Experience and empathy of a profound order prevailed in a seascape as majestic as it was elusive. I cannot remember a performance, live or recorded, that reached so far and wide as did this paradigmatic performance of La Mer. Ancient Greek historian and biographer Plutarch said “all things are subject to motion.” This could not have been more obvious than in the uncountable moving parts of the French Impressionist’s celebrated orchestral tone poem as revealed so incomparably by conductor and orchestra.

If you were there at Symphony Hall you may have also found it nearly impossible to take your eyes off one of the most admired conductors of our time, especially when it comes to the French repertoire. He is a sight to behold, a choreographer extraordinaire. You have to see with your own eyes what he does to believe it! A gentilhomme, Maître Dutoit, right from the start of the concert, exchanged pleasantries with Principal Cellist Jules Eskin and others who were flanking his pathway to the podium. From that moment on, a rare relaxed and refreshing air emanated from an orchestra that has been obliged to play under an unusual number of batons during this current season.

The BSO could not have made a greater sound than it did in La Mer. From the staggered bowing of the first violins on a pianissimo high harmonic sustained during the last movement, “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” to its massed, monumental climactic close, an orchestral euphoria reigned. The gentilhomme in Dutoit yet again shone through as he deferred to the orchestra, stepping back from the podium and inviting soloists and all to stand to acknowledge ovations from what I would like to believe was a genuinely astounded Boston audience.

A slower global motion rolled on throughout Tout un monde lointain. Thirty-one-year-old  Capuçon, on his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello — an instrument that surprised with its capacity for a good deal of power if not with its played-down brightness, a kind of  mellowed brilliance — spun out the soul-searching circles of Dutilleux. Capuçon effusively seized the striving and the unattainable state that is everywhere expressed in the five-movement concerto-like work (dating from 1970). His ardent playing drew upon a solid technique, even at the highest possible point on the fingerboard. Sometimes the fleet passages were too fast to discern, and so a touch less enticing. Like distant atmospheres and lustrous stellar objects, the orchestral commentaries were captured through the fine esthetically tuned telescopic lens of the BSO and Dutoit.

Curious was the programming of a throwback such as Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite — its nine movements made up the first half of the concert — with the likes of the two French composers. I could have done without the Strauss, even its crazy flutes and clarinets, odd percussion sounds, and extended solo work by Eskin and Concertmaster Malcolm Lowe, all of whom kept me occupied with their stylistic takes on a time capsule staking its now questionably relevant claims. Not all went perfectly: imbalances of brass over strings over piano, a prominent high oboe fluff, and a weird upward blurt from the trumpet in the opening of “The Fencing Master.” These were insignificant in an emotionless exercise of old quasi-courtly meddling.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net

The performers also had the advantage of the acoustics of Zero Garden Street’s Christ Church, which when courted assiduously revealed a wonderful degree of clarity and fidelity to the group’s sound. The string quartet is an ensemble upon which the period-instrument movement has perhaps made the least inroads, no doubt due to the comparative lateness of its body of repertoire. So when the quartet’s dramatically cued beginning of Op. 76, No. 2 in D minor (“The Fifths”) resulted in the subdued volume and tone of gut strings played with Classical bows, I experienced something of a disconnect between visuals and sound. Possibly to counter such preconceptions, the players went for bold gestures, fast bows, and ringing notes, most markedly in a chorale-like chord progression later in the exposition that was executed with repeated, swooping up-bows. This was an edgy decision intonation-wise, especially in the initial settling-in period, for under such pressure gut strings reveal not only hairline inaccuracies on the performers’ parts but any defects of their own (notoriously persnickety) selves. However, by the time the recap rolled around, the players seemed well on their way to finding an ideal consensus of dynamics, balance, and grittiness as well as intonation. The sustained suspensions of one transitional section gave the first glimpse of the truly unique sounds available to the quartet, and the growl of pedal tones hinted at quirky possibilities of character.

The second movement, Andante o più tosto allegretto, as its title suggests, was not one of Haydn’s operatic slow movements, but moved along at a relaxed clip. (Throughout the program, in fact, the performers never seemed to be trying to impress with the easy out of extreme tempi.) First violinist Ogata navigated the many principal-line stylings with a pleasingly matter-of-fact honesty, neither making too much of the handfuls of notes nor indulging in overly ornate affectation. The minuet, with its snappy low-versus-high-strings chase, showcased some remarkably crisp and well-synced turns, and the trio offered a chance for the different players’ personalities to emerge. Freivogel and Fishman, when surfacing from their supporting roles, attacked their interjections with gleeful intensity, pouncing on the notes in an irresistibly gremlin-like fashion. Fox, in contrast, was a constant paradigm of grace, even when coaxing snarls from her instrument. This characteristic divergence made the unity of the minuet more powerful by contrast — the purpose of the form made practice. The concluding Vivace assai gave Ogata the opportunity to get a little crazy, popping out lightening-quick glissandi and engaging in feisty, rough bow strokes right on top of the frog — the kind of daredevilry that makes playing on period instruments seem like a blast.

The next selection was Op. 33, No. 2 in E-flat Major (“The Joke” of well-worn punchline). Freivogel’s program notes (copious additional notes were provided by CSEM manager Flynn Warmington) encouraged readers to look beyond the obvious for touches of subtler panache. The quartet made the unusual decision to switch violin parts with every piece, a technique which worked quite well, giving the new selection an added component of originality. As first violinist, Freivogel’s sound was lush where Ogata’s had been crisper; Freivogel treated her melodies with a richer, rounder tone and didn’t shy away from the occasional hint of portamento on shifts. On fast notes she let loose with a volley of bow speed, an impressively energetic display. A more compact bow would certainly have been cleaner, but would have lacked the sense of abandon that revealed her romantic streak. Likewise, Freivogel obviously had fun with the slides indicated by Haydn in the Scherzo, varying the degree of schmaltz with impeccable taste.

The Largo brought the pure intervallic pleasure of two-voice counterpoint, beginning with low strings and continuing with violins. Demonstrating the continuing blossoming of their sonic and emotional range, the players dug into the declamatory chords that came in striking contrast to the movement’s predominant melodic lyricism. Fox had no trouble owning the melody in when it appeared in her instrument’s voice, proof of both her skill as soloist and of the group’s consistently egalitarian balance. The final cadence was a satisfying demonstration of group cohesion achieved, impeccable in both timing and balance. Freivogel set into the goofy, rollicking theme of the Presto with a loose-limbed, sardonic ease, tossing off turns and ornaments, and showed her own particular comic timing with a deprecatory little shrug after the concluding half-cadence. Although audience members began chuckling in an in-the-know kind of way as soon as the final rhythmic hiccups started, my seatmate and I spent the beginning of intermission speculating on the layers of wit that weren’t so blatant — for instance, the fact that the final semi-phrase wouldn’t have been half so witty had Haydn written a less cheerfully moronic theme (amplified by the dictatorial nature of rondo form).

Ogata returned to the top seat for Op. 103 in D minor, Haydn’s last quartet, unfinished and consisting of two inner movements: Andante and Menuetto. Maybe because of the lack of neat bookending movements, maybe because of the composer’s proximity to the hereafter, this quartet was by far the darkest and most chaotic. The Andante was contrapuntally rich and involved introspective and unexpected harmonic changes, for which the quartet put to use their well-developed, organ-like chorale sound. It also afforded Fishman his most lyrical moments. The quartet seated themselves antiphonally, with violins on the outside and the cello next to the first violin; the grace of their interaction and balance soon made me forget all about any oddities of seating, but it did mean that the cello was in my blind spot from my seat at the left of the house. Thus I was pleased to have my attention drawn to Fishman again in the minuet, where he finally got a chance to show off some virtuosity, leaping from sinister low range to raw high notes with masterful changes of color. The movement was a chance for such virtuosity, both individual and communal, being uncommonly deep and intricate for a minuet.

I’m not alone in ranking the Andante of Coriolanus’s last selection, Op. 77, No. 2 in F Major, on my all-time favorite list; Freivogel gushed about it also, in her notes, justifiably extolling the whole quartet as a gem of the literature. Her notes were full of passion for the “amazingly special” experience that is string quartet playing, which, to the lone instrumentalist, can inspire a feeling akin to that of the romantically single person observing a pair of newlyweds. The good news was that Coriolanus was not just talk, but action, demonstrating in their final selection love of the music, respect for each other, and joy at sharing it with the audience. In this piece they reached their greatest heights of sensitivity, the deepest contrasts of fire and sublimity. Though the opening Allegro moderato is monothematic, they invested the second strain with a deeply touching tenderness. Color and character changes were executed with even more nimbleness in the minuet, creating moments of both perfect homophony and dry banter. The tempo of the celebrated Andante was rendered on the quick side, giving it a feeling of lightness, warmth, and resilience rather than bittersweet joy. The finale was, as any good concert finale should be, rollicking and rather messy, the players proving the totality of their exertion on behalf of the music.

The Coriolanus Quartet presented a lovely concert in every way, leaving me with the energetic hope that this “debut” will truly be the beginning of a long and productive collaboration.

Zoe Kemmerling is a recent graduate of the Boston Conservatory and a freelance violist, Baroque violinist, writer, and string instructor.

In anticipation of the 100^th birthday of Cage, several of Boston’s musical institutions are programming musical tributes, leading one to wonder whether a reevaluation of Cage’s position in the avant garde canon is underway. Will a composer best known for what he did not compose, and who in later years instructed performers how to resort to chance in performances, continue to hold even a tenuous place when his work ceases to shock? Listeners should be able to decide for themselves after Boston’s mini festival of Cage concludes in three weeks.

The festivities for “Cage.88@100” begin on February 6^th at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. NEC’s piano department chair Bruce Brubaker and project director Stephen Drury will bring together piano students from the entire spectrum of NEC’s teaching studios for this concert. Drury’s interactions with Cage included the 1991 NEC visit (the year before he died), when the solo part of Cage’s 101 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was premiered, as well as commissioning  a new work from the composer.  Drury has coached students for this upcoming concert and has prepared the piano to be used in the performance of Sonatas and Interludes. The program is weighted towards the period of Cage’s most intensive concentration on writing for piano — in the 1940s and early 1950s — along with two works from much later in his output. A useful link is here.

NEC will present two additional concerts on February 22^nd and 27^th. The latter will include the world’s first performance in its entirety of Cage’s Music for Piano from 1952, in which “Cage began a series of giant steps to remove traces of intention or ‘authorship’ from his works for piano. The random imperfections that occur in paper due to its organic source as fiber pulp became notation. Anywhere Cage could see an imperfection, he drew a note onto the score paper, [letting it] fall where it may. All other performance decisions are left to the performer: duration and intervals between notes, how the note is struck by the performer, etc.”

On February 7^th that force-of-nature pianist Janice Weber performs a concert of demanding works of the standard repertoire, including: Liszt’s Two St. Francis Legends and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2; Debussy’s Estampes; Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, and Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations, but Weber will also give a nod in Cage’s direction by including the composer’s The Seasons (1947) in her Piano Masters Series recital at Boston Conservatory’s Seully Hall. The piece was originally composed as a score for a ballet by Merce Cunningham before Cage arranged it both for solo piano and for orchestra.

A Cage tribute by Callithumpian Consort, programmed by its director, pianist Stephen Drury, will include Cage’s Apartment House 1776, Earle Brown’s Available Forms I, and John Zorn’s For Your Eyes Only. This event, on March 1^st will be in the new Calderwood Auditorium at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  (Callithumpian will return to the Gardner in the fall for two concluding programs including music by Cage, Morton Feldman, Luigi Nono, and others.)

Detailed information on the concerts mentioned here can be found in BMInt’s “Coming Events.”

So the appearance of a new sung, orchestrated work based on a tale like that of Peter Abelard and Heloise d’Argenteuil at Harvard’s Memorial Church this past Sunday, January 29, had venerable precedent in the dramatic works of its agonists’ own time. Edward E. Jones conducted members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Harvard University Choir in Heloise and Abelard, composed by John Austin with a libretto by Christine Froula. It had many strengths, but its greatest and most serious weakness could have been amended by attending to the older plays’ greater textural variety, not so much in the silliness of comic foils, but in making more room for nuance, using more judicious restraint in scope and scale, letting all parts serve the whole equally well. A hard-working ensemble and a writing team of no small repute saw a very mixed result, I would say, between triumph and dissipation of effort.

As Catholic a space as a Unitarian campus could have mustered in the early 1900s, the church’s shallow fore-choir apron made things more than a bit tight, and other choices might have allowed for more dimensionality in the presentation as well as the placement of the performance. Now that its lacy fenestrated rood screen is unfettered, the use of Appleton Chapel for the choir and orchestra could have made a necessary difference in balance, blend, and ventilation for the performers. Jones seemed to see no reason for considering the soloists at all, except to start and end with them. Shaping phrases with wonderful gestures, his absorption in his own chirognomy and his apparent willed ignorance of the singers’ need for clear airspace reduced the orchestra’s contribution, capable as it was, to a noisy narcissism that fought with, rather than offering a complementary voice to, the operatic score.

Covalent balance would in fact be the thing this score and its performance needed most throughout. A first opera — a first anything — reveals both its own and its genre’s strengths and weaknesses in both the begetting and the realization. Composer John Austin’s first operatic work at times soared and strode forward with aplomb. But too often the score fell victim to a stylistic choice that weighed it down: his syllabic setting of the text plodded on, unrelentingly pedestrian where it might have benefited from a more textured ventilation of line and rhythm. Even the most playful passages, where polyphonic voices in the choir lilted a folk-song-like stanza, were dragged down by the dirge-like ground against which they were set. This also had the unfortunate effect of lengthening the work: any one-and-a-half hours of it would be a reasonable offering, but its own ponderous self-importance began to get in the way. Occasional glimpses of beguiling tone poetry were overwhelmed by the quarter-note’s unrelieved dominance. Heloise is said to be bright and articulate, but no quicksilver melismatic passages bespeak this. Fulbert’s excellent, blocky lines are denatured by giving all the other male characters (and Heloise) lines written just like them. Perhaps a stodginess — of the characters’ inexorable oppositions, the ecclesiastical hierarchy’s grinding judgmentalism — is intended, but it is overdrawn.

A smaller orchestra and choir would allow for the kind of transparency that advocates of historically informed performance have shown us can work for other kinds of music as well. This lighter approach would have given the singers room, both dynamically and within the shifts and colors of their registers, to develop more nuanced characters in conversation with each other. As it was, they all had to fight the band.

The vexed philosophers, Abelard (tenor Matthew Anderson) and Heloise (soprano Tony Arnold) whose love of thought begets a love for each other — and a child, Astrolabe — are opposed, first by her uncle, Fulbert (bass-baritone Jonathan Mark Roberts) and then by the reformer Bernard (bass-baritone Paul Guttry). Roberts’s upper range was adequate for declaiming Fulbert’s steady love and reasoned pride in his niece in the first scenes. As events unfolded, his resonant profundo was more and more fully engaged, growling out his furious grief at Abelard’s betrayal and a clangorous opposition to their marriage.

On the other hand, Guttry and Anderson both sang the notes, but not the music. It is more difficult to portray character in an oratorio-style performance — and Acis and Galatea this was not — but these two barely seemed to be trying. Anderson’s Abelard put me in mind of a male soloist with the Moscow Ballet, many years ago, who danced his entire leading role in Swan Lake without looking at his partner more than once or twice. Guttry seemed content with a workmanlike rendering of a role that is ripe for more expressive characterization: Bernard, the smug, self-righteous spoiler whose vaunted zeal for reform depended on his hypocritical denouncement of others for their basic humanity — the Newt Gingrich of his time — hounded Abelard, some might say to his grave, unrelentingly. The character of Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorne Birds might have been written with him in mind: ambition was his sin, and it is not clear that he ever repented of it. None of this bravado, judgementalism, piety or gall was apparent in Guttry’s portrayal.

(As an indication of how wrong-headed Bernard could be, see Guy Lobrichon’s article on Bernard’s —and his emissary monks’ — mutilation of chants in liturgical manuscripts whose older melodic lines he mistook for more recent innovations, and whose witness to earlier musical practices he thus destroyed: Les cahiers de musique médiévale, vol. 1: Le siècle de St. Bernard, “Bernard de Clairvaux : la réforme et la modernité” Centre de musique médiévale de Paris [see here].)

I had fewer quibbles with Froula’s libretto. Its slight ending — perhaps over-edited to accommodate the score’s thick-noted weight and length elsewhere — does not clarify the significance of Abelard’s last, devastating trial (not that much is known of it: only a short list of the topics on which he was accused has survived). The penultimate Easter scene, joined to a better-sequenced last scene (and scored more lightly) might tie off some of the emotional and logical loose ends. And some small attention could at least be given to providing a more reasonable basis for Heloise’s line “…I shall implore my friend Bernard…” When and how did he become a friend? This seems improbable from his earlier conduct…what happened?

But overall, if one can accept the mechanical premise that Bernard the reformer and Suger the embroiderer (tenor Charles Blandy) kept affable company, which seems belied by Bernard’s railings against any but the negative aesthetic we have come to identify as Cistercian, the text’s reasonableness and attention to its historical sources cannot be faulted.

And it gives both Heloise and the composer those moments of realization and self-revelation that brought Arnold’s tireless work as a singer and actor to the fore. Also like Nina Ananiashvili — the partner-spurned Odette I saw at the Wang Center so long ago — Arnold carried an unflinching commitment to the strength of her role in her very bones. And her work in this case was much harder: most of Swan Lake’s choreographic rough edges have been knocked off for over a century now. Constrained by a too-narrow stage, an impassive protagonist and an unresponsive conductor, she somehow still found the freedom to move. She bent, turned, bowed her head, and let her face be disfigured; she wailed and whispered her love, her fear, and her intelligent awareness of the complex grasp in which life seemed to hold her. Some of the faults of the work — its length, its stodginess, its pudding-thick texture — paralleled the nature of the society in which Heloise was trapped, and within which she yet found growth and a voice.

Economical casting also afforded an Odette/Odile paring of the roles of Fulbert and Peter the Venerable — in some, but not all ways, the villain and the hero of the piece — which would have assuredly been more clearly brought out had Roberts had more rehearsal time with the score. As it was, taking over at very short notice for Sumner Thompson, who had fallen ill, Roberts started with slight insecurities but came so fully into his own as Fulbert that he matched Arnold’s Heloise for intensity by the end of the first act, giving her more to pit herself against than Anderson’s too-placid Abelard, and seemingly finding resources for expressivity and characterization before the audience’s very eyes. The lamentably truncated dénouement gave him no time to develop Peter the Venerable’s charity; an important foil within the story, the abbot of Cluny, battle-scarred from jousts with Bernard, gave Abelard safe haven and a place of peace in which to die when he could not reach Rome and the hope of a reversal of his excommunication at Sens.

The score, interpreted with more flexibility and given a more textured attention to rhythmic and dynamic variation, could yet become, like those older plays, both instructive and satisfying. Its real communicative potential, which Roberts and Arnold worked hard to realize, and which called forth discipline from the choir and the instrumentalists, did bring to the conclusion something of fire and soul. When Arnold as Heloise sang a final, tortured Credo in the face of all that had happened, and then bowed her head in grief, I recalled the physical wrench that Ananiashvili, with a single, final impulse of her arm, had conveyed in her death at the end of Swan Lake. Like the dancer, Arnold had taken a body of work into herself and brought it to birth; finally, literally, she projected Abelard’s death into life and made us care. Like Heloise, she risked her soul.

Donna La Rue researches, writes and presents on the medieval liturgical arts, focusing on the town of Sens. She has published critical reviews for the Boston Phoenix and has taught integrated arts and art history courses for local universities.

The concert opened with Luciano Berio’s Chemins II su Sequenza VI, the one work of dusty 20^th-century provenance, with John Stulz nimbly and at times ferociously executing the tremulous solo part. Berio is well known for his comprehensive series of studies for solo instruments entitled Sequenza, and several of these pieces became the basis for ensemble works entitled Chemins. Here, his Sequenza VI for viola is expanded to include a chamber accompaniment of nine instruments, shaking and palpitating through a succession of tonal plateaus for nearly the entire duration of the piece. The sputtering and sizzling textures, with occasional interjections in the form of clarinet jabs or flute flourishes, gave way slightly towards the end for some slow and thoughtful ruminations from the viola. A marvel in its own right, the piece also served to foreshadow the newer pieces on the program.

Keeril Makan’s Dream Lightly for electric guitar and orchestra featured none of the histrionics that its instrumentation might suggest. The electric guitar part, deftly rendered by Seth Josel, was performed almost entirely on harmonics. This exercise in understatement lived up to its title, as passages hung, dreamlike, in the air, not so much developing as recurring, half-remembered. The piece opened as shimmering strings and harp harmonics provided a bed for a simple diatonic motif, the guitar’s delicate timbres evoking distant chimes, or perhaps a kind of change ringing. The pure intervals of the guitar harmonics occasionally stirred ripples when pitted against the equal temperament of the accompanying instruments, contributing to the hazy atmosphere. Rumblings from the winds were not enough to break the sense of rapt serenity of this gorgeous reverie.

Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto, featuring soloist Avi Avital, was perhaps the most flamboyant and best-received piece of the evening. In its idiomatic tremolos, it harkened back to the Berio that opened the program, and in its diatonic passages also evoked the Makan piece. The orchestral accompaniment, for strings alone, hung in perfect counterbalance against the solo part, serving at times as a distorting gauze that expanded upon and framed the more plaintive, folkloric melodies of the mandolin, and sometimes as a more muscular sheen, thumping a steady, rhythmic pizzicato groove to drive the momentum forward.

Andrew Norman’s Air: for Theremin and Orchestra, featuring soloist Dalit Warshaw, took full advantage of the unique orchestral possibilities afforded by this unique pairing. The theremin’s tone, evocative of the human voice in the lyrically arioso passages composed for it, is nonetheless rather narrow in its spectral contour, opening up a wide range of possibilities for instrumental pairings, of which the composer made dazzling use. It was thrilling to hear the theremin’s mid-range tone suddenly blossom with the higher overtones of the strings, and the strings returned the favor by evoking in cascading portamenti the theremin’s lithe continuum of pitch. Norman composed with a clear sense of the historicity of his featured instrument, favored of sci-fi composers and avant-garde provocateurs alike, with the vibes part in particular propositioning listeners back to a half-remembered space age bachelor pad in downtown Utopia.

Eric Chasalow’s Horn Concerto was in some ways the most traditionally modernist piece of the evening; the horn soloist emerged gradually on a single note from a jungle of sharp jabs from the orchestra. The piece subsided into a reverie in the two slow middle movements, in which gossamer strings provided a backdrop for searing lyricism in the horn part. Soloist Bruno Schneider executed the demanding score with breathtaking agility, extracting an exhilarating range of color from his instrument, even before making use of the handsome mute he wore in a holster on his hip.

As my concert-going companion commented after the show, “Strange bedfellows, indeed!”

Ben Houge, a composer, digital media artist, and instructor of video game audio at Berklee College of Music and Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts, is currently an artist-in-residence at MIT. He will present his work with the Media Lab’s Responsive Environments group at a public talk at MIT’s Bartos Theater on February 15 – information here.

George Li performed with nuanced mastery two pieces from Debussy Préludes, Book II:  “Général Lavine – excentrique,” a lively humoresque, and “Feux d’artifice,” alternately meditative and explosive. The concert continued with the second movement (“Interlude: Tempo di minuetto”) and third (“Finale: Allegro moderato ma risoluto”) of Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola, and harp, performed with great sensitivity by Nina Barwell, flute, Rebecca Bogers, harp, & Elisabeth Christensen, viola. This piece has an atypical yet lovely instrumentation; it is fluid and mellow, playing with traditional tonality. Third up, Massenet: Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor, and the wonderfully sensitive Dudochkin took the stage for the arias “En fermant les yeux (Le rêve)” from Manon and “Pourquoi me réveiller” from Werther, both arias marked by their musical phrasing. Tamara Smirnova, Associate Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, joined Dudochkin for a tender and intense performance of Debussy’s Clair de lune. The dreamscape of Debussy continued with Sam Ou, cello, and Rebecca Bogers, harp, in Reverie, uniting the former’s passion and the latter’s playfulness into a fascinating musical miniature. Timur Rubinshteyn gave a bravura performance of Debussy, Arabesque No.1, Andantino con moto transcribed for marimba; marimba and Debussy make a truly beautiful pairing, especially when performed so magisterially. Mikhail Svetlov, a bass with a dark profondo voice, and Dudochkin offered a sweet and nocturnal take on Massenet’s “Sérénade: Quand apparaissent les étoiles” from Don Quichotte; the duo were joined by Ou for the Elégie from the same opera, making a lovely ensemble. In the Debussy, En blanc et noir, for two pianos, L.134, Dudochkin and Roberto Poli offered a tight and well-matched collaboration, in a work which points towards the later work of Satie. Rounding out the first half of the program was Debussy’s Danse profane, danced by Miriam Izmaylova, Ronen Zinshtain, Julia Rudyak, and Jason Sydorchenko to an unattributed recording; the talented dancers faced an insurmountable challenge in the small size of Jordan Hall’s stage.

Following intermission, the NEC Youth Symphony also populated that stage. Under the direction of Steven Karidoyanes, the tight and responsive ensemble gave a vigorous reading of Debussy, “Nuages” and “Fêtes” from Three Nocturnes. Yuki Beppu, violin, and members of the NEC Concert Choir and Chamber Singers (for the original, wordless chorus) joined the already densely packed stage for Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs. Beppu has an expressive and beautifully singing tone, here highlighted. The singers remained on stage for Massenet, “Je marche sur tous les chemins…. Obéissons, quand leur voix appelle” from Manon, sung by soprano Yelena Dudochkin, who has a full-bodied, supple voice. (She debuted on Opera Boston’s production of The Nose last year and will surely be heard more often in future.) The concert concluded with the NEC Youth Symphony in a spirited reading of Debussy, Marche écossaise, sur un thème populaire; this musical curiosity opens sounding neither Scottish nor like Debussy, although both musical signatures appear in the piece before its end.

Obviously in such a concert, there are lots of stage changes for the different ensembles and combinations of musicians. This is not the first time I have noticed the paucity of stagehands in Jordan Hall. With only two men, changes took time and interrupted the flow of the evening; I hope in future Jordan Hall will have a more appropriate complement of stage-hands, for everyone’s sake.

The concert included some well-known pieces and some rare gems. The performances were marked by a high level of artistry; personal favorites included the Debussy trio sonata (a piece I had not previously heard in concert), Rubinshteyn on marimba, and Yelena Dudochkin singing the aria from Massenet’s Manon. The lengthy concert was a worthy tribute to Debussy and Massenet.

Cashman Kerr Prince is trained in Classics and Comparative Literature and is now a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classical Studies at Wellesley College.  He is also a cellist of some accomplishment, currently playing with the Brookline Symphony Orchestra.

Scholars have long used the designation “Anonymous IV” for the unidentified author of a 13th-century music treatise. An important source of information about music in Medieval Paris, it happened to be the fourth in a series of anonymous writings included in an eighteenth-century publication. Hence the name of the group is a learned pun, and a fitting one, given the group’s repertory and makeup. Much of what they perform is preserved anonymously, in manuscripts whose scribes are also unidentified. Founded in 1986, the group comprises Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, and Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek (who replaced Johanna Maria Rose).

According to the group’s website here, the program performed on Sunday has been taken on tour to celebrate their 25th anniversary, consists of six sets of two to six works each, on themes such as “Legends,” “Sisterhood,” and “Ardor.” A cynic might see this program in the same vein as pop-music concerts that are essentially marketing devices for CDs (or music downloads).  Indeed, the rather artificial headings for the sets did not entirely hide the essentially arbitrary character of the one-item-per-CD format. Yet to this listener the program, which lasted a little over an hour (without intermission), was in no way a jumble. This was so despite the fact that the thematic organization largely ignored chronology and style. For instance, it juxtaposed a chanted Marian antiphon from Medieval England (“Quae est ista?”) with the new work by Lang. Yet by the end of the program, I was beginning to feel that I had heard perhaps a bit too much of the same thing. The styles were diverse, yet slow tempos and the singers’ generally reserved approach to nearly all the selections made for limited variety of actual sound, however lovely.

I hasten to add that the group’s generally quiet approach seems to me entirely appropriate to most of this repertory. Their way of singing it highlighted connections between the medieval and the contemporary numbers on the program. David Lang’s engaging “the wood and the vine”— no capital letters in this title or in that of the larger work, love fail, of which it is a part — made much of a three-note melodic formula common in so-called Gregorian chant. Lang’s musical language, which combines elements of Neo-Classical Stravinsky and New York minimalism, seemed not entirely unlike the moderately dissonant idiom of a polyphonic conductus and a carol, both from Medieval England, which preceded it on the program.

The two other recent works were broadly similar to Lang’s. A sustained, largely consonant setting of the Lord’s Prayer by the British composer John Tavener (performed in Anonymous 4′s own arrangement) contained echoes of both Medieval conductus and an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century English hymn. More interesting to this reviewer was “The Scientist,” a movement from Richard Einhorn’s A Carnival of Miracles. The scientist in question is Galileo, whose supposed statement Eppur si muove (“but it does move,” referring to the earth) forms the sole text. Starting in unison, the four voices repeat the three Italian words over and over. They gradually diverge from one another, introducing increasingly complex musical ideas. The roughly five-minute work concluded with what was probably the most forceful singing on the program, although still restrained by the standards of mainstream concert performance.

The minimalist elements here and in the Lang composition, together with several folk works on the program, exemplify the crossover between classical and vernacular music that has been a recurring theme in the work of Anonymous 4. In this they resemble several equally eclectic ensembles that have achieved comparable success in recent decades; the Kronos Quartet comes to mind. Like Kronos, Anonymous 4 include their own arrangements — here of folksongs and hymns — in their concerts and recordings. But they take care to identify them as such in their program booklets, which are unfailingly generous in the amount of information they provide about their often esoteric selections. Not for them is the vague mix of folk, medieval, and “world” music that has become increasingly fashionable in early-music performance during the past two decades. To be sure, the popularity of that sort of programming helps explain their own commercial success.

There is also, of course, a feminist element in what they do. In Sunday’s program it was evident in the inclusion of two chants by Hildegard of Bingen, a German twelfth-century abbess who was one of the few Medieval women composers who is identified by name. How much of the surviving medieval repertory was ever sung by women remains an open question. But its appropriation by four modern female musicians was probably a less momentous decision than the one to forego the instrumental accompaniment that 25 years ago was still practically required for early-music groups.

Scholarly opinion about historical practice already favored a cappella presentation of most of this repertory when Anonymous 4 began performing. But their decision to eschew instruments also melded happily with notions about the purity of unaccompanied voices, in music that is prevailingly sacred and frequently concerned with Mary and other female virgin saints. Of course, this manner of performance also meshes nicely with the type of folk singing that we think of as unspoiled and authentic because it is done without amplified or electric instruments, or with none at all. Marsha Gerensky offered an example in “You fair and pretty ladies,” sung alone in what seemed to these ears a fine imitation of southern Appalachian country singing.

Yet two other American songs, including Robert Lowry’s nineteenth-century hymn “Shall we gather at the river,” did not sound so very different from some of the medieval ones. One reason is that most were done so slowly. The American composer Charles Ives, who made his own idiosyncratic arrangement of this song for solo voice and piano, marked it Allegretto (moderately quick). The more traditional four-part harmonization sung on Sunday, although pretty, was practically funereal in character.

To be sure, the group has lost none of the pure intonation and precise diction, rhythm, and ensemble that have marked its performances from the beginning. But even Francesco Landini’s fourteenth-century ballata “Echo la primavera,” whose refrain has some catchy rhythms typical of this virtuoso late-Medieval Italian genre, would have needed more speed to invoke the “dance-like gestures” mentioned in the notes. The booklet duly reported that Hildegard’s chants are sometimes remarkably ornate, requiring virtuoso singers. But the two relatively brief examples chosen for this concert did not really bear out this side of her work.

I also was not entirely convinced by the approach taken to the ornate upper line of the twelfth-century Spanish or Aquitanian verse “Gratulantes celebremus festum.” This was sung in a way that was perhaps meant to sound like North-African or Andalusian folk singing. The result, however, struck me as harsh, reminiscent of the so-called open-throated technique made famous a while ago by The Bulgarian Women’s Choir.

These, however, are minor complaints. Perhaps because of the brevity of most of the Medieval selections and the fundamental similarity in sound of so many of them, no one item stood out as particularly striking in a program of many well-sung pieces. I certainly enjoyed the thirteenth-century three-voice French Christmas conductus “Nicholai presulis,” although what the booklet meant in describing it as “quirky” was unclear to me — perhaps referring to a few mildly crunchy dissonances and a long melisma on “Nunc” (“now”). Two or three decades ago the mention of instruments in the last two lines of the poem probably would have elicited some sort of orchestration from most medieval specialists. It is a mark of how far early music has come that no one misses instruments when the singing is as clear and assured as this.

As this was the first concert of this type to take place in the Calderwood hall, a word about the sound is in order. David Griesinger has just written a close-to-rave review of the hall itself for this publication here. His report, however, seems to have been on the basis of hearing a rehearsal by a large instrumental chamber group playing new music. I had no difficulty hearing one to four unaccompanied voices singing mostly quiet medieval songs. But this may have been because I was only about 20 feet away from them, in a corner of the ground floor that was reserved for the press.

Because the hall was nearly full for Sunday’s performance and there was no intermission, I didn’t have the opportunity to try out the sound in other locations. It was certainly dry, although not unpleasantly so. There was, perhaps, a certain historical aptness in the placement of the performers at the center of what was essentially an enclosed rectangular court. But only a fraction of this music is likely to have been originally performed in courtyards, and I would not have been happy to have been seated behind the four singers (who faced in my direction the entire time).

Although never histrionic, Anonymous 4′s singing is enriched by gesture, which has to be seen. Probably none of their music was meant to sound as if emanating from disembodied voices, however much one might like that romantic concept. Most of this program involved music whose poetry tells stories, whether in Latin, French, English, or Irish. One misses something of its conversational or presentational character if one cannot see the singers breathing and forming the sounds orally. I wonder, too, how much the hall’s ambience (or lack thereof) contributed to my sense of sonic sameness. Perhaps the inflections of dynamics and color that barely registered for me would have been easier to make out in a more conventionally resonant hall. Surely it will be advisable to consider adjusting the hall’s acoustic as it sees further offerings of various types.

David Schulenberg is a harpsichordist and author of Music of the Baroque and The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach. He teaches at Wagner College in New York City. His website is here.

Performances like Saturday’s remind us why Boston is a special place musically. It is, of course, one thing to have Stubbs co-direct the Boston Early Music Festival, but another thing entirely to have someone of Stubbs’s achievement and understanding performing on stage. But more: in addition to Stubbs, we are lucky to have the considerable talents of BEMF co-director Paul O’Dette, Erin Headley, and Kristian Bezuidenhout in performance with soprano Shannon Mercer and bass-baritone Douglas Williams. The ensemble Tragicomedia presented an evening of early cantatas by Handel and his contemporaries on Saturday, January 28.

It is no surprise, of course, that individual performances were particularly strong. O’Dette was featured on lute in a performance of Sonata à Mandolino e Basso by Handel’s collaborator (and competitor) Carlo Arrigoni, providing a sense of arch 18^th-century Italian drama. In contrast, Erin Headley, one of the co-founders of Tragicomedia, was featured in a re-purposing of Handel’s “Col partir la bella Clori” from Ah, che pur troppo è vero for viola da gamba. Headley’s wine-dark gamba achieved a stunningly vocal timbre in the wine-dark colors of the instruments, making the work ideal for stringed instrument yet cannily wary of the flexibility and direction of lyrical melodic line. Headley achieved a stunningly dramatic read of the aria on her instrument; it is easy to see why Stubbs terms this aria Headley’s “theme song”! Harpsichordist Bezuidenhout was of particular note, presenting a combination of movements from harpsichord suites by Handel. The works, ranging from tender to labyrinthine, culminated in a virtuosic variation set from the Suite No. 3 in D minor (HWV 428) that, in Bezuidenhout’s hands, achieved the fullest orchestral effect of the instrument.

Both Mercer and Williams provided a well-balanced performance, reveling in the rich timbres of both their voices, particularly in the lower registers, as in Strozzi’s Donna no sà che dice, no dice che sà. Williams seemed less comfortable in his high higher range. In contrast, Mercer showed remarkable control and flexibility in her glittering upper range, particularly in solo cantatas such as No se emenderá jamás, the only one of Handel’s Spanish cantatas, or in duet with Wheeler in Agostino Steffani’s Tengo per infallibile. As a duet, both Mercer and Williams fully portrayed the rich operatic drama of the works, be it in the tender moments of at the close of Tengo per infallibile, or the (again) arch Italian drama of Handel’s prayer to Cupid, Tacete, ohimè, tacete.

This is not to ignore to ignore the ensemble as a whole. This six-member group seemed to bear the brunt of the educational responsibilities of the evening, showing us the evolution of Handel’s cantata from its early form in the works Barbara Strozzi (practically Monteverdian seconda practica madrigal) through to the recit/da capo aria style characteristic of Handel and his contemporaries. Tragicomedia had some problems with balance early in the performance that appeared to fix itself quickly. The remainder of the performance remained faithful to a unified understanding of the music, supporting solo lines effectively particularly during instrumental solo lines, as Headley gave in Col partir la bella Clori and O’Dette in Sonata à Mandolino e Basso.

The expertise, sensitivity, and programming expertise demonstrated by Stubbs and the Tragicomedia ensemble were consistently appreciated by the audience that filled the pews of First Church, Cambridge. The ensemble’s well-deserved standing ovation was rewarded with a reprise of the lyrical and (frankly) touching reprise of the final lines of Steffani’s Tengo per infallibile.

Sudeep Agarwala is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He performs with various choral groups throughout Boston and Cambridge.

The Callithumpian Consort’s performance in Jordan Hall on January 25th featured an interesting mix of improvised and non-improvised performance. The composers represented on the program, Debussy, Nicholas Vines, Zorn, Murail, and Ikue Mori, represented a refreshingly wide array of styles and aesthetics.

Being the only pre-21^st-century piece on the program, Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp was perhaps the most familiar work of the program. It is more harmonically conservative than most of his late works but has all of the textural and figurative appeal that makes Debussy’s music so unique. Karina Fox, Jessi Rosinski, and Franziska Huhn’s playing was crisp and animated: qualities that played particularly well to the Finale. While the placement of the Debussy seemed a bit odd on a program otherwise consisting entirely of pieces composed in the last eight years, some link between Debussy and Murail’s Lachryme, after intermission, appeared to be the motivation for such programming.

Nicholas Vines’s Economy of Wax, a setting of an excerpt from Darwin’s The Origin of Species for soprano, flute, viola, and harp, features a peculiarly scientific description (in prose) of an experiment involving bees constructing and maintaining their hive. The piece had some nice moments of lyricism between soprano and piccolo and exhibited a masterful control of contrapuntal texture. Since the text hardly has an ounce of expressive potential, Vines chose to focus more on vocal acrobatics than clarity of text. The writing contained itself to a single contrapuntal consistency, wonderfully evocative of the relentless swarming of Darwin’s bees, but ultimately it came across as rather stagnant and undermotivated. The piece was handled excellently by the performers, though balance was an issue at times.

John Zorn’s Orphée offered an interesting balance of notated music and improvised material. The piece opens with a noisy clash of dissonant and punctuated sonorities separated by awkward and immediate non-transitions: a block-structured caricature of modernism. The piece suddenly shifts into a very distant Minimalist territory, thorny stabs of dissonance now replaced with triadic, predictable bliss. Zorn thrives in the territory of these postmodern musical decisions and makes them appear much less arbitrary than many of his counterparts. Admittedly, the piece becomes “about” these stylistic shifts instead of the inner workings — which have the potential to be far more interesting. Nonetheless, the juxtaposition of idioms was quite convincing, comical as they were.

Tristan Murail’s Lachrymae, composed for the Callithumpian Consort last summer at Sick Puppy (Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice), returned us to a meticulously controlled form of musical expression. While I have a deep admiration of Murail as a composer, a gripe I often have with his music is its tendency to marinate in its textures (gorgeous as they may be) with little concern for sustaining a sense of continuity through the narrative of the piece. Lachrymae seemed to go in the complete opposite direction, borrowing ubiquitously Classical tactics to organize constantly developing and profoundly moving materials while remaining “Spectralist” in its treatment of texture and harmony. The Callithumpians clearly invest a sense of ownership in this piece, resulting in the most convincing (by far) performance of the evening.

Ikue Mori, who performed live electronics on the Zorn earlier in the program, was again featured in her own composition, Confucius Becomes Popular, for large improvisational ensemble and animated video. It was more or less a collage of miniature narratives summarizing traditional Chinese parables, undoubtedly selected for their particular relevance to contemporary American politics. Musically, the piece seemed to relinquish almost all of its control to the performers’ collective intuition. Mori, in particular, had an unusually convincing grasp of her electronic setup, inventing her own meta-instrument that had both identity and expressive breadth. Her interactions with percussionist Nick Tolle at times were quite intriguing.

Much of the rest of the ensemble was less convincing; apparently they were more concerned with their own stage theatrics than with meaningful dialogue. This improvisational model worked better with the smaller group at the end of the performance, likely due to the presence of pianist Anthony Coleman, a true luminary in the world of free improvisation. Joined by Artistic Director Stephen Drury on piano, the improv session was quite engaging; the focus was purely on the intuitive interactions of the musicians, without any other visual guide. Had I left with much of the audience before this post-program improv session, I would have sorely lost out!

Peter Van Zandt Lane is a composer and bassoonist who performs regularly in the Boston area. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Music Composition and Theory at Brandeis University.

File Image (Lynn Goldsmith photo)

Lise de la Salle’s Boston recital debut last night at Jordan Hall, presented by Celebrity Series, began with a genius at the keyboard expounding on Ravel’s Miroirs. Admittedly, her performance had me in tears, those that come with an awakening in life. Spasms of mirth, of sentimentality, and of nobility inherent in the Frenchman’s score were everywhere evident and at times rendered forth in the boldest, most remarkable power I have yet to encounter. The 23-year old de la Salle — yes! — delivered an incomparable message of piano passion and personality.

Surprisingly and disappointingly, that same passion and personality that she brought to the Ravel she also brought, and relentlessly so, to a selection of Debussy’s preludes. Ravel and Debussy are two completely different creatures. Naturalist and pundit on ancient Greek lore, Debussy could not withstand the overt, nearly romanticized deportment the young pianist was intent upon in redefining this composer’s character.

During intermission I found, not surprisingly, that I was not alone in my assessment of the first half of Lise de la Salle’s unveiling. At least for a few more concert-goers, elation also had turned to consternation. After her audacious performance of Beethoven’s Les Adieux, I began wondering what she would bring to the opening movement of the “Moonlight Sonata.” Romanticized it was not, modernized, yes: faster, more impersonalized and declarative, without cantabile.

Obviously, far too much power prevailed throughout the evening. (Is this the New Age, and am I falling behind?) Velocities to extremes were also in play, most startling so in de la Salle’s delivery of Debussy’s Feux d’artifice and Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest. In her first encore, the third movement from Bach’s Italian Concerto, scale passages morphed into glissandos. His sequential passages whizzed by, making the whole sound as if it could have been the perfect soundtrack to a cartoon. Two other encores followed: a Chopin nocturne and a Schumann Kinderszenen selection.

Truthfully, I like to root for the young, even more so for those who dare to take chances, go out on a limb in search of freshness, new life. In an interview that aired quite a few years ago, Broadway man Stephen Sondheim disclosed a few words for the wise, “I try to write music that is fresh yet inevitable.” So, I wonder, how do ratcheted power and velocity apply to this syllogism?

For Noctuelles and Une barque sûr l’ocean, de la Salle opted for tempos slower than most, or, given her prodigious piano agility, maybe it just seemed to me to be so. Ravel’s tempos, assez vif (rather fast) and plus lent (slower) for Alborado del gracioso felt fiery flamenco, leaving me breathless. And in this Spanish vista came the climax of the entire suite — with piano power, passion, and personality; all from hands smaller than you might expect! Les oiseaux tristes — unspeakable enrapture from the opening simple and quiet two-note calls to the sudden shock of a flock of fiercely chattering birds. Lise de la Salle neutralized the chimings in La vallée des cloches to close Miroirs on a middle ground, an ingenious move.

Last-minute changes on the program, the first, a reordering of the six Debussy preludes that made its way into an insert, the second, de la Salle herself announcing that the “Moonlight” would follow rather than precede Les Adieux. As you watch Lise de la Salle sitting at the keyboard, you cannot miss fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, back, and face enveloped in a creative surge. Could the creative urge be that which also dictated the shifts?

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net

Exsultemus’ Music Director and countertenor Martin Near described this program as a journey beginning in late Renaissance Venice and moving up north and forward chronologically to Germany during the early Baroque era.  This comparatively short historical period offered a wide musical survey, from the straightforward, solemn poly-chorality of Adrian Willaert’s Credidi, propter quod locutus sum (“I believed, therefore I have spoken”) to the intricate parts and pathos of Michael Praetorius’s Gelobet und gepreiset (“Hail and Praise.”)  Along the way polyphonic, homophonic, harmonic and concertante effects alternated and occasionally blended, indicating that stylistic transitions arise suddenly and don’t always die out before the next development comes around.

Near’s creativity in arranging these five voices and six instrumentalists, physically as well as musically, highlighted the variety of these mostly sacred works while never sacrificing their textual gravity.  Two stage-front choirs pitted against ethereal harmonies from a third choir at the back of the altar on Giovanni Gabrieli’s Magnificat, climaxing with a massive, “heavenly” 11-part tutti finale, illustrated the ensemble’s sheer power, while the voicing for two tenors with two sackbuts on Andrea Gabrieli’s Exsurgat Deus (“God, arise”) showcased this group’s ability to take an otherwise academic detail and underscore its importance as a captivating sound.

These multifaceted works galvanized the unity of sound and clarity of execution Exsultemus has come to be known for.  Near and soprano (as well as founder and General Director) Shannon Canavin provided full, focused leads in ensembles, especially Canavin’s ebullient lines in Dominique Phinot’s À Dieu, Loyse.  Tenors Jason McStoots and Zachary Wilder filled out middle parts seamlessly while offering assured solos, and Paul Max Tipton anchored the choir with his firm, mellifluous baritone. Heinrich Schütz’s Lobe den Herren (“Praise the Lord”) allowed more room to hear each voice one at a time, especially a lengthy, dramatic thanks to God from Wilder.  For Orlande de Lassus’ paean to wine (and the only secular text in the program) “Iam lucis orto sidere,”  the voices poured over one another with transparent sheen.

The addition of winds and brass allowed the choir an even wider palette of colors.  Michael Collver’s cornetto provided stirring, brassy commentary throughout, trading descending imitations with Near on Giovanni Gabrieli’s Hodie completi sunt (“Today they are full”) and Daniel Stillman’s alto and bass dulcians added rich, reedy interiors.  All four players broke out recorders for the playfully regal “Suite 15” from Johann Schein’s instrumental Banchetto Musicale.  The use of Andrus Madsen and Vivian Montgomery’s organ accompaniment throughout (based on Near’s theory that the Baroque continuo was merely a codification of earlier, more spontaneous practices) fleshed out the sound of the ensemble and provided further timbral contrast.  Madsen also ascended to the church’s pipe organ, playing with a spontaneity that made Claudio Merulo’s virtuosic Toccata none del non a Tono (“Tocatta Nine of the Ninth Tone”) sound improvised.

If a program of 16th-century sacred music for divided choir sounds limited, it was news Saturday night.  Exsultemus embraced this music with curiosity as well as technical confidence.  By the end of the evening, the sight of one player reading their part off of an iPad made perfect sense; the music seemed to belong as much to this age and its living, lively performers (and audience) as any other.

Andrew J. Sammut also writes for Early Music America and All About Jazz, and blogs on a variety of music at clefpalette.wordpress.com.  He also plays clarinet and lives in Cambridge.

TFC with Sopranos Camilla Tilling and Carolyn Sampson led by Bramwell Tovey (StuRosner)

Right to the point: there are two performances remaining, one tonight, and one on Tuesday, January 31^st. You should go.

At Symphony Hall last night the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey with three excellent soloists and John Oliver’s redoubtable Tanglewood Festival Chorus presented but one work — the 10-movement Lobgesang, or “Song of Praise” Op. 52 by Felix Mendelssohn. A more enriching experience at Symphony Hall would be hard to imagine.

This concert was the second of six Friday evening events called “Underscore Fridays” by the orchestra, which begin at 7:00 PM and feature from-the-stage introductions from orchestra members, and end in time for a generous — and gratis — food and wine buffet for the entire audience and performers, so the two constituencies can meet and schmooze post-concert. This is part of the orchestra’s earnest outreach efforts to begin to break down the traditional barriers that normally exist between audience and performers and also help make BSO concerts more accessible to their audiences. The many enthusiastic participants last night indicated that this gesture was very well received.

The orchestra’s experience with Mendelssohn’s remarkable score is limited. The BSO first played it while “on the road” in 1890 with its then-Music Director Arthur Nikisch, who had brought his orchestra to Old City Hall in Pittsburgh for a single performance on a Monday evening. In recent history, Seiji Ozawa conducted this music in subscription concert presentations in April of 1988. That’s all until this week’s revelatory concerts.

Revelatory? Yes, indeed. In his charming pre-concert introduction from the stage, 21-seasons veteran violist Edward Gazouleas told the audience how the orchestra’s reacquintance with Lobgesang was akin to visiting one’s cellar and stumbling across a long-forgotten bottle of extraordinary wine. In looking at the bottle, one remembered the occasion of having received it, but the contents had remained untasted until it was now finally opened, savored, and immediately recognized as superb — a wonderful gift finally realized.

And as fine wine is best enjoyed with appropriate vessels — fine crystal stemware, for instance — so too is music best appreciated when the vessel presenting it is of equal caliber to the notes printed on the page. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is certainly that vessel, and its many felicities of brass, woodwind, and strings — so aptly showcased in last week’s “conductorless” ensemble offerings — were united under the inspired leadership of Bramwell Tovey, a musician of impeccable taste.

Tovey, whose experience is worldwide, was first seen at a BSO performance at Tanglewood last summer where he led a very highly regarded performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in its composer’s intended grand opera version. When Riccardo Chailly unfortunately joined this season’s long list of cancelling conductors, Tovey was deputized to lead the concerts which Chailly had originally programmed. Frankly, it would be hard to imagine the absent Italian having had a greater success in presenting this remarkable music than Mr. Tovey’s, so strong and fluent was the latter’s leadership last night. He has fully internalized this wonderful score, and the forces on stage were “with him” for the span of the evening.

The 31-year-old Felix Mendelssohn wrote his Lobgesang in June, 1840 for a Lepzig festival that celebrated the 400^th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type and development of the printing press. Europeans felt then that this remarkable innovation, which, among many other possibilities allowed the words of the Lutheran Bible to be printed and then disseminated throughout the Christian world, was a symbol of German high-mindedness and worldly cultural enlightenment — erleuchten, “to cast light upon,” as the German text has it in a tenor aria. Such an invention at that time would have been equal in impact to the recent creation of the internet, suggested Maestro Tovey in his eloquent pre-concert talk.

Lobgesang’s wonderfully inventive score calls for a full classical orchestra, plus organ (handsomely played by James David Christie in these performances) and three vocal soloists. Well matched in timbre and musicianship were the two sopranos, Carolyn Sampson and Camilla Tilling. John Tessier, stepping in for yet another last-minute cancellation, was the lyric-voiced and sweet-toned tenor. While of these three, the Swedish soprano Tilling projected the most authentic-sounding declamation of the German language; together they formed an earnest and fully competent trio.

Mendelssohn’s music is constantly engaging, but in fact much more than that. It is inspired, moving, ceaselessly melodic and involving, and heart-touchingly beautiful. In addition to this, it inhabits a lofty spiritual and philosophical plane with its text, drawn from the scriptures yet also reflective of its metaphoric celebration of the cultural enlightenment mentioned above. Lobgesang is neither a true “symphony” nor an oratorio — on the title page of the urtext Mendelssohn called it Lobgesang. Eine Symphonie-Cantate nach Worten der heiligen Schrift. The inability of some listeners to “classify” this music is perhaps part of the reason for this score’s undeserved obscurity. Critics savaged it after its premiere, unfairly characterizing it as an unsuccessful attempt to imitate Beethoven’s ninth symphony. While Lobgesang surely does harbor several moments that may reflect homage to that earlier score, it is also surely no weak sister to the Beethoven. Lobgesang is fully capable of making its own salient points. There has been, in my opinion, too much bickering about this score over the years, even up to today, and not enough LISTENING. “Too much unending praise” is a major carp. Indeed, Maestro Tovey wittily brought this up before the music began. He characterized the score as “unrelievedly joyful,” and those coming to the concert looking for “unsupervised introspection” would not find it here. I say, more unrelievedly joyful music is just what this dreary world needs now and again, especially now.

The performance was superb from beginning to end. Maestro Tovey conducted as a man eager to proselytize for this score, mining its subtleties, reveling in its exquisite successions of melodic invention, underscoring the music’s drama and illuminating its reverence. His equal partner in this, along with the BSO, was the full-throated Tanglewood Festival Chorus, shaping and savoring its every phrase, powerful and focused when demanded, quiet and prayerful when appropriate. Among many choral highlights were the strong projection of the powerful fugal entrances in movements VII and X and the dead-on intonation in the a cappella passages of the seven-voiced chorale Nun Danket alle Gott in movement VIII. The final entrance of the TFC men near the music’s conclusion, singing the music’s recurring trombone motive heard at the work’s very beginning and now reprised at its end, nearly caused me to jump out of my chair in gratitude for their rich, sonorous sound and sheer commitment to their text.

The words that begin and end this remarkable piece are “Alles was Odem hat, lobet den Herrn – Let all those who hath breath praise the Lord!” To that is appended: “Hallelujah!”

Don’t miss these performances!

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 32 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

Roby Lakatos (Lakatos vzw)

On Friday night, thanks to Celebrity Series of Boston, Sanders Theatre resounded with the sounds of Hungarian Gypsy music masters, the Roby Lakatos Ensemble. The musical selections ranged from traditional to popular to classical to musical and film soundtrack. The musicians reveled in the music and the technical mastery of rapid passages or burnished lyricism, while the audience thrilled to the glorious sounds and excitement of the music.

Before the concert began, a gentleman behind me could be overheard saying to his companion, “Prepare yourself for some schmaltz.” Exiting the hall after the concert, I again heard someone use the term “schmaltz.” Pity, really: Roby Lakatos Ensemble possess a technical prowess and musical sensitivity any musician would envy, and they gave a lively performance of repertoire that these schmaltz-sayers enjoyed.

Typically, numbers alternated between fast and slow and most highlighted Roby Lakatos on violin, although the ensemble members each had their moment to shine during improvisations in each set.

Selections recalled the work of Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, and the Quintette du Hot Club de France. The evening opened with József Suha Balogh, Fire Dance/Gypsy Bolero/Cickom Paraphrase, and this medley introduced the ensemble. In Michel Legrand’s Papa can you hear me? Kalman Cséki, piano, collaborated with Roby Lakatos, violin, to bring out the pathos and anguish Barbra Streisand packed into this song in Yentl. Following this moment of legato lyricism, the mood shifted to one of Roby Lakatos’s own compositions, A Night in Marrakech, a jazzier number. Next, Ástor Piazzola, Oblivion, danced through our ears. The traditional Les Deux guitares brought into focus László Bóni, violin, as the two violins and guitar, masterfully played by László Balogh, traded off musical lines. In both of these pieces, László “Csorosz” Lajos Lisztes on double bass provided musical grounding, jazz-inflected pizzicati, or ambience matching the mood of the piece. Vladimir Cosma’s Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire rounded out the first half of the program, opening with Lakatos on violin and Jenö István Lisztes, cimbalom, before the entrance of the whole ensemble, with Kalman Cséki, piano.

Following intermission, the ensemble returned to the stage in Lakatos’s own SK. Capricio, a piece combining widely recognized elements of Hungarian and gypsy music into an upbeat and thrilling whole. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee gave way to Fats Waller and Andy Razaf’s Honeysuckle Rose, which here brought out the whole ensemble in fine form. The traditional Russian tune, I’ve Met You–Mama gave all the players a chance to shine, and Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in America focused on Lakatos’s own violin playing. Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás finished off the announced program in rousing style. The thunderous applause brought the musicians back to the stage for encores of Ochi Chorne and The Lark.

Roby Lakatos is obviously the star attraction in this ensemble. His violin playing is technically marvelous, with mastery of the entire length of the bow, seamless bow changes, and a powerful tone throughout the instrument’s register. This sound dominated throughout the evening. Jenö István Lisztes on cimbalom, however, stole the show with his stupendous performance of the solo line from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. With piano, guitar, and double bass for harmonic support, he gave an exhilarating performance. For those who think The Flight of the Bumblebee trite and over-performed, try sitting impassively by as Lisztes beats it out in quick tempo on a cimbalom or concert-hammered dulcimer. I once saw this piece performed on a marimba; that called for a combination musician and acrobat/dancer to master the larger size of the instrument. Lisztes gave the infinitely more virtuosic performance; the cimbalom is a smaller instrument and this piece requires inordinately precise fine-motor skills to execute, let alone to perform it, as Lisztes did, musically. This was a magical moment to experience.

Roby Lakatos Ensemble (Lakatos vzw)

Western classical music has long flirted with the foreign and the exotic. Mozart turned to Turkish influence for his Rondo alla Turca and Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The later 19^th century turned to Bohemian musical influences and gypsy dances; Brahms, Hungarian Dances and Dvorák, Gypsy Songs, are only the most obvious examples. Of course, the history of musical exoticism is much more complex, and these are but small points on a much larger map. Dipping into the exotic soundscapes of other cultures recurs in music history, as part of a near-constant quest for new sounds and new instruments. This slumming, in a different cultural context, is often coupled with a dismissal of the other culture as frivolous, somehow not sufficiently serious. Personally, I think of the 19^th-century musical turn towards Eastern Europe as akin to Romanticism in poetry: a struggle against industrialization, a plea for a return to non-mechanized ways of construing the world, a re-introduction of play, serious fun, and an idealized innocence into the otherwise professional musical landscape. More than “schmaltz,” this evening offered the reflective listener the excitement and the visceral pleasure of music that was moving. I’m glad Celebrity Series of Boston brought Roby Lakatos Ensemble to us and hope many in the audience were able to rise to this glorious occasion and enjoy the evening’s music on its own terms.

Cashman Kerr Prince is trained in Classics and Comparative Literature and is now a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classical Studies at Wellesley College.  He is also a cellist of some accomplishment, currently playing with the Brookline Symphony Orchestra.

Bernstein admonishes in 1955

Three-quarters of a century and going strong: “Tanglewood 75” will make a triumphant return to the Berkshires this summer with the customary line-up of some of the classical and jazz worlds’ brightest stars. Fireworks and gala receptions abound, but music-lovers seeking quieter thrills will be sure to find something to please as well from among the 80-plus scheduled events, tickets to which go on sale Sunday, January 29, at 10 AM (obtainable at Symphony Hall box office, tanglewood.org, or by calling 888-266-1200).

To commemorate the 75^th anniversary of Tanglewood’s first season, Opening Night with the BSO on July 6^th will feature a replica of an all-Beethoven program of 1937. Christoph von Dohnányi will conduct this and other BSO performances throughout the summer; the orchestra will also feature celebrity soloists including Joshua Bell, Anne Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma, Emmanuel Ax, Peter Serkin, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, among others. Other scheduled guest conductors are Andris Nelsons, Marcelo Lehninger, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Loren Maazel, Kurt Masur, and John Williams, who will also be honored on August 18^th in a special 80^th birthday celebration.

The major Anniversary Celebration will take place on July 14^th with a potpourri of Americana, showpieces, and classical favorites performed by the three resident orchestras, Festival Chorus, and a gaggle of guests. Among these will be James Taylor, a Tanglewood favorite, who will also be featured with his band on the three evenings leading up to the 4^th of July.

Program book from 4th Berkshire Symphonic Festival - the first on the Tanglewood grounds

Not all concerts will require hundreds of performers, however. The three-concert String Quartet Marathon returns on July 1^st and 2^nd, while the Emerson String Quartet will present a moderate-length program of Mozart, Beethoven, and Adès on July 5^th. Baritone Gerald Finley will present a recital on August 2^nd, and the young, hip Quatuor Ébène will genre-bend on August 16^th. More chamber music will be offered by TMC Fellows and the BSO chamber players.

Immersion-by-composer experiences are also on the slate. An all-Wagner program conducted by Asher Fisch repeats another historical program of 1937. Mozart will be bursting through the seams in two separate orchestral programs, including one of violin concerti by Mutter on July 13^th. An intrepid Gerhard Oppitz will perform Brahms’s complete solo piano works in a series of four recitals, July 18^th-19^th and 25^th-26^th. Not to be left out, Bach will be represented on August 10^th by a set of concerti, including Brandenburgs 3 and 5, in the able hands of members of the BSO chamber players led by Pinchas Zukerman.

Tanglewood publicity advertises eight world premiers, by upstanding locals Edgar Meyer, John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, and Gunther Schuller, as well as others to appear on the Festival of Contemporary Music taking place August 9^th-13^th.

Renowned jazzers will take the stage as well, beginning with Diana Krall on June 23^rd. Chris Botti’s stylings will fill Ozawa Hall on August 5^th, followed by the Christian McBride trio on the 18^th and Chick Corea with Gary Burton and the Harlem String Quartet on the 26^th.

The Boston Pops will also make an appearance with Broadway singer Bernadette Peters on July 8^th and with Maureen McGovern and Brian Stokes Mitchell on August 24^th. Opera will get its turn with Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust on July 28^th and Falla’s La vida breve — featuring Spanish singers, dancer, and guitarist. For something a bit more austere, Sequentia Ensemble will present a dramatic sung performance in Old Norse (with English supertitles) based on the medieval Icelandic Edda saga.

Eclectic early-season performances will include Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble on June 22^nd and 24^th, Mark Morris Dance Group on June 28^th-29^th, and Garrison Keillor in a Prairie Home Companion presentation on June 30^th.

And here’s something that wasn’t part of the Tanglewood season 75 years ago: free digital streams at tanglewood.org, distributed throughout the season and featuring 75 historic performances, as well as master classes taking place at the Music Center.

Tanglewood season concert listings can be found here.

Zoe Kemmerling is a recent graduate of the Boston Conservatory and a freelance violist, baroque violinist, writer, and string instructor. She is also an editorial assistant for BMInt.

Musical road trip, 1939 ( All photos courtesy of Sam Brewer and Bridget Carr, BSO)

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2012/01/28/tanglewood-75th-year/feed/ 4 http://classical-scene.com/2012/01/27/helio-charpentier/ http://classical-scene.com/2012/01/27/helio-charpentier/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:45:50 +0000 Janine Wanée http://classical-scene.com/?p=10927 David et Jonathas was a labor of love, and last night at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, a lucky audience got to enjoy the fruits of those efforts.    [continued]]]> For some truly blessed academics, scholarship is a lifelong love affair with a particular writer, poet, musician, historical figure, etc., or simply one project calling out to be delved into deeply and thoroughly. For Zoe Weiss and Dylan Sauerwald, revising and writing continuo for a working edition of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas was such a labor of love, and last night, on Thursday January 26^th at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, a lucky audience got to enjoy the fruits of those efforts. In the age of online facsimile, without having to travel, wonderful things are possible for scholars. Through the IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project), Weiss had access to an original source from which to carefully construct her own edition while Dylan Sauerwald wrote continuo.  This is their first full-scale production.

Sauerwald and Weiss wrote in their program letter of introduction, “We use period instruments, but modern staging because we feel that the music is best served by the instruments for which it was written and that the drama is best served by staging that resonates with our audience.” The orchestra was of ample size, with a luxurious collection of period instruments played by Boston’s notable and richly talented community of early musicians, while indeed, the stage and costumes were minimalist and sparse — the cast dressed in black with key players wearing colored sashes, while a suspended silk parachute picking up the light of a modern, fluorescent color-wheel provided a backdrop, and a small platform and multi-purpose throne situated upstage served for a set. The warmly renovated interior of the church with a hint of frankincense still lingering in the air provided the right atmosphere.

The first act begins with a battle beautifully staged by Fight Choreographer (and Stage Manager!) Kateri Chambers. Although the libretto is a love story between two soldiers, and the primary action of the story centers on war, all battles are  dance-like pantomimes among choristers with only the protagonist and antagonist bearing real arms, which are never used for actual fencing.  Such is the nature of a low-budget production, but although this approach may sound questionable in written description, it was a working and highly effective solution to training a co-ed cast to present themselves as warriors. It would have been more effective if more members of the cast had been better able to move like warriors, but one of the great challenges of opera performance is putting the kind of time into stage movement that is demanded of  singers just to master their instruments in addition to words and diction in a foreign language. And then there’s the music!

Jake Cooper, as Saul, King of Israel, is a powerful baritone whose role demands displays of passionate anger and jealousy.  His singing was strong and expressive, but as an actor, his bodily movements onstage wanted for focus.  One of the great pitfalls of operatic acting is the way in which long orchestral phrases interspersed between vocal ones are a recipe for leaving the singing-actor feeling “hung out to dry.” It appears Mr. Cooper struggles in this capacity for a sense of emotional and thus physical direction, but if he were to gather his posture with calm, still dramatic intent, he would be a charismatic force onstage who looks as professional as he sounds.

One of the great joys of this performance as an audience member was the pleasure of hearing a stunningly beautiful ensemble with impeccable intonation, both instrumentally and vocally, with such moving sensitivity to the early operatic French style. Given that this style calls for minimal vibrato and leaning delicately against ornamental appoggiaturas, young singers are often especially suited for this music. But there was an element of disparity in vocal power between the leads and smaller roles — some of these roles required stronger voices. Sophie Michaux had a more commanding presence and posture as a warrior than any other chorister, and made an equally graceful and mesmerizing masked sorceress. Her musicianship in the role of La Pythonisse was excellent, but the acoustical problems with the venue in which anything blocked upstage under the dome was easily lost, did not do justice to her lighter contralto voice. James Dargon’s Ghost of Samuel, a strong performance, also experienced acoustical difficulties.

Keith Lam as Achis, and Marcio de Oliveira as Joadab, possessed lighter voices, but with great stage presence. Lam was extremely memorable for having tremendous poise onstage and especially beautiful facial expression. Mr. de Oliveira, although smaller in stature for a warrior, sang his role as villainous traitor with fiery enthusiasm.

The highlight of this production, a most stunning performance in every way, was given by Mr. Owen McIntosh as David. Stylistically impeccable, beautiful to watch and possessing an athletic physique, his strong yet sweet tenor voice executed Charpentier’s exquisitely inspired phrases with deeply sensitive musicianship. He was the center piece of this production, and as a sought-after artist in the Boston area, he is ready to move up into the next level of what promises to be an exceptional career. People should hear him now while he is still a relatively hidden treasure. Linda Tsatsanas as Jonathas had a strong voice, comparable in power to McIntosh’s, and very musical in her solo work,  but stylistically not as nuanced in her sensitivity to the French style, and her physical movements and facial expressions were less compelling.

Praise must be given lastly regarding the overall musicianship of the chorus , which was highly polished both in ensemble and intonation. Weiss elongated the appoggiaturas in places to capitalize on their dissonances, in alignment with practices she observed in other Charpentier works. The overall effect was dazzling and not to be missed. Of the many fine chorister soloists, let me single out Claire Raphaelson. Although a gentler, softer singer, she had an exceptionally lovely tone quality,  and sensitivity to the music as well as stage presence, and Erika Vogel, for her notable duet in Act I.

Overall, the simplicity that Director Aria Umezawa brought to the staging of this opera was visually beautiful. Sauerwald and Weiss stated in their introduction that the story of David and Jonathas “captivated [them as]…powerfully relevant to today’s audience, particularly to the younger generations.” It is a love story between two men in the tradition of Greek tragedy, and prophetically, in the Romantic ilk of public duty and political upheaval trumping private fulfillment and leaving the individual spiritually bankrupt. It is a production done artfully and with great care that should not be missed. It would certainly be a tragedy if there were any vacant seats tonight.

Janine Wanée holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from University of Southern California and Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Boston University.  She is currently a member of the Copley Singers under Brian Jones.

At times, there were passages in the Beethoven that felt as though a bit more (lightness in the fifth movement, Presto) —sometimes a bit less (leaning on each and every note in the first movement’s fugue, Adagio ma non troppo e molto expressivo) —  could have still further heightened Beethoven’s late work’s thickly populated scheme. Besides that, all of the rest of their heady program, that included some of the most mature works around, made Jordan Hall a special space — the place to be. No doubt that for most, Zaïde has left its ineradicable footprint in Boston and the string quartet scene as a whole.

Zaïde also left its tracks with violinists Charlotte Juilliard and Pauline Fritsch flanked left and right respectively, leaving cellist Juliette Salmona and violist Sarah Chenaf between  them. Did the Mozart quartet suggest this? Recall that the composer’s Prussian quartets demand more cello participation while at the same time asking the viola to dip below in order to cover the bass lines usually taken up by the cello. But then why keep this arrangement for the Wolf and Beethoven? With Frisch’s violin facing away from us, certainly nothing at all was lost, power, nuance, and otherwise. But neither was experiencing this arrangement any trifling matter, so seemingly simple a reconfiguration it is.

In Hugo Wolf’s Serenade in G for String Quartet (Sérénade italienne), Zaïde could very well have been posing as that entire orchestra which we have heard in many of performances of the work. The quartet was composed in 1887 and later orchestrated in 1892. Zaïde inhabited the serenade with bigness and robustness, color gradations reaching from open, extroverted sunlight to delineated, introverted shadows.

Surrounding the lighter, shorter serenade were Mozart’s String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K.590 and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. If Zaïde’s Mozart mined jewels well beneath its surfaces, their Beethoven plotted scenarios well into the human interior. Just how could Zaïde’s jeunes françaises have pulled all of this off? Wouldn’t it be something to go behind the scenes of their concertizing to uncover more about their abundantly evident remarkable powers of persuasion?

The program brochure reads: “Since 2003 New England Conservatory and the ProQuartet-European Center for Chamber Music (ProQuartet-CEMC) have collaborated in a unique exchange program for exceptional young chamber ensembles.” “Exceptional,” “young” are both spot on, yet just begin to tell the emerging story of Quatuor Zaïde. Hopefully the four will retrace their steps in frequent future returns to Boston. Encore!

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

The ingenious founding director of the New Gallery Concert Series, gifted pianist Sarah Bob, has run one of the city’s ambitious and delightful music-and-art series for several years, and she and her musicians and artists show no signs of running out of serious talent and imagination.

The concert itself was a mixed affair: two solo artists performed perilously difficult works at the beginning and end, sandwiching  two lovely pieces for viola, piano and percussion. The opening piece was a curiosity. I had heard of F. Murray Schafer’s (b. 1933) The Crown of Ariadne but had never heard — or heard of — a live performance of it. It will be a required piece on the upcoming Israel Harp Contest, so a few brave people will learn it, but until then Ina Zdorovetchi’s performance will set the bar very high for those contestants. Written for the renowned Canadian harpist, Judy Loman, The Crown of Ariadne Suite for Harp, Percussion and Tape (1979) is a six-movement tour de force.  Ms. Zdorovetchi got hold of the music three weeks ago and played it like she had had months to work out its many technical difficulties. A longtime member of BMOP (a double concerto commissioned for her and cellist Holgen Gjoni is in the works for next fall), Ms. Zdorovechi is no stranger to modern music, but she is also completely at home with Bach, which I have heard her play with great elegance.

The harp here was surrounded by an artillery of atmospheric percussion — a bell tree, crotales, suspended cymbals, bongos, and wood blocks. Mr. Schafer really took the trouble to find out what a harp can do, and he used his learning to brilliant effect (it helps to have had Ina, a spectacular harpist). There were vibrato effects caused by pulling the string under the top notch at the highest spot,  countless harmonics (not one missed) scordatura, putting bells on her ankles to they would jingle as the feet beat out complicated rhythms, in the second movement, hitting the soundboard while playing with the right hand, and lots and lots of fast playing. There were pedal glissandi, fast stretches of double octaves (not fun; buzzing is a worry), and playing (in the last movement) with a tape of herself, full of echoes. I was, quite simply, in awe. Dazzling.

The two pieces for viola, piano (the admirable Sara Bob), and percussion (Aaron Trant) were very lovely and beautifully played. Mark Berger (b.1977) played a double role in the next piece as composer and violist. He explained that his piece, Kaleidoscope for viola, piano and percussion (2011) originated as a commission by Middlesex Community College with the stipulation that he tie it into the concept of environmental sustainability. (I am not kidding). So, he devised the solution: to “recycle” a piece of older music, in this case, J. S. Bach’s Sarabande from the Fifth Suite for Solo Violoncello. “I was interested in putting Bach’s music under the microscope to find new materials to explore…Bach is rendered completely unrecognizable.” And so it was, but I found Berger’s piece in its world premiere really pleasurable to hear. The next piece, after a long intermission (a great time to ask questions of the Magna Doodle artist) was also a world premier, dedicated to Ms. Bob and Mr. Trant. Frozen Junctions for viola, piano and percussion (2009) by Lior Navok (b. 1971) was a perfect companion piece to Mr. Berger’s, and both of these pieces were given the kind of performance a composer hopes for.

Finally, George Aperghi’s Recitations was sung, whispered, whimpered, and babbled by the intrepid soprano Jennifer Ashe. His score, the program notes said, look like doodles. What these fourteen brief movements sound like is another story. I think this is the kind of piece that really divides an audience — some love it, some find five minutes of it headache-inducing and wonder how the soprano keeps going. In her own way, Ms. Ashe had to go through as many hoops as Ms. Zdorovechi did earlier. The piece was a monodrama of what struck me as a madwoman whose fractured personality wass going to very audible pieces as we stood by in horror. There were peals of crazed laughter mixed with anger, rage, and babbling in no particular language, then some French, cries, lots of intakes of breath, calm talk escalating into superfast babbling, and talking punctuated by very high sung notes, followed by lots of “ha ha ha ha.” Personality changes took place every few seconds. Several people stood cheering at the conclusion. I sat morosely, wondering if Ms. Ashe actually enjoyed putting herself through these bizarre paces.  In any case, she did it all very convincingly.

 Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

The atmosphere at Monadnock Music, founded in 1966 by James Bolle, has seemed to visitors very much like “Our Town.” Gilbert stressed that she and Bagg, who have over 20 years of association with Monadnock Music between them, are “going right back to the grassroots — trying to engage as many people as we can, in as many ways with music… for our beautiful, humble, rural Monadnock Region.”

Gil Rose (BMOP file photo)

Opera Boston, on the other hand, which Rose joined in 2003, had devoted itself to becoming a main-stream opera destination. Will Chapman was in charge of development there, before becoming executive director of Monadnock Music last June, so he and Rose had worked together for seven years.

Chapman stresses, however, that not only will the mission of Monadnock Music — to “deepen a sense of community by means of diverse classical programming”— remain, but it will return to “what it used to do — a lot of early music, opera, orchestral music, concerti, vocal recitals, piano recitals, opera on stage, … Jim Bolle did Don Giovanni in 1980 with [Peter] Sellars, [James] Maddalena, at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. We have this legacy. I think Gil can do justice to it.”

Bagg and Gilbert, drawing upon over 100 letters they received after their dismissal, have set up a core group of supporters — prominent among them Monadnock-region residents Miki Osgood and Linda Harris and composer Melinda Wagner — and already have called upon some of the Monadnock performing regulars.

“Everyone is delighted to be asked,” asserted Gilbert. “The musicians are giving generously of their time. We are paying them, but a modest amount. We are having to start small; it is a pay-as-you-go sort of festival. … People have to feel they are part of the organization, so we are engaging a lot of volunteers to be working for us and with us.” She and Bagg, she says, plan to go to Monadnock three or four day a month, “much more starting in May.”

Rose will continue programming of Boston Modern Opera Project in the Boston area during the regular concert season but will be able to go to Monadnock for meetings with its staff with relative ease. He is well known in the Boston area for his commitment to contemporary music with his innovative, imaginative programming for BMOP, which he founded in 1996, and which has received many favorable notices and several Grammy nominations. He has featured the music of Louis Andriessen, Derek Bermel, John Cage, Robert Erickson, Lukas Foss, Charles Fussell, Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, David Lang, Tod Machover, Steven Mackey, Steven Paulus, David Rakowski, Bernard Rands, George Rochberg, Elena Ruehr, Gunther Schuller, Reza Vali, and Evan Ziporyn. Two seasons ago, Rose entertained audiences at Jordan Hall with “bad boy” George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique, a recording of which, according to Rose, is coming out this summer.

Although he used to play clarinet, he “makes no claims to do it now.” A Tanglewood Fellow in 1994-1995, he has conducted the American Composers Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine, (et alii) and he has made several appearances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.

Jonathan Bagg (file photo)

Bagg, a professor at Duke University, has been a member of the Ciompi String Quartet for 25 years, in a career that included hundreds of concerts across the U.S. and abroad, in Europe, China, Israel, and South America, as well as over a dozen recordings. American Record Guide hailed him as “an excellent violist who approaches the music with intelligence, passion, and clarity.”

Gilbert, a flutist, joined Monadnock Music in 1995. She has performed around the world as chamber musician, soloist, recitalist and guest lecturer in addition to founding and performing with Aureole, a trio comprised of flute, viola and harp.

On the face, it does not seem that the two groups will interfere with each other, at least for a while.

Electric Earth’s concerts have been planned so that five precede MM’s season: the first in July is mid-week, and the ones for August and September are after MM’s season. At the First Church in Jaffrey Center, there will be two concerts: on February 27, music from Dowland to Rorem with guitar, flute, violin, piano, and soprano then Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata played by Rieko Aizawa, piano; and on April 1, the Ciompi Quartet, in music of Mozart, Beethoven, Foote, and Dvorák. In early May there will be a fund-raising evening of Kurt Weil with Lauren Flanigan, soprano. A new chamber group, the Horszowski Trio, will make its debut in New Hampshire with two concerts, one on June 14 with music of Dvorák and Haydn (so far), and on June 16, with Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Brahms. On July 17, the Borromeo Quartet will appear in a concert preceded by George Gopen, delivering T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece “Four Quartets,” a work inspired by Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 132. Projected for late August, when the MM season is over, is “Twilight of the Romantics,” German Romanticism from Brahms’s early symphonic Serenade to Wagner’s only song cycle, performed by a chamber ensemble under German conductor Andreas Delfts; and in September, Choreographer Cherylyn Lavagnino and her modern ballet dancers and photographer Betsy Weis partner with Music for the Mountain musicians for a multi-faceted reflection on Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp and Rameau’s Pièces de Clavecin.

Laura Gilbert (file photo)

Rose’s duties — spelled out by Monadnock’s Executive Director Will Chapman (“season programming, engaging artists, conducting on occasion, and helping to design and oversee education and outreach programs, among other duties”) — begin with this summer season. They do include the free community concerts at different venues, so Rose plans to visit them all, to get “my feet on the ground for how much we can do on the budget.“I want to do music that can be sacred to the venues,  like an Episcopal church he visited that had an “old-world early-music feel” that is suitable to chamber or choral music. Asked if he plans to use the same musicians long affiliated w/ MM, he responded, “Yes, absolutely”; and he wants to “recapture ideas that Bolle had… but it depends on how fast we can raise the money.”

Electric Earth has more work ahead of it than the already-established Monadnock Music. Bagg and Gilbert have plans to do “serious fundraising. … particularly coming off such an experience during the last year, when collaborative discussion deteriorated, we want to go extremely slowly. We want people to see what we are about. People who would be good board will emerge.”

Where there may be potential conflict is in out-reach programs, which are so important to organizations for attracting funds. Monadnock Music has an impressive track record with its program, “Lend an Ear.” To be determined is how both groups will succeed.

Chapman, asked if there will be some drawing away by Electric Earth from Monadnock Music’s traditional base, said “I don’t think it is going to have any bearing on anything at all. As to why the new group was formed, he said, “Of course, they have to do it out of love. Musicians do not do what they do out of love for money. On average.”

Editor’s Note: BMInt published an earlier article on changes in Monadnock Music here.

The Schnittke piece, which opened the program, was larger than the Pärt by every conceivable metric, based on a turbulent (if somewhat loquacious) text by the medieval Armenian monk Grigor Narekatsi. It was longer, but also more variegated, with sudden shifts to new key areas, as rumblings and sighs suddenly gave way to clarion major triads (one of the piece’s most effective techniques), evoking another choral masterwork by Schnittke, the Psalms of Repentance. Schnittke also employed the robust, low voicings of the Russian choral tradition, most remarkably in the third movement.

Pärt’s Berlinner Messe is much more modest in scope, and for this humility it shone more clearly, its crystalline harmonies hovering in serene contemplation, punctuated by the precise playing of organist Ian Watson. The text is that of the traditional Latin mass, with the addition of a “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” traditionally sung at Pentecost. Pärt thoughtfully includes options for the music leading into this section, depending on the liturgical season; in this case the text for Easter was sung.

The forces of this wide-ranging performance were ideally suited to the First Church sanctuary, over fifty singers filling the space with glorious sound. At several points in the Schnittke, the choir rose to a reverberant climax, but perhaps even more impressive for a group of this size were the hushed passages at the end of the Concerto’s second movement, or the Messe’s numinous alleluias.

And despite mild protestations to the contrary in the program notes, the Pärt and Schnittke pieces shared some illuminating commonalities. Both works prominently employed sustained pedal tones as a reference point against which other melodies might be set in relief. For Schnittke, these sustained tones served as a kind of wedge, to fracture a scale and excavate new lodes of harmony, providing a mystical glimpse into alternate dimensions. For Pärt, on the other hand, these tones were used as a basis for the shifting spectral effects that have been the basis of his mature style, inspired by the overtones of bells.

The Berliner Messe is unquestionably the better known of the two pieces on the program, amply represented in recordings. However, the second movement of Schnittke’s Concerto has also achieved fame in a different guise; in an arrangement for string quartet, it closes the Kronos Quartet’s 1997 album Early Music, an exemplary collection that also features Pärt’s Fratres, suggesting that this pairing of composers is not so far-fetched after all.

Straying from the formula has served the Cantata Singers well in the past. As the Boston Symphony Orchestra concluded its two season survey of the symphonies of John Harbison with the premiere of his Sixth just last week, it is worth recalling that the Cantata Singers’ first new music commission, Harbison’s The Flight into Egypt, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Music (and they have recorded a thrilling account on New World Records). The Cantata Singers promise a return to the music of Bach, that inexhaustible wellspring, for their upcoming 50^th anniversary season (a move Harbison himself would likely condone, as he is currently embroiled with Bach Institute activities at Emmanuel Music; closing concert Tuesday evening!). But first, two more enticing programs await in the current season: a concert on the theme of The Passion on March 18 (including Bach’s Cantata BWV 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden) and a program of music by New England composers on May 12.

Ben Houge, who teaches video game music at Berklee College of Music and Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts, is currently an artist in residence at MIT, where he will present his work with the Media Lab’s Responsive Environments group in a panel discussion on February 15.

Shiny crania versus hirsute (Stu Rosner photo)

The principal players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra are all exalted musicians. When they gather as the BSO Chamber Players, they are certain to make music on a very high level.  Their execution is never less that super-refined. This year their programming is geographically themed, with previous forays in some out-of-the-way places. On the past Sunday in Jordan Hall though, we were serenaded in Austro-German style by works of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms—not much of a geographic stretch!

Mozart’s top-drawer Serenade in C minor, K.388 (384a), for two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons, got things started. The movements alternated Mozart’s pathos with his humor and light. Some moments sounded quite volkish, but the scary Commendatore always hovered, sending his warning themes from an icy depth. The players adopted a somewhat early-music approach with limited vibrato and rather too much refinement for my taste. Some raucous moments such as those one hears with early authentic instrument ensembles might have better suited the piece.

The middle of the programatic sandwich was meatless early Beethoven, his familiar Serenade in D for flute, violin, and viola, Op. 25, which we all have heard so often in elevators and cocktail receptions that even the lively and attentive performances by flutist Elizabeth Rowe, violinist Malcolm Lowe, and violist Steven Ansell, could not redeem it from occasional-music status.

The seating for Alan Boustead’s nonet arrangement of Brahms’s Serenade No. 1 in D, Op. 11, was in the shape of narrow horseshoe with James Sommerville in the middle. The string players on the left were almost in a straight line which, although giving an appropriate soloistic prominence to Malcom Lowe, also made for a generous blend for the three other strings: violist Steven Ansell, cellist Jules Eskin, and double bass Edwin Barker.

After the chirpy Beethoven, what a pleasure it was to be in Brahms’s beery world. In this hefeweissbier reduction from the orchestral arrangement, all of the froth was maintained while the clarity was enhanced. Here, finally, the players let down their hair a bit and succumbed to the surging and urgency endemic in the master’s best works, perhaps also because they have played Boustead’s arrangement several times before. Stylistically the players served Brahms’s passion with juicier tone and more throbbing vibrato. There were qualities of pleasure, surprise and momentum that had not been so noticeable in the Beethoven and the Mozart.

With the exception of Edwin Barker, who provided the cheerfully dependable foundation, all of the players had predictably excellent solo opportunities. Of course, Malcolm Lowe and James Sommerville played superbly, and there were no less ravishing moments from the others, especially clarinetist William R. Hudgins and oboist John Ferrillo.

In the opinion of this experienced chamber music presenter, though, the program order was poorly planned. The Beethoven serenade should have been the sprightly opener with deeper Mozart and Brahms works following in order of musical substance and weight.

Lee Eiseman is the publisher of the Intelligencer.

Emily Bruskin, Violin; Julia Bruskin, Cello; Andrea Lam, Piano (Michael J. Lutch photo)

Last Sunday afternoon a sold-out crowd eagerly listened as Claremont Trio played in the new Calderwood Hall at the Gardner Museum. This article relates my experience listening to the performance from the first balcony in front of the musicians. My experience there was good – not great. Listeners in other areas of the first balcony had a much more variable experience, and on the whole they were disappointed. Balance between the strings and the piano was poor, with the strings often inaudible. Comments from people I trust who listened from seats on the floor were uniformly very good. I was unable to determine how people perceived the balance in the two higher balconies. The purpose of this article is to at least partly explain why the sound was so variable, and what might or might not be possible to do about it.

The Claremont is a treat to hear, and their recording of the Mendelssohn Trio in D minor Op. 49 is a family favorite. I was very eager to hear them play it live. To make the performance even more interesting, this was the first performance I have heard with their new pianist, Andrea Lam. (Donna Kwong is taking a break for a stint as a new mother.) BMInt had arranged for reviewer’s tickets, and I was assigned by the museum to the first balcony. My first problem – where to sit? The piano (with the cover removed) was at a 45° angle to the walls of the cube, facing the right-hand entrance door of the balcony.  There were several seats on the entrance wall looking down at the front of the group, just where I guessed the best sound for this trio would be, and I took one.

As you probably know, the balcony seats are surrounded by a thin wooden rail, angled to give the least possible interference with the view of the stage. Below the rail is a clear glass panel, angled almost imperceptibly downwards, presumably to prevent flutter echoes. (These would not have been problematic in a hall of this width.) Interestingly, my neighbors on either side mentioned that they were quite uncomfortable sitting just in front of the clear window. There was an irrepressible fear of falling through to the floor below, and the fear made them sink back into their seats. One of them said the fear of falling could be conquered by placing a foot against the window. The physical contact somehow convinced the body that there was an obstruction. I don’t know how many others in the balconies felt this way – but I suspect they were numerous.

When the trio arrived on stage I found I was looking directly at the top of the violin. (This is good.) The cello faced away from me, at about a 45° angle from my view. If I sat back in the seat the cello was behind the glass window. (This is not good.)

Lofty view of Claremont Trio (Michael J. Lutch photo)

The set opened with the Piano Trio in C Major K 548 by Mozart. To my ears while sitting back in my seat, the piano was unusually clear, with a great, well balanced, and rather too strong sound. I could hear the violin fine throughout the concert, but when I sat back in my seat the cello was nearly always inaudible. So I sat forward, in order to see the body of the cello over the balcony rail. This was much better. Whenever the cello had a line not doubled by the piano, it was audible, although a bit weak. For the second movement, I sat further forward on the chair, so I could see not only the body of the cello, but also the (invisible) reflection of the body on the floor. (The floor is nearly perfectly reflective for sound, but not for light.) The reflected energy comes soon enough after the direct sound from the cello to add about three decibels to the loudness without decreasing clarity. Sure enough, the cello balance got quite noticeably better, but the strings were still weaker than I would have liked. Fortunately my back is strong enough to sit upright on the edge of my seat for the whole concert, and this is what I did.

The Claremont played the Mozart with perfect ensemble and a light gay touch. If the balance had been a bit better and my sitting position more comfortable, I would have been thoroughly delighted.  The next piece on the program was “Trio” by Sean Shepherd, commissioned for the Claremont in honor of the opening of the Calderwood Hall. It was in three movements, the first and last were interesting and full of humor, the middle movement, titled “Calderwood” was lyrical, starting and ending with a lovely solo for cello. The piece was fun and not too long. What more could anyone want! There was a lot of solo string work in the piece, and I did not notice any serious balance problems.

The last piece was the Piano Trio in D minor Op. 49 by Mendelssohn, very familiar to me from the Claremont recording. I again sat upright on the edge of the seat looking down for the whole performance without complaint, although somewhere in the Scherzo my neck got quite stiff, and I had to move my head around. I looked around the balconies to see who was leaning on the rail or sitting as close as possible. About 20 (of ~200) were leaning on the rail, perhaps as many more sitting (possibly uncomfortably) close. On the whole the performance was very good. Andrea Lam is a spectacular pianist, and the Bruskin twins played with their usual precision and sense of line. I was happy, if a bit uncomfortable physically.

After the concert I spoke with as many people as I could about what they had heard. One friend in the first balcony moved from a seat directly across from mine at the side and partially behind the musicians to an empty seat in front of the group. She said the sound in the first seat was very poor, with both strings nearly inaudible. The frontal seat was much better. Another friend in a similar position also said he could seldom hear the strings and added the additional information that leaning over the rail made very little difference. I was able to confirm that when sitting back in his position the instruments could be seen above the balcony rail, so leaning forward would not have made much difference. I did not find someone from the area of the balcony further behind the musicians, but I doubt his experience was better.

When the concert ended I was able to talk to people who had listened from the floor. They uniformly thought the sound was perfectly balanced. One of them – looking at me in sitting in the first balcony – thought that next time he should try to get a ticket there. Maybe he should – but probably not for a concert involving a piano and strings.

Claremont Trio with composer Sean Shepherd (Michael J. Lutch photo)

I have great respect for architect Renzo Piano and acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, the designers of the hall. They have dared to do something original without having had the opportunity to test it beforehand. Engineering and Physics do not work like that. The sudden inspiration that solves a problem only comes to a mind prepared by months and sometimes years of partial success and failure. Tools for testing architectural acoustics are still crude and unreliable. The data you would need even to crudely simulate the sound of the Calderwood Hall are unavailable or suspect. With hindsight we can see at least a few of the details that could be improved. The first of these, of course, are the glass fronts of the balcony rails. Could someone without a degree of vertigo have predicted that many would find the vision of the floor beneath their feet uncomfortable? I am probably not one of them. Piano made the rest of the building out of rectilinear metal and glass. How could he not use the same material for the balcony fronts? And Scott Nickrenz wanted a venue where the audience could easily see each other, making a concert a community experience as well as a musical one.

Alternatives exist, of course. You need something acoustically and visually transparent that looks solid enough to feel absolutely safe. The cast-iron balcony fronts of Boston Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall fill most, but not all, of these requirements. With hindsight a rectilinear version of the Boston Symphony balcony fronts made from thinner metal might have done the job.

But even leaning over the balcony rails did not solve the balance problem for me in the Claremont concert. We must always remember that instruments do not radiate sound equally in all directions, and that both chamber music and orchestral music performance practice has evolved to mitigate these directional properties to some degree. Balance problems still remain. The frequencies from 1000Hz to 4000Hz that define the timbre of instruments occupy only a two-octave segment of the ten or so octaves that we can hear. String instruments radiate these frequencies chiefly from the top plate and direct them perpendicular to that surface. The sides of the instruments are made of thicker wood, and radiate very little. The back radiates some – but not as much as the top. The conventional string quartet arrangement with the viola on the audience right favors the violins, as they point their tops to the audience. The arrangement the Borromeo uses, with the second violin on the right, brings to viola to the fore, leaving the second violin to try to remember to play louder than he or she might think appropriate, given what they are hearing from the other instruments.

Orchestras typically play in large halls, and large halls are reverberant. Sound that is not directed to the audience typically hits surfaces that eventually direct it into the audience. The loudness of sound in a large hall comes chiefly from these reflections, since there are a great many of them. Clarity suffers, but loudness and balance become less dependent on the directionality of the instrument. Calderwood Hall is not reverberant. As I noted in the previous review, the corner reflectors formed by the under-balcony surfaces reflect sound back down to the floor, creating a kind of reverberation and improving the balance between instruments. But in the balconies the majority of the loudness comes from the sound that travels directly upward. As a consequence clarity is unusually good, but balance becomes uneven.

When I heard a rehearsal of A Far Cry, the balance (although not the clarity) was good all the way around the third balcony, at least if one looked over the balcony rail. This is because all the instruments had similar directionality. I did not hear the combination of piano and strings, where the difference in directionality is huge.

A piano radiates the frequencies of 1000Hz to 4000Hz from the top of the sound board. In a conventional hall with a piano cover at full stick, these frequencies are bounced prominently into the audience, where they are enjoyed. The top blocks these frequencies from filling the stage house and the upper reaches of the hall, increasing the relative strength of the direct sound and improving clarity.

Claremont Trio Celebrates (Michael J. Lutch photo)

But in the Calderwood a piano cover at full stick will direct all the brightness to one side, and much of the balcony will be in shadow. So the top is removed. Then what? Suddenly we are outside a hundred years of performance practice. How can we proceed?  Musicians can learn to make the balance good for some people – but for all?

Pianists look down on the sounding board and get some of the brightness and loudness of their playing. But most of it goes up to the balconies. The sound in seats on the floor is largely the sound from the bottom of the piano, which lacks brightness and sounds muddy. String players, accustomed to the sound bouncing off the cover, are suddenly uncomfortable, uncertain as to how loud they should play. A friend told me that the Claremont players struggled to be comfortable with the cover off. Their success at achieving a perfect balance for the people on the floor indicates that they succeeded – but only for the people on the floor. To do it, the strings probably had to play a bit softer than they were used to, and the piano a bit louder. The folks in the balcony – at least those not in front of the top surfaces of the instruments – ended up not being able to hear the strings.

A string quartet, on the other hand, is all strings, and the players can all hear each other. There is sufficient reverberation on the floor that they will feel in familiar territory and are very likely to give a great performance. I don’t think balance will be a problem anywhere in the hall. The same appears to be at least partly true for A Far Cry.

I wish I could pull out a magical solution for the combination of piano and strings. We need an acoustically semi-transparent cover for the piano that directs sound both upward and laterally in all directions. In addition it must be visually transparent and sufficiently traditional-looking that we will actually employ it. I suspect something like this could be designed. It won’t work the first time. Patience is required, but we now have a hall we can use for testing. Don’t go away. The Calderwood Hall is very promising – and still a work in progress.

Note: This is a follow-up to David Griesinger’s previous BMInt article here.

David Griesinger is a Harvard-trained physicist who is eminent in the field of sound and music. His website is here.

Daniel Kohane’s Obsession possessed similar dark tendencies, but without as much clarity or drive. While the piece centered on an engagingly jagged, percussive piano riff (Sekino) countered by contrasting motifs in the cello (Michael Curry), the initial energy culminated in a breathless, mildly frenzied pile-up of materials before a denouement of twisty melody.

The first half of the concert concluded with Zhou Jing’s trio, Stuck in the Middle, featuring the composer playing the guzheng, a Chinese zither with moveable bridges that facilitate pitch bending. Throughout the work, the guzheng took center stage, with Jing displaying a wonderful range of timbres and techniques on the instrument. Even after the solo that opened the piece, Jing’s masterful playing led the way through the juxtaposition of serene and cacophonous textures. The viola (Anne Black), whose part was adapted from the original erhu (Chinese fiddle) part, adhered most closely to the guzheng’s lead, with portamento in imitation of typical Chinese phrasing, while the clarinet’s lines, played by Katherine Matasy,  provided contrast and a touch of Western aesthetics. While Stuck in the Middle was overall an abstract piece of bold gestures, it was the more serene moments that allowed the audience to fully enjoy the interplay between the instruments.

After intermission, Dinosaur Annex continued the concert with Paul Kerekes’ Hail for flute, cello and piano (Hershman-Tcherepnin, Curry and Sekino). His somewhat minimalist piece was built on a high-register, staccato piano riff that sounded in one variation or another throughout the entire piece. Against the opening piano ostinato, flute and pizzicato cello offered offset rhythms, reminding the listener of the precipitation evoked by the title. As the cello moved from pizzicato to sustained bowed notes, the rhythm of the piano riff was augmented, causing the piece to slow down and mellow as the three instrumental parts came into sync. Yet the ever-present bright timbres and piano pulse never quite let Hail come to rest.

In Transients, Davide Ianni  chamber work for flute, clarinet, and cello (Hershman-Tcherepnin, Matasy and Curry),  he created a powerfully dark, feathery, and breathy sound world from extended instrumental techniques and stabs of unexpected harmonies and melodic fragments. These gestures swung from subtle and airy to piercing and aggressive. While some shifts may have seemed abrupt, Transients displayed an ingenious construction in which sounds emerged from one another or coalesced into fascinating new combinations punctuated by well timed bursts of activity.

Dinosaur Annex concluded their Young Composers Concert with Gabriella Smith’s Away, You Rolling River, for pairs of flutes, clarinets, violas and cellos plus percussion, conducted by Dinosaur’s Co-Music Director Yu-Hui Chang. For each pair of instruments, a core member of the ensemble (Hershman-Tcherepnin, Matasy, Black and Curry, respectively, plus Robert Schulz, percussion) was joined by a student musician from a variety of local high schools. The roster included Molly Lowrie, flute, from the Commonwealth School, Joyce Zhu, from Acton-Boxborough, Lauren Brown, viola from The Rivers School, and Lex Mamuya from Roxbury Latin. This piece’s flowing soundscape was propelled by a muted strumming and percussion groove from which evocative swooping glissando gestures and hints of the folk song Shenandoah emerged. As the piece reached its climax, this tune broke down into rough cries from the winds and a downward slide that slowed until the percussion groove reappeared. As the piece gathered new momentum, Shenandoah made another appearance with fresh timbres. Finally, the percussion faded away, allowing the piece, and the concert as a whole, to come to a gratifying and restful close. Not only was Away, You Rolling River sonically satisfying, but it was adeptly written so as to give both the students and professionals a chance to show off their skill and ingenuity.

Stefanie Lubkowski is a composer and doctoral candidate at Boston University. She is very active in the Boston new music scene and sits on the board of the New Gallery Concert Series.

The difficulty, known by all present in the hall and keenly felt by every young player on stage, was not the music, but the missing presence of their mentor, the person who had rehearsed them, encouraged them and ultimately inspired them, their long-time leader Benjamin Zander, whom circumstances had forced to leave the Conservatory, as anyone who has read the news lately knows. You could read it on these young faces as they came on to the platform Friday night. Some looked tired, some sad, some dejected, some numb. Yet, there they were, on stage, ready to give what they could to a program of wonderful music. And, give they surely did.

The program that Zander had planned and rehearsed, which remained intact, was to open with the zippy and virtuosic Overture to La Forza del Destino by Giuseppe Verdi. Instead, the orchestra members decided to play, conductorless, the “Nimrod” movement from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. This orchestra has a long history with this particular piece. For years, at the end of the final concert of the orchestra’s season, Zander would proudly introduce to his audience those “senior”(!) members of the orchestra who were graduating and moving on to the beginnings of their professional careers. After these introductions, the orchestra would then end their season with “Nimrod,” leaving nary a dry eye in the house as a result.* As one might imagine, the associations for these players – the piece itself, so rich and moving, the composer, so purely British-sounding – and, of course, their conductor, himself British and so inspiring to them – were strong and compelling. At the time of Friday’s concert, I was unaware of this ensemble’s “history” with this music and was amazed with their ability to bring it off so well without a leader to guide them. Later, of course, aware of the recent circumstances, I was very moved by this tribute. Knowing now of the players’ familiarity with this music, it makes their homage to Zander all that more poignant.

But it was also evident that these players were ready to move on. Two estimable members of the NEC Orchestra Conducting faculty were deputized to lead each half of the original concert. Hugh Wolff, the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras, NEC College, led a fiery reading of the Verdi overture, and an equally thrilling performance of the Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67. Each performance made no concession to the tender years of these players. Wolff’s tempi were brisk and demanding, exactly right from my point of view, and the players rose to the occasion with inspired musicmaking. Particular kudos are due to oboist Kelly Alexander, who played the famous cadenza in the Beethoven’s first movement with remarkable aplomb and beauty of tone, and to Sarah Purdy, clarinet, and Jacob Thonis, bassoon, each of whom brought clear-headed concentration and lovely timbre to their playing. Konrad Herath led a heroic ensemble of French Horns, and Jonah Ellsworth brought commanding concentration and section unanimity of sound and purpose to his leading of the ‘cello section. The progression from the Andante con moto movement through the Scherzo Allegro and its elided Allegro finale reminded me why this fabulous symphony is so justly popular. What an amazing construction it is! Special bravos go to Maestro Wolff, whose short-notice direction inspired such a committed performance. And, bless him, he played the fourth movement’s rarely heard exposition repeat.

After intermission, David Loebel, Associate Director of Orchestras, NEC College led two movements from Michael Gandolfi’s seven-movement The Garden of Cosmic Speculation and, for good measure, Claude Debussy’s La Mer.

The two Gandolfi movements – “The Zeroroom” and “Soliton Waves” – impressed with this composer’s usual high-minded creativity and energy, and made one want to dash on-line to order Robert Spano the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s CD of the entire piece. I haven’t always been this taken with Gandolfi’s work, and it was heartening to see him in the audience, attentive and appreciative of the hard work this ensemble put forth in realizing his music. He seemed quite happy with the results, as did the audience, which gave him a strong ovation. Though the YPO made this music “sound easy,” this was tricky and demanding repertoire.

The evening came to an atmospheric and brilliant close with a finely paced reading of Debussy’s La Mer. Maestro Lobel led precisely and clearly with many an encouraging smile to his players. Though by now fatigue surely must have been weighing upon them, they rose to the occasion with a remarkable performance. The famous cello divisi section of the first movement was played with uncommon rhythmic accuracy and beauty of tone, and the woodwinds played with flexible fluidity and attention to detail. The huge string sections (19 first violins, 20 seconds, 17 violas, and 16 ‘cellos) were attendant to every nuance urged from them by Debussy and Maestro Loebel. And what a plush sound they made!

Perhaps inclement weather contributed to the surprisingly small audience size? Bostonians need to come out and support this worthy ensemble in greater number than were present this past Friday. These players deserve all the support they can muster. I was amazed to learn that the NEC Preparatory School, of which the YPO is the elite ensemble, sponsors ELEVEN separate orchestras! New England should be very proud of its remarkable Conservatory.

Leaving Jordan Hall, I remarked to my concert companion that events such as this renewed my tottering faith in “the younger generation.” Go next time (June 1, 2012 – FREE admission!), and hear for yourself – you’ll be very glad you did.

* Special thanks to Ellen Pfeiffer, NEC Public Relations Manager, for this detail.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

BCMS violinist Harumi Rhodes and pianist Mihae Lee with cellist Michael Reynolds.

Devotés of unjustly neglected music (I count myself among them) were given a belated Christmas present by the Boston Chamber Music Society at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. Sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Boston, BCMS and the MIT Music and Theater Arts Faculty presented Exiled to Hollywood: Outcast Artists in Southern California, with works by five such composers. The significant migration of artists and scholars who fled Fascism in Europe in the 1930s has been a hot topic of the last 20 years.

With well over 200 opus numbers, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an exceptionally prolific composer, even excluding the 200-plus movies for which he supplied music. Though his output includes many genres, he is today remembered largely as a composer for guitar and as the teacher of André Previn, Henry Mancini, and John Williams, among others. Violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist Michael Reynolds, and pianist Mihae Lee gave us a richly colored performance of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 70. Written in the early 1930s before the composer emigrated, its style might be termed “post-Romantic,” expressively chromatic but firmly rooted in tonality. The first movement, played with a unanimous, supple rubato, had fine atmosphere, though Lee was perhaps a tad deferential to the strings: the trio didn’t always seem like three equal partners. The second movement, Romanza con variazioni, displayed the composer’s ingenuity of variation technique, sensitively realized here. The final Rondo began with an agitated tarantella character, relaxed in the middle, then built up to an exciting conclusion. The BCMS players made a strong case for a reassessment of the full scope of this composer’s oeuvre.

The next group made for a very stark contrast. The talented composer Hanns Eisler was a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg but is not a household name today, possibly owing to his Marxist affiliation and his belief that “music should not stir the emotions but rather be functional, applicable, ‘used for the theatre, cinema, cabaret, television, public events, etc.’” (Program notes by Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot.) Alone among these five composers in the concert, Eisler fled the Nazis because he was a Communist, and some years later, after being blacklisted by Hollywood, was deported from the U.S. for the very same reason. His most important collaborator was the writer Bertolt Brecht, who shared his political philosophies. Baritone Chris Pedro Trakas and pianist Randall Hodgkinson gave dramatic accounts of 16 selections from the Hollywood Songbook, whose texts largely concern the plight of political dissidents and refugees. These terse settings rather undermine Eisler’s ideal of functional, non-emotional music. Between the pain and anger permeating nearly all these texts and the intense delivery of Trakas and Hodgkinson, whether vehement or understated, the songs’ power to disturb was indisputable. To cite several highlights: Über den Selbstmord (“About suicide”), discussing times when miserable people are most tempted to end their lives, was mostly pianissimo and eerily seductive, with a jolting subito fortissimo on the final word (“throw their unendurable life away”). In Jeden Morgen . . . the artists fully conveyed Brecht’s mordant humor when describing the life of a screenwriter (or film composer): “Every morning to earn my bread, I go to the market where lies are peddled. Filled with hope, I line up with the other peddlers.” And we were made to feel the anguished irony of Die Heimkehr (The homecoming), a title used often enough in celebratory fashion by various 19th-century lieder composers, but here describing a return to a barely identifiable native city, enveloped in smoke and flame, just after the departure of “swarms of bombers.” One would expect mostly atonal settings of angry or morose texts to be a trial for the listener, but Trakas and Hodgkinson made a riveting theatrical experience of them.

As with Maurice Ravel and his Bolero, Ernst Toch found himself best known for a piece he considered an “unimportant diversion,” his Geographical Fugue for spoken chorus. However, he was another highly productive composer in nearly all genres who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Though he was a veteran of World War I, as a Jew he was compelled to leave Germany by Hitler’s rise to power. Rhodes and Hodgkinson played Toch’s atonal Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 44, from 1928, when he was still enjoying considerable success in the German musical avant garde. The first movement opened savagely — the tempo marking is Trotzig, anstürmend (“Defiant, charging”) — but progressed to imitative writing. Much of the musical interest is derived from the way the two instruments collaborate, sometimes independently, even at cross-purposes, other times in close concert. The sonata is seasoned throughout by flirtations with tonality and, particularly in the latter two movements, the composer’s permutations of rhythm. Rhodes’s and Hodgkinson’s playing was assured and polished, particularly the thrilling fiery conclusion which harkens back to the sonata’s beginning.

Louis Gruenberg was the one composer on this program who was not properly an “exile”; he was born in 1884 in Brest-Litovsk (now in Belarus, but then in Russia), but his family emigrated to New York when he was a few months old. He nonetheless crossed the Atlantic repeatedly to study and perform (he was a gifted pianist) in Vienna and Berlin until the arrival of World War I. Gruenberg’s charmingly titled Four Indiscretions, Op. 20, for string quartet, supplied a refreshing touch of levity in the program, as superbly played by violinists Ida Levin and Rhodes, violist Roger Tapping, and cellist Michael Reynolds. Though always interested in the latest compositional techniquest — the composer was a longtime close friend of Schoenberg’s — Gruenberg concentrated mostly on cultivating his “American idiom,” strongly influenced by ragtime, jazz, and spirituals. The first of the four pieces had the feel of a hoedown whose infectious fun was sprinkled with “wrong” notes. The slow movement gives the spotlight successively to each member of the quartet, who all shone both as soloists and ensemble members. The third piece has a jocular first violin part, but there is throughout an enjoyable alternation of the whimsical and the sober. The final piece is pompous and comical, with many laughs quite literally written into the music, and it would be hard to say who was enjoying themselves more, audience or quartet. According to the program notes, the Indiscretions are unrecorded; they would seem to be strong candidates for BCMS’s next recording.

The BCMS ensemble: violinists Ida Levin and Harumi Rhodes, violist Roger Tapping, pianist Mihae Lee, guest cellist Michael Reynolds, and violist Roger Tapping

The most famous of these exiled artists is the Austrian Erich Wolfgang Korngold, widely hailed as the foremost compositional child prodigy of his age. The Jewish Korngold had the good fortune to have just arrived in Hollywood when the annexation of Austria occurred. We heard first one of hisAbschiedslieder, Op. 14, (Songs of Farewell), Mond, so gehst du wieder auf (“Moon, thus you rise again”). The song on the surface is largely subdued, but there is a pronounced undercurrent of melancholy longing, even burning, skillfully brought out by the performers, Chris Pedro Trakas and Lee. The music only occasionally rose above mezzo piano, but the artists limned many nuances within the limited dynamic range.

The concert closed with Korngold’s Piano Quintet in E Major, Op. 15, sumptuously played by Levin, Rhodes, Tapping, Reynolds, and Lee. The work is replete with the composer’s characteristically rich harmonies and colors. Its emotional crux is the middle Adagio, whose theme is borrowed from the song previously heard. Here Korngold is painting on a larger canvas, and the theme is given considerably more development. We heard some beautifully delicate string playing from the quartet, combined with Lee’s velvety pianissimo piano sound, as well as an exquisite violin solo from Levin. A gradual build-up led to an extended climax before tapering off to a whispered ending that held the audience enthralled. The raging opening of the final movement in strings’ bare octaves soon unexpectedly transitioned to more playful music though the passion never disappeared altogether and reemerged fully in the brilliant coda. Bravo to BCMS and MIT for blowing the dust off some musical treasures that have been neglected for too long.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach, and choir member at Trinity Church, Copley Square and in the Back Bay Chorale.

Conductor Federico Cortese with (L-R) Neil Ferreira, Bardolfo; Melissa Parks, Mistress Quickly; Maria Todaro, Meg Page; Caitlin Lynch, Alice Ford; Louis Otey -kneeling, Sir John Falstaff with H&H Chorus (Michael J. Lutch photo)

Yesterday’s performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge was one of the most exciting musical events I’ve attended in years. All parts of this operatic performance were scintillating, but the most astounding aspect was the accomplishment of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras under Federico Cortese’s direction. The BYSO, established under the umbrella of the Boston University College of Fine Arts, has served to train young orchestra players in the greater Boston area since 1958.

Confession at the outset: most Italian opera fails to interest me much, and I recognize this as a critical failing, so let no one upbraid me for not being an expert. But Falstaff is a resplendent exception which I love without reservation. Falstaff is a masterpiece among masterpieces, and fascinating testimony to a great composer’s ability to compose better and better the older he gets. As one who had spent his life writing for the opera theater and mastering perfectly its every necessity, Verdi was able to finish writing his last and, in the opinion of many, greatest work when he was 80 years old. Apart from the very early and unsuccessful Giorno di regno (King for a day, 1840), Falstaff, premiered in 1893, is Verdi’s only comic opera. (I recall reading somewhere that the leader of the cello section at the premiere was a young man named Arturo Toscanini.) Falstaff precisely matches music to drama, and its libretto, by Arrigo Boito, himself a veteran operatic composer, has brought out the humor, the pathos, the humanity, and the extraordinary characterization that radiates from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor with amazing poetic accuracy; all of these catalyzed Verdi’s musical imagination to a degree that even the composer himself might not have predicted, considering that he had wanted to retire permanently from operatic composition after Otello in 1887 but finally agreed to write Falstaff after his wife and Boito nagged him into it.

Caitlin Lynch, Alice Ford; Maria Todaro, Meg Page; Louis Otey, Falstaff; Anya Matanovi, Nannetta (Michael J. Lutch photo)

The score of Falstaff is marked by such rapid tempo and textural lightness throughout that only those with excellent vocal technique and long experience should attempt to sing it.  The demands on the voice are not those of endurance, as in Wagner, nor of vocal range and volume, as in grand opera or Rossini, but of effortless precision and clarity. The orchestra matches these demands with its own extremes of technical virtuosity and precise texture. Verdi’s orchestral writing in this opera is mostly gossamer-light, with never an unnecessary note, and only as many instruments as the music itself demands, whether in pianississimo textures or the loudest tutti, and much of it proceeding at dizzying speed, especially in Act II. There are no big high-C arias in Falstaff, nor indeed any set pieces longer than a short song, because the whole quicksilver dramatic development is matched by the musical setting at every instant, with dozens of abrupt changes of tempo and texture.

I mention all this because Sunday’s performance was extraordinary in every way. The singers are all young but seasoned operatic professionals. The orchestra, which Federico Cortese directed with total concentration, comprised two groups, the Sinfonietta and the Camerata, from the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, the first playing Act I and the first scene of Act II, and the second the remainder of the opera.  My amazement at the excellence of this ensemble never faltered. Their precise, unified, spirited, fearless, wonderfully musical playing would have done credit to any opera orchestra in the world, maybe even the Met or the Vienna State Opera.  In all my years growing up in greater Boston I never heard a student orchestra play even half as well as this one.  Nothing ever dragged or stumbled, and I frequently saw how attentive the players were to Cortese’s precise beat. Above all, the entire company, singers and orchestra alike, showed a perfect understanding of what was going on and what everything was supposed to sound like. I should have been prepared for this, because of what I was told about the same orchestra’s dazzling performance of Verdi’s Macbeth last year, which I didn’t hear.

Louis Otey, Falstaff and Jeremy Milner, Pistola (Michael J. Lutch photo)

Sanders Theatre has fine but sometimes complex acoustics and isn’t ideally suited to an operatic staging. This performance was semi-staged, with costumes and a few props, and it succeeded perfectly without scenery. Having the orchestra on stage meant that adjusting balances could be problematic, but I was able to hear almost everything, and the supertitles projected above the stage worked out very well except in simultaneous dialogue (this problem may never be fully solved anywhere). Hats off to the first-rate cast of singers: Louis Otey (Sir John Falstaff), Edward Parks (Ford), Caitlin Lynch (Alice Ford), Steve Sanders (Fenton), Anya Matanovi? (Nannetta), Maria Todaro (Meg Page), Melissa Parks (Mistress Quickly), Peter Tantsits (Dr. Caius), Neil Ferreira (Bardolfo), and Jeremy Milner (Pistola).  These artists are busy all over the world, from the Met and City Center to Santa Fe and La Scala and Shanghai, and obviously enjoyed working with an orchestra of not-yet professionals in a strangely-shaped hall.

Here are only a few details about the orchestra, though I could mention many more. At the beginning of Act III, while the chilled and dripping Falstaff snarls in anger at the hostile world, there is a gloomy low-register melody in trombone octaves. The score calls for a bass trombone at the bottom of this, but its low notes clearly demand a contrabass instrument, of the hard-to-find Italian type called a cimbasso. I didn’t hear those notes and I don’t think they were even there, but in truth I didn’t miss them, and to have had a tuba play them might have been too ponderous. The horn section, five players sharing four parts, sounded rich and confident throughout, especially in widely-spaced textures (two octaves and a fifth apart at one point), and in several places where there is a musical pun, when “horns” signify cuckoldry (“e lo cornifico”). And I especially liked what Verdi does with the lonely piccolo in soft textures; none of the usual top-register shrieks for this ottavino, which was clearly and precisely heard at unexpected but telling moments. The part for a single harp, in the fairy music in III/2, was shared and sometimes doubled with a second harp in this performance, and the added volume was welcome. But the nigh-flawless playing of the strings was perhaps the most remarkable part of the orchestral performance; even in Allegro presto and agitato, the notes flying like trapezes over the entire range, they never fell behind by a microsecond, retaining their full expressiveness throughout.

Falling on hard times, Boston may have lost one of its good opera companies; but this Falstaff, by rejoinder, was wonderful reaffirmation of what can happen in opera here with a carefully assembled and expertly trained group of enthusiastic young people can do to keep opera alive.  The Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras deserve our heartiest congratulations and thanks.

Mark DeVoto, musicologist and composer, is an expert in Alban Berg, also Ravel and Debussy. A graduate of Harvard College (1961) and Princeton (PhD, 1967), he has published extensively on these composers and many music subjects, most notably, harmony. His most recent book is Schubert’s Great C Major: Biography of a Symphony. His website is here.