Alex Ross's Blog, page 179

In diesem Wetter

One last Cage post

The exhibition Cage's Satie, with related installations of La Monte Young, George Brecht, and Buckminster Fuller, closes at MAC Lyon on December 30th. If you are unable to make it in person, you can take a virtual tour and listen to a soundtrack prepared by Mikel Rouse. Philadelphia's Beyond Silence fest will spill over into the new year, with a focus on the Number Pieces. And, tonight in NYC, the American Symphony plays a program of Cage and Feldman at Carnegie — where the two men had a famous Webern meet-up in 1950 — while Robert Pinsky and Wes Stace give their version of How to Get Started at Symphony Space. The rest is

The Ring in 2013

Image from the Melbourne Ring website.

Just how many times will Wagner's Ring be performed next year, on the occasion of the composer's bicentennial? I have been making a count, and here's what I've come up with: at least forty-one performances of the complete cycle, by twenty companies, plus three abridged cycles in Dijon. In addition, the Teatro Massimo, in Palermo, will present the four operas of the Ring over the course of 2013. In all, twenty-two different cycles will be seen complete, and there may be others yet to be announced. Quite a few companies will be offering individual works from the cycle; I won't attempt to list them. (Wagner Opera and Wagner Werkstatt have good general calendars.) It would be wonderful if some wealthy lunatic attempted to see each of these cycles in succession, but it can't be done.

Bayerische Staatsoper: Jan. 5-13, Jan. 23-27, July 13-18

Frankfurt Opera: Jan. 25 - Feb. 3, Feb. 6-13

Darmstadt Opera: Jan. 26 - Feb. 3, May 4-9

Halle / Ludwigshafen: March 3-9, April 21-27

Karlsruhe Opera: March 27 - April 1

Berlin Staatsoper: April 4-10, April 13-21, July 22-28 (at the Proms), Sept. 21-29

Metropolitan Opera: April 6-23, April 25 - May 2, May 4-11

Wiener Staatsoper: May 12-22

Mannheim Opera: May 22-31, June 7-16, June 28 - July 7

Hamburg Staatsoper: May 26 - June 2

Latvian National Opera, Riga: June 4-9

Longborough Festival Opera: June 16-22, June 26 - July 2, July 6-12

La Scala: June 17-22, 24-29

Paris Opéra: June 18-26

Bayreuther Festspiele: July 26-31, Aug. 14-19, Aug. 22-27

Seattle Opera: Aug. 4-9, 12-17, 20-25

Lucerne Festival: Aug. 30 - Sept. 4 (in concert)

Deutsche Oper, Berlin: Sept. 21-29

Mariinsky Theater: September (dates to be announced)

Dijon Opéra: Oct. 5-15 (three cycles, abridged)

Opera Australia, Melbourne: Nov. 18-25, Nov. 27 - Dec. 4, Dec. 6-13

The aesthetic credo of Dr. Mabuse

PARTY GUEST: What are your views on Expressionism, Doctor?

DR. MABUSE: Expressionism is just playing about [Spielerei]. But why not? Everything is playing about.

                               — from Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler    

Births and deaths

Yesterday, on what would have been the 104th birthday of Olivier Messiaen, we learned of the death of the pianist, musicologist, and literary critic Charles Rosen. Today, on what would have been the 104th birthday of Elliott Carter, whom Rosen knew so well, we heard of the passing of two major twentieth-century sopranos, Lisa della Casa and Galina Vishnevskaya. Wise words are being said about them in various corners of the Internet; I will add links as I find them.

Apex 2012

Over at the New Yorker website I've posted a list of Ten Notable Recordings of 2012. A list of memorable live performances will follow toward the end of the month. As usual, I'd like to offer a string of honorable mentions. Earning many repeat plays on my stereo were: the second volume of Third Coast Percussion's John Cage survey (Mode); Esa-Pekka Salonen's Violin Concerto (DG); Stefan Prins's Fremdkörper (Sub Rosa); Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream (NMC); Annie Gosfield's Almost Truths and Open Deceptions (Tzadik); the "complete" Bruckner Ninth, with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic (EMI); Andreas Staier's Diabelli Variations (Harmonia Mundi); Cecilia Bartoli's Agostino Steffani survey Mission (Decca); Respighi's Marie Victoire, for the singing of Takesha Kizart and the conducting of Michail Jurowski (cpo); and Alexandre Tharaud's "swinging Paris" album, Le Boeuf sur le toit (Virgin Classics). The most physically gorgeous release of the year was Nurit Tilles's Sonatas and Interludes on 45rpm vinyl, with the gigantic reissue of the Solti Ring close behind. I didn't listen to much pop this year, but I did think Frank Ocean's "Pyramids" was amazing.

Let me mention also some notable music books from the past year. On the New Yorker list I singled out Matthew Guerrieri's The First Four Notes; also excellent are Barry Millington's The Sorcerer of Bayreuth, Joel Sachs's Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music, Howard Pollack's Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World, Susan McClary's Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-century Music, Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker's A History of Opera, Peter Conrad's Verdi and/or Wagner, Paul Elie's Reinventing Bach, and Neal Peres Da Costa's Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing.

The Rest Is Noise Person of the Year is Michael Tilson Thomas, for his splendidly multifarious American Mavericks festivals in San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and New York. The 2012 Award for Exquisite Taste in the Civic Sphere — a category invented for the sole purpose of mentioning one of the greatest living Americans — goes to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A special citation for Quickest Plunge from a Great Height goes to the management and governing board of the Minnesota Orchestra.

As before, I'll tack on some non-musical choices. I read almost nothing this year which wasn't related in some way to Wagnerism, but I did learn much from Jeffrey Toobin's The Oath, and far away my favorite book of the year was Journey to the Abyss, which I reviewed for the magazine. On the TV, I greatly enjoyed Veep, Homeland, and Walking Dead. On last year's list, I brashly predicted that the best film of 2012 would be Jonathan Lisecki's Gayby, and neither How to Survive a Plague nor Lincoln convinced me otherwise. Granted, I am married to the director, but I'll note that the Rotten Tomatoes list of the best films of 2012 have Gayby and Lincoln tied. Gayby, now available on video on demand (iTunes, Netflix, etc.) and arriving on DVD next week, is up for Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. Yay!

Noise in Russia

Now available from Corpus Books.

For Jonathan Harvey

The great British composer, a singular, questing spirit in contemporary music, an avant-garde mystic in the tradition of Messiaen and Stockhausen, has died at the age of seventy-three. Some celebrated composers fade after death, their fame dependent on personality and on networks of influence. Harvey, a passionate loner, will only ascend.

Hiatus

Miscellany: Happy Dog, Bach on the G, etc.

View from My Porch, submitted by Frank, Spring Green WI.

The League of American Orchestras has published a list of 165 premieres that North American orchestras have given or will give in the 2012-13 season,.... Joshua Smith, the dapper principal flutist of the Cleveland Orchestra, has set up a Kickstarter page in support of recordings from the Happy Dog, Cleveland's alternative home for classical performance .... The greatly gifted Augustin Hadelich plays the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the New Jersey this week.... Make Music Winter, the cold-season counterpart to Make Music NY, has announced this year's events. Phil Kline returns with more migratory boombox music, James Holt reprises his deeply charming Bach-on-the-subway concept (this time the G, not the F), and Christopher Dylan Herbert, formerly connected with the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency's Integrated Crisis Early Warning System, sings Winterreise in the botanical gardens of Brooklyn and Staten Island.... I've updated my CD Picks. The Joyce DiDonato disc will be near or at the top of my best-of-the-year list; her matching Sunday recital at Carnegie was one of the great live events of the year.