SSブログ

Daniel Harding:神童から只の若手指揮者へ [音楽時評]

かつて音楽学校の教師が当時16歳のDaniel Harding の指揮したSchoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,”のテープを有名指揮者に送ったものが,同じ曲の指揮を控えていた Simon Rattle に “a staggering, natural, physical gift.” “I don’t think any of us could say where it came from,” Mr. Rattle added, “but he had it.” と認められたのが始まりだったそうです.

さらにAs a result the young man became the maestro’s protégé: attending rehearsals, watching, learning, occasionally being passed the baton. Before long he became an assistant to Claudio Abbado, who called him “my little genius.” と Abbado にも才能を評価されて,so began the jet-propelled ascent of Daniel Harding. が始まったのです.

he conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony at 19, made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic at 21 and signed his first recording contract with Virgin/EMI at 22. と飛躍が始まったのです.

しかし,at the relatively desiccated age of 35, Mr. Harding makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic. You can only wonder what took him so long, until you see his schedule. Milan, London, Athens, Stockholm, New York, Tokyo: and all of those within just five weeks, in February and March.

そこでThe New York Times のMusic Critic がNew York のホテルで会って,“Where is home?” I asked. He looked me in the eye and said he didn’t have one. Literally.と今は自分の home は何処にもないと認めたと言います.家具は一時預かりにしてあるのだそうです.というのも現在離婚手続き中といいます.

one told me some years ago: “I never understand when people talk about good young conductors. What can good mean other than experience and authority? And how do you get that except with age?”

Like any prodigy, he spent the first part of his life with people asking, “You’re so young, how does it feel?” Now, just as irritatingly, they ask, “You’re not so young, how does it feel?” The answer seems to be that he feels relief.

You’re so young が You’re not so young に変わって,救われた気持だと言います.

Harding は,New York debut でMahler 第4番をやるのですが,それについて,         “there’s no point, practically or musically, in someone like me coming in for a couple of concerts and trying to change that,” he said. But he too has ideas about Mahler. It’s his signature repertory. How does he accommodate conflicting views?                                               “It isn’t difficult,” he said. “Finding common ground in Mozart is harder, because there everyone has their own way and is absolutely sure they’re right. But the closer music gets to our own time, opposing positions become less extreme. I’ve done Mahler with orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic and Concertgebouw, that have very distinct Mahler traditions, but they’re all linked somewhere to a common source.”  と興味深い表現をしています.

The Carnegie Hall の Derector はかつてLondon Symphony Orchestra のManaging Director で,Harding をPrincipal Guest Conductor に招いた人物で,Harding は広くColin Davis の後任のPrincipal Conductor に就任すると信じれていながら,実際には,別の天才指揮者Valery Gergiev が就任し,当分その地位にとどまると信じられているのです.

彼は今までの所,A class のorchestra の仕事に1度も就いていないのですが,         “Although the Swedish R.S.O. has been the best thing that’s happened to me apart from Simon Rattle, it won’t be forever,” he said. “And when the time comes, the next move will probably be the really important one, when I settle and deliver the core part of my work, as you do in your middle years.      “But that’s not a move you make on a whim. You have to get that one right, don’t you?” と期待を込めて語っていたそうです.

 

 

Prodigy Ages Into a Merely Young Conductor

David Azia for The New York Times

British conductor Daniel Harding, center back, conducts the London Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal at the Barbican Center, central London, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011. Mr. Harding, now 35, has been conducting orchestras in Europe since he was a teenager.

 

LONDON

David Azia/The New York Times                                                                                                                                                             Daniel Harding, rehearsing with the London Symphony Orchestra for which he is principal guest conductor.

SIGNIFICANT careers sometimes explode from chance events. This happened two decades ago in Manchester, England, when a teacher at a music school taped a rehearsal that his 16-year-old pupil was conducting.

The tape was sent to the eminent conductor Simon Rattle, who no doubt gets sackfuls of such things. And there the matter might have ended, with a polite acknowledgment and a “best wishes for the future” note.

But it just happened that the piece on the tape was Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” which Mr. Rattle was preparing at the time. So he listened, was impressed, invited the teenager for a meeting and decided, as he later told me, that here was “a staggering, natural, physical gift.”

“I don’t think any of us could say where it came from,” Mr. Rattle added, “but he had it.”

As a result the young man became the maestro’s protégé: attending rehearsals, watching, learning, occasionally being passed the baton. Before long he became an assistant to Claudio Abbado, who called him “my little genius.”

And so began the jet-propelled ascent of Daniel Harding. He claims never to have had a formal conducting lesson, and he certainly bypassed any kind of conservatory training. But he conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony at 19, made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic at 21 and signed his first recording contract with Virgin/EMI at 22.

On Thursday, at the relatively desiccated age of 35, Mr. Harding makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic. You can only wonder what took him so long, until you see his schedule. Milan, London, Athens, Stockholm, New York, Tokyo: and all of those within just five weeks, in February and March.

When I caught up with him (it’s not easy) in a hotel here so fashionably discreet that you would never tell it from the surrounding warehouses, Mr. Harding admitted that the schedule was too much. “Where is home?” I asked. He looked me in the eye and said he didn’t have one. Literally.

“My furniture’s in storage at the moment,” he added. “It’s a temporary thing, and I’ll eventually get round to finding somewhere. But right now it makes more sense to be in hotels.”

The back story is that he is in the process of divorce: his marriage, as he sees it, a casualty of his calling. Asked whether he ever gives advice to aspiring conductors, he said ruefully: “Yes, but it’s mostly about the need to organize your life: how to be happily married and never there. I got that one wrong.”

If success has taken a toll on his life, it certainly doesn’t show on his face. He still has something of the fragile, pale and interesting look he had 10 years ago, enlivened by a schoolboy grin and a wiry build that could just pass for a teenager’s in the right light. But if childlike looks were advantageous — making audiences, managements and the media curious to see this wunderkind — they had their problems too. Especially with wizened players. As one told me some years ago: “I never understand when people talk about good young conductors. What can good mean other than experience and authority? And how do you get that except with age?”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Harding demurs. “My agent says you don’t get older, you just get more so,” he said, “your strengths and weaknesses more exaggerated, more pronounced. There’s something in that.”

Either way, he thinks there is something to be said for reaching 35. Like any prodigy, he spent the first part of his life with people asking, “You’re so young, how does it feel?” Now, just as irritatingly, they ask, “You’re not so young, how does it feel?” The answer seems to be that he feels relief.

“The very idea of conducting all these orchestras when I was 18, 19, early 20s, it was ridiculous but interesting in a freakish way,” he said. “And it’s liberating not to be so interesting anymore. With conductors there’s usually a period when they’re young and thrusting, another when they’re old and know what they’re doing, and 40 years between. That between period isn’t a bad place to be. It gives you space and time to sort out what you have.”

So his earlier work embarrasses him?

“Of course,” he said. “But that’s how it is at every stage of your life, and embarrassment is O.K., so long as you learn from it. I listened recently to a ‘Don Giovanni’ recording I made 13 years ago and thought, ‘What was I doing?’ But at least I was making my own mistakes, for honest reasons.”

“I suppose I could have studied the Giulini discs and copied them,” he added, referring to the respected Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini, “but that would have been pointless. It’s like when people advise young conductors to beat less, trust the orchestra more, and it’ll work better. They’re absolutely right. But telling you that is as useless as telling a violinist to play in tune and more beautifully. You have to find these things for yourself’.”

For Mr. Harding the finding took place in unusually exposed circumstances, with major orchestras in major houses: Covent Garden in London, the Aix-en-Provence festival in France, La Scala in Milan. And those were the dates that inevitably caught the attention of the press. But at the same time he was actually learning his craft in a quieter, more methodical way than the reports suggested.

He took positions with small orchestras in Trondheim, Norway; Norrkoping, Sweden; Bremen, Germany. He directed the youthful Mahler Chamber Orchestra. And he built relationships that still dominate his workload. His calendar may look crazy, but its crowded dates mostly involve the same 10 orchestras to which he constantly returns: especially the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, for which he has been music director for the last five years, and the London Symphony, for which he has been principal guest conductor for the same period. He is not professionally promiscuous. Nor is he dragged kicking and screaming into so much work.

“However many engagements I have in a season, there isn’t one I don’t want to do,” he said. “That’s the problem. I remember Simon Rattle being asked by Abbado to conduct his Mahler Youth Orchestra and prevaricating. ‘But you’ll love it,’ said Abbado. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Simon. ‘I’ll love it, then I’ll have to come back.’ And that’s how it is. I love the orchestras I work with, so I want to keep going back to them.”

Being committed to a group of orchestras makes a debut with a new one stand out; and the New York Philharmonic stands out more than most. Apart from odd engagements in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta, Mr. Harding’s American appearances have mostly been with European orchestras on tour. And he candidly admits that his few encounters with American bands “have never really clicked.”

“I’ve done repeat dates with them,” he said. “There’s been no bad feeling, just not instant love.”

Like many younger European conductors working in America, he has been disoriented by the culture of respectful distance and formality that survives there to a greater extent than back home.

“The first time I went to Chicago,” he said, “I remember looking at the body language of the musicians and thinking, ‘Oh, God, they really hate me.’ Then I saw them play a few years later with a conductor I know they adore, and the body language was the same, so I obviously shouldn’t have taken it so personally. But American orchestras do, in my experience, tend to be ultradisciplined in that way, and it’s easy to think they’re keeping you at arm’s length.

“I’m sure I’ve misjudged the etiquette every single time, thanks to spending years with ensembles like the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, where it’s like living in a kibbutz, with no separation or formality at all. If you bring any of that approach to, say, the Philadelphia, it can come across as inappropriate.”

So how does he approach his first appearance with the New York Philharmonic? With background research? Checking out the players?

“No, not systematically. But you ask around. In any new encounter with an orchestra there’s this kind of — dogs meeting thing.”

Asked whether he meant bottom sniffing, he gave the schoolboy grin from ear to ear. “Your words, not mine,” he replied. “I won’t have you say I’m looking forward to doing that to the New York Philharmonic, or them to me. But you know what I mean: a courtship ritual, where you present yourself to one another. It’s a shifting dynamic where you show how you approach things, see what they bring, observe how they react to your physical gestures.”

In New York he’ll be conducting the Fourth Symphony of Mahler, a composer about whom, as he says, “the Philharmonic will have very clear ideas.”

“So there’s no point, practically or musically, in someone like me coming in for a couple of concerts and trying to change that,” he said.

But he too has ideas about Mahler. It’s his signature repertory. How does he accommodate conflicting views?

“It isn’t difficult,” he said. “Finding common ground in Mozart is harder, because there everyone has their own way and is absolutely sure they’re right. But the closer music gets to our own time, opposing positions become less extreme. I’ve done Mahler with orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic and Concertgebouw, that have very distinct Mahler traditions, but they’re all linked somewhere to a common source.”

However Mr. Harding fares in his Philharmonic debut, he has one sure friend in New York. Clive Gillinson, before he took over Carnegie Hall, was managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra. It was Mr. Gillinson who, in 2006, made Mr. Harding principal guest conductor of that orchestra. And there was wide, if wild, speculation at the time that he was perhaps being groomed for the job of music director when Colin Davis retired.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Valery Gergiev took over in 2007, and he isn’t likely to be moving on in the near future. So to the slight surprise of many, Mr. Harding now hits middle age without an A-list orchestra of his own.

When I put this point to him, he diplomatically replied that I should take a plane and hear his Swedish Radio Symphony, which gives, he says, A-list performances all the time. But the fact remains that, by general reckoning, the Swedes, however good, are not top rank. It would hardly be surprising if he were looking around.

He is probably not looking hard in Britain, his career having been firmly based on mainland Europe. But he admits that there have been offers, all of them turned down.

“Although the Swedish R.S.O. has been the best thing that’s happened to me apart from Simon Rattle, it won’t be forever,” he said. “And when the time comes, the next move will probably be the really important one, when I settle and deliver the core part of my work, as you do in your middle years.

“But that’s not a move you make on a whim. You have to get that one right, don’t you?”


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

トリフォニーホール:ブリュッヘン指揮新日フィル,ミサ曲 [音楽時評]

2月28日,久しぶりにトリフォニーホールに,フランツ・ブリュッヘン指揮,新日本交響楽団のバッハ;ミサ曲 ロ短調 BMW 232 を聴きに行ってきました.

共演者は,
第1ソプラノ:リーサ・ラーション                                         第2ソプラノ:ヨハネッテ・ゾーマー                                         カウンターテナー(アルト):パトリック・ヴァン・グーテム                                       テノール:ヤン・コボウ                                               バス:デイヴィッド・ウィルソン=ジョンソン                                         合唱:栗友会合唱団                                               合唱指揮:栗山文昭                                               でした.

第1部 ミサ キリエ(あわれみの讃歌) グロリア(栄光の讃歌)                                 第2部 ニケーア信経 クレド(信仰宣言)                                       第3部 サンクトゥス(感謝の讃歌)                                          第4部 オザンナ ベネディクトス アニュス・ディ(平和の讃歌)とドナ・ノビス・バーチェム                    という構成で,『ミサ曲 ロ短調』というタイトルをバッハ自身は付けていないのです.

それでもマタイ受難曲ヨハネ受難曲と並び、バッハ作品の中でも最高峰に位置するとされています.バッハは熱心なルター派信者だったそうですが、そのバッハがカトリック教会典礼であるラテン語ミサをこれほどの規模で作曲したことが注目されます. 
もっともこの作品全体に他の自作からの転用がたいへん多い点も指摘されています. 
 「ミサ曲ロ短調は、全人生を捧げて書かれている。1733年に「外交的な」理由で作曲がはじまり、バッハがすでに盲目となっていた人生最晩年に完結した。この記念碑的な作品は、「ライプツィヒのカントール」が編み出した、音楽の様式と技術のすべてを結集したものである。しかしまたこの作品は、カトリック的な神の讃美の世界と、ルター派的な十字架信仰の世界が、類のないほど衝撃的に出会う場でもある。」といった指摘があります.

個々の感想は述べませんが,全体に,日本の合唱曲演奏の特色として,オーケストラが小編成になっても合唱団は大規模だということがあります.4部合唱以外に5部,6部といった合唱が入りますからやむを得ない面もあるのでしょうが,ソリストがアリアとしてソロや2重唱で歌う部分との対比でも,いかにも大合唱に過ぎたと思います.

また,せっかくのパイプオルガンがオルガン席から弾かれず,指揮者の指揮台の横に置かれた小規模オルガンから弾かれたのは意外でした.推測では,ブリュッヘンが指揮台で椅子に座って指揮するので,両腕ないし両手だけの微妙な動きで指揮するので,パイプオルガン席のビデオや反射鏡では見にくいという点があったのでしょうか.

ステージ上の並び方も変わっていました.上に挙げたオルガンの直ぐ後ろにファゴットが2人並び,その後ろにコントラバス,コントラバスの前にチェロ,そしてチェロの左にヴィオラ,そして第2ヴァイオリン,第1ヴァイオリン10人,第2ヴァイオリンの後方にトランペット(ピッコロ・トランペット),チャンパニー,そこから後列になって,第1,第2ソプラノ,アルト,そしてフルートとオーボエを挟んでテナーとバスが座り,その後ろに縦4列横24列の大合唱団でした.

演奏はノン・ビブラートでやっていましたから,五弦の音は澄んで綺麗に聴こえていましたし,管楽器も綺麗な音を鳴らしていました.                            
合唱はラテン語を暗ずるのが難しかったらしく,全員が楽譜持ちでした.それは5人のソリストも同じでした.

音楽は全体として好演だったと思います.これを2日連続で2回指揮したブリュッヘンには,大いなる敬意を表したいと思います.

 

 

                                                


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

津田ホール:松尾コンサート [音楽時評]

2月26日,津田ホールに第18回の松尾コンサートを聴きに行ってきました.

出演者と曲目は,
クァルテット アーニマ(Vn:山崎貴子,甲斐摩耶(平田 文の代役),Va:吉田 篤,Vc:窪田 亮)  
               モーツアルト;弦楽四重奏曲 第14番 ト長調 KV387
アベルト弦楽四重奏団(Vn:田之倉雅秋,近藤 薫,Va:坂口弦太郎,Vc:西山健一)                                  ドビュッシー;弦楽四重奏曲ト短調 作品10   
               ※※※※※※※※       
ウエールズ弦楽四重奏団(Vn:崎谷直人,三原久遠,Va:原 裕子,Vc:富岡廉太郎)                                    ベートーヴェン;弦楽四重奏曲第15番 作品132 
でした.

クァルテット アーニマのモーツアルトは,ハイドン・セットの第1番で中期の傑作といわれ「春」という呼び名も見られます.いきなり速いテンポで始まりますが,歌心の豊かな楽章です.第2楽章はメヌエットですが,elegant and light で, its sudden changes in dynamics in both the main theme and second subject が印象的です.第3楽章 Andante Cantabile は with many highs accompanied by deep lows from the cello. The whole movement conveys a serene, almost celestial quality, at times sounding mysterious, at others rapturous とあるように,チェロの好演が光りました.第4楽章はフーガとソナタ形式の融合型で,特に第2主題の美しさが印象的です.
第2ヴァイオリンが体調不良で交替したにもかかわらず,全体になかなかの好演だったと思います.

アベルト弦楽四重奏団は,東京芸大の出身者4人,広島響,元東フィル,にNHK響2人を加えた混成で,オーケルトラのハーモニーのなかで育っている4人がクァルテットをやる意義を強調していますが,ドビュッシーのこの唯一の弦楽四重奏曲は,第1楽章の主要主題が循環して現われる循環形式をとっており,微妙な和声を多用した曲です.                                それには,やはり違うオケの混成に少し問題があったようで,昨年もマツオコンサートで聴いていますが,とりわけドビュッシーのような曲の演奏には向いていなかったように思いました.

ウェールズ弦楽四重奏団を聴くのはこれで3度目くらいでしょうか,無神経に宣伝文句に使い続けているミュンヘンARD国際Competition から2人,第2ヴァイオリンとヴィオラが交替したのに,何の説明もしないのは欺瞞ではないでしょうか.                                  昨年のアツオコンサートと,秋にJTアートホールで聴いた感想では,旧メンバーと新メンバーの関係がまだしっくりいっておらず,その責任は旧メンバーにあると批判してきましたが,昨年からバーゼル音楽院でハーゲン弦楽四重奏団の第2ヴァイオリン,ライナー・シュミットの指導を受けていると書かれていました.                                                   今回はシュミットの指導が浸透したのか,昨年は新メンバーをないがしろにした演奏バランスの崩壊がすごく気になったのですが,今回その点はかなり大きく改善されていました.第1ヴァイオリンもチェロもたいへん抑制されて,4人のアンサンブルに相当の神経が使われていたように思います.                                                                             べートーヴェンの作品132については触れるまでもないでしょうが,この名曲が今日の楽器間のバランスの良い演奏をもたらしたといって良いのかも知れません. 
これまで批判を重ねてきましたが,今回の演奏は素直にかなり良かったと思います.これを忘れずに今後いっそう精進されるように期待します.ただ,ミュンヘン後のメンバー交代をクァルテット紹介のなかに明記すべきです

 

                                                   


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

演奏直後,拍手,ブラボーで名演を台無しにする悪人 [音楽時評]

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic のLondon residency が盛り上がりを見せたなかで,せっかくの名演奏がBravoないしBravi でぶち壊されたことがイギリス The Guardian 紙で厳しく糾弾されています.

Royal Restival Hall で行われた演奏会でMahler の第3番交響曲が華麗に終わった途端に,いきなり Bravi(Bravoの複数形)が叫ばれて,名演が一挙に ruin されたというのです.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic の最終夜で起こったことだそうですが,    It's music that ends with a huge final chord, a moment of D major apotheosis that's seemingly drawn out into the infinite. The silence afterwards was a chance to bask in the afterglow of the symphony's huge, cosmic architecture and the Berlin Philharmonic's equally cosmic sound. 

But it was a moment of dizzying collective rapture that was all too predictably ruined by some eejit in the Royal Festival Hall shouting "bravi!" – from one of the boxes, I'm pretty sure – before any of us, including the orchestra, had the chance to come down to earth again. There is no greater musical violence an audience member can commit than to scar this unique moment, when time seems to stop still at the end of a great performance, with a selfish, solo shout.

there's the ludicrous pretentiousness of using the Italian plural form, "bravi", as if to show the rest of the audience, and Rattle and the players too, that he's clever enough to know the correct endings of Italian adjectives,

と音楽に対する暴力だとたいへんな怒りようです.こうした人物には罰金を課して,今後の来場を入場停止処分で防ぐべきだと息巻いています.                                                  この記事全体がその怒りで埋められていますが,私も,最近,サントリーホールでこうした間髪を入れないBravoに悩まされている1人として,この記事を是非ご紹介したいと思いました.

このThe Guardian の記事はアメリカでも反響があり,Should badly behaving audience members be fined? というタイトルの記事を掲載し,London の出来事と記事の内容を詳細に伝えて,こうした聴衆には罰金を課すべきか?という POLL をとっています.

ごく初期のPoll を紹介しますと,

Yes: The audience has a duty to remain silent. Anything less is selfish. 47.73% (21 votes)
 
Sometimes: But the early clapper/shouter should be banned. 29.55% (13 votes)
 
No way: I paid for my seat, so I should be able to make as much noise as I want. 22.73% (10 votes)
と個人主義を反映したモノになっています.                                  しかし,静かにすべきだという意見が多いようですから,サントリーホールでも,是非,開演前のアナウンスで注意を喚起して欲しいと思います.



  

Rattled: how to ruin a classical music concert

The idiot who shouted 'bravi' at Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic shattered the rapture that follows a great rendition.

Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic, London 2011             'Radiant' ... Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic. Photograph: Mark Allan

And so, having taken the audience to the heights of late-romantic bliss with the gigantic hymn of love and compassion in the finale of Mahler's Third Symphony, Simon Rattle's London residency with the Berlin Philharmonic came to its radiant conclusion last night. It's music that ends with a huge final chord, a moment of D major apotheosis that's seemingly drawn out into the infinite. The silence afterwards was a chance to bask in the afterglow of the symphony's huge, cosmic architecture and the Berlin Philharmonic's equally cosmic sound.

But it was a moment of dizzying collective rapture that was all too predictably ruined by some eejit in the Royal Festival Hall shouting "bravi!" – from one of the boxes, I'm pretty sure – before any of us, including the orchestra, had the chance to come down to earth again. There is no greater musical violence an audience member can commit than to scar this unique moment, when time seems to stop still at the end of a great performance, with a selfish, solo shout.

And then there's the ludicrous pretentiousness of using the Italian plural form, "bravi", as if to show the rest of the audience, and Rattle and the players too, that he's clever enough to know the correct endings of Italian adjectives, rather than using the "bravo" that anyone else in this country would recognise or employ. There should be fines for this sort of thing (as well as for the jewellery-rattlers that Charlotte Higgins had to put up with in seat S62 at the Barbican) – sanctions that mean you forfeit your right to hear Mahler or Bruckner in public again until you learn that it's not big and it's not clever.

In fact, it's musical hooliganism that's psychopathic, narcissistic and destructive. We came to hear Mahler and the BPO last night, mate, not a solo spot from somebody who wants to show us all how much cleverer he is than us because he knows when the music's finished. Somebody there last night knows who it was, surely (as well as whoever's mobile phone it was that went off twice in the earlier movements). Over to you.

 

Should badly behaving audience members be fined?

Clapping

We all know him. The early clapper. There seems to be one at every concert. Just as the music ends, or indeed sometimes even before the final note is sounded, inevitably, someone dives in like an overexcited seal and ruins the mood. It's a pet peeve of many a fan of classical music.

Tom Service, a music writer for the Guardian has his panties in a bunch about another concert-going archetype that ruined his post-Berlin Phil Mahler 3 cuddle: the premature "Bravi!" shouter. 

In Service's words, "There is no greater musical violence an audience member can commit than to scar this unique moment, when time seems to stop still at the end of a great performance, with a selfish, solo shout. And then there's the ludicrous pretentiousness of using the Italian plural form, 'bravi', as if to show [everyone] that he's clever enough to know the correct endings of Italian adjectives ..." 

Service goes on to suggest that these people should be fined.

The irony of all this is, of course, that audience behavior has improved immeasurably since we've had access to recorded music. So now hearing a pristine version seems to have made us hyper-sensitive to every sniffle, cough or crinkle.

In Service's defense, an ill-timed shout or clap can immediately dissipate the energy an ensemble has spent the last 90 minutes creating.  On the other hand, part of that energy was created by experiencing the music along with 2,500 other people -- program shuffling, texting and, yes, shouting, notwithstanding.

What's the worst audience behavior you've encountered and how much are you willing to put up with in exchange for the privilege of hearing live music?  How do Los Angeles audiences compare with other cities'?

Let us know in the comments section and take our poll.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

サントリーホール:アルブレヒト指揮読響定期,神尾真由子(vn) [音楽時評]

2月25日,サントリーホールにゲルト・アルブレヒト指揮,読売日本交響楽団定期公演,神尾真由子(vn)を聴きに行ってきました.

普段はなかなか聴けない曲を聴く機会になったのですが,今夜のプログラムは,                     《シュポーア・プログラム》
シューマン: 〈『ファウスト』からの情景〉序曲                                  シュポーア: 歌劇〈ファウスト〉序曲
シュポーア: ヴァイオリン協奏曲第8番 〈劇唱の形式で〉イ短調 作品47  
      ※※※※※※※※
シュポーア: 交響曲第3番 ハ短調 作品78                                                            でした.

シューマンの〈『ファウスト』からの情景〉序曲とシュポーア: 歌劇〈ファウスト〉序曲 を並べて聴けたのは興味深く思いました.シューマンもシュポーアも,テンポこそ違え初めは明るい調子で始めますが,終結部では,いずれもファウストの救済を思わせる高揚感で曲が閉じられます.

2曲が終わったところで,アルブレヒトがシュポーアについて,そしてヴァイオリン協奏曲第8番の《劇唱の形式で》についての解説がありました.シュポーアはヴァイオリン協奏曲を15曲も残していますが,そのなかで第8番はオペラのアリア様式で作曲された、形式的に因襲にとらわれない作品だそうです.

そのヴァイオリン協奏曲第8番は4部からなっていますが,第1部は,ドラマチックなオーケストラに対してヴァイオリンの叙情的なモノローグが奏でられ,第2部ではベルカント風の美麗なアリアが歌われ,第3部の華やかなレチタティーボを経て,第4部ではヴァイオリンのソロが前面に出て,華麗なカデンツァも展開されました.              
暗譜でたいへん好演した神尾真由子は,アンコールに最近彼女がレコーディングしたパガニーニの 「24のカプリース」から第20番を聴かせてくれました.

後半のシュポーアの交響曲第3番は,4楽章構成で,第1楽章はやや暗い感じで始まりますが,最後は明るく終わります.第2楽章は前の楽章の主題から導かれた美しいメロディによって綴られた緩徐楽章,第3楽章はリズミカルな主部と管楽器を多用した中間部からなりますが,最後にフォルティッシモで終わります.終楽章は,これまでの素材を有機的につないで,高らかな終結を迎えます.
なかなか興味深い交響曲でした.

シュポーアという19世紀に活躍した作曲家のいくつもの側面を垣間見せたなかなか素敵な公演でした.アルブレヒトに大きな拍手を贈りたいと思います.     


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

【論説】独ドレスデン空爆と広島,長崎原爆投下 [論説]

1945年2月13~14日は,第2次世界大戦の末期に,連合軍,主としてイギリス軍が敢行したドイツの都市ドレスデンに対する大規模空爆が,25,000人の民間人死者を出した事件の記念日です.
それは one of the most controversial allied operations of World War II と今でも論争が続いている事件です.

そしてドレスデンでは今でも1000人の人の鎖を作ったり,写真にあるような仮面を被った行進が行われて(行進で使われる音楽はWagner ではなく Elger;Enigma Variations),ドイツ人には忘れがたい事件になっているのです.下の合成写真では,この爆撃を命令したWinston Churchill を人道に対する犯罪者として糾弾しています.

連合軍側は the role of the campaign in destroying the German war machine and by implication saving tens of millions of lives と基本的には正当化しています.
そして連合軍側では書籍や映画で第2次世界大戦における連合国側の悲惨さが様々に描かれていますが,市民の被害が甚大だったドイツ側では,ほとんどその悲惨さが書かれていないといわれています.

ドイツに較べたら,日本の東京大空襲は10万人超の死者を出しましたし,繰り返された空爆では大阪を初め他の大都市でも大きな人的被害を生みました.                          さらに広島,長崎の原爆はそれを上回る悲惨な出来事でした.

日本への原爆投下についても the role of the campaign in destroying the Japan war machine and by implication saving tens of millions of lives といってアメリカは正当化していますが,私はアメリカ留学中やその後の研究生活中,繰り返して何十万,何百万の人命を救うためだったと原爆投下を正当化するアメリカ人に対して,                         〇アメリカの原爆投下は,既に日本がポツダム宣言受諾をスイスを通して通告していたのに行われたモノで,                                                         〇原爆投下の真の目的は,第2次世界大戦後にアメリカが世界の覇権を握りたかったためにショーケースとして行ったモノ, と反論し,アメリカを非難し続けました.

このブログをお読み戴いた方には,是非,私の議論に賛同戴いて,アメリカの人道への罪を強く告発して戴きたいと思って,ドイツにこと寄せて,このブログを書きました.

 

Dresden still divided over blame for WWII bombing

 

By Stephen Evans
BBC News, Germany

Far-right Dresden Marches
Far-right demonstrators at the Dresden marches carried crosses

Sixty-six years after the bombing of Dresden - one of the most controversial allied operations of World War II which killed around 25,000 civilians - a debate about who was to blame for the conflict still rages.

I never got close enough to the swarm of black-shirted followers of Hitler to ask them if they realised that the lush string music swelling from their loud-speakers was actually Elgar, the quintessential English music.

Hitler wanted peace... Just because you fire the first shot does not mean you start the war
Olaf Rose

For some reason, the neo-Nazis on the march in Dresden seemed to think that the right music to swell German nationalist pride was the Enigma Variations.

You would think that Wagner would be better. But no, they liked Elgar.

Call me a snob, but I suspect they just did not realise.

With their black garb, shaved heads and studded, snarling faces, they did not seem like natural music buffs to me.

I did ask them why they were there and what they wanted.

Just grunts and shuffles came back, even from the large man with the "Kraft fur Deutschland" T-shirt ("Power for Germany").

'Our march'

It is hard to work out the ideology - or is that too strong a word? - like trying to work out the ideology of a football mob.

Dresden Marches
The far-right see former British prime minister Winston Churchill as a criminal

To do that, I met Dr Olaf Rose, who advises the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany on history.

He is charm itself.

We got our wires crossed and I had got the day of our meeting wrong.

He moved heaven and earth to re-arrange it, even though his car had broken down and it meant a friend giving him a long lift.

He is the respectable face of the march - which he described as "our march". He is genial, with a goatee beard and pretty good English.

He has, he says, nothing against the British airmen who bombed Dresden, nor doeこおのばくげきをs he have anything against a memorial to them in London - in fact, the National Democratic Party of Germany is collecting money for it.

He has respect for all soldiers, he says.

No, it is not them he has got anything against, it is the people he sees as criminals: Churchill and Butcher Harris, as he calls Bomber Harris, who led Bomber Command - the section of the Royal Air Force which conducted the raids.

He warms to his theme.

"Hitler wanted peace", he says.

"You can look at the documents. Nine times he sued for peace."

But did he not start the war, I wondered?

"Just because you fire the first shot does not mean you start the war," he said.

Perpetrators or victims?

This contesting of history on the anniversary of the air-raids on Dresden matters today.

Human chain to mark Dresden memorial
Thousands formed a human chain to mark the anniversary

If you believe that German crime had equivalent British crime, then the values that inspired that German crime might be less unacceptable today - the constraints of guilt are loosened.

On one side in this contest over the past are the far-left, dressed very much like the far-right, all in black but waving the English flag - the Cross of St George - to symbolise I suppose their siding with Britain.

On the other extreme, the neo-Nazi march, with its Elgar.

Both demonstrations were tiny compared to the human chain of thousands of people marking the anniversary by linking hands across the city, over the bridges of the Elbe, and back to the Altmarkt, the old market square where 6,865 corpses were cremated in the open in 1945.

On this human chain, I met Germany's interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, one of Angela Merkel's right-hand men.

How did he read the history?

"Germans started the war," he said.

"But Germans were then victims of the war."

Germans as perpetrators, certainly, but Germans as victims? That is a locution with which not everyone is easy - Germans as victims too.

Ghosts of the past

Past and present can confuse in Dresden.

Dresden, 1946
The allied forces' bombing campaign on Dresden killed thousands of civilians

Mostly, the city is a new town. Only a few of the golden domes of what was called Florence on the Elbe remain.

Not that you can always tell.

The magnificent opera house is a post-war replica, for example, but you can still see ghosts there, particularly if you sit in the gilt chairs like I did, and lean forward craning from the balcony, to watch Richard Strauss' opera, Salome, exactly as it was first performed in 1905.

The ghost of Strauss is there, I swear it. He wrote the most gorgeous, sublime music and also hob-nobbed with Hitler and Goebbels (to whom he dedicated a song).

How do you work out that marriage of beauty and beastliness?

Draped down the façade of the opera house now is another echo of the past, a banner which reads, "Es ist noch wichtiger, sich anständig zu benehmen, als gute Musik zu machen."

The man who said it was the conductor Fritz Busch who was driven from Dresden and its opera house by the Nazis in 1933.

In exile, he did much to create a great British cultural institution, as the conductor at Glyndebourne, the opera house nestling in the soft English downs just like the ones which inspired Elgar.

The slogan, by the way, means: "It is more important to behave well than to make good music".

How to listen to: From Our Own Correspondent

BBC Radio 4: Saturdays, 1130. Second weekly edition on Thursdays, 1100 (some weeks only)

BBC World Service: See programme schedules

Download the podcast

Listen on iPlayer

Story by story at the programme website


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

For Liszt’s 200th, a Youthful Tribute [音楽時評]

今年がフランツ・リストの生誕200年に当たることは前にも書きましたが,リストがたいへん有名なピアニストでありながら,チャイコフスキーやショパンなどのように個人名を掲げた International Competition がないこともあって,今年は,Competition 歴がないままトップ・クラスに躍り出るピアニストが目立つのではないかと期待しています.                              ここにご紹介するのはその1例です.

この記事の最初には,リストが貧窮のうちに有名作品を残して世を去った多くの作曲家,例えばMozart,Shubert などと違って,たいへん経済的に恵まれた人生を送った事が紹介されています.

この記事の主人公は弱冠2歳の若き女流ピアニスト,Lise de la Salle で,評者は,彼女が the Metropolitan Museum of Art で行ったリサイタルを評価しています.               リストには,Beethoven や Schubert に見られるような深遠な味わいは見られないのですが,dazzling, harmonically innovative, poetic and exciting として,Lise de la Salle に向いていると書き起こしています.

最近 Carnegie Hall で同様のリサイタルを開いたJean-Yves Thibaudet は,stressing the music’s elegance だったけれども,Lise de la Salle は took a more tempestuous approach, vividly characterizing extremes of tumult and introspection と比較しています.

曲目は,
△Ballade No. 2 in F, △“Funérailles.” Written to commemorate the execution of 14 Hungarian revolutionaries, △the “Dante” Sonata,△Liszt’s arrangements of the “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem; Schubert’s “Ständchen”; and Schumann’s “Liebeslied.” △Liszt’s version of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” 

とまことに多面的にリストを弾いて,その多彩な側面を十二分に弾き表したようです.As an encore, she offered a colorful and cleanly articulated if rather heavy-handed rendition of Scarlatti’s Sonata in C (K. 159).  というのも,Lise de la Salle の優れた才能を現していて,興味深い選曲だと思います.

こうした若い才能の開花はまことに喜ばしいことだと思います.                      あとは,ご自由にご渉猟下さい.

Music Review

For Liszt’s 200th, a Youthful Tribute

Many 19th-century composers endured poverty, illness and artistic struggle, their achievements fully recognized only posthumously. Franz Liszt followed the opposite trajectory: he lived a glamorous life, rich in material and artistic success, but his reputation suffered in posterity.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times  
Lise de la Salle performed Liszt for the composer’s bicentennial at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Still, though his music generally lacks the profundity of Beethoven’s or Schubert’s, it is dazzling, harmonically innovative, poetic and exciting. And it is well suited to the passionate temperament of Lise de la Salle, a glamorous, 22-year-old French pianist. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, Ms. de la Salle offered a Liszt program in honor of the bicentennial of the composer’s birth.

Anniversary years often provide the chance to hear how different musicians interpret the same composer. Jean-Yves Thibaudet recently played a Liszt recital at Carnegie Hall, stressing the music’s elegance. Ms. de la Salle took a more tempestuous approach, vividly characterizing extremes of tumult and introspection, as in the Ballade No. 2 in F, which begins with ominous rumblings in the left hand.

Ms. de la Salle has a powerful technique; she stormed through Liszt’s crashing torrents of chords and whirlwind runs with panache. But she also demonstrated a poetic musicality in the more introspective interludes, which she enhanced with colorful shading and phrasing.

Her muscular approach illuminated the nobility and monumental sweep of “Funérailles.” Written to commemorate the execution of 14 Hungarian revolutionaries, the work veers from funeral march to danse macabre to gentle melancholy.

Her emotive approach also rendered the “Dante” Sonata, a treat. The work represents Liszt at his most virtuosic and programmatic, with the soul’s descent into hell evoked in fiery cascades of sound.

Among Liszt’s most valuable contributions during his lifetime were his hundreds of piano transcriptions of operatic and orchestral works, which allowed the scores to be widely disseminated before the existence of recorded music. Ms. de la Salle offered vividly wrought and nuanced interpretations of Liszt’s arrangements of the “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem; Schubert’s “Ständchen”; and Schumann’s “Liebeslied.” She concluded with Liszt’s version of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” slowly building tension in the opening measures and increasing to a simmering climax.

As an encore, she offered a colorful and cleanly articulated if rather heavy-handed rendition of Scarlatti’s Sonata in C (K. 159).


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle, London [音楽時評]

Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle のLondon residency 初日のReview は5つ星評価です.

the orchestra's twelve cellists purveyed Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and bossa nova to an audience of children. he describes as music's equivalent to Real Madrid, was to decree that schooling the listeners of tomorrow would be a priority. といいますから,多面的です.

their first grown-up concert should be given not by the full orchestra, but by selected players in intimate chamber groupings. For this is an orchestra of soloists, in both musical excellence and attitude: self-governing, self-selecting and reserving the right to hire (and fire) their conductors, they describe themselves as an "orchestral republic".  とこの楽団の特徴を列記しています.

One single movement was all the ailing Schubert managed to write of his String Quartet in C minor, but these players turned it into nine minutes of filigree perfection, as it alternately sang, smouldered and burst into flame.

The dwelling in question was that of "home-key" tonality, on which three centuries of classical music were built: Rattle wanted to show how its breakdown ushered in the anything-goes musical world we inhabit now, and Schoenberg's String Quartet No 2 was the work which epitomised that breakdown.

Looking as though she had stepped straight out of a Klimt painting, soprano Anna Prohaska brought the most refined artistry to her part, blending her timbre with those of the strings as though she was one of them. When she gave voice to the poet's rapture on that new planet, the whole piece acquired an airborne lightness.

最後にようやくRattle が登場して,It was only with the final work – Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No 1, also written on the cusp of change – that Rattle made his appearance at the head of a posse of wind players to bolster the strings. And he did his job beautifully, sculpting the work's intricately layered contours, controlling its busy tranquillity and bringing out its valedictory quality, since this was more a farewell to the old world than a greeting to the new.

しかも,Rattle gave us an intimation of his full orchestra's fabled sound, which will be unleashed tonight, with Stravinsky and Mahler, at the Barbican. Never before have London's normally rivalrous big concert halls collaborated in this way: they both want to share the gold dust and they also want to share the high costs of this venture.

つまりそれまではRoyal Festival Hall を中心としたSouth Bankだったのですが,Full orchestra はLondon 中心部東の Barbican で his full orchestra's fabled sound, which will be unleashed tonight, with Stravinsky and Mahler, at the Barbican.  と2つの大ホールを贅沢に使って,弦楽器の室内楽に始まって, sopranoを加え,管楽器を加え,そして Full orchestra はBarbican で聴かせ,調性から無調への音楽の300年の発展を示して,さらに Stravinsky and Mahler でそれを贅沢に締めくくったというのですから,たいへんな演出です.

それから,記事で驚いたのは,最後の1節で,But do not even dream about getting a ticket: the 8,000 allocated for this week's events sold out a year ago. という説明です.つまりこの週のチケット8000枚は,1年前に完売していたというのです.日本より凄いですね.

 

 

First Night: Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle, Queen Elizabeth Hall

(Rated 5/ 5 )

'Orchestral republic' shows its power with Rattle at the helm

By Michael Church

Monday, 21 February 2011

Start as you mean to go on. It was entirely typical that Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker should have started their week-long London residency with a concert in which the orchestra's twelve cellists purveyed Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and bossa nova to an audience of children. For one of the first things Rattle did, on taking over the helm of the band which he describes as music's equivalent to Real Madrid, was to decree that schooling the listeners of tomorrow would be a priority.

It was also typical that their first grown-up concert should be given not by the full orchestra, but by selected players in intimate chamber groupings. For this is an orchestra of soloists, in both musical excellence and attitude: self-governing, self-selecting and reserving the right to hire (and fire) their conductors, they describe themselves as an "orchestral republic".

Their opening could not have been simpler or more powerful. One single movement was all the ailing Schubert managed to write of his String Quartet in C minor, but these players turned it into nine minutes of filigree perfection, as it alternately sang, smouldered and burst into flame.

Then it was time for a work which had been one of Rattle's calling cards since he flourished it in his Channel 4 TV series Leaving Home. The dwelling in question was that of "home-key" tonality, on which three centuries of classical music were built: Rattle wanted to show how its breakdown ushered in the anything-goes musical world we inhabit now, and Schoenberg's String Quartet No 2 was the work which epitomised that breakdown.

As it proceeds, it gradually floats free of all tonal anchors, with the Stefan George poem (added by a soprano) vividly underlining the point: "I feel the air of another planet... I am dissolved in swirling sound." Looking as though she had stepped straight out of a Klimt painting, soprano Anna Prohaska brought the most refined artistry to her part, blending her timbre with those of the strings as though she was one of them. When she gave voice to the poet's rapture on that new planet, the whole piece acquired an airborne lightness.

It was only with the final work – Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No 1, also written on the cusp of change – that Rattle made his appearance at the head of a posse of wind players to bolster the strings. And he did his job beautifully, sculpting the work's intricately layered contours, controlling its busy tranquillity and bringing out its valedictory quality, since this was more a farewell to the old world than a greeting to the new.

And here Rattle gave us an intimation of his full orchestra's fabled sound, which will be unleashed tonight, with Stravinsky and Mahler, at the Barbican. Never before have London's normally rivalrous big concert halls collaborated in this way: they both want to share the gold dust and they also want to share the high costs of this venture.

But do not even dream about getting a ticket: the 8,000 allocated for this week's events sold out a year ago.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Detroit Symphony Suspended Season at last [音楽時評]

とうとうDetroit Symphony は2010~2011 season を Cancel ではなく Suspend しました.地元新聞が 社説で,デトロイトの置かれた経済状況の現実を辨えなかったからだと強い調子でmusicians を非難しています.

Hope is giving way to reality in the five-month Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike. After musicians rejected its final offer, DSO management suspended the season, notifying guest artists and ticket holders that the scheduled concerts are not likely to go on.

That's a tough blow for Detroit, which has lost so many things it cherished during this prolonged economic crisis. But the orchestra can't spend money it doesn't have, even to maintain a symphony that is hailed as one of the world's best.

Simply put, Detroit can't afford the current orchestra, unless the operating model changes substantially.  this is Detroit, and few organizations here have survived without changing their operating models to reflect the city's diminished economic status.

the musicians recognized the need for salary concessions. But they have not come around to getting more involved in building audiences and courting donors.

Generous supporters have tried to grease a settlement by putting up $2 million to compensate musicians for the extra community work. Instead, the musicians tried to grab half that restricted money to enhance salaries, without agreeing to the extra work.

musicians not only put the symphony at risk, but their own careers as well

We urge all parties to continue working toward an agreement that works for the musicians, management and the community and that returns classical music to Orchestra Hall.                                                 But reality demands it be played by an orchestra Detroit can afford.

この社説とは別の記事が掲載されていて,次の2点が懸念されています.               1.そろそろ健全な orchestra が来シーズンの schedule を公表する時期なので,早急に体制を作らないと,2011~2012 season の編成が出来なくなる.                       誰も紛争後で将来の定まらない orchestra と出演契約することは期待できないでしょう.       2. Cancel ではなく suspension だと,優秀な楽員でも,union の強い音楽業界では,おいそれと新規雇用契約を結んでくれるところはないでしょう.

という2点です.両当事者特にmusicians は,交渉の切り札に,こんな低処遇では Top musicians が引き抜かれて,orchestra のレベルが低下するといっていたのですが,当分の間そんな心配は無用のことだったようですね.

 

Last Updated: February 21. 2011 1:00AM

Editorial: DSO discord ignores reality

Rejection of contract offer reflects a disconnect with Detroit's diminished economic status

The Detroit News

Hope is giving way to reality in the five-month Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike. After musicians rejected its final offer, DSO management suspended the season, notifying guest artists and ticket holders that the scheduled concerts are not likely to go on.

That's a tough blow for Detroit, which has lost so many things it cherished during this prolonged economic crisis. But the orchestra can't spend money it doesn't have, even to maintain a symphony that is hailed as one of the world's best.

Simply put, Detroit can't afford the current orchestra, unless the operating model changes substantially.

That's why DSO management asked for steep concessions from its musicians, along with contract changes that would engage them in building broader community support for their product.

To their credit, the musicians recognized the need for salary concessions. But they have not come around to getting more involved in building audiences and courting donors.

After the so-called final contract offer was rejected by musicians Saturday, Joe Goldman, a member of the bargaining committee, asked, "Why do they want to pick this time to reinvent the model?"

The first answer to that question is that this is Detroit, and few organizations here have survived without changing their operating models to reflect the city's diminished economic status.

Beyond that, the DSO is staring at insolvency. Its banks have called $54 million in loans. Its endowment has dropped to $19 million from $80 million in a decade. Its donor base has withered to 5,000 from 25,000, with many of its most generous individual and corporate contributors no longer in the picture.

The choice is to change the model now, or go out of business within a few years.

Even with the pay concessions, the DSO is offering more than it can cover with current revenue. Management has committed to an aggressive fundraising campaign to ensure that this contract doesn't bankrupt the orchestra.

Generous supporters have tried to grease a settlement by putting up $2 million to compensate musicians for the extra community work. Instead, the musicians tried to grab half that restricted money to enhance salaries, without agreeing to the extra work.

So now management is moving on, looking for opportunities to bring other concerts and events to the Max. It has left the door open for resumed negotiations by suspending, rather than canceling, the season.

But the lost ticket sales and contributions caused by the strike mean musicians will likely see a diminished offer in the next round of talks.

In rejecting a contract designed to give the DSO a fighting chance at a healthy future, musicians not only put the symphony at risk, but their own careers as wellEven with the pay concessions, they would remain the 12th-highest paid orchestra in the country. Openings in symphonies that pay more than the DSO are limited.

We urge all parties to continue working toward an agreement that works for the musicians, management and the community and that returns classical music to Orchestra Hall.

But reality demands it be played by an orchestra Detroit can afford.




nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

芸術劇場:ノット指揮NHK響,ボゴオストキーナ(vn) [音楽時評]

2月20日,午後,東京芸術劇場に2011都民芸術フェスティバル参加公演,ジョナサン.ノット指揮のNHK交響楽団を聴きに行ってきました.ロシア生まれでドイツに移住したアリーナ・ボゴストキーナがViolin soloist として参加していました.2005年のシベリウス国際Violin Competirion で優勝して着実に芸歴を積んでいる俊英です.

プログラムは,                                                    アイヴズ:    答えのない質問                                               プロコフィエフ: ヴァイオリン協奏曲第1番 ニ長調 作品19                             ※※※※※※※※                                                                                     ブラームス:  交響曲第1番 ハ短調 作品68                                                     でした.

アイヴズは,トランペットの問いかけにフルート,オーボエなどが答えるのですが,次第にレスポンスが無くなって曲を終わります.面白い曲ですが,古代ケルト人の宗教を背景にしていると言うことです.

プロコフィエフのヴァイオリン協奏曲第1番は,3楽章構成ですが,第1楽章ではヴィオラのトレモロの上にソロがやや長い主要主題を提示し,続いて副次的主題が躍動感を持って現われます.展開部では激しい躍動があって再現部を経て静かに終わります.                           第2楽章スケルツオはABACAのロンド形式ですが,ソロのスタッカートで振幅の大きなモティーフが現われたり,1度から3度音程の小幅な弦のつま弾きが現われたり変化に富んだ中間楽章,そして第3楽章はモデラートの変奏曲形式で,Violin が主要主題を叙情的に提示し,ヴィオラが副次主題を提起しますが,主要主題の演奏が重ねられて,第1楽章の主題の再現があって,弱音の内に曲が閉じられます.                                                   第3楽章冒頭で,ソロ・ヴァイオリンの弦が切れて,その張り替えに数分間の中断があって,3楽章が再演されましたが,少なからず曲趣を損なったのがたいへん残念でした.                それでもアリーナ・ボゴストキーナが並々ならぬ才能の持ち主であることは理解できました.今後ますますの成長を期待したいと思います.

今日の白眉はブラームスの交響曲第1番でした.ベートーヴェンの第10番交響曲と呼ばれるほど,強い影響を受け,21年かけて完成された作品です.第1楽章は重々しい序奏で始まり,上行音階,下降音階が反復された後,ヴァイオリンが第1主題を歌い上げ,オーボエが第2主題を歌います.全体に荘厳な感じの楽章です.第2楽章はファゴットとヴァイオリンが主題を優美に響かせ,情感豊かな楽章が展開されます.第3楽章では,チェロのピチカートの上に,クラリネットが主題を演じる,優雅な楽章です.                                                   第4楽章では,ベートーヴェンのように歌唱は入りませんが,主部ではヴァイオリン群が荘重な第1主題を朗々と歌います.第2主題も音程の上下が大きいのですが,温和なメロディを響かせます.最後は盛り上がりを作って,荘重に曲が閉じられます.

たいへん説得力のある音楽の流れを,ノセダが暗譜で,N響の力を存分に発揮させて,ブラームスらしい構成力豊かな音楽を見事に歌い尽くしたと思います.名曲中の名曲ですが,これだけの好演奏は滅多に聴けないモノでした.

改めてN響の実力を実感させられた午後でした.   


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

【短信】アメリカの異色のConductors [音楽時評]

1.Boston Symphony Orchestra  
アメリカのメジャー・オーケストラとしては最初の黒人指揮者が任命されたそうです.ただ,仕事の領域が kids つまり子供達のために,指揮することだそうです.                     this week it named its first-ever African-American conductor, Thomas Wilkins.

Thomas Wilkins, the BSO's new youth and family concerts conductor, talks to the audience during Wednesday's performance. (Courtesy Hilary Scott/BSO)

 

2. the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has signed music director JoAnn Falletta to a new five-year contract -- a year before the old one expired --

we do have to share her with the Virginia Symphony, where she also is music director. だそうですが.Baffallo には既に12年目だそうです.

 

3.アメリカでメジャー・オーケストラの指揮者に登り詰めた最初の女性指揮者 Marin Alsop がブラジルのOrchestra のMusic Director にも任命されて,ブラジルで10週間を過ごすそうです.気候の良い時を選択できればよいのですが.....

Marin Alsop named principal conductor of Sao Paulo orchestra, will remain with BSO (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra)


nice!(1)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

芸術劇場:アルブレヒト指揮読売日響&神尾真由子(vn) [音楽時評]

2月19日,ゲルト・アルブレヒト指揮読売日本交響楽団の芸術劇場名曲シリーズを聴きに行ってきました.

Violin に神尾真由子が加わって,Brahms のViolin Concerto と                                アルブレヒト指揮で Brahms の交響曲第2番が演奏されました.

アルブレヒトと神尾真由子は,2002年にブルッフで協演したことがあり,アルブレヒトが絶賛したという話が残されていますが,今度は,若手ヴァイオリニストにとってはチャレンジになるBrahms ですから,たいへん楽しみでした.

上記の2曲は,1878年(Brahms 45歳)南オーストリアの山々に囲まれた美しいヴェルター湖畔の村、ペルチャッハで相次いで作曲されたものといいます.

Violin 協奏曲は,ゆったりとした牧歌的な第1主題で始まり、美しい旋律が途切れなく続く第1楽章、オーボエの優美な旋律で始まり、重厚で、渋い中間部が、最高に魅力的な第2楽章、情熱的で軽快な第3楽章からなっています.                                       演奏は,前にグリーグのピアノ協奏曲で,河村尚子がピアノの音をオーケストラに溶け込ませて弾いていたと書いたことがありますが,今夜の神尾真由子は終止Violin の音をオケから際立たせて,優美かつ透明で力強い音を鳴らして弾いていました.第2楽章のオーボエ協奏曲と言われる部分も,オーボエが好演していました.                                           アルブレヒトが巧みにオケを協奏させていましたから,まことに希に見る好演だったと思います.

交響曲第2番は,同じ美しい風景とおだやかな自然環境のなかで,すばらしい創作の霊感を受けて大半が作曲され,美しい旋律がよどみなく流れ、柔和かつ温和で、幸福感に満ちた曲となっています.                                                         アルブレヒトは,ほぼ同年代の小澤の大振りな指揮と違って,たいへん身体はほとんど動かさず,ほとんど両腕だけで,省力的な指揮を暗譜でやっていました.読響の団員も今は桂冠指揮者のアルブレヒトの久しぶりの指揮をしっかりと受け止めて,美しい旋律のつづくなかに,ハッキリしたメリハリをつけて,この曲を非常に好演していました.

Brahms のほぼ同じ時期に同じ美しい環境で作曲された2曲を,大いに堪能した一夜でした.   来週は,同じ顔ぶれで,シュポアを聴く予定ですが,今からたいへん楽しみです.

 

 


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

王子ホール:東京クァルテット演奏会 [音楽時評]

2月18日,王子ホールに東京クァルテットの演奏会を聴きに行ってきました.何よりも4人ともたいへんお元気そうでした.                                               メンバーは,Violin: マーティン・ビーヴァー,池田菊衛, Viola:磯村和美, Cello:クライブ・グリーンスミス でこのところ固定しています.

プログラムは,                      
ハイドン:    弦楽四重奏曲 第82番 ヘ長調 Hob.Ⅲ/82. Op.77-2
           ※※※※※※
ベートーヴェン:弦楽四重奏曲 第13番 変ロ長調 Op.130 「大フーガ付き」 
でした.

ハイドンの4楽章は,とにかくアンサンブルが綺麗でした.各楽器(いずれもストラディヴァリ)の音が美しくって,4つの楽章をひきたていました.
なかでもチェロの澄んだ音がたいへん目立ちました.他の日本のクァルテットではロータス,アルティ,それにアルモニコ位しかこのレベルには近づけないと思います.

べートーヴェンの第13番は,最初この大フーガ付きで作曲されましたが,あまりに長大になるというので,別の楽章を書いていますが,今夜は元の大フーガ付きの演奏でした.             
第1楽章の序奏の導入がちょっと温和しすぎましたが,直ぐに調子を戻して,ソナタ形式の楽章を通して何度か反復されました.第2楽章はPresto でたいへん切迫感のある楽章です.  
第3楽章はAndante con moto, ma non troppo. Poco scherzoso とあって,ややくだけた感じのメロディが表現されていました.第4楽章も比較的短いブリッジ風の楽章でした.
第5楽章は,Cavatina. Adagio molto espressivo でバートーヴェンの弦楽四重奏曲全体を通しても,最も叙情味に溢れ,やや哀愁に満ちた美しく忘れがたい楽章です. 
大フーガは,3つのフーガからなる難解な曲で,ベートーヴェンと神との対話とも呼ばれるモノですが,4人の名手によってかなり掘り下げた演奏を聴かせてくれました.

たいへんな名演で鳴り止まぬ拍手に答えて,シューベルトの弦楽四重奏曲「断章」のフィナーレが丁寧に演奏されました.

たいへん充実した滅多に聴けないような演奏会でした.                                              

なお,アンコール曲の紹介に先立って,今年の夏に,ベルリン・フィルの首席ビオラ奏者清水直子さんを加えた弦楽五重奏の演奏会の紹介がありましたので,付言しておきます.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

トッパンホール:プレガルデイエン&シュタイアー詩と音楽 [音楽時評]

2月17日ルリストフ・プレガルデイエン(テノール),アンドレアス・シュタイアー(ピアノ)のシューマン・シューベルト歌曲集の夕べを聴きに行ってきました.

プログラムと使用楽器が予定から変更されて,プログラムは,                      第1部 シューマンの歌曲を集めて
ヨーゼフ・フォン・アイヒェンドルフの詩による歌曲
 楽しい旅人 Op.77-1/宝捜しの男 Op.45-1/春の旅 Op.45-2
5つのリート Op.40
 においすみれ/母親の夢/兵士/楽師/露見した恋
ハインリヒ・ハイネの詩による歌曲
 2人の擲弾兵 Op.49-1/海辺の夕暮れ Op.45-3/憎悪し合う兄弟 Op.49-2
N.レーナウの6つの詩による歌曲集と古いカトリックの詩によるレクイエム Op.90
 鍛冶屋の歌/ぼくのばら/出会いと別れ/牛飼いの娘/孤独/ものうい夕暮れ/レクイエム

第2部 シューベルト ゲーテの詩による歌曲集
竪琴弾きの歌 Op.12
 孤独にひたりこんでいるものは D478/涙を流しながらパンを食べたことのないひとたち D479/
 わたしは家の裏戸口にそっとしのび寄っては D480
5つのリート Op.5より
 トゥーレの王 D367/恋人のそばに D162/憩いない愛 D138/はじめての失恋 D226
Op.19より
 ガニュメデス D544/ミニョンに D161/御者クロノスに D369
で,使用楽器はフォルテ・ピアノの予定から,楽器が乾燥しきって調子が不安定という理由で,ピアノに変更されていました.

ただ,使用楽器はスタインウエイではなく,ベーゼンドルファーでしたから,全開になっていましたが,キンキンしたところがなく,いくらか穏やかな音だったのが幸いでした.

歌われた歌曲は,シューマンがアイヒェンドルフ,ハイネ,.レーナウの3人の詩による歌曲集をアンデルセン,ギリシャ民謡からの訳詞による歌曲,シューベルトはゲーテの詩による歌曲集 でした.
                                                               時代からいうとシューベルト,シューマンですが,今夜はシューマン,シューベルトの順でした.    基礎にバッハがあって,シューベルトがドイツ・リードの大家となり,2人の影響を受けてシューマンということだと思いますが,シューベルトがドイツ・リードの歌曲王といわれることからも,この順序が選ばれたのでしょう.

ドイツの歌手がドイツの有名な詩人による歌曲を歌い上げるのですが,残念ながら,歌詞対訳を追っても原語を追うのがやっとで,訳詞はチラとしか目に入りませんでした.                前に訳詞をテロップでステージに表示しているのをみながら聴いたことがありますが,そうした工夫の可能性も検討して貰いたいものです.

良く覚えている曲として,シューマンの「2人の擲弾兵」がありますが,プレガルデイエンの深みのあるリリックな歌唱を強く感じました.同じ事は,シューベルトの最後の「3つの歌」でもしみじみと感じさせられました.

たいへん清々しい,しかし深みのある歌唱を,ゆったりと楽しんだ一夜でした.若干の空席があったのが残念でしたが,NHK が録画に入っていましたから,ご関心がありながら聞き逃された方は,NHK の番組に少し注意されて,訳詞付きで歌唱を楽しまれるようにお奨めします.

 

 

 


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

オペラシティ:アンドラーシュ・シフ・ピアノ・リサイタル [音楽時評]

2月15日,オペラシティにハンガリーのピアニスト,アンドラーシュ・シフのリサイタルを聴きに行ってきました.3年ぶりの来日ですが,丁度,自分のご母堂と奥様の塩川悠子のご母堂が昨年末から今年初めにかけて亡くなられたそうで,その追悼に意を込めた演奏会と言うことでした.

今夜のプログラムはオール・シューベルトで,                                 楽曲の時 D780/op.94     第1曲から第6曲まで全6曲
即興曲集 D899/op.90     全4曲                                            ※※※※※※※※  
3つのピアノ曲集 D946(遺作) 
即興曲集 D935/op.142 全4曲 
でした.                              

率直に言って,私には楽しめませんでした.シフのピアノが個性的で,これらの小曲集をそれぞれ独立のソナタの意気込みで弾いていて,第1にテンポが遅く,第2に放っておいても曲が豊かに歌ってくれるものを,シフがさらにシフ風に歌わせようとするからです,第3には,高音部と低音部の音が渾然一体と鳴らないで,高音が軽やかなのに,低音が太く重いのです.

テンポの遅さを考えないでプログラミングされた故か,19時始まりで終了は21時半でした.

シフの個性は尊重したいと思いますが,遡って言えば,何よりもプログラミング・ミスではないでしょうか.初日が紀尾井ホールでバッハの平均律クラヴィーア曲集 第2巻,2日目がオペラシティでシューベルトの小品集,3日目が再び紀尾井ホールでベートーヴェンの後期ソナタ3曲,第30,31,32なのです.

初日と3日目を考えると,2日目に,シューベルトの後期ソナタ3曲,第18,19,20をやっていれば,シフの個性がもっと十二分に生かせたとのではなかったかと思うのです.そしてこの3曲なら十分にオペラシティを埋め尽くしたでしょう. 

 


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Deadline passes as Detroit Symphony strike continues [音楽時評]

Top 10 を自称するDetroit Symphony が,厳しい経済事情に直面して,給与カット;from $105,000 to $70,000. 提案を受けて,それではTop Class のmusicians が引き抜かれて質的低下を来すとして,給与カット = Quality 低下の招来 と昨年10月4日に strike に入って約5ヶ月が経って,2010~2011season のキャンセルを発表する期限,2011年2月11日が過ぎても,なおキャンセルの公表がないまま,直接ではなく仲介者を介した交渉が続いているそうです.

シーズンのキャンセルはオーケストラの破産に繋がる可能性がある訳ですが,カット幅は何とか内々に community program を織り込んで,$82,000 まで歩み寄ったようですが,未だ未だ要求と提案の幅があり過ぎて,なお内々の交渉が続いているそうです.                 
"We are currently in informal conversations with intermediaries, (but) the content of those discussions … remains far apart from our $34 million plus $2 million requirements." とオーケストラ側が説明しているそうです.

住民の声として,please help me understand. DSO musicians have been self producing concerts and have initiated community engagement since the strike began. What happens after the strike ends? Assuming you would continue this type of outreach, wouldn't you welcome $2 million extra dollars committed to this type of work? What does it matter how the funds are disbursed for this purpose?
Please know that I'm a very vocal and active supporter of arts in Detroit, but I think you've lost touch with your community and major shifts in how arts and culture do business. と次第に住民のサポートを失いつつあるようです.

Barring a cancellation announcement today, it stands to reason the two sides still are talking -- if even through an intermediary.  And that's better than nothing, which is what fans could be left with if the talks break down again.   と,このCritic は悲観論に傾いているように見受けられます.

 

Deadline passes as Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike continues without canceled season -- yet

Published: Saturday, February 12, 2011, 8:08 AM     Updated: Saturday, February 12, 2011, 1:44 PM
detroit-symphony-orchestra-strike-picket.jpg                                             Detroit Symphony Orchestra members walk a picket line at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit, Monday, Oct. 4, 2010.

Friday's contract deadline came and went, but management of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has not canceled the remaining season -- yet.

President Anne Parsons said last week the DSO likely would decide the fate of the season by Friday evening if striking musicians did not resume negotiations on a contract proposal submitted last week and reportedly rejected.

While no agreement has been reached, management indicated Friday evening that the two sides have resumed communications through intermediaries, but it does not appear the talks have been productive.

Feb. 11, Crains: "We have informed the board, staff, artists, sponsors and community partners that the DSO stands ready to cancel," said Elizabeth Weigandt, the DSO’s director of public relations.

"We are currently in informal conversations with intermediaries, (but) the content of those discussions … remains far apart from our $34 million plus $2 million requirements."

The symphony orchestra's long-term future -- not just this season -- hangs in the balance, as musicians and management have failed to reach consensus after more than four months of divisive talks and canceled concerts.

This, despite the growing threat of bankruptcy and the fact that both sides in January appeared poised to work with a compromise proposal drafted by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Carl Levin.

The strike began Oct. 4, when management unilaterally implemented a 30 percent pay cut in the face of a substantial deficit. For musicians, the cuts would have slashed base salaries from $105,000 to $70,000.

While aversion to such pay cuts is understandable, especially if the orchestra wants to retain and attract top-tier talent, the largest stumbling block that remains appears to make less sense. 

Management reportedly offered musicians a package including $34 million for salaries and benefits and an additional $2 million paid out for optional community outreach work, which, if completed, could mean first-year base salaries of around $82,000.

Musicians, however, want more of that optional $2 million as guaranteed base pay, hinting at "myopic stubbornness" that may hurt their credibility with supporters. But musicians point out they remain active in the community despite the strike, taking to the MLive.com comments section earlier this week to defend their efforts.

hornguy123: There are many misconceptions out there about education and community outreach as it relates to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. We, the musicians, have always done community outreach and education in many forms, both individually and with the DSO. Since the current management team has been here, we have done less and less. That is not our choice. We are not in any way opposed to community outreach.

If you have been following our own self-produced concerts, you have seen that we have been out in the community since September. Our thirteen concerts have been performed to large audiences in churches and schools throughout the Detroit metro area. As performers, we have been within a few feet of our audience and it has been as thrilling for us as it has been for them. Also we have talked with many, many supporters of classical music. We have been actively engaged with teachers, students and the community members about what they want from the DSO. And we believe that instead of imposing our own ideas or executives’ ideas about what should take place, our neighbors and supporters across the region know best about their needs. We respect their desires and urge the executives at the DSO to join us in providing real community outreach by making the full orchestra available as a vehicle for reaching and teaching a wider audience as well as the next generation of students becoming world-class musicians.

But that defense rang hollow with several readers, who questioned but did not receive a response as to why the musicians would oppose pay for optional work they are already doing.

skipperdee: hornguy, please help me understand. DSO musicians have been self producing concerts and have initiated community engagement since the strike began. What happens after the strike ends? Assuming you would continue this type of outreach, wouldn't you welcome $2 million extra dollars committed to this type of work? What does it matter how the funds are disbursed for this purpose?

Please know that I'm a very vocal and active supporter of arts in Detroit, but I think you've lost touch with your community and major shifts in how arts and culture do business. Our newspapers never fully recovered after their strike, which, like your's, occured at the brink of changes in how people receive and use news. Don't let this happen to our orchestra!

Barring a cancellation announcement today, it stands to reason the two sides still are talking -- if even through an intermediary.  And that's better than nothing, which is what fans could be left with if the talks break down again.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Andris Nelsons,New York Philharmonic [音楽時評]

昨年秋のVienna Phil 日本公演で,Esa-Pekka Salonen の来日キャンセルを受けて,その代役3人の1人に抜擢された Andris Nelsons は,たいへん好評を博しましたが,それもあって,今年の東京春祭に来日してオペラ,ローエングリーンの演奏会形式の公演を指揮する予定です. 

その32歳の rising sun がNew York Philharminy を  Avery Fisher Hall で指揮した音楽評が掲載されていましたので,ご紹介します.

まず,難曲ショスタコーヴィッチの第5交響曲を新鮮な感覚で聴かせたことが高く評価されています.It is hard for a technically adept conductor not to make a big impression with Shostakovich’s gripping Fifth Symphony. But it is just as hard for an interpretation of this well-known piece to stand out.

His keenly dramatic yet clear-headed approach brought welcome insights to Shostakovich’s sprawling score.

The charismatic Mr. Nelsons drew brilliant, richly textured playing from the Philharmonic. But the Shostakovich symphony presents psychological as well as musical challenges. It was composed in 1937 after an official Soviet condemnation of Shostakovich over the modernist decadence of his shocking opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.” The symphony represented the composer’s attempt, however forced, at rehabilitation. He described it as a lyric-heroic symphony that explored the sufferings and ultimate optimism of man. Many conductors hear the work as a veiled personal protest and plumb the score for bitter irony.

He conveyed the music’s ambiguity where it seems unmistakable, in the second movement, for example, which hovered here between a bucolic dance and a grotesquerie of a scherzo. The pensive slow movement was beautifully restrained. Mr. Nelsons took quick tempos in the wild finale, right through the blaring conclusion. Some conductors pull back here, so that the repeated notes in the high strings sound like head-pounding triumphalism. Mr. Nelsons and the musicians played it straight, and gloriously.

プログラムは,初めに,                                            Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, with Jonathan Biss,...He and Mr. Nelsons inspired each other to take chances.

この夜の好演から,Nelsons が Mr. Nelsons returns to the Metropolitan Opera next month to conduct Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” (after a successful 2009 debut in Puccini’s “Turandot”). To judge from the splendid playing of the Philharmonic on this night and the ovation from the audience, he should be coming back to this other prominent Lincoln Center podium.           とMetropolitan Opera でのチャイコフスキーの「スペードの女王」上演にも多大の期待を寄せています.

ほとんど原文中心になりましたが,あとはご自由にご渉猟下さい.                     それにしても,既にBerlin Phil の Simon Rattle の前任地のMusic Director の地位にある彼の優れた才能が,ますます楽しみです.

 

 

Music Review

A Visitor Arrives, Armed With a Sprawling Score

It is hard for a technically adept conductor not to make a big impression with Shostakovich’s gripping Fifth Symphony. But it is just as hard for an interpretation of this well-known piece to stand out.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times  
Andris Nelsons leading the New York Philharmonic in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall on Thursday.
Andris Nelsons, the dynamic 32-year-old Latvian conductor who is the music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, chose Shostakovich’s Fifth to conclude his debut program with the New York Philharmonic on Thursday night at Avery Fisher Hall. His keenly dramatic yet clear-headed approach brought welcome insights to Shostakovich’s sprawling score.

The charismatic Mr. Nelsons drew brilliant, richly textured playing from the Philharmonic. But the Shostakovich symphony presents psychological as well as musical challenges. It was composed in 1937 after an official Soviet condemnation of Shostakovich over the modernist decadence of his shocking opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.” The symphony represented the composer’s attempt, however forced, at rehabilitation. He described it as a lyric-heroic symphony that explored the sufferings and ultimate optimism of man. Many conductors hear the work as a veiled personal protest and plumb the score for bitter irony.

Mr. Nelsons took the piece at face value. In the first movement, a brooding Moderato that builds to shattering climaxes, he drew transparent playing from the Philharmonic, allowing the rigorous contrapuntal writing to come through with affecting presence.

He conveyed the music’s ambiguity where it seems unmistakable, in the second movement, for example, which hovered here between a bucolic dance and a grotesquerie of a scherzo. The pensive slow movement was beautifully restrained. Mr. Nelsons took quick tempos in the wild finale, right through the blaring conclusion. Some conductors pull back here, so that the repeated notes in the high strings sound like head-pounding triumphalism. Mr. Nelsons and the musicians played it straight, and gloriously.

The concert began with a lithe account of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, with Jonathan Biss, fresh from his Carnegie Hall recital debut, giving an elegant, fleet-fingered performance. He and Mr. Nelsons inspired each other to take chances.

Mr. Nelsons returns to the Metropolitan Opera next month to conduct Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” (after a successful 2009 debut in Puccini’s “Turandot”). To judge from the splendid playing of the Philharmonic on this night and the ovation from the audience, he should be coming back to this other prominent Lincoln Center podium.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

【短信】Muti がペース・メーカー装着 [音楽時評]

Chicago Symphony とショスタコーヴィッチの第5交響曲リハーサル中に失神して,指揮台からそのまま前に倒れ,顎や頬骨を骨折した Muti が,その手術を終えて,そもそもの発端となった失神の原因を精密検査した結果,Muti の心臓のペースに異常が見つかり,引き続き,心臓にペース・メーカー装着の手術を終えたそうです.

まだ,今後の予定,復帰の時期は未定で明確にされていませんが,ひとまず Muti の復活の見込みが立ち, Muti 自身もも復帰に意欲的なことで,シカゴ響や市民には朗報といえるでしょう.    

“I think it was destiny that I came to Chicago,” Muti concluded, “and I think what has happened is also destiny, because now I understand and feel more comfortable than ever about returning to my work.”

 

CSO’s Muti gets pacemaker

Story Image

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony last September before the new music director fell ill. | Tom Cruze~sun-times

The fall on Feb. 4 that left Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Riccardo Muti with multiple jaw and cheekbone fractures was caused by “a common heart rhythm disturbance,” cardiac specialists at Northwestern Memorial Hospital said in a statement on Thursday which was the first explanation on the underlying cause of his blackout and fall.

Doctors installed a pacemaker “to prevent possible future episodes of slow heart rate,” a procedure that they described as “standard.”

“Fortunately, the remainder of the maestro’s medical evaluation has revealed that he has superb heart function,” the doctors said.

Muti, 69, fell from the conductor’s podium during a rehearsal and has been at Northwestern since being taken there by emergency responders immediately after his accident. On Monday he had surgery to repair the injuries to his jaw and face that his surgeon described as “successful.”

Dr. David Lloyd-Jones, a Northwestern cardiologist, and Dr. Bradley P. Knight, director of cardiac electrophysiology at the hospital, said in the statement that pacemakers “are small devices (about the size of a silver dollar)” that monitor heart rhythms and can deliver a small charge to prompt a heart beat if the patient’s heart rate drops significantly.

“Patients with pacemakers live full and active lives with excellent prognosis,” the doctors’ statement said.

Spokeswomen for both the CSO and Northwestern said that they had no further information on other areas that night have been tested or on any other matters regarding Muti’s overall health. Nor could they say if there was any connection between this problem and the illness that caused Muti to cut short his conducting duties in September and return to Italy.

Dr. Alexis B. Olsson, the Northwestern dental surgeon who operated on Muti Monday, described him at a press briefing Tuesday as “strong” and unusually responsive to treatment “for a man of his age, or even younger.”

William A. Osborn, chairman of the CSO Association board, added, “The board, musicians and staff of the [CSO] completely stand behind Riccardo Muti, and we have made his recovery our top priority.

“I can say with certainty that the relationship between the CSOA and Maestro Muti is strong; he is an important part of our family. While health is a private and personal matter, we are grateful to Maestro Muti for allowing us to share his information with you.”

Muti was quoted as saying, “I am so grateful to all of you for your support, caring and words from your hearts to mine. I am so disappointed that I was not able to share in the music making by our great Orchestra these past weeks. In my rehearsals, the Orchestra sounded like angels, and I wanted so much to make music together with them.

“A music director’s relationship with his orchestra is like a marriage. Together, we are a family and we bond in times of joy and in times of challenge.

“I think it was destiny that I came to Chicago,” Muti concluded, “and I think what has happened is also destiny, because now I understand and feel more comfortable than ever about returning to my work.”


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

トッパンホール:シュタイヤーのゴールドベルク変奏曲 [音楽時評]

2月9日,トッパンホールにアンドレアス・シュタイヤーのチェンバロ独奏による「ゴールドベルク変奏曲」を聴きに行ってきました.曲名は,正式には,アリアと様々の変奏曲からなる2段の手鍵盤のチェンバロのための練習曲 (BWV 988)です.

この曲は,私のブログでは,ディナースティンのピアノ独奏で,武蔵野文化会館小ホールで聴いたモノを絶賛した報告を書いています.                                       演奏の難しさから長らく日の目を見なかったこの曲に一躍光を当てたのは,ワンダ・ランドフスカのチェンバロ演奏の録音でしたが,20世紀後半に,奇才グレン・グールドがピアノ演奏で録音し,その素晴らしさがいっそうこの曲を有名にした歴史があります.

始まりと終わりに同じアリアがあって,その間にほとんどト長調に統一された30の変奏曲が,1度から9度までの9つのカノンに区切られて最後の変奏グループは民謡を含んだクオドリペットで纏められて,30曲になるのです.                                             繰り返しを全然やらなければおよそ40分で終わりますが,丁寧に繰り返しを入れると90分に及びます.今夜は90分版でした.

たいへんこじんまりしたホールなのに,ちょっと耳が慣れるまでは少し音がもの足りませんでしたが,第3変奏曲くらいから,結構,豊かな響きに変わってきました.                       1曲,1曲をまことに丁寧に,表情豊かに弾いてくれましたから,全体としてはたいへん聴き応えがありました.                                                      ただ,2010年にこの曲のCDを出しているのですから,これだけ規則性を持った30の変奏曲と前後のアリアを,暗譜で弾くのはさして難しいことではなかったと思うのですが,チェンバロに譜面台を置いて,それを自分でめくりながら弾いていたのはいささか目障りでした.                  

今夜がシュタイアー・プロジェクトの5)ということですから,これからも彼の多彩な側面を知ることが出来るモノと期待します.

 

 


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

【短信】Muti の手術成功 [音楽時評]

Chicago Symphony Orchestra の公式発表で Muti の顔面手術成功をアナウンスしたモノをそのまま掲載します. 

引き続き,Muti が失神状態で卒倒した根本原因を検査するため,各種のテストを行うそうです.

 

Joint Statement from:
Deborah F. Rutter, President
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Alexis B. Olsson,
DDS, chief and associate clinical professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery
at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University’s
Feinberg School of Medicine

Re: Music Director Riccardo Muti
February 7, 2011, 5:30 p.m.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Riccardo Muti underwent successful surgery this morning at Northwestern Memorial Hospital to repair facial fractures sustained during a fall last week.

Alexis B. Olsson, DDS, chief and associate clinical professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, performed the surgery. “During surgery, screws and plates were placed to facilitate healing of the facial fractures. The upper and lower jaw have also been temporarily fixated using wires to stabilize the lower jaw during healing,” said Dr. Olsson.
“The surgery went extremely well and I’m pleased with the outcome; I anticipate that Maestro Muti will make a full recovery.”

“We would like to thank the doctors and staff of Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the care that they have provided to Maestro Muti,” added Deborah Rutter, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. “We would also like to thank the many individuals from Chicago and around the world that have expressed their well wishes for the Maestro. I can tell you that this tremendous outpouring has touched him deeply.”

Maestro Muti is currently recovering at Northwestern Memorial and continues to undergo testing to determine the cause of his fainting.
# # #
Press Contacts:
Raechel Alexander
Rachelle Roe


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Welser-Möst指揮Cleveland 管のUSツアー [音楽時評]

この音楽評の副題が From a Pizza Shop to Carnegie Hall と破天荒だったので取り上げました.

ご存知の通り,今年のアメリカは中西部から東部にかけて吹雪,豪雪に見舞われて,空路も大変なようです.Cleveland Orchestra は,2週間のアメリカ国内ツアーが雪に阻まれて,困難を極めたのですが.まず,started with a three-day residency at Indiana University で大雪に悩まされて,そこから脱出して温暖なフロリダで演奏会を開き,再び大雪のシカゴに向かったのですが,雪に阻まれてミシガン州の Ann Arbor で飛行機が泊まってしまい,シカゴをキャンセルする羽目になり,そこで ミシガン大学の学生達と混じって,Pizza Shop で小コンサートを開いたそうです.

the orchestra members joined the local chapter of The Classical Revolution, which plays chamber music every Wednesday night.                   three basses played an arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and other orchestra musicians performed the eloquent sounds of Mozart's horn quartet. World-renowned pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who performs with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall this weekend, played Brahms                         といいますから,なかなかのコンサートです.

私の個人的な大雪経験を書きますと,Boston に住んでいた私がテキサス大学のお招きでテキサス州の州都オースティンに向かったのですが,その日はアメリカ全体が大雪で,乗り換えたニューヨーク空港で飛行機の雪かきをやって滑走路に出ようと待機している間にもう翼に雪が溜まって,2度目の雪かきをやって,それからようやくオースティンに向けて飛び立ったのですが,途中で,操縦士が国内で許される飛行時間を超えてしまうからと,ニューオーリンズに降りてしまったのです.         やむなくジャズのメッカ,ニューオーリンズで一泊して,翌日は直行便がなくって,一旦ヒューストンに飛んで,そこで乗り換えてオースティンに,なんと東京に飛ぶより長い26時間かけてやっと到着した記憶があります.

余談が長くなりましたが,この音楽評は Ann Arbor からNew York に飛んで,Carnegie Hall でやった2公演をまとめて取り上げたモノです.

それは一口で言うと,the Carnegie concerts were notable for their restraint に尽きます.                                                         プログラムは,                                                 Debussy’s atmospheric “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,”  
Toshio Hosokawa’s “Woven Dreams,” 
Strauss’s “Heldenleben” (“Hero’s Life”)  
as an encore; “Träumerei am Kamin” from Strauss’s opera “Intermezzo.” 
以上,Friday Concert

Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” Overture                                                       Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor with Pierre-Laurent Aimard                Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.                                      no encore

総体として,the performance was superb. Joela Jones, the pianist; Paul Yancich, the timpanist; and Richard Weiner, the principal percussionist, gave strong performances, and Stephen Rose, the principal second violinist, made fine, evocative work of the weird slides in the Adagio. After this performance, as after the others, Mr. Welser-Möst dismounted from the podium quickly and took the applause from the stage floor with the players.

No successful conductor lacks ego, but Mr. Welser-Möst makes remarkably little show of it. The word restraint keeps coming to mind: a restraint that, in manner, can make him seem boyishly appealing if sometimes inscrutable; a restraint that, musically, can serve him so well in, say, taming the bluster of Bruckner but hardly at all, in my experience, in summoning the demons of Mahler.

と,指揮者,音楽監督のWelser-Möst (ウイーン国立オペラ音楽監督兼任)を restraint の人だと評して, a restraint that, musically, can serve him so well in, say, taming the bluster of Bruckner but hardly at all, in my experience, in summoning the demons of Mahler.  
と,Bruckner には抑制が向いているかも知れないが,Mahler の demons には向かないのではと評しています.

昨年,彼が Vienna Phil と Cleveland Orchestra を指揮した東京公演を聴いた私の感想も,きわめてこれに近かったことを想起しましたが,派手にオケを鳴らすのが主流の現代のクラシック界にあって,なかなかの逸材だとも考えるモノです.

 

 

Music Review

Orchestral Extremes: From a Pizza Shop to Carnegie Hall

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

The Cleveland Orchestra, led by Franz Welser-Möst, playing the second of two weekend concerts at Carnegie Hall.

The Cleveland Orchestra must have been champing at the bit when it arrived at Carnegie Hall on Friday evening for the first of two concerts that, along with a finale in Newark on Sunday, would end a two-week American tour. The players and their music director, Franz Welser-Möst, started with a three-day residency at Indiana University, then escaped the Midwestern snows for balmy Florida, only to plunge back into the blizzards. Instead of moving on to Chicago, where they were to have performed in the venerable Symphony Center on Wednesday, they remained stranded in Ann Arbor, Mich., where several of the players joined a jam session in a pizza joint.

Yet the Carnegie concerts were notable for their restraint. The Friday program opened with Debussy’s atmospheric “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” with the insinuating flute solo gorgeously played by Joshua Smith. Then came Toshio Hosokawa’s “Woven Dreams,” commissioned by the orchestra, Carnegie Hall and the Lucerne Festival.

This work is the very definition of restraint, inspired, Mr. Hosokawa, 55, writes, by “a dream that I was in my mother’s womb.” Accordingly, the music is static and subdued, based on a simple melody and its organic growth into a more complex form. But not much more complex: the music remains innocuous and uneventful until the surge of the climactic event, what Mr. Hosokawa calls “the exit.”

Mere hours later it was hard to remember much about the music, though, in fairness, part of what obliterated it was a resounding performance of Strauss’s “Heldenleben” (“Hero’s Life”) after intermission. Here the wraps were finally off.

The orchestra gloried in the work’s brilliant and kaleidoscopic sonorities and produced powerful heft, with shining woodwinds and brasses, without letting the sound turn blowsy. William Preucil, the concertmaster, performed the violin solos beautifully as well as playing an obvious role in keeping the whole spectacle together. Not that Mr. Welser-Möst needed much help with a band clearly responsive to his every gesture.

But unlike many another conductor, Mr. Welser-Möst never seemed — to paraphrase Carly Simon — to think this song was about him. Strauss’s hero was Strauss, not the conductor, and Mr. Welser-Möst seemed content to put the brush strokes assiduously in place as the grand canvas unfolded.

Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” Overture, which opened the concert on Saturday, had much the same feel. Again the playing was brilliant, especially in the strings, with fluid cascades and incandescent tremolos. Mr. Welser-Möst’s detailed care for dynamic shadings was reflected in playing of mercurial shifts and subtleties.

A Wagner recording by Mr. Welser-Möst, the orchestra and the soprano Measha Brueggergosman, released last year by Deutsche Grammophon, seemed oddly lightweight and uninvolved. There was no such problem here.

Then this program reversed the order of the previous night, moving from grandiosity to restraint. Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor is not a work that flaunts virtuosity on the part of either soloist or orchestra. But it does reward it, and the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s contribution was an ideal fit with the Cleveland ethic. Without being at all flamboyant and despite some finger slips, his playing projected an understated brilliance well matched by the orchestra’s.

The program ended unconventionally, with a work for a sharply reduced orchestra, Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. What kind of conductor wouldn’t want to end a tour stand in a blaze of woodwinds and brasses? And what kind of encore can you do without them? (There was none; the encore on Friday was the “Träumerei am Kamin” from Strauss’s opera “Intermezzo.”)

Be that as it may, the performance was superb. Joela Jones, the pianist; Paul Yancich, the timpanist; and Richard Weiner, the principal percussionist, gave strong performances, and Stephen Rose, the principal second violinist, made fine, evocative work of the weird slides in the Adagio. After this performance, as after the others, Mr. Welser-Möst dismounted from the podium quickly and took the applause from the stage floor with the players.

No successful conductor lacks ego, but Mr. Welser-Möst makes remarkably little show of it. The word restraint keeps coming to mind: a restraint that, in manner, can make him seem boyishly appealing if sometimes inscrutable; a restraint that, musically, can serve him so well in, say, taming the bluster of Bruckner but hardly at all, in my experience, in summoning the demons of Mahler.

Here, for two evenings, it seemed just the ticket.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

ムーティ が シカゴでリハーサル中に卒倒 [音楽時評]

昨年のシカゴ交響楽団の新シーズン冒頭の2週間のコンサートをキャンセルしてイタリアで療養したリッカルド・ムーティが,2月のスケジュール通りにシカゴに帰って来ていたのですが,ショスタコーヴィッチの交響曲第5番のリハーサル中に突然指揮台から前に倒れ込み,意識を失っていたのか手をつかずに顔から落ちたため,顎の骨を骨折して救急車で入院したそうです.

顎の手術は7日の予定で,問題はなさそうですが,何故,不意に倒れ込んだかの精密検査を受けるそうです.現在は,順調で,会話は出来ているといいます.

取りあえず,スト中のDetroit Symphony の音楽監督 Leonard Slatkin が代役に立つそうですが,内田光子が Muti 指揮で 協奏するはずだったシューマンのピアノ協奏曲を,内田光子が指揮者を兼ねたモーツアルトのピアノ協奏曲第21番に変更されるそうです.

当面は Slatkin と内田光子に救われましたが,これから先の Muti の健康面がたいへん懸念されているところだそうです.とりわけ,Feb. 17-19 には, "Muti Conducts Brahms" concerts がスケジュールされており,それがどう埋められるかが難題のようです.

 

February 3, 2011, 5:30 pm

Riccardo Muti Collapses During Rehearsal

Riccardo Muti, the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, collapsed during a rehearsal on Thursday and struck his head in the fall, orchestra officials said.

Mr. Muti, 69, was taken to the hospital and was undergoing tests. He was treated for a gash to his jaw, said Mary Lou Falcone, a spokeswoman for the orchestra. He is “stable and talking,” Ms. Falcone said.

A member of the orchestra said Mr. Muti appeared in fine condition during the morning rehearsal. “He was making jokes,” said the musician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because orchestra management had urged discretion. “He was his normal jovial self up until this moment in the third movement of the Shostakovich symphony,” the Fifth, the musician said.

“He fell straight forward off the podium, in a way that you only do when you’re quasi-conscious. He didn’t put his hands out to break his fall or anything. It was a very alarming moment, as you can imagine,” the orchestra member said.

The player said a number of orchestra members rushed to help Mr. Muti as others called 911. They turned him on his back and checked his vital signs. The conductor left the hall in an ambulance.

Mr. Muti, heavily recruited by the Chicago Symphony and received in the city with great fanfare, also missed two weeks of his inaugural season in the fall because of stomach pains caused by what he later said were exhaustion and stress.

Leonard Slatkin, the conductor and music director of the striking Detroit Symphony Orchestra, was called on to step in for Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s concerts. The pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who was to have played the Schumann Concerto under Mr. Muti, will instead play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, which she will also conduct.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

Carnegie Hall:リスト生誕200年記念リサイタル [音楽時評]

いくつか前のブログで見ますと,ショパンもリストも10大作曲家には入っていませんが,それでも昨年はショパンが盛大な祭典になっていましたが,今年のリストは日本ではどうなのでしょうか.結構,技術的に難しい曲が多いようですから,ショパンの賑わいは期待できないのでしょうか.         リストは現在はオールストリア領となっている元ハンガリーの出身で,本人はドイツで長く活躍しましたが,自身はハンガリー人と考えていたそうです.ハンガリー狂詩曲集は彼の代表作品の1つです.

序でですが,10大作曲家では,Verdy と Wagner が2人とも1813年生まれですから,再来年はちょっと大変ですね.オペラ・フアンには堪らないいい年になりそうですが,ことによると両派に分かれるのかも知れませんね.

Carnegie Hall がいち早くリスト年を記念して,フランス・リヨン生まれの Jean-Yves Thibaudet のピアノ・リサイタルを開催したそうです.Jean-Yves Thibaudet は,                              “Consolations” (second version)                                  “Les Jeux d’Eaux à la Villa d’Este” (“The Fountains at the Villa d’Este”)    “Deux Légendes”—“St. François d’Assise: La Prédication aux Oiseaux” (“St.             Francis of Assisi: The Sermon to the Birds”)                          “St. François de Paule Marchant sur les Flots” (“St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Waters”                                                                                      “Meine Freuden” from “Chants Polonais”                                              Ballade No. 2 in B minor                                           arrangement of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,
Tarantella from “Venezia e Napoli,”     
アンコールとして,
List,“Cloche Sonne”   
“Prélude Pathétique,” by Shura Cherkassky, a Russian pianist who died in 1995; and Brahms’s Intermezzo in A (Op. 118, No. 2).                        を見事なテクニックで名演奏したようです.

the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet offered elegant interpretations of a range of Liszt pieces とあります.                                            今年50歳の Thibaudet は,非常にレパートリーの広い人で,リストも得意としているようです.彼については,ヴィルトゥオーソの伝統を汲む超絶技巧のピアニストだが、メカニックな演奏技巧のやみくもな披瀝に終わることなく、作曲者の意図の再現のために、理想の音響を実現するための熟考を重ね、さまざまな奏法の巧みな使い分けや、音色に対する繊細な配慮が演奏から伺われる という高い評価があります.

リストはまことに多面的な人で,a virtuoso who wrote flamboyant music that was entertaining but rarely profound. He was undeniably a showman, a 19th-century rock star who seduced his female fans with his jaw-dropping technique. But he was also a devout Roman Catholic who renounced his socialite lifestyle for a brief stint in a monastery,                                        ということで,宗教的な作品も数多く作曲しています.また,                         Liszt did much to popularize orchestral and vocal music of the day, producing hundreds of transcriptions for the piano, including a heartfelt arrangement of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” given a full-blooded and sensitive performance here. とオペラや交響曲をピアノ用に数多く編曲しており,ベートーヴェンの交響曲全9曲のピアノ編曲は有名です.

この夜の最初の2曲では,That work influenced the French Impressionist composers with its evocation of rippling water, an example of Liszt’s painterly gifts.      とリストの美術家としての才能を示したもので,フランスの印象主義的な作曲に大きな影響を及ぼしたとあります.

この夜のThibaudet の演奏は技巧的に素晴しかったようで,2つの伝説を弾いた時には,最後の音が終わらないうちから,アンコールがわき起こったといいます.                         3曲のアンコールは,そうした聴衆の熱狂に応えたものということでしょう.

日本でもいわば全盛期のThibaudet の演奏をぜひ聴きたいと感じされる評論です.

 

Music Review

Liszt, the Chick Magnet, Tickled Ivories and More

Liszt is sometimes remembered as a purveyor of pianistic bling, a virtuoso who wrote flamboyant music that was entertaining but rarely profound. He was undeniably a showman, a 19th-century rock star who seduced his female fans with his jaw-dropping technique. But he was also a devout Roman Catholic who renounced his socialite lifestyle for a brief stint in a monastery, a compositional rehab during which he wrote sacred choral works and piano scores with religious themes.

Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

Jean-Yves Thibaudet performing at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday.

Liszt, a forward-thinking composer who experimented with harmony and form, also pioneered the modern solo recital format. At Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet offered elegant interpretations of a range of Liszt pieces, part of Carnegie’s celebration of the composer’s bicentennial this year.

Mr. Thibaudet began the program with refined performances of the “Consolations” (second version) and “Les Jeux d’Eaux à la Villa d’Este” (“The Fountains at the Villa d’Este”). That work influenced the French Impressionist composers with its evocation of rippling water, an example of Liszt’s painterly gifts.

Those gifts are also resplendent in Liszt’s “Deux Légendes” — “St. François d’Assise: La Prédication aux Oiseaux” (“St. Francis of Assisi: The Sermon to the Birds”) and “St. François de Paule Marchant sur les Flots” (“St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Waters”).

Mr. Thibaudet played with impressive virtuosity; the audience began applauding before he had even finished the second “Légende.” In these works and elsewhere, he performed with passion and color, while cleanly articulating the voices that emerge through the thickets of notes.

The program also included two pieces inspired by Chopin, “Meine Freuden” from “Chants Polonais” and the Ballade No. 2 in B minor, in which Liszt’s bombastic side is on full display.

Liszt did much to popularize orchestral and vocal music of the day, producing hundreds of transcriptions for the piano, including a heartfelt arrangement of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” given a full-blooded and sensitive performance here.

The concert finished on an explosive note with a dazzling rendition of the Tarantella from “Venezia e Napoli,” which illuminates Liszt’s florid side with an avalanche of arpeggios, trills and gaudy cadenzas.

The enthusiastic audience was rewarded with poised renditions of three introspective encores: Liszt’s “Cloche Sonne”; “Prélude Pathétique,” by Shura Cherkassky, a Russian pianist who died in 1995; and Brahms’s Intermezzo in A (Op. 118, No. 2).


nice!(1)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

武蔵野文化小ホール: 楽しいルッツ・オルガン・リサイタル [音楽時評]

2月4日,武蔵野文化会館小ホールにスイス生まれのルドルフ・ルッツ・オルガン・リサイタルを聴きに行ってきました.歴史的即興演奏法の名手といわれる人です.

プログラムは,クロス・オーバーを地で行ったもので,                            ビートルズ:『レット・イット・ビー』のテーマに基づく即興                                マッテソン:ハンブルグ大聖堂オルガニスト採用試験課題
           Ⅰ.移調を伴う前奏曲,  Ⅱ.聖歌に基づくフーガ(半音階対旋律を伴って) 
       Ⅲ.聖歌に基づくパルティータ,  Ⅳ.パッサカリア(バス声部上の)    
 
           ※※※※※※※※    
メンデルスゾーン: コラール「血潮したたる主のみかしら」に基づくソナタ ニ短調(ルッツ補完)  
与えられたテーマによる即興 
という異色のプログラムでした

まずビードルズを古楽器というべきオルガンでかなり自由に弾きまくって,オルガンの持つ現代性を最初から実感させてくれました.

マッテソンでは,「移調を伴う前奏曲」で,アシスタントが客席を回って,長調と短調の色違いの紙を選んで貰ったのですが,丁度対になる長調,短調が選ばれて,反って長調と短調の違いが鮮明に弾き分けられていました.Ⅱ,Ⅲ,Ⅳでは,時に歌を交えてオルガンが演奏されて,聴衆の理解を助けていました.

メンデルスゾーンでは,未完に終わった曲だったようで,途中からルッツが補完した部分が,ちゃんとアナウンスされて,無理なく一体性を保っていました.

最後に与えられたテーマは,日本の歌曲3曲から聴衆の挙手で2曲が選ばれたのですが,「雪」「桜」が選ばれて,これらがいかにも重厚なオルガンに乗せて演じられ,ここでもオルガンの現代性を実感しました.

アンコールにブラームスの「子守歌」が綺麗に演奏されました.

とにかくオルガンの即興演奏の楽しさを満喫させる素敵な演奏会でした.


nice!(0)  コメント(0)  トラックバック(0) 
共通テーマ:音楽

この広告は前回の更新から一定期間経過したブログに表示されています。更新すると自動で解除されます。