"Yet nature is made better by no mean. But nature makes that mean: so, over that art. Which you say adds to nature, is an art.
That nature makes;.....this is an art. Which does mend nature, change it rather, but. The art itself is nature."
- William Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale IV. 89
2006. ARMARIUS
Sunday, March 30, 2008
For this weekend
Gluck opera discs are my picks for this week,
Magdaléna Kožená as Orphée, Patricia Petibon as L`Amour, Gardiner, 1999 performance at the Théâtre Musical de Paris. Iphigenie en Aulide, Lyon Opera Orchestra/ Gardiner. Gluck's first reform opera for Paris. Gardiner presses the music forward eagerly and keeps the tension at a high level even in the dance music.
Iphigenie en Tauride, Boston Baroque/ Martin Peralman Very vivid and dramatic playing.
Orfeo ed Euridice, Freiburg Baroque Opera/ Rene Jacobs The best version of the Italian original. Jacobs draws the high energy, the sharply defined textures and dynamics. However it's the singer of Orpheus, even more than the conductor, who gives character to a performance of this work. Bernarda Fink sings the role here very beautifully and quite unaffectedly.
Armide, Les Musiciend du Louvre/ Marc Minkowski. Minkowski has a tendency towards quickish tempos, resulting in a very light and flexible performance with rhythmic spring.
I have frequently been asked to recommend good opera recordings of Vivaldi. What I am surprised at is the suddenness of Vivaldi's operas acceptance and perceived marketability.
Absurdly, recordings of Vivaldi operas had been almost unheard of despite his contemporary's heavyweight reputation as a musical dramatist. (For example, the article on Vivaldi in the 1980 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians does not even include the operas (over 60 of them) in the incomplete works list) Yet in the past couple of years they have been coming thick and fast. Even the suddenness of their acceptance and perceived marketability have threatened to make the past two decade's rise of Handel operas seem slow.
There are some reason why Vivaldi's operas had been almost unheard. The first, I think, is their big recitatives which require more of a listener's concentration. The important thing of Vivaldi's operas is that their big recitatives however are made necessary by the complexities of the plot and their conversational realism allows them to be more than just a functional advancement of the plot. Also the extreme virtuosity is demanded from every one of the singers. (For example, Listen to Bartoli's stunning virtuosity in Aria Agitata da due venti in Vivladi's Opera Griselda.)
Among rapidly increasing recordings of Vivaldi operas in market, operas from the Vivaldi edtion released by French Label Naive, the quixotic project conceived by musicologist Alberto Basso to record the music by Vivaldi found in manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, strike me as the most likely recommendable recordings. Among them, Griselda from Spinosi, L'Olympiade from Alessandrini and Tito Manlio from Ottavio Dantone deserve to be appreciated. ( For detail on Vivaldi Edition, http://www.naive.fr/artiste_coll.php?id=250)
So far, to the best of my knowledge, the best achievement in increasing Vivaldi opera recordings is Bajazet from Fabio Biondi and his strong cast and imaginative playing. Also Bajazet provides clues on the circumstance of the contemporary Italy. Bajazet is partly a pasticcio, which is that it borrows and adapts arias from other operas, and in this case, while the arias for ‘conquered’ characters such as Bajazet and Asteria are by Vivaldi, those for the conquerors – Tamerlano, Andronico and Irene – are other men’s work. It means that the old Venetian culture succumbs to an Neapolitan new culture.
It would be too early to judge whether Vivaldi can match up to his contemporary’s heavyweight reputation as a musical dramatist – though in truth it seems unlikely – . But, hey, so what? Lovers of Vivaldi and Baroque opera like me will certainly not be complaining at the appearance on disc of so much ‘new’ music.
Viva! Vivaldi!
p.s: I'll post a Recording review on Griselda from Spinosi in English.
Brendel Plays Franz Schubert - Piano Sonata D. 960 part 1-1
Brendel's last recital in the United States was held on March 17th. Brendel's last recital in Chicago was held on March 9th. He will give his farewell performance in Vienna.
We gathered at CSO on March 9th to give tribute to an astounding career of sixty years at the piano.
Brendel, you are always committed to the elegant expression of every detail in the score. At the end of concert, I told to my self, "What can I do to change your mind about retiring?"
------ Q: How was it working with Francois Ozon on Eight Women?
CD: It was difficult because he was... I suppose he was afraid of giving more to one actress than to another, so he sort of treated us like the commander of a troop. And I was not too keen about that way of working. But he was very precise. The interesting thing is that he would do the camera himself, which is very rare. He knew exactly what he wanted and he showed us images from films. Our characters were a mixture of characters from English or American films and it was sort of like a pastiche, but we knew it would be like that. Once he had decided on the costumes and the style of it, he let us be quite free to work with that. ---------
GA: So you're not one of these Method style actors, who have to get very deeply into character and identify with it.
CD: But I do get very involved with the character. But being a film actor is very different from, say, a theatre actor. You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration. So I am very involved with the character, but I have to leave it as soon as it's finished. And also, you always have to be at the right level when it's time to shoot, which is not always the best time for the actor. Sometimes, if you're shooting a complicated scene, you have to stay in a position and wait for the technician to do his job, and then you have to be where you're supposed to be, right on the spot. You don't rehearse all that much on films. If I think of the amount of time I spend on set compared with the time spent shooting, it's ridiculously short.
Frank Martin (1890-1974), Maria-Triptchon/Polyptyque, German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph Poppen, Juliane Banse(sop), Muriel Cantoreggi(violin).
The exceptional sacred work of Swiss composer Frank Martin is finally unveiled. This work could not be more welcome to me who has been long and deeply interested in Frank Martin's Sacred Work since I was moved a lot by two outstanding recordings of Frank Martin’s beautiful Mass for Double Choir from Harry Christophers and The Sixteen and James O'Donnell and Westminster Cathedral Choir 10 years ago. This recording deserves to be appreciated.
Maher's Symphony No.6 from Gergiev and his LSO in this video seems to start very urgently. Even though I much admire Prokofiev Symphonies from Gergiev and LSO, I doubt his style to wildly urge strings (even from the begining to the end) with unrefined and furious brass (yes, it can be said to be typical Russian Style or Russian School) well suits to the work's intense sadness.
Nonetheless, I am curious about what Gergiev's fine ability to bring out the theatrical things deliver to me. I am willing to buy this work even though I will be disappointed.
"Si autem Christus praedicatur quod suscitatus est a mortuis, quomodo quidam dicunt in vobis quoniam resurrectio mortuorum non est? Si autem resurrectio mortuorum non est, neque Christus suscitatus est! Si autem Christus non suscitatus est, inanis est ergo praedicatio nostra, inanis est et fides vestra;" (Cor 1,15 12-14)
This coming week is Holy week, the last week before Easter. Here is my choice for Holy week and Easter.
Le Christ est ressuscité!!
* Especially, the 27th Sunday after Trinity occurs in this year. To celebrate it... Bach, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme", BWV 140
1. Byrd, Music for Holy Week and Easter, Cardinall's Musick/Andrew Carwood, ASV This recording covers most of Byrd's Holy week and Easter music, from St John's Passion choruses for Good Friday to the Octave day of Easter, and including miniature Vespers at the end of the Easter Vigil, and the whole of the Proper of the Mass for Easter Day. Throughout, Cardinall's Musick maintains a remarkable balance between drama and restraint.
2. Rimski-Korsakov, Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/David Zinman. Rimski-Korsakov's Russian Easter Festival Overture is a sophisticated feast of orchestral colour based on Russian Orthodox canticles and hymns. Espiecally, the opening solos cound not me more beautifully played.The solemn wood wind, the radiant strings, a cadenza for the leader, a melancholy solo cello, a ruminative flute and patriarchal trombones, before the flute again takes wing and accompanies a sinuous carinet.
3. Bach, Easter Cantata, Gardiner Here is the work from Gardiner's lively reponses to the many instances of word-painting and his intuitive feeling for dance rhythms.
4. Handel, La resurrezione, Marc Minkowski. Still one of Handel's most underrated, or at any rate most underperofrmed works, La Resurrezione explores the expressive power of colour in new ways with unexpected orchestration as the Dixit Dominus does. With strong cast, Minkowski gives us a vital impression of a particularly fine sample of Handel’s youth.
Thomas Ades's Asyla from Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Simon Rattle who is the leading interpreter of Ades's works. Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan 2005
Thomas Ades (1971~ , Born in London), Violin Concerto, Anthony Marwood, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, 2007, EMI. DOWNLOAD ONLY!
Here is the truly great work from Thomas Ades which I have waited 10 years for since his debut album, Living Toys. From the urgent opening to the close where a gorgeous bluesy tune on the violin meets an implacable rhythm, it throws the spell of the tension over a listener, then, led to a composer's very dramatically musical world where the ghosts of Mahler, Stravinsky, Berg and Shostakovich seem to be floating around.
Technically Anthony Marwood, for whom this work was written, very well weaves high melodic lines with astonishing dexterity and passion. What's even more, he strikes me as the only one who is able to keep in tune those hellish high notes while I appreciate this work!
It's a superb performance. Oh and did I mention that this is, indeed, a coolly intelligent work?
Thanks my close friends, Suk, Jihyun Gahng, Allegri, Catherine and my beloved Jihyun Park for introducing this work and fortifying and modifying my sense of what I was appreciating.
Han-Na Chang playing Shostakovich 1st Cello Concerto at BBC Proms in 2006.
1. March 8, 2008 at CSO; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor : Robert Levin, piano One of the standard bearers of the "period instrument" stood at the podium for his CSO debut Saturday at Orchestra Hall. These performances were among the freshest, most invigorating and revelatory I have waited one and half year from the orchestra since I heard Mahler's Seventh Symphony from Pierre Boulez. On orchestra expansion of the Shostakovich Eighth string quartet, Gardiner delivered fine degrees of tone color and intensity which highlight the sense of numbed despair. A renowned Mozart scholar as well as a superb pianist, Robert Levin drew an ungent, freewheeling and utterly compelling account from Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. Gardiner's "Rhenish" seemed to be a little bit away from the haviness so often visited on the work, but it was certainly bracing and exuberant. (there were the shocking bloopers from the five prominently featured horns though.) In sum, this was a concert to deserve to be appreciated.
2. Feb 7, 2008 at Debartolo, Joshua Bell The most important work on this concert was Prokofiev's first violin sonata, op. 80. Bell's fast passages seemed to be less close to the mood implied by Prokofiev's marking (freddo, or cold), but his tone was enough to gain traction in one's ear. Tartini's "Devil's Trill" sonata was a dramatic vehicle for Bell. Even he did not fail to deliver the demaned technique, it was too bad his playing sounded like Paganini In Dvorak's Four Romantic Pieces, op. 75, Bell's palying was with plenty of gypsy bravura and a sobbing melody of Romantic anguish. Saint-Saens' first violin sonata (D minor, op. 75) was an impressive blur of running notes, during which Bell paid back Denk. The encores continued the tone of sweet diversion with Bell's arrangement of Faure'ss song Apres un reve and Heifetz's arrangement of Prokofiev's March from Love of Three Oranges.
3. Feb 23, 2008 at CSO, Uchida/Boulez plays Bartok. This program was pure Boulez in construction and execution. Boulez conducted "Osiris" of such punctilious order that might have been composed "Osiris" for him. In Debussy's Images, tempos were marginally faster and the sound was more consistently alluring. The Images benefited from Chicago's extra polish and finesse. Having not heard Mitsuko Uchida recently, I was glad to hear her in one of my most favorite works, Bartok Paino Concerto No.3 which I have been tempted to play by myself since I heard the record where Grimaud and Boulez turn prince and princess for the most memorable outing the work has had in years. Uhida gave relishes to Bartok's solo writing in the way she suddenly reduced the volume and body of her tone. The woodwind birdsong at the centre of the Adagio sung out to a keen staccato; the timps and bass drum in the finale were wonderfully vivid.
4. Feb 9, 2008 at CSO, Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears. Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya's direction was incisive. All the supporting cast and chorus singers, as well as the players in the orchestra, were first rate. But the star of the performance was soprano Dawn Upshaw as a Muse to Golijove. Her performances in this role demolished her prior image as a cool, detached art song recitalist. This performance was close to mandatory listening for anyone interested in the evolving path of opera.
5. Jan 19, 2008 at CSO, Han-Na Chang, Antonio Pappano. Thanks to the kindness of a friend, I was able to attend the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with my close friends. The highlight of the night was Han-Na Chang's performance where she played Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2. Her intense and aggressive style carried its own risks. Adopting in fast music speeds a notch swifter than the norm, Chang combines raw emotion with a structural grip that is even more remarkable. Encouraing the CSO winds to emulate the edginess of Soviet Russian playing styles, Pappano was right there with her. And then, Pappano led me to the delicate reinement of Liadov "Enchanted Lake" and the surging majesty of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2.
Next.. April 20th,Pierre-Laurent Aimard,Bach The Art of Fugue at CSO May 3rd, Paavo Jarvi, STRAVINSKY: Le sacre du printemps at Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra May 17th, Osmo Vanska, Sibelius Symphony No. 3 at Cleveland Symphony Orchestra
Arthur and George , Julian Barnes, 2006. Toward the end of the novel, there is a lengthy, exquisitely nuanced, wonderfully subtle conversation between Doyle and a senior police officer, ranging in topic from race and religion to Oscar Wilde and the nature of moral guilt, which is testimony in itself to Barnes's extraordinary artistry. There is a great deal to be admired in this lucid, sophisticated narrative.
Three Novellas, Thomas Bernhard, 2003 Here is a work from still relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, the Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Much of Bernhard's best work consists of short stories that are still unknown in English; a dozen plays, regularly performed in Europe, including his masterful drama Heldenplatz, remain unseen. Three Novellas provides a fascinating microcosm of the madhouse in which Bernhard found himself confined. He starts by saying his Austria where provincial life is unremittingly vulgar, state bureaucrats are stupid and the rare cultured individual is iolated and obessed. We find the prototypically Bernhardian narrator -- unnamed, crafty, obesessive, above all prolix-- bounded in the situation of an acquaintance's recent suicide, which has threatened his own existence. I love unconventional, strange writers like Bernhard, who refused to toe the line. I have not known who sounds quite like Bernhard.
Ockeghem, Missa Cuiusvis Toni, Ensemble Musica Nova/Lucien Kandel from Anna Suggesting one different feasible answer to the long-lasting question concerning the precise number of possible versions intended by Ockeghem(Yes, such questions are perhaps best left to specialists rather a lover of Ockeghem's music like me), this recording is superb: Ensemble Musica Nova are a mixed choir singing two-to-a-part in a sympathetic acoustic that allows for contrapuntal clarity and a sound image at once warm and bright. More words on this recording would be superfluous, but I cannot but shortly mention the music is glorious.
Handel, Tamerlano, Orchestra of Patras/George Petrou from Ekaterina As such, this first recording to adopt the version that Handel decided on for the premiere deserves to be appreciatred. Just to hear the swelling on a sustained bass note (in the Overture and in Tamerlano’s second aria) is to be reassured that all will be well.
Zelenka, Trio Sonatas, Ensemble Zefiro from Gounod The sounds of the solo instruments themselves, toghether with an effective continuo group of double bass, harpsichord/organ and theorbo are admirably captured in the recording. This is splendidly invogorating playing of music which offers a great deal beyond the face value.
Manchicourt,Cuidez vous que Dieu nous Faille, Brabant Ensemble/Stephen Rice from Catherine This is a nimble, nicely balanced choir of two or three voices to a part which, at its best, is very moving and compelling , though the dominance of the trebles slightly obscures the contrapuntal working of the lower voices. I have waited 10 years for this recording since Huelgas Ensemble's wonderful recording (1998) of Manchicourt's work. I must hope that another 10 years don’t elapse before I get to hear more of him. Please more Maichicourt's work.
Rest in Peace, My Beloved Pippo, Giuseppe di Stefano. Your recordings with "La Divina", such as the Tosca with Tito Gobbi conducted by Victor de Sabata, are remembered to be unsurpassed.
1. キリンジ / 愛のCoda 2. キリンジ / サイレンの歌 3. 小沢健二 / ある光 4. 貫妙子 / Comment oublier～忘却 5. Paulinho da Viola / Reverso da paixao 6. Marisa Monte / Tema de amor 7. Chico Buarque / A banda 8. Nara Leao / Maria Moita 9. Toquinho & Chico Buarque / Lua cheia-Samba de Orly-Samba para Vinícius 10. Nuevo quinteto real/Homenaje a Pedro Laurenz
