Unanswered Question: February 2011 Archives

For the second time in two weeks, I've heard an unforgettable symphonic performance fortified by intense religious conviction.

In Pittsburgh, Manfred Honeck delivered Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony as a profession of faith in God and mankind (see my blog of Feb. 13). Never before had I heard this work's problematic finale so infused with liturgical resonance, so distant from trumpets and drums.

Last weekend, Carl St. Clair - like Honeck, a devout Roman Catholic - led his Pacific Symphony in performances of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony buoyed by a gripping religious narrative of trial and redemption. For St. Clair, the pounding Scherzo of this final Bruckner opus signifies a crucible of carnal temptation which the dying composer must endure. The Adagio's three cataclysms signify for him a further rite of passage recalling the agonies of Christ. The coda's beatitude, I am now convinced, is a leavetaking literally envisioned; the apocalyptic visions sited, the radiant halo of divinity towards which the humble believer ascends and into which he is absorbed -- it's all there.

St. Clair's Bruckner is more remote from Mahler than any Bruckner I have ever encountered. (OK - I make an exception for Eugen Jochum's mesmerizing Bruckner 8, which I was fortunate to hear at Carnegie Hall late in that conductor's career.) Mahler is always aware of multiple worlds, multiple layers and possibilities - he is a chronic ironist triumphantly in quest of the divine. Bruckner is ever whole; essentially, he sees and hears one thing. I marvel that there are conductors - Klemperer and Tennstedt are the two who most speak to me - who equally serve both these autobiographical symphonists. Think of the exceptions: Jochum, Furtwangler, Celibidache were not Mahlerites. Mengelberg and Bernstein were not known for their Bruckner.

Friday night, I sat in the choir terrace of the Pacific Symphony's superb Segerstrom Concert Hall - which means I could watch the anguish and exaltation etched in St. Clair's weathered features. Self-evidently, he has at 58 acquired life experiences enough to earnestly inhabit this work (which he had resisted conducting before now). It was overwhelmingly impressive. I mean this literally: at two of the symphony's three performances, an audience member in the choir loft collapsed and required medical attention during the death throes of the Adagio. On Saturday, the orchestra had to stop while resuscitation was administered. Incredibly the music resumed with intensified gravitas.

St. Clair's Bruckner 9 performances were part of the orchestra's "Music Unwound" series, supported by a $500,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant. All Music Unwound performances include production elements not normally associated with evenings at the symphony. Last season's Music Unwound presentations of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony incorporated a visual track by my colleague Peter Bogdanoff and a superb stage actor (Nick Ullett) as Tchaikovsky. Our goal was to facilitate intense personal engagement. (Cf. my blog of Feb. 8, 2010.)

For Bruckner's Ninth, St. Clair secured a cathedral ambience with the participation of a lighting designer, the organist Paul Jacobs, and the chanted processionals of the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael's Abbey. Jacobs contributed a singular reading of Bach's St Anne Fugue, as potent as it was original. It was St. Clair's inspired notion to share excepts from the symphony on the organ before intermission - the pertinence of the organ to Bruckner's sonic tapestries was clinched; the impact of the orchestra was reserved for the actual performance.

Next season's Pacific Symphony Music Unwound productions include Mahler's Ninth Symphony, which St. Clair has programmed in sequence with the Tchaikovsky and Bruckner symphonies as the third in a trilogy of "Departures," recording final thoughts.

I hope that the Mellon imprimatur will help St. Clair and his orchestra to acquire the national influence and recognition both have long deserved. To my knowledge, no other American orchestra pushes the envelope harder.

I first saw John Adams' Nixon in China at BAM in 1987, weeks after my son was born. The opera was as brand-new as Bernie. I connected with its breathless exhilaration - the Nixons' discovery of a new world, of new realms of feeling, of new purpose and possibility. I was not alone. At that New York premiere, you didn't have to be a first-time father to know that something important was happening: of all things, an American opera that gripped and held.

I really didn't know what to expect, re-encountering Nixon at the Metropolitan Opera this season. Incredibly, 23 years have passed. That's an easy calculation: Bernie is now 23 years old. How had Nixon aged? Would its style and subject matter seem ephemeral? How would it suit the venerable Met, where it had never before been mounted?

The production, by Peter Sellars, was mainly the same one I saw in Brooklyn. Mark Morris was again the choreographer. James Maddalena was again an indelible Nixon. The landing of the President's "Spirit of '76" was not a surprise Sellars coup, as in 1987, but expectation and renewed memory conjoined to tingle the spine. I discovered that I still adore Pat's second act aria, and Morris's sly version of "The Red Detachment of Women."

But I wasn't prepared for the impact of the opera's short final act, in which the Nixons, Mao, and Chou En-Lai, taking stock of newly historic events, re-inhabit their respective journeys through life. This unexpected elegiac close -- in which the Met orchestra surpassed itself in the demanding solo ascents of the opera's serene final measures -- now attains for me a beautifully calibrated gravitas. It attains closure.

As at Adams' Dr. Atomic last season, Nixon brought to the Met an exceptionally serious audience. There was no coughing. The ovations that greeted the composer (who also conducted) expressed appreciation, gratitude, and pride. And Adams, I thought, exuded those same sentiments when he took his last bows.

I left the house secure in the knowledge that Nixon in China had aged gracefully - and that I, gracefully or not, had aged with it.

Kudos to Peter Gelb and the Met for keeping the faith.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities are endangered by impending Congressional budget cuts. Few people know what these agencies do - which is to say, it's little appreciated how vitally they contribute to American lives, and how disproportionate their contributions are in relation to their very modest budgets.

A pair of events in eastern Pennsylvania earlier this week are a case in point. For Black History Month, two elementary schools in semi-rural communities not far from Philadelphia - North Coventry (Pottstown) and East Vincent (Spring City) - hosted programs on Dvorak and "slave songs." The participating student orchestra numbered 70 players, grades 4 through 6. The participating student chorus numbered 60 singers, also grades 4 through 6. In each school, the audience (in the gymnasium) numbered 375 students, grades 3 through 6. Many parents also attended.

The featured soloist was Kevin Deas, an internationally prominent African-American bass-baritone who regularly appears with our major orchestras. Kevin is both an exceptional artist and an exceptional human being; he was eager to take part for a nominal fee.

The program began (without a word said) with Kevin, from the back of the gym, singing "Sinner, Don't Let This Harvest Past." He slowly paced forward, passing alongside hundreds of transfixed children seated on the floor. Subsequently, he sang "Deep River," "Goin' Home," and Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" (in Dvorak's arrangement for baritone, orchestra, and chorus) with the student musicians.

The hour-long program, which I hosted, also included discussion of Dvorak and his African-American assistant Harry Burleigh. Burleigh (like Foster, a Pennsylvania native) acquired "slave songs" from his blind grandfather. He sang them frequently for Dvorak. It was partly Dvorak who inspired Burleigh to turn them into concert songs which he famously sang (becoming a model for Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson).

Kevin sang "Swing Low" and "Wade in the Water" in Burleigh's arrangements. He talked about the message of the spirituals. He shared his own experiences as a black concert artist. We also heard a recording of Burleigh himself singing "Go Down, Moses" in 1919.

An epiphany of sorts (for me) was moving from Kevin's loamy baritone in "Goin' Home" to the 60 earnest, piping voices assigned the second verse:

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life just begun

The 130 student musicians radiated pride and excitement. Their teacher, Cliff Hall, had prepared them for many months. Cliff was a participant in last summer's "Dvorak and America" NEH Teacher-Training Institute, hosted by the Pittsburgh Symphony. Each of the teachers (grades 3 to 12) that we trained during the three-week institute created a project. This week's concerts comprised Cliff's project. It could not have taken place without an NEH. Cliff himself writes: "The performances have started a dialogue in the community -- ranging from parents waiting to pick up their children, to the comments section in area newspapers. Here is the true value of supporting the Humanities - we are both stimulated and informed; we acquire a platform to develop new attitudes and perspectives about our society."

Janice Houck, a local professional photographer, snapped these images.

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For American orchestras, these are changing and bewildering times - and will become moreso if Congress sees fit to de-fund the nation's invaluable arts endowments (whose functions are little known or understood by the public at large).

A lingering conventional wisdom prioritizes a "big five" symphonic constellation: the orchestras of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago. This hoary rubric has never been more misleading.

To glean the stature of the Pittsburgh Symphony, one would have to glean its reputation in Europe, where its tours are greeted with appropriate amazement. Its players radiate pride and commitment. The wind and brass principals are exceptional. The ensemble bristles with energy, yet maintains a burnished hue. I can't imagine that the US boasts a superior concert orchestra in the year 2011.

How this happened is a good question. The city itself is sufficiently small that an orchestra can "show the culture of the community," fulfilling Theodore Thomas's brave credo from the pioneer days of American symphonic culture. And Pittsurgh is a handsome city, handsomely populated by a prosperous middle class. Heinz Hall is a warm and welcoming home; the acoustics are terrific everywhere, front to back; the orchestra can also hear itself onstage. Of its music directors, Fritz Reiner (1938-48) instilled discipline (just listen to his Pittsburgh recordings). The long tenure of William Steinberg (1952-76), who lived in town and befriended the community, was a quarter-century anchor. Loren Maazel (1984-96) is credited with raising the playing level. During the tenure of Mariss Jansons (1997-2004), the excellence of the orchestra somehow remained a well-kept secret; it failed to attract national attention. (Did Jansons influentially champion new or unfamiliar repertoire? Did the orchestra influentially explore new formats or functions?)

The current music director, Manfred Honeck, was named in 2007. Like the Minnesota Orchestra when it opted for Osmo Vanska, like the Dallas Symphony when it chose Jaap van Zweden, Pittsburgh was not seduced by a great name and instead chose a great talent. Honeck grew up in rural Austria and later played in the Vienna Philharmonic - a devout Roman Catholic, he absorbed both humility and tradition. Now 52, he singularly combines Germanic lineage, intense attention to detail, and a human face.

The climax of the orchestra's recent Tchaikovsky festival was an unforgettable reading of the Fifth Symphony in which Honeck clinched this work's elusive darkness-to-light trajectory. It says everything that the finale, which can easily sound hollow, is Honeck's favorite movement, and the one he indelibly personalizes. No other conductor in my experience makes the theme so much a hymn, so little a march, or finds as many ecclesiastical resonances - Russian bells and choirs. And Honeck equally embraces the rustic strains - excitedly finding balalaikas, a polka, a csardas, all of which contribute to a condition of unmediated elation. Where in the closing pages Tchaikovsky writes "Molto meno mosso" (i.e., slow down a lot), Honeck just keeps going, flying towards the pounding final chords.

In this context, the fire and virtuosity of the orchestra become necessary but incidental virtues. Honeck and his players deliver a blistering first movement coda (in rehearsal, he exhorted the cellos to play "like Shostakovich") - a brisk and gritty death march. In the waltz, at the fastest possible clip, the strings spit out their flying sixteenth notes. Bill Caballero's third movement horn solo mellifluously spans a spectacular dynamic range. So does Michael Rusinek's solo clarinet.

None of this seems lost on the Heinz Hall audience. Post-performance, every night, Honeck shared thoughts about Tchaikovsky interpretation for half an hour and more. Even after saying good-night, he walked to the lip of the stage and bent forward to shake hands and talk patiently with those unready to leave. In New York, it remains the norm for Philharmonic subscribers to turn their backs on the bowing musicians, hurrying up the aisles, coats in hand, chatting about who knows what.

The American businessman Julius Block, who introduced the phonograph to Russia in 1889, proceeded to record many hours of music performed by the leading instrumentalists, composers, and singers of Moscow. The astounding "Block cylinders," thought lost, were discovered in 2002 -- and subsequently turned into listenable CDs by Ward Marston. For the recent Pittsburgh Symphony Tchaikovsky festival (19 events in 11 days), listening to and discussing these historic performances (and also to Tchaikovsky speaking) was a featured event.

Though already impressed by the salon performances captured by Block, I was unprepared for the impact they would attain in a public setting, juxtaposed with modern performances of the same music.

To begin with, there is Paul Pabst (1854-97) -- today, barely a name. He is the first major keyboard virtuoso to leave recordings. He opens a window on the world of Liszt and Anton Rubinstein (who tenaciously refused Block's repeated invitations to play for the phonograph). Here is Pabst, in 1895, in his own transcription of Chopin's "Minute" Waltz -- the most flamboyant reading I know. Here he is performing part of his Sleeping Beauty paraphrase, also in 1895. What certifies the brilliance of these performances, with their huge dynamic range and quicksilver nuances, is the overwhelming impression of spontaneity and ease, of unstudied fluency -- a lost art. Certainly the lighter action of nineteenth century pianos is a factor. In my own lifetime, only Shura Cherkassky -- a Josef Hofmann protégé who never grew up -- purveyed playing of this kind.

On another cylinder (1892) Pabst and Serge Taneyev play Arensky's Polichinelle for two pianos. Taneyev is remembered as a composer, but this is a whirlwind rendition at the highest level of virtuosity, from an era when performers and composers were one and the same. You can also listen to Arensky, at the piano, in his own D minor Trio (1894). His colleagues are Anatoly Brandukov, for whom Rachmaninoff composed his Cello Sonata, and Jan Hrimaly, who premiered two of the Tchaikovsky string quartets. Many things can be gleaned from these cylinders. To begin with, this is the most impetuous Arensky Trio imaginable -- the stiffness and redundancy of this score (which remains in today's repertory) is minimized. The two string players make no attempt to match style or sound -- they are individual personalities. Arensky takes no prisoners at the piano -- where he writes "fortissimo," you get fortissimo.

A common feature of many Block cylinder performances is that the convention of a steady pulse -- which we today take for granted -- is nowhere in evidence. Tempo fluctuation is constant. The conductor Gianandrea Noseda, whose blistering reading of Francesca da Rimini was one high point of the Pittsburgh Symphony festival, was an onstage auditor when the Arensky Trio cylinders were heard and discussed. Noseda is an exceptionally open-minded musician, a conductor we will gratefully hear more and more of in seasons to come. The tempo changes in the Arensky performance were too much for him. If so, what is one to make of Arthur Nikisch's historic Beethoven Fifth with the Berlin Philharmonic (1913), in which no tempo stabilizes? Nikisch was the most famous symphonic conductor of his generation.

No wonder Stravinsky so stridently and dogmatically preached steady pulse and "no interpretation." Much has been discovered in recent years by scholars resituating Stravinsky within Russian folk and classical-music traditions The Block cylinders document other powerful "Russian traditions" that Stravinsky was striving to negate.