Tag Archives: classical music

Hiding in plain sight: Chamber Music Society Masterclasses

Norman Lebrecht‘s Slippedisc blog is full of snark, favoritism, gossip-as-journalism, and a comments section that can be … disturbing.

There are also the occasional links and pointers that make it worth a wade through the muck.

Today’s find is a piano trio masterclass given by Menahem Pressler in 2008 [Click to go to Slippedisc]. It’s in an unlisted, unindexed corner of Youtube where the link has to be transmitted by someone who knows it is there. Dig into it and we find that the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has a webpage full of them along with lectures, interviews and performances (look to the left).

Here’s a playlist from the Society’s Youtube Channel:

Sawing Stravinsky

When I lived in the Bay Area eons ago, I used to listen regularly to classical radio stations KDFC and KKHI. The former signed off every midnight with an instrumental transcription (one of many) of Stravinsky’s Pastorale. I often dozed off just as this heady mix of string and winds faded out. Here are two renditions: The first plays it as I remember it. The second features the late David Weiss, retired principal oboist of the LA Phil, on musical saw. I once attended a talk Mr. Weiss gave on his avocation and even tried it as part of the audience participation. The theremin-like sound of this deceptively simple instrument color the piece dramatically.

Autonomous Collective: KCO’s Ives and Brahms in Santa Monica

Image courtesy Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra

Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra’s Brahms Fourth in Santa Monica’s First Presbyterian Church showed off the group’s journey with democratic approaches to a hierarchical performance practice. There’s no need to reanalyze this staple of the repertoire – its overall arc of tragedy still contains some wonderful melody and gives each section ample opprtunity to shine. Excellent winds and horns set and held the stage with the ensemble growing tighter and more confident with phrasing as the piece developed. This specific mix of the orchestra’s large roster got accustomed to the space and one another in short order. Conductorless playing has to be difficult and must be doubly so when the music calls for soft and shimmering strings. The Brahms starts off this way and the Ives Unanswered Question is a few ethereal minutes of nothing but. Kaleidoscope upped the ante with strings in the sanctuary lobby, woodwinds in a balcony, and the horns offstage behind the altar. Execution fell just short of ambition but acknowledge the effort to add this to the degree of difficulty. The real Unanswered Question was, as is often the case, “Where’s the audience?” The Friday night turnout was reminiscent of Los Angeles theatre with performers outnumbering audience and that’s a shame. One hopes the Sunday matinee in Glendale fared better.
This group looks quite capable of handling Ives, broadly speaking. It would be great to hear those gonzo horns and winds in the rollicking finale of the Second Symphony with its invocations of Reveille, Columbia Gem of the Ocean, and the Camptown Races. Oh doo-dah-day.

Next up: Weinberg, Mozart, and Schoenberg on 23 January (LA Theatre Center) and 24 January (Santa Monica, First Presbyterian Church)

One for the Zipper – Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Season Launch

Courtesy Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra

[Updated 5 October 2015]

The season kickoff augurs well for the city’s newish conductorless ensemble. The Kaleidoscopes held a concert-cum-fundraiser of Prokofiev, Schoenberg (no, not that one), and Dvorak in the friendly and packed confines of the Colburn’s Zipper Hall.   The Classical Symphony and the Cello Concerto showed that this experiment in democracy has a serious chance of success.  The strings are very good and in synch, no mean feat since many of them can’t see one another.  Most of the performers stand, the strong cello and bass unions negotiated chairs and stools respectively.   The woodwinds and brass were terrific.  The Phil’s Robert deMaine gave the group someone to focus on in the concerto but he didn’t assume the role of conductor without portfolio.  Schoenberg’s (Adam, not Arnold) short Canto, winner of the group’s commission competition, brought Copland’s Quiet City to mind.  It’s a heartfelt piece inspired by the composer’s sleeping infant unabashedly intent on evoking a specific response.

It’s not clear how the group handles dynamics and handoffs on its own but it does.  There weren’t any obvious glances or nods in the first two pieces with some discreet glances among sections discernible in the Concerto’s rondo.  It’s an impressive feat.  A preconcert video showed the rehearsal philosophy with wry commentary from the participants  – the democratic approach may make for talky rehearsals but there is payoff in the performance.  The flute and woodwind work in the Prokofiev’s bravura final movement fired on all cylinders.  Birds and fish flock and school,  know where they’re going, and turn together in an instant.  So do these mostly young folks many with current ties to the Colburn.

There’s talent up and down the roster and the leadership seems to know what it’s about.   Four future performance weekends will take place at locations to be announced in Santa Monica and Glendale.    Ives, Brahms, Weinberg, Mozart, Schoenberg (yes, that one), Messiaen, and Beethoven are on the schedule.  So is John Adams but their taste will improve with age.  On top of the concerts, they have outreach programs for youth and the underserved.   It’s going to be fun watching them grow.

On the subject of bird behavior, Craig Reynolds’s ‘Boids’ computer models from the late 1980s mimic complex flocking patterns with some simple rules. Here are some latter-day examples set to a possibly recognizable tune.

Don’t mention the War – Germany rules the orchestral roost

Berlin Philharmonie via Wikimedia Commons

Music critics have voted on the best orchestras. Berlin takes the Gold, four other German groups place in the top ten. Chicago and Boston made the cut. Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles did not. Nelsons and Nézet-Seguin got marks in the conductor competition won by Chailly but Dudamel’s stock seems to be falling. Too bad. So much initial promise diluted by short stays, a focus on operas, and an institutional commitment to third–rate idiocy.

https://bachtrack.com/worlds-best-orchestra-best-conductor-critics-choice-september-2015

Voters and Methods:  The local shill was mercifully left off
Tim Ashley (The Guardian, UK), Lazaro Azar (La Reforma, Mexico), Manuel Brug (Die Welt, Germany), Eleonore Büning (FAZ, Germany), Hugh Canning (The Sunday Times, UK), Arthur Dapieve (O Globo, Brazil), Manuel Drezner (El Espectador, Colombia), Harald Eggebrecht (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany), Neil Fisher (The Times, UK), Christian Merlin (Le Figaro, France), Martin Nyström (Dagens Nyheter, Sweden), Clive Paget (Limelight, Australia), Clément Rochefort (France Musique, France), Benjamin Rosado (El Mundo, Spain), Gonzalo Tello (El Comercio, Peru), Haruo Yamada (Japan)

Each critic nominated their top ten orchestras and conductors, with a points system awarding 10 to their top choice, down to 1 for their tenth.

Three North American critics abstained from voting on the basis they felt that had not seen enough of the world’s top orchestras recently enough to cast their votes.
[Emphasis added]

Mahler? I don’t even know ‘er – Yuja Wang at the SFSO

Last things first: Overlooking a couple of minor horn flubs and a reserved third movement, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony took Mahler’s First over the fence last Saturday night at Davies Symphony Hall. It was a great showcase for the orchestra’s woodwinds and brass who played their lungs out in preparation for an impending tour of European capitals.

In 2009, Yuja Wang made me appreciate Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto in a rip-roaring performance with Chuck D. and the LA Phil at Disney Hall. I never understood the fuss over this piece until that evening. So, I jumped at the chance to hear her play the Bartók Second especially when paired with the Mahler. Unfortunately, lightning didn’t strike twice. No fault to Wang, who was up to her usual brilliant self. The piece that can push her technique hasn’t been written yet. She did play with the score and managed to turn her own pages while dispatching every bit of pyrotechnic contained in it. There is no doubt that this is one of the most fearsome works in the repertoire but damned if I can find any reason for its popularity besides the chance to watch pianists scale its crags. The SFSO swamped her and the unaccompanied stretches were bravura for its own sake. Billed in the late Michael Steinberg’s program notes as a sonata, it came off as a long, uninteresting, exhausting toccata.  Apart from a couple of pedagogical works for students I’ve picked out on the keyboard, the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is about the only piece of Bartók’s I’ve been able to enjoy.  Then again that was thanks to Rattle and the Berlin Phil early in Disney Hall’s life. Wang was my last hope of being shown that Bartók’s music is better than it sounds. Time to agree with Steve Martin, put him in the pile of the overblown, and move on.

Davies was built when I was in high school in the Bay Area 137 years ago and this was my first time in it. It’s a nice building and a pleasant auditorium with plenty of leg room. The SFSO has done a remarkable job of reaching young people. Lots of twenty- and thirty-somethings in the seats, most likely from the resurgent dot-com economy adjacent.  Lots of my Subcontinento-American brethren and sisteren as well, something which I seldom see in the southland. We were all effusive in our appreciation of Wang but she declined to do an encore after three curtain calls. So it goes and so they go to London, Edinburgh, Lucerne, and elsewhere.

Achy-breaky embouchures – Yet another principal flute at the LA Phil

The LA Phil is going through principal flutes like Spinal Tap went through drummers.  There was the guy from Chicago, followed by the one from Portland, and then the chap from Lyon. Slipped Disc informs that Denis Bouriakov, 33, currently of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra will be in the chair later this year.

Here he is in Italy playing something written in France and adapted in Hollywood.