Russian Festival Part II

Mei-Ann Chen

The Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera presented Part II of its Russian Festival last night.  See here for Part I.

Mikhail Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila (1840) began the program.  Conductor, Mei-Ann Chen conducted from memory.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto (1909) followed with Andrew von Oeyen on the solo piano.  He was our pianist from last week and is very exciting.  Chen used a score on this one.  This is the concerto I heard in Berlin in 2016.

After the concert our pianist mentioned Sibyl Sanderson, an opera singer from Sacramento and Massenet's inspiration for Thais.  To honor her Andrew played a piano arrangement of The Meditation from Thais.  Beautifully.

Last came Modest Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) in an orchestral arrangement by Ravel.

Russian music is lots of fun.  Our festival stuck strictly to Romantic and Neo-romantic works and covered the main highlights.  Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich did not make appearances.

Russian Festival at Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera

Last night at the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera we were treated to three major pieces from Russian repertoire conducted by Case Scaglione.

Mussorgsky – Night on Bald Mountain in the arrangement by Rimsky-Korsakov began the concert.  This is supposed to be a witches Sabbath or in short a tone poem.  The Community Center Theater has changed the concert acoustical padding at the back of the stage.  When you combine this with brasses which all point directly out at the audience, you get very loud brasses, particularly in this piece.  Otherwise it's a lot of fun.

I'm going to pause for a second to say that Berlioz traveled to Russia and gave concerts.  He may be said to be the father of the Russian school.  If you listen, you can hear how this might be true.  The orchestral flamboyance in almost all Russian repertoire is the main indication of his influence.

Tchaikovsky– Piano Concerto No. 1 with Andrew von Oeyen, piano, seen above.  He is a lovely, energetic young man with just the right enthusiasm for this piece.  The first movement is so long that the audience thought it might be the end.  The piano, orchestral balance was excellent.

Rachmaninoff – Symphonic Dances.  This is supposed to be Rachmaninoff's last composition.  I have probably never heard it before.  Dances are normally named after a dance, but here they used the usual tempo markings as names.  The first one is called "non allegro" which made me laugh.  One doesn't generally ask what something isn't.  It seemed beautiful but completely unstructured.

This is a difficult program which I found well played.  It was sold out.  The second half is next week.

Staatskapelle Berlin

On our final night in Berlin we visited Philharmonie, the concert hall for the Berlin Philharmonic. The Berlin Philharmonic was on tour, as usual, and we saw instead the Staatskapelle Berlin.  Disney  Hall in Los Angeles looks far odder on the outside, but inside this one is very confusing indeed.  In fact one of our group members got lost, and a search party had to be dispatched.  Here is the view on the inside.

It was a very wowie concert.  We started off with that rarest of pieces, the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto.  I feel fairly certain I haven't heard it before.  A piano concerto is supposed to be a  battle between equals, but in this work the piano wins hands down.  In the first movement the orchestra hardly has a chance to compete.  For the pianist it is notoriously, spectacularly difficult.  Our pianist was Daniil Trifonov, and he never stumbled once.  If you haven't heard of him, watch out.  It was marvelous.

The second half of the program was Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat.  It was fun and very loud.  That might possibly be a problem with really good acoustics.

Rachmaninov Op.4 no. 4

Disappointed in concert last Saturday, I thought I would point out how this is supposed to sound.

Renée Fleming at Zellerbach

Renée Fleming gave a recital last night at Zellerbach in Berkeley with pianist Olga Kern.  I am having a hard time deciding what to say.

Unfortunately, Renée has reached the point in life where her voice is not the gorgeous instrument it has always been.  Before today I have always been pleased to report that she sounded great.  It was pouring rain, and the concert started very late, so perhaps this contributed.  A piano piece was inserted so she could exit the stage.  Perhaps it was just for today.

Renée is a celebrity who can charm any audience into submission, even me.  Sigh.  Strauss was best.  Of course.  We were asked to sing "I could have danced all night."

Rachmaninoff at the Sacramento Philharmonic

The program for the Sacramento Philharmonic included other things, too.  The conductor for the evening was Case Scaglione.  His first name means houses in Italian.

Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Pieces.  I think to effectively present these pieces the Philharmonic would need to up their game a bit.  To make their effect they depend very much on sound.

Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in C Major.  Frankly I don't know why they would choose to play this piece, since it is extremely uninteresting.  To me anyway.

Then we came to Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Behzod Abduraimov at the piano.  It was worth waiting for.  Apparently Behzod is a rising star.  He lit into Rachmaninoff's most famous piece like there was no tomorrow.  Conductor and pianist did an excellent job of maintaining coordination throughout the concerto.  Every movement was a gem, exciting, dynamic, thrilling.  And the Philharmonic rose to meet him.  For one brief shining moment they were thrilling, too.

We go to hear concerts for moments like this.  You never know when it will happen.  Thank you.

Brian Jagde at Mondavi

Brian Jagde claimed that last night at Mondavi Center was his first full recital as a tenor.  I have to say he started at the top.  What exactly does that mean?  Did he used to be a baritone?

It was announced that he was somewhat under the weather, something that seemed only a small problem in the slower, softer selections.  He wanted to sing anyway.  He called the selections "deep."  I thought that perhaps he had chosen repertoire that he truly loved.  I always advise this.  Love the music you are singing and sing it with all the love you have.

The first group was a set of German Lieder, one each by Schubert (the famous serenade), Schumann (Stille Traenen), Brahms (Mainacht), Wolf and Mahler (Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen).  I love all these songs, and he was not afraid to allow his voice to soar to almost operatic proportions.  Perhaps he's been listening to a certain German who does not hesitate to do this.

Next he performed the Holy Sonnets of John Donne by Benjamin Britten.  These are true sonnets on deeply religious subjects, rare in the world of great poetry and even rarer in the world of classical recitals.  Brian brought the required serious intensity to these wonderful songs which were completely unfamiliar to me.

Next he did 5 songs of Rachmaninov and ended with 4 songs by Richard Strauss, Traum durch die Daemmerung, Breit Ueber mein Haupt, Allerseelen (a personal favorite) and Zueignung (another favorite).  He sang big and was most successful when he did so.

His accompanist Craig Terry laid his music down on the piano instead of using the stand, creating the impression that he wasn't using music.  He seemed to be having a lot of fun and enjoying how much the audience was loving it.

The first encore was dedicated to Barbara Jackson who sat up high near the stage.  The hall is named after her.  He sang for her "Recondit armonia" from Tosca, and it was glorious.  This is what he really sings, of course.

The second encore was "Be my love."  Let's just say I think you need actually to be Mario Lanza.  It was a bit anticlimactic.

This was the most fun I've had at a recital in a long time.  Bravo.  Sing what you love.

Nadine Sierra

Nadine Sierra, whose Schwabacher Debut Recital was Sunday afternoon, already has her own Wikipedia page.  It tells us, "On February 21, 2009, she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Finals in New York."  She was 21 at the time.

This season she is a second year Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera where she created the roles of Juliet and Barbara in the world premiere of Heart of a Soldier last fall.  It is interesting to note that in my review of the 2010 Merola Finale, her performance of the duet from Romeo et Juliette was the only thing I praised.

Enough blurb. If you read that someone has one of these opera prizes, you may assume that they have a big, penetrating voice, and that is very much the case with Nadine.

I don't go to all the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, but of the ones I've seen, this one is the most mature.  She showed off a lot of stuff.

She sang in four languages:  French (Debussy), Russian (Rachmaninov), English (Bernstein) and Portuguese (Villa-Lobos and Braga).   She is American, but her background is Brazil?

She showed off her interpretative skills in these wide ranging songs, and then topped it with her now very grownup rendition of "O mio babbino caro" as an encore.  She has improved on the YouTube film, so don't make any critical judgments based on it.

She showed off her very well developed technique, particularly her excellent breath control.

Her accompanist, Tamara Sanikidze, was chosen to talk about the Rachmaninov Opus 38 songs.  She is Russian, apparently, and loves these songs very much.  Artist bios never seem to tell you these vital bits of information.  The cultural background of the artist is crucial in understanding them musically.

Nadine is still young, but is off to a good start.  She is strong in the thing that for me counts most:  expression.  As she grows older, coaches will attempt to impose their interpretations on her, but let's hope her own personality continues to shine through.

Here's a nice sample of something from an opera.

Afterthoughts

I awarded the decade to Anna Netrebko without giving any reasons. For me the Russian Album alone would be reason enough. The music is incredible and the performances are out of this world.



This is a personal favorite.

Baden-Baden

Because I bought a ticket there, I am getting publications from the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden trying to sell me more tickets. The most tempting entry is for July of 2009 when Valery Gergiev and Anna Netrebko will present four performances of Rachmaninov's Aleko and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. You can get an idea of how wonderful this would be by listening to the Iolanta exerpt on the Russian Album.

John Relyea will perform the role of Aleko, and in three of the performances Rolando Villazon will sing in Iolanta. I have been wishing for some Russian music from Anna, especially Rachmaninov.

Valery will hang around Baden-Baden to conduct quite a bit of Shostakovitch on other concerts.

The all night vigil

While driving to the airport to pick up my friend Jean, I heard parts of a new recording of Rachmaninov's "The All Night Vigil", otherwise known as the vespers, by the Hilliard Ensemble on NPR. Liturgically the music is intended to extend over a much longer period than just a vespers service, thus the new, more authentically Russian title.

Rachmaninov wrote this music in 1916, a time of catastrophe and the imminent collapse of his country. If you do not know this piece, make a point of changing that. This recording sounded good. There's also a Russian one with Olga Borodina, and a recording by Robert Shaw.

For many this is Rachmaninov's greatest achievement and certainly his most deeply spiritual.
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Complete Operas of Rachmaninov

The CD of the complete operas of Rachmaninov is actually quite nice. Of course, you would have to want to listen to vocal music by Rachmaninov. My favorite music in this category is the Vespers for a capella choir which I have commented on before. If you have not heard this, make a point of finding out about it.

There isn’t a huge demand for short operas, though there seem to be quite a lot of them around. Stylistically the Vespers is ethnic Russian. These operas are very much in the European post-Romantic idiom, especially Francesca da Rimini which includes an extremely assertive humming chorus. Humming choruses are the fault of Debussy, I believe, and were in vogue for only a short time around the turn of the twentieth century.

[BB -- post script -- I suddenly recalled humming chorus in Rigoletto. Maybe it's all Verdi's fault.]

Rachmaninov’s Francesca is seen from the point of view of Dante who sees the afterlife as a freezing of a moment in the person’s actual life. Francesca and Paolo were killed in the act of ecstasy and are condemned to live that moment forever. I always feel that if this is God’s judgment, then he is mistaken. Why isn’t Lanceotto the one rotting forever in hell, since it is he who committed deception and double murder? I always feel that God made us to love and will forgive this first.

The recording is Deutsche Grammophon with Neeme Jaervi. The singing, all in Russian, is excellent: Maria Guleghina, Anne Sofie von Otter, Sergei Leiferkus and Sergei Larin, among others.
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Assumptions

I am still pondering Alex Ross' article on the effects of recordings on classical music. The main effect seems to have been a fanatical desire to "improve" performance standards. I have been known to complain about this, too. The whole assumption that more accurate equals better is to think about.

I had the privilege at various times to work under Robert Shaw, the great choral conductor. Shaw always spent quite a lot of time in rehearsal working on the intonation of the chorus, trying to get everyone to sing precisely accurate pitches. For instance, certain intervals if sung precisely in tune will generate a sympathetic tone, and Shaw would try to get the chorus to hear this note. It didn't seem to matter how big the chorus was, since we were doing Beethoven and Brahms at the time, and the chorus could get quite large.

The sound of a well-tuned chorus is quite different, and some of the most wonderful choral music I've ever heard was with Shaw. But compare his Rachmaninov "Vespers" with this one called "Evening Star" with the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir on Philips. Do we really love the tuned version more than the rawer Russian one?

The process of finding true expression is a great challenge.

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