Contemporary Classical

Composers, Contemporary Classical, New York, Opera

La Commedia or, my dinner with Louis

Jeroen Willems as Lucifer. Credit: Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times

Thursday, April 15 marked the New York premiere of Louis Andriessen’s latest opera, La Commedia at Carnegie Hall.  I was lucky enough to make it up to New York for this event.

— Full disclosure: part of my trip to New York was to meet with Andriessen to discuss my plans for performing his 1984-88 opera, De Materie in Washington, D.C. this coming October.  I’ll be blogging a lot about that process in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Frankly, I am as addicted to Andriessen’s music as the composer is to garlic (which I found out over bread and some very strong garlic dipping sauce over lunch) so I was glad to live within easily-traveled distance of New York and be able to attend this performance.  Anyway, this is all by way of a caveat that what follows may not be the most impartial review; I hope you’ll forgive me.

Andriessen’s work can be divided, somewhat, into periods based on one or two large works which define his compositional interests over the span of a decade or so.  De Staat, the work that brought him to international prominence in the 1970’s, provides a framework for the politically radical works that drove him in the decade of ca. 1968-1978/79.  De Materie frames his work of the 1980’s within the context of metaphysics and the spiritual world that culminates in 1996-97’s Trilogy of the Last Day, which overlaps with (and is unfortunately—at least in the U.S.—overshadowed by) Andriessen’s operatic collaboration with Peter Greenaway in Rosa (1994) and Writing to Vermeer (1997-98).  La Commedia, likewise, reflects Andriessen’s principal interests in the first decade of the 21st century and, in a way, bridges the Trilogy’s preoccupation with death with the theatricality of the Greenaway operas.

La Commedia is a “film opera” based, loosely, on Dante’s Divina Commedia.  Its production is by the American film director Hal Hartley, with whom Andriessen collaborated on other theatrically hybrid projects like The New Maths (2000), Passeggiata in tram in america e ritorno (1998), and the opera Inana (2003).  Due to budgetary constraints it was presented without the film in a “semi-staged” concert version on Thursday night.   While this is unfortunate in depriving the New York (and, earlier in the week, Los Angeles) audience(s) of an important aspect of the work, the abstractness of Andriessen’s treatment of his subject may very well be enhanced by the concert presentation, for this is not traditional opera by any stretch of the imagination and stretches the definition of the genre beyond the composer’s earlier work with Peter Greenaway (in fact, it has more in common with the earlier De Materie in terms of formal presentation than it does with Writing to Vermeer or the surreal romp, Rosa).

In La Commedia, only two of the four lead vocal parts retain a specific role.  Claron McFadden, in the role of Béatrice, was a revelation.  Her voice truly heavenly in the role with each of her disappointingly few moments on stage highlight some of the most beautiful music Andriessen has ever written.  Perhaps the most beautifully magical moment in all of La Commedia, however, belongs to Marcel Beekman in the tiny, surprising role of Casella.  Casella, a friend of Dante’s youth who died, unexpectedly at a relatively young age and who was himself a musician and composer who’d set, according to Purgatorio, canto 2, a love poem from Dante’s earlier work, “Convivio”.  As Dante arrives in Purgatory he hears his friend singing this familiar song and Andriessen’s setting of this moment manages to capture the ethereal beauty of that moment early on in Dante’s poem.  Beekman’s voice, emerging Thursday night from within the audience (surprising those sitting next to him), possesses a sweetness rare among tenors and his aria, joined briefly at the end by Jeroen Willems’ (at the moment) Dante, was, for me, a highlight of the evening.

(more…)

by Armando Bayolo
Composers, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, New York

NYPO’s Contact! at Symphony Space

The New York Philharmonic has made significant strides to renew its commitment to contemporary classical music this season. Curated by composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg and conducted by music director Alan Gilbert, April16th’s Contact! series performance was a compelling program stirringly performed.

Sean Shepherd‘s These Particular Circumstances proved a vibrant opener. A bassoonist as well as a composer, he’s a fine orchestrator. Its also clear that, while at Cornell for his DMA, he learned a lot about Lutoslawski from Steven Stucky, as his language incorporates insights from both composers. Shepherd’s music has a wonderful way of making the orchestra shimmer. He took advantage of the chamber orchestra’s lither scoring, providing deft contrapuntal passages for winds and solo strings. At the same time, These Particular Circumstances displays considerable power in its tutti passages, reminding us that the ensemble for Contact! is a formidable assembly.

Nico Muhly made a point of complementing his former Juilliard classmate from the stage, pointing out that Shepherd’s high-lying passages create such a signature sound that, when he learned he was following him on the program, he decided to ‘give the violins a break.’ True, with a darker hued string section led by the violas, his work Detailed Instructions takes on a sound world that stood apart from the other pieces on the program. Muhly is post-minimal in orientation. And while a couple of the composers in the audience who sat near me groused at intermission that his work is ‘indebted to Philip Glass,’ what they didn’t seem to hear was Muhly’s playful departures from mainstream minimalism.

Instead of Glass’ symmetrical use of ostinati, Muhly’s repeating figures dart in and out of the ‘expected phrase lengths,’ creating delightful surprises and heady syncopations. In the more reposeful central section, he channeled an appealing lyricism from his recent pop-based excursions into a spacious orchestral mold. The third section gave the NYPO musicians a chance to up the bpm quotient, in a breakneck paced, dazzling finale. Make no mistake, Muhly is no mere retro-minimalist; quite the contrary, he’s a compelling new voice on the scene.

Matthias Pintscher composed Songs from Solomon’s Garden for the NYPO’s artist-in-residence, baritone Thomas Hampson. A setting of texts from the Song of Solomon in Hebrew, the work was simultaneously sensuous and inquisitive. Pintscher deftly juxtaposes cantabile passages with spikier ones, creating an impressively varied orchestral palette. And while Solomon’s Garden never even flirts with neoromanticism, it has a far more lyrical impulse than some of Pintscher’s other, in this writer’s opinion less congenial, vocal writing. Hampson sang the challenging, chromatic, and wide ranging  part with commitment, subtlety, and musicality. At a stage in his career when he certainly needn’t take on learning new works, Hampson’s willingness to participate in Contact! so enthusiastically is admirable.

Alan Gilbert and Thomas Hampson (photo: Stephanie Berger)

Gilbert has done a remarkable job in a short amount of time crafting a fine contemporary ensemble with these Philharmonic members. He elicited powerful, clear, and engaging performances throughout the program. Its worth noting that the NYPO is getting into the spirit and has been very supportive of Contact!. The organization went all out to publicize the show, in the process making a zealous case for new music’s relevancy in the broader cultural life of the city. And they did a good job incorporating multimedia into the PR mix; we posted some of the flipcam videos on the front page in advance of the performance.

Enlisting WNYC’s John Schaefer as host and onstage interviewer was a nice touch. Schaefer kept things moving breezily while eliciting both bon mots and aesthetic observations from each artist and composer. WNYC/WQXR’s contemporary internet station, Q2, will be broadcasting the concert on Thursday, April 22 at 7 p.m. or Saturday, April 24 at 4 p.m.

After the concert, the whole audience was invited to stay and chat at a reception.  Everyone was even treated to a free beer. What’s not to like?

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Uncategorized

Music inspired by World War II

There are many compositions dealing with the horrors of World War II. Some of them, like Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, have little to do with the war–Penderecki changed the original title of the work from 8:37 after hearing its first performance. Others, like Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, achieved notoriety during the war, but their status in the repertory is still debated. (I can’t stand the Seventh, but find his Eighth Symphony one of the most moving works to arise from the war).

Then there is that genre unto itself, the Holocaust piece. An Israeli colleague of mine once solemnly claimed that if an Israeli wrote a piece about the Jewish Holocaust, they would get a performance by an Israeli orchestra. No joke–he had composed such a work and had a tape of said performance.

There is a curious paucity of works from the actual time of World War II which deal with the subject. Artists always claim to be mirrors of their own time, yet where are all the great reflections of the most turbulent era of the last century? One of the few contemporary composers who called out the Nazis and created a lasting work of art at the same time was Michael Tippett in his A Child of Our Time.  Dallapiccola’s Canti di Prigionia is another powerful piece written during the war, although performances are fewer than Tippett’s oratorio. Britten, the self-proclaimed pacifist, during the war years produced–Paul Bunyan? A violin concerto? Peter Grimes?

There has been plenty of music resurrected by composers who perished in Nazi death camps–most of it, to my taste, not worth the effort of programming. The greatest work composed in a Nazi concentration camp was written by a French prisoner of war at Stalag VIII-A, the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps by Messiaen, which is less about the war then an expression of the composer’s faith.

For works about the camps, of course there is Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw, a good piece, yes, but I find the 1920’s/30’s neo-Expressionist language of Schoenberg a little over the top. It’s as if F.W. Murnau did a silent horror film about Auschwitz–effective but at the same time curiously dated and overstated.

For years I found Nono’s Il Canto Sospeso to be the most intense, emotionally powerful work inspired by WWII, with its texts drawn from letters of imprisoned Resistance fighters terrifyingly matched to the searing drama of Nono’s music. But for the past 2 decades, I have been fascinated, captivated, and horrified by Steve Reich’s Different Trains. I heard a good performance of this recently, and you can read my thoughts at the link below.

http://www.sandiego.com/arts/connections-chamber-music-series

by Christian Hertzog
Contemporary Classical

Huck Hodge & Paul Rudy awarded 2010 Rome Prize

University of Washington Professor Huck Hodge and University of Missouri at Kansas City Professor Paul Rudy have been awarded the 2010 Rome Prize in Music. Hodge, a graduate of Columbia University, was awarded the Luciano Berio Rome Prize to compose two works: Augurios for ensemble and Scenes from Faust for symphonic wind ensemble. Rudy, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado at Boulder, was awarded the Elliott Carter Rome Prize for his 2012 Stories Nos. 5-7 and a Saxophone Concerto for the jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson.

Hot off the wires:

The American Academy in Rome is pleased to announce the winners of the 2010-2011 Rome Prize. The Rome Prize is awarded annually through an open national competition that is juried by leading artists and scholars in the fellowship categories. Forty-eight individuals were invited to make up nine peer juries to review the applications this year. Recipients of the 114th annual Rome Prize Competition are provided with a fellowship that includes a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board for a period of 6 months to 2 years in Rome, Italy.

Adele Chatfield-Taylor, FAAR’84, President of the American Academy in Rome, stated: “We are delighted to announce that Trustees of the American Academy in Rome awarded the Rome Prize fellowships earlier today, honoring a tradition that has supported artists and scholars for over 116 years. We look forward to welcoming the 33 Rome Prize recipients this September in Rome.”

The 2010-2011 Rome Prize winners are Seth G. Bernard, M. Shane Bjornlie, Dike Blair, Casey Lance Brown, Thomas J. Campanella, Felipe Dulzaides, Holly Flora, Fritz Haeg, Huck Hodge, Stephanie Malia Hom, Jay Hopler, Lauren M. Kinnee, Ersela Kripa, John Matteo, Heather McGowan, Jeremy Mende, Kathryn Blair Moore, Stephen Mueller, Stephanie Nadalo, Barbara Naddeo, Sarah Oppenheimer, Mark Rabinowitz, Andrew M. Riggsby, Elizabeth C. Robinson, Paul Rudy, Laurie W. Rush, Jennifer Scappettone, Joshua G. Stein, Carly Jane Steinborn, Tyler T. Travillian, Adrian Van Allen, Michael J. Waters, and Karen Yasinsky.

by Rob Deemer
Contemporary Classical

When Jennifer Met Hilary–More on Higdon’s Violin Concerto

Jennifer Higdon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Violin Concerto, written especially for her former student Hilary Hahn, was co-commissioned in 2009 by the Indianapolis, Toronto, and Baltimore symphony orchestras, as well as by the Curtis Institute of Music, where both Hahn and Higdon studied, and where Higdon has been a faculty member since 1994. They first met at Curtis where Higdon was Hahn’s professor of 20th-century music history.

“I was overjoyed by this news,” Hilary said. “It was both artistically and intellectually rewarding to collaborate with Jennifer on this concerto, and she put so much energy into the work. She has been a wonderful colleague throughout the whole process, attending nearly every performance of the piece as well as the recording sessions in Liverpool last spring. From a performer’s perspective, there’s no substitute for that kind of support. Congratulations, Jennifer!”

Violin Concerto was premiered on February 6, 2009 in Indianapolis, where it was met with great critical acclaim. To date, Hahn has performed Higdon’s Violin Concerto with the commissioning orchestras; with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (May 29 and 30, 2009), with whom she also recorded the piece; with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra (January 7-9, 2010); and with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (January 21-23, 2010).  Hahn will play the work with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on May 13-16, 2010, and with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra on February 14, 2011 at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and February 15, 2011 at New York’s Carnegie Hall. These performances will mark the concerto’s Dallas, Philadelphia, and New York premieres, respectively.

Hahn’s recording of Higdon’s Violin Concerto will be released internationally, paired with the Tchaikovsky concerto, by Deutsche Grammophon in September 2010.

After the premiere in Indianapolis, Hahn interviewed Higdon about the composition process and the first performances.   Part 1 is above.   You’ll find more of Higdon interview on Hahn’s YouTube channel.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical

Jennifer Higdon wins the Pulitzer Prize in Music

From the Pulitzer site:

For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Awarded to “Violin Concerto” by Jennifer Higdon (Lawdon Press), premiered on February 6, 2009, in Indianapolis, IN, a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity .

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: “String Quartet No. 3,” by Fred Lerdahl, premiered on December 8, 2009, in Cleveland, Ohio, a remarkable work that displays impeccable technical facility and palpable emotion; and “Steel Hammer,” by Julia Wolfe (G. Schirmer, Inc.), premiered on November 13, 2009, in Gainesville, FL, an innovative composition that, with voices and old-time instruments, turns the old folk tune “John Henry” into an epic distillation of Appalachia.

Judges included Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwanter, South Dakota Symphony conductor Delta David Gier, composer and USF professor of jazz studies Chuck Owen, author and NY Times dance critic John Rockwell and composer Maria Schneider.

by Rob Deemer
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Premieres

Dillon’s baby comes home

Fresh off its German premiere, composer and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon‘s newest string quartet begins making its rounds of the U.S. this week, under the completely able fingers and bows of the Emerson String Quartet.

From the Invisible Cities String Quartet Cycle, String Quartet No. 5 combines elements of chaconne, passacaglia and theme-and-variations. The piece takes the Welsh tune “All Through the Night” through, as the Lawrence writes, “a dizzying and dazzling journey from twilight to twilight.”  The movements are Twilight – Variations; Dream – Chaconne; Dream – Passacaglia, and Variations – Twilight. The piece was commissioned by the Emerson Quartet and an anonymous donor, in honor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

The U.S. premiere performances will happen Saturday, April 10, 7:30 PM at Watson Chamber Music Hall of University of North Carolina School of the Arts (1533 S. Main Street in Winston-Salem) and then Wednesday, April 14 at Meany Hall, the University of Washington (15th Ave, NE and NE 40th St., Seattle). The programs will also include works by Schubert, Barber, Ives and Dvorak.  Future performances of the Quartet are scheduled for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Here’s wishing this particularly well-travelled baby a bright future.

by Steve Layton
Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Remembering

Readers who are reasonably close to Hattiesburg, Mississippi may enjoy two outstanding performances (including a world premiere) happening this week, involving the music of Edwin Penhorwood (Thursday, April 8 at 7:30 at Main Street Baptist Church).

Penhorwood is on the faculty of Indiana University, and is most known for his contributions to American art song and the comic opera Too Many Sopranos.  The University of Southern Mississippi Choral and Orchestral Departments joined forces to commission a new work from Penhorwood, An American Requiem.

Rather than commemorating a specific event, An American Requiem memorializes several (such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina), while also bringing attention to issues such as the environment.  As well, one of the movements is dedicated to the memory of five music students from the Jacobs School, lost in a 2006 plane crash.  The Requiem combines traditional mass texts (both Latin and English), American hymnsong and original poetry by Callum MacColl.  Dr. Gregory Fuller, Director of Choral Activities at Southern Miss, will be leading the orchestra.  The following night, Southern Miss faculty Taylor Hightower (tenor) and Kerrin Hightower (soprano) will give a recital of Penhorwood’s art songs.

by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical

Can You Hear Me, Major Tom?

This is a post for sound freaks.

Some you may know David Chesky as an “orchestra urban composer” whose Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007 or perhaps as the composer of the operatic satire The Pig, the Farmer and the Artist which was voted one of the Best New American Theater Works of 2009.  Some of you may be planning to attend the premiere of his Street Beats percussion concerto tonight at Alice Tully Hall.

What you may not  know is that Chesky has a day job as a record mogul and operates the online music store HDTracks, which  is the world’s only high-resolution music download web store that allows you to download CD quality (1411 kbps ) and DVD audio quality ( 4608 kbps) recordings.   (By contrast, a standard MP3 is only 128 Kbps)  It is probably the only download site that also provides you with liner notes.

The site features a big selection of modern classical labels such as ECM, Delos, Mode, Tzadik, New Albion, Cantaloupe, New World, Koch, Black Box, 2L, Harmonia Mundi, Pentatone, Chandos, and many more.

And because we’re giving him a little plug,  HDtracks is offering all Seqeunza 21 readers a 20 percent off coupon on their first order.  The discount code is HDseq21 and is good for one use per email address until May 31.  (If you tried it last night and it didn’t work, try again.  Should be fixed.)

by Jerry Bowles