like the things I like. What this means compositionally is that a lot of my music comes from examining myself, about why certain kinds of music make me feel good or bad. the piece that won the Pulitzer – ‘the little match girl passion’ – began with me thinking about how strange it is that Jewish classical music lovers spend so much time loving music from the past that worships Jesus. Christianity is central to much of the canon of western music – I know more about Christianity than many Christians I know, simply because I love Bach and Monteverdi and Perotin. After years of thinking about how weird this was I decided to write a piece about it. Likewise, my piece ‘pierced’ came out of years of thinking about the history of the concerto – how we take it for granted that a musical form is about a certain kind of argument between an individual and a group, a heroic depiction of the struggle of one noble person changing all society. What if we wanted to make a piece that was based on a different model of human interaction? What if a concerto was about two groups of people ignoring each other, but whose mutual ignorance added up to something that neither group could achieve by itself? I wrote ‘pierced’ after years of thinking such thoughts.

CR: When do you feel you do your best work?
DAVID: When my children get off to school in the morning I am so happy to be in alone my studio that I find it very easy to work!

CR: What are you working on this very moment?
DAVID: I am rewriting Beethoven’s only opera FIDELIO – not the music, which of course is amazing and utterly untouchable, but the libretto, which has real problems, and which Beethoven himself knew needed some help. I am making my own version of the story, taking out most of the mushy love stuff and focusing on the politics.

CR: Can you create for me a 15 track compilation of music / sound (list the pieces you would put on this compilation)
DAVID: in no particular order:
-Kurt Weill – ballad in which macheath begs all men for forgiveness
-Pere ubu – the modern dance
-Michael Gordon – yo, shakespeare
-Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen – din tavshed
-Evan Ziporyn – tsmindao ghmerto
-Radiohead – everything in its right place
-julia wolfe – early that summer
-John Cage – six melodies
-Brian Eno – music for airports, 1:1
-Marc Blitzstein – the nickel under your foot
-X – the world’s a mess it’s in your kiss
-Frank Zappa – willie the pimp part 2, from fillmore east
-Xenakis – psappha
-Glenn Branca – lesson #1
-Meredith Monk – facing north

I have found that the Grammies are a point of reference for the “outside world” about classical artists, that is, a way to let people who haven’t heard of a certain artist know he or she is “that good”. Sometimes, I’ll meet someone and the conversation will go like this: 

What do you do? Classical music PR.

Oh, that’s cool. Name someone you work for. Is it? And…Hilary Hahn?

Mmmm…don’t know her. She’s a violinist. Mmm…. She played for the Pope’s 80th birthday. Weird, OK…. She played on ‘The Village’ soundtrack. I loved ‘Sixth Sense’. She won a Grammy. Oh! Cool, great, yeah.

Amanda continues:

… the Grammies are a cultural touchstone – is this the right use of that phrase? – or, perhaps more accurately, a popular culture mile marker of success. What is that worth, though, monetarily speaking, slash, what does winning a Grammy mean for an artist’s overall profile? 

Both The Kings Singers and Hilary have won Grammies before, so I already get to slap “Grammy Award-winning…” next to their names in their bios and pop-culture-mile-marker-of-success name-drop “Grammy” to folks outside the industry.** BUT – would Grammy wins this year result in, oh, what’s the word – “album sales”? Does a shiny Grammy sticker on an album make the difference (it might), or is there more we can do to channel the win of a mainstream award into recording and concert revenue?

You’ll notice that Amanda used her blog cleverly, not failing to mention that two of her private clients—Hillary Hahn and The King Singers—received nominations. Brava.

It is easy to complain about the relevance of an award that doesn’t have the prestige, in the “classical world,” of the Grawemeyer or Pulitzer; but the GRAMMY® Award, though still largely associated with pop music, is one of the most widely-recognized awards in the U.S. music business (and, I would even say, the world). And if we are attempting to reach new audiences with some of our artists and releases, having that award attached to their names is pretty important. Additionally, the award is a sales driver, which means a great deal to the music business even in bad times.

Naxos and our family of distributed labels saw many of our wonderful artists nominated this year, including the Pacifica Quartet, whose recording of Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5 was nothing short of astonishing. It also was fitting that this nomination came just before Mr. Carter’s 100th birthday this Thursday, December 11. The Quartet was nominated in the category of Best Chamber Music Performance and also will be honored at this year’s Musical America Awards with the 2009 Ensemble of the Year Award. And for everyone who has been asking about Volume 2 of the Carter Quartets, here goes: FEBRUARY 2009. BTW: Legendary producer Judith Sherman also picked up a nomination for Producer of the Year for her work on the Carter String Quartets on Naxos and four additional albums.

John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man received a nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. For this recording, Corigliano, a Pulitzer-, Oscar-, Grammy®-, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer (yes, there are all those award listings and they ALL are important), collaborated with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In addition, the recording’s superb soloist, Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann, received a nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She has made recordings of works by David Del Tredici, including Vintage Alice and some of his songs. For Mr. Tambourine Man, because of the re-orchestration—the work was originally written for Sylvia McNair and scored for voice and piano—the vocal part was reconceived for “amplified soprano.” Plitmann is amazing.

Chorus master Henryk Wojnarowski and conductor Antoni Wit received a Choral Performance nomination for the Naxos recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. A Best Engineered Album (Classical) nomination went to engineer John Newton for his work on the Naxos recording Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana, featuring conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Our distributed labels also did amazingly well this year.

Artists from British-based label Chandos received five nominations in multiple categories. Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary, featuring the Phoenix Chorale, conductor Charles Bruffy, and produced by Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Best Classical Album (Awards to Artists and Producer). Additionally, Mr. Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale received a nod in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. Spotless Rose includes choral works by Stephen Paulus, Benjamin Britten, Cecilia McDowall, Herbert Howells, Javier Busto, Healey Willan, and Jean Belmont Ford. On a personal level, I need to add that this recording is a special favorite among many of us at Naxos.

Another Chandos choral recording, Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works, with conductor Charles Bruffy leading the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Bach Choir, earned nominations for Best Surround Sound Album and Best Choral Performance. Finally, a Best Orchestral Performance nomination went to conductor Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for their Chandos recording D’Indy Orchestral Works, Volume 1.

A EuroArts production earned two nominations in the categories of Best Classical Album (Award to Artists and Producers) and Best Opera Recording (Award to Conductor, Producer, and Principal Soloists) for the DVD recording of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus, produced by Fred Vogler. (This is the first year DVD recordings of operas are eligible for Grammy Awards. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered in the nominating process.”)

Nominations for Best Opera Recording also went to conductors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their CPO recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché with the Boston Early Music Festival. Mr. O’Dette and Mr. Stubbs also were nominated last year for their CPO recording of Lully’s Thésée with the same ensemble.

Renowned Italian conductor and Baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini was nominated for his Naïve classique recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Finally, violinist Elmar Oliveira earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his Artek recording of Violin Concertos by Ernst Bloch and Benjamin Lees, with John McLaughlin Williams conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

However, while CD sales have been flat, downloads have done substantially better. And, at the beginning of November Naxos announced its download site, ClassicsOnline, had made its entire catalog–nearly 22,000 DRM-free albums — available at 320 kbps. This speed and quality make MP3 files virtually indistinguishable from CDs. Additionally, in the next few months COL will begin offering certain titles in lossless. COL offers over 100 independent labels and adds more than 500 new albums each month. The cost? Well, it is a great value: complete album downloads run from $6.99 – $9.99 (obviously more for multiple-CD downloads); and individual tracks are typically $.99. In addition to the Naxos catalog, some of the labels you can find on COL include Avie Records, BIS, Capriccio, Cedille, Chandos, CPO, Dacapo, Hungaroton, Ondine, Wergo, Wigmore Hall Live, Vox and many, many more. Right now for new visitors to the site who register before December 31–no, you don’t have to provide three pages of data or your credit card number–you can get 3 tracks FREE. It’s a great way to try ClassicsOnline.

There also have been changes at Naxos Music Library. NML, which is the world’s largest collection of streaming classical, jazz, windband, choral and world music, is adding Canada’s #1 independent record label, Nettwerk Music Group, to its roster of more than 75 premiere performing arts labels, thereby expanding its offerings to include more independent popular music.

Nettwerk Music Group’s extensive catalog features artists such as Barenaked Ladies, Datarock, Delerium, Griffin House, Jars of Clay, Josh Rouse, Junkie XL, Ladytron, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Submarines, Sixpence None The Richer, The Weepies, and many others.

This month (on October 28, to be precise) they are releasing Kronos Plays Holmgreen (Dacapo 6220548), featuring works by renowned Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b 1932) performed by the Kronos Quartet, British baritone Paul Hillier, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR, led by Thomas Dausgaard. The recording is the culmination of 20 years of collaboration between Holmgreen and the Kronos Quartet, and includes his Concerto Grosso for string quartet and orchestra (1990; rev. 1995); Moving Still, written for Hans Christian Andersen’s bicentenary in 2005 and featuring Paul Hillier; and Last Ground, his Ninth String Quartet, written in 2006 and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet.

Born in 1932, Holmgreen was the son of a sculptor. His early works showed the influence of Stravinsky, Bartók and Hindemith, but around 1960 he began experimenting with serialism. By the end of the 1960s, Holmgreen was among the Danish composers who rejected the serialist techniques in favor of a “new simplicity.” From then on, his music was characterized by repetitions, not in the minimalist sense, but rather as absurdist provocation. Some of the many influences in his works are Baroque music, Pygmy music, jazz, plainchant, the sounds of everyday life, and sheer noise— and, to a very great extent, the master of the absurd, author Samuel Beckett. Among his many orchestral works are Symfoni – Antifoni, for which he won a Nordic Council Music Prize (1977); Concerto Grosso for string quartet and orchestra; Triptykon (1985) for orchestra and percussion; and a new Cello Concerto. He also has written many chamber works, choral works, and solo pieces.

The Kronos Quartet premiered Concerto Grosso in 1990. In 1995 came the first revised version (recorded on Dacapo 8224060); the version on this CD was made in 2006. One of Holmgreen’s largest works, Concerto Grosso draws from the Baroque musical form of the same name in which various instruments emerge from the ensemble to play with or against the orchestra. The work frequently alludes to Baroque music—sometimes subtly, other times more blatantly. Holmgreen characterizes the music as “Vivaldi on safari” and explains that “I’m looking for a filtering of the familiar—the familiar seen through a prism.”

Moving Still – H.C. Andersen 200 consists of two movements, one American, one Danish. The first, Moving, is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s prophetic text In a Thousand Years, a Jules Verne-like fantasy predicting that Americans will one day be able to fly over the Atlantic and “see Europe in a week.” Andersen writes:

In a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steam through the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will become visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see the monuments and the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just as we in our time make pilgrimages to the tottering splendors of Southern Asia.

The second movement, Still, is a portrait of the “Old World”. Here Holmgreen uses Andersen’s patriotic poem “Danmark er jeg født” (In Denmark I Was Born) with ironic sophistication; he composed it for U.K. native Paul Hillier, now a resident of Denmark. “He speaks Danish rather well,” observes Holmgreen, “but his English accent can’t be denied and this sheds a wry light on the perception of Danishness as something you can only acquire when you’re a 100% native Dane.”

Holmgreen’s Ninth String Quartet, Last Ground, was written in 2006 and is dedicated to the Kronos Quartet. About this music—which includes manipulated recordings of sea sounds—the composer writes: “In Last Ground it is the violent aspect of the sea I was thinking about. I think it is quite wonderful. In the face of the roaring, raging sea the quartet is a small little thing. It’s very fainthearted and gradually it gets slower and weaker. What starts as a pale, small little thing gets even paler!”

The title Last Ground, Holmgreen explains, may be taken literally. “After all I’m an old codger and I don’t know how many more grounds I’ll manage to make,” he says. “This is maybe the last one. A farewell to the string quartet and to more than that. And so you think about what sort of life you’ve lived. Well, it’s a small little life, a puff of breath in the reeds, surrounded by this great roar! A whispering string quartet – and then washed away by the storm flood. The violence can have a liberating effect. As a storm can. As a roaring sea can. And we shrink away. From little to less.”

I never go anywhere without ATMA ACD2 2522, Suzie LeBlanc’s first disc of Acadian songs, Tout Passe. This recording is on my iPod, and I can’t think of anyplace I’ve recently visited where I haven’t listened to it from beginning to end. (COL; NML; purchase)

Another of my favorite female singers is the extraordinary Polish contralto Ewa Podles. Her two Delos recordings: DE 3253 Handel Arias, and DE 3298 Russian Arias–are albums I couldn’t live without. Her performance of Konchakovna’s Cavatina from Borodin’s Prince Igor still moves me to tears. (COL, NML, purchase)

Also from the Delos catalog, and a longtime favorite, is pianist Carol Rosenberger’s beautiful reading of Hindemith’s The Four Temperaments, DE 1006. This recording also features James DePreist and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

A recording that I think got ‘lost’ and has consistently been on my listening list is LPO-0091: Mark Anthony Turnage’s Twice Through the Heart, Hidden Love Song, and The Torn Fields, which features conductor Marin Alsop and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Soloists include the great Canadian baritone Gerald Finley (Doctor Atomic ), mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, and soprano saxophonist Martin Robertson. The song cycles are emotionally shattering, and the performances of all three works are superb. (purchase only)

Any recording with the amazing Simone Kermes is one I want to hear, but Joseph Martin Kraus’ La Primavera (”Cantate per una primadonna”) on the Phoenix label (Phoenix Edition 101) was a big surprise. I knew Kermes would be great; I just didn’t know how much fun Kraus’ music would be. (COL, NML, purchase)

The Danish label Dacapo consistently releases first-rate recordings of composers whose music often hasn’t resonated much with U.S. audiences. In September, Dacapo releases Corona: Works by Choir by Hanne Ørvad (Dacapo 8226534), featuring stunningly beautiful choral works by Ms. Ørvad performed by the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Danish National Chamber Choir, and Danish National Girls’ Choir. (The label will be releasing a major recording of music by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen in October featuring Kronos and Paul Hillier. If you aren’t familiar with this composer’s music you can still find BIS 256, a recording which includes his Triptykon for percussion and orchestra (1985)—as well as Per Nørgard’s I Ching and Psappha by Xenakis.) The German label CPO has a series of extremely fine recordings of symphonies by Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen. I’m working my way through the entire series and highly recommend CPO 999970-2, Aulis Sallinen: Symphonies 3 & 5. (This isn’t yet available on COL, but it will be; NML; purchase)

Wigmore Hall Live: WHLive0013: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (November 30, 1998). What can anyone possibly say? This recital is a MUST for anyone who is fan of the late Ms. Lieberson. Everything about this recording is superb, and if her rendition of Deep River doesn’t reduce you to a whimpering blob, I think you might have to check your pulse. (COL; NML; purchase)

Tango Notturno (MVCD1176), Isabel Bayrakdarian. Okay, I hear groans from those of you who THINK you don’t like tango. You do, but you just haven’t heard it done right. This CBC recording features the radiant soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, pianist Serouj Kradjian, and his superb tango ensemble in a wonderfully diverse selection. Will I ever forget Teresa Stratas’ version of Youkali? Absolutely not. But Ms. Bayrakdarian’s version comes very, very close and this recording also features tangos by Carlos Gardel, Jacob Gade (yes, a Danish tango), Arno Babadjanian, Fareed El Atrache, and Astor Piazzolla. (Not yet available on COL, but will be; NML; purchase)

The Austrian-American-Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti has long been a household name among pianophiles (is there such a word?) I’ve been aware of his recordings for decades–collectors like me have his complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas on our shelves alongside Schnabel and Kempff. Another terrific recording for Kuerti lovers is the recently re-issued two-CD set on CBC of the complete Beethoven Piano Concerti/SMCD5246-3, which features Kuerti and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, led by Sir Andrew Davis. These performances were recorded in Massey Hall in 1986 and were originally released separately. (Not yet available on COL; NML; purchase)

MORE…

The following additional list of recordings can all be downloaded from Classicsonline or purchased:
CHANDOS 9332: Schnittke Choir Concerto: Russian State Symphonic Cappella; Valery Polyansky (Thank you Steve Smith for bringing this Schnittke work to my attention.)

BIS 1038: Einojuhani Rautavaara: Angel of Light; Dances with the Winds; Cantus Arcticus; Lahti Symphony Orchestra; Osmo Vänskä, conductor

BIS 834: Arvo Pärt: SUMMA (Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow) CD includes Fratres, Collage sur BACH, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten; Tabula rasa; Festina lente and Summa.

MCVD1164: Isabel Bayrakdarian: Granados/Rodrigo/de Falla songs

Ondine/ODE 856: Karita Mattila: Sibelius Songs

I’ve told the following story many times about Argerich’s recital. I remember expecting a formal affair, where the pianist would strut onstage in a suitably beautiful gown, bow gracefully, and then treat us to her great artistry. I got the last bit, which of course is all that mattered in the end. If memory serves, Argerich almost waddled onto the stage in a black leotard, long black stretchy skirt, and those hideous Mao shoes that were once “fashionable” (God knows why). She didn’t quite bow, but I do remember her head seemed to slope downward. But for anyone who has ever heard the great Ms. Argerich play, it made absolutely no difference. Of course she brought the house down … and seemed almost surprised by her feat. It was as if she thought that what she was doing was very simple: she was merely speaking for the composers, pure and simple. They, in fact, were the Gods and she was just the messenger.

Below is my love letter to the film and to Ms. Argerich:

“First of all, there was this interview-which is not an interview at all, as I do not believe I asked her a single question. Let us, rather, call it a conversation that took place at dead of night, without a spotlight or makeup- a single ‘night-time conversation’ recorded as if by miracle on the magnetic tape of a comer that would then become the very heart of this film.” -Georges Gachot

It took the French film director Georges Gachot 20 years to convince the very private and elusive Martha Argerich to agree to appear on camera for this intimate portrait. The resulting film, Martha Argerich: Evening Talks (Medici Arts 3073428), pays tribute to this great pianist’s 40-year career with a blend of informal conversations and superb performance footage. It also contains rare archival material from across the globe, including footage from her 1957 First Prize win at the Geneva Competition when she was just 16.

The film allows Argerich to express her feelings about music, composers, and musicians and to discuss her background and early career and how they shaped her as an artist. Argerich reminisces about her early studies with Austrian pianist Frederich Gulda, whom she credits with “[teaching] her how to listen.” She also recounts her yearlong stint with Michelangeli, during which time she received only four lessons. Moreover, she recalls the crisis she experienced in her early 20s, which spurred fellow Argentinean pianist (and conductor) Daniel Barenboim to once say, “Martha, you are like a very beautiful painting without the frame.” It becomes clear that her abandonment of solo performance so early in her career grew partly out of the intense loneliness she felt during this period.

However, through her commitment to concerto and chamber music repertoire, Martha Argerich developed into a deeply generous artist, never satisfied with herself and always looking for new meanings and approaches to her repertoire. “I find something new all the time,” she explains. “I hope I always will; I always doubt and I’m always groping.” She finds her deepest satisfaction in communicating with other musicians and communing with composers, whose music is inarguably part of her DNA. Gulda once told her “It’s not your fault that Schumann was not Argentinean.” As she plays Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor (effortlessly, it would seem), the listener notes that the music appears to be a natural extension of her being. “I hope I’m not bad for him,” Argerich remarks. “Schumann is very intimate for me, but I hope he likes me.” It is not surprising to hear this unique artist make such a humble comment about her work. Argerich appears utterly possessed by the composer’s essence each time she performs his music.

In a 2001 article about Martha Argerich for The New Yorker, critic Alex Ross wrote “Argerich brings to bear qualities that are seldom contained in one person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose native language is music. This last may be the quality that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that allows them to embody the music rather than interpret it.” One listen to the Scarlatti encore from her performance in Zurich and the viewer will know exactly what Ross means.

FEATURED MUSIC INCLUDES:

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.4, Op.58; Claudio Arrau, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (audio only).

Piazzolla/Hubert: Libertango; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Pescara, 2000

Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1; Martha Argerich, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf. Paris, 1973

Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1, Op.11; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de l’ORTF, Franco Mannino. Paris, 1969

Beethoven: “Moonlight” Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2 – Friedrich Gulda, piano. Vienna, 1968

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2, Op.19 – Martha Argerich, piano & conductor, London Sinfonietta. Milan, 1980

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Charles Dutoit. Paris, 1991

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 26; Martha Argerich, London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn. Croydon, 1977

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 – Martha Argerich, piano (aged 15). 1957 (audio only)

Chopin: Scherzo, Op. 39 No. 3 – Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1965

Bach: Partita No. 2, BWV 826: Capriccio – Martha Argerich, piano. Zurich, 2001

Schumann: Piano Concerto, Op. 54; Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Jörg Faerber. Heilbronn, 2001

Saint-Saens: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28 (arr. for violin and piano); Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Geneva, 2000

Dvorak: Slavonic Dance, Op.72 No. 2, Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Pescara, 2000 (arr. for violin and piano)

Lutosławski: Variations on a Theme by Paganini – Martha Argerich, Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Pescara,
2000

Ravel: Ma Mère l’oye: Laideronette, Impératrice des Pagodes; Martha Argerich & Nelson Freire, piano 4 hands. Buenos Aires, 1999

Schumann: Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, Op.15 No.1 – Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1980
Prokofiev: Toccata, Op.11 – Martha Argerich, piano (audio only)

EXTRAS (duration: 38 min.):

Witold Lutosławski, Variations on a Theme by Paganini; Martha Argerich & Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000

Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54; Director’s cut of the rehearsals. Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, conducted by Jörg Faerber. Recorded at Heilbronn, Germany, 2001

Astor Piazzolla, arr. Eduardo Hubert; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000.
Libertango
Tres minutos con la realidad

Encores by Martha Argerich
Recorded in Zurich, Switzerland, 2001.
Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, K141
Frederic Chopin, Mazurka in F minor, Op.63 No.2
Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV826: Capriccio

For those two people who may not know much about Tony Palmer, Palmer has made many iconic films including All You Need is Love (a 17-part series about the history of popular music), All My Loving, 200 Motels, the acclaimed Wagner film (with Burton/Redgrave, etc), Callas (portrait and tribute to the great singer), O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams (his most recent film), several films about composer Benjamin Britten (including his production of Death in Venice), Puccini, The Salzburg Festival – A Brief History, Testimony (about composer Dmitri Shostakovich, starring Ben Kingsley), and Parsifal, which featured Placido Domingo. I’m including the link to his website here, as I’ve only listed a precious few of his cinematic accomplishments. His career spans over 40 years, during which time he has won 40 international prizes for his work, including 12 Gold Medals at the New York Film & Television Festival, as well as numerous BAFTA (British Academy of Film & Television) and EMMY nominations and awards. He is the only person to have won the Prix Italia twice.

As of this posting, Naxos of America distributes five of his classical titles: O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Callas, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs: Symphony No. 3 (Gorecki), Puccini, and God Rot Tunbridge Wells (a film about Handel featuring renowned actor Trevor Howard).

I am fascinated by artists whose lives display phenomenal courage – physical, psychological and moral – the kind of courage that most of us are incapable of. To stand naked upon a stage, whether as an actor or a singer or a dancer, and have nothing but your skill and self-belief to protect you, is an experience that no-one who has not done so can begin to understand. Nor the incredible sacrifices that every performer is forced to make in order to achieve that moment of perfection and magic that we all demand and worship.

Maria Callas, a broken woman, sings of her insecurities with a searing honesty that transcends mere singing. Shostakovich, who endured unimaginable horrors to tell us all, and for all time, what life was like under the monster Stalin. Richard Burton, the 12th of 13 children, determined to make it out of the coal mines to which his family seemed condemned, buying the biggest diamond in the world, an epileptic drinking himself and his talent to oblivion because the strain was so great. Puccini, whose life was torn apart by a scandal involving the suicide of his maid. Handel, blind, despairing, railing against all those who had stolen his copyrights. Margot Fonteyn, used and abused and betrayed from the age of 14 until almost the day she died, the greatest ballerina in the world, dying penniless in a tin shack and buried in a pauper’s grave. Scott Joplin, the son of slaves, struggling in a segregated and bigoted society, to write an opera! Bob Dylan, the greatest lyric poet of the second half of the 20th century, taking on almost single-handedly the mendacity of a militarised nation. Benjamin Britten, openly homosexual when it was illegal and punishable by imprisonment, driven by a terrible and haunting belief in his own worthlessness … the list is endless.

And these are the subjects of my films. And such subjects cannot be “encapsulated” in a television “slot.” I don’t care tuppence for the demands of cretinous and pompous “commissioning editors” of television companies whose attention spans are less than that of a flea. I refuse moreover to have any kind of commentary in my films. Unlike commissioning editors, the audience is not stupid. It resents being told what to think, especially by a whining (often female) voice uttering banalities. And as for the critics, many of them illiterate and ignorant, why should I care about such people?

The problem is, as Shostakovich memorably put it, “to reach the people. That is the question. But how is it done?” And without wishing to elevate the craft of making films beyond its ultimately menial level, it is perhaps worth pointing out that it is an essentially solitary occupation. As Orson Welles eloquently described it: it is “a collective endeavour, driven by a singular, blinding vision.” So to work occasionally in the theatre, especially the opera, is to be reminded of this collective endeavour and to hear, at first hand, an audience response. It can be exhilarating like no other sexual experience – I remember the first night of the Russian première of Parsifal, conducted by Gergiev. But it can also be humiliating – I remember a group of indolent, over-paid, English tubs of lard, thinking (it seemed to me) they were on holiday instead of performing, wrecking a production of Peter Grimes. Such experiences are necessary, however, because they are the closest one gets to the experiences that I have spent my life examining in my films.

Finally, I have never understood the difference between so-called “classical music” and “popular music.” Stravinsky once told me there were only three kinds of music, good music, bad music and non-music, and it doesn’t matter a damn if it’s a symphony, or jazz, or rock’n’roll. Later he refined this categorisation. “Only two musics,” he declared. And then he clenched his fist and said “That’s the first.” And then he opened the palm of his hand and stretched it towards me. “That’s the second,” he said.

I hope my films are the second.

–Tony Palmer

The Medici Arts label has just launched Classic Archive. The first offerings from this promising series feature DVD performances of two iconic Russian pianists, Sviatoslav Richter and Tatiana Nikolayeva, as well as the Bulgarian-born French pianist Alexis Weissenberg. Each of the documents provides lovers of these great artists with much to applaud and ideas to ponder.

Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was, unquestionably, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century (and one of my absolute personal favorites). A complicated and temperamental man, Richter hated being filmed. The performance documented on this DVD was from a Barbican recital in 1989. Richter, as many know, was known to cancel concerts at a moment’s notice. He also was unaware that this concert was to be filmed until just shortly before the performance. After a considerable and heated discussion, he agreed to the filming, on the condition that no camera would be in his field of vision. This challenge was overcome at the expense of the film crew, who were accustomed to expending thousands of watts of lighting power when televising such an event. Richter insisted on restricting the lighting to a single 40-watt bulb, focused not on him, but on his music. This eccentric lightening was unconventional even without cameras present, but it was his standard practice at concerts, as he wanted to focus maximum attention on the music and de-emphasize the importance of the performer. It also served to mask his use of a score, a practice he implemented in 1979 after a serious memory lapse at a concert.

In the film, it is clear that Richter is uncomfortable knowing cameras are present. On a number of occasions, he looks at the ceiling, presumably where one of the cameras was perched. What is perhaps most interesting about this film is watching a great artist clearly struggling with his demons and aging as he negotiates a solo recital. The Chopin portions of the recital are particularly interesting, as the selections from the Études, Op. 10 and Op. 25 shed light on Richter’s incredible genius and magnetism, and, at the same time, document the difficulties he faced in his later career. That said, Richter closes his Barbican recital with a towering performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 25/11 in A minor, which brings the house down, highlighting his legendary artistry. Richter enthusiasts also will enjoy comparing the Barbican performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, No. 4 to the one included in the bonus material, which features Richter at his peak in 1969.

This DVD includes performances of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, K 282, K 545, and K 310; Chopin’s Études, Op. 10, No. 1 to No. 6 and No. 10 to No. 12, and Études, Op. 25, Nos. 5, 6, 8, and 11. Bonus material includes a BBC broadcast from 1969 with Richter performing Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, Nos. 4 and 12; and Rachmaninoff’s Étude-Tableau, Op. 39, No. 3.

The distinguished pianist, composer, and teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993) represents the another example of the wealth of piano talent to flood from the former Soviet Union during the 20th century. Shostakovich’s cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues always held a special place in her heart: she inspired and premiered it in Leningrad in 1952, and it was the piece she performed when she died in concert in San Francisco in 1993. She also made three recordings of the work. The lifelong friendship between Shostakovich and Nikolayeva began when the 26-year-old pianist won first prize at the 1950 Bach Piano competition, organized in Leipzig for the bicentennial of the German composer’s death. As a member of the jury, Shostakovich (1906-1975) was so impressed and inspired by her playing that he returned to Moscow to compose his own set of Preludes and Fugues in 1950-51. This DVD features a BBC broadcast recording from December 1992 of the complete cycle and includes more of Shostakovich’s music played by Tatiana Nikolayeva in a documentary bonus film. This document was perhaps the most straightforward of the three releases. Nikolayeva even at the end of her life was in complete command at the piano. Her technique and musicianship were flawless, and what came across so clearly in the film was that Shostakovich’s music was as much a part of her as breathing. After all, she had lived with it since the beginning, and it was written for her.

The final release was, in some ways, the most interesting of the three. I will go on record now as saying I never loved Weissenberg’s playing. I own some of his early Chopin recordings, which I never liked. And, after watching this DVD, I confess I still don’t like his Chopin. However, this DVD, which is taken from several sources, is perhaps the most rich of the three releases. Alexis Weissenberg, who was born in 1929 in Sofia, Bulgaria, studied both in Bulgaria and Jerusalem before attending The Juilliard School, where he studied with famed pedagogue Olga Samaroff (conductor Leopold Stokowki’s first wife).

This archival DVD includes a 1965 film by Swedish filmmaker and former assistant to Ingmar Bergman, Åke Falck, which shows Mr. Weissenberg performing Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite. The shooting took 10 days and required a special “silent” piano be built; Weissenberg performed in sync with a playback of his actual performance, while he listened through loudspeakers set at a distance from him (the viewer learns much more about the making of the film in the bonus material). The result is an amazing feat of both pianism and filmmaking, which brings the complexity of Stravinsky’s fiendishly difficult piano score into sharp focus (the composer transcribed the Petrushka Suite note-for-note from the orchestral version). It is, in some ways, very much a music video. There are wild shots of Weissenberg’s massively powerful hands as they negotiate the length and breadth of the instrument. From registral leaps to huge chords, nothing is too difficult for Mr. Weissenberg’s prodigious technique. He is perfect for this music, and Falck’s film really shows an artist who is one with his craft in a visually arresting way. Another highlight of this DVD is Weissenberg’s performance of Dame Myra Hess’ arrangement of Bach’s Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring (taken from a September 25, 1969 Broadcast). He delivers the Bach in a wonderfully Lisztian manner, giving an immense power and majesty to this often understated work.

In addition to Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka, the film includes other archival performances taken from various broadcast sources from the 1960s, featuring repertoire including Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 3; Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9, No. 2; Rachmaninoff’s Prelude, Op. 23, No. 6; Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 – Largo, Nocturne Op. Posth. in C minor, Étude, Op. 25, No. 7; J.S. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy, BWV 903, Partita No. 6 – Courante; and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 83, with the Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Georges Prêtre, conductor – 8/31/69.

In The Opera Fanatic, Gencer commented, “When you sing, you have to feel what you are saying…I actually cried on stage. Once in a while [it was more than once in a while, but who cares], a note would issue forth which was not orthodox. That’s why the American critics don’t like me. But I don’t care. They want music with water and soap.” Yes, this was the woman who years after her career had ended could still demand she be interviewed at La Scala.

Born in 1928, Gencer premiered the role of Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites at La Scala in 1957. However, she was best known for her dramatic coloratura roles in operas of Donizetti and Verdi. Rest in peace—and with Callas, Madame Gencer.

When asked about music and politics, Rzewski stated “Music really can’t be political … theater, perhaps, can be.” And in works like Attica (1972), Spots (1986), and the newer Natural Things (2007) you can see how he brings music and theater together–beautifully. Attica, the earliest work performed, consists of a repetitive tonal sequence set against the intoned narration “Attica is in front of me” (a quote, according to the liner notes, taken from the statement of Richard X. Clark, one of the prison uprising’s organizers). While an extremely moving and beautiful work, I’m afraid that unlike most of the audience–and Times reporter Allan Kozinn–I was not as impressed by Stephen ben Israel’s narration (he was the work’s original narrator). I would be curious to hear of other reactions to ben Israel’s performance, as it was abundantly clear to me that I was absolutely in the minority on this.

I was only acquainted with Rzewski’s piano works before this concert, and it was wonderful to see he treats other instruments. I absolutely loved how he uses the human body as an instrument. For example, in Natural Things (commissioned by Opus 21), Rzewski has the string players breathe and/or sigh as they play glissandi. He also has the performers clap and stamp, creating a choreography, which then becomes part of the music, and use their voices creatively–talking, whispering, layering dialogue contrapuntally. I found his use of non-musical objects refreshing and fun: cans, a megaphone, and even a basketball in Spots. (Does anyone know if both Spots and Natural Things were both orchestrated by Richard Adams, composer and founder of Opus 21? I know they mentioned he had arranged one of the pieces.)

For my taste, I did not care for the 2008 piano work War Songs. It seemed more like a work-in-progress to me, and one which didn’t yet have an emotional center.

Finally, I was somewhat baffled by the instrument set up for a work I dearly love, Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, which Rzewski and Stephen Drury performed in a two-piano arrangement from 1980. I asked Jed Distler about this in an e-mail, and he assured me that it was “arbitrary.” If that is the case, and the set-up was meant to cut down on the time moving other instruments out of the way, I think it didn’t serve this arrangement well. Usually with two-piano works, pianos are arranged closer together so that both artists can communicate in some fashion. Clearly, the sonorities called for in Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues would make a very close arrangement of the instruments impractical. However, the pianos were so far apart, it seemed as if both players had to guess at each other’s breathing. I’m also not sure the arrangement gave them the sonic quality they sought. Any thoughts from others who attended the performance would be welcome here.

On a different, but related note: We’ve gotten a lot of wonderful comments about pianist Ralph van Raat’s recent Naxos recording of The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Naxos 8559360). However, many people have requested the timings for all of the variations. Ralph sent them to me in an e-mail last week, and they are pasted below:

Timelist Rzewski’s People United…
Theme (0.00-1′35″)

1 (1′35″-2′37″)
2 (2′37″-3′32″)
3 (3′32″-4′54″)
4 (4′54″-5′56″)
5 (5′56″-7′11″)
6 (7′11″-8′25″)

7 (8′25″-9′20″)
8 (9′20″-10′39″)
9 (10′39″-12′18″)
10 (12′18″-13′28″)
11 (13′28″-14′23″)
12 (14′23″-15′39″)

13 (15′39″-17′33″)
14 (17′33″-18′50″)
15 (18′50″-20′29″)
16 (20′29″-22′08″)
17 (22′08″-23′22″)
18 (23′22″-25′15″)

19 (25′15″-25′56″)
20 (25′56″-26′34″)
21 (26′34″-27′36″)
22 (27′36″-28′24″)
23 (28′24″-28′53″)
24 (28′53″-31′55″)

25 (31′55″-34′31″)
26 (34′31″-35′44″)
27 (35′44″-41′08″)
28 (41′08″-42′31″)
29 (42′31″-43′00″)
30 (43′00″-45′35″)

31 (45′35″-46′34″)
32 (46′34″-47′42″)
33 (47′42″-48′57″)
34 (48′57″-50′09″)
35 (50′09″-51′18″)
36 (51′18″-53′06″)

Improvised cadenza (53′06″-59′16″)

The Opera Fanatic is partly about Zucker’s quest for the answers to a question which cannot really be answered or quantified: what makes a singer thrilling and a performance moving? But it also is, in part, a memorial of his late mother, a soprano named Rosina Wolf, whose memory he evokes several times during the film. Most of all, however, it is about a group of great singers, many of whom have been forgotten (a few probably don’t even hit the radar for some younger opera-goers), and some whose careers were eclipsed by La Callas and Renata Tebaldi. However, one thing these larger-than-life women have in common can be put very simply: Star Power.

And that Star Power is wonderfully present in this film. Years after her career had ended, soprano Leyla Gencer still could demand that she be interviewed at La Scala (they acquiesced); Marcella Pobbe, a wonderful soprano from the 1950s, was suspiciously difficult to pin down for an interview time; yet another Diva was concerned that her maid would need to come twice (before and after the interview).

And some of the meetings went less than swimmingly. Poor Madame Pobbe, when the interview finally took place, fumed at Zucker’s questions (she called him “stupid”). He prodded her with queries like “What was the highest note you ever sang?” Her disdain was palpable, but not for reasons one might think. She wanted Zucker to properly introduce her and to explain her place in opera history first (DIVA). She did, eventually, answer the question about the note (in case anyone cares, it was a high “D” in Carmina Burana, with Zubin Mehta conducting). She was equally ticked off when questioned about canceling her 1959 MET engagement to sing Elisabetta. The cancellation was due to a quarrel with her then lover the great tenor Nicolai Gedda. She blamed Rudolf Bing for the incident. Heard that story before…

But despite occasional fits of pique due to scheduling mishaps and other issues, many of these singers offered fascinating insights into opera, character, and the art of singing. The luminous mezzo-soprano Guilietta Simionato, known for her riveting vocal portrayals of characters like Carmen, Azucena, and Eboli, among many others, spoke almost poetically about proper breath control: “… the cavity [mask] projects upwards or sound doesn’t rise. With the breath you have to make a circle. It’s not that the high note is a point of arrival. The breath has to raise it up and then bring it down again, that way the notes come down like pearls.” A clip from a 1961 Cavalleria Rusticana [OA0983D] showed her in absolutely gorgeous voice. But perhaps the most telling moment from her interview was her confession when asked what she would have done differently with her career: she said, almost without hesitation, that she would not have become a singer. She suffered greatly, and it took almost two decades for her to get her due as an artist. I, for one, am glad she was not given that opportunity.

Another legendary soprano Magda Olivero commented that “you must find the character inside. Every word, every note has to rise from the inside and go forward to the audience.” She clearly understood what that meant, as evidenced by a superb 1960 Tosca excerpt. She also talked about the difficulties for sopranos in Act II of Tosca, which she described as a soprano-killer.

Anita Cerquetti (a personal favorite) — who is a longtime cult figure among vocal folks for her astonishing voice, very short career, and yes, the funniest record covers in just about all opera history (except for the late British Wagnerian Rita Hunter) — had some interesting comments about opera performance: ” A singer cannot be compared to an actor. The singer has to sing. He has to stay motionless. When he sings a romance, he cannot walk up and down the stage, otherwise the voice shifts. A singer has to be an actor through his gestures, through his face, through his arms and hands, through his voice.” Now, I won’t mince words here, Anita is and was a very large lady (NO comments here, she was) and probably didn’t or couldn’t take a lot of stage direction (just a guess). Motionless is a bit, well, odd even for me. And, let’s face it, much has changed in opera productions since these women graced the stage. There is far more emphasis on physical acting now for example. But some of what she says makes sense: a singer is not an actor in the traditional sense. If anyone watched the MET broadcast of Il Trittico last season, the most moving aspect of Barbara Frittoli’s performance was her portrayal of the character of Suor Angelica, which she achieved almost entirely through her facial expressions and simple physical gestures. In my opinion, her singing was nothing special. And had I been in the opera house instead of at the movies, where I could really see what she was doing with the role, I’m not so sure I would have been so moved.

For me, there is something special about this entire era of singing which quite frankly, harkens back to a time when the voice reigned supreme and when singing conveyed such emotion that even on a bad day, it had, well, “soul.” (Just to clarify: there are many, many current singers I absolutely adore and couldn’t do without. But I must confess to a certain love of singers from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.)

In addition to the great singers of the 1950s and 1960s, the film also goes a further back into opera history and devotes some time to the great Gina Cigna, who actually was French and born in Paris in 1900 (she died in 2001). Cigna came from a much earlier era than the other singers portrayed in the film and was 96 when Zucker went to visit her. She said, “If you don’t know how to breathe, you don’t know how to sing….Opera has lost spontaneity, beauty and freedom.” Her interview was very short as she was so very frail, but just her presence and the excerpts of her glorious voice were enough for me.

I’ve left off quite a few singers profiled in the film, for which I apologize. But if my word count is correct, I’m over 1000 words. Watch the film instead. It is really a film about soul, something which these Divas all have in abundance. (The Opera Fanatic, a film by Jan Schmidt-Garre, Arthaus Musik, 101813.)

Cellist Dmitry Kouzov has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Russia with orchestras, in solo and duo recitals, and in chamber music performances. He also is the youngest member of the cello faculty at The Juilliard School. Naxos recently released his first recording, which was devoted to gamba sonatas of C.P.E. Bach.

A few days ago I was pleased to see my recording of C.P.E. Bach gamba sonatas released on Naxos (8.570740). This, I think, is one of the first recordings of these wonderful masterpieces on a cello. Since this wonderful music is generally unknown, I thought I would say a few introductory words about it.

It is very likely that these three sonatas were written for one of the most prominent virtuoso gambists of his time, Ludwig Christian Hesse (1716-1772), during the time when Carl Philipp was serving at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin. These works are excellent representations of the composer’s style, which was considered somewhat revolutionary for his time. It is particularly interesting for me that these sonatas—which already showed important features of the classical sonata form (which C.P.E. really helped to develop)— are written for gamba, which was slowly falling into disuse as a concert instrument. The matter of choosing a somehow “old-fashioned” instrument for a rather progressive composing style likely had occurred because of a certain conservatism in musical tastes at the court of Frederick the Great. Prussia was a place where the genre of gamba and keyboard sonata remained alive longer than anywhere else.

I think that these sonatas sound as good on a cello as on a gamba (that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to play and record them), but what is most important for me is that these beautiful, expressive, and inventive works should find a place in cellists’ regular concert repertoire.

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A rarely-performed work by the late Mstislav Rostopovich.

God knows we’ve been through this here in the States (and continue to go through it). But for the past couple of decades I’ve looked up to Canada and the U.K. for what seemed like their unshakable commitment to the arts. And while music is continuing to flow over the internet and in different ways than some of us older listeners are accustomed to, there still is nothing quite like a live performance. I know there will be some debate as to whether the demise of this particular orchestra ultimately matters. Let’s face it, priorities change with the times. That said, as much as I love my CD and LP collection (and the convenience of my iPOD), there is still something magical about hearing music in a public space, warts and all, with throngs of other listeners around you—and that sense of collective ecstasy when the power of a single performance transports an entire audience. After all, you were there too, and you have the story to tell.

Dear members of my orchestra, colleagues, and music lovers across the country,

Over the past few days I have received your many communications concerning the untimely demise of the CBC Radio Orchestra (CRO). I want to thank you so much for your concern and love for the Orchestra. I am very moved to see how many people understand the importance of the CRO (celebrating its 70th anniversary this season) for Canadians of all musical backgrounds.

The musicians, and myself are, of course, devastated by the loss of our mandate from the CBC, which first gave us life. In this time of shock and obvious distress, I think it is important to articulate, as clearly as possible, the value that our Orchestra brings to music lovers from everywhere in our country and to the CBC itself. In order to move forward, we need to grasp what it stands for and its place in our cultural life.

At this moment the CRO is one of the top orchestras in the country; an orchestra, which we as Canadians have spent seven decades building. This Orchestra is a musical jewel and a cultural landmark.

Being the only Radio Orchestra in the Americas, the CRO is the ONE music ensemble that sets the Canadian music scene apart. By its existence, its mission and its work, it helps define Canada’s uniqueness.

Throughout it history the CRO has called upon composers and performers of all cultural backgrounds from across our country, proving that music is alive in our country, even when other matters may cause despair or discouragement.
Through live performance and national broadcast exposure the CRO gives exposure to Canadian soloists and composers, sending a message of hope to all young Canadian creators and to musicians of all musical backgrounds. It shows that their voices will be heard and celebrated.

Throughout my tenure, I have insisted that we develop projects from all musical genres, including jazz, world, pop and Canadian native music. In 2007, we started the Great Canadian Song Book, which commissioned a diverse roster of composers to create “art song” settings of works from Joni Mitchell to Neil Young, from Buffy Ste-Marie to Serge Fiori and Michel Rivard.
The CRO has developed creative projects around music from Asia and the Middle-East; around jazz improvisers as well as traditional orchestral repertoire as well as collaborating with the rapper K-os.

During the last season, we commissioned 18 works over seven concerts. Through the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is not only seen as a programmer but also as an active partner in Canadian art-making.

The CRO, through the elegance of a national broadcasting network, has reached people across our country. In September 2007, we performed a specially developed program, live, in Iqaluit on Frobisher Bay. Months later, we went to White Rock, B.C. We have received invitations from large and small communities across Canada and even from major concert halls in Europe. All of this, alas, we are now unable to entertain.

I have been fortunate in my career to work extensively in both English and French Canada, having thereby, a truly national perspective. To my great joy, in recent months the French services of the Corporation have not only become more aware of the fine work of the CRO, but have expressed a desire to embrace it. This also is a path that we cannot now pursue. However, the role of the Orchestra in building bridges across our country is something we must never forget.

Many things have been made clear in the work of the Orchestra and in your response to its closing: the importance of music in our lives, the importance of nurturing, supporting and broadcasting the diversified and astonishing talent we have in our country, the role of a national broadcaster in bringing us together, and much more. We will each have our personal reflection on the meaning of all of this, but one thing is certain: the CRO reminds us of what it is we cherish most in music and in our country.

Respectfully yours,
Alain Trudel
Principal Conductor, CBC radio Orchestra

When I think of guilty pleasures, I think of music that might have questionable artistic merit, but still has something that gets to you—even if it is cheesy. Everyone has something in their collection that fits that bill. Sometimes for me it is a song that has a wonderful melody, but the arrangement is so canned and synthesized that to many listeners it would be considered just plain awful. I don’t know who is responsible for some of these awful arrangements of otherwise beautiful songs, but I hear beyond the gauzy and overly-orchestrated background and just find pleasure in listening to the schmaltz. And have I mentioned yet that I really like Michael Jackson’s classic albums Thriller and Off the Wall? Or Julian Clerc (without Carla Bruni, please)? And yes, talking of overly-sweet, I like Twinkies too.

My collection boasts probably thousands of CDs and LPs, mostly classical and new music. But in all honesty, the music I listen to as much “serious music” would really fall under the category of “guilty pleasures.” I’m not ashamed of my taste or listening to music, which many would consider far from “highfalutin.” Excuse me, but I love salsa and yes, Mark Anthony’s rendition of Juan Gabriel’s Hasta que te conoci just floats my boat. And, yes, I’m a sucker for Luis Miguel and Caetano Veloso’s versions of old Latin classic tunes. I also really like Elton John’s debut album (the one with Your Song and Take Me to the Pilot). So I’ve made my confession. I feel better now, at least until someone responds to this post and banishes me permanently from Sequenza21.

In the meantime, I’m going to hear soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian on Saturday night and I’m hoping at the end of her beautiful program she will sing a tango from her new CBC CD Tango Notturno. Maybe she’ll grace us with one by the great tango master and matinee idol, Carlos Gardel (Por Una Cabeza or Volver). Or, maybe one of Astor Piazzolla’s classic tangos: Oblivion, Invierno Porteño, Verano Porteño, Che Tango Che….I’d be happy with Kurt Weill’s Youkali (although I don’t think I will ever get Teresa Stratas’ version out of my head).

Additionally, I’m lucky enough to have access to Naxos Music Library, which allows me to stream even more labels than those for which Naxos has physical distribution. And, the best part—I can preview upcoming Naxos discs. This is a real treat for someone like me, who always wants to hear what is coming out in three months.

But rather than continue this train of thought, I’ll stick to some highlights of what’s coming out soon and what to look out for in the coming months:

At the end of this month, we are releasing a new disc on the LPO label of music by the British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage (LPO-0031). This recording features the LPO led by Marin Alsop in three superlative works by Turnage: Twice Through the Heart, a deeply-felt and disturbing ‘dramatic scena’ with poetry by Jackie Kay; Hidden Love Song, for soprano saxophone and orchestra; and finally, The Torn Fields, a song cycle with texts by five World War I poets. The music is classic Turnage (Twice Through the Heart from 1997; Hidden Love Songs, 2006; and The Torn Fields, 2002) and the performances are absolutely stellar.

Soprano Sarah Connolly (Grammy-nominated for her performance of Elgar’s Sea Pictures) gives an achingly beautiful performance of Twice Through the Heart, a cycle which tells the story of a woman who has been imprisoned for stabbing her abusive husband with a kitchen knife. The work was originally conceived as an opera, but Kay and Turnage realized that the strength lay in the poetry, so it became a ‘dramatic scena’ told from a woman’s point of view. Turnage composed Hidden Love Song for soprano saxophone (2005) when he became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence. It is a brief ‘song’ for soprano saxophone and chamber orchestra with harpsichord. It was the first collaboration of his residency, commissioned by the Orchestra with Norwegian and German partners. The work was written for both the soloist on this recording, Martin Robertson, and Turnage’s wife (then fiancée), Gabriella Swallow. The disc’s final offering, The Torn Fields, features superb Canadian baritone Gerald Finley (whose Barber songs recording on the Hyperion label was selected for a January “Editor’s Choice” from Gramophone). The cycle consists of five First World War poems written by Rudyard Kipling, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen, Charles Sorley, and Siegfried Sassoon “that savagely attack the sweeping loss of war, often spiked with acerbic, critical humor.”

Another highlight, albeit a bit further down the road, is a new disc of music by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (one of my personal favorites, I admit). This recording (which is scheduled to be released in the US in late March/Naxos 8570069), features his shimmering Apotheosis (1996), which is a revision of the final movement of his Sixth Symphony; Manhattan Trilogy (2004/commissioned and performed for Juilliard’s centennial in October of 2005); and his Symphony No. 8 (1999/premiered by Wolfgang Sawallisch and The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2000). The music is performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra led by its very dynamic young conductor, Pietari Inkinen (a name to watch closely). Last month, Naxos released the first in a series of discs of Sibelius’ orchestral music featuring Inkinen and the New Zealand Symphony, so I’m hoping to hear a lot more from this very exciting young conductor.

Also, on American Classics in March (Naxos 8559360), Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat (whose February 2007 recording of John Adams’ piano music for Naxos won many accolades/Naxos 8559285) tackles Frederic Rzewski’s fiendishly difficult 60+ minute set of variations from 1975–The People United Will Never Be Defeated. This performance by van Raat crackles with excitement and virtuosity and I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you love this work as I do, have a comparative listening with the already available versions. I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard the version with Rzewski playing (only available on a fairly pricey Nonesuch set; was on my Christmas list…), but I do own the Hamelin performance on Hyperion (670677), which I’ve always liked and there is another interpretation by pianist Stephen Drury on New Albion (#63), which I haven’t heard.

I continue to hope that The People United Will Never Be Defeated will one day find its way into the standard piano literature. In my opinion, it is one of the most significant piano works written in the past, dare I go out on a limb, and say 40 years? (Please fellow piano junkies, let me know what piano works you would like to see regularly programmed by pianists.) Considering its relative accessibility, I’m truly surprised more concert pianists haven’t programmed it on their recitals.

Critic Anne Midgette wrote a fine piece, which appeared in Saturday’s Washington Post, in which she posed the question whether these awards serve any purpose for the classical music business. In her article she comments “…Some say that a Grammy is a sign of respect from one’s peers in the business. This is pure spin. For classical music, it is not clear what the award means at all. ” But she also says, “…But on the other hand, the Grammys are starting to reward smaller labels, offbeat repertory, recordings nobody has heard of. Consider last year’s “Padilla: Music of the Mexican Baroque” on the label Rubedo Canis, or William Bolcom’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” which won three Grammys for Naxos in 2005…” In short, there are kind of two sides to this story.

In truth, from the number of GOOGLE alerts which appeared in my Inbox right after the awards, it was clear to me that some people “were” paying attention to the classical winners. Whether I read negative or positive feedback or just a mention, it seems that the word is getting out there.

There is no doubt that vast amounts of superb and worthy recordings are not nominated (or ever win awards of any kind for that matter). But this has always been the case with awards. I think we can all find examples of awards we feel should have gone to someone else. But, worthiness, is also to some degree subjective. I am not making a judgment here, but recently the Pulitzer Prize in Music (yes, another award everyone loves to hate), went to my former teacher Yehudi Wyner for his piano concerto Chiavi in Mano over Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs. As a person who has always written for voice and has set Spanish for years, I personally felt that Lieberson’s Neruda Songs were one of the finest and most powerful works written in years. I also really loved Yehudi’s concerto when I finally heard a recording of it. But back then the question did arise as to why the Neruda Songs didn’t win.

Naxos’ big win for Joan Tower’s Made in America recording has been congratulated and criticized in almost equal measure. I read my colleague Jerry Bowles’ posting on this site this morning, in which he said about the Tower: “I think it sounds like something written in 1939, which shows you what I know.” If I understand Jerry’s correctly he has missed some of the point of the piece: Made in America was written so that a work by a living composer could be shared among orchestras big and small. It was written so that more people would have the experience of working on a piece written by a living composer and, in many cases, have the experience of working with the composer directly. And, most important, it brought this music to audiences who might never have heard a work less than 100 years old on a classical concert program. Perfect? Of course not.

With any luck, these kind of initiatives will continue beyond the Ford Made in America and extend to other groups and performers who will pool resources in order to commission a work by a composer whose music they want to champion. In fact, this already is happening. In 2001 pianist Bruce Levingston (a fellow Chelsea resident) founded Premiere Commission, a non-profit organization that promotes and premieres commissions of new works. And there are other organizations where artists can go and “share” in the premiere of a new work (there is one organization in particularly whose name escapes me—maybe a fellow blogger will remember).

In any case, we can argue the relative merits of awards till the cows come home. I, for one, wouldn’t mind winning one. But that’s another post, for another day.

There is a lot going on at Naxos. Many Sequenza readers certainly know by now that on January 29 Naxos is releasing Volume 1 of the Complete String Quartets of Elliott Carter featuring the Pacifica Quartet. And that the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will present the Pacifica Quartet performing the entire cycle at the Ethical Culture Society on Wednesday, January 30. No doubt, I’ll meet some of you there. Also on American Classics this month is Charles Wuorinen’s The Dante Trilogy (Chamber Version), which features world premiere recordings of The Great Procession and The River of Light (the disc also features The Mission of Virgil ); and a new disc of music by composer Kenneth Fuchs, also on American Classics.

Other notable releases this month include world premiere recordings of Penderecki’s Symphony No. 8 and Shostakovich’s Odna (Naxos Film Classics).

February also holds some extraordinary new releases as well, including many on our distributed labels. Just to give you the head’s up, here are a few DVD choices: The Reichorchester: The Berlin Philharmonic and the Third Reich, on the ArtHaus label; Notes Interdites: The Red Baton and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky: Conductor or Conjuror, on Idéale Audience; and Tristan und Isolde with Nina Stemme and Katerina Karnéus from Glyndebourne on Opus Arte.

Last a short news item: Naxos will begin distributing the prestigious UK-based Chandos label in April. Now, in addition to our own label, Naxos will have 24 distributed labels come April. We are all very excited about the addition of Chandos.

I’m off to the land of Osvaldo Golijov, Martha Argerich, Alberto Ginastera, Astor Piazzolla, Mario Davidovsky, Carlos Gardel, Julia Zenko and, my friend Frank Oteri tells me Lalo Schifrin (who knew). He also tells me I should look out of the music of Anna Maria Rodriguez and Monserrat Campmany.

Here are some of them:

Fritz Wunderlich: The Legend on Profil (PHO 8016). I’ve always loved his sweet voice and these recordings are from the 1950s, early in this extraordinary singer’s short career and life. Most of the recordings I own of Wunderlich (in fact, probably all) are from the 1960s. So I’m looking forward to hearing how Wunderlich sounded early on.

Elliott Carter String Quartets, Volume 1, The Pacifica Quartet (Naxos 8559362). I actually did listen to the Quartet No. 1, which was absolutely superb. I’m looking forward to hearing the entire cycle when the Pacifica performs them at the Ethical Culture Society on January 30. I must confess that Carter’s music isn’t always my first choice, but this performance of the Quartet No. 1 made a believer out of me. I have an old recording of the Arditti buried in my CD collection somewhere. I’m curious to compare the performances…

A good friend recently lent me a performance of Mahler Symphony No. 10 featuring the New Philharmonia with conductor Wyn Morris. Morris also recorded an absolutely superb performance of Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Symphonica of London, which has long been a part of my collection. Sadly both of these discs are out-of-print. I’m curious to compare this performance to the Rattle/Berlin.

Jean Sablon… Yes that velvet-voiced French baritone of the 1940s and 1950s is one of my personal favorites.

Einojuhani Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus; Piano Concerto No. 1; Symphony No. 3 (Naxos 8554147). Actually I’ve already listened to—and loved—Cantus Arcticus and the Piano Concerto. I’m very anxious to listen to the Symphony No. 3, which I do not know at all. I love Rautavaara’s music so this should be a pleasure.

Messaien: Des Canyons aux étoiles; Hymne au Saint-Sacrement; Les offrandes oubliées; Yvonne Loriod; Ensemble Ars Nova; Orchestra Philharmonique de l’ O.R.T.F., Marius Constant (Warner Classics/Apex 2564 60427). I recently watched a wonderful film by Olivier Mille on Idéale Audience’s Juxtapositions series, Olivier Messiaen: La Liturgie de Cristal, after which I realized that Messiaen’s wife and muse, the extraordinary pianist Yvonne Loriod, had somehow fallen off my “piano junkie” radar. I needed to correct that quickly so I ordered this disc.

Osvaldo Golijov: Oceana. Yes, I love Golijov’s music and I bought this discs months ago. Tsk, tsk… (Universal 4776426)

Jacqueline du Pré: A Celebration of Her Unique and Enduring Gift, a DVD from Christopher Nupen Films (A07CN D). Jacqueline du Pré has always been my absolute favorite cellist. And I confess I actually watched most of this DVD yesterday. The second film on the DVD, Remembering Jacqueline du Pré, was especially wonderful and had a lot of memorable performance footage, including performance clips from the Elgar Concerto, and the entire second movement of Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio, one of my favorite Beethoven chamber works.

Two DVDs Idéale Audience’s Juxtapositions series: Arvo Pärt : 24 Preludes for a Fugue (a film by Dorian Supin); and György Kurtág: The Matchstick Man (Judit Kele); which is paired with Peter Eötvös: The Seventh Door. This superb composer-based series profiles many great composers including Elliott Carter, Olivier Messaien, Philip Glass, Nadia Boulanger, and many more. There are some terrific upcoming titles on this series as well (I understand there will one on composer Frank Zappa).

Last, I believe one of my Christmas gifts will be a long coveted 5-disc set on the Doremi label of Sviatoslav Richter’s 1960 Carnegie Hall concerts. I’ve had two or three of the LPs for years, but I was never able to afford to purchase them in good enough condition to subject my stylus to without fear, so they’ve been listened to maybe once (in good condition one of the single LPs used run at least $125). Richter has always been my personal piano God, and I’ve a shelf in my apartment devoted to his LPs. I also have quite a few CDs of the great Ukrainian pianist as well, including his performance of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (which is terrific; I’m only sorry he never recorded The Goldberg Variations). But I’ve been looking forward to this set since I found out it existed. Hey, even if the sound is bad, it has to be better than the LPs I have? Or at least I hope so.

Last Wednesday morning the nominations for the 50th Annual GRAMMY® Awards were announced in Los Angeles.

In the past, these awards have been of marginal interest to classical music enthusiasts. With the recent changes in the classical music business, however, they’ve have gotten a bit more interesting. When composer William Bolcom took home three GRAMMY Awards in 2006 for his Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Naxos 8559216-18), I started to feel a renewed sense of hope that perhaps one day, these awards might include a broader range of classical and new music titles. Many first-rate recordings were nominated in the classical categories for all labels this year. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that Naxos recording artists took home 11 nominations. Artists from three Naxos-distributed labels also took home nominations.

I was particularly heartened by the entries in this year’s Best Contemporary Classical Composition category, which includes Peter Lieberson’s exquisite Neruda Songs (which just won the coveted Grawemeyer Award), and Joan Tower’s Made in America.

Made in America (Naxos 8559328), which features conductor Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony, and was produced by Tim Handley, earned three nominations: Best Classical Album (award to Artists and Producer), Best Orchestral Performance (award to Conductor and Orchestra) and Best Classical Contemporary Composition (Award to Composer). Other nominated works in this category are Jennifer Higdon’s Zaka on Cedille (Hidgon also has a recent disc of chamber music on Naxos, Piano Trio, Voices, Impressions, 8559298); Spanish composer Joan Albert Amargós’ Northern Concerto on the Naxos–distributed OUR music label; and David Chesky’s Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra on Chesky Records.

Made in America began as an attempt by 65 small orchestras from around the United States to pool their resources to commission a new work by a major American composer. With the help of the American Symphony Orchestra League, Meet The Composer, and Ford the Motor Company Fund, this project became the phenomenon known as Ford Made in America, which gave Tower’s piece national exposure.

Conductor Leonard Slatkin, who recently became Music Advisor to the Nashville Symphony, has had a long association with Joan Tower, which began in 1985 when he invited her to serve as composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, where he was then Music Director (1979–1996). Silver Ladders (1986), which was written for that ensemble, was Tower’s first score for large-scale orchestra; it earned her the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for music composition in 1990. The fifth recipient, Tower also was the first woman and the first American born composer to receive the Award.

Tower was born in 1938 and spent her childhood in South America, where her father was a mining engineer. In the late 1950s, she returned to the U.S. to study at Bennington College and Columbia University, after which she founded the Da Capo Chamber Players as a vehicle for performing her music, as well as the music of her contemporaries. Tower’s works from the 1960s were serial and exhibited the influence of composers such as Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen. But beginning with Black Topaz (1976), she moved towards a style more consistent with the music of Messiaen and Crumb. Tower also credits Beethoven as an important influence: “I think of a piece as having a motivated architecture, something I got from Beethoven actually; and so it has to have its goals, reaching points, and sections. I hope that it has a feeling of strong form.” She often speaks of her music in terms of architecture: “being composer who notates their music is like being an architect, the blueprint is very finite … You’re putting basically your musical soul into an architectural blueprint, a very finite blueprint.”

Music critic and composer Greg Sandow characterizes Tower’s music as often starting slowly, “with soft, long notes, as if they needed to establish something simple before they can assert themselves more strongly … Later on, they’ll often gather energy, growing forceful and decisive. These are the two sides of Tower’s music. It can be quiet and emotional, and also strong.” Another aspect of Tower’s music is her rhythmic sense—something that she developed as a child living in South America. In her music you can feel a rhythmic drive almost reminiscent of the small rhythmic cells Stravinsky employed in Le sacre du printemps. These tight rhythmic patterns and ever-shifting meters give her music both propulsion and great vitality.

In 1972 Tower was appointed to the faculty of Bard College and went on to win a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977), and commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm, Jerome, and Naumburg foundations. She was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, and into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in 2004. She currently is serving as Season Composer for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Tower currently has two recordings on Naxos: Joan Tower: Instrumental Music: Tokyo String Quartet; Chee-Yun, violin; André Emelianoff, cello; Joan Tower, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola; Ursula Oppens, piano; Melvin Chen, piano; Richard Woodhams, oboe; Naxos 8559215 (636943921524); and, of course, Joan Tower: Made in America; Tambor; Concerto for Orchestra; Nashville Symphony, Leonard Slatkin Naxos 8559328 (636943932827). There also are also a number of other wonderful recordings featuring Tower’s music on Cedille, New World/ CRI, and Delos labels.

My introduction to transcription was when, as a young child, I heard the Bach-Busoni “Chaconne” performed by the wonderful Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I discovered that this stupendous work was taken from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 for solo violin. As I later discovered, a substantial part of Ferruccio Busoni’s compositional output (and some of his best-known works) consisted of his piano transcriptions (Bach’s “Chaconne” is probably his best-known). In addition to Bach, Busoni wrote transcriptions of works by Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schoenberg, Wagner, and many others. Franz Liszt’s catalog also boasts an extensive list of musical transcriptions for piano, including Beethoven’s symphonies; works by Mozart, Verdi, Donizetti, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner; and even a version of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.

Modern pianists also have explored ways to expand the intrinsic orchestral qualities of the instrument. The legendary Vladimir Horowitz took on this challenge (who could forget his finger-breaking transcription of John Philip Sousa’s Stars & Stripes Forever?), along with Vladimir Viardo (another Russian) and, of course, Glenn Gould (yes, it could be argued that Gould was a composer too). And I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t list a couple of the great violinists who arranged works for their instrument, e.g. Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz. I know I’ve missed plenty of examples – current and otherwise. Of course, many non-pianists contributed to this literature as well, sometimes with mixed results. Mahler tinkered with Beethoven’s orchestrations (I love Mahler, but I must confess I never warmed to his Beethoven Retouchen) and orchestrated Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D810, “Death & the Maiden,” quite a successful orchestration in my opinion. Arnold Schoenberg arranged Bach Chorales and orchestrated Brahms’ Piano Quartet, Op. 25.

And then there was Leopold Stokowski and that famous Stokowski sound. Naxos currently has three superb recordings of Stokowski transcriptions and arrangements, which feature composer/conductor José Serebrier, who was Stokowki’s protégé: Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky transcriptions (Naxos 8557645), which received two GRAMMY nominations; J.S. Bach transcriptions (Naxos 8557883); and the most recent offering, Wagner: Symphonic Syntheses by Stokowski (Naxos 8570293).

There is no doubt that Leopold Stokowski was a trailblazer. And he took a lot of flack from the “serious” music community for what was often dismissed as egregious flamboyance, and for the liberties he took with his orchestrations. That said, Stokowski developed a sound that can only be described as unique, and his experiments with instrument placement and bowings were thoroughly modern. Stokowski was responsible for what became known as the “Philadelphia Sound.” He “… [created] this lush ‘Philadelphia Sound’ through the use of ‘free bowing’ in the strings and staggered breathing with doubled winds … ” Serebrier elucidates this “habit” as follows: “Because bows naturally lose in power as they descend, and similarly gain in power as they ascend, combining bows simultaneously in both directions would in principle produce a more even sound …” Stokowski’s experimentation with wind placement was another signature. According to Serebrier, to prevent the winds from being buried by the strings, Stokowski tried having them “placed to his right, in place of the cellos of violas. This drastically changed their sound, and the over-all balance.”

Stokowski’s changes in the placement of instruments even extended to accommodate the acoustic idiosyncrasies of a specific hall. Mostly, it was the Stokowski magic that José Serebrier describes in his liner notes: “The sound of the orchestra would change within moments of the first encounter with Stokowski. There was nothing that he had said or done to make such an obvious change, other than to start rehearsing after a minimal greeting … Stokowski’s idea of sound was unmistakable and special …” And Stokowski cared deeply about the music.

Stokowski, who began his career as an organist, wanted to bring the music of J.S. Bach to audiences at a time when Bach’s music had largely fallen out of fashion. During his lifetime, Stokowski orchestrated over one hundred of Bach’s works. In his transcriptions, he was able to recreate the sound of the organ by thickening the orchestration with sufficient doublings in the bass lines (adding extra cellos, double basses, and tubas). Serebrier notes that “Stokowski lined up the basses in the back of the stage on high podiums, with the horns directly in front, to produce a soundboard for the horns and for the entire orchestra. It also gave the basses an organ-like quality.” His Bach orchestrations have a particularly lush sound.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was a different story. According to Serebrier, over 50 people have orchestrated Mussorgsky’s work. The Ravel version, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky in 1922, “had a very French sound,” and Stokowski wanted to create a version more attuned to the Russian sound. In his version, Stokowski also omits two pictures: Tuileries and The Market Place at Limoges.

Unlike the Bach and Mussorgsky discs, the music on Wagner: Symphonic Syntheses by Stokowski consists not of transcriptions, but rather of “symphonic syntheses” or “symphonic poems.” Stokowski, who championed Wagner’s music throughout his life (and from the very first days of his career with the Cincinnati Orchestra), brought Wagner’s music to a much broader audience through a series of 78 RPM recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra, for which he wove together extended orchestral excerpts from great Wagnerian operas. Most of the people who heard these recordings had never entered an opera house before; this was their first exposure to Wagner’s music. Stokowski titled these excerpts, which took the form of elaborate tone poems, Symphonic Syntheses. And because Wagner’s orchestration was already so superb, there was no reason to re-orchestrate his music. In some cases, Stokowski would take some of the vocal lines and give them to instruments in the orchestra. For the music of Tristan und Isolde on the Naxos recording, Stokowski simply took the Prelude from Act I and inserted the Liebesnacht (Love Music) from Act II before ending with the famous finale, the Liebestod.

Serebrier’s liner notes to all three Naxos discs are a must-read and go into the Stokowski sound in much greater detail. You can also access a recent Naxos Podcast in which he talks about the recent Wagner-Stokowki disc with Raymond Bisha.

(My thanks to José Serebrier for allowing me to quote liberally from his liner notes.)

Last note: There also are a great many recordings still available of Leopold Stokowski conducting his own transcriptions, including Original Masters: Leopold Stokowski (Decca #000150902), which includes his famous arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and Bach-Stokowski (EMI 66385), among others. I might also suggest picking up or downloading (if possible) some recordings of other music Stokowski first brought to American audiences, such as Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (a live Carnegie Hall performance from 1950 is available on Archipel #108). Furthermore, if you get ahold of the Library of Congress performance with the Symphony of the Air, I can’t recommend it enough (Bridge 9074). It includes Vaughan-Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (my personal favorite performance of this work), Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.

OTHER SUGGESTED LISTENING

Naxos 8557377/Symphony No. 9, arr. Franz Liszt; Konstantin Scherbakov, piano;
Hyperion 66671/5/Beethoven Symphony No. 9, arr. Franz Liszt; Leslie Howard, piano
Naxos 8550725/Symphonie Fantastique, arr. Franz Liszt, Idil Biret, piano;
Hyperion 66433, Symphonie Fantastique, arr. Franz Liszt, Leslie Howard, piano
Naxos 8555034, Bach-Busoni “Chaconne,” Wolf Harden, piano;
RCA Victor Gold Seal Catalog 7710, Bach-Busoni “Chaconne,” Jorge Bolet, piano
RCA Gold Seal 7755: Horowitz Encores (Sousa/Horowitz: Stars & Stripes Forever)
ProPiano Records PPR224509: Vladimir Viardo: Organ-Piano Transcriptions – Bach-Liszt, Frank-Viardo
SONY SK46279: Glenn Gould conducts & Plays Wagner
Bridge 9033, Beethoven: Symphony No 9 (Mahler Edition) / Peter Tiboris, conductor
Naxos 8557524 Schoenberg: 5 Pieces for Orchestra: Cello Concerto; Brahms: Piano Quartet, Fred Sherry/LSO/Robert Craft.

But Soundcheck just listed it as one of its “CDs of the Week,” despite a couple of reservations on the part of Brian Wise who didn’t like the cover and took issue with “questionable edits” in Terry Riley’s In C.

I guess this is where the groans start again?

In C is such an important piece, how can one excerpt it, or should one? No composer wants a work taken out of context, but for a sampler designed to give a different audience a sense of an important work, maybe there is a case to be made? We want audiences to come hear our music, yet we often still expect them to swallow it whole. Sometimes, that isn’t always possible. (Just FYI: there was no “fade-up” in this track as Wise suggested, although I’m not sure that will make any difference to those who object.)

That said, all in all, it was a great write-up for a disc which includes music of composers such as Cage, Glass, Henze, Ligeti, Nancarrow, Scelsi, Plaetner, Gubaidulina and Rautavaara, among others. And, for anyone interested, all the other works on Sonic Rebellion are either complete pieces (Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, for example), or complete movements, which have been taken from a larger work (Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1, second movement, Andante). Finally, the liner notes list the CD title and number so listeners who want to explore an entire work, can do so as well.

I’m not sure the new music community will applaud this kind of effort. But I listened to the disc, as skeptical as anyone, and was surprised how well it held together. Personally, I think there is a place for intelligent samplers.

Discuss? Please no hate mail.

Ever since I started writing about her and listening to her music I knew that here was an important American composer whose work was being sorely neglected in this country (I now hear the screams from folks with laundry lists of neglected composers…I feel your pain, really I do).

Gloria lives in Munich and travels to the states very rarely, which is unfortunate and undoubtedly contributes to the general dearth of US performances of her work. But why should a composer have to be on premises to get performances of their work? Another subject, for another blog, or for my friend Frank Oteri at NewMusicBox.com.

Since this is my first post, I’ll keep it short. Naxos has a great catalog of Gloria’s work on their American Classic series, including two discs of string quartets (Naxos 8.559091 & 8.559152); and Symphonies Nos. 1, 7, & 14 (Naxos 8.559371). And, yes, I do work for Naxos–so let’s get that bit on the table (this is, after all, the “Naxos Blog”). Needless to say, I’m very excited about the upcoming December release of her Symphony No. 15 “Homage to Mozart” on Naxos American Classics (8.559371). Kyle Gann has written the liner notes for this release, which as always are wonderful. The disc also features her Cantata da Requiem, originally entitled Voices of Women in Wartime (1971-2), and Transitions (1984), a work which she later expanded to her Symphony No. 4, Chiaroscuro.