Music Highlights for 2008...

Its that time of year when everyone seems to have a list of something to display. Here's mine fot the past musical year....in the USA and Europe.

1. Joyce DiDonato at Rose Hall, Lincoln Center
This was my first chance to hear this amazing American mezzo-soprano live.
This is a stunning voice..supple,beautiful mid-range, and glorious top...one almost feels she is a lyric soprano at times. But the darker side of her voice keeps her firmly in the mezzo range, even if it is hard to believe the bravura that she dispatches coloratura passages in Rossini. Her Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" is unsurpassed today, and her Octavian in "Der Rosenkavalier" is no less exciting. On the Web I also heard a superb Donna Elvira from "Don Giovanni" at Covent Garden. Her career is based more in Europe than America, but that is changing rapidly with an appearance with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, a tour de force concert of Handel mad scenes ... "Furore" ..again at Carnegie, and an appearance with the New York Philharmonic all upcoming in the first part of 2009.
Perhaps I am just prejudiced, but she is a hometown girl, growing up in Kansas City in the same neighborhood I lived in from age 13 on. In any case, a major American artist in her prime.

2. Karita Matila as "Salome" from the Met (Theatercast)
This was possibly the most direct portrait of depravity I will ever experienced. The white heat of the Richard Strauss score met its match in this performance. It is hard to call it that...it was in truth a complete identification with the role. Not only was it vocally superb, it was an acting triumph. The sheer physicality of her interpretation left one stunned and drained. She dominated the stage, covering every square inch of it with her athletic movements...seeming at times like a demented tiger on the loose. After being presented with the head of John The Baptist, she ended up in a crazy ecstasy, lying flat on her back with her head hanging into the orchestra pit. At the close everyone sat frozen in their seats, unable to get up.

3. Berlin Philharmonic "Scharoun Ensemble" at the Zermatt Festival, Switzerland
Two performances stood out this August at the Zermatt Festival. First was the Schbert Octet for Strings and Winds, a work that I heard many years ago at the Aspen Festival, and had not heard since. Written in 1824, this is a huge six movement work of enormous emotional range. Some feel it was a preparation work for his Symphony in C Major "The Great" which he began shortly after composing this octet. It was full of the long lines and varied harmonic questings that dominant his style in his late works. What struck me in this performance was the sheer joy in the work, and how closely the Berlin Philharmonic players identify with Schubert's style. The second performance was Schoenberg's "Verklarte Nacht" in its original version for small chamber ensemble. The sheer intensity of the writing was virtually laid bare, and the beauty of the individual lines came through with a completely different aspect than in the big orchestral version. In this case, less was much, much more.

4. Martha Argerich performing Beethoven Concerto No.1 from Lugano Festival.
Heard in live performance over NPR, Argerich amazed with the freshness, directness, and sheer musicality she brought to this often neglected work, more in the student's domain today then the artist's. This tempermental artist, who often cancels at the last minute, is completely at home at her own piano festival each June in Lugano, Switzerland. What strikes me about a performance such as this is how immediately the attention is focused, and how the energy never flags. She seemed to relish what others often neglect: the constant need for surprising dynamics, the eveness of finger passage work, and the courage to make it into a really big work, with an amazing cadenza at the close of the first movement. It is startling to realize that someone you heard at the start of their career in the late 1950's, is now a matronly woman with long gray hair!

5. Tchaikowsky "Fourth Symphony" with New York Philharmonic conduced by Lorin Maazel, London Proms. BBC
Always controversial, Maazel has lead some superb performances during his final days with the NY Phil. Although the English critics hated this performance, I was galvanized by the vituosity of the orchestra, and how Maazel drove them to a frenzy. Thats always a problem between the USA and the UK. The English get very uncomfortable with such vigor and unabashed emotion. Maazel let them have it between the eyes, even though their eyebrows had long since fallen off by the last movement.
A stunning performance of "Die Walkure" from the Met Opera, which drew lavish praise from the critics, confirmed the fact that Maazel was overlooked for two decades there, and could have been of much greater use. Very sad, and rather typical when you become controversial.

"Thais" From The Met...via Theatercast

Some years ago while attending the French Piano Institute in Paris I heard Renee Fleming at the Bastille Opera in "Manon". I thought at the time she had the perfect voice for Massenet..creamy middle voice...an extension into coloratura..and always elegant musicianship. Having never heard "Thais", I was eager to see how I would react to this production. As far as sets and staging it was very conventional, and at times was rather uninspired, expecially the palace in the second act. It took forever to change the sets and that took away from the fluidity of sequence. Nothing remotely resembled an Egyptian setting, but at least they avoided the pitfall of making it all resemble a church pageant, (although some stray palm trees almost went in that direction). What was impressive was Fleming's emotional and direct "Thais", sung will all of the above, but some years later with an added maturity and insight. This is a great role for her, and she conquered the exotic vocal color, projected in a really difficult vocal line that requires nerves of steel to accomplish the quick chages of register, and also the high tessitura of the last scene. If you share the stage with Fleming at this point in her career, you had better have your shots in order. Thomas Hampson was ardent in expression and commanding in figure. What was lacking was real vocal beauty. I have always felt he is more of a lieder singer, and some of this quality came through. But I rarely felt swept up in sheer vocal opulence. The opera as a whole was quite wonderful, and one felt Massenet's sense of theater in the way the whole affair built towards the final scene. He was the composer par excellence for divas of the day, and no one mixed sex and the Bible to better effect. Renee Fleming is surely at her peak, and its exciting to hear her any chance you get.

A Busy Autumn Brings Rewards.....

Last night I played my final recital of the year for a wonderful audience at The Heritage at Lowman, a Lutheran Retirement Center where I have had a piano series the past six years. The New Life Chapel is such a beautiful setting, especially during afternoon concerts when the light streams through the dramatic stained glass windows. There is a very serene feeling in this rather chaste, modern setting that reminds me of Scandinavian architecture I have experienced. The chapel has a very high dome just over where we place the piano, and this amplifies the sound in a most natural way, considering it is only a six foot Schimmel. But the piano speaks with a lovely sound, and has alot of color possiblities. Last night I played an unusual work by Ottorino Respighi entitled "Antiche Danze ed Arie", a transcription of his orchestral suite for orchestra, based on lute melodies from the 17th century. Respighi did this transcription himself, and it is a very fine example of the art. The haunting "Villanelle" is a favorite. I read where composers could break the rules of composition during this era with the Villanelle, and here Respighi uses open fifths in parallel motion...long before Debussy thought of doing it. I was inspired to learn this work after visiting Rome last year for the first time. There is something quite Roman in the work, afterall, Respighi spent his adult life there, and wrote those powerful works for orchestra..."The Pines of Rome" and "The Fountains of Rome"...both great favorites of the immortal Toscanni.

After this work I performed most of the "Carnaval" of Robert Schumann. It is what I call the intellectuals "Nutcracker". It was made into a ballet and performed by many companies long before "Nutcracker" became the thing it is today. Centered around a Viennese Ball, Schumann captures the great waltzes, german dances, and intermixes real life characters, like his future wife Clara, a current flame, Estrella, Chopin, Paganini, with characters from the Italian Comedy...the soap opera of its day. For once, keeping in mind an older audience (altho I was heartened to see more than a few young people) I outlined the story in detail, and played in groups of three pieces at a time. This way the audience was able to follow a complicated plotline without getting lost in program notes. Its not easy to play this way..jumping back and forth from microphone to keyboard..! In fact I got lost once just after I sat down to continue, and with no program in front of me, I simply asked "Where am I?". Of course, they all shouted out "Reconnaissance"...which I had just finished explaining in great detail. Playing in front of a retirement center audience, no one held it against me!!!

For the last part of the program I arranged a medley of Christmas hymns, carols, popular songs,and spirituals into a "Christmas Garland".
This comes easily to me, as I only played by ear until the age of 11, and did this type of thing often at school and church. At the close, after the stirring "Bless This House" ( which sadly you rarely hear today) a lady came up with her walker and said "I guess you know that you played all this just for me!" What do you say when you are touched to tears.

There are so many audiences around South Carolina, and I played for a great variety of them this fall. .. South Carolinas Governors' School Furman University, USC Sumter. It never fails to impress me when people say how much it means to hear live music in a quiet setting. Perhaps that what this rather broken down world needs this Christmas...