Alex Ross's Blog, page 200

Austin bound

I'm heading to the great town of Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest Festival. Aside from an appearance at a panel discussion — They Used to Call It Classical, on March 16 — my duties will be mainly of a spousal nature, as Gayby, the feature-film directorial debut of my husband, Jonathan Lisecki, is having its premiere at SXSW, screening in the narrative competition. Needless to say, we're tremendously excited by this turn of events; the film has already received some flattering attention from Indiewire, the Hollywood Reporter, and the Austin Chronicle. There will be several off-topic posts as the week proceeds, but I'll try to bend an ear to some of the purely musical events. I want to hear the fascinating Nicolas Jaar at the Pitchfork Showcase, for example, not to mention the keynote address by Bruce Springsteen, who, I hear, will examine twelve-tone octatonicism in the music of Foghat.

CD of the Week: Florian Boesch's Winterreise

"Frühlingstraum" from Winterreise, with Florian Boesch, baritone, and Malcolm Martineau, piano; Onyx Classics 4077.

More on Golijov

Osvaldo Golijov defends his work Sidereus, in an interview with Dan Wakin of the New York Times. Anne Midgette has also been musing on the matter. As I said in a New Yorker blog post, I hope very much that new Golijov works of heft and power soon emerge, pushing this murky controversy to the side.

Straussiaen*

I've been happy to see a couple of positive reviews, in Opera News and The Musical Times, of Charles Youmans's Cambridge Companion to Richard Strauss, to which I contributed an essay entitled "Strauss's Place in the Twentieth Century." Both reviews took notice of my claim of a possible connection between Strauss and Messiaen, the common thread being Messiaen's teacher Paul Dukas, who admired Strauss and was admired by him in turn. Above are two musical examples, from the Presentation of the Silver Rose in Der Rosenkavalier and from Messiaen's youthful piano prelude "Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu." They don't sound alike as much as they look alike, but the resemblance is striking all the same.

*Title courtesy of Chris Walton.

The New York opera crisis

"The quality of operatic programming and production in New York has lately plummeted, to the point where the city may no longer qualify as a pace-setting opera capital...."

From "Diminuendo," my column in this week's New Yorker.

Maerzellany

This year's MaerzMusik festival in Berlin, which begins on March 12, focuses on "Cage and Consequences," giving attention to the likes of James Tenney, George Brecht, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Joan La Barbara, Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, and Gordon Mumma. La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela will make what turn out to be their final European appearance. There's also a concert devoted to Annie Gosfield, who is currently in residence at the American Academy in Berlin.... Judith Weir's latest opera, Miss Fortune, arrives at Covent Garden on March 12, having made its debut at Bregenz last summer.... The far-thinking Bay Area pianist Sarah Cahill will play twice in New York this week. On Tuesday she gives a mystical recital at Poisson Rouge, with works of Satie (Sonnerie de la Rose + Croix), Scriabin, Rudhyar, Cowell, and Ruth Crawford; and on Thursday she goes to Roulette for an Interpretations concert devoted to female composers, with works by Bun-Ching Lam, Frances White, and Pauline Oliveros.... Who knew? Kid Rock will perform at a benefit for the Detroit Symphony, aiming to raise $1 million for the formerly beleaguered, now recovering orchestra. "There will be matters of balances and sound level," Leonard Slatkin told Detroit critic Mark Stryker.... On March 18, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony venture Franz Schmidt's Notre Dame, his adaptation of the Victor Hugo tale. Portraying the Archdeacon is Stephen Powell, a strong-voiced, psychologically layered Germont in City Opera's Traviata last month.... On the same day, the young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor will make his New York debut, at the Frick. I found his Decca CD technically dazzling but a bit chilly and mannered, particularly in the almost perversely fast Chopin Scherzo No. 1. He does show a distinct personality, though.

Viele, father and son

I am not sure whether it is a good or bad sign that more than a few of the volumes I'm examining for my non-imminent book Wagnerism exhibit, on the evidence of their library check-out cards, little indication of having been touched since the end of the silent-movie era. Having no realistic alternative, I am forced to assume that it augurs well. The above is from a gently disintegrating copy of Joies, a collection of poems by the American-born French poet Francis Vielé-Griffin, author of Swanhilde and Wieland le forgeron, earnest disciple of Verlaine and Mallarmé. "Je suis l'ombre et l'écho d'un soir d'épitalame," etc. Alas, Vielé-Griffin was fated to be overshadowed in the eyes of posterity by his formidable father, Egbert Ludovicus Viele, who served as a brigadier general in the Civil War — his memories of Lincoln are not without interest — and who exerted considerable influence as a civil engineer and parks planner in New York City, preparing the famous Viele Map. The elder Viele is buried at West Point, in a tomb that is more Verdi than Wagner. According to West Point literature, Viele had a buzzer installed inside his sarcophagus, so that he could signal the caretaker if he awoke. It was evidently disconnected after too many cadets rang it for fun in the middle of the night.

Gergiev endorses Putin

Valery Gergiev has made what seems to be a campaign ad for Vladimir Putin, who aims to regain his hold on the Russian presidency in Sunday's election. In the video above, Gergiev does not mention Putin by name, but the import is clear. A Russian-speaking friend gives the following translation: "When I'd present my passport, in 1999, on, say, the American border, I felt that people might not ... reckon with me. 'Oh, Russia...?' And tossed to the side. Since then, that hasn't happened. One needs to be able to hold oneself ... presidentially ... so that people reckon with the country. I don't know if it's fear? Respect? Reckoning." Putin's first term as president began in 2000. [Update: Anastasia Tsioulcas notes that the video is captioned "Why I'm voting for Putin."]

Gergiev's name appears on a list of 499 celebrity supporters of Putin. According to a Moscow Times piece, the list also includes Anna Netrebko, Denis Matsuev, and Yuri Bashmet. (In this video, Bashmet talks about Putin's "golden era.") Other reports place Yuri Temirkanov and Pavel Kogan in the pro-Putin faction. [Second update: Jens Laurson would add Vladimir Spivakov.] The conductor Mikhail Arkadyev, who lost his contract with Vladivostok's Pacific Symphony in the wake of anti-Putin remarks, is the only classical musician I've seen listed on the other side, although one assumes there are others. It should be noted that not all in the Putin camp may be willing and eager participants. Stories in Die Welt and the Daily Telegraph have mentioned possible pressures brought to bear on the actress Chulpan Khamatova. One gets the feeling, though, that Gergiev is saying what is on his mind.

Arthur Lubow discussed Gergiev's long-standing friendship with Putin in a 2009 article for the New York Times Magazine. David Remnick wrote about the resistance to Putin in The New Yorker last December.

This just in

The winner of David Lang's YouTube-driven piano competition is Peter Poston, of Melbourne, Australia. Congrats! The runners-up are Catarina Domenici, of Porto Alegre, Brazil; Katherine Dowling, of Saskatchewan, Canada; and Denise Fillion, of Queens, NY. All four will perform at a Poisson Rouge concert on May 6, and one can only hope that Mr. Poston makes no changes to his hair. Read more about this project, and about a somewhat like-minded competition created by Hilary Hahn, in a New York Times piece by Will Robin.

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