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Brahms, Leipzig Gewandhaus and Riccardo Chailly in Paris : delightful classicism
For this series of concerts by the legendary Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Pleyel concert hall was unusually crowded. Riccardo Chailly has been the orchestra’s conductor since 2005, and his contract has been renewed through 2020. The program was classical to the core: yet again in Paris, Brahms’s full cycle of symphonies and concertos. However, when they are played as they were here, we can only ask for more. Brahms played by ...
Clefs d’Or ResMusica « Gold Keys » : The Winners 2013
Each month ResMusica awards five Clefs ResMusica to recognize outstanding publications of albums, videos and books. Since 2009, selected recipients of these Clefs ResMusica have been awarded the Clefs d’Or ResMusica (Gold Key, Master Key Awards), acknowledging outstanding releases of the year. The Winners 2013 : Master Key Penderecki by Penderecki : the symphonies Krzysztof Penderecki’s symphonies had already been issued separately: now they have all been gathered together in a box set called The ...
The Magic Flute in London: drama, music and magic
In the program at the opening of The Magic Flute in London, director Simon McBurney recounts a rehearsal, explaining at the same time the ideas driving his direction of the work: “and suddenly I know . . . that if I am lost in the unpredictable turbulence of this opera which is not an opera, but a stage play, then I shall make the music my compass. Listening to the ...
Mikhail Baryshnikov’s new life as an actor
Robert Wilson’s new show involves extraordinary acting parts for both Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, in a stage version of a Russian novel by Daniil Kharms. The Old Woman becomes a two-part/two-voice text, performed by the two narrator-actors, in Russian (his mother tongue) for Baryshnikov, and in English for Dafoe. For an hour and a half, the two white-faced clowns chosen by Wilson perform in a wide gamut of styles ...
Finnish Independence Day Concert
Although performances of Finnish music in Finland are frequent, the repertoire is generally restricted to Sibelius or other living composers, such as the "big three" of Lindberg, Salonen, and Saariaho. Every year on 6 December, which is Finland's independence day, Helsinki audiences are given the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon of Finnish orchestral music. This annual independence day concert sometimes features composers who have largely been forgotten. This year's program began ...
The ICMA 2014 nomination list is available
The ICMA 2014 nomination list is available. The winners will be announced early in 2014. “This list comprises all the initial choices submitted by at least two Jury members and clearly reflects the international character of our Awards. The list comprises 264 CD and DVD releases of a total of 94 labels, up from 86 competing in 2013″, said ICMA President Rémy Franck. With 18 nominations, the French label Harmonia Mundi is ...
Daniil Trifonov, pianist
"The sculptures of Rodin made one of the strongest impressions on me" ResMusica: At only 22, you are celebrated by musical critics and influent artists such as Martha Argerich, recorded with Gergiev and the Mariinsky orchestra, signed with Decca and now Deutsche Gramophon, did you think this possible when you were 15? Do you keep your focus despite this new celebrity? Daniil Trifonov: At 15, I was still in Moscow and ...
Christian Tetzlaff plays Shostakovich second violin concerto
While the first violin concerto of Shostakovich is firmly established in the 20th-century violin repertoire, performances of his second violin concerto are considerably less frequent. Perhaps this is due to the latter work's more introverted stance, its greater depth of emotion, and its bitter and sometimes vulgar sarcasm. Christian Tetzlaff was the soloist in tonight's performance, and, as expected, he displayed complete control over the solo part. One noticeable aspect of ...
Los Angeles : The Magic Flute in silent film style
This Flute, which first we watch, with ever-widening eyes, for we proceed from good to excellent surprises, then we hear…is especially noteworthy, as you may have guessed, because of the unique, often staggering reinterpretation by the Berlin theatre troupe, “1927,” (Suzanne Andrade) and Barrie Kosky, the Australian director, in the throes of euphoria. An audacious reinterpretation, embellished by the breathtaking animation of Paul Barritt. Of course, Mozart suffers a bit…but ...
Denève conducts Britten, Roussel and Ravel
22 November 2013 is the precise day when the British composer Benjamin Britten would have turned 100 years old. To celebrate the occasion, the first half of the evening’s program was focused on his music, with the second half turning to music from early-twentieth century France. The program opened with an extract from what is arguably Britten’s most famous work, the opera Peter Grimes. Taking place in the middle of Act ...
Rare flute concertos by Loïc Schneider
Like Sakari Oramo, Susanna Mälkki, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, among others, Jan Söderblom is another talented Finnish conductor whose career began as an instrumentalist. In this concert, Söderblom led the Tapiola Sinfonietta from the concertmaster’s chair in a highly varied program for string orchestra. The opening piece of the program was the most challenging for both performers and audiences. Despite being the first work he composed for orchestral forces, Pettersson’s Concerto No. ...
Zhenyu Zeng, Director of the China Europe Youth Orchestra
"We need musicians for orchestras, we don’t need so many soloists." ResMusica: How have you been introduced to classical music? Zhenyu Zeng : When I was 16 I was a professional opera singer for a theatre company, but the director of advised me that I should not waste my time. The reason was that Chinese opera did not have support from the government, there was only two productions performed per year but ...
Trisha Brown’s Living Repertoire in Paris
The Trisha Brown Dance Company devoted its first night in Paris to a focus on cinema, beginning with For M.G.: The Movie, a 1991 tribute to Michel Guy, Secretary of State for Culture and head of the Festival d’Automne. On a richly evocative soundtrack (featuring the sounds of a roaring engine, a freighter ready to leave port, and Indians in a trance state, among other things), the dancers move with ...
Allan Pettersson by Lindberg, a historic milestone like Mahler by Bernstein ?
In his famous television series Young People's concert, Leonard Bernstein devoted one show in 1960 to the Austrian composer with this revealing title "Who is Gustav Mahler?". Speaking to his young audience that filled the Carnegie Hall, Bernstein asks: "Has any one of you ever heard of him? I'll bet not, or only very few of you." Mahler was played - more than Pettersson today - but he was still ...
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 ...
