The Knights at the Naumburg Band Shell

The Knights at the Naumburg Band Shell
Central Park, New York, NY
July 10, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

Eric Jacobsen, Conductor
Julia MacLaine, Cello

Wagner Siegfried Idyll
Schumann Cello Concerto in A Minor, op. 129
Debussy Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Adès Three Studies from Couperin
Jacobsen/Aghaei Ascending Bird: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra

Thoughts on the program by James Roe.

Program Overview

“I must try for something else.”  --- Robert Schumann

“new inspiration on every page”  --- Thomas Adès

The incredible alchemy of an orchestra concert is achieved through its array of collaborative elements.  Composers—whether living or from the past—endeavor to represent the musical sounds they hear in their imaginations with written notation.  Performers, in turn, use the decidedly physical act of playing musical instruments to reach through the printed notation for the composer’s voice.

In each of the works on tonight’s program there is an additional collaborative element, an inspiration outside the composer through which he reaches to us.  For Wagner, it was a private musical gift to his wife.  Schumann’s was the voice of the cello, an instrument he briefly attempted to learn after an injury prevented him from playing the piano.  Debussy created a musical “impression” of Stéphane Mallarmé’s symbolist poetry.  Thomas Adès’ inspiration was the keyboard music of François Couperin.  Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei based “Ascending Bird” on a traditional Persian folk song.

Richard Wagner
(b Leipzig, May 22, 1813; d Venice, February 13, 1883)

Siegfried Idyll

Composed: 1870, Tribschen

Premiere: privately, December 25, 1870, in the home of Cosima and Richard Wagner

Instrumentation: flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, strings

Duration: 17 minutes

Siegfried Idyll offers a glimpse into the intimate world of Richard Wagner.  Never intended for public performance, the work was written as a birthday gift for his wife Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt and former wife of conductor and champion of Wagner’s music, Hans von Bülow.  Cosima bore Wagner three children while still married to Bülow, daughters Isolde (1865) and Eva (1867), and their son Siegfried (1869).  Cosima and Bülow were divorced in July of 1870 and she married Wagner a month later in Lucerne.

On the morning after Cosima’s 33rd birthday, December 25, 1870, Wagner assembled a chamber orchestra on the stairs leading to her bedroom.  She awoke to the premiere of a work written for her alone, based on musical themes important to the couple, now at long last, husband and wife.

She wrote in her diary:

“A sound awoke me which grew ever stronger; I knew I was no longer dreaming, there was music, and what music! When it had died away, R. came into my room with the five children and gave me the score of his ‘Symphonic Birthday Greeting’ - I was in tears, so was everybody in the house. R. had placed his orchestra on the staircase, and thus our Tribschen is consecrated for all time.”

The work opens with a gentle, arching melody that Wagner originally conceived for a string quartet dedicated to Cosima.  In the Idyll, he gives us a sense of how that unrealized work might have sounded, as the strings play alone for a full two minutes before the woodwinds enter.  The appearance of the fresh orchestral color, first the flute, and then oboe and clarinet, is magic.  One can imagine Wagner painting a musical picture of Cosima’s first stirrings on the morning of the premiere.

The work is disarmingly tender and personal.  British music scholar and Wagner specialist, Ernest Newman, referred to it as “a series of domestic confidences.” It can come as no surprise that Cosima cried when it was sold for publication to help raise needed funds.  This, the most private of Wagner’s musical creations, has become his most performed instrumental work.


Robert Schumann
(b Zwickau, Saxony, June 8, 1810; d Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856 )

Cello Concerto in A Minor, op. 129

Composed: October 10-24, 1850, Düsseldorf

Premiere: posthumously, April 23, 1860, Oldenburg, Ludwig Ebert, soloist, Großherzolighen Hofkapelle, Karl Franzen, conductor

Instrumentation: solo cello, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings

Duration: 25 minutes

In 1850, Robert Schumann moved from Dresden to Düsseldorf to become the municipal music director.  Though it would soon become apparent that he was ill-suited for this position, the move initially ushered the composer into a brief but truly happy period.  His Cello Concerto in A Minor was written in a two-week burst of creativity soon after his arrival in the new city.  It is one of the major works to emerge from his final years of mental decline, and the last he saw all the way from composition to publication.

Schumann’s reasons for writing this piece are not known, but once it was completed, he was unable to interest cellists in performing the work.  After being rejected by the publishing houses, Friedrich Hofmeister and Carl Luckhardt, Breitkopf & Härtel finally agreed to publish the work in 1854.  Schumann even made a version for cello and string quartet, which was refused publication and is now unfortunately lost.  With no cellists willing to play the piece, Schumann rewrote it as a violin concerto and presented it to violinist, Joseph Joachim who accepted the score without ever performing it.  The violin version was only discovered in 1987.

Schumann once wrote, "I cannot write a concerto for the virtuosos. I must try for something else.”  With the Cello Concerto, he achieves that elusive “something else” by deftly wedding virtuosity to musical substance.  Originally titled, Concertstück für Violoncell mit Begleitung des Orchesters (“Concertpiece for Violoncello with Orchestral Accompaniment”), the work is three movements played without break.  In character with Schumann’s late style, themes are recalled throughout the work creating a distinctly narrative effect, with the soloist taking the role of storyteller.  In 1850, his wife, Clara wrote, “Robert composed a concerto for the violoncello that pleased me very much. It appears to be written in the true violoncello style. The romantic quality, the flight, the freshness and the humor, and also the highly interesting interweaving of cello and orchestra are, indeed, wholly ravishing — and what euphony and what sentiment are in all those melodic passages!”

When the publication of this work finally came, Schumann was entering the final phase of his mental illness.  Hallucinatory voices haunted him.  Seeking solace, he threw himself into proofreading the final drafts of the work.  Eventually, his mental torment led to a suicide attempt.  He leapt into the Rhine in February of 1854 and was subsequently moved to a sanatorium at Endenich near Bonn, where he lived out his remaining two years.  The Cello Concerto finally received its premiere four years later, just shy of what would have been Schumann’s 50th birthday.  As it happens, this evening’s performance is two days after the 202nd anniversary of the composer’s birth.


Claude Debussy
(b St Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862; d Paris, March 25, 1918 )

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune [after the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé]

Composed: 1891-4, Paris

Premiere: Paris, December 22, 1894, at the Société Nationale, Gustave Doret, conductor

Instrumentation: three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, crotales, strings

Duration: 10 minutes

Languid, sensual, exotic, and seemingly improvisatory, Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune was his first major masterpiece and introduced the world to a new musical language.  In the 1890s, Debussy became a regular at the Tuesday salons hosted by symbolist poet, Stéphane Mallarmé, who invited the young composer to write a musical component to a theater piece based on his poem L’après midi d’un faune.

The work famously opens with an unaccompanied flute, representing the flute of Pan.  The melody begins on a sustained c-sharp, a note played on the flute with all the fingers raised, no keys depressed. Debussy, the musical colorist, knew the gauzy diffuseness the flute could produce on this note and used it to great effect, subtly blending the beginning of the piece with the silence preceding it.  The flute’s melodic arabesque defines no key, only mood.  Winds and harp answer with diaphanous harmonic clouds.  Then, just moments after the music begins, Debussy writes a long measure of six slow beats with no sound; only the music of silence is heard.  (Wagner, whose music was a strong influence on the young Debussy, had used a similar device in his Prelude to Tristan und Isolde.)  In Debussy’s music, the relationship of sound to silence is imbued with new possibilities.  Silence seems to belong to Debussy’s music like that of no other composer until John Cage.  When the music resumes after the six beats of rest, it is a wash of harmonies yearning for resolution but finding only suspension.  The pleasure of this music is in the delay of resolutions, and the pleasure is palpable.

Debussy described the work as “a very free rendering of Stéphane Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. It does not purport to contain everything that is in the poem. It is rather a succession of scenes in which the desires and dreams of the faune pass through in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of chasing the frightened nymphs and naiads, he gives in to intoxicating sleep.”  Should we find any significance in the fact that the Prélude comprises the same number of bars as there are lines in Mallarmé’s poem?


Thomas Adés
(b London, March 1, 1971)

Three Studies from Couperin for Chamber Orchestra

Les Amusemens

Les Tours de Passe-passe

L'Âme-en-peine

Composed: 2006

Premiere: April 21, 2006, Basel, Switzerland, Kammerorchester Basel, Thomas Adès, conductor

Instrumentation: two flutes (also playing alto and bass flutes), clarinet, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, percussion, two string orchestras

Duration: 13 minutes

“My ideal day would be staying at home and playing the harpsichord works of Couperin—new inspiration on every page.”  The Couperin to which Adès refers is François (1668-1733), known as “le grand” for his impressive keyboard prowess.  One of the most important French musicians of his day, Couperin assumed the post of organist at St. Gervais in Paris in 1685, and in 1693 was chosen by Louis XIV to be organist at the royal chapel.

Couperin produced four books of solo harpsichord music, comprising over 200 works, most of which carry charmingly descriptive titles, as evidenced by those Adès chose for his three studies.  Couperin’s titles could be enigmatic, even to his sophisticated court audiences.  He took some delight in this as he explained in the preface to his 1713 collection, “In composing these pieces, I have always had an object in view, furnished by various occasions. Thus the titles reflect my ideas; I may be forgiven for not explaining them all.”  The first movement of Adès’ Three Studies translates easily.  The second movement, Tours de Passe-passe, means “sleight of hand” and L’Âme-en-Peine is “the lost soul.”

In his Three Studies, Adès retains all the notes of Couperin’s keyboard works, colorizing them with great inventiveness and unalloyed affection.  That these versions sound so fresh speaks to the creative powers of Couperin himself.  Wanda Landowska said, “What is this elusive anguish that Couperin provokes in us?  He does not speak of love, sensuousness, or sorrow, in the same manner as does Bach or Handel.  Couperin’s music permeates our subconscious, agitating its levels.  It burrows into the depth of our inner life.”


Colin Jacobsen (b 1978, New York City)
Siamak Aghaei (b 1973, Ahwaz, Iran)

Ascending Bird: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra

Composed: 2010

Premiere: September 26, 2010, Caramoor, Katonah, NY, The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, conductor

Instrumentation: flute, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, trombone, bass trombone, percussion, strings

Duration: 7 minutes

The Knights regularly perform works written by its members, and tonight’s program closes with Ascending Bird: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra, written by Knights co-founder and co-artistic director, Colin Jacobsen in collaboration with his friend, Iranian musician, Siamak Aghaei.  The piece is based on a Persian folk song that tells the story of a bird attempting to fly to the sun.  Twice the bird fails, but on the third flight the creature takes leave of its physical body, embracing the sun in state of spiritual transcendence.

Colin first encountered this folk song in 2004 while he and violist Nicholas Cords visited Siamak Aghaei in Tehran.  One afternoon, Siamak played a recording of the folk song that would become Ascending Bird.  Colin and Nick were captivated by the sound of the unusual instrument playing the melody.  When Siamak explained to them that it was constructed of fused bird bones only a few inches in length, it was as if myth took physical form through the act of music making.  The transcendent bird had no use for its skeleton; yet in the hands of the musician, the bones told the bird’s story.  It brings to mind the Latin phrase that Baroque instrument makers often inscribed on the wooden lids of their harpsichords: Dum vixi tacui, mortua dulce cano, “Living, I was silent; in death, I sweetly sing.”

The story has profound resonance for musicians.  In the finest performances, tools become secondary, like the bones of the mythical bird.  Each concert is another opportunity to fly into the sun.

Koolhaas & Lohengrin in a Beijing Taxi

Heading to the Beijing airport, our taxi driver spoke no English (and we no Mandarin), nevertheless, he was determined to give us a parting tour of the city. We spoke back and forth in different languages, the conversation moving quickly and incomprehensibly, articulated with brief moments of clarity.

"Rem Koolhaas, CCTV."

Our driver said as we passed the Dutch architect's delirious addition to the Beijing skyline. It was not the most practical vocabulary, but we were glad he knew it.

Then we passed a caravan of cars covered in ribbons. Our driver honked and waved and smiled and told us many things in excited Chinese.

We weren't getting it.

He wrinkled his brow for a moment and then sang, Treulich geführt. Of course! Gamely, we all sang along and waved at the be-ribboned wedding procession passing us on the highway.

As we sang, my mind raced between other instances of this melody in my life, from Beijing to Lima to backstage at The Metropolitan Opera.

Years ago, I played with an opera company in Lima founded by my Juilliard classmate, Miguel Harth-Bedoya. Some members of the opera orchestra were hired to play a wedding. In Peru, Mendelssohn's Hochzeitsmarsch is played as the bride processional, while Wagner's march accompanies the newly-minted couple's first stroll down the aisle on the way out. Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn combined with South American Roman Catholicism in a Peruvian Baroque cathedral; playing "Here comes the bride" at the end of the wedding only enriched the admixture.

Years later, I would play in the stage band for Robert Wilson's contoversial production of Lohengrin at The Metropolitan Opera based in part on Japanese Noh Theater. The stage band musicians wait to play late into the night, there are hours between entrances. (It is actually possible to leave the theater and play a different concert during these breaks.) When the time finally comes, the musicians gather in the dimly-lit wings to play strains of Treulich geführt. Pretty lofty for "wedding gig," I thought, walking up the stairs backstage at The Met, another cathedral in its own right.

How could I have expected to find myself singing Wagner with a Chinese cabbie in Beijing, but I hardly could be surprised.

Would Wagner?

Seven Four

Waiting on the subway platform at 14th Street for the F train to Brooklyn, I heard a young woman in full-Williamsburg hipster regalia playing the accordion.

Her selection? "Ring of Fire" from Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.

I love this song for so many reasons, but leading them is the instrumental refrain in seven-four time. Count it out. Once the entirely unexpected Mariachi trumpet passage starts, the song is in seven. (Da-dut da dah dah dee dah daaa - 5 - 6 - 7, Da-dut da dah dah dee dah daaa - 5 - 6 - 7) I'm not sure which is more surprising the meter or the orchestration.

Maybe fifteen years ago, I heard Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash at Irving Place. Wonderful, amazing concert. They came with the best sidemen in the biz; country-western 2/4 back beat was elevated to poetry.

If you listen to June Carter and the Carter Family, you'll find a flexible metrical music that easily moves through odd-number bars and playfully skips over an eighth-note here and there.

Seven-four on the subway platform. I love New York City.

IN CAMERA

A dear flutist friend stopped by for dinner tonight and wanted me to listen to her play a Bach unaccompanied sonata in preparation for upcoming performances. She played from memory and gave me the score, but I didn't follow along, I wanted to watch her play and enjoy this private performance from my couch.

There regularly is music in my place. I practice, but practicing often is repetitive ruckus, metronome aclacking. I have chamber music rehearsals here, too, but what I heard tonight was a full-fledged performance: poised, eloquent, full of persuasive rhetoric. Even the finest hi-fi could not match the aural pleasures of a live chamber music performance in one's own home.

Let me encourage everyone: treat yourself. (Eschew Netflix for a night.) Invite musicians to play chamber music in your living room. Offer a good meal (they will say yes) and invite just one or two special friends to share with you. Not too many.

You will not forget the experience.

IMANI WINDS in CENTRAL PARK

It will be a beautiful night for a summer concert in the park.

Naumburg Orchestral Concerts

104th Season - FINAL Concert of 2009

IMANI WINDS

Tuesday August 4th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

PROGRAM
Bozza Scherzo for woodwind quintet, Op. 48

Marquez Danza de Mediodia

Medaglia Suite Popular Brasileira

Schifrin La Nouvelle Orleans

Ligeti Sechs Bagatellen

Barber Summer Music, Op. 31

The Naumburg Orchestral Concert begins at 7:30pm at the Naumburg Bandshell on the Concert Ground in Central Park located south of the 72nd Street cross-drive.

Admission is free.

No rain date.

www.naumburgconcerts.org

The Rest is Silence

Two eighth rests, how long are they?

I have had such a good time this summer playing with the Imani Winds while their oboist, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, is on maternity leave. I've enjoyed learning new repertoire for our concerts, but there is something special about working on pieces I've played for decades with Zéphyros Winds now with new colleagues. In these works—Barber's "Summer Music," Ligeti's "Six Bagatelles," Paquito D'Rivera's "Aires Tropicales," and Lalo Schifrin's "La nouvelle Oreleans"—I reengage my ears to another set of musical imaginations.

In these situations, a musician's opportunity to learn is ripe. And if we don't hear other players and play with other players, our various "chops" can atrophy for lack of attention.

In 1998, I was hired to play a single performance of "Annie Get Your Gun." It was a benefit for Lincoln Center Theater featuring Patty Lupone and Peter Gallagher. The audience was filled with notables, Rosie was there, Barbara Walters seemed unpleasantly shocked by how politically incorrect the show was, Rex Reed was reported to have said, "Well, they didn't have to cut 'I'm an Indian, too.'" (Political correctness? And, yes, it did have to be cut.) And the orchestra, contracted by Red Press, was filled was the finest cats on the scene. I was pretty green (OK, very green). Out of Juilliard for just three years, I didn't know any faces in the band, but over the next decade I would come to. The first rehearsal began, naturally, with the overture. It looked pretty straight forward to me. Often in "tutti" sections (times when the whole orchestra is playing), orchestrators will give the oboe the same line as the first trumpet. The oboe doesn't make its most important contribution during these sections—you can't really hear it—so, we end up playing along with the loudest instrument, and that way we stay out of the way. Though I didn't know him at the time, one of New York's top lead trumpet players, Bob Millikan, was on the job. The overture started and I began to play my part, pretty much exactly how it looked on the page, in other words, totally square. The lead trumpet was playing in such a different style, and with so much style, I had to just stop and listen. "How does he know how to do that?" He knew. I didn't, but wanted to, and here, I realized was my opportunity to learn how it really went.

Each year in his Juilliard class, Albert Fuller would pick up a violin part to a Beethoven sonata and ask the students what he was holding. Always someone fell into the trap, "It's music." "No," Albert replied, "you cannot hold music. You can only hear music." Bob Millikan's trumpet playing brought that point home.

Lalo Schifrin's wind quintet, "La nouvelle Orleans," ends with an elaborate oboe cadenza meant to imitate the sound of a blues harmonica. After several performances with the Imani Winds, their flutist, Valerie Coleman, asked whether she could offer me a suggestion for that solo. It was a small thing, she assured me, but it would really help. The oboe cadenza begins after a loud chord played by the whole ensemble. There are two eighth rests between the chord and the oboe solo. "Could you wait a little bit longer before you start?" Valerie asked. One of the most challenging sounds for a musician to make on stage is silence. Modulating the right amount involves some risk. Concerts are about sound, after all. That night, I held onto those rests, the silence, just a little longer. The tension increased, and the solo landed with much more force.

When I was performing with Issa (Jane Siberry) a few years ago for her Carnegie Hall debut, she was coaching me on passage I was improvising. Again her urging was for less sounds, fewer notes, and more silence.

Listening to Albert Fuller's harpsichord recordings, again and again I am amazed at the role silence plays in his music making; especially as a tool to highlight a particular musical moment. He prepares that moment with a break in the sound, the silence features the next music.

Those two little rests written by Lalo Schifrin, how long are they, then? It depends on knowing what you are about to say next.

Guest Turn

Last year, the wonderful oboist of Imani Winds, Toyin Spellman-Diaz asked if I could cover her maternity leave this summer. I was thrilled. Imani Winds is the indispensable wind quintet and one of the nation's cultural treasures. On top of that, the members are, to a one, wonderful people and excellent musicians. Often, when I mention my own quintet to someone, the response is, "Oh, aren't you in Imani Winds?" Their cultural penetration is so deep that they have put the genre back on the musical map and made it relevent to new audiences and exciting for the establishment. The evidence is their packed schedule.

The rehearsals this week have been nothing but fun. We have a number of concerts this summer, try to come if you're in the area.

Sunday, July 19, 2009	Imani Winds in AGUASCALIENTES, MEXICO	Festival de Música de Cámara
	Time: 6:00 pm. Festival Opening Performance. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo
Monday, July 27, 2009	Imani Winds in CHICAGO, IL	National Association of Negro Musicians Annual Conference
	Time: 7:30 pm. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo
Tuesday, July 28, 2009	Imani Winds in BROOKVILLE, NY	C.W. Post, Long Island University Chamber Music Festival
	Time: 8:00 pm. Masterclass 4-6. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo
Tuesday, August 4, 2009	Imani Winds in NEW YORK, NY	Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park
	Time: 7:30 pm. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira; Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti; Summer Music – Samuel Barber; Libertango – Pizzolla/Scott

Opera for All

Congratulations to the beleaguered New York City Opera. This week, the company that Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia nicknamed "the people's opera," brought three vibrant performances directly to the people of New York City in a series of free outdoor performances in conjunction with the River-to-River Festival.

From my seat in the principal oboe chair, I enjoyed watching the thousands gathered really engaged in the performances. Tonight, smiles spread throughout the crowd during Largo al factotum. The audience could barely conceal their delight, basking in the joy of live performance.

In the face of the company's very public missteps and a recent—and disgraceful—article in Times (no link supplied), this week the NYCO is working hard, directly focused on their mission. With The Met offering no operas in the park this summer, "the people's opera" has taken up at least some of the slack. And during the last three nights, there were rapt listeners, not picnickers, many standing through the entire performances.

I, for one, am encouraged. The tables selling season subscriptions were swamped tonight. Why don't you subscribe, too? You don't want to miss out, do you?

Vivaldi's "Big Band" with The Little Orchesta Society

Randall Ellis and I played Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Oboes in D Minor (RV 535) in Zankel Hall Tuesday night with The Little Orchestra Society and Dino Anagnost conducting. The concert was nearly sold out and many friends were there.

I was happy to read about it in the Times this morning. Vivien Schweitzer praised the "polished interpretation of Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Oboes in D Minor (RV 535) by Randall Ellis and James Roe, who both played with a clear tone and elegant phrasing." New York Times, June 20, 2009

Writing Jazz

Please come to Merkin Hall tonight. The Zéphyros Winds is joining forces with The Lark Chamber Artists and pianist Anthony de Mare for a program that ends with a world premiere by David Rakowski, Stolen Moments for winds, strings, and piano.

Knight after Knight

As part of the run-up for their first European tour, The Knights are giving two performances in New York City.

Please try to catch these fascinating programs on whichever side of the Atlantic you happen to find yourself.

May 15, 2009 8:00 PM	Schubert and Solitude with Osvaldo Golijov - Angel Orensanz Foundation, NYC The New York Institute for the Humanities and the Humanities Initiative at NYU in association with In a Circle present "Schubert and Solitude" with Osvaldo Golijov, in conversation with Fred Child. The Knights Eric Jacobsen, conductor Tehila Nini Goldstein, soprano Brooklyn Rider Golijov - She Was Here (a cycle of four songs steeped in Schubert) Works by Beethoven, Schubert, Glass, and Ives Art Exhibition and Projections by Lennie Peterson Free and Open to the Public •
May 16, 2009 8:00 PM	Benefit Concert for Riverside Food Pantry - Riverside Church, NYC The Knights present a benefit concert for the Riverside Soup Kitchen. This will be the final concert before they head off to Germany and Ireland for their European tour! The Knights Eric Jacobsen, conductor Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (Chorale for Orchestra) Copland - Appalachian Spring (13 instrument version) Songs of Golijov, Sondheim, Rodgers, and Bernstein Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 Suggested donation $10 Riverside Church - www.theriversidechurchny.org •
May 20, 2009 8:00 PM	Opening Night at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele - Dresden, Germany The Knights, in their first European tour will open the Dresdner Musikfestspiele with soprano Dawn Upshaw as their guest soloist at the Frauenkirche. The Knights Eric Jacobsen, conductor Dawn Upshaw, soprano Ives - The Unanswered Question Golijov - She Was Here Golijov - Night of the Flying Horses Rodgers - He Was Too Good To Me Sondheim - There Won't Be Trumpets Sondheim - What More Do I Need? Bernstein - "Somewhere" from West Side Story Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (Chorale for Orchestra) Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 Dresdner Musikfestspiele - www.musikfestspiele.com •
May 21, 2009 8:00 PM	The Knights with Christina Courtin at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele - Dresden, Germany The Knights present their second concert at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Nonesuch recording artist Christina Courtin at the Alter Schlachthof. The Knights Eric Jacobsen, conductor Christina Courtin, vocal Ryan Scott, guitar Ives - The Unanswered Question Beethoven - Coriolan Overture Glass - Company Copland - Appalachian Spring (13 instrument version) Christina Courtin - Original Songs Dresdner Musikfestspiele - www.musikfestspiele.com •
May 23, 2009 7:30 PM	The National Gallery in Dublin, Ireland The Knights continue their European tour in Dublin with soprano Dawn Upshaw and Nonesuch recording artist Christina Courtin. The Knights Eric Jacobsen, conductor Dawn Upshaw, soprano Christina Courtin, vocals Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (Chorale for Orchestra) Glass - Company Golijov - Night of the Flying Horses Rodgers - He was Too Good To Me Sondheim - There Won't Be Trumpets Sondheim - What More Do I Need? Bernstein - "Somewhere" from West Side Story Copland - Appalachian Spring (13 instrument version) Christina Courtin - Original Songs

Sounds Viennese to Me

With the Vienna Philharmonic in town this week, there has been much talk among New York's classical musicians about the sound of this storied ensemble. I heard their Carnegie Hall concert on my one night off this week, Wednesday, and was captivated by the orchestra's sounds, plural, because these players do not, as some orchestra's do, play with only one sound and apply it (indiscriminately?) to every kind of music they play.

The first element of the Vienna sound I responded to was its clarity; the distinctness with which all parts were clearly heard. This created a sophisticated sound more than merely a luxurious one. The way the orchestra applied vibrato contributed to this clarity. Melodic lines certainly were played with expressive vibrato, but accompanimental music was played with little or none. The melodies never had to struggle to be heard, and all the middle voices contributed in proper balance. In fact, the crispness and concision of the inner lines gave buoyancy and energy to the sound. It was lit from within. This kind variety of sound was evident in the wind playing as well. Solo lines were performed with individuality and freedom, and then, turning on a dime, the same player made an entirely different sound to blend with another instrument in the next passage.

The impression was of orchestral power that rarely was welded full force. Fortissimo passages had poise as well as power. Quiet passages drew the audience close, whispered messages are so sweet.

The sounds of the Vienna Philharmonic arise from unity of purpose, artistic commitment, and a deep understanding of how best to communicate music's messages. I wish I could hear their Schubert 9 tonight.

Music History

I love that Carnegie Hall program notes list the date each piece received its first performance in the hall. It offers an interesting glimpse of the history of musical life in New York City, and places the current concert in that context.

This is from last night's Vienna Philharmonic concert program:

Wagner Rienzi Overture
Comosed: 1838-1840
Carnegie premiere: 10 Jun 1891, J. M. Lander conducting an unnamed orchestra during a Columbia College graduation.

Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2
Composed: 1829
Carnegie premiere: 2 Dec 1893, Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra with Richard Burmeister, piano

J. Strauss II Die Fledermaus Overture
Composed: 1873-1874
Carnegie premiere: 27 May 1906, James F. Boyer conducing the Amicitia Amateur Band*

J. Strauss II "Wo die Citronen blüh'n!"
Composed: 1874
Carnegie premiere: last night

J. Strauss II "Annen" Polka
Composed: 1852
Carnegie premiere: 1 Oct 1949, Ott Sorosoto conducting the Symphonic Accordion Society

J. Strauss II "Unter Donner und Blitz"
Composed: 1868
Carnegie premiere: 9 Mar 1918, Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra

J. Strauss II Kaiser-Walzer
Composed: 1889
Carnegie premiere: 8 Jun 1892, J. M. Lander conducting an unnamed orchestra during a Columbia College graduation

J. Strauss II "Tritsch-Tratsch" Polka
Composed: 1858
Carnegie premiere: 7 May 1947, David Broekman conducting the Carnegie Pops

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*An ensemble that comprised over sixty prominent New York business men, attendance at their Carnegie concerts was by invitation only.

A Family Affair

Márta and György Kurtág made their New York debut at Zankel Hall Sunday night, with a performance of four-hand piano music that has become something of a legend in music circles. I wasn't surprised to see the hall full, and so full of musicians—composers and performers—some who had traveled long distances especially for this performance. At intermission, friends and colleagues shared stories of Kurtág's famously detailed chamber music coachings and his sophisticated fixation on the production of musical sound.

Yet, the touching sight of the 82-year-old modernist master and his wife seated on an extra-wide piano bench in front of an upright piano (when was the last time an upright was heard in performance at Carnegie Hall?) belied the challenging intensity and intellectualism that characterize his music. The last music of Kurtág I heard was a performance of his bracing masterpiece, Kafka Fragments, so the Biedermeier aspect of a family gathered around an upright piano (literally around in this case, as Gÿorgy Kurtág, Jr. was seated behind the instrument mixing the amplified sound) was poignant and not a little surprising. The theatricality of the scene—a new, polished-ebony upright piano with its two lids raised on either side (like small vestigial wings) flanked by tall cylindrical speakers of a distinctly sci-fi hi-fi sort connected by cords and microphones—made me think of Virgil Fox's famous line (oft-quoted by my dear friend, Albert Fuller), "Honey, they see you before they hear you." But what did this array of high-end electronics and dowdy piano portend?

The piano's soft pedal was engaged for the entire performance, so the supple, electronic sound manipulation produced a muted hush that mirrored the intimacy of the familial scene on stage. The veiled, slightly diffuse sound drew the listener near, yet the quiet amplification also acted as a barrier, an element of remove, even artifice, separating performer and audience. It created a sonic vitrine containing lovely musical curiosities in miniature. This scene was enhanced by the innate theatricality of some of Kurtág's transcriptions. Martá, seated on the right, spread her arms wide to simultaneously play notes in the extreme bass and and treble, while her husband toiled in the mid-range, their arms entwined in a kind of lovingly inefficient distribution of labor that makes certain domestic chores so pleasant to share.

The music itself, selection from Játékok by Kurtág for both performers or one, and four-hand transcriptions of music by Bartók and Bach, flowed with little break and no applause (until the standing ovation rewarded with two additional Bach encores) through a variety of affects and images, so engaging, so inventive, we would have gladly listened all night. The warm waves of applause at the end seemed oddly anonymous after the intensely personal music and music-making we'd just experienced. Instead, it felt as though we each should exchange kisses, shake hands, and thank our hosts for sharing such a wonderful evening.

Affect in Music

"And since instrumental music has, without words, to express different passions and to carry the hearer from one to another, as well as vocal music; we can readily see that to do that, and supply it in the absence of word or human voice, the composer and he who performs the music must alike have a feeling soul, and one capable of being moved."

Joachim Quantz, 1752

Issa in the mail box

I was so pleased to come home today and find three copies of Issa's new CD in my mail box. I popped it in my stereo and found I was hearing entirely new work in a language I knew—but didn't know it could say these particular things, in this particular way.

I am fortunate to know Issa, and to have worked with her on this project, and others. Time with Issa surprises with joy!

"May the first word on our lips in
thankfulness be ...

YES"

Affection & Affect

Some thoughts on musical expression from Johann Joachim Quantz:

"If musicians are not themselves moved by what they play, the cannot hope for any profit from their efforts, and will never move others through their playing, which should be their ultimate aim."

"Musicians cannot move others unless they themselves are moved; it is essential that musicians be able to put themselves in each Affection they wish to rouse in their audience, for it is by showing their own emotion that they awaken sympathy. In languishing, sad passages, they languish and grow sad. That is visible and audible."

"What does not come from the heart will not easily touch the heart."


And from C. P. E. Bach:

"One should play from the soul, and not like a trained bird."


And finally this familiar passage from Horace:

"It is not enough for poems to be 'beautiful'; they must also yield delight and guide the listener's spirit wherever they wish. As human faces laugh with those who are laughing, so they weep with those who are weeping. If you wish me to cry, you must first feel grief yourself."