English
In Budapest, the Franz Liszt Academy reopens
The Franz Liszt Academy, built by architects Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl in 1907, is the major Hungarian conservatory (music school?), but it also includes several concert halls, among them the Grand Hall and the Chamber Hall. Its restoration, mostly paid for by the European Union (14 million euros), gives back all its lustre to this building, both academic/eclectic in its bulk and Art Nouveau/fin de siècle in his details ...
Penderecki by Penderecki : the symphonies
Krzysztof Penderecki’s symphonies had already been issued separately: now they have been all gathered together in a box set called The Complete Symphonies. In fact, the set includes only seven of the eight: the sixth, which is supposed to be an hommage to nature, a kind of Polish “Pastorale,” is not yet finished. These monumental works have been composed across thirty years of a life dedicated to composing, and their ...
The Grand Théâtre de Genève revives Ernest Reyer’s Sigurd
Genevans had not heard Ernest Reyer's Sigurd for a century, since its last performance was during the 1911–2 season. It has often been described as a matching piece to Wagner's Twilight of the Gods, because of the many similarities between their respective libretti (both are taken from the Nibelungen epic, Sigurd's being more centered on the Edda) as well as their lengths (four hours of music). Yet, when he started ...
La Vestale resurrected at the Théâtre des Champs-élysées
Paris had to wait for 160 years to see again La Vestale, a masterpiece from the First Empire, the missing link between the French lyric tragedy and the Romantic opera, and a hymn to the glory of Napoleon I. Its sheer inspiration has never been translated well onto the CD support, except for Maria Callas, but the sound recording was all too uncertain. Thus, I was eager to see this Vestale ...
Christian Lindberg performs Pettersson Symphonies 4 & 16 in Norrköping
The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra has a long history of performing and recording the still relatively unknown Swedish composer, Allan Pettersson (1911-80). This began in the late 1970s with Okko Kamu’s blistering rendition of the Symphony No. 6, followed by a series of BIS recordings with Leif Segerstam in the 1990s, and continuing now with the ever-energetic Christian Lindberg. In this concert Lindberg conducted both the Symphony No. 16 and 4, ...
Arthur Nestrovski, artistic director of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra
« We are very much part of your world !» ResMusica: What caused the energetic development of the São Paulo Symphony in the last decade, with conductors such as John Neschling and recently Marin Alsop? Arthur Nestrovski: This European tour celebrates the 60th anniversary of the orchestra. It had a lots of ups and downs - mostly downs - until 1997. Then John Neschling became music director and chief conductor and this ...
Tribute to Patrice Chéreau (1944-2013)
No one could have guessed, attending Elektra last summer at the Aix-en-Provence festival, that it would be Patrice Chéreau’s swan song. Lung cancer finally took him from us on Monday, October 7. Chéreau was a surprising person, surfing on the waves of May ’68 to reassert again and again his left-wing engagement, his homosexuality, and his fight against intolerance. A natural heir to Berthold Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Orson Welles, and Jean ...
The Zermatt Festival, edition 2013
The Zermatt Festival and its academy (summer school) are held in the famous Swiss ski resort of the same name in the Alps, partly at the instigation of the resident Scharoun Ensemble (who won an International Classical Music Award in 2012 in the chamber music category), which was founded by and is still made up of soloists from the Berlin Philharmonic. Founded in 1983, the Scharoun enjoys collaborating with young musicians ...
Exceptional opening for Musica’s 30th edition in Strasbourg
Musica celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, and for this special occasion Jean-Dominique Marco concocted a rich and ambitious program, inviting such ensembles as Accroche-Note, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Linea, and Recherche, and artists such as Pierre Boulez, Pascal Dusapin, and Philippe Manoury, who have been part of the festival since its first season. But this year, there is also some room for sound art and musique concrète, with the long-awaited appearance of ...
Alexandre Tansman looks back to help France look at itself
Alexandre Tansman's autobiography Regards en arrière (Looking Back) covers his life from his Polish childhood in the 1890s to his discovery of Israel at the end of the 1950s. It is a striking illustration of the deep gash that World War II left in our era, throughout society and in music as well. Both the 1920s and the 1930s appear to belong to a bygone age, whereas the scars left ...
Beethovenfest Bonn: Fidelio in a Sturm und Drang version
Many years have passed, but Rocco, an old, retired jailer, remembers. He remembers an extraordinary young man, although he was not a young man: his son-in-law, Fidelio, who turned out to be a woman, Leonore. And he remembers Florestan, the prisoner, a victim of the arbitrary power of his boss, Don Pizarro. Owing to his lack of courage, even he had refused to give Florestan a chunk of bread, he, ...
Krystian Zimerman celebrates Lutosławski’s anniversary in Warsaw
This year we celebrate the hundredth birthday of Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, and his compatriot Krystian Zimerman returned to Poland to play his Concerto for Piano as part of the Warsaw Autumn festival. He premiered and recorded the concerto under Lutosławski’s supervision a quarter of a century ago, and the piece was dedicated to him. Two decades later, Zimerman has gained a whole new understanding of this work. Back then, the ...
Paul Daniel takes the reins in Bordeaux
Paul Daniel made a curious choice for his first concert as musical director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine: a Purcell–Mahler pairing, which started with a funeral service and ended with a mystical prayer about the meaning of life. A more optimistic program might have been more appropriate, but, regardless of the works chosen, the musical result of the evening promises a bright future for the ONBA and its new conductor. The ...
The Moritzburg Festival’s twentieth anniversary: the German Marlboro
In 1993, violonist Kai Vogler and cellists Jan Vogler and Peter Burns were looking for a place in Saxony where they could hold a music festival on the model of the Marlboro Festival in the United States. Indeed, these musicians had played there and had very much liked the atmosphere and the concept behind that festival, located in bucolic Vermont. In the end, they chose the Moritzburg Castle, a masterpiece ...
Valentina Lisitsa, the pianist 2.0
“I don’t count my time, I don’t have a private life” ResMusica: Universal France promotes you as “the pianist 2.0”, which means a pianist which interacts with her audience. Do you like it? Valentina Lisitsa: I saw that! In London for some reasons they promoted me as the “Justin Biber of classical music”. I was first amused, and then horrified. We may have the same career, but do they expect me ...
Francesco Cavalli’s Elena, the lyrical discovery of Aix
At last! After a remarkable - albeit not very lyrical - premiere (The House Taken Over), a poor Rigoletto, a Don Giovanni with a dubious cast, the Aix festival eventually rose to the level it should always reach. Lifted by a young and talented cast, inventive staging, and exceptional musical conducting, the Elena by Francesco Cavalli was the welcome surprise of the 2013 festival. In the direct line of Venetian opera—of ...
Baroque musique goes green in Périgord
You are fond of baroque music and dream of smelling the fresh scent of green grass out in countryside? If so, the Festival Itinéraire (the Itinerary Festival) in the green Périgord is made for you. Thanks to the initiative of organist and conductor Ton Koopman, the festival offers an array of baroque repertory over the course of a long weekend, including both well-known and less well known works, in local ...
Verdi and Wagner celebrated in Verbier
There was a spectacular cast for this concert, a tribute to the two-hundredth anniversary of the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Occupying the whole area from downstage to upstage, the entire Verbier Festival Orchestra along with the Collegiate Chorale left only a narrow strip of space on the forestage for the soloist to sing. As soon as Otello begins, Valery Gergiev unleashes an orchestral storm. The orchestra is superb ...
Québec: La Damnation de Faust, in an astonishing staging
The Québec Opera Festival has attained a new level of achievement, offering festival attendees a work reputed to be difficult, and which usually does not attract many people to the concert hall, even during a regular opera season. The premiere of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust took place before a sold-out house. And you can bet that subsequent performances will likewise enjoy full houses. Surely, this is the best production ...
The Elektra-shock in Aix
The shock begins with the opening chords. The Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, explodes. Tonight, the violence contained in Strauss’ work is magnified, the orchestra gives its best, and the volume reaches a peak. Only seconds into the opera, we already know that the night will be fantastic. And fantastic it was. Beside the orchestra, which was excellent, the casting was finally worthy of an international festival. Evelyn Herlitzius ...
Pierre Boulez, composer and conductor
« That is an exceptional moment in my musical life ; I’m happy this recording has been kept. » ResMusica : You have recorded the Rite of the Spring many times. Which version is your favourite one ? Pierre Boulez : The one we made with the Cleveland Orchestra, the first version with CBS. We had played the Rite upon a tour in some small cities in the USA. We had security ...
San Francisco’s Tales of Hoffman is Right on Target with Natalie Dessay
Let’s be clear right from the start: the joint effort of Barcelona, San Francisco and Lyon, vocally powerful in this production, is right on target. Because quite simply, precise, explicit, slimmed-down, fast-paced--in a word, successful--it unquestionably achieves its goal. No use rehashing the libretto’s history or the structure of these Tales. That would be opening too large a can of worms. Happily, our colleague Catherine Scholler has deciphered the puzzle ...
‘Label of the Year’ Audite celebrates its 40th Anniversary
ICMA’s ‘Label of the Year 2013′ Audite celebrated it’s 40th anniversary yesterday in Berlin. With music performed by Audite artists ‘Mandelring Quartett’ and ‘Klavierduo Bard’ the official celebration consisted essentially in the presentation of several upcoming birthday editions confirming the label’s outstanding artistic achievement. Audite was founded in 1973 by Friedrich Mauermann. The creation took place at a period when the music market was dominated by the so called major labels ...
ICMA Trophy for Pierre Boulez
In his IRCAM office in Paris, French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez received the ICMA trophy for the CD set ‘Ballets Russes’ on Melodiya. In this recording Boulez is conducting the Moscow Conservatory Orchestra in Stravinsky’s ‘Petrouchka’. The set is the 2013 winner in the category ‘Historical Recordings’. Since Pierre Boulez was not able to attend the ICMA Ceremony in Milan, on 18 March, Melodiya arranged a delayed award presentation for ...
Julia Fischer and Vasily Petrenko: phenomenal!
This concert, starring violinist Julia Fischer and conductor Vasily Petrenko tackling two masterpieces of Russian music (namely Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 4) looked very promising. And indeed, it was sold out for a few weeks before the performance. These high expectations were met, and both musicians gave the audience and an energized Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France a concert that will be long remembered. For those who ...
Julia Fischer, violonist
“Making music together is about trust: you open yourself in a way you would not do in a normal relationship” ResMusica: You perform with David Zinman and Esa Pekka-Salonen, two conductors who think hard about how to bring new generations to classical music. Do you share their interest? Julia Fischer : I love to teach. With two kids at home it’s a responsibility. Every year, the week of New Year, I ...
La Passion de Simone by Kaija Saariaho
In 2006, Kaija Saariaho takes a French topic with a universal appeal on again, on a booklet by Amin Maalouf. La Passion de Simone, an oratorio for solo soprano, choir, orchestra and electronics, which caption is : « A musical path in fifteen stations», received its premiere in Vienna, on the 26th of November 2006 with a staging by Peter Sellars, and Susanna Malkki was the conductor. That day Simone ...
American masterworks by Bo Holten, the best introduction to Delius
Frank Delius’s enthusiasts often come up against the same questions: how to help his music to get played, which pieces to put forward so we can hear it again in concert halls? His work sings of love, sensuality, nature, and deals with serious, timeless, deeply touching themes such as racism (in Koanga) and the loss of the beloved (in Sea Drift). One of the reasons Delius is not very well-known today ...
