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| Music and Recordings: Archive 2007 |
| Hector Berlioz, L’enfance du Christ, Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra |
| Michael Miller |
December 24, 2007 |
| London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis conductor
Yann Beuron - The Narrator/Centurion
Karen Cargill - Marie
William Dazeley - Joseph
Matthew Rose - Herod
Peter Rose - Father/Polydorus
Tenebrae Choir, Director Nigel Short
James Mallinson producer
Jonathan Stokes and Neil Hutchinson for Classic Sound Ltd sound engineers
Recorded December 2006, Barbican, London
Two SACD/CD compatible discs, download available from LSO Live site via iTunes or eMusic
Sir Colin has a long history with L’enfance du Christ. He made his first recording of it in 1960 at the age of 34. It was well-received in its time and is still respected today, but the current performance, part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s brilliantly successful series of live concert recordings made in the renovated and sonically improved Barbican Hall, is an absolute triumph.  |
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| Music Mountain: the Triton Trio, William Purvis, Michae Lee, and Ani Kavafian play Mozart, Schumann, Brahms and Ligeti; preview of upcoming concert at Yale |
| Michael Miller |
December 9, 2007 |
| Music Mountain offers gift vouchers...and a reminiscence of Brahms, Ligeti, Schumann, and Mozart by the Triton Trio. William Purvis, Ani Kavafian, and Mihae Lee at Gordon Hall (Sept. 9, 2007), with preview of concert, Dec. 11, 2007, in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall, Yale University, 470 College Street, New Haven.
A recent announcement by Music Mountain seems to be such an excellent idea for seasonal gift-giving, that I shall repeat it here, especially as it gives me an opportunity to reminisce about one of last summer’s very great concerts, a program of chamber music for violin, piano, and horn by the Triton Trio, founded in 2004 by William Purvis, his wife, Michae Lee, and Ani Kavafian. William Purvis, a member of the faculty at Yale and Juilliard and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, is surely of of the great musicians playing today. His mastery of his instrument is unmatched, and, with his lively interest in contemporary music, he is actively exploring the limits of the instrument and beyond. |
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| Boston Symphony Orchestra, James Levine conducting: Haydn’s Symphony no. 104, “London;” Elliot Carter, Horn Concerto; Mahler, Symphony No. 1 - Symphony Hall, 11/15/07 |
| Michael Miller |
Ferbruary 17, 2008 |
| This is a particularly good time to reflect on a concert I attended last November, in which James Levine led the Boston Symphony in Haydn’s Symphony no. 104, “London,” a new piece by Elliot Carter, his Horn Concerto, and Mahler’s First Symphony. I thought it would be good to mention this concert now, since all three compositions will be repeated this summer. The Carter especially should be one of the highlights of the festival, as the newest work among the concentrated Carter programs, which will be offered during the Contemporary Music Festival as a celebration of the composers approaching 100th birthday. |
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| Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano
Sponsored by The Brattleboro Music Center
Centre Congregational Church, Brattleboro, Vermont, November 9, 2007, 8 pm
All-Brahms recital
Scherzo in E-flat Minor, Op. 4 (1851)
Four Ballades, Op. 10 (1854)
16 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann in F-sharp Minor, Op. 9 (1854) Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118 (1893) |
| Michael Miller |
November 14, 2007 |
| Some of the most stimulating musical events in New England are organized by the Brattleboro Music Center. Founded in 1952 by artistic director Blanche Honegger Moyse, also a founder of the Marlboro Music Festival, "The Brattleboro Music Center is a unique, community-based organization, exceptional for the breadth and quality of its programs. When first established, the BMC's activities included a community chorus as well as chamber music concerts which were performed both publicly for community members and in schools for children. Today, over fifty years later, the BMC consists of performance, participation, and education programs, all of which are supported by the many people who wish to ensure, through music, a special sense of community and spirit in the Brattleboro area. We aim to engage the larger community in the world of music through performance, participation, and education."
This review will also give me a chance to mention an extraordinary series of concerts on Sunday, September 16, when the Kalichstein, Laredo, Robinson Trio played an unforgettable marathon of Beethoven's complete piano trios... |
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| Boston Symphony Orchestra
James Levine, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Symphony Hall, Boston, Thursday, November 8, 2007 8:00pm
Alban Berg, Violin Concerto Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 9 |
| Michael Miller |
November 13, 2007 |
| The Berg Violin Concerto (1935) and Mahler's Ninth Symphony (1910) are indeed a magical pair. Not only did Berg have a great affection for Mahler, both works are suffused with an elegiac, deathwards-inclined but lifewards-looking mood and a kindred morbid lyricism. The formal affinities between the two works are also intriguing. |
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Gustavo Dudamel and The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, conductor: The Venezuelan Miracle
Wednesday, November 7, 2007, Symphony Hall
Bela Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 7 in A major, Op. 92
Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story |
| Michael Miller |
November 10, 2007 |
| Gustavo Dudamel’s 2006 performance with the BSO at Tanglewood was terriffically exciting and musical, and I was especially keen to go to hear him with his own orchestra. As the date approached, news of his appointment as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the appearance of an article about him in the New York Times Magazine made it clear that he is now the hot item in the classical music world. It would therefore be a dire oversight to pass this concert over. An exceptionally large crowd of people, including many young people and many South Americans, thronged the Mass. Ave. entrance to Symphony Hall, which was, in fact, as full as I've ever seen it. |
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| Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen: Siegfried, Royal Opera House Covent Garden |
| Michael Miller |
October 26, 2007 |
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When, in my review of his recent performance to Haydn’s Creation, I was reflecting on Sir Colin Davis’ career, I mentioned the Ring Cycle he conducted at Covent Garden in 1976. I thought that Siegfried was the most successful of the performances, because Sir Colin seemed to have fallen in love with its spectacular score. In no other work are the beauties of Wagner’s composition so constantly and so openly present. As I sat raptly in my seat, the orchestra and all the wonderful qualities Sir Colin could reveal in it were without a doubt the focus of my attention. And so it is for most of us in most performances, past or present, whether it is Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Solti, Böhm (whose splendid Bayreuth performances, available on Philips, should be better remembered), Boulez, or Levine. The orchestra functions as storyteller—a surpassingly eloquent one, with all the resources of Wagner’s musical imagination.
Last Sunday’s Siegfried was different... |
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| Bard Music Festival, Edward Elgar and his World, Weekend 3, October 26–27, 2007: Nostalgia, Patriotism, and Aesthetic Ideals |
| Michael Miller |
October 30, 2007 |
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The third weekend of the 2007 Bard Music Festival offered a wealth of very strong, even great performances of important music, some of it rarely heard in this country if at all, as well as a free-wheeling panel discussion on Anglophilia and imperialism. Although Saturday began with the panel, I’ll begin with the music and conclude with a discussion of the panel, since there are some issues I wish to address.
Introduced by Bard music historian Peter Laki, the afternoon chamber music program began with Frank Bridge’s First String Quartet in E minor, played with eloquence and vigor by Chinese students at the Bard Conservatory... |
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| Frans Brüggen, Viviane Hagner, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in an All-Mendelssohn Concert at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 10/18/07 |
| Michael Miller |
October 24, 2007 |
| One doesn’t often encounter all-Mendelssohn programs. If I were to find one in the Tanglewood season, I’d suspect it was a somewhat excessive gesture towards the more conservative members of the audience. On the other hand, from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Frans Brüggen, who has maintained a long-term relationship with the orchestra over the years, it meant a fresh look at three important works by a towering figure in nineteenth century music. Our view of Mendelssohn is still colored by the popular conception of him as a genial, highly privileged composer of tuneful works, who sadly died at the young age of thirty-eight. In truth, he was, both as a composer and a conductor, an extremely influential leader in the highly theoretical and factionalized world of Romantic music, the central figure in the more conservative, “classizing” group... |
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Haydn, The Creation, Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican, London, October 7, 2007
Sally Matthews, soprano
Ian Bostridge, tenor
Dietrich Henschel, baritone
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| Michael Miller |
October 15, 2007 |
| Colin Davis, together with Claudio Abbado and a few others, is at the very top of the older generation of conductors we have today, and it is wonderful news that, as he celebrates his 80th birthday this season, he is showing no sign of slowing down. He is a bit stouter than he was so thirty-five years ago, when I first heard him conduct the Boston Symphony, and perhaps a trifle stiffer, but even that didn’t show Sunday evening at the Barbican, when he began his birthday celebrations with Haydn’s greatest work, his oratorio, The Creation. Sir Colin will follow it with a season of his favorite works, and he will take it to New York later this month for his and the LSO’s residency at Lincoln Center. You can read this as a preview of an event not to be missed. |
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Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Thierry Fischer, Conductor
13 October 2007, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh
Beethoven, Symphony No 5 in C minor (1808)
Haydn, Harmoniemesse (1802)
Joanne Lunn, Soprano
Tove Dahlberg, Mezzo soprano
James Gilchrist, Tenor
Stephan Loges, Bass baritone SCO Chorus |
| Michael Miller |
October 15, 2007 |
| The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1974, has enjoyed a world reputation for some time now for the work they have achieved over the years under Sir Charles Mackerras, who still conducts the orchestra on occasion. And they are anything if not versatile, playing a repertory spanning the Baroque and the contemporary. Saturday evening they were in their Classical mode, playing Haydn and Beethoven with a slightly relaxed compliment of original instruments (i.e. cellos on pins and metal flute alongside gut strings, natural horn and trumpet, etc.) under the direction of the brilliant Swiss conductor, Thierry Fischer. The evening was a splendid success, full of imaginative insights and intense music-making. |
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| The John Cage Tribute Concert at Bard; Lecture on the Weather |
| Michael Miller |
October 2, 2007 |
| John Cage Tribute Concert
Sosnoff Theater of the Fisher Center at Bard College, Annandale-n Hudson
Thursday September 27, 2007 at 8:00 pm
John Cage (Los Angeles 1912-New York 1992), Four3 (1991), performed by Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC)
Musicians: David Behrman, John King, Takehisa Kosugi, Stephan Moore, and Christian Wolff.
John Cage, U.S. premiere of Dance Music for Elfrid Ide (1940),
performed by Nexus: Bob Becker, Bill Cahn, Robin Engelman, Russell Hartenberger, and Garry Kvistad.
John Cage, Water Walk (Milan, 1959), performed by David Behrman.
World premiere of For John (2007), performed by MCDC Musicians.
John Cage, Lecture on the Weather (1975)
Sosnoff Theater of the Fisher Center at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Thursday September 27, 2007 at 8:00 pm
During his career, which lasted from the late 1930’s up to his death in 1992, John Cage revolutionized music by reducing its vocabulary (even to silence!) and expanding its sonic range by assimilating a vast array of unusual and exotic instruments and non-musical sounds. Meanwhile he ventured into other art forms, drawing, poetry, theoretical writings, stage, dance, and film, either alone or with collaborators, notably his lifetime creative partner Merce Cunningham. Through this the musical notations developed new symbols and formats not found in traditional scores. While his indications are often quite detailed and precise, performance practices involve many aspects, which cannot be recorded on paper, or even conveyed in the many recordings and films of his works, which were made during his lifetime and under his direction. For this reason, it is a most important event that was celebrated by these two evenings of performances. John Cage’s records and materials have passed from the care of Merce Cunningham to Bard College, as The John Cage Trust at Bard College... |
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| Albany Symphony Orchestra: Mendelssohn, McClellan, Britten, and Haydn |
| Michael Miller |
October 2, 2007 |
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The 2007-08 Berkshire Bank Concert Series at the Colonial, Theatre, Pittsfield, MA
A musical journey to Ireland, Scotland and Britain
Saturday, September 29, 7:30 pm, Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield
Mendelssohn: “Hebrides” Overture
Robinson McClellan: Bagpipe Concerto on Old Irish Themes: “Flight of the Earls” (World Premiere)
Ivan Goff, Uilleann Piper
Britten: Folk Songs
Amanda Boyd, soprano
Haydn: Symphony No. 104, “London”
Saturday evening everything was absolutely as it should be at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. Virtually every seat was filled, virtually everybody in them was having a good time, and so did David Alan Miller, the musicians of the Albany Symphony, Robinson McClellan, composer, Amanda Boyd, soprano, and Ivan Goff, the extraordinary virtuoso of the uilleann pipes, who played the solo part in Mr. McClellan’s absorbing Bagpipe Concerto. The concerto was a big success... |
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| Leon Botstein and the ASO with Chinese Bard Conservatory Students Triumph in Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Ibert, and Dvořák at Bard's Fisher Center |
| Michael Miller |
September 24, 2007 |
It seems particularly felicitous that this first concert review in The Berkshire Review for the Arts celebrates the very fine performances of two young musicians, who are not far from the very beginning of their careers. Pianist Shun-Yang Lee from Taipei, Taiwan, is a student of Melvin Chen and Peter Serkin at the Bard Conservatory of Music, and Korean baritone Yohan Yi is also a Bard Conservatory student. Lee performed this weekend as winner of the Second Annual Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, and Yi recently performed at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in the Golijov/Upshaw Young Artists concert. This was a great evening for seasoned musicians as well. Leon Botstein led the American Symphony Orchestra in a thoroughly Brahmsian performance of the Academic Festival Overture and a truly revelatory reading of Dvořák’s Symphony “From the New World.” |
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| Tanglewood Festival Retrospective 2007 |
| Michael Miller |
September 25, 2007 |
| I’ve already said much more than I ever wanted to about the state of the Tanglewood Festival and the pointless discussion stirred up by a few articles and editorials in the Berkshire Eagle—both in Berkshire Fine Arts and our current Commentary. Since the festival faces no real crisis either in finances or attendance, what matters is the music. This is James Levine’s fourth season as music director of the Boston Symphony. The various difficulties arising from his intense working methods, his health, and, I believe, the evolution of his own musicianship are now in the past. The orchestra and Tanglewood now form a larger part of his commitments. The orchestra now play better than they have in years, consistently on a very high level for Mr. Levine and for guest conductors as well. He conducted more BSO concerts than in previous summers, and he is thoroughly involved with the Tanglewood Music Center. |
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