Schoenberg: Pelleas and Melisande, with Alan Gilbert's talk. New York Phil, live Sept 25, 2009

A great performance, with preconcert walkthough of 

Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 5.

"My music is not modern, it is merely badly played."- A. Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Opus 5, Pelleas Und Melisande

Johannes Brahms

Opus 77, violin concerto

Alan Gilbert, conductor

New York Philharmonic

Frank Peter Zimmermann, soloist (Brahms)

Avery Fisher Hall, NYC

September 25, 2009

Wondrously placed stereo In-house recording

(coughing humans fall silent quickly enough)

This is my rapproachement with Schoenberg, in the recognition that he always sounds detached to me, somewhat alien. Some performances bring him in though, close, a stark wee-hours stare into the bathroom mirror, if you will. Last time I felt Schoenberg was with the Arditti Quartet's take on the second and third string quartets, and before that his Starry Night (an easy entryway to this composer).

The real reason, besides the performance and the front row acoustic feel, is the inclusion of one of first few talks that Alan Gilbert is giving during the performances- immediately before, not an hour before curtain. You may know that he is the young new mainstay for the New York Philharmonic, and where its previous head honcho, "...Lorin Maazel had no interest in using the Philharmonic music director’s platform as a teaching tool. Mr. Gilbert is good at it...", as The New York Times opined.

It's a great talk and made me feel good to hear an involved maestro and audience here. So I had to share.

the whole NY Times article about this performance is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/music/26phil.html?_r=1

also included is the rest of the program that morning, the Brahms violin concerto. Frank Peter Zimmermann played Joseph Joachim's cadenza.

**Mil gracias to well, you know who you are, for this!**

Enjoy, 

You will not sell this at all anyway anywhat anyhow, but spread it far, wide and go to a (non-free) concert soon!

Poulenc: en su Gloria, con Concertos. rec.2008-1961

Poulenc in vital broadcast performances, including a World Premiere!

If you haven't listened to much Poulenc, these are the mp3's to begin to remedy that with!

Here is a folder containing three live performances of Francis Poulenc's work. The version of Gloria is its 1961 World Premiere, with the composer attending, after having played his concerto there. He obviously had to have been hanging around to hear this, too, as the announcer (included in the sound files) relates to us that he is in the venue. Thanks to Ray for this, it is a great moment of music as well as a relevant historical document.

The Concerto for Two Pianos is given a characteristically mischievous run at the hands of the Labecque Sisters, egged on without remorse by Antonio Pappano who was debuting with the New York Phil that night.

And then the Organ Concerto; it is a wild, weird piece. I find it too complex to describe, other than the admonition that you just cannot play it as background music.

This is music that is fun and bright while never becoming vacant or emotionally uncommitted.  

Tracks 1-3:

Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor (composed 1932)

Antonio Pappano, conductor

New York Philharmonic

Katya & Maria Labecque, pianos

Recorded from the WQXR-FM NYC broadcast by Statework

February 19, 2004 

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Tracks 4-6:

Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani in G minor (composed 1938)

Mariss Jansons, conductor

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Leo van Doeselaar, organ

Recorded from the Philharmonie, Berlin, DE 

September 2008

from fadoze's "FA2008-197" recording of the broadcast

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Tracks 7-9:

Gloria (World Premiere; composed 1959) 

Charles Munch, conductor

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Adele Addison, soprano 

Chorus Pro Musica 

Recorded Symphony Hall, Boston MA 

on 21 January 1961 

"Nice sound, discreet remastering by...Ray" 

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Play it loud!

Julia Fischer dances amidst Maazel's NYPO in Brahms' violin concerto, 2008 broadcast.*different than the studio recording with Kreizberg*

Johannes Brahms

Violin Concerto in D op. 77

NY Philharmonic

Lorin Maazel, Conductor. 

Julia Fischer, Violin.

Broadcast date: 2007-05-03

I can only offer that I found this to be great. I am already a fan of Julia Fischer's Mozart concerto playing, liking how she unobtrusively infuses the music with life. It reminds me of Pierre Fournier's Bach suite recordings in how the artists balance the injection of personal flair with adherence to the strict written texts. 

Maazel starts the journey at an unsurprisingly standard tempo, but the whole affair picks up speed and momentum with a satisfying surety, while letting some romantic impulses nudge and breathe at times. See the last 30 seconds of the First movement for example. The finale is a rollicking good time, and the main reason I thought to make this performance available here.

Ms. Fischer's encore, a clean gorgeous Andante from the Bach Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003, is included.

1  I.  Allegro non troppo 24:21

2 II.  Adagio 10:22

3 III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco piu presto 8:11

       

                encore: 

Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor BWV 1003 

4 III. Andante 4:17

These recordings were originally offered by DIME's "Antimudshark"        

Guilty of transferring to mp3 & manufacturing artwork: Guillermo

Bruckner 9th Live and brutish, New York Phil with Christoph Eschenbach

Bruckner Symphony Number Nine;
check out the slowdown and subsequent incisive tone of the brass around 1:50 in the Second movement!

The Third movement is taken a bit longer than most in a (practically useless) time comparison, yet manages to do better at keeping a sense of purpose, resisting the loss of power that can infect stretches of many respected performances of this always-beautiful piece of dead white european male composition.

The opener to this broadcast was The Beethoven Piano Concerto with Lang Lang on percussion.

Some of The New York Times' Steve Smith review of the November 7th concert, "The Flame of Beethoven, Calibrated" is copied here:

"...
Bruckner’s unfinished Symphony No. 9 followed intermission. Mr. Eschenbach, a compelling Bruckner interpreter, brought a sense of structure and proportion to the music without diminishing the qualities of humility and awe that make it so gripping. His tempos were broad but never leisurely, his instrumental balances impeccable; the orchestra responded with playing of striking power and commitment."

Faure's Requiem Mass, the NY Philharmonic led for the first time by a woman (who had "gotten over the initial astonishment" of being one.)

Gabriel Faure
Requiem Mass

live:
Mass for Bruno Walter in NY 17 Feb 1962
Reni Grist (sop); Don Gramm (bar); Vernon deTar (organ); The Choral
Art Society
New York Philharmonic

Nadia Boulanger, conductor

Mono recording
mp3, avg.131 kbps

Nadia Boulanger was one of Gabriel Faure's more noted students.
This is an excerpt from "Time" magazine of February 23, 1962:

"[ On a triumphal 75th birthday trip to the U.S., Nadia Boulanger, Paris' matriarch of modern music, became the first woman ever to conduct a full concert by The New York Philharmonic. Borrowing the podium of one of the few notable American composers who was never her pupil, mercurial Maestro Leonard Bernstein, the "tender tyrant" led the orchestra through psalms by her late sister, Lili, A Solemn Music by Disciple Virgil Thomson, and the Requiem Mass of Gabriel Faure with an authority that convinced the New York Times that "she could hold up her end of the baton with most of her male colleagues." Tactfully shrugging off this bit of male chauvinism, Mme. Boulanger refrained from repeating her response to a similar comment when she led the Boston Symphony in 1938: "I have been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment." ]"

and, incidentally, OT but further reading from that issue:

"[ Out of rural Berkshire to London's Hospital for Sick Children whooshed a police-escorted ambulance bearing the football captain and choir leader of Britain's Cheam School: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 13. Following a post-midnight appendectomy, the robust Charles recuperated rapidly, was expected to be sprung this week from the TV-equipped private room for which the royal family, which does not take-advantage of the National Health Service, was paying $14 a day." ]

Times the're a changing, no?

Enjoy the tunes. This recording was released commercially as part of a (to my budget and everyone I know) crazily expensive New York Philharmonic Anniversary Box Set, called
"The greatest historical release of them all!" by Robert Cowan, Gramophone. It (the whole set AND this particular bit of it) really is full of wondrous and unexpected depths of performance history galore.

The box set is still available here:
http://nyphil.org/buy/estore/itemDetail.cfm?itemnum=2&itemcategorynum=cds&itemdetail=yes

American trailblazer Charles Ives with another beauty

The very rarely heard and recorded "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" was
the other Ives piece from the 2004 Alan Gilbert/NY Phil program which ended with Symphony No. 4, posted below.
General Booth is the founder of The Salvation Army. The piece is a characteristically ambitious Ivesian challenge, built around the sung text of Vachel Lindsay's 1912 poem. I've copied some of it below, and think it an appropriate mechanism to countenance the fears of, frankly, the worst case scenario of our economic reality; the music is simply a very stirring piece:

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay

[To be sung to the tune of `The Blood of the Lamb' with indicated instrument]

I

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale --
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail: --
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

[Banjos.]
Every slum had sent its half-a-score
The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)
Every banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang: --
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was queer to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

II

[Bass drum slower and softer.]
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land.

[Sweet flute music.]
Jesus came from out the court-house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there
Round and round the mighty court-house square.
Yet in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.

[Bass drum louder.]
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!

[Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to the foreground.]

To be administered at full volume as tonic and rejuvenative conduit, esp. as one walk out the door to do one's election-related duty! Artwork is the same because it was on the same bill. sorry about the non-inclusion of that text on the cover.

Ives Symphony no. 4 NY Philharmonic/Gilbert 2004 live

Charles Ives' raucous Fourth (and last) Symphony, live from Carnegie Hall to get the Estados Unidos folk in the voting mood!

Alan Gilbert, young American conductor at the helm of the New York forces who will take him as their new music director starting 2009, in one of this pairing's most acclaimed showings- so far. Interesting but overreported note: his parents are New York Philharmonic musicians, and on this particular occasion mom was one of the band.
I recorded it from a live WQXR broadcast, straight to cd... Great American Cacophony to rival the election season's cross'd streams of sameness (that simply means that reality is slightly below expectations; you still have the right to vote. Voting could be treated like a Victorian-era unruly child or bad tooth- Ignore it and it may go away.)

links for this in comments

Shostakovich 10th live 19 Feb 2004 NYC broadcast

Snippet of the performance, you've got to hear it. Es otra tecnologia. pegale el volumen hacia 11 antes de escuchar (para eradicar tendencias facistas en tu vecindario):
http://rapidshare.com/files/158466344/Snippet_from_Allegro.mp3

Shostakovich

New York Philharmonic, Antonio Pappano - Guest conductor
Carnegie Hall, NYC, New York (USA)
19 Feb 2004

WQXR "New York Philharmonic live" broadcast recording

Viene con guia , seis minutos de buenisima informacion antes de escuchar esta obra.
Comes with a Listening guide to Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 (6:24)

QUALITY
320kbps

It's in there!