The Hong Kong Philharmonic turns light entertainment into high artistic accomplishment
April 9th, 2011 Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall Rameau Dardanus suite Mozart Così fan tutte: Una donna a quindici anni Le nozze di Figaro: Giunse alfin il momento…Deh vieni non tardar Così fan tutte: Temerari, sortite…Come scoglio Exsultate Jubilate, K165 Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D, op 36 Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Jan Willem de Vriend Soprano Mara Mastalir Giving its concert on April 9th the subtitle “Sing Mozart Sing” and promoting it with a tongue-in-cheek portrait of the mischievous genius with his mouth half open in a wry smile, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra probably intended the audience to expect an evening of cheerful and light entertainment. The programming suited this intention down to a tee. Progressing from the baroque to the classical, it was chronologically correct, and temperamentally appropriate. Opening the concert was a rarely heard work by French baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, the suite from his opera Dardanus. Although the opera itself is a tragedy, replete with mythological deities in acts of war, the suite consists of bright and jolly dances. Conductor Jan Willem de Vriend applied a light touch well suited to the dainty elegance of the music, and the orchestra responded well with a fresh and vibrant tone. The eight sections of the suite vary greatly in tempo and rhythm, and the orchestra handled the changes in pace with confidence and ease. From the slow, measured Ouverture, to the Tambourin, akin to Morris dancing, and the spirited Bruit de Guerre pour Entr’acte, representing ferocious military action, the orchestra never missed a beat, as it were. The Chaconne closed this part of the programme with a stop-start melody of immense grace and polish. Sandwiched between the two orchestral pieces in the programme were four vocal selections by Mozart, two arias from the opera Così fan tutte, one from Le nozze di Figaro and the motet Exsultate Jubilate. Soloist Mara Mastalir curtsied deeply upon coming onstage in a black gown and long black gloves, winning over the audience immediately. With a voice more mature than one would expect of someone her age – she is not even thirty – her tone is lush and she displayed superb control. Smoothly gliding from the top to the bottom of her vocal range, confidently skating through coloratura and lyricism, she is clearly a master rather than a servant of the demanding material. The variety of matching facial expressions accentuated the dramatic impact of the arias. As Despina in Così fan tutte and Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, both vivacious and flirting maids, Mastalir was flippant but not flaunting. She could have been a little more teasing as the wily Susanna and more forceful in her dramatic rejection of the Albanians as Fiordiligi, one of the sisters in Così fan tutte, but these were small blemishes. Returning after the intermission in a bright red gown with a diamond-studded girdle, she was decidedly resplendent. Launching herself vigorously into the first part of the motet Exsultate Jubilate, she changed gear almost unnoticeably into the gentle middle movement, finally rounding off triumphantly in the concluding movement Alleluia, cementing her performance as the centrepiece of the evening. Beethoven wrote his second symphony during a particularly difficult period in his life, as he confronted the increasingly disturbing signs of deafness and contemplated suicide. Yet the work is full of joyous optimism, humorous twists and mischievous charm. After the brooding opening passage, the orchestra gave the first movement a full-blown buoyant treatment. Tiptoeing on the somewhat elusive melodies in the second movement, it underlined the bucolic atmosphere prescient of the sixth symphony. The third movement, a scherzo marked allegro, was graceful and refined, with the prancing woodwinds adding colour to the festive mood. The bold and forceful opening bars of the finale were resolute and unequivocal, developing meticulously into a crescendo of cheerful triumph, bringing the concert to a gratifying close. Three cheers to conductor Jan Willem de Vriend and soprano Mara Mastalir for turning an evening intended to be light entertainment into one of high artistic accomplishment, through thoughtful application of their skills and talent, and smart programming. (This review also appears on Bachtrack)
The Brave New World of Books – a layman’s view
I have always had an interest in books, but should have read more than I have. My excuse? That the books that matter are too bulky. The arrival of e-books has totally destroyed this excuse. My iPad now carries Oscar Wilde Complete Works Ultimate Collection (140+ works), Works of George Bernard Shaw (30+ works), James Joyce’s Ulysses, War and Peace, and The Works of Mark Twain (24 books in a single file). It weighs exactly the same as it did without them. Some of the books were even free to download. The world of books has gone through wrenching change in the last few years. Prognosis, diagnosis and predictions aside, we don’t quite know what it will look like when the dust settles. Yet the new world already looks exciting to some, and frightening to others. Despite the idiosyncrasies of some of the players in it, the world of books is not that different from other industries. Some generate the product ideas (the authors), some manufacture the products (publishers and printers), some distribute them (booksellers) and others consume them (readers). There are the usual intermediaries, such as literary agents and editors who work for publishers. So what does the new world of books mean to all these players in the industry? Authors Many published and aspiring authors feel that they are the most oppressed people in the world. They toil for years to develop their product (the book), only to get serial rejection letters from publishers and biting comments from editors. With the increasing popularity of e-publishing, authors feel truly liberated. They don’t have to ask publishers for permission, or beg editors not to change their work. They can now choose to self-publish anything they want, provided they are prepared to put up with a lot of extra administrative work. Yet like karaoke, which gives people who can’t sing the illusion that they can, e-publishing gives authors who can’t write or tell a story a similar illusion. This blog post you are reading could be a case in point. As the quantity of published material in the market goes up, the general quality comes down. In other words, authors can now bypass publishers as gatekeepers of “quality”, but there are no more or less “good” authors. It only means that the work of more bad authors gets out into the market. Let’s face it, some authors who publish their own works electronically now may not be worthy of publication at all. The Wall Street Journal reported that some authors also complain they earn less per e-book than they do the physical equivalent. All we can hope is that a larger number of e-books sell to make up for this shortfall. Publishers The manufacturers of books – the publishers – have never been short of raw materials. They have always been inundated with more manuscripts than they can handle in several lifetimes. Their trade is also fraught with sometimes substantial risks. How many titles have they published which don’t even cover the cost of printing, not to mention the occasional advances and huge marketing and distribution costs? E-publishing has cut the cost of production for publishers to the bare minimum, although physical production probably accounts for a small part of a publisher’s total cost. A few printers will go out of business. The cost of distribution has also come down, as there is no real physical handling of an e-book. Besides, there are now more cost-effective channels for promotion, such as social networking. The price of an e-book, however, is sometimes 20% cheaper than its paperback equivalent, and sometimes even more expensive. As e-publishing guts a publisher’s business of costs, book pricing doesn’t seem to have fallen proportionally. Publisher profitability should have gone up, and the business should be less risky. Although publishers are also vulnerable to literary agencies selling rights direct to new-world retailers such as Amazon, as Wylie did last year, this doesn’t seem a widespread threat yet. As purveyors of quality products the reading public wants to buy, publishers should feel secure in their jobs, as long as they continue to keep close to the taste of readers, insist on quality writing, embrace new media and don’t get too naïve about forking out huge advances for celebrity appeal. Literary agents Authors love to hate literary agents. They need them to get to a decent publisher and a wide market, but simply getting to them is a five-year project itself. With the right confluence of temperament, a literary agent will remain an author’s best friend. This sometimes cantankerous and oddball breed will likely continue to thrive, and behave just as obnoxiously to the unfortunate writing low-life that dares cross its path. Booksellers By all accounts, booksellers seem to have hurt the most. In an article in Fortune magazine dated June 21, 2010, Borders CEO Michael Edwards defends the raison d’être of bookstores: “If they continue to innovate in the services and experiences they offer…consumers will continue to make bookstores a vital part of their lives…The next chapter is up to them.” For Borders, that next chapter was Chapter 11, in February, 2011. My personal experience may be a curved mirror of reality, but it should nevertheless make booksellers stand up and take notice. Browsing in bookstores is no longer a pastime. The few physical books I have bought in the last year have either been bargain end-of-the-line titles, or ones I need to share with others. A few months ago, I saw a title in an exhibition which appeared to be on sale, around 20% cheaper than in bookstores. There and then, I looked online, found and downloaded an electronic copy at almost half the already reduced price at the exhibition. Predictions about the demise of anything are usually correct in direction but wrong in timing. Die-hard physical book lovers will be far bigger in number and slower to change their habits than futurists envisage. Bookstores will die a slow, painful death. A few may even survive. Readers For
Yundi and the San Francisco Symphony de-romanticise Tchaikovsky
Davies Symphony Hall San Francisco, California Friday April 1st, 2011 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23 Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43 San Francisco Symphony Herbert Blomstedt Conductor Yundi Soloist I had long thought that Tchaikovsky was a pioneer of decadent romanticism. Many of his melodies have become well-hummed signature tunes of amorous longing in popular music, as in Caterina Valente’s Tonight We Love. The San Francisco Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt with soloist Yundi (formerly known as Yundi Li) in the piano concerto number one in B flat minor put paid to that idea for good. Tall, lanky, with sharp features and a full body of wavy hair, Yundi cuts a dashing figure as a teenage heartthrob. The standing ovation that followed his performance, I suspect, was due in no small measure to his Korean soap-opera star looks. That is not to say he is not a competent pianist. On the contrary, he is very much a technical virtuoso. Yet I wonder whether underneath the pyrotechnics, the breakneck speed and the fluency in his performance, there was genuine empathy with the emotional intentions of Tchaikovsky in creating the work. Quite apart from the repressive environment of conservative sexual mores in 19th century Russia, Tchaikovsky suffered traumatic ups and downs in his emotional life. After being jilted in an infatuation with the soprano Désirée Artôt, his marriage to Antonina Miliukova drove him to the brink of nervous breakdown. These disastrous experiences with the opposite sex led to a slow coming to terms with his homosexuality: “…nothing more futile than wanting to be anything other than what I am by nature,” as he wrote in a letter to his brother Anatoly. Some commentators have surmised that Tchaikovsky secretly coded Artôt’s name into the concerto. Whether or not this conjecture has any merit, the work effuses unmistakable passion. The melodic progression rises and falls like white foam in a stormy sea, straining to break out as Dr. Bruce Banner does to his clothes when he turns into the green giant in The Incredible Hulk. In his focus on the technical challenges of the concerto, Yundi glossed over the emotional contours of the work, leaving the audience yearning for a more intimate connection with the composer. His technical virtuosity was like a sheet of steel over which the emotional hot water of the work flowed. The heat was quickly cooled, and there was no attachment. The orchestral accompaniment was compartmentalised, with each section executing its part competently but hardly welding into a cohesive whole. The tone was jagged, sometimes even strident, and the colour was lacklustre. The rhythm was at times inappropriately pointed. I know something was awry when I heard, although for only a fleeting moment, snippets of a Mozart divertimento in the third movement. I mustn’t be too harsh, for Yundi made his name as an interpreter of Chopin. His performance in the Carnegie Hall of Chopin and Mussorgsky last year was certainly much more sensitive. Perhaps he is better at handling muted hankering than explosive outbursts. Compared with Tchaikovsky’s concerto, Sibelius’ symphony number 2 is more measured with structural clarity. The work seems to trace the germination of a small idea into triumphant maturity. As if taking us on a tour of a forest in Finland, with thick trees allowing only small streams of light at a time, the elusive melodic machinations stretch forth and withdraw in a tug-of-war with our imagination. Blomstedt launched into the tame and understated opening theme of thirds with a full frontal assault, and throughout the work there was a lack of contrast in intensity between the soft and loud passages. Like a shy young debutante, the best of the thematic material in the symphony needs to be teased out gradually. Blomstedt didn’t seem too interested in the subtlety. The orchestra did excel in the passages where frenzied trills on the strings gave way to a single statement in the woodwinds, the oboe in the second movement and the bassoon in the third. In addition to the horns and brass providing the impetus that frog-marched the melody into triumph, the strings also handled the suspended development of the theme in the last movement with suitable restraint, inveigling it gradually into full bloom. The San Francisco Symphony dedicated its concert to victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Opening the concert, conductor Herbert Blomstedt led the orchestra in Japan’s national anthem. This extra-curricular addition was probably the work I could least find fault with, on account mainly of its unfamiliarity.
Opera Australia’s The Barber of Seville is remarkable musical theatre at its best
Sydney Opera House, Opera Theatre Sydney, Australia Thursday March 24th, 2011 The Barber of Seville Gioachino Rossini Opera Australia Anthony Legge, Conductor Elijah Moshinsky, Director Opera Australia Chorus Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra José Carbó, Baritone: Figaro Dominica Matthews, Mezzo-soprano: Rosina John Longmuir, Tenor: Count Almaviva Jud Arthur, Bass-baritone: Basilio Andrew Moran, Baritone: Dr. Bartolo Opera Australia’s production of the Rossini magnum opus The Barber of Seville is a period piece, featuring an era a century later than the one in which it was composed. In this revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s production, director Cathy Dadd masterfully transports the action from the classical period of the 1810s to the silent movies of the 1910s. The production stays meticulously faithful to the era, with the men wearing boaters and gaiters, and the leading woman breaking into Charleston once in a while. Even the libretto is adapted to make reference to John McCormack, the Irish tenor whose career reached its height in the second decade of the 20th century. The story is ridiculous enough. An aspiring young aristocrat falls in love with the ward of a fuddy-duddy doctor, and disguises himself as a drunken soldier and music teacher to win the love-match against the guardian, with the town’s dogsbody providing assistance along the way. Based on the first play in the trilogy by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville was written 30 years after Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, but is its narrative prequel. The central character is the wily Figaro. Let’s face it, Rossini’s opera buffa has all the elements of farce susceptible to dramatic manipulation of the highest order, but this production stands out because of its perfect execution. An incredible plot, ridiculous disguises, unlikely, larger-than-life characters and double-takes are masterfully brought together in a melodramatic silent-movie treatment by an outstanding cast effortlessly working together. This version of The Barber of Seville is a visual feast. It opens with a set of miniature terraced houses, replete with mechanical marionettes and sprinkled with disproportionally tall palm trees stretching to an arched moon in the sky. This undersize Iberian resort gives way to a massive and sturdy cross-section of Dr Bartolo’s duplex residence-cum-surgery that fills the entire stage for the rest of the evening. The characters run freely up and down the stairs and in and out of the various rooms without the set swaying at all. This ingenious contraption creates a split-screen effect, with simultaneous action taking place in different parts of the set. As Lindoro and Dr Bartolo battle it out in the sitting room, for example, the nurse Berta comically manipulates the neck-brace of a hapless patient in the surgery, culminating in a bout of gin-and-vodka binge drinking. In comedy, timing is everything, and rarely have I seen such perfect timing and rapport among all members of the cast. They flawlessly move from one antic to another, falling over each other throughout the set without missing a beat in the demanding musical synchronisation, even in the rapid-fire tongue-twisting choral recitatives. John Longmuir as Lindoro and Count Almaviva is somewhat overly chubby and too much of an effeminate aesthete for my liking, especially in the opening scene in which he appears in a white suit with a red buttonhole. His voice is somewhat tentative and thin at the beginning, easily upstaged by Figaro in his grand entry from the back of the auditorium. Fortunately, it strengthens as the show progresses, eventually hitting all the high notes with effortless clarity. José Carbó as Figaro is every inch the suave, mercenary opportunist ready to profit from all situations in which he finds himself: “my mind is like a volcano…at the thought of money,” he declares. He effectively accentuates his rich baritone voice with solid projections and precise diction. Dominica Matthews’ Rosina combines good acting with some fine coloratura singing. Her voice is silky and flexible. Andrew Moran as Dr Bartolo, the delusionary, ageing dunce with grand amorous designs on his young ward, exudes moronic gullibility. Jud Arthur as Rosina’s music teacher Don Basilio is a resonant bass. The varied performance of the minor characters, in arias that resemble throwaway lines in a comedy, adds to the ingeniousness of the production. Bartolo’s buxom housekeeper Berta has only one memorable aria in the entire opera, and Teresa La Rocca carries it off to a breathtaking climax. Also worthy of mention is Christopher Hillier. Although his Ambrogio, Bartolo’s servant, has no singing part, his zombie-like makeup, deadpan expression and sluggish movements stir up a great deal of mirth among the audience. I wonder, though, whether the cabaret make-up for the rest of the cast, with everyone appearing in a lifeless pallor, is necessary. It may sound belittling of the orchestra, but in comparison with the captivating visual and vocal performance on stage, the musical accompaniment is almost an unnoticeable side show. No doubt it provides the melodic and rhythmic momentum that moves the action along, yet the tone and colour of the strings may not stand up to the close scrutiny of a symphonic concert. Opera Australia’s production of The Barber of Seville is remarkable musical theatre at its best, with all the elements perfectly executed and working seamlessly together to create a sum far greater than the parts through. This innovative company has an unparalleled ability to bring a refreshing edge to even well-worn masterpieces. (This review also appears on Bachtrack.com)
Hong Kong Philharmonic in works by Strauss and Zemlinsky
Cultural Centre Concert Hall, Hong Kong Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Sunday 27th February, 2011 R Strauss Serenade in E flat, Op. 7 R Strauss Metamorphosen Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony, Op. 18 Edo de Waart, Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, chose for his contribution to the 2011 Arts Festival works by two Germanic composers spanning the late Romantic and early modern periods who were almost exact contemporaries. Richard Strauss coincidentally was born seven years before and died seven years after Alexander von Zemlinsky. Although drawn from similar musical traditions, the works by the two composers differ in form and style. To begin with, those by Strauss are scored for a homogeneous section of the orchestra, while the Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony is scored for full orchestra and voices. The two works by Strauss more or less bookend his long career. He wrote the Serenade for 13 wind instruments in E flat major when he was in his teens, and it is said to be the first of his works to have survived in the concert hall. The other, Metamorphosen, he finished in the final months of the Second World War, a few years before he died in 1949, and probably the last major work in his career except the Last Four Songs. The Serenade for 13 wind instruments in E flat major is a dainty composition full of youthful energy and gentle enthusiasm. It opens with a bashful tune on oboes, blossoming like flowers in spring into the full wind ensemble. At times de Waart seems to have difficulty controlling the mischievous wind players, who all want to go in different directions. Flashes of anxiety do appear, but are quickly overcome by the horns which provide a reassuring anchor. In sharp contrast, Metamorphosen, scored for 23 solo strings, opens with a melancholic, gently weeping theme on cellos and double basses, repeated on violins and violas, that grows into sombre wailing. De Waart extracts a smooth, mellow, controlled and refined tone from the players, perhaps not tragic enough, but nevertheless emotionally charged. The sombre wailing gives way to anguished outpouring, culminating in the funeral march from Beethoven’s third symphony. The work finishes by returning to the restrained melancholy with which it begins, as if Strauss was signalling his resignation from a long career. I find it irresistible to draw parallels between Zemlinsky and Antonio Salieri. Both were tutors to famous composers – Salieri to Schubert, Beethoven and Liszt, and Zemlinsky to Arnold Schoenberg; and we might remember them better if more talented contemporaries who lived much shorter lives had not overshadowed them – Mozart for Salieri, and Mahler for Zemlinsky. In fact, Zemlinsky might have been more respected in his time than Salieri, with Brahms recommending one of his works for publication, and Mahler conducting the premiere of his opera Es War einmal. In Why Mahler, Norman Lebrecht tells the story about Mahler’s encounter with Eric Korngold, who wanted to be a composer. Mahler is said to have told Korngold’s father: “take him to Zemlinsky…he will learn all he needs.” Comparison of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony with Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde is fully justifiable, as the composer himself did so in a letter to his publisher. They both draw from Eastern sources – Das Lied from Chinese poems and the Lyric Symphony from the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European Nobel Laureate for literature; and both are scored for solo voices and orchestra. Divided into seven movements, the Lyric Symphony opens with a forceful and passionate but pithy theme that quiets down into the first song, sung by baritone Stephan Genz, standing in for Konrad Jont, who withdraws at the last minute owing to illness. Although for very brief moments he struggles to overcome the powerful orchestral accompaniment, his voice is versatile and he tackles his part with gusto. He is somewhat faltering in the first song, but quickly regains self-confidence. Swedish soprano Marlin Hartelius has a fine but not overly rich voice, which has a tinge of darkness about it. She excels in the second movement, a scherzo to which she applies the litheness of her voice to highlight the numbing distraction of desire. At its worst, the symphony is like thick snow in the winter – you sink into it and won’t get hurt, but soon feel the cold and find it hard to extricate yourself. The orchestration in parts of the work is described as “dense” in the programme notes, to the point of being onerous, I would add. Nevertheless, the orchestra under Edo de Waart tries its best. In the bright spots of elegance and lyricism, as in the opening of the fourth and final movements, it excels by being nimble and light. Zemlinsky is no Mahler, whose breadth of vision, stamina and depth of emotion are hard to emulate. His Lyric Symphony nevertheless has enough sparks of excellence to merit a detour from the standard classical and romantic repertoire. Kudos goes to Edo de Waart for thoughtful programming, and pulling it off with aplomb. (This review also appears on Bachtrack.com)
Opera Australia’s scintillating production of Carmen
Sydney Opera House, Opera Theatre Sydney, Australia Tuesday February 8th, 2011 Carmen Georges Bizet Opera Australia Guillaume Tourniaire, Conductor Francesca Zambello, Director Rinat Shaham, Mezzo-soprano: Carmen Richard Troxell, Tenor: Don José Nicole Car, Soprano: Micaëla Shane Lowrencev, Baritone: Escamillo Opera Australia Chorus Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra In an opera of such popularity as Carmen by Georges Bizet, it wouldn’t be easy to please an audience likely to be inured to a variety of performances of arias such as Habanera and The Toreador’s Song. Yet Opera Australia made a thoughtfully constructed and well vindicated attempt. It is well accepted that the role of Carmen has to be quite outstanding for any production of the opera to be successful. Israeli mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham is every inch the sensuous, taunting, manipulative vixen she has to be. Her voice is tenacious, her tone exudes Latin passion, her phrasing is expressive and her writhing choreography finely chisels her mercurial gypsy character that pervades the entire production. In sharp contrast to the fickle and vituperative Carmen, the purity of heart and rustic innocence embodied in Micaëla provide a soothing overlay to what is otherwise a harsh and brutal story. Nicole Car’s portrayal of this piteous antipathy to Carmen in the solo in Act III is easily the moving tear-jerker in the entire performance. Richard Troxell has a fine tenor voice that does not tear into the high notes with vehemence. His performance as the somewhat faint-hearted and susceptible Don José is very credible and quite rightly exasperating. Shane Lowrencev, tall and slim, cuts a dashing figure as Escamillo, the opportunistic and vain torero that eventually captures Carmen’s heart and causes Don José’s downfall. His voice is less robust than it needs to be, and therefore carries with it less of the virility that the part requires, at times drowned by the unobtrusive orchestral accompaniment. Yet visually his height effectively towers over the diminutive Don José – quite a clever stroke of casting. Under the direction of Guillaume Tourniaire, the orchestra puts up a fine performance, in various places accentuating Bizet’s skill as an orchestral composer. The elegant interplay between flute and harp that opens Act III is refreshing and delightful, providing an apt suggestion of Micaëla’s solo a few moments later. The costume and set deserve some mention as well. The simple but solid backdrop provides vital and very flexible support to the changes in mood and ambience of the four acts. The garish, gold-plated costume of the bull-fighters in the last act, accompanied by a richly decorated cart of flowers, brings the show to a dazzling conclusion. I suspect that even the most Carmen-weary audience would have been totally satisfied with Opera Australia’s production. (This review also appears in Backtrack.com)
Condemnation to redemption – OAE and Vladimir Jurowski
Royal Festival Hall, London Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Friday 21st January, 2011 Wagner Prelude to Parsifal Mahler Totenfeier Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Liszt Les Préludes Friday’s performance by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Royal Festival Hall under Vladimir Jurowski got off to a slow and somewhat insecure start. Sixth in the series of concerts by the orchestra in the 2010-2011 season, sub-titled Symphonic Enlightenment, the concert opened with the Prelude to Parsifal by Wagner. With its rather aimless melodic lines and elusive rhythm, the Prelude is not an easy piece to get to grips with at the best of times. Despite being a veteran opera conductor, Jurowski appeared to be somewhat tentative in his approach to the work, losing his way at times as if meandering in the woods, and then finding his way back. Perhaps he was mimicking Parsifal’s hapless search for the Holy Grail. Playing on “period” instruments, the orchestra had a particularly subdued tone lacking in majesty and grace necessary in this dreamy and quiet work. A last-minute switch placed Mahler’s Totenfeier second in the programme for the evening. Originally composed in 1888 as a standalone symphonic work, it was subsequently revised in 1893 to form the first movement of his second symphony, dubbed Resurrection. This was also Mahler’s first attempt at music for orchestra alone after early attempts at songs for solo voice and orchestra. Literally translated as funeral rites or ceremony, Totenfeier is a work of sharply contrasting themes. Mahler’s inspiration for Totenfeier was apparently a poetic novel by Adam Mickiewicz in which the protagonist commits suicide after the girl he loves marries a rich duke. Totenfeier opens with a shuddering but resolute theme on the lower strings, followed by the woodwinds, signaling an ineluctable death march. Pitted against this are idyllic fragments of brightness representing the freshness of nature on strings and horns. Despite valiant attempts, the fleeting moments of optimism fail to triumph over the shroud of darkness. Although Jurowski’s approach to Tontenfeier was comparatively more confident, it remained somewhat tentative and his control over the piece was tenuous. The death march was not sombre enough, and the bright spots not radiant enough. Besides, there were rough edges throughout that needed some polishing. All of this changed after the interval, when the orchestra was pared down to a much smaller size to accompany mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly in the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Travelling Apprentice or Wayfarer). The four songs in the collection were written soon after Mahler ended a love affair with a singer, Johanna Richter, in Kassel, Germany. The moods of the four songs range from contemplative sorrow, as in When My Sweetheart is Married, to subdued sense of joy, as in I Went This Morning over the Field, to brutal pangs of pain, as in I Have a Gleaming Knife. Connolly’s controlled phrasing brought out the full subtlety of the moods. Although the songs are often sung by a tenor, the deep sonority of Connolly’s voice effectively accentuated the plight of the depressed protagonist and the intensity of his pain. At the same time, Jurowski and the orchestra provided a spirited but steady backdrop to Connolly, without being intrusive. The final item in the programme was Les Préludes by Liszt, who is said to be the originator of the symphonic (or tone) poem, a musical work for orchestra often inspired by a literary work. Originally conceived to be the overture to choral setting of four poems by Joseph Autran, the work is later described by Liszt as being “D’après Lamartine”, or a response to the poem Méditations poetique by Alphonse Lamartine. He even added an excerpt from the poem to accompany the score: “What else is our life than a series of preludes to an unknown song, whose first and solemn notes are intoned by death?” Les Préludes appears to depict musically the ups and down of man’s life, quietly emerging from the torments and joys of youth, to the pinnacle of achievement in mid-life, and celebratory acceptance of destiny in old age. Under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, the OAE vigorously flexed its expressive muscles, moving through distinct moods of contemplative introspection, fluid lyricism, trembling fear and assertive triumph. In this work, the seeming lack of volume of the period instruments in the opening work of the concert was no longer an impediment. As Jurowski’s towering frame swayed, the orchestra responded. By the end of the concert, the OAE and Jurowski had totally redeemed themselves, providing a fitting tribute to Liszt during the bicentenary of his birth this year. (This review also appears on the Bachtrack web site)
Ensuring leadership continuity and renewal – succession planning
At this time of the year, it’s customary for companies to evaluate the performance of their staff. The purpose of performance appraisal is to understand how staff can improve personal performance in their current jobs, and how they can step up or across to other jobs. This latter objective is part of succession planning, a broader activity which addresses improvement in organisational performance. In most large to medium–size organisations, succession planning is a regular and well-understood process. In fact, there are many books on the market which purport to make the process effective. One example is Effective Succession Planning by William J. Rothwell. Although I have not read this book, it appears to be a compendium of everything you need to know about the topic. During the past few weeks, however, two unconnected events have led me to wonder whether succession planning genuinely delivers its intended outcome, and the factors that enable organisations to derive maximum benefit from the process. The first of these events is chancing upon the review by Alan Murray in the Wall Street Journal of a new book by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan entitled The Talent Masters. The second event is sitting at dinner next to a fellow graduate from my university, a few years senior to me, who tells me how she is retired in the comfortable knowledge that the business she started almost three decades ago is in good hands. According to Murray, The Talent Masters is as much a celebration of the Welch Way, management practices established by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, as it is an exposé of why perhaps we need a “new icon for the rapidly evolving world of business management”. In addition to recounting the three principles that characterise the Welch approach to management – focus, differentiation and candour – the book also documents a number of interesting examples from industry. By far the most dramatic example revolves around Larry Johnston, head of GE’s appliance business, who decided to leave to head up Albertsons. GE was apparently able to agree on the successor to Johnston and “three other slots down the chain of command” within half a day of his resignation. Succession planning is obviously easier with the depth of talent and the elaborate processes possible in a large corporation such as GE. Yet I was struck by the visionary approach my fellow graduate takes to ensuring that the small PR consultancy firm she started could continue after her retirement. As I think about succession planning in light of these two events, it seems that a few factors determine how much benefit we derive from it: Succession planning works only if people let go It’s all very well for us to go through an elaborate process of identifying and nurturing talented people in the organisation to take over our jobs, but we have to accept that the jobs have to be vacant before the successorscan prove whether they are ready to take over. John Howard and Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the Australia and the UK respectively, highly competent and effective leaders in their own right, both tacitly accepted that their finance chiefs, Peter Costello and Gordon Brown, would succeed them eventually. Both, unfortunately, overstayed their welcome. In the end, Costello never got the chance to prove himself; and Brown spent a woefully short time on the job before the electorate booted him out. By contrast, my schoolmate decided early that she was going to retire by a certain time. She had recruited, several years before she even came to that decision, a few talented young people into the organisation. When she felt the time was right, she stepped back, taking an advisory position and coming to the office half a day for four days. She made it clear to her successors that they were running the show, although she would be available as a sounding board for important decisions. In recent American corporate history, Anne Mulcahy handing over the reins to Ursula Burns as CEO of Xerox is a case study in smooth implementation of succession planning. Mulcahy was only 56 when she stepped down, and having rescued the company from near bankruptcy might have felt entitled to bask a little longer in the glory of success. BusinessWeek quotes her confessing how hard it is to give up power, but she is also wise enough not to overstay her usefulness: “To have stuck around until I was 65 would be a disservice to Xerox, a disservice to my successor”. It is a huge challenge for leaders, especially successful ones, to decide consciously to hand over power. They tend to believe, with a lot of help from sycophants around them, that nobody can do the job better. Talented successors also tend to be fairly ambitious, and are not prepared to wait in the wings for too long. When they decide to accept an opportunity that beckons in another company, all the effort in succession planning will have been wasted. Succession planning is taking risks with people Very often, candidates identified to have potential to succeed a certain position lack some skills, experience or track record to be either suitable or even credible. For example, someone who has done a brilliant job in the domestic market may be considered successor to a position with global responsibilities. Her cultural insensitivity is thought to be a weakness that needs to be tested. Putting her through an international market may do more harm than good. Nevertheless, if we are serious about her candidacy we have to take the risk and coach her along the way. I have personal experience in having identified a highly skilled and competent marketing manager as a future marketing and sales director. For her to succeed in a broader role, she has to demonstrate to the sales force, who were notoriously entrenched in their traditional way of doing things and somewhat hostile to analytical marketing types, that she could hold her own and lead this rather recalcitrant group into the future. When a vacancy in the sales area came up, I decided to give her the assignment, warning her about the pitfalls. She acquitted herself well in the challenge, and eventually eased seamlessly into the broader position a few years later, having won the respect of everyone on the team. It was a wise move in hindsight, but at the time it was risky. She could have totally flunked and made a fool of herself. Personal needs have to align with business needs Younger generations of executives have different
Turnage and Strauss overwhelm Mozart in the Walt Disney Concert Hall
The delicate works of Mozart can be easily overwhelmed in a concert programme by more dynamic outpourings of composers in subsequent generations. Conductor Susanna Mälkki’s debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra was a poignant reminder of this potential trap, with Mozart’s first violin concerto sandwiched between tours de force of high drama by Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Strauss. The opening work in the Walt Disney Concert Hall on November 14th was the US premiere of Hammered Out by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. Co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the BBC Proms, it debuted at the Proms last August with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Hammered Out is a high octane potpourri of forceful rhythms that characterise the vitality of a modern urban lifestyle. After opening with an ear-shattering declaration by a hammer on an auto brake drum, the work chugs along inexorably like a train and morphs into a variety of rhythms that belie the influences of Gershwin and Morricone. The transitions are sometimes openly mischievous. Mälkki clearly wielded a tight grip on rhythmic movement in this 15-minute work, with the LA Phil resolutely and obediently in tow. Compared with his 27 concertos for the piano, Mozart’s repertoire of five violin concertos appears decidedly thin. This is somewhat surprising, since his father Leopold wrote an early book of instruction on playing the violin, and Mozart himself must have been an accomplished performer on the instrument as concertmaster in Salzburg. Nevertheless, they are delicate gems among Mozart’s volume of works. Although the first violin concerto in B-flat major, K. 207 was originally thought to have been written together with the other four in 1775, scholars now seem to agree that Mozart might have completed it two years earlier. It is unusual in that it has only three movements, with no customary minuet or rondo. The soloist with the LA Phil was Martin Chalifour, Principal Concertmaster of the orchestra, and a native of Quebec, Canada. His unassuming rapport with the orchestra is evident from the beginning of the graceful first movement and complements Mälkki’s subtle feminine touch. Mozart’s slow movements are neither evocative like Mahler’s, nor decadently sentimental like Rachmaninov’s, but rather gently soothing. Handling the Adagio much like a pensive stroll, Chalifour quickly dispels any doubts about his virtuosity in the fast-paced Presto, which requires a high degree of dexterity. Also Sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem in nine sections by Richard Strauss, is one of those works which do not lend themselves to full appreciation in a recording. The whirring double bass and contrabassoon passage that precedes the well-known dramatic entrance of the brass in the “Introduction” section is often inaudible except in the live setting of a concert hall. In Mälkki’s collaboration with the LA Phil, not only did the opening come to life, but it delivered a near-seismic impact that sounded as if it was about to collapse the stage on which the orchestra was sitting. Beyond the dramatic opening, the rest of the tone poem is unfamiliar except to dedicated devotees of Strauss. Of course, it doesn’t help that the three-note “sunrise” theme has become an important part of popular culture in the last three decades, through Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eumir Deodato’s Grammy winner in 1973. Loosely based on Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise of the same name, Also Sprach Zarathustra offers plenty of scope for a competent orchestra to show its expressiveness. Its meanderings through a variety of structures, harmonies and rhythms can be testing for a conductor. Susanna Mälkki rose to the challenge with her crisp and precise conducting style, in an interpretation that neither overwhelms nor understates. The LA Phil responded warmly. From the lyrical passage for full orchestra in the section “Of the Forest-dwellers” to the depths of despair in “Dirge”, the orchestra maintains a fine tension between passion and restraint. It is in “The Dance Song”, in which the philosopher Zarathustra gives himself up to the joys of life with wild abandon, that Mälkki’s firm grasp of rhythm comes to the fore. The work ends, in sharp contrast to its dramatic opening, with a sheepish and creepy chord repeated on piccolo, flutes and oboes, tapering off to an unsatisfactory resolution of the philosopher’s intellectual plight. According to the programme notes, the LA Phil first performed Also Sprach Zarathustra in 1929, with Eugene Goosens conducting. I can’t help but feel that he would have been proud of Susanna Mälkki’s tribute on November 14th. In a profession dominated by flamboyant males, the likes of Marin Alsop and Susanna Mälkki are a breath of fresh air. From being a cellist in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Mälkki has come a long way on the podium. Her debut with the LA Phil shows that she will go far in her conducting career.
A mixed bag of old and new with the Montréal Symphony
The last time I was in the Salle de Wilfred-Pelletier in the Place des Arts, Montréal, I sat underneath the balcony which extends almost halfway into the hall. The acoustics was so restrictive that I found it hard to concentrate on the music being played. Fortunately, on October 3rd, I sat on the balcony itself. Under the baton of music director Kent Nagano, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra opened the evening with Sur le même accord, nocturne for violin and orchestra, by contemporary French composer Henri Dutilleux. The expansiveness and resonance of the acoustics, by contrast, was refreshing. Sur le même accord is a mood piece, with the solo violin gliding smoothly over the orchestral accompaniment, much like a skater on ice. Although the work is dedicated to the soloist of the evening, Anne-Sophie Mutter, the solo part does not seem that demanding of virtuosity, perhaps leaving Mutter little opportunity to showcase her technical mastery of the instrument. Nevertheless, soloist and orchestra worked well together to present the relaxed tone of a walk in the park. The second work on the programme, the violin concerto In tempus Praesens by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina is no doubt a work of extreme intensity, well developed intellectuality and a tour de force of tonal, melodic, harmonic, temporal and rhythmic exploration. Compared with Sur le même accord, it also offers Mutter a great deal of room for showing off her technical prowess. Gulbaidulina’s concerto is a trek through the Siberian wasteland in the depth of winter. The absence of the violins in the orchestra heightens the tension between it and the soloist – a tension the programme notes characterise as that between “the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ of a Dostoevskian Russia”. The wailing first notes soon progress to a rhythm much like the trotting of a horse, with the undulating strings leading to a climax accentuated by loud percussion. The value of the concerto may be high as a didactic exploration of the esoteric aspects of composition, but in the concert hall it is somewhat a misfit. Its idiom is arcane, and its structure obscure. Nevertheless, the performance received a standing ovation, reaffirming my depressing suspicion that I was the only obtuse one in the crowd. The worldliness of Mahler came to the rescue in the second half of the programme. Although his fifth symphony has a feeling of optimism overall, it opens with a funeral march. Despite intermittent moments of hope and triumph, the opening trumpet call keeps returning to remind us of the menace of death. Although the tone of the orchestra was somewhat diffuse, it handled the contrasting moods well. The brass and shivering strings of the second movement, at first delivering a sense of shock and anguish, soon gives way to idyllic passages in the winds, presaging the unbridled romanticism of Erich Korngold and Hollywood epics such as Gone With the Wind. Under Nagano, the Montréal Symphony’s tone was confident and forceful. Its handling of the contrasts and mood swings was skilful. The orchestra’s real mastery of the subject matter was most obvious in delivering the humour and irony in the scherzo. Opening with a light dance tune, the horns and winds pave the way to an elegant waltz, with glimpses of darkness and nostalgia emerging in the bassoon. The return of the waltz is short-lived, rapidly degenerating into horror, almost like terrorists breaking up a party. The use of the adagietto in Visconti’s movie Death in Venice has perhaps unjustly flouted it as the personification of decadence. According to Norman Lebrecht in Why Mahler, it is “about love and the renunciation of love…in which the same few notes convey love and loss, commitment and retraction…” Thus, says Lebrecht, “the meaning depends how it is performed, how a conductor shapes and stretches the movement”. It is here, perhaps, Nagano shows his weakness most. His detached and controlled style did not quite bring out the wistfulness of the movement. Under him, the sequence of notes stayed as it was – a sequence of notes – rather than an emotionally-charged melodic idea. As a conductor, Kent Nagano is down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and effective. His performances are orderly, measured and even-tempered. This is perhaps why he excelled in Dutilleux and Gubaidulina, but fell somewhat short in Mahler.