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Tag Archives: Johannes Brahms

The depths of Atlàntida

Thirty rows back in the orchestra section, and just right of center, I sat next to two women who were attending their first Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) performance at Symphony Hall. I was excited on their behalf and recalled my first feelings of being overcome with the powerful sound when the first notes were struck in unison by the orchestra. It’s not a difficult feeling for me to conjure, since the first note always makes me grin with giddy anticipation. Tonight’s performance, led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, featured Manuel de Falla’s Suite from Atlàntida and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. I was here exactly twenty-four hours prior, about twenty rows forward, but this time my expectations were completely different. This time, I knew to listen for the Lady of the Court in El Somni D’Isabel (Isabella’s Dream) that I had loved the night before, and I wanted to hear Alexandra Coku sing the role of Isabella more closely. Well Nathalie Stutzmann’s rendition of the Lady of the Court was stunning once again. In the first line, which bookends the short section, she sings, “Dins l’Alhambra una nit, Isabel somniava” (In the Alhambra one night, Isabella had a dream). That line, in its beautiful simplicity, is cherubic. For her part, Ms Coku’s dramatic ability and vocal talent were on display as her Isabella was quite engaging.

For the Brahms, I was able to sit back and actively listen to the piece as one instrumentation, with all its sonorous riches, and naturally the BSO lived up to their reputation. While I’m not sure I was able to really understand anything about Brahms any deeper, tonight to enjoy both the Brahms and the Falla was completely satisfying.

Falla and Frühbeck

I cannot characterize it, exactly, but there’s something about Hispanic music that is captivating. From Central and South American folk songs to Spanish dances and everything beyond, there are so many vibrant and passionate musical forms. Suffice it to say, I was pretty excited to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) led by guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos perform Manuel de Falla’s Suite from Atlàntida, even though it was completed posthumously by his student. I have had the pleasure of hearing the fruits of Frühbeck’s work with the BSO, in which they performed music from Albéniz.

Falla’s Suite from Atlàntida is based on a Catalan poem that depicts the epic of Atlantis. Along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, who are always a welcome addition to the Symphony Hall stage, the four soloists were contralto Nathalie Stutzmann, soprano Alexandra Coku, baritone Philip Cutlip, and thirteen year old male soprano Ryan Williams. Both Ms Coku and Mr Cutlip made their BSO debuts in this performance. I’ve written before about the wonderment of the human voice on stage at Symphony Hall, and I think many of the most memorable performances at the BSO have featured singers. This was certainly no exception, though I was quite close to the stage tonight, in the second row (H) but far audience-right. The differences in young Mr Williams’ performance and that of Ms Coku or Ms Stutzmann was striking. There is a unique quality in the child’s voice that is distinctly different from the adult’s, despite singing in similar ranges. The adult voices seem to have more color in them, so to speak, which perhaps might be manifested in a richer subharmonic stack. Nevertheless, the uniqueness of the voices was surprisingly evident.

Within this excellent piece, I was captivated by El Somni D’Isabel (Isabella’s Dream). However, it not the beautifully sung role of Isabella but the a cappella singing of the character “A Lady of the Court” by Ms Stutzmann that mesmerized me, however briefly. The quality of an unaccompanied voice reverberating alone inside the otherwise empty Hall had a dream-like quality to it, a fitting introduction to the piece.

I’m fortunate enough to be attending tomorrow night’s performance from about 30 rows back in orchestra, which should provide a wholly different experience from the intimacy of tonight’s performance. Especially hearing the vocalists from there should be a treat.

Of course, it will also affect the experience of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, the other piece on the program for these concerts. While I just finished saying that the most memorable performances of the BSO are vocal, I also have stated before that symphonies are where the BSO truly shine. I’ve seen Brahms’ Symphony Nos. 1 and 4 performed at the BSO previously, and this gets me one step closer to completing the BSO Brahms Cycle. Hopefully Symphony No. 3 will be programmed as early as next season, but for now, I was excited about hearing Symphony No. 2 live.

Tonight, I was in a vacant row for some reason, and the row behind me was also unoccupied. It dawned on me that there might never be a chance again to perform a small, harmless experiment that technically breaks a rule at Symphony Hall …. At the intermission, I turned on my iPod kilo (also known as the iPad), and I ensured that it was fully muted, turned the brightness down to the lowest setting, and downloaded the full score of the Brahms in PDF form from International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)’s Petrucci Library. Because I was so close to the stage, the ambient lights from the stage washed out any potentially annoying backlighting from the device, and no one was around me, so there wasn’t anyone to bother. Even page “turns” on the iPod kilo are silent, naturally, so it should not have been a distraction to anyone. I kept the score up during the performance and was able to follow along with it bar by bar. I often listen to recorded music with a score, watching the melody get handed off like a baton in a relay, and seeing how different parts interact. At first I mostly followed the violin parts, until I got a feel for how the pages were arranged on this particular score (they all seem slightly different), and soon I was able to move freely between interesting sections from each instrument. I often followed the loudest part, which is usually the melody, but it was also great fun to follow the violas and other sections that often play — you know — second fiddle to their higher pitched cousins.

I am glad that I had this rare opportunity to follow a score along with the live BSO performance, but it’s not something I need to do too often. The visual co-presentation probably helped me connect better to the music than when I watch the members of the orchestra play, since my memory is now coupled to the analytic, written music. As it happens, it’s pretty difficult to follow the music and listen to it all as a whole, and I definitely prefer to sit back and enjoy the music, while reading along was often an exercise in freneticism.

As far as the music itself, it’s Brahms and BSO. What more could I ask for? From the program notes, it seems that there is somewhat of a conflict of perception with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. While written with a major key throughout and sounding more upbeat and pleasant than his other symphonies, it seems that Brahms’ felt that this was one of his darker, more melancholy works. The impression I got from the notes and from other reading on Brahms is that he was not one to be known so plainly, and so within a piece that others perceive as pleasant a darkness and perhaps a loneliness that only a certain disposition can detect. Admittedly it’s an abstract concept for which to listen, but one thing I like about Brahms is that it’s endlessly fascinating.

I might have mentioned somewhere else that Brahms reminds me of Charles Mingus. Both were large in both girth and personality, wore large beards, and were brilliant composers. Both Mingus and Brahms were characterized as often matter-of-fact and seemed intensely private. I’d love to explore this notion more.

I’m already looking ahead to tomorrow night’s performance. I recognize that I’m spoiled by the riches of this place, and I fully intend on taking advantage of it.

Paging Dr Atomic

Tonight’s Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) concert featured a full program of interesting selections, including Johannes Brahms’ Tragic Overture, John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Béla Bartók’s Suite from the Miraculous Mandarin. Guest conducting tonight from the St Louis Symphony was David Robertson.

Of course the unfortunate story of tonight’s concert was not that of the musicians on stage but the absolutely awful audience. Truly, on behalf of the audience, I apologize to the BSO for our collective behavior tonight. Now, the somewhat expected cacophony of coughing and seat cushions are excusable at the beginning of what will surely be a long cold season. It could be a good time to suggest that coughing should be suppressed, if at all possible, until the loud parts, but even then we should not feel open to pretending like there aren’t 2,000 other people who are trying to listen and enjoy the music. Also not particularly at fault are the Falling Chairs, which I’ve written about before as a metric to gauge attendance on any given night. Tonight’s Falling Chairs were plentiful, though I didn’t need them to know that the two nearly completely empty rows around me were indicative of a more sparse attendance that usual. However it was none of these usual things that were particularly prevalent tonight that bothered me.

Rather, it started with the incessant whispering behind me in the middle orchestra section. Several other, loud distractions were also audible, including what sounded like a dropped box of wood from a balcony and the distinct sound of a glass bottle hitting the floor and rolling for a few seconds. The worst offenses of the evening were the no fewer than two cell phone rings that went off at various points. This is the beginning of my third season of attending concerts at Symphony Hall, and in that time, this might be the first time I can recall a single cell phone going off, let alone two. Overall, the noises were distracting and mostly avoidable, and it’s by far the worst experience at Symphony Hall I’ve ever had in this regard.

Musically I’m ashamed to admit that it was difficult to concentrate or relax fully. Coming in, I was most familiar with the Brahms, since I love his music. I would not say that I am so well versed in the progression of the relatively short Tragic Overture, but I would need to hear the BSO performance again in order to make a judgment. There was an element of seriousness that I was not feeling, though it’s unclear if this was a byproduct of my overall experience or whether or not a starker contrast in dynamics, for instance, might have helped.

Perhaps most anticipated was the Doctor Atomic Symphony. My college degree is in physics, so it’s not a terrible surprise that anything called “Doctor Atomic” might pique my curiosity. In this piece, Adams has adapted his opera into a symphonic form. It lends itself well to this setting, arranged in three parts: The Laboratory, Panic, and Trinity. Since I’m not familiar with the opera, I was most intrigued by the idea of Trinity being the third movement. The line demarcating peace and fright was unclear, and I’m not sure that my one experience alone was able to resolve this. I enjoyed Adams’ use of solo horns to create a sense of urgency. The frenetic tempo throughout The Laboratory and Panic were well suited for the task of engaging a nervous energy. Generally speaking, pieces like this are tough for me to appreciate, I think in part because I don’t ever understand the back story. But here, it was easy to envision a story for this piece, while knowing something however abstract about its background. Perhaps my only regret for this piece is that its title inevitably reminds me of some kind of 40s-era Marvin the Martian cartoon, where Doctor Atomic tries to take over the planet and the Duck Dodgers of the 21-1/2 century try to save the day.

Following the intermission, pianist Nicolas Hodges performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. This is a frenetic piece that looked like it would challenge any soloist, but Mr Hodges performed it admirably. I appreciate Prokofiev’s ballets and much of his other music, but between the Tragic Overture and Doctor Atomic, it was difficult for me to wrap my head around this piece.

Finally on the concert program was Bartók’s Suite from Miraculous Mandarin, a ballet. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, and my general impression of Bartók is not particularly favorable but also not particularly memorable. My friend DA enjoyed this piece and the Brahms the most, and while I’m glad I heard the Bartók, I won’t likely reach for a recording any time soon.

This concert in particular got me thinking about the difficulty of programming a concert. By this I am referring to the process of selecting music that will be played together at any given concert. In many ways, it’s similar to creating track lists for a standard length 74 to 80 minute CD, especially considering that a concert is around 120 minutes with the intermission. Sometimes the themes are obvious, such as All-Mozart or Romantic Symphonies. But often times the themes are more subtle. I think that there might have been a reason to include four intensely dramatic pieces together, but like the symphonic musical form, I’d often appreciate a break of sorts that introduces lighter material thematically. Regardless, one of my favorite aspects of the BSO is its ability to introduce me to new music and challenge my pre-conceived notions. I’m grateful that tonight’s concert succeeded in both regards.

Guaranteed Romantic

The current subscription performance concert going on at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) features our new assistant conductor Marcelo Lehninger at the helm for his first of hopefully many engagements. To get my effusive praise of Mr Lehninger out of the way, I think that he’s an excellent addition to the BSO and brings a lot of energy to the podium. He led the BSO in a concert featuring Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for a Scandal, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Being a great admirer of the Romantic period, I was giddy with the possibility of hearing the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky performed live by the BSO. This excitement only escalated after attending the Wednesday night rehearsal the previous evening. Tonight, I was accompanied by my trusted symphony friend CB as we sat in excellent center second balcony seats.

What I was not at all familiar with was Barber’s Overture to The School for a Scandal. This piece fit in naturally with the remainder of the program. Barber spends time developing themes and reintroduces them, and in this work, he creates a groundswell of emotion that continually builds and can easily be attributable to some kind of movie action chase scene. I think there are probably superheroes involved. The main melody is quite beautiful and provides moments of tranquility between the action. It finishes in a spectacular way as well, as it rings out, repeats a chord, and instead of either sustaining that chord or even raising in pitch, it descends down in somewhat of a surprise. This gives me the impression that, while grandiose, it’s not necessarily a happy ending to whatever narrative was told here. I’ll be interested to read more about the piece when I can, but I highly recommend it. It’s always satisfying when the piece I know least about turns out to be the one I appreciate greatly.

For the Beethoven, violinist Pinchas Zukerman joined the BSO, and to have a giant of music on stage was, once again, a treat. The cadenza is worth noting once again, as it was every bit as spectacular as I had experienced just the night before, and I really would like to learn more about who penned it and under what circumstances. It’s quite a unique feature of classical music that the cadenza can strongly flavor the concerto, leave the unique signature of a modern performer, and still respect the original composition. If not so daunting, it makes me want to learn carefully the cadenza variations of some of my favorite violin concertos to be able to distinguish differences in interpretation and writing in these sections.

The Beethoven is quite long, with the first movement alone approaching 25 minutes in some performances. But one thing I noticed tonight about Beethoven is that he takes a musical fragment or idea and then explores it fully, breaking it apart and piecing it back together again, handing off the melody to different instruments and reworking the entire music around it. It means that multiple performances of the piece are continually rewarding, in that one discovers turns of the central themes that are explored in new ways. It’s another example of Beethoven’s genius to have been able to understand this immediately.

Finally, Tchaikovsky is another of my favorite composers, and perhaps my favorite symphonist, so Symphony No. 5 was a treat. Not to diminish his abilities, but he was among other things an excellent song writer. The piece is approximately 50 minutes long, but I find it endlessly engaging. There’s a suspense that builds gradually, and Tchaikovsky is a master at utilizing different instruments as different voices in his symphonic narrative. From the first, détaché notes of the clarinet, the melody exists somewhat but not quite alone. Soon they are accompanied by the bassoons, taking their time and ending on a muted, unceremonious end. A moment of silence passes until the instruments reappear, to finally give way to the slightly brighter strings. Great restraint is built up slowly and beautifully here and punctuated by brief moments of gaiety.

The theme introduced in the Andante cantabile by the horns is longing and hopeful, an introduction to a movement that moves me every time I hear it. The gracefulness of the third movement waltz unsurprisingly harkens to a ballet. In the last movement, the strings take the lead in the grandiose theme of the final movement that eventually gets usurped by the horns before being returned. There’s a march-like quality in the percussion that culminates in a drum roll before the triumphant ending. The entire piece is marked by fluidity and seems to have a particularly identifiable character.

I appreciated the tight programming of this concert. I’m fine with this especially since I learned about the Barber, my asterisk piece for the evening. I greatly enjoyed hearing for the first time live a great violinist in Zukerman perform Beethoven, the BSO doing what they do best during the Tchaikovsky, and the new (to me) Barber which excites me to further explore his music.

That’s a bingo!

The Saturday night performance is often a special one, despite not being the finale in this series of concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which have featured Joshua Bell playing the wonderful Violin Concerto In D Major by Johannes Brahms. The premiere of this work was played by Brahms’ good friend and violinist Joseph Joachim with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. That night, Joachim played the piece along with the violin concerto of Ludwig van Beethoven, another highly celebrated piece in the standard repertoire for violin virtuosi. Unfortunately today, at least with the BSO, soloists only play one of usually three numbers, but in honesty, I can speak for myself when I say that an entire concert program featuring Bell would have been most welcome.

The other pieces in tonight’s performance were Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1945). The highlight of these pieces was the BSO’s masterful execution of the Infernal Dance of the Firebird. There is nothing like the majesty of the live performance, and among the pieces in Firebird, the Infernal Dance is quickly becoming my favorite, for its managed chaos, humor, and for its ability to exploit the full dramatic potential of a symphony orchestra. Only when every member of the orchestra is confident enough to react together can a performance like this be pulled off perfectly, as it was tonight. More than once, this piece brought conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier off of his feet in what was amusingly a ballet all his own. I gained appreciation for the Firebird Suite on this second live performance, but it will take the full ballet, I think, to make me a true fan.

Alas, the Brahms came and went all too quickly for me, but not without leaving an indelible mark on my understanding of the piece — again. Tuesday night’s performance especially gave me a new perspective on the Adagio, which remains emotionally unmatched in my mind, though beautiful in tonight’s performance. Bell started out the first movement somewhat rusty again, slightly lacking polish on certain albeit difficult chords and notes in the highest positions on the E. He recovered, I think, quicker tonight than he had on Tuesday, and it was largely a non-issue. It did sound like he made an early entrance on one of the final chords of the last movement, as the orchestra trailed behind him after their two measures of rests. Nevertheless, the story of tonight’s performance lies in Bell’s short bow techniques and his cadenza, which may well have been without flaw in execution.

I was particularly impressed with the cleanness of Bell’s spiccato on several occasions, though the bowing technique that stands out most in my mind occurred during the cadenza of the first movement, which I learned from the program notes to be his own. Filled with rich double stops that contrast with the ethereal quality of harmonics, Bell meticulously hints at Brahms’ first movement themes and only rarely states them outright. His harmonics had a sweet quality, and I suspect that one comment from someone later about his “thin tone” (not even close) had to do with the misunderstanding of this technique. I am fortunate to have heard this cadenza now twice, and I’m eager to hear a recording of it, if I can find one. Perhaps someone recorded the Friday afternoon performance, which I think was broadcast on WGBH here in Boston. Of all of the cadenzas for this piece I have heard, I think I genuinely favor this one, more than even the Heifetz cadenza that is echoed by Vadim Repin on his recent recording of the concerto. To be able to hear it on demand would be very valuable to me, especially if there exists a transcription somewhere outside Bell’s own head!

It is said that Brahms made some “corrections” to the piece after Joachim’s premiere of it in 1879, and I do not know if the “original” has survived, especially in the hands of the composer himself, who was notorious for destroying works (and letters) that he did not feel met his high standards of quality. To be able to hear that piece is slightly more than a historical novelty to the fan, but I sincerely hope that Bell’s cadenza does not become a similar footnote in the annals of an obscure history of this timeless piece of music.

If ever the recording of tonight’s performance is heard, there are two distinct and possibly embarrassing contributions that I’ve made to it. No, I was not the guy who clapped early immediately following the Infernal Dance (well before the end of the piece). Rather, as it is with some regularity, I may have started the applause following the Brahms, and there’s some fool who shouts “Encore” a couple of times at the end. Ahem.

The encore happened.

Probably ten percent of the audience had already left by this point (never, ever leave before the end of a sporting event, good movie, or concert), and Bell took the stage, tuned briefly, and made a statement to the audience about how Bach or Brahms would be appropriate here, though I did not hear his entire message from the orchestra 27th row stage left. Bell decided against Bach or Brahms, much to my disappointment, and proceeded to play a very serious solo of Souvenir d’Amérique … that descends into the classic and much loved tune Bingo. As in, “there was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O ….” The lighthearted but fancifully colored tune was perhaps the most hilarious encore one could imagine. I can’t help but think he was gently ribbing my calls for an encore by following up the Brahms with Bingo the Dog, but hey, how many people can say they heard Joshua Bell play Bingo the Dog? I am sure he’s well aware that he caused a room full of grown adults to leave Symphony Hall for perhaps the first time in history whistling not a serious classical work but, yes, Bingo the Dog. There was something befitting with the now grown but boyish Joshua Bell playing Bingo the Dog, as his trademark mop of hair bounced eagerly on his expression of the theme, much like one might imagine the piece’s subject might on occasion. (It just dawned on me that absolutely nothing happens in Bingo the Dog but a repetition of the fact that it was some farmer’s dog by that name.) It was a lighthearted end to a wonderful concert, and I hope he enjoyed himself as much as we most certainly did. Besides making a fan out of his encore piece, his concerts have allowed me to see the Brahms performed live now twice, with my beloved BSO. It’s unclear when I will next be able to hear the Brahms performed, so I value these experiences greatly. Future listens, live or recorded, now are equipped with a completely new appreciation and experience.

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