The First Emperor
Placido Domingo/Elizabeth Futral/Paul Groves/Michelle DeYoung/Wu Hsing Kuo/Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet
Composer/Conductor: Tan Dun
Director: Zhang Yimou
EMI DVD 215129-9

After spending several weeks in China earlier this year, it took me some time to absorb what I had seen and heard and to properly evaluate the enormity of the changes taking place in that vast and multi-faceted country.

I can’t presume to analyse China’s current role in world affairs, let alone predict what it will be in years to come. Even the various strands in China’s musical life are too complex and growing too fast to warrant easy characterizations. Music critic Anne Midgette recently visited China with the National Symphony Orchestra and made some interesting observations about Chinese audiences and the role of Western music in Chinese society.

From my own perspective, the recent works of composer Tan Dun would be a useful starting point for anyone trying to understand where China and its music are today.

For the past decade, China has been quite welcoming of Western music and performers. A corollary to this tolerance and appreciation is the influx of Chinese – students and performers at all levels – to the United States and to other Western countries. Some of these musicians – Lang Lang, Yundi Li, and Yuja Wang - have been internationally acclaimed as major artists. The musical interaction between China and the West has become enormously rich in recent years and appears to be increasing exponentially.

With respect to composers, this exchange has been very real too, although the results thus far have been uneven.

One hundred years ago, Ravel and Debussy became fascinated with Chinese music and incorporated elements of it in their own compositions. In our own time, however, though China is so open and receptive to foreigners, Western composers, for the most part, appear to be apathetic; the creative cross-fertilization seems to be coming almost entirely from Chinese musicians – composer/conductor Tan Dun, for example.

Tan Dun, born in Hunan province in 1957, studied at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. From there he went to New York. He now straddles two worlds and reflects that cross-culturalism in many of his works. He is, without a doubt, China’s most successful composer of Western classical music, but more than that – his success is international. Few composers, whatever their national origin, are commissioned to write an opera for the Met.

Tan Dun is best-known for a film score – the music he wrote for Zhang Yimou’s “Crouching Tiger, Sleeping Dragon.” In that score, he demonstrated a gift for theatricality and for creating sound effects in a Chinese idiom. These are qualities evident in his operas too, not least of all in “The First Emperor,” which Tan Dun was commissioned to write for New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company.

The Met production of this opera got very mixed reviews. Some critics suggested that Tan Dun’s music was no more than sound effects coupled with a musical style borrowed from Puccini and Peking Opera, and that the mixture was unconvincing.

There is some truth in these harsh observations, but they fail to account for the beauty and originality of both the opera and the production. Though Tan Dun may have failed to write a great opera, he nonetheless created a highly stimulating encounter between East and West.

In his orchestration of the story of “The First Emperor,” Tan Dun uses the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra ensemble pretty much “as is”, adding Chinese instruments to the percussion section as well as a giant bell and an amplified zheng – a sort of Chinese zither – on stage. This instrument is used with great imagination, in combination with the two harps in the pit at the beginning of Act Two. On the whole, the instrumental sounds are fresh, exciting and beautiful throughout the opera.

Tan Dun is on more uncertain ground in his vocal writing.

“The First Emperor” opens with a long scene featuring Wu Hsing-Kuo, a brilliant singer from the Peking Opera. This man plays the role of the Yin-Yang Master. He is superb in his scene in front of the curtain. His range of gestures from the most subtle to the overtly acrobatic was amazing and evidence of a tradition that does not exist in the West outside, perhaps, the Cirque du Soleil.

When we get into the story of the opera and the big stars appear – Placido Domingo as the Emperor and Elizabeth Futral as his daughter – the musical style changes. The Chinese musical character seems to become peripheral and a more or less (some might call it “tortured”) traditional Western operatic idiom is more prominent – perhaps a concession to the Western performers . Whatever its inspiration, this uneasy mixture of exotic and traditional elements continues through to the end of the opera, and is ultimately unconvincing.

So be it. It is an enormous challenge to blend East and West and Tan Dun needs time and experience to show what he can do.

There are other problems with “The First Emperor.” The story of the opera is based on fact, but as scripted on stage at the Met, it came across as exceedingly silly. Admittedly, silliness is not uncommon in opera librettos, but in operas that hold their place in the repertoire, the silliness is greatly outweighed by the quality of the music.

That is not the case with “The First Emperor.” There are no show-stopping arias or ensembles. What the opera does have going for it is music that is often fresh and imaginative, and sets and costumes that are lavish and colorful and undoubtedly very expensive. Unfortunately, these assets may also work against the inclusion of this opera in popular repertoire. To be successful, “The First Emperor” needs a lavish production and few companies will be able to afford it.

Some revisions may or may not make this a better opera. It is certainly far too static. Many of the scenes go on too long, the chorus sits more than it participates, and apart from the gyrations of the Yin-Yang Master, there is not nearly enough movement.

On balance, I would applaud the Met for commissioning Tan Dun to write this opera and for making such a major financial commitment to trying to bridge the gap between East and West. “The First Emperor” may not be a great opera, but it was – and is – a noble effort.

The Map: A Multimedia Event in Rural China
Anssi Karttunen/Shanghai Philharmonic
Composer/Conductor: Tan Dun
DG DVD 00440 073 4013

While in China I bought the DVD of another major Tan Dun work, “The Map: A Multimedia Event in Rural China.” The work was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony in 2002 and it is to my mind a remarkable piece of artistic invention, and can be considered another attempt to bridge East and West.

The DVD documents a performance of “The Map” given outdoors in 2003 in the ancient city of Fenghuang in Hunan province. The concept of the piece is to blend film of various types of traditional Chinese music from the region, with music newly composed by Tan Dun. The use of giant screens behind the orchestra adds immensely to the theatricality of the experience.

In “The Map,” Tan Dun’s composition often begins where the traditional music leaves off and becomes a kind of riff or improvisation on the older material. In this terrific performance, the transitions are almost seamless, and the effect is extremely engrossing and powerful. Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen plays like a man possessed and Tan Dun conducts the Shanghai Symphony with intensity and precision.

One of the most compelling aspects of the work is to see vivid examples of the wide variety of strange and beautiful music in Chinese folk culture. There is “cry-singing,” a stylized form of choral singing by old women, and amazing music created by banging stones together – “stone music” – which also appears in Tan Dun’s opera, “The First Emperor.”

Altogether there are eight different kinds of traditional music used in “The Map” and they are put together in such a way that their strangeness is transformed into a kind of universal music. This is Tan Dun’s achievement and it is amazing. Some might say that the piece is merely another sound effects opus by Tan Dun, and in its way, simply another film score. I don’t agree. I think “The Map” is a highly original blending of Eastern and Western musical idioms. If you have a chance to see it performed, don’t miss the opportunity.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Classical Music Blogs

Composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) has often been denigrated for being blessed with a life that was too easy. Great composers, the theory goes, have to struggle; that’s what makes them great. Well, of course, this is nonsense. Whether he struggled or not to create the music the world continues to love, Mendelssohn, at 38, died far too young. He might have left us so much more to enjoy.

I attended a Mendelssohn Festival last spring and an all-Mendelssohn concert just a few weeks ago. At each event, one of the major works was the Octet for Strings, and taking part in each event was the incomparable Miró Quartet.

It is always a special pleasure to hear a live performance of the Octet – Mendelssohn was only sixteen when he wrote it – but having heard two excellent performances of this astonishing masterpiece within a matter of months, I was inspired to pen a Mendelssohn tribute, a timely tribute, for the composer was born 200 years ago this month.

From Jewish Activism to Christian Conversion
Felix Mendelssohn’s father was a Hamburg banker and his grandfather the famous philosopher and Jewish activist Moses Mendelssohn. Felix’s father Abraham was Jewish in name only and religion meant nothing to him.

At the time, first in Hamburg and later after the family moved to Berlin, there was no particular discrimination against Jews but such discrimination was a part of history and could reappear at any moment.

Abraham’s wife Leah had a brother who had converted to Christianity and continually urged his sister and her family to do the same. Abraham and Leah finally agreed, more out of convenience than conviction, and had the children baptized.

Felix was seven years old when he converted, and thereafter parents and children called themselves Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, adopting the Christian last name of Leah’s brother Jacob. Abraham went along with this change of religion, but he was clearly uncomfortable in abandoning the faith his father Moses had worked so hard to celebrate.

Large Score Oratorios a Testament of Faith
For all practical purposes Felix lived his life as a Christian and became an ardent believer. His oratorios “Elijah” and “St. Paul” were the work of a man of Christian faith. These were the largest compositions Mendelssohn ever attempted, and in his lifetime they were widely admired, especially in England where Mendelssohn had become a frequent visitor.

These large-scale works are not nearly as popular today, although some individual arias and choruses are wonderful. The tradition of grand choral works has passed, and to many modern listeners, these pieces seem dutiful and sorely lacking in drama, rather than inspired.

Speaking personally, “Elijah” and “St. Paul” are not the works of Mendelssohn that I would carry with me to that dreaded ‘desert island.’ I would, instead, be sure to take with me the Octet, the Violin Concerto and the “Scottish”, “Italian” and “Reformation” symphonies. Although these works are very different, they all have in common a capacity not only to lift the listener out of depression, but to send him/her away, filled with hope and optimism. What a splendid legacy for any composer!

Devastated Mendelssohn Succumbs to Deadly Depression
Mendelssohn was a prodigy often compared to Mozart. Both showed uncommon talent for music while little more than toddlers. Both children were giving piano recitals and composing music before they were ten years old. “The Little Berliner,” as the young Felix was called, was only twelve years old when he was introduced to Goethe as one of the ‘Wunderkind’ of his time.

In adulthood, Mendelssohn’s career was that of travelling virtuoso and conductor. For many years, his home base was Leipzig, where he became conductor of the Gewandhaus concerts. He married Ceçile Jeanrenaud in 1836 and fathered two daughters and a son. By all accounts it was a very happy marriage.

Mendelssohn had a lifelong confidante in his older sister Fanny (pictured above with Felix), a fine musician and composer in her own right. When she died suddenly in May, 1847 he was devastated to the point where he was unable to enjoy music, let alone compose. A few months after her passing, he had recovered to the point where he could write some short pieces and the String Quartet in F minor Op. 80. Not surprisingly, this was some of the darkest and most unsettled music he ever wrote. After this brief recovery from despair, came a terminal relapse. Mendelssohn, after a series of strokes, died on November 4, 1847, a mere six months after his beloved sister.

A Shower of New Recordings Will Doubtless Freshen the Lecacy
In this 200th anniversary year of Felix Mendelssohn’s death, there will doubtless be all kinds of tributes from the record companies.

One of the first to appear is from Deutsche Grammophon and features violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Early in her career Mutter recorded Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (DG 463 6412 ). Now, nearly thirty years later, she has recorded the work again (DG B0012533). This time her collaborators are Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Mendelssohn actually wrote the piece for Ferdinand David, then concertmaster of the Gewandhaus. Mutter gives an authoritative and beautiful performance, and perhaps under Masur’s influence plays the slow movement a little faster than she did years ago.

This recording is unique in being sold in CD and DVD versions on separate discs, but in the same package. I am not sure I understand the concept, but I guess it gives the listener more options.

In addition to the Violin Concerto, both the CD and the DVD include two other performances of music by Mendelssohn and featuring Mutter. She is joined by former husband André Previn and cellist Lynn Harrell for the Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor Op. 49, and with Previn she plays the Violin Sonata in F major.

Both are excellent performances, but I was simply astonished by the quality of Previn’s playing. He is celebrating his 80th birthday this year, and to see him on stage conducting these days is to see a man in obviously failing health.

It’s difficult to believe the Previn in this DVD recorded just a few months ago is eighty! The Mendelssohn D minor Trio is no picnic for the pianist, and especially in the scherzo and the finale, his hands seem to be in constant motion. His body scarcely moves and there is little or no facial expression, but that’s pretty much the way he’s always played the piano. The fingers, however, fly! Fly, and hit the right notes!

Adding to These Classic Performances You Won’t Want to Miss!
If you like your Mendelssohn with more personality and ‘edge of the seat’ excitement, I recommend the terrific performance of the D minor Trio by Martha Argerich and the Capuçon brothers recorded live at the Lugano Festival in 2002 (EMI 5 57504 2).

As far as recordings of the symphonies are concerned, I have many favorites. Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic recorded all the symphonies and I greatly admire the sensible tempos – why do so many conductors take the “Italian” symphony so fast these days? – the long lines and the beautiful textures (DG 477 7581). The second movement of the “Reformation” only comes into focus at a slower tempo. It is fashionable to denigrate Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 (“Lobgesang”), but the Karajan recording comes close to convincing us it is a masterpiece.

I have long treasured Casals’ wonderful recording of the ‘Italian” symphony with the Marlboro Festival Orchestra (Sony SNYC 46251). It is slow and mannered but what depth of expression and exuberance! Not to be missed. The CD also contains a marvelous performance of the Octet.

Worth seeking out is John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of the “Italian” and “Reformation” symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic (DG 459 156). Terrific playing and a fresh look at these great works! The disc also contains the revised version of the “Italian” symphony.

Mendelssohn was thought to be a facile composer who tossed off major works in a matter of hours; in fact, we now know that he was plagued with self-doubt and often revised his compositions.

Fanny felt that his first thoughts were usually the best and cautioned him against this frequent revision. In the case of the “Italian” symphony it is difficult to understand why he would have been moved to rewrite what to most observers is one of his finest compositions. Because he did, we can hear the revisions and judge for ourselves which is the better of the two versions.

For another recording of the “Scottish” symphony – one that has been widely admired for many years and deservedly so – check out Peter Maag conducting the London Symphony (Decca 466 9902) in a spacious and grand performance from 1960.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com.

Classical Music Blogs 

Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Peter Cook: are the names familiar? They should be. These four remarkable young men were the creators in the 1960s of the wildly popular comedy show, “Beyond the Fringe.”

While still students at Oxford and Cambridge, Dudley, Alan, Jonathan, and Peter put together a comedy revue that first saw the light of day as an adjunct to the Edinburgh Festival. The festival had a “fringe” beyond the big-name events, but this little production went “beyond” that – hence, its title.

I remember hearing “Beyond the Fringe” for the first time on an LP in the early 1960s. Hysterically funny – especially to those of us who, like the characters in the show, were undergraduates at the time.

Recently, upon reading that Jonathan Miller is currently directing a new production of “La Bohème” at the English National Opera, I was inspired to investigate what, if anything, had survived of the early work of these four multi-talented performers who eventually went their separate ways to make their marks in Hollywood, television, literature and opera.

“Beyond the Fringe” was so successful, that it quickly moved from Edinburgh to London and then to New York. The last performance, recorded live by Thames Television, is now available on DVD.

I found the comedy still engaging, but it has lost its edge, dulled by the even more pointed satire that followed it. The DVD does serve as a valuable record, however, of how these quintessential comedians began their careers.

Many of the classic bits are there: Alan Bennett doing his Anglican minister send-up – “My brother Esau is an hairy man and I am a smooth man”; Miller and Cook doing their philosophy professor reductio ad absurdum; and most memorable of all, the brilliant musical takeoffs by Dudley Moore.

In one of these, Moore improvises a Beethoven-like sonata that can’t seem to find an ending. In another he adopts a falsetto to mimic Peter Pears performing some sort of ludicrous Britten folk-song arrangement. In still another, he gives us the little-known German lied “Die Flabbergast” which comes across as Fischer-Dieskau on LSD singing Schubert’s “Erlkönig.”

“Beyond the Fringe” managed to be sophisticated, intellectual, and slap-stick – all at once.

Jonathan Miller had trained as a medical doctor. He went on to produce and host numerous documentaries on medicine and to direct opera. His remarkably innovative production of “Rigoletto” remains a classic of its kind. In moving the setting of the opera from Mantua in the 1500s to ‘Little Italy’ in 20th century New York, Miller made the work fresh and powerful all over again. In replacing a cast of courtiers with Mafia figures, he created an operatic counterpart to “The Godfather.” Fortunately, Miller’s production has been preserved on a film from 1983, now available on DVD.

Alan Bennett became a successful playwright, most recently with “The History Boys“, which was seen on both stage and screen.

Peter Cook was generally acknowledged to be a comic genius and starred in numerous British television series. Cook and Dudley Moore made several LPs as “Derek and Clive” that contained skits of such foul-mouthed absurdity they can only be described as being “beyond the pale.” X-rated Harold Pinter, perhaps. It is a wonder that their careers survived these performances.

The biggest commercial success was achieved by Dudley Moore. Very early on, he made a name for himself as a jazz pianist and for being able to parody all manner of classical performers and styles.

Peter Cook was renowned and feared for his put-downs, and once said of his friend ‘Dud’: “He’s a club-footed dwarf whose only talent is being able to play ‘Chopsticks’ in the style of Debussy.” Dudley moved on to flourish in a BBC television series with Cook – “Not Only…But Also” – but his big break came in 1978, when he starred in the film “Foul Play” with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, and the following year with Bo Derek in “10.” He was now a Hollywood star and soon rose even higher with the film “Arthur,” playing alongside Liza Minnelli and John Gielgud. For the next ten years he went from one film success to another.

The piano, however, remained Moore’s first love; he ultimately returned to it,  playing jazz, and performing concertos with symphony orchestras. One of his most important projects was “Orchestra!,” a collaboration with Sir Georg Solti. This was a 1991 television series designed to introduce general audiences to the symphony orchestra.

In “Orchestra!,” Solti conducted the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra and Moore appeared as piano soloist and harpsichordist. The two even played some four-hand music together.

The glue that held the show together was the repartee between Solti and Moore. As a big Hollywood star, Dudley Moore captured the audience and kept it entertained while enabling the celebrated maestro Solti to bring the great symphonic classics into focus.

Moore returned to this format in 1993 – this time with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas – in a highly-regarded series called “Concerto!”

Dudley Moore’s career began to fade in the early 1990s, and it only became apparent later that he had begun to be incapacitated by the disease that ultimately killed him. He was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. In its early stages the disease made it difficult for him to remember lines or music, and later, he could neither play the piano nor speak with his accustomed fluency.

People who didn’t know Moore attributed his problems to alcohol abuse, but the fact is he didn’t drink at all, except in the movies. His last years were rendered more tolerable through his association with pianist and music critic, Rena Fruchter. Fruchter was married, but she invited the ailing Moore to move in with her family in New Jersey. When that arrangement became too difficult, she set him up in a house next door. He died at the age of 66 (March 27, 2002), holding Fruchter’s hand.

Fruchter’s book, “Dudley Moore” (Ebury Press, 2004) remains the definitive biography on this gifted pianist/comedian.

THE CLASSIC DVDS:

Beyond the Fringe
Peter Cook/Jonathan Miller/Alan Bennett/Dudley Moore
Acorn Media (2005)

The Best Of…What’s Left Of…Not Only…But Also…
Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
BBC Video (2008)

Arthur
Dudley Moore/Liza Minnelli/John Gielgud
Dir: Steve Gordon
Warner Home Video (1997)

Jonathan Miller’s Rigoletto
English National Opera production
John Rawnsley/Marie McLaughlin
Kultur Video (2007)

The History Boys
Based on the play by Alan Bennett
Dir: Nicholas Hytner
Twentieth Century Fox (2007)

Orchestra!
Sir Georg Solti/Dudley Moore
Dir: Declan Lowney
Decca (2007)

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com.

Classical Music Blogs 

Pianist Arthur Loesser (1894-1969) made few recordings for the world to remember him by; happily, one of his most important has recently been brought back to life by Jacob Harnoy of the Canadian record company, DOREMI.

J.S. Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” is one of those monumental works worshipped by all musicians as something akin to ‘holy writ.’ The forty-eight ‘Preludes and Fugues’ are endlessly fascinating as compositions, and as challenges for aspiring performers. Only a master musician with both technique and maturity, however, can do them justice. On the other hand, this is not audience-grabbing music; the entire “48” are rarely programmed for live concert performance. Record companies have not been enthusiastic either.

Arthur Loesser spent a lifetime studying and playing the “48” and when no record company asked him to preserve his performance for future generations, he did it himself. In 1964, Kenneth Hamann brought his microphones into Loesser’s studio in Cleveland, and just last year Jacob Harnoy restored and remastered that original recording with the help of Jack Silver and Clive Allen. The result is a 3-CD set for posterity (DHR-7893-5).

Loesser was 70 years old when he made this recording, but age is a factor only in a positive way. His technique was equal to whatever the music required, and he chose some very fast tempos indeed.

Loesser is never dazzling in a way that Glenn Gould could be dazzling in his inimitable detaché style of playing baroque music; neither is he ponderous, as German pianists and others can often be in this music. In Loesser’s hands, the music is pretty much what it looks like on the page – what the composer intended, in one sense – but always alive and fresh in its phrasing.

Loesser wrote extensively about the “48”, and his insightful notes are included with the CDs. From the notes, it is clear that Loesser thought deeply about the type of keyboard Bach had in mind for this music, and shaped his performances accordingly. He concludes that Bach certainly did not have the piano in mind for this music, but that with understanding and restraint, the performer can use the piano to do justice to the music. There are, for example, several places where Bach has written a note to be held for so long that its sound entirely dies out. Loesser allows himself the liberty of repeating this note to clarify the harmony. I wish he had done it more often – say, in the concluding bars of the fugue in BWV 846.

An added feature of this new CD set is an appreciation of Loesser by former pupil Anton Kuerti, himself an internationally renowned artist. When the consummate history of music performance in Canada comes to be written, Kuerti’s name will, no doubt, figure prominently. He is one of the few Canadian pianists to have achieved international stature and maintained it for many decades. He is himself a teacher whose pupils rank among the foremost pianists of their generation.

Loesser, Kuerti recalls, was “the best (teacher) I have had”… “there was a palpable joy in him as he played, and an uncanny instinct for how to make the dance rhythms infect and delight the listener.”

The all-but-forgotten Arthur Loesser, a fixture at the Cleveland Institute of Music in his day, was not only a fine musician and teacher, but an author as well. His  classic text – “Men, Women and Pianos: a Social History” (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1954. Reprinted by Dover in 1990) – recounts the evolution of the piano, its glory days of the late nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, and then ends on a note of sadness, as Loesser documents how the rise of the phonograph and radio undermined music-making in the home and how the emancipation of women meant that feminine accomplishments of previous generations, such as playing the piano “now began to turn stale and trivial” (p.606). “Skepticism of the piano,” he notes, “went with skepticism of the way of life that had nurtured it” (p. 608).

As Loesser tells the story, the ‘Age of the Piano’ was all but over. He was on to something, especially with his observations on how the rise of the piano as a popular instrument was closely connected to the ebb and flow of history and cultures. He may, however, have been somewhat premature with his gloomy conclusion concerning the imminent demise of the piano.

Why, he wondered, had “the ‘electronic piano’ never caught on” (p. 613).  He was writing in 1954, and one could say that it had indeed ‘caught on’ – in the form of the ’synthesizer’. Keyboards of all kinds are, after all, uniquely suited to express musical ideas. The piano is no less a ‘period instrument’ than any other, and it probably has one or two permutations yet to go.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com.

Classical Music Blogs   

I learned about opera watching Herman Geiger-Torel build the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, first in the Royal Alexandra Theatre and later in the dreaded O’Keefe Centre, and through annual visits to Maple Leaf Gardens by the Metropolitan Opera. As a young man, I welcomed the opportunity to see real, live opera. Mostly, what I learned and loved was the music; only later did it start to dawn on me that sets, costumes and direction could be interesting too – that is where my commitment to opera started to wane. What was presented on stage in Toronto in the 1950s and 60s was often amateurish and traditional, in the worst sense.

Salzburg in the 60s More Tech than the Met
Frequent visits to New York convinced me that the Met was not much further ahead. This distinguished company seemed content to hire the best singers money could buy and let the rest of it take care of itself. Again, speaking personally, the future of opera began to look a whole lot brighter when I saw the productions Herbert von Karajan was presenting in Salzburg in collaboration with Gunther Schneider-Siemssen in the late 1960s and early 70s. Here was a fresh approach to a decaying art form, making use of the latest technology. Futuristic and abstract sets, complex lighting schemes and elaborate projections brought a new dimension to Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.

The Karajan-Schneider-Siemssen “Ring” was eventually brought to the Met and it was my good fortune to get to know Erwin Feher, the technical genius who adapted this production to the Met’s quite different stage and equipment.

Tech for Tech’s Sake Turns Masterpiece into Farce!
This long introduction is my way of introducing a review of the Met’s current production of Berlioz’ “La Damnation de Faust” in its Met HD Live incarnation last week. I am all in favour of applying the latest in stage and film technology to operatic production; however, I reserve the right to object when a director turns a masterpiece into a farce. I am afraid Robert Lepage managed to do just that with Berlioz’ légende dramatique. Perhaps it was the parade of soldiers walking backwards during the “Hungarian March,” or the lines of naked men inhabiting the bowels of hell – that did it for me. But let me start with the overall concept. More details later.

“La Damnation de Faust” is not an opera at all. It works perfectly well as Berlioz intended, as a concert piece. Had he wanted to turn it into an opera, he would have done so himself and most certainly would have made lots of changes in the process.

I find the whole concept offensive. To convince me otherwise will require a production far more persuasive than the incoherent mess Lepage perpetrated on the stage of the Met. Lepage has talked a great deal about how he has brought “state of the art video techniques” to this work. Mention was made of “interactive video” in which the singers can change the images simply by moving their bodies. I noticed that Lepage talked much less about any connection between the images and movements he used, and the music. My impression is that the music was simply one of many components used to heighten the theatrical experience. Think Cirque du Soleil. By the way, Lepage created a show called “KA” for Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2005.

For “La Damnation de Faust,” Lepage created a huge four-story scaffolding and virtually all the action in the production takes place in some part of this structure. As set design, think the TV quiz show Hollywood Squares with each of the celebrity panelists occupying a different cell in the scaffolding matrix. At times, Lepage did indeed have characters occupying these cells, and at other times either cellular projections or integrated projections. One could understand the fun Lepage had in organizing these cells and projections, but clearly he ran out of both money and ideas. While Cirque du Soleil can easily find $32 million for a Las Vegas show, the Met would have trouble raising one-tenth of that for a single production. Nor could they find the time required for weeks of technical rehearsals.

It appears that Lepage is a director who proceeds by free association, rather than by studying the work he is engaged to produce. I am still trying to figure out why Faust was unceremoniously dumped out of a boat – why was he in the boat in the first place? – then seen to be swimming or tumbling under water along with some unidentified other folks. Later, during the scene in which spirits are apparently bewitching the sleeping Marguerite, we see eight ballet dancers in separate cells in the scaffolding doing nothing more interesting than what appear to be basic warm-up exercises at the barre, as a group of half-naked men attached to cables begins climbing up and down the various levels of the scaffolding. This development combined elements of Cirque du Soleil, Chippendales and Monty Python.

Graham & Relyea Rise Above the Ridiculous
The “Ride to the Abyss” was one of Lepage’s great set pieces. He put together images of galloping horses and menacing birds with riders in silhouette. Unfortunately, none of the riders were either Faust or Méphistophélès, who were content to stand nearby and deliver Berlioz’ music as best they could. Then came another Faust-dump, this time into the bowels of hell and the eager arms of the Chippendales lads looking surprisingly buff and content in their new digs. The coup de théâtre was to have Marguerite ascend into heaven by way of an enormous ladder in the middle of the stage. It was all very silly and ultimately ridiculous.

And the music? Susan Graham as Marguerite and John Relyea as Méphistophélès were excellent in spite of the appalling production thrust upon them. Marcello Giordani is turning into the ‘go-to’ guy among tenors at the Met. He seems to be involved in nearly every production. In fact, on the day of this “Damnation de Faust” he also replaced an indisposed colleague for the evening performance of “Madama Butterfly.” I would like to be able to say that he sang beautifully as Faust, but alas, he didn’t. He sang sharp from almost beginning to end. I think the poor man deserves a rest. James Levine was in the pit. I have to wonder about his judgement as music director in allowing such a travesty to go forward, let alone having to look at it every time he conducted it. Perhaps that explains why he took the “Hungarian March” at such an absurdly fast tempo. No doubt he had a car waiting.

Lepage Scheduled to Tackle the “Ring” in 2010
There is, of course, another way of looking at this farrago. Lepage himself has suggested that “La Damnation de Faust” was merely a dry run for some of the technology he is planning to use for the new “Ring” cycle at the Met in the fall of 2010. If so, there is still time for General Manager Peter Gelb to retract his conviction that “Lepage represents everything I believe in regarding storytelling and visual presentation.”

Lepage may be a creative genius with his own multidisciplinary production company Ex Machina or in Las Vegas, but he is out of his comfort zone in an opera house. And to hand him carte blanche with the greatest work in operatic literature is foolish and irresponsible.

For the record, at the theater I attended in Cedar Park, Texas there were only twenty people in the audience. As Yogi Berra used to say: “If they don’t want to come, you can’t stop them.” But perhaps they knew something we didn’t. Again, for the record we had the same problems with projectionists failing to turn up the volume to an acceptable level and failing to turn off the house lights after intermission. The sound quality was once again appalling, with the magnificent Met Orchestra reduced to sounding like an acoustical recording from 1920.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website.

Classical Music Blogs

Haydn: Piano Trio in D major Hob.XV:16 (Moscow, 1951 and London, Feb. 28, 1959)
Haydn: Piano Trio in G major Hob.XV:19 (Moscow, 1952)
Mozart: Piano Trio in G major . 564 (Moscow, 1952)
Mozart: Piano Trio in B flat major K. 254 (Moscow, 1952)
Beethoven: Piano Trio in B flat major Op. 97 “Archduke” (Moscow, 1956)
Beethoven: Piano Trio in E flat major WoO38 (Moscow, 1950)
Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor Op. 50 (Moscow, 1952)
Saint-Saens: Piano Trio in F major Op. 18 (Moscow, 1953)
Schumann: Piano Trio in D minor Op. 63 (Moscow, Aug. 8, 1958)
Shostakovich: Piano Trio in E minor Op. 67 (London, Feb. 28, 1959)
Borodin: Piano Trio in D major (Moscow, 1950)
Faure: Piano Quartet No. 1 Op. 15 (Moscow, 1958)
Brahms: Horn Trio in D minor Op. 40 (Moscow, Feb. 25, 1951)
Doremi DHR-7921-5 (5-cd set)

I will never forget my first experience with Emil Gilels. It was at Massey Hall in Toronto – in 1956 or 1957, I believe – and Gilels was the first Soviet artist of stature to be allowed to concertize in the West. I was a young piano student at the time and I simply could not believe my ears when Gilels tore into Stravinsky’s Petrouchka like a man possessed. The power and virtuosity were staggering. I dubbed him ‘the mad Russian’ then, but like so many others I had completely mischaracterized this remarkable musician.

Gilels was the first to come to Canada. He was followed by Oistrakh, Kogan, Rostropovich and many others. It was an incredible parade of talent. We had known many of these artists only through recordings. By the time they were allowed to accept engagements outside what was then the Soviet Union, they had become legendary figures. In almost every case, the reality surpassed the legend. Wherever they went, these great musicians enriched the cities they visited and the people they met.

Like all the Russian musicians, Gilels was considered authoritative in music by Russian composers and that was the music he was always asked to play. Over time, however, it became clear that Gilels loved the music of Brahms and Beethoven and played it as well as anyone alive. His recordings of the Brahms concertos with Jochum and the Berlin Philharmonic are universally recognized as among the best ever made. It was also soon apparent that he had a special affinity for chamber music, and that he welcomed the opportunity to play it.

One of Gilels’ most highly-acclaimed recordings was the Brahms’ Quartet in G minor with the Amadeus Quartet for DG. This new release from Doremi of Gilels chamber music recordings from the 1950s demonstrates that his chamber music mastery went back a long way, and that it was well documented by the Russian Melodiya record company. These recordings were never given wide circulation in the West, but they are most welcome even after all these years.

While it was Gilels’ participation in these recordings that first got my attention, one can hardly ignore his distinguished colleagues, Kogan and Rostropovich. The trio was formed in 1949 and lasted for more than ten years. These recordings provide a vivid documentation of this great partnership.

It’s difficult to know where to begin a commentary on such a large body of work contained in a single boxed set. Overall, I would say that the standard of performance and musicianship is incredibly consistent throughout, and the performers seem authoritative in every musical period and every style. Haydn and Mozart are played with lightness and elegance with virtually all repeats observed (the first repeat in the first movement of Haydn’s Trio No. 16 is omitted in the London recording), Schumann and Tchaikovsky with passion, and Shostakovich with searching intensity.

More particularly, I loved the jaunty, relaxed style of the first movement of Mozart’s K. 564 and the noble and exciting playing in the fourth movement of the Schumann Trio Op. 63. And while there have been fine recordings of the Tchaikovsky Trio, this is one of the best. The pianist tends to dominate in most performances because the part has so many virtuoso elements and so many big fat chords. Gilels makes the most of every one of them but there is no way he is going to drown out the likes of Kogan or Rostropovich. This is big-boned playing in a piece that absolutely demands it.

If there is one performance in the set that best demonstrates the rarified artistry of these three musicians, it is the Tchaikovsky. In this piece Tchaikovsky takes us on a journey through a vast range of human emotion and Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich give everything they have to make the trip unforgettable.

From the opening bars we hear the playing of three remarkable soloists, but as the music unfolds and the tempo ebbs and flows, we hear something else – almost like three great jazz musicians riffing off each other, reveling in the music they’re playing and building the tension. When the great familiar melody comes back at the very end of the piece, these three musicians go all out to make it grand and thrilling before falling back into the sense of gloom and despair which closes the piece. Along the way we have a wonderful give and take between Kogan and Rostropovich in the waltz variation and incisively characterful playing by Gilels in the mazurka.

One of the biggest surprises and delights for me in this set was the performance of Brahms’ Horn Trio. The hornist is Yakov Shapiro and the man is a supreme artist on his instrument. He plays with the vibrato that one has long associated with Russian and French performers and it is a style of playing that has almost disappeared. But perhaps that style needs to be reconsidered. I’ve always felt that in most performances of this piece the horn doesn’t blend well with the violin or the piano and it is often too loud. But just listen to this 1951 performance; Shapiro not only plays with vibrato but he manages to match and blend perfectly with Kogan’s vibrato! I couldn’t believe how wonderful this sounded, and I began to think about what Brahms had in mind. Does anyone know if the french horn player at the first performance played with vibrato? And what about the horn parts in the Brahms’ symphonies?

Finally, I can’t emphasize enough what a splendid job Jacob Harnoy has done in remastering these recordings. There are no clicks and pops from the original 78s or LPs, and one never gets the feeling that artificial means have been used to dampen the surface noise. In other words, nothing comes between us and the music-making. The technicians at Melodiya in the 1950s knew something about making good recordings. We must thank Jacob Harnoy and Doremi for making them available to us after all these years, and in the form in which they were meant to be heard.

Doremi has already issued the Emil Gilels “Legacy Volumes 1-7″ and a CD featuring Kogan and Gilels playing Beethoven Sonatas. At www.doremi.com you will find a complete Gilels Discography compiled by Ates Tanin.

Paul E. Robinson

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar” and “Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music,” both available at http://www.amazon.com/. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website at http://www.theartoftheconductor.com/.

Classical Music Blogs

“The General“: for orchestra with soprano, choir and narrator. Music by Beethoven: Symphony #5 in C minor Op.67; “Egmont” Op.84; Incidental Music (exerpts);
“Opferlied” Op.121b
Text by Paul Griffiths. (English version)
Maximilian Schell, narrator/Adrianne Pieczonka, soprano/Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/OSM Chorus/Kent Nagano, conductor; Analekta: AN 2 9942-3 (2 cds)

For his first recording with the OSM, Kent Nagano has come up with a fascinating project. This album features the music of Beethoven, but it is presented from a distinctly Canadian point of view.

Musically, “The General” is essentially Beethoven’s incidental music for Goethe’s play,
Egmont; the original Goethe text, however, has been set aside and replaced by a new one created by the Welsh music critic, Paul Griffiths. The new story is based on the Rwandan experiences of Canadian general Roméo Dallaire, as recounted in his book, “Shake Hands With the Devil.” Dallaire was head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1993-4 and as the Hutus prepared to massacre hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, Dallaire did everything he could to prevent it but failed; the world was simply not interested. Dallaire returned to Canada a disillusioned and broken man – one of the great tragic heroes of our time.

Nagano and Griffiths came up with the concept and then Griffiths set to work. He decided to tell the Rwanda story without mentioning either names or places. For the most part, the narration is given between the musical numbers. As I mentioned, the music is mostly from “Egmont,” but Griffiths also drew on excerpts from other Beethoven works, most of them little-known.

While one wants to applaud Griffiths and Nagano for their ambition, “The General” is ultimately disappointing. By avoiding naming names and places, Griffiths has robbed the piece of its potential power. The genocide in Rwanda has already taken its place in history as one of the greatest horrors of modern times and Dallaire’s own account of it is totally engrossing. But without any mention of Rwanda, Dallaire, Tutsis and Hutus, Griffiths’ text is almost meaningless and incomprehensible. The bits of narration are far too brief to establish any context, nor is there really any coherent story being told.

In the performances which preceded the recording, the narrator was the celebrated Canadian actor Colm Feore; unfortunately, he was unavailable for the recording. In choosing Maximilian Schell (left) as narrator, Nagano and Griffiths have the benefit of a great actor, but he has nothing to work with. What’s more, judging by the mismatches in tempo and volume, one can assume that he did his work alone in a studio rather than with the orchestra.

Finally, Griffiths chose to end “The General” with Beethoven’s “Opferlied” for soprano, chorus and orchestra. In his notes Griffiths tells us that he wrote new words for “Opferlied” and he tells us that these words and Beethoven’s music were exactly what was needed to end the piece. Beethoven’s “Egmont” music ends with a Victory symphony and that was hardly appropriate for the Rwandan story. Unfortunately, since there are no texts included in the CD booklet, and the sung text is mostly unintelligible, we have no idea what those words are. This recording has been issued in both an English and a French version, but neither one includes the text, which – as it turns out - Griffiths has wisely posted on his own website.

Beethoven’s music for “Egmont” is wonderful and with carefully chosen excerpts from Goethe’s play, a performance with narration can be moving and inspiring. Griffith’s new version left me totally uninvolved and baffled by the whole enterprise. It is curious that Dallaire himself was not associated with this project in any way even though he has readily gotten involved with several film projects relating to his experience in Rwanda. In fact, while Griffiths explicitly names Dallaire as ‘the protagonist’ of his drama he never even mentions the title of Dallaire’s book in his notes. Could it be that Dallaire or his publisher had something to do with that, and with Griffiths’ decision to avoid any mention of either Dallaire or Rwanda in his text?

On the positive side, Nagano and the OSM play Beethoven’s music with great intensity. The same goes for their performance of the Fifth Symphony on the second CD. Nagano’s approach indicates he has been strongly influenced by the period instrument specialists. He takes all the repeats and very quick tempi in accordance with Beethoven’s metronome markings. He has the strings play with little or no vibrato much of the time. The opening of the slow movement sounds strikingly different with this approach. And he makes the most of Beethoven’s timpani writing. There are some inconsistencies: why eliminate vibrato in the strings at the opening of the slow movement, but allow it in the bassoon solos later on? On the whole, however, this performance of an old warhorse is fresh and exciting. Still, one can’t help wondering what the Fifth Symphony has to do with “the ideals of the French Revolution.”

For some reason, the overture and two songs from “Egmont” and “Opferlied” are repeated at the end of the second CD. I can understand repeating the vocal works – in “The General” they are given in English (or French) while here they are performed with the original German texts – but why repeat the overture?

The music for “The General” was recorded in Studio MMR at McGill University, and the Fifth Symphony was done in the Salle Wilfred-Pelletier at Place des Arts; neither one has the warmth of the famous church in St. Eustache where so many of the OSM/Dutoit recordings were made by Decca.

Some fine music-making on this 2-CD set but lots of questions too. Fans of Kent Nagano – and there are a growing number of them – will want to have this album in any case, as the first recorded documentation of his work in Montreal.

 Paul E. Robinson
Classical Music Blogs    

California born Kent Nagano is one of the most successful American conductors of this century. He has led the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Los Angeles Opera and most recently the Montreal Symphony and the Bavarian State Opera.

Nagano has quickly won many admirers in Montreal over the past season, only his second as music director of the Montreal Symphony. The orchestra was left in a state of disarray after the sudden departure of Charles Dutoit but Nagano seems to have restored a measure of artistic leadership. Next season he will conduct Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Messiaen’s “Saint François d’Assise.”

A Major Music Festival in the Making?
While Nagano is now dividing his time between Montreal and Munich he is clearly intent on making an impression in Quebec. One of his new departures this summer is the creation of a summer festival in the historic village of Knowlton (Brome Lake/Lac Brome) east of Montreal. This is the Festival Bel Canto to be held between August 15 and 24. International opera stars Jennifer Larmore, June Anderson and Sumi Jo will be featured along with Nagano and the Montreal Symphony. The major event will be Bellini’s opera “Norma” in two performances with Micaela Carosi in the title role. Most performances will be given in a tent with seating for 600. Almost as soon as details of this new festival were announced the rush for tickets began. Many performances are already sold out.

Nagano and Montreal Symphony Release First Recording
The Canadian label Analekta has just released the first recording by Nagano and the Montreal Symphony under the title “Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution”. The two major works are the Fifth Symphony and the Egmont Incidental Music.

The Egmont music was originally written for the play by Goethe, but Paul Griffiths has written a new narrative for the score, inspired by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire’s heroic attempts to stop the Rwandan massacres, vividly recounted in his book “Shake Hands With the Devil.” Narrator for the English version (AN2 9942-3) is actor Maximilian Schell and for the French (AN2 9940-3), Albert Millaire. Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is featured in both versions.

Seven Volume DVD Set Shows Nagano Style and Substance
A series of seven DVDs released in 2006 by Deutsche Welle TV and Unitel under the title “Kent Nagano Conducts Classical Masterpieces,” provides a good introduction to the style and substance of Nagano. Each volume includes a complete performance of a well-known symphonic piece accompanied by a documentary about the featured piece. These volumes can be purchased individually or as part of a boxed set.

The producers of this series are proud of their use of new technology to film these performances. “At the heart of each film”, they note, “is a technically and visually sophisticated concert recording. All footage was shot in the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin. A new view of the orchestra is achieved through extreme close-up shots of the musicians, remote-controlled cameras on the platform, crane and dolly shots and unconventional montage sequences.”

Unfortunately, these producers – Ellen Fellman is credited with the concerts and Oliver Becker the documentaries – fail to recognize one basic truth: while the technology available to film symphony orchestras has come a long way in the past 50 years, its employment is frivolous if it does not serve to convey the essence of the music and the music-making more effectively than before. Clearly, these performances by Nagano and the DSO Berlin are excellent and the sound is state of the art, but too often the fancy camera work draws attention to itself and gets in the way of the musicians.

Maestro Herbert von Karajan pioneered the business of filming orchestral performances and he was much criticized for making his films a celebration of Karajan rather than a documentation of the collaboration with his orchestra or a faithful rendering of what the composer intended.

It could be argued that Karajan realized that a film producer must find a way of reflecting the continuity of the music in the images. His solution was to use the conductor (himself) as continuity, the glue that holds the visual dimension together. By comparison, the conductor in the Nagano films is not seen often enough to register as what he really is – the one who sets all in motion, the leader to whom all the players refer to maintain precision of ensemble and to make music as a group.

The lack of a unifying visual element is not the only problem here – camera action is as well. Too often in the Nagano films the producer cuts faster from one shot to another than the speed of the music. The effect is unsettling, as if the images and the music don’t belong together; surely not what the producers intended!

The documentaries are even more problematic. In each one Nagano is seated at his desk with the score open in front of him and he speaks for several minutes about the meaning of the music. His style is reserved, serious and pompous to the point of absurdity. Nagano has the extraordinary ability to speak in complete sentences with excellent diction and at some length but without saying anything at all; he rivals the best theologians and politicians in making one statement after another of absolutely stupefying vagueness, and all with a straight face. Monty Python comes to mind.

Did Nagano himself actually write this stuff? Did someone else? If the latter how could he possibly have agreed to read it?

After more than we can stand of this nonsense we get a mélange of equally vacuous interviews with members of the orchestra, bits of rehearsal, and to top it off, animation sequences featuring Mozart, Brahms, Strauss et. al. These cartoons are said to be based on actual quotations, but the sequences are so silly even small children would have difficulty sitting through them. And did I mention that in every episode a white bust of the composer is placed on a pedestal in the orchestra?

I can’t imagine what audience the producers had in mind when they planned this series. If it was a general television audience, the monkish and incoherent Nagano certainly isn’t going to hold their attention.

Television has created compelling music and art appreciation series over the years – Leonard Bernstein, Kenneth Clark, Jacob Bronowski and Simon Schama come to mind – but this isn’t one of them. If you are interested in the conducting of Kent Nagano the performances are very good and perhaps representative of his approach to music, but I didn’t find any of them particularly insightful or inspired

Kent Nagano Conducts Classical Masterpieces
Arthaus Musik 101 425 (7 DVD Set)
Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Kent Nagano, conductor
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major K. 551
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major Op. 55 “Eroica”
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor Op. 98
Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major Op. 97 “Rhenish”
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in C minor
Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony Op. 64
Bonus DVD: Seeking New Shores (Portrait of Nagano)

Classical Music Blogs

Several months ago I finally caught up with some of the 2007 Oscar-contending films which had intrigued me: “Atonement”, a brilliant book and a faithful film treatment; “The Counterfeiters” which won Best Foreign Film, and fully deserved the award; and “There Will Be Blood”, in which Daniel Day-Lewis turned in another of his remarkable screen portrayals and rightly won Best Actor, and which, in spite of his contribution, is a disaster on several levels.

As a translation from book to screen “There Will Be Blood” is misguided and nearly incomprehensible. Its’ music is also incomprehensible, disrespectful and what is worse, very annoying.

The film credits state that the screenplay is by Paul Thomas Anderson, who also directed the film, and that it is based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair. Well, true enough, the book is about a California oil tycoon living around 1910, and the film also has something to do with oil – that’s about it!

Sinclair’s book is an attack on capitalism and big oil from a Marxist point of view. It was published in 1926 at a time when the world economy was hurtling toward self-destruction. Sinclair was both timely and accurate as he often was. He had written a book in 1906 called “The Jungle” about appalling conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry. “Oil!” is a similar indictment of the exploitation of oilfield workers and how the oil industry bought politicians and started wars. “Oil!” goes a step further to use the newly emergent Soviet Union as a model for other countries to follow in enabling workingmen to take control of their own destinies; unfortunately, the truth about the horrors of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Stalin had yet to be revealed in 1926. From this enlightened perspective it is easy to look back on Sinclair’s book as being dated and naïve, so it is no wonder, perhaps, that the producers decided “to go in another direction.”

There is, however, an even broader perspective and it is our own, circa 2008. Is it really a Marxist viewpoint to think that American politicians are in the pockets of big oil companies, or that great nations and multi-national corporations are willing to go to war in the Middle East over oil? Sound familiar? The contemporary relevance of these issues makes “Oil!” not only “up-to-date” but far ahead of its time. The makers of “There Will Be Blood” could have made a faithful and powerful rendering of the book but chose instead to dishonor the book by making a silly and incoherent action picture. The movie ends with the Daniel Day-Lewis oil tycoon character beating the evangelist character to death, in the oilman’s bowling alley. Why? Who knows. Needless to say there is no scene like it in the book. The book remains as thoughtful and compelling as it was in 1926. The film “based” on it is just ridiculous.

As for the music in “There Will Be Blood”, it is just as annoying and irresponsible. From the opening scene and for about twenty minutes thereafter we are asked to put up with music/noise – probably inspired by Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” – which suggests disaster in the offing. It is unbearable except perhaps if there is a payoff – that is, if it culminates in something truly awful. I was reminded of Richard Strauss’ score for his opera “Salome” in the buildup to Salome’s emergence with the head of John the Baptist, or Bernard Hermann’s music for the shower scene in Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. In these films, the music foreshadowed a horrific payoff; in “There Will Be Blood” the payoff is the explosion of an oil well – unpleasant, but hardly monumental enough for the music that presaged it.

Then, after betraying us with this absurd musical buildup, the director and composer present us with another anomaly. When the oil tycoon inaugurates his new well, the music used is the finale from Brahms’ Violin Concerto. This same music is used again later. I could make no sense of its use on the first occasion and the second occasion didn’t seem in any way related to the first. Brahms’ Violin Concerto is not a programmatic piece; it has only musical meaning. So why use it in the film, especially when the film’s opening music is in a totally different style? For the record, the score for the film is credited to Jonny Greenwood, perhaps best known for being a member of the rock band Radiohead.

I must confess a great love for movies and I admire enormously the work of the best film composers. Film is a special medium and composers must accept the truism that much of the best movie music is that which does not draw attention to itself. But there are times when the music can make a statement of its own in reinforcing the director’s visual creation. The often-maligned John Williams is a master of the medium. Perhaps he is overly fond of brass fanfares but those fanfares added greatly to the success of films like “Superman”, “E.T” and “Star Wars”.

It is easy to understand how Brahms’ Violin Concerto ended up in “There Will Be Blood”. The director probably said to the composer: ‘At this point in the film I want music that sounds like the last movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto.” If this had been a Hollywood film of the thirties or forties, the composer – Erich Korngold or Alfred Newman, for example, would have delivered the goods – that is, music that sounded like the last movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto. Composers and directors in our time seem to think that the best solution is to use the real thing. “Why fake it?” they say. Korngold and Newman, et al ‘faked it’, I submit, because they had some respect for i) other composers, and ii) the purpose for which the music in question was written.

Classical Music Blogs

The newly released Bruckner (DG004400734395) and Beethoven (DG004400734391) DVDs from Deutsche Gramophone are good examples. The Bruckner set bears a label sticker that says “First International Release on DVD.” There is no further explanation given. In fact, the Bruckner Eighth was released on Laser Disc years ago but Laser Disc technology was a short-lived phenomenon and few music-lovers ever acquired the equipped to play them. The Bruckner Ninth and “Te Deum” have been available before on DVD but only from Japan. The Beethoven “Missa Solemnis” has a similar history.

One must wonder why DG took so long to give these remarkable performances international circulation; they are among the finest examples of Karajan’s musicianship ever made. All the performances were recorded live in 1978 and 1979 when Karajan was at the height of his powers although already suffering from serious back problems, and feature repertoire in which he was incomparable.

I first encountered Karajan’s approach to Bruckner in his 1957 recording of the Eighth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic. It was very slow as compared with other recordings I knew but it had a dark and disturbing quality that made a profound impression on me. 

Then came a live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic November 17, 1959 at . Again, I was struck by the darkness of Karajan’s conception but also amazed by his ability to sustain mood and tension over such long movements. Finally, I was able to experience Karajan’s Bruckner Eighth live one more time – again at Carnegie Hall – November 10, 1974, this time with the Berlin Philharmonic. In fifteen years Karajan’s interpretation had hardly changed at all but the intensity, the concentration and the glory of the playing had continued to grow to even higher levels of achievement. The new DVD dates from June 4, 1979 in a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic in a very special place: the St. Florian church in Linz where Bruckner had been organist for many years and where he was buried.

We also have another Karajan Bruckner Eighth DVD (Sony SVD 46403) with the Vienna Philharmonic, filmed in November, 1988, just nine months before Karajan’s death. It too is a fine performance and it has the advantage that it was recorded in the Musikverein in Vienna, and with all the advantages of digital sound.

With two DVDs of the Karajan Bruckner Eighth now available, it is not easy to make a choice. The later version has a greater dynamic range and the fine VPO brass section sounds remarkably crisp and powerful; on the other hand, it seems to me that the strings of the VPO are captured better in Linz. Karajan requires infinite shades of piano and pianissimo in his Bruckner and they are all beautifully realized in Linz. Since it was being telecast live, the Linz performance also has the advantage of being an unedited document. The Sony DVD, while based on a live performance, clearly has taken advantage of retakes and uses inserts of carefully isolated individuals and sections of the orchestra. While these inserts are often beautiful and help to enhance the video experience, some viewers may find them contrived. My own view is that they are well done and the shots of the Wagner tuba players in particular, are both artistic and educational.

The Ninth Symphony and “Te Deum” DVDs are based on performances given in the Musikverein in May, 1978. Here again Karajan has total command of the style and sense of the music and of his musicians, and the “Te Deum” has a special fervor. Karajan never spoke much about his religious beliefs but he was a lifelong Catholic and it is obvious from his conducting of the major choral works how much the key moments in the liturgy meant to him. Karajan was well-known for conducting with eyes shut, but not in choral works. Both in the “Te Deum and” in the “Missa Solemnis” his eyes are open. In works with chorus he also dispensed with a baton, preferring the sweeping gestures characteristic of most choral conductors.

Karajan admirers will want to visit the website of the Vienna Philharmonic where longtime VPO violinist and president Dr. Clemens Hellsberg has posted an appreciation titled Herbert von Karajan, the Vienna Philharmonic and Anton Bruckner. He gives a history of the relationship between Karajan and the orchestra with special reference to their Bruckner performances together. He gives a particularly moving account of their Bruckner Eighth performance in New York, February 26, 1989: “This concert remains an unforgettable experience for all participants, where the aged and obviously ailing conductor received indescribable ovations from the audience in attendance. Those who witnessed a completely exhausted Karajan, collapsed in a chair backstage after the concert, yet still managing to utter words of appreciation for the orchestra, could not doubt the victory of the spirit over the body.”

Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” was recorded at the Salzburg Easter Festival in April 1979. Karajan made numerous recordings of the piece but this one is perhaps the finest. Toscanini’s classic recording remains a touchstone not least of all because of the incredible work of the chorus prepared by Robert Shaw. But the Wiener Singverein is up to Beethoven’s cruel technical demands and offers plenty of power and lovely soft singing as required. The soloists are as fine a group as I have ever heard. They give everything they’ve got but never shout and never lose the musical line. Tomowa-Sintow is magnificent, pouring out the most beautiful arching phrases one could ever hope to hear and Baldani matches her every step of the way.

The main point to be made about this performance is that it is essentially a traditional one, but raised to the nth degree. John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt obviously prefer an approach that is said to be more historically informed. Karajan did what he did as best he could based on what he had learned from the great conductors who had come before him – that may be another very respectable way of being historically informed.

Karajan was essentially a purist when it came to the printed score. He rarely changed anything once he had decided on which printed edition to use. This made him different from many other superstar conductors who came before and after him, such as Bernstein, Stokowski, Furtwängler or Mengelberg. Instead of personalizing the scores he conducted, he focussed on accuracy, beauty of phrasing and energy.

Thanks to DG for finally making this “Missa Solemnis” available on DVD, with one small kaveat: in any performance of the “Missa Solemnis” the name of the violinist who plays the extended solo in the ‘Benedictus’ must be mentioned. In this performance he even stands to play his solo as befits the importance of his contribution. Nowhere on the DG jacket or in the booklet is his name to be found. For the record the excellent violinist on this DVD is Thomas Brandis, one of the concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic.

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