Three winners in a row. First, Martin Katz with an ensemble on Friday. Then Jamie Barton on Sunday. And now this. Like, wow.

To start at the end, this was the best performannce of the Enigma Variations I have ever heard in decades of listening. The Royal Phil under Zukerman brought out features of the score (and, by implication, of the people these variations portray) that have never been heard and sketched so well – so somberly, so amusingly, so blusteringly, so lovingly. (It may be that these Britsh players have a special feeling for Sir Edward: the movement of the Elegy they played as an encore was also most moving.)

Before the intermission we heard Mr. Z. in the Beethovem Violin Concerto. This, too, was played lovingly and in nicely subdued tone. No showing off – just the music. A crescendo of rustling in the audience reminded us that Beethoven was in no rush to bring the first movement to a close.

The Egmont Overture waa played in suitably robust fashion.

Three winners in a row. First, Martin Katz with an ensemble on Friday. Then Jamie Barton on Sunday. And now this. Like, wow.

To start at the end, this was the best performannce of the Enigma Variations I have ever heard in decades of listening. The Royal Phil under Zukerman brought out features of the score (and, by implication, of the people these variations portray) that have never been heard and sketched so well – so somberly, so amusingly, so blusteringly, so lovingly. (It may be that these Britsh players have a special feeling for Sir Edward: the movement of the Elegy they played as an encore was also most moving.)

Before the intermission we heard Mr. Z. in the Beethovem Violin Concerto. This, too, was played lovingly and in nicely subdued tone. No showing off – just the music. A crescendo of rustling in the audience reminded us that Beethoven was in no rush to bring the first movement to a close.

The Egmont Overture waa played in suitably robust fashion.

A very satisfying concert! Lesson: you don’t need the celebrities du jour or even great voices – although Ms. Brugger is a gem — to entertain an audience if the program is as thoughtfully composed and as carefully rehearsed as this one was. There were no war-horses last evening but rather a mixture of more or less unfamiliar songs, some serious. some lighthearted, presented by engaged artists willing to take risks. Just think what the Choral Union series would be like if we had such clever novel and varied programming each time rather than the routinized, often listless and perfunctory performances of the most popular works by the most popular composers. (Ok, strike me dead, dear lord, for this blasphemy!)

But if you yearn for refreshing fare on all programs, honk.

“I’ve been increasingly obsessed with the idea that longer pieces can actually be made out of less stuff as a way of supporting the weight of their structures.” These are not the words of some grim critic, but of the composer himself. Such candor is disarming. Imagine a novelist saying this. And – did I hear right? – the first movement is modeled on a junkyard?

I haven’t fathomed the attractions of the minimalist school of composition, and I wish someone would explain it next time. I found the second movement of Strong Language appealing. But the rest seemed aimless and uneventful; there was no obvious reason why it stopped when it did. Most admirable was the evident conviction with which our Takacs friends played the piece.

Nothing uneventful about the Haydn and Dvorak quartets! They are both full of ingenious invention, and they got fine readings this evening. The Haydn especially is a work quite astonishing and unlike most others of his quartets in mood and spirit and form.

And the Dvorak was played with all the appropriate sentimentality of longing and joy. Never a dull measure in either of these works. Also Ken Fischer was right; we are lucky to hear this group year after year. Their performances are invariably stylish, tasteful, and bare of affectation.

As regards programming, sure, let’s have plenty of modern music along with the older, more familiar in each concert. But before we dip into the latest untried hot-off-the-press pieces, how about taking our selections from the second half of the 20th century? There’s plenty of satisfying adventure there, and it’s been too long neglected.

Schubert called it Allegretto.

Aside from the heroic logistics of Mr. Lewis’ short-notice fill-in for the ear-infected Mr. Andsnes, I’m happy to say that we heard a recital with many pleasures and surprises, moments of joy and solemnity. The last (Arietta) movement of op. 111 was magical — worth all the rest of the program. Mr. Lewis played the slow movements of all three sonatas especially beautifully, coaxing the finest sounds from the piano. He has extraordinary control of dynamic effects — not so much of rhythmic tact. In the fast movements there were occasional clunky or murky passages, and the accelerandos were often super-accelerandos, giving the music an undeserved levity. But, hey, he probably hadn’t slept for about three nights.

As to the chosen program itself, I would rather have heard any one of these three piano sonatas mixed in with works by other composers. That’s what Mr. Andsnes had intended to play — some Chopin, some Sibelius, some Debussy, and a Beethoven sonata smack in the middle.

Especially in this age of distractibility and shallow multi-tasking, I bet quite a few listeners found it hard to keep concentrating when it came to the last of these late Beethoven sonatas. And if you ever want to introduce an inexperienced college freshman to Western concert music, who has never been to an orchestral or chamber concert or to a solo recital, you would rather have him/her hear a wide sample of this art’s range – a little from this period, a little in that style? Maybe the Mozart will grab her or maybe the Prokofiev – who knows!?

However, in recent years, we have seen a trend in programming that works against this. Recently we’ve had all-Bach evenings and concerts with only one large complex work. I don’t think this will attract a new young audience. It may not even be the most satisfying offering to the old audience!

I grant you, such marathon programs are admirable artistic feats by the performers. But…

But if we want to attract and retain a new generation of concert-goers and help preserve the classical music tradition, we can’t afford this sort of thing; no matter how fine the artist(s), we need multi-period, multi-style programs such as that planned by Andsnes because they will appeal to a range of appetites.

Correction: Not two movements, but theme and variations in the wind quintet.

A splendid concert by four wonderful musicians, every one of them. The Haydn quartet was played with rare expressiveness, and the playing was lucid throughout.

This is the first time I ever saw a work by Adès on a program, and he really is as renowned as the violist told us. The experimentation with sound textures requires better acquaintance. Some of us were also wondering about the names given to the movements – in one case, the title is borrowed from a Schubert lied – a rather remote reference. But there must be an explanation; I don’t believe Adès is pulling our leg.

The Beethoven, too, was very fine. Overall, I vote for the Haydn as the best entry. People, we have stumbled on a fine group of performers. Let’s hope we hear them again soon.

And then they gave us a welcome encore. Nielsen must have really loved the first theme of this movement. He also used in his wind quintet – in fact, in two movements — with different time signatures.

Lucky us.

Yea, right. And since our classroom buildings are also a part of the University, why not start all class meetings with a brief and rousing audio of the Victors? It would just take a couple of minutes and perk up everyone’s attention. Grades would go up for sure. Some profs would object. But we know what snobs they are!

I can hear it now. Mr. Muti says to the stage manager: “Listen, mio amico, I don’t want any late seating between movements of the Beethoven. It breaks the mood.”

“Oh, but Maestro, you don’t know: these are dark nights, it’s cold, people leave the house late because they can’t find their scarves, and parking is tight. So they get here a bit late.”

“Well, we could first play a little Rossini overture or the Egmont Overture and then seat the latecomers e basta.”

“I have a better idea, Maestro. The New York Phil forgot to take the music with them to the arrangement of our academic anthem, and we still have it backstage. If you play that, our audience will be thrilled. It will show them that your players are Wolverines at heart. Yes, I know, they just heard it from that other orchestra. But it’s a fact of life that one can never play it enough.”

As it turned out, the Mahler received the longest applause of the evening, but The Victors got the loudest. Hmmm.

After all that banging, clapping, hooting, and whistling, Beethoven’s 5th had a hard time, and fate knocking at the door sounded a bit lame. Ah well, it got a standard performance. A little more gravity would have been fine. Beethoven was a grim fellow. The tempi were reasonable, and I was happy that the dynamics were life-size and not humongous.

The Mahler, however, was exceptionally fine. The orchestra was in nice balance; nobody stuck out who wasn’t supposed to stick out. Especially gratifying was the idiomatic playing – the seamless transitions from one mood to another, from Viennese lilting and swaying to klezmer high jinx. It was all there – the painful yearnings, the drunkenness, the joy, the resignation, and, of course, the famous Mahler cry opening the last movement – the cry that occurs somewhere in each of his symphonies, loaded with tearing agony.

I agree. My guess is that the soloist played a cadenza based on Beethoven’s cadenza — but elaborating on it. That would explain the length.

Evolution? Development? Future? Can we be confident that these “developments” – great old orchestras accompanying movies and providing sound pageants at sports events — WILL secure a future for something resembling what we call classical music? Are we seeing a new young audience replacing the departing one at concerts?

A satisfying concert! The Salonen work invites one into a wonderland of exotic marvels. Astonishing tone colors and textures arouse one’s curiosity and draw one into undreamt of neighborhoods. Often the textures are thick, and in this performance the sound level was as high as it was the previous evening so that one is hard pressed to make out what is being varied in these Variations. Maybe re-hearing the work from time to time will make it more transparent. I look forward to the chance to do so.

The Strauss work was well performed except for the many unfortunate exaggerations of dynamic highs. (One gets the impression that this orchestra and conductor lie in wait, like a cat before a mouse hole, for a chance to let loose without restraint whenever the dynamic marking remotely allows it.) The result is that people who are unfamiliar with this music will not be able to decipher such passages. On the other hand, many calmer passages, such as the final pages of “the hero’s death” were played with uncommon grace and touching sensitivity thanks in large part to the remarkable solo playing by the concertmaster.

One more thing. The audience seemed grateful to Mr. Gilbert for his introductory remarks about the Salonen work. If conductors spoke to the audience regularly, many listeners would be helped to focus their attention and come away with an enriched concert experience.

The air was thick with excitement in Hill Auditorium at the end of last evening’s concert. Cries of ”mind-blowing” and “awesome” flew from aisle to aisle. Never have so many stood up in fervent gratitude for bliss beyond words. And others, fewer in number, left in a mixture of sadness and indignation.

The concert began with a score by Lindbergh on which the ink was not yet dry. Its noise level and thumping, crashing rhythms suit it best as the background music for a sword fight between Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. We might have been spared this in favor something more interesting.

Let’s now consider the very end of the concert. I don’t mean the witty rendition of The Victors or the conductor’s donning a MICHIGAN cap, which he will surely wear during THE GAME this afternoon, but rather the last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. No one has ever claimed that this is Exhibit A of subtlety. Right, it’s modeled on a simple country dance, a Middle European 19th century dance in which peasants, tipsy from an excess of new wine, whirl their sweethearts around on a swept barn floor. But Mr. Gilbert’s substitution of presto furioso for Beethoven’s Allegro con brio doesn’t do the trick. This is no longer a dance. And once again, no note was played a mere forte; all evening long fortississimo – fff — was the conductor’s message to the orchestra. While the rhythms of the movement were thrust home to us in unvaried thump-thump-thumps, the brass choir “clarified” the harmonies with alternating bursts of tonic and dominant, tonic and dominant, tonic and dominant. As for the opening of the work, there, too, the band lost an opportunity for displaying a gem – the introductory sostenuto section prior to the vivace. There’s nothing more satisfying than a quiet, lingering suspense being released into happy song. But if you start too fast, then the contrast is lost and the audience the poorer for it.

I cringe to write this, but the sensibilities in the hall last evening were those of the football stadium, where fans can hear the awesome NYPhil brass choir again this afternoon.

PS Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Mr. Barnatan, our pianist, won a prize last evening. No one can play that concerto faster or glitzier than he, and no one has ever played a longer cadenza. Congratulations.

I was introduced to two works this afternoon that I had never heard before – the first and the last on the program. I love that — hearing something new to me, but not new in the world. How often does this happen? Sure, we hear new stuff at concerts but it was written day before yesterday, and so, of course none of us has heard it. But there are many treasures of the past that some of us can still discover afresh, and this can makes concert going all the more exciting – if it happns often enough! Let’s all express our appreciation when novelties of this kind are programmed (in addition to well-performed chestnuts.)

One often thinks of Mozart as a composer of sweet, straightforward tunes that go easily into the ear and that one can hum while taking a shower. This Adagio is neither simple nor hummable. But Mr. Goode gave it transparency and brought out lines that might have gone unheard. I’ll see if I can find it again on YouTube.

In the second movement of the Beethoven he started speeding up, and he continued to play at headlong tempos in the Brahms; I’ll eat my hat if old Johannes intended that velocity. It’s a lamentable trend. I wonder whether artists are flattering some real or imagined culture-wide impatience. But playing music faster than intended is like being taken to the Louvre or the Uffizi and having only 5 seconds in front of each painting. (“Did you like the Mona Lisa?” “Was that the female head two paintings ago?”) A pianist friend put it this way: “Brahms needs more space.” Very true. On a different point, another pianist said the sonorities in op. 76 are too homogeneous to play the whole thing at once; some pieces: yes, but not all of them. After all, it’s not a suite.

The Debussy was top-notch — everything in its place. All the humor accounted for. The Humoresque — clearly Schumannesque “handwriting” – strikes me as a bit longer than absolutely necessary; I’ll wait patiently to hear it again. Which proves that not everything that’s new to you is equally worth getting to know. Or, to put it more crassly, some works are justly neglected.

But how about that programming, ranging from the late 1700s to thee early 20th century? Did we hear a single orchestral program this year or the previous or the one before that that ranged so widely?

Season adjourned. See you in September. Some good stuff coming up.

These three works couldn’t have been in better hands. The Artemis players are without exception superb instrumentalists. What balance!

It might have been wise to play these three quartets in the reverse order since the Vasks and the Tchaikovsky pale by comparison with the Dvorak as regards inspired musical invention.

One can’t help smiling (or giggling) at the Vasks’ narrative and imagistic aspirations described in the program booklet — complete with a lighthouse, repeating life cycles, and sundry other fixin’s. But at least we now know what was on his mind as he composed. The first movement is dramatic, busy, and sounds as though it is supposed to tell a story with its quick shifting moods and motifs – but what story? The second is a touching, keening lament.

Tchaikovsky’s Quartet #1 is just not one of my faves. It’s pleasant enough, and, as one of my cousins used to say, it ain’t gonna kill ya to listen to it. But not much happens. I’m reminded of a comment Tchaikovsky once made about Brahms. “His music,“ he said, “is like a pedestal without a statue on it.” Seems am apt verdict on this work, which is not representative of the greatest melodist of the 19th century. (But, again, not to mislead anyone, the second movement andante cantabile owes its beauty to a folk song.)

The Dvorak, of course, made up for anything that was less than gripping: every movement a delight!

Clever program – Baroque and neo-Baroque. We need clever programs.

The tempi in the Back were on the fast side. But mostly Mr. Denk made them work.

The St. Martin group is a miraculous ensemble. Played the rhythmically complicated ballet score with balance, virtuosic compaactness, and subtle colors (also in the Concerto).

This concert and the Mozart concert by the Chicago Winds the other day are something to remember over the summer and beyond.

Mozart was never at a loss for musical ideas. He could toss off a brilliant quartet while he was waiting for the breakfast toast to pop. So he rarely ever had to use the same material twice. But both of these works served him again in composing string quintets; he knew when he had a good thing. Indeed. they are both gems.

The performances were luminous and gorgeous – transparent as only wind ensembles can be. Everyone I spoke with loved the first oboe especially.

So, these works and the performances could not have been more satisfying.

But in this space we never talk about programming; we seem to treat this as a taboo topic. Well, here goes.

Much as we’d hate to let go of either of these Mozart works, would you have preferred a stylistically somewhat more diverse program — works that were not written a mere few years apart? Many other composers have written wonderful stuff for winds. Would you perhaps have liked to hear something by Dvorak or Richard Strauss or even Stravinsky or Poulenc along with one Mozart Serenade – and saved the other for next year? Honk if you vote yes.

I’d be content if I could take this performance of the Mother Goose Suite to my grave and hear it whenever I want to.

This evening’s concert demonstrates that you don’t really need the august Big Name orchestras from Berlin or St. Petersburg to please audiences; there are so many other less well-known groups who perform as well or better and are even more enthusiastically appreciated.

And, of course, I could go on and on about Mme Grimaud …

A wonderful concert! Koh’s faultless technique — not a scratch all evening! — allows her to give herself wholly to the music as music, and she does so with impeccable tast and none of the fashionable mannerisms whatsoever – tasteful all the way. Both Bach works were simply – what? – luminous. Did you hear that fugue in the final sonata? I am grateful to have been introduced to the Sequenza by Berio. (I’ve never heard anything by Berio that I did not like; but, then again, one doesn’t get to hear his music much.) To repeat, a wonderful concert. I think I’m not the only one who enjoyed it: there was very little coughing. Yes, that’s what coughing in concert halls is about, not the flu.

We heard an electrifying performance of Prokofiev’s most popular piano concerto by a pianist of great accomplishment despite his youth. Over the years we‘ve gotten used to the polished playing of this orchestra. Tonight was no exception. That they often produced shrill and bang-y sounds must be debited to the conductor.

The rare Shostakovich symphony is a shapeless, overlong work in which many ideas are touched on but mostly not developed. An unimpressive, justly neglected work — but well played.

I can’t say that I’m terribly excited about tomorrow’s warhorses. But who knows…….

Truly outstanding, streamlined performance by all participants of a work featuring long stretches of musical banalities and Rossinian clichés, but punctuated by several inspired passages – also occasional harbingers of early Verdi. A full staging helps almost any bel canto opera because the music itself is evenly declamatory and lacks an arc. When it’s staged, you see the plot — the conflicts and affinities — before your eyes. After the over-the-top reception these folks got, they would surely love to return — perhaps with Cosi or Don Carlo or Sonnambula.

Mr. Kavakos excels in delicacy and sweetness of tone. I am so glad that he threw off the shackles after intermission that had seemed to hold him back before. His playing now became a lot more con amore. If you’re going to play duets with the passionate Ms. Wang, you mustn’t get too shy and meditative. She dominated through much of the evening (and not only in the billing on the program or in the curtain calls.) She, too, produced a warm round sound — even when she played too loud and covered up her partner.

The program was a model – familiar as well as fresher pieces and, for a welcome change, skipping over the Beethoven sonatas which have become practically obligatory in our day. Only heard that Respighi once before. Want to hear it again. Never heard the Schumann. Expected to hear the other Ravel sonata. But happy with this one.

And do y’all remember how in the olden days Heifetz, Milstein, Elman, Ricci, Francescatti, and the rest of the gang used to play some serious sonatas in the first half of every program before regaling us with a slew of fireworks after intermission – Paganini, Sarasate, Wieniawsky. A lot of fun stuff! But not this pair! Nah, all serious nourishing stuff. Very fine program and concert.

Matter of taste. The Prokofiev is very, um, Prokofiev from beginning to end – lyrical, rhythmically complex, and full of humor. I do wish the soloist had given us a little more tone. Analogy: good stage actors know how to do a stage whisper – soft but audible. The same holds for instrumental performers: what’s needed is audible softness. Daphnis and Chloê has terrific lush orchestral and ch9oral writing, harmonic and rhythmic surprises galore, and breathtaking sonorities. And the SFO and choir more than rose to the occasion. But as s veteran Mahler fan, I understand your preference.

However, what seems to me not a matter of taste is the fact that there were fewer empty seats on Friday than on Thursday. My thought is that the public at large is more strongly and widely attracted to programs that mix styles and periods than to ones that feature a single work, no matter how august. Perhaps more of these would help preserve this tradition from its gradual decline. Rather than combining jazz with classical music, let’s see if we can’t raise a larger audience with internal diversity! Honk if you think so, too.

We heard a model performance of Mahler’s Seventh – and one that makes clear why this work is so rarely performed: it’s surely Mahler’s most haunted and pained document and that makes it painful to listen to at times.

A neighbor complained that the sound was often shrill and that there was not enough build-up within each movement. True — but that’s in the composition, not the performance.

Mahler’s Sixth Symphony was called the “Tragic” (though not by him, as I recall.) The Seventh might well be called the “Neurotic”. It’s filled with one long and eventually unresolved struggle between chaos and the yearning for order, turmoil and a longing for some calm. Episodes of agony and naïve bucolic peace follow each other in headlong cascades. Since it is an undecided struggle, there is no build-up to a destination; rather, each movement stops where it does only because the struggling hero is exhausted. Even the two Night Musics are the tunes of troubled sleep.

So, yes, shrill and pointedly static — recycling the same screams and painful episodes. And in the center movement Mahler is looking over his own shoulder and giving us his sarcastic smirk; this is his danse macabre.

I was relieved to find that the ensemble included singers capable of a quite full sound. So often in the authentic music culture the choirs are as thin as they probably were in the days back when.

It was good to hear this music with its mélange of genres – traces of plainchant, Renaissance mass writing, and early forays into imitative polyphony. Still, despite having left us a mix of styles, Monteverdi, who was not only a composer, but a Catholic priest, would have been mighty astonished to see his Vespers presented in what UMS calls a Renegade concert.

The tenor who sang in the first section after intermission was superb: no problems with the high pitches and some breathtaking pianississimos. Some other soloists occasionally sang with uncertain intonation, and quite a few crescendos in the sopranos culminated in whoops.

A relative who is very fond of liturgical music declined to attend this concert when she found out it was presented at St. Francis – not on sectarian grounds, but because her toosh and the hard pews don’t get along well with each other. Are there churches in AA with more comfortable seating?

Nowadays many quartets thrive on the (many) moments when they can dig into the strings of their instruments, reminding us that they are mad of GUT — with the result that they sound more than robust; “we mean business, they seem to say, and we’re not kidding.” The Belcea Quartet fortunately does not follow that model. Beauty of tone and expressiveness come first. Their range of dynamics is wide – from the cobwebby to the assertive. They played the Mozart work with a subtlety that was downright French. You can be sure that the composer and his friends did not play it like that. Tant pis! However, the Brahms work demands a more muscular approach and suffered from the lack thereof.

The Berg, which I’ve heard only once or twice before, was the most appealing work on the program. The performers displayed their intelligence as well as their virtuosity. We were also once again reminded of how helpful it is to the audience to hear a performer speak from the stage about the work to be played — especially if it is more challenging than the more commonly programmed pieces.

The program was well chosen, sampling three distinct periods and styles, and the performers are a terrific group. Glad they are back.

A promising opener to the season!

Lieberman’s new quartet is a very fine, engaging work. I hope to hear it often but alas, probably won’t. What a variety of moods and forms — from the initial and final mournfulness to the lyrical, the prankish, and the jubilant. And our performers played it with much feeling, sometimes subtle and sometimes passionate. Would that they had given this much of themselves in the Beethoven. I overheard the following exchange.

An autumn lily said to a rabbit: “I thought this work was called ‘Serioso’, not ‘Furioso’. My. my, they played it awfully fast. I know there are more notes in some pf these passages than I could make out.”

Said the rabbit: ”You kiddin’ me? Fast? That ain’t fast! My friends and I can get through this thing at least thirty seconds faster!” And then he ate the lily.

But how about that Shostakovich? The players did not just play it; they revealed it.

Yes, option #2. By all means!

Yes, by all means come back — maybe next year — and bring us a new program – something like this: a Mozart Serenade, followed by Bartok’s Divertimento and, after intermission, one of Tchaikovsky’s suites. The audience will go crazy. The following year we’ll be ready for a touch of Boulez or Schnittke.

There was charm in this concert: a group of young musicians, making their way in a difficult field, played the five concerti in a refreshing, brisk manner — not always with much character. But then the role of character is a matter of debate in performance circles: how should Bach really be played? Minds are divided on this. The Apollos played the slow movements lyrically and the wing movements fashionably over-fast. Which means that you will hear some runs slurred and uneven. The short sweet talks by the leader were also charming – a model for other conductors. Audiences seem to like this sort of connection with the stage.

But, yes, I admit it: my attention began to flag about 10 minutes into the second half of the program. And I can’t believe that many others managed to stay the course, mind and ears sharp all the way.

Why schedule works exclusively in one format, written by one composer in one style as the only fare for a whole afternoon’s concert by such talented players? As programs go, this is a bit of a stunt. I can see why a group of musicians might want to tour with such a program and sell its CD at the same time. But will such homogenized programs – such stunts — keep old audiences loyal and new ones interested? Honk if you prefer diversity.

Terrific! As my wife observed, it’s wonderful to experience not merely a successful production, but a new genre of theater — because this is not really a puppet show in the conventional sense: it’s a show ABOUT (puppet) shows and, therefore, puts the spotlight on us, the audience. “You can’t choose what you believe” (because it’s controlled from the stage with “focus, breathing, and fixed points” and with many other devices) “but whatever you do believe obscures the truth.” Well, that last part is a bit off: really? whatEVER …?

Come to think of it, it’s not a wholly new genre at all. There’s Pirandello, who wrote: “I think that life is a very sad piece of buffoonery; because we have in ourselves, without being able to know why, wherefore or whence, the need to deceive ourselves constantly by creating a reality (one for each and never the same for all), which from time to time is discovered to be vain and illusory . . . My art is full of bitter compassion for all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion cannot fail to be followed by the ferocious derision of destiny which condemns man to deception.”

A delightful evening! I’d say bring them back, Michael, but I can’t imagine how they could come up with anything remotely like this a second time. But maybe that’s just my way of expressing how terrific this was.

You’re very kind, I’m sure.

I had promised myself not to write any reviews this year. But that was before last night’s concert.
Andras Schiff is a breathtaking virtuoso, a man of prodigious energy – who else would follow last evening’s scheduled works with opus 111?! — and of capacious memory. I hear he is touring with the English suites along with what we heard last night. You get the sense that, if you woke him up at 2:30 in the morning, he could launch himself into any Beethoven sonata or Bach keyboard work without hesitation or dropping a note. He is also a seeker!
A great artist will occasionally offer a new insight into a well-known work. This can make the concert memorable. The performer has remained true to the tradition of its past realizations, has not left the context of its place in the history of music and yet opened — or rather proposed — a new perspective on it that may stand the test of repetition. One is grateful for such events; there are not many in a lifetime.
But when every page is played in “innovative” ways, no matter how brilliantly and with what astonishing fireworks, when tempi are changed arbitrarily, rhythms pulled this way and that, articulations altered, notes and chords willfully accented, then one finds oneself not listening to a known work creatively reinterpreted, but rather wondering what the limits to such renewals might be. That, I’m sorry to say, was the case in both works last evening, especially in the Bach?
As someone said to me afterwards, the lighter variations shone with Mr. Schiff’s virtuosity, but one wanted “a bit more substance” in the slower and more contemplative variations. I agree; much of this steep, challenging work sounded more like Scarlatti sonatas dashed off by a brilliant, light-fingered magician.
The Diabelli theme waltz was played so fast that for a full realization one had to rely on one’s memory more than on one’s ear. Not to go on too long with this dirge of a review – maybe it’s too late for that already! — one of the variations sounded so strange and unfamiliar that speculation arose in my neighborhood of the hall as to whether this was Mr. Schiff’s own interpolation: “I’ve never heard THAT one before,” she said.

A powerful and memorable experience! There is much to be mulled over here. The play touches on so many troubling aspects of human life — the senselessness of violence, the destructiveness of vanity and pride, what we do with what is left of ourselves after we have lost what we treasured. But mulling over does not become possible until one recovers one’s balance after these wrenching two hours..

Serioso makes two points – one about redundancy, the other about substance. I will answer them together sine I was the first to expreess appreciation on this site for that which he condemns.
Consider that people who rarely go to concerts, are a bit leery of the experience and unprepared for it may find such comments helpful – not unlike a tour guide in a foreign country. The guide will deepen their experience rather than interfere with it. (Even an eager young concertgoer may find it helpful to learn the narrative as well as the biographical material behind, say, the Symphonie Fantastique.)
As for the redundancy, this probably derives from the current cult of PowerPoint presentations to which the younger audiences are accustomed and which encourage the dilution of attention to any one channel of communication.
Be that as it may, can we in the current state of our musical culture afford to dispense with the young audiences who need to have an easy path into the concert hall if they are to experience the complexities to be enjoyed?

“I would never write it into a contract because if it is forced… ”

Of course not, but you could casually hint to the artists how much our audiences enjoy such talks.

A most satisfying evening – maybe the climax of the chamber series. But since this was a year of other wonderful concerts and since chamber music is not a sport and this web site is not Consumer Reports, we don’t have to rate them all.

Haydn finds himself in a serious mood – at least in the first half of the work: beautiful and beautifully played soulful, meditative movements. And then he recovers his accustomed joie de vivre in the last two movements. A well-chosen start to a serious evening.

I can’t think of anything that is more likely to hold and develop audiences for concert music than talks from the stage by the musicians – these and not programming compromises (aka crossover bribes). Let’s stop pretending that everyone in the hall is an experienced listener. For quite a few, what they hear is a mass of more or less pleasant sound, a flattery or assault to the senses. If music directors around the world want these listeners to find the experience rewarding, they must give them a little help – a bit of structure to hang their attention on. Mr. Dusinberre did just that and I’m sure has the gratitude of many. He told us enough background and provided us with a plausible narrative. Not that this is program music. And when you listen to the work, it becomes clear that even this narrative is useful only as a metaphor for a certain experience – perhaps that of a man near death who attends — not to the tumult of Venice, but rather of life itself as he – and we all of a certain age — march with uncertain courage toward its end. A most moving composition.

I don’t know that an impresario can write such talks from the stage into the contracts. But if more musicians realized their fruitfulness, as for example Tilson-Thomas of the SF Symphony does – maybe they would gradually become more nearly de rigueur.

Op. 131 was Beethoven’s favorite. I know some musicians who feel the same way about it. It’s endlessly complicated, of course. I imagine it’s just the thing that cruel 19th century professors of music theory put on the final exam (“Parse THAT, you fools!!!”) The reason Beethoven wants the movements to be played end on end is that it has so many false starts and false endings, so many repeats and quasi-repeats, such structural complexity that separating the movements would give listeners a misleading impression of conventionality. Beethoven was too ornery a fellow to permit THAT!

What a wonderful group the Takacs is! They dedicated their playing to the works and the composers, not to themselves. They dwelled in the works.

Till next time — thanks!

Congratulations to UMS for staging this monumental work on the bulging stage of Hill. No one who participated in the performance and not many who attended it are likely ever to forget it. It has Wagnerian grandeur and weight (even though the saga is not Teutonic.)

There were some splendid vocal performances. Allow me to single out Brenda Rae, the soprano “component” of Athena. The large choral forces, indispensable if the orchestral sound is to be balanced, were polished. The whole production was a marvel of coordination.

If Wagner had written a cantata, this would have been it. And therein lies a problem. The work is driven – the pulse is unremitting — by the story and the text. How could it not be? Forget about prima la musica e poi le parole. The text has a mesmeric uniformity, and there are not many moods. It’s death, revenge, death, revenge. It HAS to be; else there is no Oresteia.

Ok! But what does that do to the music? How much shading, how much variety can you have in music that is so tightly integrated with a baleful, lugubrious text? That said, the orchestral and choral writing, within these bounds, is absorbing and full of the most intriguing surprises. I want top hear some of it again.

Supertitles: there are too many words, and sometimes they go by too quickly. You’re torn between reading and watching and listening. (The visual experience is important at a concert; we go to see the artists as well as to hear them.) Does technology have anything to offer here?

My guess is that not only the large forces required, but also this uniformity of temper are deterrents to more frequent performances of this somewhat overlong work.

Still, I wouldn’t rather have been anywhere else this evening, and I am proud that our UMS put this on.

Congratulations to UMS for staging this monumental work on the bulging stage of Hill. No one who participated in the performance and not many who attended it are likely ever to forget it. It has Wagnerian grandeur and weight (even though the saga is not Teutonic.)

There were some splendid vocal performances. Allow me to single out Brenda Rae, the soprano “component” of Athena. The large choral forces, indispensable if the orchestral sound is to be balanced, were polished. The whole production was a marvel of coordination.

If Wagner had written a cantata, this would have been it. And therein lies a problem. The work is driven – the pulse is unremitting — by the story and the text. How could it not be? Forget about prima la musica e poi le parole. The text has a mesmeric uniformity, and there are not many moods. It’s death, revenge, death, revenge. It HAS to be; else there is no Oresteia.

Ok! But what does that do to the music? How much shading, how much variety can you have in music that is so tightly integrated with a baleful, lugubrious text? That said, the orchestral and choral writing, within these bounds, is absorbing and full of the most intriguing surprises. I want top hear some of it again.

Supertitles: there are too many words, and sometimes they go by too quickly. You’re torn between reading and watching and listening. (The visual experience is important at a concert; we go to see the artists as well as to hear them.) Does technology have anything to offer here?

My guess is that not only the large forces required, but also this uniformity of temper are deterrents to more frequent performances of this somewhat overlong work.

Still, I wouldn’t rather have been anywhere else this evening, and I am proud that our UMS put this on.

Ms. Mutter is an honest and generous musician. It’s thrilling to be in her audience. There was no pandering, no fireworks for their own sake, yet plenty of virtuosity and sheer beauty. She poured out a lot of soul and insight. And her collaborator is her peer.

This became immediately apparent in their shared construction of the Mozart sonata. Then Schubert. Even if he’d had the money, he would not have hired a much-needed editor; it was his wont to go on a bit too long. He had so much to get off his chest. And what music! You couldn’t help feeling sorry on hearing this documentation of his struggle with despair and determination. (You can hear this in some of his piano sonatas as well.) And this is where we tapped into Ms. M’s depth of sympathy.

The Lutosławski is a kind of Till Eulenspiegel piece – mostly bright, playful, teasing, and then falling onto hard times and an uncertain, abrupt end. I think of Saint-Saëns as a sort of French Dvorak – resourceful, tuneful when he wants to be, entertaining. It’s worthwhile looking through the CD bins in the record store for things by him you’ve never heard, such as his several symphonies beyond the organ one and the Requiem.

This was one of the high points of the season. I hope to go to Mr. Orkis’ master class tomorrow.

It is said that no rain ever fell into Mendelssohn’s life. The pensive Adagio of the f-minor quartet is about as somber as he gets. He was, if one can say this of a musician, an upbeat kind of guy. Which means that performers need dash and precision, and these four players have plenty of both. They are a technically accomplished team. (But they tend to exaggerate a bit. Sometimes they stretched things out more than need be, and sometimes they overdid the dynamic distinctions. In the opening measures of the first and second movements the first violinist, whose tone is never large, dipped beneath the threshold of audibility so that one wondered where exactly the bar lines were.)

Piazzolla never lets you down, and Bach needs no recommendation. So it was a good day for the Argentines. One was called to the Papacy, one was associated with the Great Sebastian, and one was called upon for an encore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is too rarely heard, Michael!

But the idea, advanced from the stage, that B and P might somehow illuminate each other is a stretch, especially since neither composer’s featured works had been written for string quartet. It might have been better to employ a phrase composers sometimes use: Souvenirs de Bach et de Piazzolla. (For the record, the last Bach selection was omitted but we got the Ginastera for the same price.)

A thought for pedagogues. Some people don’t quite get the point of a complicated fugue when played on a keyboard. Disassembling it and distributing the voices to different instruments might help them as a first introduction to the form.

Next time let’s hear the Artemis in the entire Ginastera, eh?

Just one small request: could UMS please avoid scheduling two major events for the week in which the Ann Arbor Public Schools take their midwinter break, which takes some subscribers out of town? I am surely not the only one disappointed to have had to miss both concerts.

Good range of programming. I always rub my hands in glad anticipation when I see Ibert, Poulenc, Francaix, or Milhaud on a program: you just know it’s going to be fun! I hear the reason for this is that ‘Les Six,” as they were called, were drinking buddies.

The Aho work intrigued as well as frustrated me — intrigued because when a composer asks instrumentalists to produce sounds that students are warned against producing – they do so to convey experiences that break the bounds of the ordinary. The first movement was, as I heard it, a series of accusations brought by a suffering soul. And then I could no longer follow the trail — if there was one. Need to hear it again.

I was sure that Mozart had quoted a Bach organ work in the opening of the Fantasie — as a kind of tribute to JSB. I spent a good half hour at home trying to find the source. But no luck. Any clues anyone?

Wonderful players. And our Martin Katz was hot.

Excellent ensemble playing! Metamorphosen is a marvelous ensemble piece of music. It has so many emotions and qualities packed into it – melancholy, sweetness, agony, and sensuousness. The NCCO played it well, i.e., brought out its thick textures and shiftless harmonies (what key does Strauss not visit?).

Bolcom never disappoints us – from that angular first movement down to the country-dance in the third. I wart to hear this again soon. Arguably the Villa-Lobos sounds better in this transcription than in the original with soprano. No one in the audience begrudged the players the hammed-up Brahms.

We fled the hall right after the program was over — in fear that the orchestra might start an encore before we were at a safe distance!

It’s an interesting idea to combine an orchestra with an organ. But if you think about it for a minute, the risks of blather and pomposity are enormous.

Not to rag on the queen of instruments, oh no, never! Stokowsky’s orchestration of the Bach Toccata and Fugue makes us yearn for the organ and reminds us how indispensable it is. I’ll take my Bach neat, please.

Back to blather. Exhibit A: Khachaturian’s Symphony #3. Man, there’s nothin’ happ’nin’ here ‘sept one undreamt of crescendo after another. Wouldn’t FOURteen trumpets have been plenty? The opener by MacMillan also made clear that the majesty of the Church requires a richer expression than can be achieved with only large forces; it calls for adequate musical invention as well.

Bolcom rescued us. His work reflecting his fine ear for the cultural idiom it features made one smile with recognition: yep, that’s gospel all right! The teasing introduction is also a chuckler. The organ dances around the hymn just as a Southern Baptist congregation might have done.

The Barber was the composition that beckoned us to join inwardness, a deeper layer of appreciation. Its moments of introspection and lyricism were a welcome relief from the hot air being spread about by the forces onstage.

I overheard some high school students who had come to their first ever classical concert. They seemed to like the noisy, thumpy stuff. But, boy, are they ever getting the wrong idea about typical concert fare. What’ll they say to Mendelssohn and Haydn?

Two points: (1) After the sold-out Rackham Auditorium crowd thundered its applause for the second of the evening’s quartets, the group’s violist announced that they would now play their favorite slow movement from op. 135. (2) The entire concert was nearly totally cough-less.

There’s a connection: musicians do not usually caption their encore announcement (if they even make one; lots just dive right in) by drawing attention to their own preferences. I was not surprised to hear that these players have feelings about the works they play: it seemed to me that one only plays the way this group plays if one loves the music. How else can you draw an audience in as they did?! And when an audience has been so drawn in, it does not cough. Coughing has little to do with seasonal changes and viruses. Audiences cough when they are restless, inattentive, bored, or in over their heads and hearts, i.e., unprepared.

Corina Belcea is one hell of a violinist, and so are the other members on their instruments. The playing of these mostly episodic works – such a long way from Haydn’s models – call for contrasts in mood and quick shifts in dynamics. And this quartet was up to it, producing sounds on a scale from the soulful-ethereal to the muscular-incisive.

We’ll never hear the likes of that slow movement of op 127 again. And two people I spoke with admitted to the rise of tears to their eyes during the concert. It’s true that when you play soulful-ethereal passages, you take the risk of having some ends of phrases disappear into the mists of the ether. At that point those audience members who are familiar with the work are helped by their memories, which complement sheer sensation. But that’s not even a quibble after a concert like this one, yielding such rich satisfaction.

That’s easy, Michael. As the soloist or conductor takes the stand and bows, s/he turns to the audience and announces: “For every cough I hear, I/we will play five wrong loud notes, and, if you were the cougher, everybody will blame you for them .”

Agreed! I’m less worried these days about a cell phone going off – although that would be a nuisance — than about the uninhibited trumpet coughs from all sides. How’s about an announcement at the start, UMS, about manners in a concert hall?

An enjoyable concert! The fare was not for vegetarians, however: plenty of beef! A friend complained about having a piece in the first half whose heft suits it more for the end of a concert.

The Mariinsky gave a rip-roaring performance of the Rite of Spring. There was energy and drama and slavering brutality to spare. At times things inevitably got a bit harried and blurry – but not as blurry or even raggedy as in Heldenleben. The latter is a more sophisticated and complex work than the critics thought at the time. They scolded Strauss because he quoted his own works in this piece and so, by implication, out himself forward as the hero. Then came others who said, no, no, he’s just kidding; it’s all in good humor; he’s getting even with the squawking critics.

Actually, he wrote a more universal piece about the course of life and the characteristics of each stage, including among other things the braggadocio of youth, the struggle for self-assertion, the mating game, the comforts of domesticity, and the nostalgia of a detumescent Don Juan for old victories. And this narrative complexity is reflected in a musical-thematic complexity. But if Strauss had heard this performance, he might have flung a couple of his cardinal rules for conductors at Gergiev: “Never look at the brass, it only encourages them.” and “Never let the horns and woodwinds out of your sight. If you can hear them at all, they are still too strong.” If you violate these rules, you are apt to overwhelm the sumptuous string passages and some other important voices as well – as happened more than once last evening.

We heard fine fiddling from the concertmaster!! When all is said and done, you just can’t really do much damage to this wonderful tone poem, the last of Strauss’s more famous ones, written by the last hero of German romanticism.

Gee, we don’t hear the first Shostakovich concerto as often as the second. That’s because the latter is more conventionally attractive, more settled in traditional form, ad more hummable on the way to the parking structure. What I find so interesting are the so-called humor and lightheartedness in this and many other of the composer’s works — his waltzes, polkas, and tangos – at least I think they’re tangos. I often think of these high jinxes as Mahleresque: HE DOESN’T MEAN IT. He’s mugging~ It’s not humor, but bitter sarcasm, gallows humor. No wonder: the authorities commanded all the Soviet artists to be joyous.

Matsuev was in top form as he had been the last two times he was here. In short, the two pieces after the intermission came off as more satisfying than the one before. But, hey, let’s not quibble. Whatever didn’t work perfectly must have had to do with the rush to get the show on the road. Maybe the instruments were still cold like that time long ago when an Austrian orchestra had to start quite late – much later than last evening — because the truck containing the instruments had gotten stuck in the snow on I-94. That time Mozart had to be patient.

We heard some gorgeous music making last night and some that was not so gorgeus. Perahia is at his best – and possibly our musical world’s best — when it comes to lyrical, serene, or jaunty and humorous music. That Haydn was spun out of cobwebs, and those quirky Moments Musicaux – quirky like Beethoven’s Bagatelles – came out sounding not merely reasonable but inevitable: why wouldn’t one write them and play them just like this?!

But when it comes to composers’ more muscular and exciting passages, he becomes – I shouldn’t generalize: he BECAME – a bit too bangy for my taste, with an especially heavy left hand, and rushing along so that one couldn’t savor the delights that lurk even in these fast and furious pages. This was true in the first section of the Faschingsschwank and the last movement of the Beethoven. But, man, I’d still go way out of my way to hear this artist every time I can.

Brilliant!

It’s unfortunately not uncommon to hear a concert in which the execution gets in the way of the music. Those events are like strolling down the Champs-Élysées but in shoes that are pinching you. (“Why is this largo so fast; what’s wrong with the balance; is the cellist not feeling well?” That sort of thing.)

Not this evening!!

The Jerusalem Quartet opened the music up for us so we could see right into the soul of the composer (which he wears on his sleeve in any case.) And so it’s tempting to fit a narrative to these quartets – and why not? Beginning with sardonic Mahler-esque gallows-humorous allegretti/scherzi the composer soon drops the pretense, which he skillfully lets us recognize as such, and shows us the wrenching truth – a lonely distraught self struggling to emerge from the dumps of his desolate culture, grasping at flashes of hope, and then sinking back into silent despair. I, for one, was in shreds at the end and grateful that they didn’t play an encore.

The Beethoven was sparkling and witty (e.g. how they ambushed the audience after the introduction of the 4th movement). Smart programming, by the way.

Their technique and their full blending, their occasionally unearthly sonorities, their almost unbelievable pianissimos, and the heart-breaking phrasing made this concert – I know it sounds exaggerated – the most moving experience I have had in a Rackham concert in my many years of going there.

NEVER, Michael!!!

The Chicago Symphony brought us a very attractive piece, written only last year by Mason Bates, its composer-in-residence. It was the high point of the evening. Its principal feature is the handling of rhythm. In large sections, it pulses along steadily (reminiscent of some of Boulez’ works) – mimicking a ticking machine or computer more than anything nature usually produces. The composer writes about junkyards, nuclear accelerators, and the devastation of Icelandic rain forests. I don’t really need this story although I share his anxiety; to my ears this is really abstract music and stands well by itself.

An orchestra shows its skill by keeping up the ping-pong of sounds this composition calls for: a player must come in on a certain sixteenth note at exactly the right instant and immediately pass on the musical baton to another instrument on the other side of the stage. The Chicago players can do that admirably. That the piece makes use of electronic means is a side issue. If you want to produce these sounds – mighty winds, mechanical sounds, and what I took to be some pretty uncouth and, therefore, all the more amusing digestive noises – electronics is what you need. I was ready to hear it all again as soon as it was over. I hope Aunt Agatha did not dislike it.

The Franck symphony is an old friend. I recall that a few decades ago hardly a week went by when you did not hear this piece on your classical music radio station. Now, it’s a rarity, and I know people who are music buffs but have never heard it. Franck, the famous organist, knew a thing or two about producing great sonorities, and he showed it when he moved that lovely English horn theme from the second movement into the third and escalated it to triumph. The band played the with subtlety.

As regards the Wagner overture, I would recommend to Mr. Muti that he stay away from German music. Last year I wrote that he made the second symphony of Brahms, a serene and bucolic work, sound like Haydn’s Military Symphony. This year he played the overture to The Flying Dutchman – a dark, grim drama, about a man condemned to sail the seven seas in eternity – sound like the excitement before going to a New Year’s Party. The passages that era supposed to sound ominous and glum sounded brash, bright, and brassy.

Brassy is the word. Ever since the Solti days the brass section plays uniformly fortississimo whenever it has anything to play. Not only is this hard on the ears, but it also leaves you no place to go: you can’t have a crescendo because you’ve already given it everything you got. A friend reminded me during the intermission that the CSO is famous for its fine brass section. True, but in my book they are also famous for being too loud – reliably so. But, of course, many listeners respond well to that. (I recall hearing that in the early days of jazz, people would applaud a well-played riff by shouting: “Yea, that was real loud!” when they meant “real good”.)

I don’t know, maybe this is appropriate to Chicago, which, in Carl Sandburg’s words is the “city of the big shoulders.”
But I would have preferred the overture to La Forza del Destine.

The St. Martin is a very fine orchestra. It’s a pleasure to listen to the individual wind and brass players when they have solos. And when they play together, they manage splendid ensemble work; they do not need a conductor. (During the concerto Bell was conducting; but it was more for the benefit of the audience than the players!) Joshua Bell, too, has a sweet, seductive tone, especially evident in the second movement of the violin concerto.

As happens often these days, tempi were restless and at times headlong. This has a price. If you play the Coriolan Overture a hair too fast, you gain some sheen and lose some gravity. But the play it’s written for is all about gravity. The two middle movements were right on the mark for me. But if you play the symphony’s finale in a noisy prestissimo, even though it’s marked allegro, you lose some notes, such as those characteristic 16th note patterns, in a blur. (I confess that I’ve always found this last movement irritating at any tempo; so I didn’t mind.) But, of course, noisy prestissimos bring down the house, and this one did. Good way to end the season.

I’m looking forward to a leisurely second 100 years of Hill Aud.

A lovely concert!

The two Haydns reminded us that no rain ever fell into this composer’s life any more than into Mendelssohn’s or Dvorak’s. The lightheartedness of this ensemble, manifest when their leader addressed the audience and when they dove into the second movement of the Schafer work with such gusto, was a good match for Papa Joseph. Both quartets were played with more than usual energy.

Here’s what occurred to me during the Schafer. Different pieces of music require different styles of listening. Don’t listen to the second movement of this composition the same way as to a chamber work by Mozart or Schubert. On those we parse every chord, every dynamic change, every eighth-note rest. Here that would be the wrong resolution: the second movement is a take–off on the classical scherzo (it actually seemed to have a minuet-trio form if I’m not mistaken). The point is: it was an EVENT meaningful because it was NOT like Schubert or Mozart (motto: intertextuality)! You can, like, sort-of listen to it, whatever — you dig? – and still get it, like. Movement: I. the composer lays his vocabulary before us. II. Scherzo, like. III. Dirge. I very much enjoyed the whole, like, thing. What an inventive guy this Schafer is, squeezed every possible effect out of the strings – a latter-day Bartok.

Goliov was moving, wouldn’t mind hearing it again this evening.

Encore: Haydn (Movmt from Seven last words): Here lightheartedness bit the ensemble in the leg. This should be played more quietly and introspectively. When Haydn performed it in Cadiz on a Good Friday, the church was draped in black. There was no black last night.

Dear Messrs. Johnson and Tikker,
The choice is not between “challenging” and “limited,” but between stagnant and evolving, expanding programming. Do we keep modern and contemporary music just for those of us who already seek it out or can we find effective ways to widen the mainstream so that new compositions are no longer regarded as mavericks? UMS says it wants to develop its audience. The question is how to do it!

I applaud your passion, Mr. Wiener, more than your optimism. You advise those who don’t like this kind of music not to buy a ticket. The worry is, however, that even those who do, may not have a chance to buy one. Concert organizers cannot afford to present such works with any regularity to half a house including numerous indifferent and disgruntled patrons. (Carnegie Hall sold even worse than Hill. Do the math.) When was the last time you heard Ruggles, Cowell or Ives in Hill Aud? When do you suppose you will again? The question is how to swell the ranks of those who are at least open to such music or even like it. Any ideas?

There was sustained applause and whooping after almost every composition w heard the last three nights. There was also isolated booing after the Cage piece. I have been going to Hill for decades and have sat through the good, the very good, the bad, and the ugly, but I have never heard booing here before. In Europe it’s common for one half the house to clap, the other to boo. But we are a patient and hospitable audience; that’s part of our success with performers. Who wouldn’t like to play before such a receptive hall? Some might say “undiscriminating” or “stubbornly enlightened,” but that’s clearly a slander. The Cage piece seems finally to have overstepped our high threshold for outright rejection. Then there was attrition: two people sitting behind us walked out and the chap next to us did not return after intermission. That’s three defections all within just an arm’s length. I also heard some bitter remarks in the hallways and elevator – about feeling swindled — even though you wouldn’t guess this from the UMS Lobby. I’ve had it confirmed that half the house had been unsold. So do the math. Folks, we got a problem.

Administrators at the UMS have said they don’t want audience size to be the indicator that’s used to measure success. What they care about is helping people to have a favorable introduction to modern and contemporary music, maybe even to turn some people on to it, to make these forms more acceptable. When I hear this, I am filled with pride and gratitude to be living here and benefitting from this organization. Where is there another like it?!

Sure, a smaller audience is not a sign of failure; but neither is a large one.

Allow me to repeat myself. Hearing eleven new-to-the-ear compositions in three days, representing a kind of music the general concert-going public hardly ever hears, is not the best way to achieve these worthy goals. Receptivity declines soon and sharply. We need more time and closer exposure if we are to assimilate each such work –if our attitudes are to change. (How many people actually learn how to swim when tossed into the deep end of he pool? Few swimming instructors use this method.)

To start with, let’s acknowledge that after having clung to the 19th and early 20th centuries as the outer limit of most concert programming – with only an occasional score thrown in on which the ink is still moist – we cannot make up our lag in taste development in one grand leap. We need the long haul.

Here is just one way to start this conversation. Please contribute your ideas and bear in mind that we who write may not be representative of the entire audience. The UMS says it wants to hear our thoughts.

If I had the chance. I’d invite the SFS back. They are phenomenal. I liked almost everything I heard. Yesterday’s program, too, was very fine. Have them give 4 concerts. Each program will have two traditional pieces, selected from the Baroque to the Neo-romantic canons, say, Bach to Ravel, Respighi, Rachmaninoff or Strauss. And in between something by Cowbell or Webern or Boulez or middle Stravinsky. It could also be an American composer – Barber, Harris, Riegger, etc. THIS LESS FAMILIAR PIECE WILL BE PLAYED TWICE in two consecutive concerts – work A in concerts 1 and 2, work B in # 3 and 4. THAT’S ENOUGH FOR ONE SEASON. Repeat the following year with similar programs. This allows for a gentle immersion rather than a tsunami. The second time you hear something, you can recognize some things and discover new ones.

I believe this is a more effective way to change minds and hearts and interests.

In a previous post I acknowledged that UMS does not make up the individual programs; it more or less has to take or leave what is offered. What I’m hoping is that concert presenters, such as UMS, who worry about the future of this musical culture will agree with each other on an effective model and urge orchestras to try it.

Correction and addendum:

1) The program was partly modern and partly contemporary.

2) More than one person I’ve spoken with since then volunteered that s/he liked the concert more than s/he expected. Which confirms my point.

This was an absorbing and stimulating evening. I’ve heard the piano version of the Copland before. But this one is less austere, and I welcomed that. As to the Cowell, there was, among other things, something amusing about it: beyond the tone clusters, which caused snickers in our vicinity, the concerto had the arc and inner structure of a romantic-era concerto, complete with the occasional solo in one or another of the orchestral instruments and the grand cadential finish. The whole thing seemed to me a reminiscence of an imaginary 19th century concerto.

The Bates piece is very touching – not just a paean to early radio, but striking a deeper universal chord with its wonderful evocation of maternal love. The mother’s joy and care on hearing her daughter across thousands of miles (“Are you there, my child?”) felt like the adult version of any mother’s first look for recognition in her baby’s eyes.

The Harrison concerto is yet another demonstration of how globalized music has become – earlier this year we heard Messiaen! — what with African rhythms taking turns with Southeast-Asian modes and sonorities.

But, but, but, but, but..

We’ve already discussed the unwisdom of creating a special wildlife preserve for modern music. (BTW, this is modern, not contemporary music – from the first ¾ of the @0TH century.) This strategy amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy: “People don’t really like modern music and will stay away!” Well, duh! It takes a special interest and preparation to attend and enjoy a whole evening of this – just like a whole evening of Vivaldi or an entire afternoon spent in an aquarium. The proof is now in. Entire sections of Hill seats were empty.

I doubt that any conductor would balk at an invitation to insert one of this evening’s pieces between a short classical composition and, say, a Strauss tone poem or a Rachmaninoff symphonic piece that requires similar large forces. Would people stand up and scream in protest? No! People would discover that there is nothing to be afraid of and that this is interesting music, to say the least. Such programs would soon become routine, especially if Tilson-Thomas could teach some of his stodgier colleagues how one gets the audience in the right groove! He really knows.

One more thing: there were a large number of young people in the hall whom we don’t usually see there. Maybe they were music students who’d gotten reduced price tickets. The point is that they CAME.

What to do!? The UMS doesn’t build the programs; it is offered programs and can more or less take them or leave them. But the UMS is not the only organization worried about the future of concert music. Could we not spearhead a new direction? We keep hearing that we are the great love and favorite venue of every soloist, orchestra and chamber group. What if we were to use this renown to tell the League of American Orchestras (see their Google page) that if they were to get over THEIR fears and stop treating modern music in this gingerly manner, they could attract the young people and retain the older customers?

THAT’S THE WAY YOU CARE FOR THE FUTURE OF A CULTURE.

Meanwhile, Michael and Co., great thanks for presenting this series!

An unsatisfying concert!

The Chicago Symphony’s businesslike and let’s-get-on-with-it approach – its restless tempi and unrestrained brass and timpani – might work well in one of Tchaikovsky’s triumphalist movements. But it did not work in last evening’s program.

Brahms’ second symphony with its bucolic spirit, its calm mood, and its mysterious moments calls for something subtler, warmer, more patient. It’s this composer’s “Pastoral” Symphony. In Mr. Muti’s hands it sounded more like Haydn’s “Military Symphony.”

Pinchas Zukerman played the Violin Concerto soulfully and sweetly, poured out his heart to us. But he was helpless to seduce Mr. Muti and the Orchestra into joining him in the sentiments and passions he modeled for them.

I’ve heard that they played this program in Chicago last week and that a scuffle broke out in one of the boxes during the concert. Let me guess: the Brahms fans vs. the Muti fans?

You speak from my heart!

Ban the M-word!

Boost the range of programming!

I agree. A mix is better.

The classification of Beethoven as maverick is indeed puzzling. If LvB is the stray, who’s in the mainstream?

But, hey, there is an upside to this: if our Ludwig is a maverick, then maybe the modern composers will no longer be segregated into a special “risky” category to be dosed out spoon by spoon. Pretty soon, all concert music will be maverick, all in the same class. Come to think of it, isn’t that sort of where things stand in our age?

Precisely so!

…..”pitchy” moments and slightly overdone portamenti.

N O P R O B L E M!

Hagen and the Jerusalem Quartet have risen to the top of my list!

I liked everything about this concert. Unlike some other quartets, this group plays discreetly, almost reticently at times. Nice blend of tone. Subtle execution. Some stunning pianissimos. The tempi a bit brisk at times but plausible. Really most enjoyable.

There are those who welcome the “openness” of the work, and there are those who condemned the video as ugly and disgusting. Some people want to see the unblemished grandeur of the Rockies. Others see the aptness of Landau’s reminder that the natural beauties of America are in jeopardy. UGLY and DISGUSTING was intended even though it offends those who wish to ignore what is happening. Who owns this work — that is the question. Can the Hamburg Symphony recast it in a more contemporary form or are they spoiling it as they portray the spoiling of the Great West?

Please ignore this last comment. It is misplaced.

There are those who welcome the “openness” of the work, and there are those who condemned the video as ugly and disgusting. Some people want to see the unblemished grandeur of the Rockies. Others see the aptness of Landau’s reminder that the natural beauties of America are in jeopardy. UGLY and DISGUSTING was intended even though it offends those who wish to ignore what is happening. Who owns Einstein on the Beach — that is the question. Can the Hamburg Symphony recast it in a more contemporary form or are they spoiling it as they portray the spoiling of the Great West?

Thanks, Liz. Making note.
M. L.

As I see it, there are two perfectly reasonable reactions to the film. (By the way, let us remember that it is not Landau, but the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, who is asking us to accept this film. They are the ones who commissioned it and are presenting it to us as part of their package because it makes sense to them. This opens the possibility of inquiring what they, rather than Landau, might have had in mind.) So now to the two plausible reactions:

One, we can say that this music needs no video. It is sufficient unto itself. Any video is too much.

Two, we can say, sure, a good video would be welcome but this is a rotten video because it makes no sense to me and falls flat in every other way. Makes no sense? Maybe yes, maybe no. Everyone can play at this game. But now suppose it does make sense to you. You can try to show others what you see, and they can accept or reject what you say. I tried to make sense of it consistent with my overall interpretation of this work as expressing feelings evoked by the human infiltration and destruction of the Great Western Landscapes – not a new thought, but hardly a trashy idea or a cliché. So I saw the humans with bear, rabbit, and tiger heads as symbols of the Disney-fication and distortion of Nature that is one symptom of destruction comparable to the wildlife preserves we create to atone and compensate for and mask what we do to nature. The cuteness prettifies the general devastation. Within this theme the figures need, therefore, not be seen as clichés of cuteness. There is more coherence here than between Verdi’s Requiem and the selling of cars.

I could go on but there is no need. I just wanted to illustrate a certain approach and attitude toward an artist’s interpretation of someone else’s work of art. (Consider: What sense can we make of Dali’s putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa? One can dismiss it as trash. But one can also look deeper.)

Riding down in the elevator, I heard someone ask: “Did you enjoy it?” Her friend’s answer came back: “Me neither.” I intruded tactlessly: “What makes you think it SHOULD be enjoyable?”

When we look at great art, do we insist on enjoying it? Music is written for all sorts of reasons and purposes.

As I hear it, this piece is expressive of moods and feeling states evoked by the crumbling defenses of Nature against the inroads of Man. We hear awe at the wildness of Western landscapes and the stomping and grinding of man’s machines as they crush all. The music is challenging to the ear as befits this struggle. No wonder we saw people leaving during the performance.

Is the video irrelevant trash? Not to me in this case. Yes, art should not be exploited for political purposes. I found that in this work music and film were compatible. I found neither distracting from the other. Certainly this film was made at a time of great public concern with the fate of Nature — more active concern than at the time when the music was written. But reinterpretations are, for better or worse, very common today, both here and in Europe. I’d say the film arguably put the music in a plausible context. Which is why I should enlighten Timothy Tikker that a reinterpretation by a later film maker of a an earlier composer’s work — even if he finds it wrong-headed and even if the film maker is a Jew and the composer an anti-Semite — is not necessarily an act of revenge. (“Stupidity,” he writes, is the ONLY other possible explanation he can think of!) I’d be happy if he passed this news on to the “countless” others who allegedly share his appalling bigotry.

I do have questions: 1) Was this theme of man against nature Messiaen’s (probably not) or is it Landau’s (or just mine)? 2) Did Messiaen anticipate any multi-media presentation? I ask because I thought the visual material was very well done and evocative (even though a bit repetitive and obvious at times. Clichéd it is not. If you prefer a film with scenes of the great parks of the West, then please don’t think that this would be highly original. National Geographic has scooped you.) Which means that if Messiaen had the theme in mind, but not the visual reinforcement, then I wonder how effective the music would be by itself in expressing it.

And two suggestions: 1) Listeners would do well to attune their ears to Messiaen’s rhythms, sonorities, and harmonies before they witness this work, (e.g., by listening to the Turangalila Symphony) to feel somewhat familiar with these cadences. 2) I wonder whether UMS has ever considered organizing post-concert sessions with its Education department. I would have enjoyed — yes, enjoyed — getting clarification of some things and hearing how people felt and what they thought. I bet I’m not the only one. Now that weeknight concerts start at 7:30 (a splendid idea) an optional session of this sort would provide some closure of the experience for those people who want it. Naturally, not every concert needs this to the same degree. (Einstein would have benefited.) Such an institution will make concert going more satisfying for many in a way that pre-concert talks cannot.

As is true so often, UMS gave us a most valuable experience.

Yes, indeed: M. Steger is a phenomenal virtuoso – no question about it. But I have a different question. Say you are the programmer for concerts with an eye to posterity. You want concert music to survive and thrive for a long, long time; get young people interested; fill our concert halls; and all kinds of music to be loved by the millions — even after rock and roll becomes a thing of the past! How would you go about it? Would you put 5 Baroque string compositions on the same concert program? All of Chopin’s op 10 and 25 piano etudes in one concert? An all-Bartok evening? All of Beethoven’s string quartets on a long weekend (remember the old Budapest Quartet’s marathons here in AA?) Or would you rather mix things up – say, a Haydn sonata, followed by a Brahms work, and then some Ravel after the intermission? Or a baroque string piece, followed by Dvorak’s Suite for Strings and then the Metamorphoses by Strauss? You see the point: how is a work presented to best advantage? Best advantage indeed: if you played me one of the movements on this evening’s program, would I even know from which composition it came? Not me!

My obvious point is that organizations and soloists who do this homogeneous programming are shooting themselves (and the musical culture of our time) in the foot. Sure, that’s MY view; the woman in the seat next to mine said she couldn’t get enough of this. It would be worth investigating whether this is the view of most listeners and especially of those who don’t attend concerts “because they are so boring.” There is a lot at stake in the answer.

This is, of course, in no way a criticism of UMS. UMS does not tell an organization what it should play. Sometimes they have a bit of influence, a “conversation.” But, gee whiz, how much influence can you exert on a group such as the violons du roi, dedicated to playing only what Louis XIV heard at his court, huh? You can ask for Vivaldi instead of Corelli!

Fortunately, not every organization does this. But it looks like a slow trend to me. What to do?

I’m afraid I can’t join in this chorus of wide-eyed amazement. After the first movement of the Schubert it was clear that Mr. Matsuev would be at his best in the Petrouchka suite: fireworks are his forte. Schubert wrote this work at the time of a grave illness from which he died, as I recall, only a very few years later. The first movement is a heart-wrenching farewell, a coming face-to-face with death, a walk from which no walker returns. There are several points at which the walker stops as though looking back, hesitating. Our pianist spoiled this in two ways: (1) by exaggerating the dynamics, i.e., stepping over the line where playing loud turns into banging (a problem throughout the evening), and (2) by failing to keep a steady rhythm (also a problem throughout the evening.) Without a steady beat, the sudden stops become ineffective; the walker must walk at an even pace and suddenly stop in his tracks (no pedal, please).

The Appassionata is, of course, famous for its initial movement with its affect storms, its sudden volcanic bursts of emotion, its rage, its passion. But there is a difference between a bursting dam of welling-up feeling and a sneak attack! What’s the difference? An emotional outburst happens to the unsuspecting one who is suddenly overcome by it; it is not staged deliberately to take an audience by surprise. Matsuev played it as though he knew it was coming and planned to startle us.

But the Stravinsky, like, wow …………

Sarah, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about why it is that so often we feel dissatisfied with simple aesthetic reactions of the sort you describe and, therefore, keep searching for the meaning. Intuitively it seems to me that we feel a community of viewers or listeners remains incomplete – just an assembly of isolated individuals – until we have a sharable formulation of our own experience. Then we can talk to others and are no longer alone. Perhaps it takes personal strength to have a solitary reaction and to be content with it. Does this make sense to you? (I suppose people who meditate have ideas about this question.)

Hi Oliver,

I like your open-minded searching approach very much, and I agree that we can and should more often ask “many questions … regarding the purpose of art in general.” You, too, seem to have adopted the “sensory/painterly” attitude at times and to have had a hard time letting go the search for the “real meaning.” I can sympathize.

Some writers on this page report being mystified but enjoying the sheer sensory impact of the opera. Others suggest that this impact is offensive because they see no meaning in the work, and, therefore, it’s pretentious.

Consider this review by Bernard Holland in the NYT in 1992:

The trick to loving “Einstein on the Beach” is knowing how it works and not inquiring too deeply into what it means. For in the end, the mystery of Robert Wilson’s stage pictures and Philip Glass’s music is in its guilelessness: the glassy chitchat, a bus driver’s sappy love story, a judge’s bad jokes, the music’s endless major and minor triads, the blown-up photos of Albert Einstein, a children’s-book illustration of a train in the countryside.
Indeed, beneath the solemn ritual, “Einstein” has a folksiness. Nothing is obscure even if little makes sense. Like Einstein’s theory of relativity — in which objects swell or shrink according to the observer’s vantage point — “Einstein on the Beach” isn’t hard to understand; it’s hard to believe.

Yes, guilelessness that’s hard to believe. Why? Because we insist on finding deep meanings. We make the value of art works that never intended to be “deciphered” into challenges for our interpretive skill. We want to be instructed. (“Wow! Maybe this opera will at last make Einstein’s achievement clearer to me. —- Aw, shucks, it didn’t.”)

It’s hard to believe that what you see is what you get, says Holland.

So, maybe it’s not pretentious after all, and no one need feel mystified or cheated out of a good interpretation.

Interpretations are optional. As it happened, I could not resist my allegorical interpretation even after I had dropped the search and given myself over to the sheer painterly/sensory attitude; it was the “resurrection” scene that bit me in the leg! And so, what Holland calls the “sappy love song” became instead, without any effort on my part, a deliberately crafted token of our culture’s retreat to traditional forms, where we find our safe haven when things have turned ominous. (BTW, look around: that’s as true today as it was after Hiroshima.)

A couple more points supplementing my earlier review:

The relation of Glass’s compositional technique to traditional concert music is the same as that between a still photograph and a film. In Brahms or Wagner we wait to see where the harmonies will take us next; in Bach or Verdi we wait for melodic surprises. But in Glass we know the same intervals and rhythmic patterns will stay there for quite a while; not much will change. It’s a lot like gazing at a painting. Einstein changed our view of time; so does Glass.

As to the Passion of Alberyt Einstein, I neglected to point out the resurrection symbol: the recumbent light beam that slowly rises to the upright position and then disappears into the heavens above. The symbol is almost a bit too explicit.

I am so, so proud of and grateful to UMS for having brought this production to us. It is historic. Offhand I can’t think of anything I’ve ever seen that matches its dimensions or its reach.

Entrancing is the word that goes with Philip Glass. He is called a minimalist. (He could just as reasonably be called a maximalist: the technique of repeating patterns of notes hundreds of times in a row digs the experience into the listener quite a bit more deeply than the usual reprises. I suppose this is Glass’s answer to our short attention span that takes us from one thing to another in desultory fashion so that we never get very deeply into anything. He makes things stick.)

At first I approached this work cerebrally, looking for themes and symbols. Then I dropped this and simply responded to the scenes as one might to a painting or a ballet or an operatic scene — except that we were served all of these at the same time.

But at the end, the allegory was unavoidable: this is The Passion of Albert Einstein. The chorus asks: “What do people want?” Apparently, they don’t really want a genius. They sit in judgment over him; they regard him as a freak; they are enslaved by their daily trivialities (bathing caps) and can’t attend to him; or they worship him from afar in his lofty heights before grinning and walking on. His tragedy is partly that he creates what they can’t handle – atomic energy in this case, and so they must return from an overwhelming new future he opens for them to the oldest song there is, the song of love, which indeed is our solace in a world fraught with risk and transience.

I don’t expect to see the likes of this work again very soon.

Thanks for your reply. We agree more than we disagree about last evening. And I, too, appreciate the three composers you mention and many, many others. As to Manfred, I said neither that the symphony was boring — only that there are many boring pages — nor that I found them so because they lacked melody. (The melody statement was part of my speculation about the psychological state in which the work was composed. Depressed people generally do not produce the wealth of imaginative impressions and ideas typical of them when they are in a more settled, even mood. I wrote that this symphony exhibits less melodic invention than we are used to hearing from this composer.)

After I sent the comment, I thought that perhaps I had not explained the pedestal-without-statue characterization sufficiently. What I had in mind is that there are numerous moments in this work at which a characteristic Tchaikovskian build-up occurs – crescendi, accumulating runs in doubling tempi, etc. (T. was a master at this.) Just as often these build-ups fizzle out; we are led to expect something, and it does not materialize.

A word about subjectivity. If a critic says “this work was played too slowly” or “without grace,” s/he is relying on a background of experience with the work in question; s/he is comparing it with other performances or with conventions of interpretation. Even so, critics do not always agree with each other. Neither do they always hedge what they write with “in my opinion”; that’s taken for granted, and we read them because we value their views. On this UMS Lobby website, we expect to read others’ opinions, and, as you see, we don’t hesitate to disagree with them.

The Mozart Concerto was easily the most satisfying composition on this program although the reticent, even shy way in which Ms. Jansen played it and the balance problems produced by the insufficiently restrained winds, together with a few off-putting liberties Mr. Jurowski took with the score did not show up this gem in its full luster – a work sometimes feisty, sometimes lyrical, and sometimes witty.

This evening was field day for brass and percussion. On so many evenings they must be muffled in the interest of democracy: other instruments have a right to be heard also. But once in awhile they must be given a free hand or they will bolt! (Richard Strauss, in his rules for conductors, wrote: “Never look at the brass; it only encourages them.”)

Tchaikovsky once made a nasty comment about Brahms: “What he writes is a pedestal; but the statue is missing.” This is a better gloss on his own Manfred Symphony than on Brahms. I used to hear this work quite often on the radio where I grew up and liked it well enough. This was the first time I heard it in a concert hall, and let me tell you: there is a big difference. When you’re hearing it as background music while doing your homework, you don’t realize how many pages of this work are, let me be blunt, thoroughly boring. If I were a psychologist, I’d guess that the composer wrote this during one of his many wrenching depressive episodes.. It bears the marks of depression both in its contents and its form. It ends with the dies irae quotation for the Day of Last Judgment. The timpani knock mercilessly at the sufferer’s door and the trumpets call him to account. It’s a grim and dark work. The tempo marking for the first movement is “Lento lugubre” – what further proof do we need? What’s more, Tchaikovsky, who was one of the greatest melodists of the 19th century, has run out of juice in this work. There is a dearth of tunes. The encore reminds us of what this composer was capable of on better days.

As for the Pintscher, I’ve complained plenty about this sort of programming. Unless payola is involved, why play this celebration of sound effects and noise? There is so much worthier and rarely heard music on the shelves, written in the last 50 years! Let’s hear THAT instead.

So, anyway, Mozart is the easy winner.

Well, I’ll concede at the outset that it’s possible to lose a bet. Win some, lose some. I had bet that this would be “a dreadfully boring concert. ”

AND it’s also possible that a series of compositions normally exerting only moderate or little attraction on a given listener will be presented in so revealing a manner as to arouse even HIS dormant interest. But, golly, gee whiz, how often does this happen?

Let me be blunt. I like a Handel concerto grosso at the start of the evening. And I’d be more than interested to hear what a particular countertenor does with a Vivaldi aria. But, no matter how revealing the presentation, I would start yawning after a couple or three in a row. Not you?

If given a choice, this listener prefers to hear music from different regions and periods and to hear them performed in a revealing manner.

That BBC Lady Ch. production is really brilliant, Michael. Maybe watch it next time Apollo strikes. 🙂

Couldn’t face an entire evening of Handel concerti grossi and Vivaldi arias, turned in tickets, watched part I of Lady Chatterley, excellent BBC production.

Anything done with great seriousness and devotion gets respect and even admiration from an audience. We were moved by this group for that reason if for no other. It’s hard to believe that they sang this concert with its complex musical and technical demands from memory. They brought us a gift of their own thing, and they are dedicated to it. In many ways it represents them!

There is a saying, taken from the name of a Salieri opera, “prima la musica e poi le parole” (the music first and then the words). This precept does not fit these selections. The music seemed to be an accompaniment to the words. Unfortunately, I did not do the homework, i.e., study the program notes or the texts before the concert, having discovered in decades of concert going that these rarely improve the experience if you have a general idea of the contents. (There are some operas that actually benefit from that sort of obliviousness: better not to know the plot of Trovatore!) As to reading along with the music, I can’t do it, and I don’t want to do it; it distracts me; I can attend closely to only one thing at a time, and I prefer the music when I go to a concert.

So, when the conductor explained what was to happen in “Aqua,” I could see that the music does not stand on its own even with the text before us. Perhaps this is a handy-dandy test: if you need the words to enjoy the music, then that’s the kind of music it is. And you can make it more interesting by adding choreography and bells and whistles. Nothing wrong with that.

As to the music itself, it did not touch me emotionally! It was merely interesting, even astonishing. Maybe that’s enough.

How clever of de Falla! I can confirm Michael’s explanation. I’ve been to Majorca and have seen the handsome place where Chopin and George Sand hung out. (Robert Graves lived there as well till Franco.) But didn’t I hear some Spanish words in the piece after the “Chopin”? Apparently not!

Maybe it’s because I have some Russian blood, but I love Russian music, especially liturgical music. I looked forward to this event. (You have to be looking forward to something when you go to St. Francis because the pews are built for sinners who must atone; sitting in these cramped seats gets you there halfway! Good music helps bear it.)

This was a very fine concert. The choir is remarkable, fully blended, highly disciplined, putting forth the most amazing swells and fades – right down to cobweb pianissimos.

The unsmiling conductor led the group through a repertoire of more or less sacred, but in any case rich Russian songs, produced supply and subtly and, after intermission, a bit of Bruckner, then Schnittke (who, in these compositions, pretends he is Bruckner!), Brahms, who sounded downright modern in this company. Then they snuck in a choral version of a Chopin ballade (in my view, a supererogatory act) and on, through de Falla, to the Russian folk repertoire, ending with a hilariously sappy rendition of Kalinka — everybody’s favorite – so much a favorite that some people couldn’t restrain themselves from clapping along even though lagging behind the singers’ tempo.

High points were some Rachmaninoff and some of the Brahms.

Very enjoyable. Some of the best choral singing I’ve heard in a long time. Bring ‘em back in Rachmaninoff’s Vespers or Brahms’ Motets, huh?

Ah, yes, Sara. Gluck” Dance of the Blessed Spirits, right?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Spanish group played better. Someone said, “this is not technique; it’s nature!” Sounds right – either first or second nature. There’s nothing she can’t play. She does have a left hand that should scare off any potential mugger. If there was anyone waiting for wrong notes, he went home sad.

The Beethoven was fine as well. The first movement Allegro was a bit more tempestuous than usual, and the last movement was on the fast side. But the point is it worked; it was totally plausible.

She also knows how to play dreamy as witness every other Scriabin piece.

I kept predicting she’d play a Schubert impromptu to show us that she had another side. Well, we did get Schubert via Liszt as the third or fourth encore. She’s very generous with encores.

She’s young and talented as hell, and I hope in time she’ll turn to more substantial music. What I mean is: not the piano version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice or that wild first encore which sounded vaguely Prokoffiesque to me.

Many of these pieces, performed brilliantly this afternoon – I forgot to mention Ms. Wang’s striking crescendo – just don’t go very far in musical terms.

If I were conspiratorially minded, I’d suggest that in future she lure people into the hall with thunderous Rachmaninoff and beautiful gowns and then play middle Beethoven and/or late Mozart and the Brahms sonata that was at one time on the program.

Can’t keep all the encores straight: there was Gretchen am Spinnrad (Schubert), the aria from Thais (Massenent) Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Dukas) and that first sorta Prokoffisquy thing, maybe a Vision Fugitive. Anything esle?

Well, since you advertise your question as more interesting than the ones already posed, it should be answered. How many events would I like to love, you ask. Why, every single one! People buy tickets to UMS concerts because it has earned a reputation for presenting top-drawer events. But can one expect UMS to make them all likable? No, probably not. Michael and the gang are looking for an enrichment of the fare they present. I applaud that. Even when they stick with traditional programming, they cannot be sure every concert will be a success. But that does not impose an obligation on us to either like everything or else to keep our dislikes to ourselves. Concerts are not like the weather: sometimes the sun shines and sometimes it rains and there is nothing you can do about it. On the contrary, UMS has provided us with a space to discuss our experiences. One hopes they will occasionally benefit from the discussion.

As I mentioned in my earlier posting, I was not there and can’t comment on the event, only on the discussion. I was skeptical about this event before it took place, and it seems my judgment was borne out. It appears, the musical part of the evening did not require the dramatic frame and was, if anything, compromised by it. So, it seems to me there is a lesson in that. One can try to expand the traditional concert menu in new directions by combining it with various arts that support each other. (I confess that personally I would much, much prefer that the Choral Union Series did not trespass on the Theater Series but stuck to music — new and old — of which there is plenty to choose from. But even within that domain unfortunate choices can occur and discussion is quite in order.)

In the German-English video on the web page announcing the concert, Malkovich says (a) that this may be the founding of a new genre and (b) that in his career he has gotten used to failing: ”I fail every day.” These two statements taken together are not only amusing; they also contain a lesson. There is novelty that succeeds, and there is novelty that fails. New does not necessarily mean good, and learning the difference requires our input.

In one respect the event has been a huge success: it has stimulated more discussion in this space than any other event I can remember.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t offer an opinion about the event. But I’ll repeat what I wrote when the 2011/12 program was issued: I’m glad UMS is looking for new horizons. That’s urgent. But from the remarks I read I infer that you went a bit too far with this. Similarly, I worry about the three upcoming Maverick concerts. Although I am personally enthusiastic about them, I suspect that most of the audiences that have been used to exclusively “warhorse” items, such as are featured by Muti this year, will not be thrilled to hear only mid-20th century American music for an entire evening. (And I say this with the greatest respect.) Well, let’s hope for the best.

So, my advice is: start easy. Bring in orchestras that will insert, say, the Cowell Piano Concerto, which is now surrounded by other contemporary works in a Maverick concert, between, say, a Mozart Symphony and a French Impressionist composition. That’s enough fresh air for a start. I know, I know, you are limited to what the managers offer you; you may have to go further down the list of orchestras; but if the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra can do a whole evening with one Messiaen composition – and I say this as a Messiaen fan — then surely they can equally well do something by Rihm or Zimmermann between Haydn and Beethoven, no? If this is successful, other organizations will catch on.

By contrast, sitting through a Maverick concert one evening and then going to one featuring only the three Bs makes one feel like a kid who wants to get the hated peas out of the way and eats them all first before turning lovingly to the meat he adores.

This concert elicited astonishing applause. I would not have expected such a small ensemble to do that. Naturally, this is gratifying and may even induce UMS to bring back the vocal series we used to have some years ago.

I am grateful that the four singers presented repertoire rarely heard – the Schumann cycle and the four Brahms songs immediately after intermission. As to the Liebeslieder Waltzes, they always make my Viennese heart leap while I simultaneously smile and hold back a couple of tears.

This concert should have been presented in Rackham. Not only are these songs intended for an intimate atmosphere, but Hill is treacherous for singers. When they see this huge shell and don’t realize what fabulous acoustics it has, they are led to sing louder than necessary, and this can produce some unattractive tones. But after awhile they got the hang of this hall. Anyway occasional lapses in tone quality and balance are forgivable when an evening’s worth of such delicate pieces are sung. For beauty of sound I’d like to single out the mezzo-soprano, Bernarda Fink.

As I entered the hall, an acquaintance predicted that this group would have a hard time giving us something better than we got last evening (see my review.) I added that this was an international contest — Germany vs. Hungary.

Not to worry! This was an astonishing concert by a wonderful young group. Every player and the group as a whole are admirable. Without parsing the individual works they played, I’ll just say that they played with full-bore passion, producing at least as much sound as the Guarneri players used to do and also with unbelieving whispering subtlety when such occasions arose – literally unbelievable: I don’t know when I’ve heard such pianississimos from any string quartet; it was as though a breeze had wafted across the strings or, in the Mendelssohn, as though a herd of mice had galloped over the fingerboards.

They brought out the wit in the Haydn and the many moods and colors in the Mendelssohn and Sibelius compositions.

I can’t wait to hear them again. Really!

A delightful concert. Schubert was not a happy or successful man during his lifetime. But that didn’t stop him from writing some magical and uplifting works. The C major cello quintet is one of these. The musicians got into every movement’s mood right up to the hilt and seemed to enjoy themselves. So did the audience.

During the Trout quintet I remembered what someone once said: “All this fuss about a little fish?” Well, the way Mr. Kahane pressed forward on the piano did create an ever more frantic atmosphere. It didn’t seem as though the Takacs folks had chosen these tempi. But they had to follow. You can tell Schubert was himself a pianist: this composition is so slanted to the piano that it sometimes seems as though the strings are playing the accompaniment.

(I’m not alone in wishing Mr. Dusinberre, the first violinist, who plays beautifully and sweetly, leaned into the strings a bit more forcefully so that he stands out above the rest when that’s called for.) Good to see Paul Katz, the famous Cleveland Quartet cellist.

There’s a Russian performance style that’s easy to recognize. The beat is kept less strictly than normally, there is more give in the rhythms, sometimes too much, and in ensemble playing that can make for trouble when everyone is supposed to come in together on a downbeat. That trouble appeared every once in awhile during this evening’s concert. But at the end of Sheherezade, things got much tighter at last, and we heard some very exciting playing.

Mr. Lugansky was fine in the Rachmaninoff. I can’t say that I looked forward very much to hearing either of these overplayed pieces. But once you start listening to this concerto, you start to appreciate how cunningly it is constructed. In general Rachmaninoff’s piano concerti are interesting as well as beautiful. If you focus your attention on the orchestra while the piano goes through its periodic swoons, you realize that Rachmaninoff was more generous with what he assigned the orchestra than, say, Chopin, another famous pianist, in whose concerti you sometimes forget that there is anyone on stage other than the soloist. Anyway, this was a stylish performance. Also, I was impressed with how much sound Mr. Luganski got out of that piano; he had to if he didn’t want to disappear under a mass of sound coming from the unrestrained players behind him – especially in the first movement. I spent some time trying to remember in what Hollywood movie the theme of the third movement was used. Couldn’t, though.

The programming I found regrettable. Two warhorses written a mere twelve years and a few miles apart! I was worried they might mate and give birth to the Bolero or Nessun dorma.

There is much laughter from the audience. The play is written to elicit laughs. But not everybody laughs, and if they do, it’s an awkward, embarrassed, and uncomfortable laugh. This is not a comedy. We’re looking into a community whose members are beastly to each other, self-centered, desperate, and pitiable. The crippled boy softens them – but only temporarily. Only his parents are kind and loving. But they are dead. What’s to laugh at here?

The point is that, if you don’t assume that this is a TV comedy, then you’re bound to feel uncomfortable.

And then, if you think about that, you wonder what the point is, what the playwright was up to.

Excellent production, fine acting, flawed play.

Many speeches were hard to make out.

This was a most satisfying concert. The Concertante players are outstanding performers each one of them. Not a single off-note from them all afternoon. Perfect ensemble, perfect intonation.

The lovely short Elgar suite summoned up images of a sunny English countryside. The Schoeberg was entrancing in its delicate as well as its assertive pages. The players managed to draw the long arching line from the beginning to the end as it is drawn in the poem that inspired it. Pure magic!

And Rafal Blechacz is taking a liking to Ann Arbor: he no longer rushed the way he did on Friday. Once again, his technical mastery aside, he played lovingly, melodiously, and naturally, that is, without the mannerisms popular today. He is a wonder! And one looks forward to hearing him again and again. (The arrangement for a string quartet is weird, however, and not worth getting adjusted to even in these days of skimpy budgets.)

The encore was a Chopin Nocturne.

Ah, youth! This pianist, aged 25, has already gone a long way, and he will go much further. He’s technically unfazable, but sometimes his playing is more a tribute to his virtuosity than to the musical possibilities.

I’d never heard the Mozart piece before; must be something WAM knocked off as a birthday gift for a student. It has some pretty un-Mozart-like passages in it, sort of experimental. L’îsle joyeuse is what I have in mind when I say he plays at times to triumph rather than to scoop the depths. Pianists will tell you that this Debussy is a difficult piece. Not for Mr. Blechacz! But mastering the technical difficulties is not yet doing the most for this composition. It’s a piece you want to savor.

And then, ah, youth again. Szymanowski wrote this sonata when he was even younger than our soloist – 22 years old. It’s a macho piece — in the heroic style. No great structure that I can discern. The third movement is sunny for a change, not full of ominous and portentous gestures.

He played Chopin wonderfully melodiously, really basked in it and allowed us to do the same. He’s marvelously gifted and almost always clear in his projections. Sometimes you wish he’d linger a bit longer and breathe with us.

My wife says, he won’t always play like this. I agree: once he gets over his youthful impetuousness, things will be perfect: all the makings are already there.

Hey, and what about that encore from Beethoven op. 2, #2? Made you want to hear the rest. Maybe next time, Michael, suggest a German-Austrian program and a Polish encore instead, huh?

A virtuoso group! Nadja is a very fine technician, has great mastery of the instrument.

Till now I’ve always only heard the Wolf on the radio. What an amiable piece! The extra pauses between phrases in the Bartok spoil the effect. Altogether interpretive refinement is not Ms. Sonnenberg’s strong suit. The Tschaikovsky is a superb composition, and they played it without the mannerisms and antics of the Piazzola,

It’s the first cellist I want to hear again in a recital; she’s outstanding some time soon.

PS It’s me again! I was worried people might misinterpret my ”Hungarian goulash” remaak! Nothing disparaging in that!

Indeed, a noted musician of my acquaintance stated categorically during the intermission that Bartok’s MSPC was his best work, better than the Concerto for Orchestra. Now I had always considered the MSPC as the Concerto’s little brother. But after this performance I am willing to change my mind.

No, pretty good crowd, and they enjoyed it. Sorry you missed it.

While I stood in line, someone asked me: “So, are you ready for good concert?” “Ready? After dealing with this snow, I insist on a good concert.”
Well, it was good. M. Aimard either picked or was assigned a rather quiet piano. He played the score with utmost clarity and in a chamber-esque sort of way. A bit more zest and brilliance would have been fine.

Now, Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste had plenty of zest. The performance brought out everything this piece has, and it has a lot – jazzy passages, Hungarian goulash, eerie interstellar strains, fugues, and country dances. Brilliant performance by a superb orchestra!

Some people pride themselves on disliking Wagner. Ok, the Ring and Parsifal are not everyone’s cup of beer. But Tannhauser? If the program said Saint-Saens, they’d like it.

No encore? I was just sure they’d either play the Blue Danube or Summertime or Offenbach’s can-can! The snow was still there as we left.

I'm afraid to say this lest I spoil things for others. But, hell, I cannot tell a lie. While I have heard the Tallis singers many times and admire and enjoy them — even when, as rarely happens (though it did last evening) their performances are a tad ragged in places, I absolutely hate Pärt. He seems most interested in the aural equivalent of what Hollywood calls special effects, such as his "scandalous" dwellings on dissonant intervals, voice- killing sforzandis, repetitive fortissimos in high registers, challenging depths for the basses! (Yes, I know I’m entitled to my opinion. But you asked.) Anyway, I see no musical value in Arvo P’s work; he won’t last long in the history of music. – The Palestrina and Tallis were, of course, outstanding, as you’d expect. Byrd was fine, too. How about a program with one of Palestrina’s masses next time, Michael?! – I conclude with what my dear companion said by way of summary judgment: “a little of this goes a long way! I don't have to hear this every year.”

In their post-event e-mail, UMS staff write: “We hope you enjoyed UMS's presentation of ONCE. MORE. this past week!“

Enjoyed? I wouldn’t go quite that far! I didn’t see much thigh-slapping enjoyment around me. But I did find it interesting to think about what one tacitly expects from music. In this reflexive way such events are revealing. A good deal of contemporary music has that effect: it makes you aware of your implicit standards. You ask yourself what the difference is between noise and music. These are by no means frivolous or derisive questions! They deepen your appreciation of ALL music! — The composers who addressed the audience sounded nostalgic for an elapsed past. “Where is George Cacioppo now, they seemed to ask between the lines. My answer is: don’t weep; he gets more attention this evening than some other folks I can think of have gotten for decades. Where are all the composers who wrote in the middle of the 20th century? Stravinsky wrote more than those three ballets. Where are Szymanowski, Hindemith, Ives, Krenek, Hans Werner Hence, Pierre Boulez, Peter Maxwell Davies, Wolfgang Rihm, Bernd Aloes Zimmermann, Barber, Hanson, Persichetti, Cowen, Francaix, Poulenc, Honegger, etc., etc., etc.? These composers appear less often in the programs of orchestras and chamber groups than pieces written last year by an unknown at the start of his or her career! — What a pity!

Name a group with tighter ensemble playing, performances more observant of the appropriate styles, with sweeter tone and gutsier attacks! Pretty hard, eh? This is the top, one of the finest ensembles you will find in the world today. (Its performances contrasted well with the crudities we encountered on the steps of Rackham!)

These four men did not exactly make life easy for themselves with the opening composition, as they dove headlong into that characteristic Mendelssohnian busyness. Talk about tight ensemble! The Kopytman is hard to accept the first time around; neighbors expressed their skepticism. Some fellow commentators heard Bartok and Shostakovich. I believe that Kopytman has been listening to a lot of Stravinsky. The piece is episodic – filled with stubborn assertiveness, whispered conspiracy, derisive ghostly glissandi, striedent dissonant complaints, percussive staccato notes. A lot of Q and A in this piece.

Brahms was played warmly, but not sentimentally. I predicted an encore by Haydn, and we got it – dearer and more moving than I expected, practically left me in tears.

The Quartettsatz is a gorgeous piece. But the first violin has to make all the notes audible; you can’t slur the eighth notes merely because they are ONLY eighth notes – not in this piece! Death and the Maiden terrific also. I definitely want to hear more from Mr. Kellogg: I love meditations on other compositions, forgotten waltzes, paraphrases, etc. I’m delighted that Mr. Schranz is back in his chair and recovered from the shoulder injury of last year; he’s the most fun to watch and sounds wonderful as well with his rich tone. The cellist is always outstanding as well. Glad always to see and hear our blonde, cheerful violist.

To those who heard Feltsman’s Schubert Sonata in b-flat, I recommend Ralph Votapek’s new CD performance of the same piece on the Blue Griffin label.

I’m late writing this, have heard the Takacs meanwhile and will write about that next. Looks like we’re in for a new era of full programming – more than two hours worth; I love it, have felt short-changed ever since the sixties. Mariinsky, bless their hearts, gave us two main dishes. Matsuev is a force of nature or, as my wife says, yet another tornado from the steppes. (To say he is Horowitz’s successor is an exaggeration; one says that if one does not remember good old Volodya.) Gergiev almost covered up our man, seemed unconcerned about a sustainable balance in the opening pages. But Rachmaninoff knew how to make the piano stand up to all comers. Terrific performance.

Mahler also splendid. Lookit, of course, there were too many clmaxes. But, hey, that’s common nowadays. They learn it in conducting class: whenever it’s not explicitly forbidden, play loud. Moreover this orchestra’s strings produce a lovely warm sound.

Last year I had to scold an artistically demanding friend for having walked out on Lang-Lang after the first page of his performance, insted of waiting politely, like my companion and me, until the intermission. This year I was not even slightly worried. Prokofiev #3 would be just exactly Lang-Lang’s cup of tea. And it was! I turned to the young lady next to me and said, “I thought that was quite fine,” to which she, being a pianist herself, replied, “yes, but how far wrong can you go with this?” Good point, it has a lot of lush and brilliant passages. Lang-Lang, being a technically polished virtuoso, sailed right along. A friend stopped by during the intermission and said in wonder, he had never heard such extended applause after a soloist’s performance at an orchestral concert. True enough! But not only are our Hill Auditorium audiences very, um, generous, but once you’ve seen Lang-Lang’s photo on the cover of the UMS season brochure, you have no doubt that this is a celebrity who deserves all the applause you’ve got in you. Gratefully, he played a Chopin Etude as an encore.

The concerto was preceded by a wooden reading of the Classical Symphony by the same composer and followed by an uninspired Brahms #2. But, hey, this is essentially an orchestra of students – extremely gifted, promising and rigorously handpicked students. It’s a wonderful training ground for tomorrow’s premier orchestra players. And so, one listens with an adjusted ear. Different standards apply, and we are glad to have an opportunity to attend and support an experience that may in the end have been more valuable for them than for us.

My favorite part of the program was the opening of the encore Etude. It was sweet and tender. You’d never have guessed that this delicacy lurks under the famous spiked hair and the heroic gaze. I’m really looking forward to Murray Perahia next year. Get your tickets now,

Elena?

I meant Sonya. But Elena also.

Amazing what people manage to see or not see in hay stacks! But never mind.

I do have a comment on audience response. Even a small number of people sprinkled throughout the auditorium, who seem to be looking for things in the text that could remotely justify laughter, is disturbing. To say, as the notes in the program do, that this play is tragicomic is to set it apart from TV comedies. I suppose a sense of absurdity attaches to the way in which these pitiable characters dwell on their paralysis and their losses, and Chekhov surely meant to comment SMILINGLY on the pathos. But smiling is not the same as guffawing! Primarily, the situation of Vanya and Elena and the others calls for compassion from humane viewers, not derision. Only AFTER one has appreciated the objective misery of their lives can one respond to the comic side. By contrast, the compulsive laughter heard around me had short-circuited compassion and plunged rather directly and heartlessly into thigh-slapping laughter.

I concede that, in comparison with other productions I've seen of this play, this one was, at some points, collusive with this tendency. More's the pity.

I'll never trust spellcheck again. Those weren't MY bloopers. Here's what I had in mind:

After the appearance of the astonishing Pieter Wispelwey the previous evening, it seemed reasonable to hope that Jennifer Koh would also be a worthy replacement for the canceled Ms. Fischer.

Indeed, we were treated to some fireworks in the pieces by Ysaye, Saariaho, Carter, and Salonen. Ms. Kohl played with conviction and obviously loves these works. One could be confident that she played all the notes and non-notes. What's a non-note? A couple of times, she played either on the bridge (sul ponticello) or on the fingerboard (sul taste) — I'm afraid to ask how she did it — in the Saariaho memorial to Lutoslawski, to produce a grating, raucous sound that bad boys and girls studying the violin are warned against. But, then again, let’s bear in mind that Lutoslawski broke a few rules himself in his day. So, I suppose, it was all right. Still, I mused idly: Would either his or Roger Sessions' survivors, when presented with memorials by Carter and Saariaho, have cried, “oh, yes, yes, this strain here reminds me vividly of dad; it brings out his very essence?” I have no idea. Neither piece meant much to me.

The Salonen work had possibilities. But they were quashed by the visual accompaniment. My feeling is that this pairing shortchanged both modes, the aural and the visual. I kept wondering about the relation between them and tended to withhold sufficient attention from either in its own right, whatever that right may be. The visual mode seemed to be an afterthoght, a kind of diagram of the music. Music usually doesn't need that.

An unfortunate feature of the evening was that Ms. Koh seems reluctant to wait for a response from the audience – applause or other. If a performer does mark the end of a composition clearly, as opposed to moving from one into the other as though they were movements in a single work – that is what Ms. Koh did at least twice during the evening — s/he provides a clear frame: here is where the piece begins, and here is where it ends. Especially for a new work, this is important, if people are to get a clear picture of its overall shape.

The lack of such a frame was especially regrettable when she segued with nary a pause from the last movement of the Bach Partita in E Major into the Ysaye Sonata – no doubt because the latter quotes Bach’s opening measures of the partita we just heard at the beginning of his own sonata, then stops abruptly and continues with his own composition. I heard uneasy whispers around me. Was Ms. Koh seized by a fit of madness or did she just make a mistake, catch it, and quickly cover the mistake with an improvisation of her own? Et cetera, et cetera. The segue seems to me a bad idea. It would have been more effective if she had started the Ysaye after signaling to the unwary that the Bach was done and over and finished, and we were now going on to something new that would turn out, however, not to be entirely new!

As to the Bach Partitas themselves, they are hard to do justice to. Duh, you say? Here’s what I mean: The great Nathan Milstein – you remember the great Nathan Milstein, right? — did not record these until he was in his 70s. Asked about this delay, he said he did not feel ready for it sooner; he felt one needed the insight that comes with full maturity. Well, today you can hear gifted high school students saw their way through the formidable Chaconne in d minor. Here’s what I heard last evening. In the E major practically all the notes were there; but the playing lacked character – voice! In the d minor Partita, there was, you might say, a tad too much character. The Chaconne was played partly arioso and partly rhapsodic.

I’m in awe of anyone who can play these pieces at all, and they certainly posed no technical challenge to MS. Koh. So, what’s just enough character to please you, Music Lover? I can only say what puts me off – uncooked music and overcooked music. Al dente is good. How you know when to turn off the flame, that is the performer’s job; mine is to listen and enjoy. To prescribe exactly would rob the performance of spontaneity, perhaps the most important ingredient of all.

But, as I say, greedy me, I was hoping for something more.

After the appearance of the astonishing Pieter Wispelwey the previous evening, it seemed reasonable to hope that Jennifer Kohl would also be a worthy replacement for the canceled Ms. Fischer.

Indeed, we were treated to some fireworks in the pieces by Ysaye, Sarah, Carter, and Salonen. Ms. Kohl played with conviction and obviously loves these works. One could be confident that she played all the notes and non-notes. What's a non-note? A couple of times, she played either on the bridge (sul Monticello) or on the fingerboard (sul taste) — I'm afraid to ask how she did it — in the Saariaho memorial to Lutoslawski, to produce a grating, raucous sound that bad boys and girls studying the violin are warned against. But, then again, let’s bear in mind that Lutoslawski broke a few rules himself in his day. So, I suppose, it was all right. Still, I mused idly: Would either his or Roger Sessions' survivors, when presented with memorials by Carter and Saariaho, have cried, “oh, yes, yes, this strain here reminds me vividly of dad; it brings out his very essence?” I have no idea. Neither piece meant much to me.

The Salonen work had possibilities. But they were quashed by the visual accompaniment. My feeling is that this pairing shortchanged modes, the aural and the visual. I kept wondering about the relation between them and tended to withhold sufficient attention from either in its own right, whatever that right may be. The visual mode seemed to be an afterthoght, a kind of diagram of the music. Music usually doesn't need that.

An unfortunate feature of the evening was that Ms. Hoh seems reluctant to wait for a response from the audience – applause or other. If a performer does mark the end of a composition clearly, as opposed to moving from one into the other as though they were movements in a single work – that s what Ms. Koh did at least twice during the evening — s/he provides a clear frame: here is where the piece begins, and here is where it ends. Especially for a new work, this is important, if people are to get a clear picture of its overall shape.

The lack of such a frame was especially regrettable when she segued with nary a pause from the last movement of the Bach Partita in E Major into the Ysaye Sonata – no doubt because the latter quotes Bach’s opening measures of the partita we just heard at the beginning of his own sonata, then stops abruptly and continues with his own composition. I heard uneasy whispers around me. Was Ms. Koh seized by a fit of madness or did she just make a mistake, catch it, and quickly cover the mistake with an improvisation of her own? Et cetera, et cetera. The segue seems to me a bad idea. It would have been more effective if she had started the Ysaye after signaling to the unwary that the Bach was done and over and finished, and we were now going on to something new that would turn out, however, not to be entirely new!

As to the Bach Partitas themselves, they are hard to do justice to. Duh, you say? Here’s what I mean: The great Nathan Milstein – you remember the great Nathan Milstein, right? — did not record these until he was in his 70s. Asked about this delay, he said he did not feel ready for it sooner; he felt one needed the insight that comes with full maturity. Well, today you can hear gifted high school students saw their way through the formidable Chaconne in d minor. Here’s what I heard last evening. In the E major practically all the notes were there; but the playing lacked character – voice! In the d minor Partita, there was, you might say, a tad too much character. The Chaconne was played partly arioso and partly rhapsodic. Too romantic for Bach!

I’m in awe of anyone who can play these pieces at all, and they certainly posed no technical challenge to MS. Koh. So, what’s just enough character to please you, Music Lover? I can only say what puts me off – uncooked music and overcooked music. Al dente is good. How you know when to turn off the flame, that is the performer’s job; mine is to listen and enjoy. To prescribe exactly would rob the performance of spontaneity, perhaps the most important ingredient of all.

But, as I say, greedy me, I was hoping for something more.

Yes, I freely admit it: I nodded off for a few minutes during the first of the two Britten Suites. I heard some steady deep breathing behind me, and this evidently inspired me. But my wife came to my rescue and brought me back. I was mighty chagrined to have missed even a little of this composition, which I had never heard before. After that, I was riveted for the rest of the concert. But from what I heard during the intermission, an evening of solo cello is not everyone's cup of tea. Hell, what do you expect in a media culture like ours that tries so hard and with every means to shrink our attention span?! This was a concert for adults!

Britten is inexhaustible. It's hard to think of a composer who is not only endlessly inventive in a traditional thematic sense, but also scoops the last little bit of sonic potential out of the cello. Bartok was a bit like that, I suppose. He, too, knew things about string instruments that seem to have escaped everyone else. And moods! Britten gives us everything from teasing to ghosts to whistling rascals to dirges to pratfalls to laments – it's all there. Sometimes it's only a gesture. Only a gesture? A gesture in music, like in the rest of life, is a hint of unrealized possibility. "Just think where this could go if…"

The Bach suites were played in an uncompromising fashion, not souped up with exaggerated accents, not romanticized. Straight up! I love not only the danciness of old Johann sebastian with his oodles of children in the background somewhere, but also the way he leads the listener through a seemingly meandering long melodic corridor to a terminal sunny clearing that, after you have heard it, is loaded with inevitability.

Julia Fischer canceled her US tour for "family reasons." (My guess is she has a colicky baby; I seem to recall she was pregnant last year when she was here.) But Pieter Wispelwey, the Dutch cellist, is a phenomenon. Not only is he a technical wizard, but he's also a musician of integrity (and wit). I congratulated the UMS President on his good luck in having found this artist to replace Julia Fischer. He replied, "You know you can count on us." True!

I was right last night when I predicted that tonight's concert would be more interesting. It was a hell of a lot more interesting! Before the music started, the SF Symphony and Tilson-Thomas received the UMS Distinguished Artist(s) Award. They should have received another one afterward.

First, they played the Mahler #2 pretty much as it has come down to us through the years. There was no foolish attempt made to open new vistas. When I go to a concert these days, I am grateful, oh, so grateful when traditional forms are preserved. There've been quite enough productions of Pagliacci set in Oregon and Don Giovanni in the nude! This rarely brings new insights of any value.

Second, they realized the mission of the symphony. What's it all about? The first movement presents — in musical terms — the struggle between the march to death and heavenly transcendence. Then Mahler reminds us, via a simple country dance, of the joys of earthly life, fleeting as they are. Next comes a wry look at and ultimately rejection of traditional "organized" religion; no one listens to a preacher anyway: when St. Anthony addresses the fish in the ocean, they stare at him with open mouths and then go about their business; that's the song Mahler worked into orchestral form. And how those woodwinds and plucked strings lampoon the sermon in the third movement! Faith, the poet says, is where it's at. "Believe, believe, my heart!" It has to come from inside the heart, not from the pulpit. Only then will bliss be yours, and the heavens will open to you. You will live through death.

Yes, all this happened in Hill Auditorium. Orchestra and chorus were in excellent form – the huge assembly of singers found the conductor's downbeat after a mere few measures; this can happen after you sit there for an hour and a half waiting for your entrance — and a lovely mezzo-soprano floated her tones across the large forces on stage in the fourth movement. That's actually harder than one might suppose, given that the climaxes were a bit louder than you've heard in other performances. Some conductors (and audiences) like things loud; what can you do: people get used nowadays to things being too loud, and, as a result, are slightly deaf. I would take it down one or too notches. Tilson-Thomas worked the crescendi skillfully all evening. Also some of the temporal suspensions – what the Germans call Luftpausen (pausing for air) – those little hesitations in a waltz (last night) or in a landler (this evening) that make for suspense and a touch of frisson.

Mahler was not a particularly religious person. A few years after writing this work he converted to Christianity to become eligible for the directorship of the Imperial Court Opera in Vienna – today's State Opera. But he said he could never bring himself to utter the Credo and that he was an agnostic. Nevertheless, tonight one atheist in the audience admitted to me that she had "found religion" in this performance. Mahler would surely have been pleased with this.

There was nothing to offend anyone's musical appetite in last night's program; this fare slides down the gullet easily. The Kissine Postscriptum stimulated one's imagination. I learned shortly before the concert that it was inspired by Charles Ives' Unanswered Question. I speculate it is, as its title implies, the sequel to the serene silence in which that piece ended. You recall, in his short piece Ives has the trumpet raising an existential-metaphysical question, presumably about existence itself. A small choir of winds either answers it in various excited ways or, take your choice, tells the questioner to keep his silly question to himself and restore the silence. Well, Kissine brings us up to the space age, in which there are bigger stakes in how one answers that question than was the case in 1906, when the piece was first composed. We hear the space idioms and colors available to the sonic resources of the contemporary orchestra and familiar from futuristic movies, and we have a much more excited set of fumbling replies to the question. I liked it.

Then Christian Tetzlaff gave us a technically smooth, but perhaps a little too sober, reading of the Tscaikovsky Violin Concerto against the background of a larger (and somewhat louder) orchestra than is common. (Who told that uppity clarinet it could take a solo?) After the intermission we heard Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, his, you might say, sketches for the later La Valse. You can't help feeling the rhythm in your bones and dancing subliminally along with the music. My two pianist family members were unanimous in asserting that the piano version of this piece is preferable. However, the matter remain undecided since I've never heard a pianist give preference to an orchestration! It's a guild thing.

Then came the (anti)climax, Liszt's Tasso. He takes the same theme through a lament section, then a kind of courtly minuet, and finally escalates it to a song of triumph. That's quite enjoyable but then he makes his grand peroration; the Lisztian handwriting is always clear — bursts of rapid cymbal fire while nothing of musical consequence is happening anymore or altogether. Also kinda boring really. (I just lost a friend.) But wait: great music for heating the blood! Anyway, that's Liszt. — Tonight will be more interesting: Mahler #2.

Yes, Kenny, such ear-closings do happen. But preconceived ideas are inevitable in the case of listeners who are familiar with a work. That does not mean they will accept only one interpretation. But departures from a long tradition must "make sense." Even though there are perhaps several plausible interpretations, there are also many that are not. Don't you agree?

Sara, did you hear who arranged the Sleepers Awake encore? My thought was that this arrangement was either written for an insomniac sleeper, kinda jazzy, or else, If he IS asleep, this'll wake him for sure.

Let us pass over the Bach and Beethoven performances in tactful silence. We don't need such experiments: How does Bach sound when he is played too fast? HE SOUNDS TOO FAST, that's how. What happens if you play the second movement of the Beethoven too slow? IT FALLS APART AND THE LISTENER LOSES THE LONG LINE.

But, hey, what about the Brahms? WONDERFUL. Loved it. Even in the other works Ms Hewitt proved herself a prodigious pianist, capable of every technical thingling a work demands, e.g., disappearing pianissimos so fleet and sleek — like someone sneaking around a corner before you can see who it is. For this sonata you need that sort of technical and expressiver range. When Brahms put down his pen, he had left out nothing. Every mood and attitude is represented here — puckishness, naivete, sentimentality, frenzy, sadness; you name it, he's got it; everything is there.

My wife and I recently watched Unquiet Traveler, a movie about Piotr Anderszewski, a pianist famous for having fled the stage of the 1990 Leeds Competition because he felt he didn't deserve to be there. At one point in the film he says, Brahms wrote distinctly masculine music. That's exactly right. But Ms. Hewitt managed not only the masculinity; she also infused a delicate — dare I say: feminine — approach to the second movement that is rarely heard. Anyway, there are folksong- like passages in this piece that always move me deeply, and I love anyone who plays it that way.