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The interpretation that Christian Tetzlaff offered, at Carnegie Hall yesterday (October 5), of his fellow Hamburger Johannes Brahms's Violin Concerto seemed to me as interesting as any I've ever heard.  It was fresh and provocative but not eccentric, attentive to detail but never pedantic or mannered, viscerally and emotionally involving but never exaggerated. Tetzlaff possesses a brilliant technique, but producing golden-glow sound evidently is not his highest goal in life.  The intellectual and spiritual intensity that he brought to this work led him to take many technical risks, and those risks led to an occasional out of tune or slipped note.  But who could possible have cared?  This was real music-making -- seconded absolutely by the Met Orchestra under James Levine: from the ecstatic quality of the climax of the first movement's introduction, it was already clear that something special was taking place, and the impression continued right to the end of the work.

The concert -- the orchestra's first of the season -- began with the version for string orchestra of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, originallly written as the finale of the String Quartet, Op. 130.  The piece sounds more incisive in the dramatic sections and more delicate in the graceful ones when it is played by a great quartet rather than a full complement of instruments, but the Met Orchestra's strings are so fine, and Levine's concept of the work (which I'd bet he first learned under the aegis of his early mentor Walter Levin, founder and first violin of the legendary LaSalle Quartet) so rigorous that the performance was gripping from the first note to the last.

Not to be outdone by their horsehair-wielding colleagues, the orchestra's wind players and percussionists took the stage for a performance of Messian's Et exspecto resurrectionem, in honor of the centenary of the composer's birth.  I find this work's discourse much clearer than that of many of Messiaen's other large-scale compositions, but this may be a result of my own laziness.  Or perhaps the fact that the "Turangalila" Symphony, for instance, always gives me a colossal headache has prejudiced me against it.  In any case, in Et exspecto sonic beauty and formal rigor seem perfectly balanced.  Many thanks to Levine and his people for performing it with such care and conviction.

My religious sentiments, however, are much more in tune with those of Bill Maher than with those of Messiaen.  I saw Maher's movie Religulus this evening and enjoyed it immensely, Yes, his satire is often over the top, but he has an irresistible way of uncloaking hypocrisy and self-delusion -- and who can deny that the United States, increasingly overrun as it is with bible-thumping, war-mongering "creationists" and the like, is much in need of many more Mahers?

My previous blog entry, on music critic Donald Rosenberg's virtual demotion by Cleveland's Plain Dealer (he is no longer allowed to cover performances by the Cleveland Orchestra -- the city's only internationally celebrated classical music ensemble), provoked several interesting comments, including one from Gary Hanson, the orchestra's executive director.  Hanson reports that the orchestra's administration never exerted pressure on the newspaper's staff to muzzle Rosenberg, whose reviews of the interpretations of Franz Welser-Moest, the orchestra's music director since 2002, have often been negative.  His statement sends the ball swiftly into the Plain Dealer's court.  How could such an anomalous decision -- one that is so embarrassing to the newspaper -- have been made, and by whom, and why?  It is clear that the newspaper's editors do not consider Rosenberg to be incompetent: were that the case, they would find a way of letting him go completely rather than simply removing him from the orchestra beat, and they would be acting properly in invoking the right to refrain from explaining their decision.  But they surely they know that Rosenberg is not only respected by his colleagues but is also the author of the most comprehensive history of the Cleveland Orchestra ever published.  Under the present circumstances, invoking the right to not explain themselves makes them look like two-bit opinion censors.

I apologize to commenter (and friend) David Kettler for my ill-advised, smart-alecky reference to the Rosenberg execution.  To commenter H. C. Yourow: I believe that if you look up any of Rosenberg's Plain Dealer articles you will find his email address.  (Try www.cleveland.com and take it from there.)  And with "Claveciniste du feu" I would politely debate the opinion that "conducting symphonic concerts requires a different level of emotional commitment between the conductor and the players" than conducting opera demands.  Some conductors may be better in the pit than on the concert platform, or vice-versa, but the ideal level of commitment is always As High As Possible.

Speaking of opera.....  I don't normally attend opening night galas anywhere because I don't like the atmosphere and because I feel about as comfortable in a tuxedo as I would feel in a clown suit, complete with purple wig and red lightbulb nose.  Also, the last such event I attended -- the 2004 re-opening of La Scala after the venerable house had undergone major renovations (I was covering the first night for the New York Times) -- was followed barely a month later by Riccardo Muti's resignation as the ensemble's music director, and I don't want to jinx any other arts organization.  Nevertheless, I did attend this week's Metropolitan Opera opening night -- a showcase for soprano Renee Fleming, who has long been and is still a great favorite with American audiences.

The program began with Act II of La traviata, in which Ms. Fleming was partnered by tenor Ramon Vargas, who was in fine voice, and baritone Thomas Hampson, who sounded rough-edged.  Before I first heard Ms. Fleming as Violetta, a season or two ago, I had assumed that she would fare better in the first act than in the more intensely dramatic second and third acts.  I was precisely wrong: there was some insecurity in Act I during the performance I heard, but better technical control and, I felt, more emotional communication in the rest of the opera.  In short, the choice of Act II was a good one, although Franco Zeffirelli's lurid set for the second scene always makes me say to myself that this is how Kitty in the old "Gunsmoke" TV series would have decorated her saloon/brothel if she had had a million bucks at her disposal.  Tony Tommasini was right when he commented, in his New York Times review, that conductor James Levine's taut, energetic interpretation of this act reminded him of the 1946 Toscanini recording.  (In case anyone is interested: like Toscanini, Levine also cut the tenor and baritone cabalettas and had the violins play the accompanying figures in "De' miei bollenti spiriti" with the bow instead of pizzicato.)  Fleming was similarly effective in the third act of Massenet's Manon (so was Vargas) and in the final scene from Strauss's Capriccio, but I confess that my appreciation of both of these operas is severely limited.  And the nice thing about a blog entry, as opposed to a real review, is that one is free to comment only on things about which one knows and/or cares a lot.

I can't say that La Gioconda, with its insane plot and sometimes mediocre music, is one of my great loves, either, but the Met's performance of it on Wednesday evening was a vocal feast, at least with respect to the three important female parts.  Deborah Voigt in the title role, but especially Olga Borodina as Laura and Ewa Podles as La Cieca, provided one wonderful moment after another.  (Voigt seemed to take some time to warm up, and her Italian pronunciation isn't always clean.)  Carlo Guelfi (Barnaba) was impressive as both singer and actor; Aquiles Machado (Enzo) sang commendably but has a metallic edge to his voice and is not convincing as a stage presence; and to this listener Orlin Anastassov (Alvise), in his Met debut, seemed barely adequate.  The dancing of Letizia Giuliani and Angel Corella in the third-act ballet (the Dance of the Hours, rendered unforgettable in the USA by Walt Disney, not to mention Spike Jones and Doodles Weaver) was absolutely extraordinary.  Daniele Callegari conducted serviceably.  Margherita Wallmann's old production was restaged on this occasion by Peter McClintock.

I was only seven years old in 1953, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death for having allegedly passed information about the US's nuclear bomb program to the USSR.  Fortunately, Donald Rosenberg, chief music critic of Cleveland's daily Plain Dealer and no relation (I presume) to Julius and Ethel, will not be given "the chair" for his frequently negative criticisms of the conducting of Franz Welser-Moest, the great Cleveland Orchestra's music director since 2002.  But, according to the Baltimore Sun's music critic, Tim Smith, this Rosenberg will no longer be allowed to review the orchestra's concerts for his newspaper.

Let me state up front that I know and like Don Rosenberg, but I also know and like Gary Hanson, the orchestra's executive director, and I have had a couple of friendly chats with Welser-Moest, who strikes me as a highly intelligent, hard-working musician.  The issue here, however, has much more to do with principles than with personalities.  As a native Clevelander who has lived most of his adult life abroad, I can testify to the fact that the Cleveland Orchestra is the only local institution that is known and revered all over the world, although the city has several other vibrant classical music performing organizations and series.  A famous pianist told me a few years ago that foreign music-lovers familiar with the aristocratic performances of this ensemble, but not with its home town, picture Cleveland as a sort of Paris-on-Lake-Erie -- and indeed it is fair to say that in cultural circles around the globe, the Cleveland Orchestra keeps the rest of the city on the map.  To prevent Cleveland's main music critic from reviewing the orchestra's concerts is simply preposterous.  What if Milan's main music critics were banned from covering La Scala because they criticize the house's artistic directorship?  Or, back at home, what if the Plain Dealer's chief sportswriters were banned from covering the Indians, Browns, and Cavs because they give the teams' managers a hard time?  Unthinkable.

In New York, where I've been living for the last two years, the Times's music critics regularly take Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic's music director, to task for his interpretations; I'm sure that neither Maazel nor the Philharmonic's executives are delighted by the reviews, but life goes on.  The obvious difference is that New York also has the Met, City Opera, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, important concert series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 92nd Street Y, the Morgan Library, the Frick Collection, etc. etc. etc. -- all major artillery -- whereas Cleveland's major artillery in the field consists of the Cleveland Orchestra, period.

But there is a less obvious difference, too.  Maazel, whatever one's opinion of his interpretations may be (mine is negative more often than not), has been a major international podium figure for over forty years and is much in demand by most of the world's major orchestras and opera ensembles.  On the subject of music critics, he may well concur with the remark another famous conductor made to me many years ago: "A fly can annoy a thoroughbred racehorse, but a fly is still only a fly."  Welser-Moest, on the other hand, has not achieved similar stature, despite the fact that he is now slated to become General Music Director of Vienna's State Opera in 2010, concurrent with his Cleveland position, which was recently extended to 2018.  Reviews of his work by several London critics, by the exceptionally fair-mind Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times, and by many other reviewers have been mixed.  (My impression, based on observations made over several years at two or three rehearsals and perhaps seven or eight concerts, in repertoire that included classical, romantic, post-romantic, modern, and contemporary repertoire by Austro-German, French, Russian, American, and Chinese composers, is that he is an extremely well-prepared, serious musician who rarely achieves real intensity -- the quality that can make a fine performance into a memorable one.)  Perhaps he, or the orchestra's management, are not merely annoyed but seriously offended by negative criticism.  Or perhaps there are practical reasons to explain why a costly Rolls Royce of an orchestra in a city in considerable financial difficulty would like to have the person who reviews its work function more as a cheerleader than as a purveyor of opinion.  Such considerations would be understandable but, I think, wrong-headed and ultimately counter-productive.

I'm a guy who believes that most music criticism is utterly useless, although I, too, indulge in it and occasionally even fool myself into thinking that what I say may be of interest to someone.  In any case, it seems to me that the only music critics worth reading are those who, to the best of their ability, accurately chronicle what they've heard, who know music thoroughly (Rosenberg, by the way, was a professional musician before he became a critic) and care about it passionately, and who somehow manage to make readers understand that the opinions they, the critics, state are not purveyed as Truth but are meant, rather, as expressions of individual points of view.

Judging from a distance and without having discussed the matter with any of the parties involved, I see Rosenberg's virtual demotion as a humiliation, not to him but to his newspaper and, if external pressure was exerted, to those who exerted it.  I imagine he knew that he was laying his job on the line by continuing to criticize what he felt demanded criticism, and this fact alone ought to give his opponents food for thought.

Come on, folks, let's get serious!  A to-do about Sir Roger's anti-vibrato movement (or lack of movement, as the case may be)?  Don't we have anything better to talk about?  Or is it a question of arts journalists frantically searching for copy in August?

Anyone who has read Styra Avins's informed and informative writings on the use of vibrato by Joachim and other string players in the second half of the nineteenth century will know that Norrington's latest campaign is largely baseless or part of an ongoing PR parade -- if not both -- just as anyone who has delved into Beethoven's conversation books will know that the way Norrington straight-armed his way through the recitatives in his recording of the finale of the Ninth Symphony went against the composer's instructions.

Among "authenticists" and "non-authenticists" alike, there are musical and unmusical performers: neither camp has a corner on the sensitivity market.  Sir Roger can huff and puff all he likes about this or that offense on the part of the non-authenticists, but, to my ears, he belongs squarely (an appropriate adverb if ever there was one) among the unmusical authenticists.

The long hiatus in this blog is a result of a lot of other work, intense heat in my fifth-floor, under-the-roof walk-up Manhattan apartment, and sheer lethargy.

I've gradually been looking back over some of the performances that I attended during the 2007-08 New York musical season, but I'm taking time out to talk about a few CDs that have recently come to my attention.  I'm prompted in part by Tony Tommasini's evocative New York Times article (June 8) about the wonderful American pianist William Kapell, who died in a plane crash in 1953, at the age of 31.  And Tommasini's article was prompted, in turn, by RCA Red Seal's new two-CD album, "William Kapell Rediscovered."  The recordings heard on these discs were made during live concerts in Australia that took place during the months immediately preceding this amazing artist's death.

I am ashamed to admit that I had paid very little attention to Kapell's recordings until 1998, when RCA issued a nine-CD set devoted to nearly all of the pianist's recordings known at that time, but once I had made his musical acquaintance, I was hooked.  Rare are the performing musicians who make you feel not only that they have thoroughly understood the works they are interpreting, but also that they are "speaking" them directly, creating them before your very ears.  Maybe you don't agree with this or that detail, or even an entire interpretation; nevertheless, you are swept along by the conviction, honesty, and communicative mastery that have gone into what you are hearing.  This is the feeling I have when I listen to Kapell.  Take, for instance, Chopin's Barcarolle and E-flat Major Nocturne, Op. 55 No. 2, in this new album -- which I would urge every young pianist to acquire: you feel at every moment that this music is in Kapell's bloodstream, as if Chopin had told him what to do with every nuance in tempo and dynamics, every accent, the shape of every phrase.  Afterward, you may ask yourself why Kapell didn't make more of a certain climax, why he slowed down at a certain point -- and these issues do count, for anyone who cares deeply about musical interpretation.  But you remain awestruck by the fanatical care with which every detail has been worked out, in itself and in relation to every other detail, and by the apparent spontaneity of the result.  So also the performances of works by Bach, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev in this remarkable valedictory album.

An exceptionally fine recent CD is a Harmonia Mundi release containing the Jerusalem Quartet's interpretations of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" and Quartettsatz.  This is ensemble playing of the highest order: tremendous intensity combined with great interpretive intelligence and unity of intent, not to mention the striking virtuosity of each player (Alexander Pavlovsky and Segei Bresler, violins; Amichai Grosz, viola; and Kyril Zlotnikov, cello).  There is a tendency toward exaggerated dynamic contrasts -- even more superfluous in this highly dramatic performance than they would be in blander versions; nevertheless, this is a CD that everyone who loves these astonishing works should have.

Two other string ensembles that I've listened to with pleasure lately are the Moscow and American string quartets, performing music by the American composer Curt Cacioppo on the somewhat out-of-the-way MSR Classics label (easily available through amazon.com, however -- as are several other recordings of the same composer's music).  The two-CD album also contains performances by the Friends Chamber Group and by Cacioppo himself at the piano.  I've known Cacioppo since we were kids studying with the same piano teacher, back in the mid-1960s.  He went on to study with Leon Kirchner and other masters, and he has taught for many years at Haverford College, where his interest in Native American music spurred him to establish a Native American Fund and a related social justice course.  His works have been performed by the Emerson Quartet and other eminent musicians.  This new recording is made up of viscerally and intellectually stimulating compositions influenced in subtle ways by Navajo, Hopi, and other Native American music. Cacioppo has a unique creative voice that deserves to be heard.

I note that "Roger," commenting on an earlier blog entry, protested my description of the "constantly shouting" Joseph Calleja as Macduff in a Met performance of Verdi's Macbeth this past spring and attributed my words to "ignorance," rather than allowing for a difference of opinion.  A musician who attended all the Macbeth rehearsals and performances wrote to me privately that he found Calleja "'promising' but green and monochrome, and does he think he always has the melody?"  And yet another musician, who was sitting next to me at the performance I attended, had a more negative opinion than mine of Calleja.  So that makes at least three ignoramuses.  I have no idea whether or not "Roger" is ignorant or knowledgeable, but he must have learned about democracy by reading Mein Kampf.