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The Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky gave me a candid interview for the Sun Times earlier this week. My favorite line: "I took advantage of [playing rock music] and got soulful on stage." Touche. Be sure to check him out this Sunday at 8 pm. I will be there.
The Messiah weighs in on the unfortunate demographic shift of Lincoln Park, as only the Messiah can: "That was always my favorite part of Chicago on the North Side there. I guess it's very common in cities for these once wonderful neighborhoods to be transformed into Lansing for twerps. I'm sorry you are dealing with that now. It sounds creepy."
(Previous posts on 26: here, here, and here.)
*Super special thanks to Rodney Jewett for supplying me this ultra-rare high school photo of the great musician.
If I were leading a writing workshop for critics, I'd bring plenty of Bernard Holland to pass around. Here's a recent review he wrote of a Dmitri Hvorostovsky recital (FWIW, I interviewed him yesterday). This is the last graf, despite being a very positive review:
The rest of the songs sounded stateless, their flaccidity offering a sort of Europop for grandmothers. The situation was not helped by the easy-listening arrangements. Napoleon and Hitler never managed to conquer this part of the world; Michel Legrand and Henry Mancini seem to have done better.
Here's a really humorous blog that's probably best not read by the PC crowd.
Friday morning I headed downtown to catch a couple 12 year-old German pianists, Elisabeth Brauss and Kiveli Doerken, perform works of Liszt, Chopin, and Mendelssohn at the Fazioli Salon Series. Wrong notes were all over the place, specifically in the Chopin preludes, but their musical instincts were astounding and way ahead of their years! Speaking of young German women, I reviewed Julia Fischer's Beethoven concert last week. and it was super-duper. Last of all, our final Cyber Classical playlist of 2007, show #55 :Lutoslawski, Witold. String Quartet. Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch) Nancarrow, Conlon
Studies for Player Piano (#s 1,27,36) Robert Miller, piano. (New World) Locatelli, Pietro Antonio. Concerto for Violin in G, op. 3, no.9 Guiliano Carmignola, violin/ Venice Baroque Orchestra. Andrea Marcon, con. (Archiv) Handel, "Jephtha" Oratario, excerpts from Act 2 Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Marcus Creed (Berlin Classics). Stravinsky Les Noces (Svadebka) Tristan Fry Percussion Ensemble, Robert Craft (Naxos). Golijov, Osvaldo St. Mark Passion, excerpts. con, Maria Guinand (Hanssler)
Fesca, Friedrich Ernst, Symphony No. 1, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Frank Beermann (CPO)
Finzi, Gerald, Eclogue, English String Orchestra William Boughton, con. Martin Jones, p. (Nimbus).
Piazzola, Astor "Bandoneon" from Suite Troileana, Sergio and Odair Assad on gtrs (nonesuch).
Cyber Classical will resume in January 2008.
The more I hear Madonna, the more I start to "appreciate" her. Even when my sister was playing her tapes all the time when we were younger, I never really disliked her. There are some bonafide musical instincts running through that diva's body, and lately I've been in tune with some of them. Case in point: "True Blue" superimposes two melodies on top of each other, one exuberant, one a little melancholy..."this time I know it's true love." It's a pretty unique combination with a nice effect. OK, the bridge isn't outstanding, nor are the overdone 80s production values, but there is still plenty to groove to. Couple that with her duet on "Take a Bow," and you have two fairly harmonically sophisticated songs. I'm not to the point where I'll buy one of her albums, but I won't run out of the supermarket either. Some of you may be laughing, so I'll let one poet's words fill in for my defense:
Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of the migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.-- W.H. Auden (Twelve Songs)
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." -Moby Dick
One more to go for 2007; we hope you'll tune in this Friday.
Popov, Gavriil
Symphony No. 1,
Leon Botstein, LSO (Telarc)
Tatum, Art
"Willow Weep for Me," "Emaline," "Yesterdays," "I know that you know"
Steven Mayer, Piano (Naxos)
Furtwangler, Wilhelm
Symphony No.2
Daniel Barenboim, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Teldec)
Schubert, Franz
String Quintet (two cellos) D.956
Emerson String Quartet w/Mstislav Rostropovich
(Duetsche Grammophon)
Beck, Franz Ignaz
Sinfonia in G minor, No. 1
New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, con. Donald Armstrong
(Naxos)
Mlynarski, Emil
Violin Concerto, No.2 in D Op.6
Nigel Kennedy, violin (EMI)
Vaughan Williams, Ralph
In the Fen Country
New Philharmonia Orchestra, con. Sir Adrian Boult
(EMI)
Honegger, Arthur
Prelude, Fugue Et Postlude
Orchestre Philharmonique De Monte Carlo, con. Marius Constant
(Erato)
(photo taken by Mary Deletioglu)
Portland based critic Stephen Marc Beaudoin confirms my suspicion that if so-called educated people are generally not interested in seeing classical music, then who the hell is? I addressed this very briefly in my NEA "think piece" in Terry Teachout's workshop. And Alex Ross once touched on this trend a few years ago:
They follow all the other arts—they go to gallery shows, read new novels, see art films. Yet they have never paid money for a classical concert. They almost make a point of their ignorance. “I don’t know a thing about Beethoven,” they say, which is not what they would say if the subject were Henry James or Stanley Kubrick. This is one area where even sophisticates wrap themselves in the all-American anti-intellectual flag.
There is no answer, really. But it always seemed to me the most devoted listeners were always a little off-center to begin with, and traditionally not raking in the dough. Think of a Charles Bukowski type rather than a Marketing CEO. And those types, I assure you, aren't dressing to the nines to go see a concert. OK, so maybe that's your answer after all.
Bernard Holland has written a first rate piece about the critical malaise of reviewing a brand spanking new never-heard-before piece.
Give me your hand, your time and your devotion, says the ambitious composer, and I shall lift you to a level of understanding that will make you love me. Beware of disliking my new piece lest you betray your ignorance. If anyone asks you what you think, just reply that you need to understand me better. Then change the subject.
All this in light of Nico Muhly's anticipated premiere tonight at Harris Theater, of which I will be in attendance but not reviewing.
