Kelley Nassief, Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

My review of Saturday's Masterworks concert appeared in Monday's Times-Dispatch.

I was surprised how small the audience was, and I'm curious if Sunday afternoon's was any larger. I thought people would like the concept--many short pieces in a sort of "best of opera" format. (To be clear, it was not marketed as a "best-of" concert, and the programmatic choices were thoughtful, not just a riffle through old cartoon soundtrack archives.)

I wonder if the symphony erred in not posting/announcing the detailed program ahead of time. When I checked the website about two days before the concert, nothing beyond the Britten and Ravel was listed. (But just now when I checked, the whole program is up... hmm.) People like to know what they're buying.

By the way, be sure to check the RSO's blog now and then. The entries are a little unpredictable in their tone and content, but almost always of some interest. Associate Conductor Erin Freeman's post about this most recent Masterworks Concert is excellent. A commenter remarked that she should be writing the program notes. That indeed would be wonderful, since not only is Freeman an excellent communicator, but in an ideal world all program notes would be written locally and specifically, placing each performance in context. The RSO's notes are currently procured from John P. Varineau, associate conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony (I just looked this up), and are much better than they were several years ago.

RSO Masterworks: Shatin, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Copland

My review of this past weekend's RSO Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. Shatin's "Jefferson, In His Own Words" was the headline work; Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," Saint-Saens' Cello Concert No. 2 and Dvorak's Symphony No. 6 were also on the program.

Re-reading my review, I'm not sure why I felt I had to make the point that Baliles spoke clearly; that should be expected. What I wanted to say, but didn't have the brainpower to formulate properly on deadline, had to do with the simplicity of his delivery. He didn't over-inflect, and didn't need to; we weren't children gathered round a chair at storytime. As I listened, I took a few moments to imagine what it might sound like if he had crafted a more dramatic--or perhaps one might say a more musical--narrative style, and that made me even more appreciative of his choices.

Probably imprudently, I also imagined what else the Dvorak symphony could have sounded like--thus my review's closing comment. I don't know the sixth symphony well enough to know what has or hasn't been, or should or shouldn't be done with it, but it seems to me if you're going to pick a composer to rough up a bit, Dvorak is a good candidate. Take some risks, show me the difference between playing music and just performing it.

The two tenors of Tracey Welborn

First, here's my review of an August concert by the Richmond Chamber Players.  Even though I spent just as much space on the Clarke viola sonata as on "Ten Blake Songs" by Vaughn Williams, I was much more captivated by the latter. Tracey Welborn's voice was a perfect match for the music, words, oboe and space, which was a church sanctuary.

So I was looking forward to hearing him sing again, the tenor solo in Beethoven's Ninth when the RSO performed it in September. My review of that concert is here, but Clarke Bustard's has a more accurate analysis of what was happening with the Ninth.

My sense was that Welborn wasn't a good match with Kevin Deas, the bass. The first is wildflowers, the other lawn. And had the tempo been less "breathless," as Clarke notes, I think Welborn's voice wouldn't have given the impression that he was lost in the hall. I'm looking forward to hearing him sing again under different circumstances.

Organ-ization

My review of Saturday's Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. To be honest, it was not a concert I looked forward to. "Chorus" and "organ" just aren't appealing words to me on a beautiful May evening. But as I listened to the opening work, "Rainbow Body," (which uses neither chorus nor organ), I could feel the day's tension leaving my  body; when "Gesang der Parzen" began, I thought, "Oh, that's right, I like Brahms!" And by the time the organ began playing in the Saint-Saens, I was completely relaxed and happy.

Mr. Van Pelt (see the comments below the review on the RTD site) contacted me personally to make sure I understood the location of the organ's pipes, which is pretty much directly behind the loudspeakers in the Carpenter Theater, hidden behind paneling, as pipes sometimes are. His correction clears up my confusion, and I was able to get more fascinating information from him about the Carpenter's organ-- for one thing, it's apparently made from parts of the organ that was originally in the building in the late 1920s.

I'm happy enough to blame Saint-Saens for writing an organ into an orchestral work; I think organs are best left to their own devices, of which they have many-- sort of the point, no? And I'm not going to spend the next 25 years grousing about the acoustics in the Carpenter Theater. It may not be the Schermerhorn, but it's no Dogwood Dell, either. (Plus, I've been to a concert in the Schermerhorn, in the balcony, and it was like watching a very good television. I'm fine with the middle ground between perfect acoustics and extreme intimacy that the Carpenter gives.)

The image, by the way, is of the only organ I've ever truly, truly appreciated. It's 25 years old this year and is installed in the chapel of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.

Beaten with a stick

Here's my review of the Richmond Symphony's Masterworks performance on February 27, featuring then-candidate Maestro Steven Smith and pianist Jon Nakamatsu. (Berlioz, Beethoven, Shostakovich) Visually, a compelling argument for balcony seats.

Richmond Symphony Masterworks: Beethoven, Sheng, Franck

My review of Richmond Symphony's most recent Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch.

In discussing "Nanking! Nanking!" the phrase I use, "pounding the audience into shock," is not an exaggeration. The piece ends with about eight (I forgot to count) fortissimo repeated notes that made the word "rape" spring to my mind. (I later realized that the title "The Rape of Nanking" had been in my subconcious, though I've never read the book.)

I couldn't believe that was how the piece ended, and I suspect others in the audience had the same reaction. There was a pause of several seconds, and it wasn't until Fagen turned to Wei to shake his hand that applause began.

It's very hard to explain, especially in a written review that doesn't permit much, if any, first-person voice, the state of not liking a piece but being glad to have heard it. My not liking it was for two reasons, as was my gladness for hearing it.

I didn't like it because it didn't have anything especially new to add to the catalogue of music-that-imitates-violence, and because I'd just rather listen music that's more subtle, if not traditionally melodic.

I was glad to hear it for the reasons I mentioned in the article, and because, more specifically, it did have some very interesting aural pairings of the pipa with other sections and soloists the orchestra-- the pipa-contrabassoon duets, for example.

I still haven't answered the question, "Why the pipa?" Sheng writes that the solo instrument in "Nanking! Nanking!" has the role of victim, witness and survivor. Maybe giving this usually delicate-sounding instrument an often-violent line to play says something about the human capacity to adapt, to react, to act both basely and nobly, and about music's ability to reflect all aspects of our humanity.

Before beginning the piece, Fagen led three excerpts from "Nanking! Nanking!" with very brief remarks before each. I though the chosen bits were a little long, but I suppose that was necessary.

Fagen did an excellent job conducting the whole program, clearly composed and authoritative. However, the Egmont didn't have as much brightness to it as I thought it should. Is "new hall" still an excuse after 3 months? I don't know, not knowing what can be physically done to sharpen the sound and get rid of (or temper) excess boom and resonance.

Richmond Symphony: Debussy, Prokofiev, Berlioz

My review of this concert appeared in Monday's Times-Dispatch, but there's no appearance of it online, so I'll post here. Read through for a few additional thoughts at the end.

Imagine a cup filled so full that the water makes a dome above its brim. The liquid trembles, bulges—but stays within the cup’s edge, held in place by surface tension until some outside force intervenes.

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is music that plays, metaphorically speaking, at the edge of the cup. The emotional tension was portrayed keenly on Saturday night by the Richmond Symphony and guest pianist Jeremy Denk, under the baton of conductor Christian Knapp, a candidate for the postion of music director of the symphony.

Written in C Major, but with melodies that quiver at the brinks of various minor keys, the concerto strains at the boundaries of simple categories like “happy” and “sad.” Denk’s performance showed this brilliantly. The piano cavorts into the first movement, but as the music spills over the edge of glee, Denk played with a near-vicious ecstasy. When a brooding equilibrium is reached, he didn’t let the music become complacent.

In introducing the concerto, Knapp remarked on Prokofiev’s fascination with machinery. The concerto does have passages of mechanical insistence, musical figures that get repeated like a step on the assembly line of sound, but Denk’s no automaton. He translated such moments into a manic playfulness that let the audience marvel at both his skill and the larger context of the music itself.

Denk performed with sensitivity to the orchestral voices, and the musicians played in harmonious partnership with him. At moments in the first and third movements, the violins and woodwinds seemed to have trouble hearing each other. Knapp worked quickly to bring them together.

The theme of tension at the threshold connected the first and last pieces on the program as well. “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune” by Debussy and “Symphone fantastique” by Berlioz both explore the boundary between dream and waking worlds.

In Debussy’s dreamy afternoon, the surface shimmers, but doesn’t break. It’s easy to imagine the flute, oboe and other solo parts as light-footed fauns and nymphs. The musicians voiced these passages beautifully against the lush backdrop of harps and strings.

The opium-fueled dream Berlioz depicts is in sharp contrast to the languid eroticism of the Debussy. The music is by turns graceful, plaintive, violent and comic—and more—and requires quick mood shifts, which the musicians handled with ease.

Knapp directed emphatically, often using his full body, as if he were inside the dream himself. When the music ended, there were murmurs and sighs from the audience as we returned to the world of the concert hall to applaud.

Except that the sounds I heard were not so much murmurs and sighs as little gasps and burbles. That last movement's music is pretty crass, after all. But I couldn't use those words in a review, as they'd convey entirely the wrong meaning to readers who don't know the music.
 
(Burbles: you know, that sound some Educated People make when they laugh at something they think only Educated People realize is funny.) 
 
I also deliberately didn't use the word "animated" to describe Knapp's conducting. It's such a cliche, and I worried some readers would read it as a positive commentary ("Yay! the conductor is entertaining!") or as a negative commentary ("Humph. Too wacky. Undignified.") depending on their inclination. I hope "emphatically" came across as purely discriptive.
 
There were several points in the Berlioz and even once or twice in the Prokofiev that I thought the music sounded bottom-heavy. (Were six basses really necessary?) Personally, I'm all for a conductor who likes cellos and basses, but they were occassionally distracting in this performance.

Richmond Symphony: Carmina Burana

My review of Saturday night's Masterworks performance ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. Read it first, then here are a few more thoughts.

"Cignus ustus cantat," that roasting swan song, truly epitomized why live performance (by professionals) is alwasy better than a recording. What splendid avian agony from the oboe! What tortured misery from the tenor! Marcus Shelton was not on stage when the movement began... huh? He staggered on, smoldering (well, not literally) and hammed up the part, to the audience's delight. I'm just guessing, but it also seemed like Zeller, the baritone, felt more at home in his parts after Shelton's performance.

The problems with dynamic contrast that I mention were also evident in the first two pieces. I hope the review (as always, I only get about 400 words) makes it clear that I think this is primarily a matter of getting used to the new space, not a shortcoming of the conductor or the orchestra.

Likewise, I sometimes had trouble hearing the winds when the full orchestra was playing. I'm sure that was due to my seat in the sixth row. (Clarke Bustard didn't have that problem, but I don't know where he was sitting.)

Mr. Bustard also notes the reverberancy of sound in the hall. This is neither good nor bad, but it can present a challenge to work with, especially when there are so many elements, like in the "Carmina." A violinist I spoke to after the concert said that symphony staff were trying out all sorts of seating arrangements and placements during rehearsals and that the sound was incredibly "booming" without the 1700 bodies in the seats.

There were times, such as at the ends of some of the Carmina movements--when the sustained sound was perfectly dramatic. But at the end of the Brahms, the combination of a long sustain and Willis' perhaps nervous impatience meant he actually turned around to receive applause before the note ended.

Now for some wild tangents.

If I were a hard-core snob, I would complain that the program (Saint-Saens' Bacchanale, a "greatest-hits" sort of piece; Brahms' "Variations on a [Cute] Theme by Haydn"; and Orff's big-noise, Ozzy-adopted "Carmina Burana") was too familiar. But I'm the people's snob, so in addition to loving it, I'm also thinking about how all three pieces are, in the broadest sense, folk music.

In a strict sense, folk music is that which has no identifiable single origin, is associated with a particular culture or place, and can be played/sung without extensive techinical training. But for a while now, I've been thinking that only that last part should be retained. For one thing, modern obsessions with documentation and authorship/ownership have basically guaranteed that we know the origins of almost all music composed in the past century and a half. I think a better definition of folk music is simply music that folks can and want to recreate themselves, with more or less practice, from memory.

No, we didn't all go home and play the oboe solo from the beginning of the Bacchanale (oh, I wish). But all three works had easily identifiable melodies or melodic bits, stuff that folks could--and did--go home singing or humming. (The "theme by Haydn" is probably a folk melody from Austria. Did you click the Brahms link above?)

So humor me. It's kind of like folk music, right?

In any case, the program was a stoke of marketing genius--I'm saying this with admiration, not cynicism. Think about it: if you can hum the music, you'll remember it. If you remember the music, you'll remember the night you went to the Richmond Symphony. And if you remember that, you'll be more likely to go again. The symphony knew that the first Masterworks concert of the season in the new Carpenter Theatre would be very well attended. I do hope all of them return.

Richmond Symphony: Brahms's Butter & Barber's Brilliance

My older daughter says she once saw a cooking show in which Paula Deen mixed butter, mayonnaise and breadcrumbs, rolled something in the mixture, deep fried it (whatever the base food was didn’t seem to be the point), then dipped it into mayonnaise to eat it.

Brahms’s cooking show—I think he had one—was similar. If he didn’t, his music, at least, was created on the principle, “Try more butter.” This is why you should never listens to Brahms on a Sunday afternoon without a pot of coffee and an open window.

But I like Brahms, even in serving sizes as large as a symphony, such as his Number 2 in D major, with which the Richmond Symphony ended its performance last night at St. Michael’s. I could have used even more butter, so to speak. Partly that’s because I think any time the cellos get a gorgeous melody, as in the first and second movements here, everyone, including the conductor, should drop to his knees and weep.

Daniel Meyer, auditioning conductor #2, (who did not drop to his knees) was an expressive but not excessive director for the whole program, which began with a piece from 1994, “Javelin” by Michael Torke.

This sprightly music was full of shapes and gesticulations; the only melody of more than a few repeated notes was inspirational in nature. As a whole, it was a pleasantly invigorating listen. Lest you think this too much faint praise, here are Torke’s words, which I saw in the program notes after the piece was over: “What came out was a sense of valor among short flashes and sweeps… The piece’s fast tempo evokes the generally uplifting, sometimes courageous, yet playful spirit.”

So, in fact, the composition and its performance was a rousing success, as defined by communication of intent.

Second on the program was Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (Op.14); concertmistress Karen Johnson soloed. (I had never heard this piece before, but I like the Barber music that I know.) As at times in the Brahms, it seemed as if the orchestra wasn’t responding the way Meyer wanted. Especially in the first movement of the Barber, a lush Allegro, the big parts could have been bigger, the small parts smaller.

I think, however, this was mostly a factor of the St. Michael’s in-the-round arrangement and compartmentalized ceiling. When the average audience member is only 12 feet away, it’s practically impossible for an orchestra to play a good piano or pianissimo. And—though I don’t know much about acoustics—the forte parts seemed to go straight up and get stuck in the cross-shaped ceiling.

Also, Johnson had her back to my section, and it was sometimes hard to hear her. (This was my first ever and last ever St. Michael’s concert.)

In the second movement, Andante, the music descends from introspection into lethargy. You hear the self trying to rouse; by the end of the movement, resolution is reached, but it seemed like Meyer wanted to get to that point of awakening sooner than the RSO.

"Presto in moto perpetuo” is as brilliante as it sounds on paper. Listening to the third movement is like a riding full-tilt up the Empire State Building in a glass elevator with a fast-talking Manhattanite jacked up on sugar pointing out representative bits of American culture.
Just when you think the elevator and your tour guide couldn’t possibly go any faster, you smash through the roof and everyone jumps to their feet clapping.

In the music, snatches of vernacular whip by, a whirlwind tour of American music up to 1939. It’s truly giddy, and about half a minute before the end I did worry that something was going to fly apart. When Karen Johnson started her last lick, I thought, “My god, I don’t think her fingers are going to make it!” But they did, and so did she!

Richmond Symphony: Tchaikovskyyyyyyy!

Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony is one crazy work--loud, fast and forceful. A pizzicato third movement is less playful than perverse. By the fourth movement, the music is wound up so tightly, one might worry that a single wrong touch could send the whole contraption spinning out of control, springs and cogs aloft. (If you've never heard it... it's impressively nuts, all the strings playing together at breakneck speed.)

One might worry--and one did, last night at the Richmond Symphony's performance of the symphony under directorial candidate #1, Mikhail Agrest. I didn't worry much, though, because I didn't really believe RSO would lose it in a piece everyone's played before. Possibly the very intent of the piece is to incite anxiety.

I was sitting in the balcony and had a clear view of two violists heaving sighs and brushing hair off their brows during a rest in the last movement. A violinist later told me s/he felt the piece was awfully close to falling apart because Agrest wasn't on top of things. My impression of Agrest in general was that he trusted the orchestra to perform well and sensibly; he wasn't autocratic. Maybe he should have been, at least from one violinist's perspective.

The RSO also performed a trombone concerto by Christopher Rouse, a piece that deserves more play than it probably gets. It begins and ends with thoughtful, at times somber movements; the second movement is dramatic, loud and violent. Agrest introduced the piece with an extended chat, guiding listeners' thoughts toward war, but I was more reminded of nature's power, rather than humans' might. The concerto is made up of many little waves of sound--crescendos and decrescendos--and, taken as a whole, is itself wave-like.

Although the trombone solo was capably played by Michael Mulcahy of the Chicago Symphony, I didn't come away feeling a new appreciation for the trombone--that is, it's not a showboat piece. In fact, sometimes I thought the trombone could have played above the orchestra a little more. Mostly, though, the solo and the orchestra were intentionally collaborative.

I don't think Rouse broke any astonishing new ground, but this concerto moved me. Like an ocean that flattens villages or lulls a raft, music's power comes in many forms.