Through These Ears

Daniele Gatti, Stravinsky, and Medici.TV

I just saw this terrific video of Daniele Gatti's debut concert as the new Musical Director for the Orchestre National de France on Medic.tv (always linked on the left).  I've mostly enjoyed Gatti's work, and I remember when he was starting to make a name for himself.  He used to be in the conversation whenever major US orchestras were looking for their next MD, but I don't know if that's been the case lately.  Maybe it's because he's in that limbo area between young hotshot and accomplished elder statesman.  I certainly enjoyed the broadcast of his Parsifal at Bayreuth this summer, even if the brass and a few audience members didn't.  In any case, he was in fine form here, as was the orchestra.

The program was mostly French, and I think all Paris premiers:  Debussy, more Debussy, Messiaen, and, probably the most famous premier of them all, Le Sacre du Printemps.  The full program is available through the menu here. Everything was quite good.  Personally, I would skip the Messiaen because the flute seemed to be too loud against the strings, and was ahead in too many changes. In fact, I'm really interested only in talking about the Stravinksy.

This is one of the best-directed concert videos I think I've ever seen.  Obviously this particular piece has a visual element - all that rhythmic scrubbing and thrashing - that most other works just don't have, so it's going to be more exciting to watch no matter what.  I've been in and seen a number of performances of this work, and there's always plenty of action no matter who's involved, but it's the video direction that makes this work.

There are, of course, the usual stationary shots, and we get a handful of the same angles over and over again.  For practical reason, that's how these things go, and handled well it's not a drawback.  Here, the choice of shots and edits were simply brilliant.  Judiciously timed, with an eye for that extra detail which really emphasizes the sound being made, the direction really made this performance memorable.

In addition to the usual section shots and soloist close-ups, we got to see some extra expressions and movements that I don't think the audience normally gets to see.  Now, the Stravinsky is one of those pieces that looks rough on paper the first time, but is really quite doable, especially with modern players who grew up with it.  Even with the tricky rhythms, many conductors will say that anyone can do this so long as they can keep a beat.  As for players, it gets to the point where there's really no need to constantly count - it's a groove.  And I must say, it was quite refreshing to see some good, honest grooving from a professional orchestra.

There are flashes of captivating personal moments, and sometimes the best moments are when the musicians aren't playing.  After playing his riff, we see a trumpet player still wagging his head, mouth half open, totally focused yet still free.  There's also the moment where the shot switches to the classic "behind the timpani" angle.  The timpanist isn't playing just that second:  he's dancing on his stool.

I found the whole thing exhilirating and fun.  Good playing everywhere, Gatti in complete control, also enjoying himself (which helps).   He also knew when to luxuriate in the orchestral colors when the time was right.  I know those spots are usually obvious to everyone - any time it gets slow, really.  But too many conductors make things sound too much the same as the rest of it, only slower.  In my mind, that misses the point of those sections.

There's also an interview with Gatti, and lots of other stuff on Medici.tv.  The video starts as soon as you click through to the site.

Stupidity In Cleveland - Music Critic Reassigned For Being Critical

Via Sounds & Fury, I just learned that the Cleveland Plain Dealer has reassigned Don Rosenberg, the music critic who has covered the Cleveland Orchestra for about thirty years.  It seems that he was too critical, too often, of music director Franz Welser-Mõst, and some people from the orchestra board complained enough that the paper is taking him off the beat.

How completely stupid.  I'll let others do the bit about how it's a critic's job to be critical, and instead say that this is just another sign of the problems going on with the orchestra.  I suppose this is related to the fact that in June, the orchestra extended Welser-Mõst's contract until 2018(!), while they have been having fundraising difficulties almost since he got there.  Rosenberg has been critical of his leadership, although always seemed to give praise when due.

They're having the same troubles other organizations are having holding onto donors, and it seems questionable that in the middle of this situation they would grant such an extension to the music director's contract.  There have been other difficulties at the orchestra in the last year as well, including personnel issues such as the resignation of the associate concert master due to a questionable restructuring of the section.  Things like that don't come from the board, so the true problem may be deeper.

Daniel Lews has been one of the biggest financial supporters of the orchestra.  He has also been involved in some behind-the-scenes machinations.  I don't know if he's involved in this move to protect Welser-Mõst, but it may not be a mere coincidence that he donated $10 million the year they hired their young European rising star (which is what they wanted).  Not only have they extended his contract to an absurd length, but recently eliminated the position of music director of the local Blossom Festival and gave it to the Music Director Nearly For Life.  Curious.  They apparently treat him very well in the office.

Rosenberg is not alone in his lack of total love for Welser-Mõst, or as he is known in some quarters as "Worse Than Most".  But the Vienna Staatsopera has him slated to take over from Ozawa in a couple of years, so he clearly does have quality support.  Of course, his repertoire there will be a little more limited than it is in Cleveland, and one of the main criticisms is that he just doesn't bring it in some works.

The Cleveland Orchestra has a rich history, always in the conversation about top orchestras in the US.  They're still an excellent group, but maybe not as inspired all the time as they might be.  I've certainly never been a big fan of Welser-Mõst, and from what I've read, Rosenberg seems to have his number.  Naturally, the people on the board who just signed him on for what seems like an eternity in music director years will want to hear as little criticism as possible.  This is far from the first time an orchestra has raised a fuss with a local paper about coverage, but in this day and age it's pretty ridiculous for a paper to cave in like this.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of thing that can alienate an orchestra from its community.  It's one thing for a music critic to get downsized, as people will begrudgingly accept that newspapers everywhere are struggling and doing this kind of thing.  It's quite another matter when the writer is merely taken off the beat because the orchestra doesn't like him.  It's important to remember that even if this is the result of noise from just a single faction of the board, it reflects back on the entire orchestra.  This must look awfully petty to orchestra supporters.

Not only that, but this amounts to the Cleveland Plain Dealer turning its back on readers.  In effect, this personnel decision is a statement that readers will no longer get a reliable report about an important cultural institution.

Stupid.

UPDATE:  Sam Bergman, violist and blogger for the Minnesota Orchestra, has made a comment below which (in his signature) links his post about this issue on his and Sarah Hicks's "Inside the Classics" blog, which has a little more information about how this may have happened.  Read his comment, and then go here to see what he's talking about.  A VP of the board is still a "faction", albeit a small one, and this was still handled in a very stupid fashion.  At least we agree that this reflects badly on the orchestra, which is the most important consideration.  I mean, regardless of the political machinations of the board and the paper, this affects the relationship between the community and the musicians as well.

Admittedly, I haven't spent much time thinking about how else this could have been handled.  If Rosenberg is just biased and couldn't be stopped after five or six years, why is he still writing for the paper?  If he was so clearly out of line, would his colleagues have elected him president of the Music Critics' Association of America?  Okay, maybe, but I kind of doubt it.  If the critic is acting unprofessionally, is reassigning him going to cure that?  Was this simply a case of a unique personal prejudice, which would never happen in another situation?  Maybe, but the problem is that Rosenberg is not exactly a lone voice in being underwhelmed by this conductor.  Since this is not the first time the paper heard these complaints, how has this been handled behind the scenes until now?  I guess we'll never know.

My thanks to Sam Bergman for the comment and the update.  I should have done this a while back, but the Inside the Classics blog has now been added to the Orchestra Blogs list on the left.

UPDATE:  Yes, I can spell Welser-Möst's name.  A typo is one thing, but there's no excuse for copying and pasting it to avoid having to do the alt-code for the "ö", and never noticing what I'd done.  My bad, fixed now.

Proms 73: Vaughan Williams, Xenakis, Holst

(Following from this preliminary post)

Sometimes I have to admit that I'm guilty of being the kind of listener about whom Thomas Beecham said, "The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes."  I'm not English, obviously, but I can't deny that there are times when I just like the cool sounds.

Proms 73 was one of the better programming decisions I've seen in a while, obvious as the them was.  The Planets and Sinfonia Antarctica are not exactly galaxies apart in their character and perspective, and I would imagine that a space-themed work by any composer other than someone of Xenakis's unique vision would have made this program seem much more mundane.  Taking a trip to the Plëiades provided enough separation in time and soundspace to make the Holst sound more fresh than it would have otherwise.  That's what good programming is supposed to do.

Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia Antarctica sounds exactly like what it is:  a score trying to depict musically what a movie is showing visually.  Without knowing this was specifically about an Arctic expedition ("Scott of the Antarctic"), the otherworldly sounds - even the wind machine - could evoke any kind of alien landscape.  In the end it's all a bit too blatant for me, but that's just my own attitude towards the composer in general.

The performance was very straightforward, took the music at face value, and Brabbins even had a bit of fun with it.  This wasn't exactly an inspired performance overall, but for the most part well-played and directed.  Brabbins created the necessary tension most of the time, and mostly let the music do what it does. I was taken to that alien landscape more by the sounds of Vaughan Williams's music than I was by anything special in the performance.  Perhpas I was too busy anticipating the Xenakis to appreciate this properly, but that's how it goes.

There certainly are plenty of cool sounds in Xenakis's Plëiades, and right from the start he creates an entrancing soundworld.  But there's so much more going on that makes these sounds work in the ear, so it doesn't get tedious within two minutes.  It's the shifting patterns that does it; that, and the composer's attention to the details of sound.  There is a wide variety of instrumental color.  The first three sections feature instruments of a particular kind.  The first movement uses metallic sounds, in this case a microtonal instrument Xenakis invented for it called a sixxen - from SIX players and XENakis.  The second movement uses mallet/keyboards (such as the vibraphone).  Next the music combines sixxen and mallet instruments with skins (drums), and the final movement uses drums of different sizes. if figures are repeated, the kaleidoscopic palette of sound keeps it fresh.  This only happens, though, when the composer is extremely skilled, and has the imagination and craft to put it together.

Speaking of skill, the musicians of 4-MALITY and O Duo were pretty outstanding.  They dedicated a lot of effort to this, which is the only that this kind of music ever happens.  Anyone who saw or heard the concert will know that they spent four days of intensive rehearsal with a Xenakis expert (who's name I didn't catch), and played with a click track in their ear for the performance.  That's probably the only way anyone could get through all those polyrhythms and aural textures.

Interestingly, one of the reasons why Xenakis composed in this rather exotic soundworld is because he was interested in working outside of the standard realm of pitch and harmony.  I'll let the composer's own words speak here:

"Linear polyphony is self-destructive in its current complexity. In reality, what one hears is a bunch of notes in various registers. The enormous complexity prevents one from following the tangled lines and its macroscopic effect is one of unreasonable and gratuitous dispersion of sounds over the whole sound spectrum. Consequently, there is a contradiction between the linear polyphonic system and the audible result, which is a surface, a mass.

This inherent contradiction with polyphony will disappear only once sounds become totally independent. In fact, since these linear combinations and their polyphonic superpositions are no longer workable, what will count will be the statistical average of isolated states of the components’ transformations at any given moment."

In other words, cool sounds.  (The above quote is from here.)

The sounds were so inspiring that someone in the audience was apparently moved to vocalize his enthusiasm at the top of his lungs (approx. 9:10 into it).  Because the music had reached one of several ecstatic plateaus, and the sounds were so...well...otherworldly, this extra spontaneous noise hardly even seemed out of place.  I'm sure there plenty of people in sympathy with the feelings of the noisemaker, who in almost any other circumstance would be (quite rightly) shushed within an inch of his life.

The Planets was something of a let-down after all that.  Brabbins did not get the best from the BBC SO players.  Ragged wind entrances and what sounded to me like a lack of enthusiasm in the upper strings much of the time kept this from being anything more than an average performance.  He has some fine ideas for the piece, but the musicians needed to do more than just wallow in the spacey orchestra sounds.  This is one of those cases where I was definitely enjoying the composer much more than the performer(s).

One of these days, I'm going to get someone to organize a concert program featuring excerpts from famous film scores and the serious works from which they were stolen inspired.  Both the Vaughan Williams and the Holst are good examples, even more so because theSinfonia Antarctica is actually a film score turned into a concert piece.  As for the connection between the The Planets and film music, all I can say is that I remember when we played this piece back in my university orchestra days.  So many of the student musicians were muttering, "Man, this is ripped off from Star Wars," that the conductor had to actually stop rehearsal and make the announcement that the piece was was completed in 1916.  I used to have fun with this stuff in my record store (remember those?) days as well.  Any title for this program probably shouldn't include the term "Human Xerox Machine", but I'm sorely tempted.

I must add one comment about the overly intrusive applause between every single movement.  Putting aside for the moment the argument about whether or not anything should be permitted between movements, one thing has become clear to me.  Either my suggestion about encouraging the "shuffle", or any other idea of some way to acknowledge the moment besides clapping would certainly prevent loud noises from stepping all over the last note, as happened at the end of Uranus.  Even if someone just can't wait, or perhaps in the event that someone just couldn't tell the music wasn't over, the soft shuffling of feet or a light murmur definitely wouldn't have killed the moment.  That's really what it's all about anyway. 

Curiously, there was no applause between movements in the Vaughan Williams.  That only started in the Holst.  Did someone, merely intending to show their appreciation for just that moment, unintentionally cause a cascade effect?  It sure got worse and worse after every movement.  Of course, once it becomes obligatory and uniform, the whole point of applauding just for that one bit gets lost.

If one little friendly, polite, non-snobbish, inclusive and encouraging remark had been made beforehand about what sort of gestures or sounds were appropriate in these situations, it would most likely have prevented the most egregious moments,as well as enabled whoever it was to actually communicate his appreciation of the moment to the players. As for the incident of stepping all over the last note, even if one is going to allow clapping for the lack of any other inspired choice, the mere mention of, you know, waiting for a moment before bursting into applause would have helped immensely.  But we're afraid to do that because we don't want to appear snobbish or contribute to the oppressive, stuffy atmosphere that supposedly scares people away, etc.  Argh.  Rant ends.

My recommendations for recordings of all these works are:

Vaughan Williams from the complete set conducted by Adrian Boult (can't find an individual release),

The Xenakis performed by the musicians for whom the piece was written,

and for the Holst, Boult again, or Gardiner with an added bit of fun from Percy Grainger.

Valery Gergiev at the Klara Festival: Ustvolskaya, Tchaikovsky, and Silvestrov

(Following from this post)

This concert both met and exceeded my expectations.  It was great to hear two interesting works which were new to me, and to hear Gergiev in music far outside the Standard Rep.

The program:

Ustvolskaya:  Symphony No. 3
Tchaikovsky:  Violin Concerto*
Silvestrov:  Symphony No. 6

Sergei Krilov, violin*
Maryinsky Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, cond.

I had the broadcast start time as an hour before the concert itself actually began.  It turns out this is because Klara had an hour of preliminary stuff as part of the official broadcast, just to set up the mood for the actual concert program.  There was some discussion of Ustvolskaya and Silvestrov, as well as a nice interview - in English, with quick translations by the host - with Krilov (he likes new music and has new works written for him - I like him already).  He spoke about working with Gergiev,

Interspersed amongst the dialogue were recordings of various violin works, including performances by Salvatore Accardo and .  I don't know how I would feel if I was a journeyman violinist coming in to do one of the biggest warhorses of them all, and the radio station was playing other famous works performed by bigger names for the hour before I went on.  Krilov probably had no idea, of course.  The interviewer asked him if he liked to listen to the rest of the concert when he was performing, or if he just focused on his own concerto and nothing else.  I found that a bit odd.  I understand being curious if the soloist stayed around for the rest of the program after he was done, but before?

The only other oddity was the fact that sometimes they cut off the end of whatever recording they were playing to go back to the live signal.  They even did this in between pieces.  I know they had a lot of air time to fill, but maybe they were trying to avoid becoming the talk-fest that some German and French concerts broadcasts can become. 

Now on to the music.

Much like the couple of chamber works I've heard by Galina Ustvolskaya, her Symphony No. 3 was stark and on the dark side.  It's all sparse textures, often unisons, or tone clusters in the winds.  As seems to be her style, she is very economical with her ideas and figures.  The work is built around a seven-note motif, and a limited set of intervals.  Deliberate pacing, almost laser-like direct musical lines are enhanced by the sharp, pointed winds and percussion which make up the bulk of the instrumentation.  The piece isn't long, only about sixteen minutes or so.

The spoken text (there was no listing for the male voice doing the reading) is from a collection of medieval religious and literary works of a leading medieval scholar and chronicler, Herman of Reichenau, aka Hermanus Contractus ("Herman the Cripple").  All of Ustvolskaya's symphonies feature liturgical texts of some kind, and all appear to come from this source.  The composer herself has stated that she does not practice any religion, but rather considers herself to be "spiritual", and composes her music with that kind of outlook.  So, as there doesn't seem to be any personal connection to the religious text itself, I wonder if the semi-reclusive and physically self-conscious Ustvolskaya feels some sort of kindred spirit in Herman the Cripple?

Ustvolskaya apparently notates her music without barlines, but the deliberateness of the lines and figures probably helps keep things together.  The same note values recur along with that seven-not figure, which seems to a slight reworking of her famous teacher's "DSCH" signature, with one added note and repetition of another.  The figure nearly always ends with the same note repeated three times, which creates a sense of forward motion.  A plaintive, semi-dramatic reading of the "Jesus Messiah, Save Me" text fits right in with the uncomfortable, almost suffering instrumental music.

Apart from the occasional rough wind entrance (like the opening chord), Gergiev had things well under control.  However, I did not get the sense of much inner detail outside of highlighting the seven-note riff and maintaining the same deliberate (there's that modifier again), pointed attack on each note from the both the percussion and winds.  It wasn't like he just glossed over all the details, but more as if he saw the obvious basics in the music, and that was it, let's play.  The composer's economy of means probably makes her scores pretty readable, bar lines or no.  But it sounded to me like there was some deeper context that was left out.

In the end, I think this is a case of Gergiev getting a pretty clean, straightforward performance, certainly bringing out the main points of the piece, but lacking in depth.

An interesting overview of Ustvolskaya and her work can be found in the following link.  As always with composers who lived in or through the Soviet-ear, it's best to take the political stuff with a grain of salt.

The Lady with the Hammer

As for the Tchaikovsky, Krilov was fairly solid at first, if a bit too slow at the opening.  I don't think that was Gergiev.  He's got a nice sound, if not as bold as some, and he and the conductor used quite a bit of rubato, but with excellent taste, never breaking the line or making the larger picture sound disjointed (Kennedy's Elgar could learn from this).  Once things got going though, the runs got rougher and rougher, and Krilov kept falling behind the beat.  He was really not on top of the technical challenges, and strained to hit the top notes of runs, had some out of tune passagework, and didn't really shine at all.  Musicality was a distant second at that point, and Krilov's overly-mannered cadenza didn't really do much to allay that feeling.  In fact it seemed to highlight the technical flaws more than make things like a certain questionable appoggiatura sound spontaneous. Fine playing in the orchestra, for the most part.

The wind writing in the second movement is the best part of this whole thing for me, and that was nice right up until the badly out tune horn stepped all over the otherwise sweet violin entrance.  Ouch.  Both Krilov and Gergiev had just the write colors going (except the horn on its next entrance).  I could have used a more open top end from the violin here.  There wasn't a wide enough range of shading as we keep coming around to the melody.  There's a point where the light needs to shine through at the top of the phrase, and it didn't work.  Good things happening in the winds and lower strings made the difference.

The last movement went the same way as the first movement.  Simple as that.  Apply what I said about that questionable appoggiatura back then to the open pizzicato chords of the last, and then add the bit about not enough openness on top from the second, and nothing else needs to be said.  Also repeat the bit about good things from the winds.  It's nice to hear really good woodwind sounds from a Russian orchestra again.

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov's 6th Symphony was a treat to listen to, just for the instrumental sounds.  The almost mechanical shifting of the bright colors and sharp angles in strings and winds to darker hues (brass, winds, percussion, piano) made me think of so many pieces from the '50s and '60s where it's just one solid splash of stacked instruments after another.  In this case there was a slight feeling of rotating around a rising scale.

Even though the pacing was just as deliberate as the Ustvolskaya, there was more energy.  Gergiev had the pulsing chords breathing, and the line was maintained much more in this work.  I don't think it was because the note values in the Silvestrov were longer.  This piece could very easily have become a plodding, sloppy mess with all those staggered entrances and hazy chords and rumbling pedal points.  There were quite a few moments of Ligeti-esque textures.  Structurally, the Silvestrov piece seems similar to Ustvolskaya's Symphony.  Both works share a focus on refrains and repeated patterns which both develop and then come back in their original shape.  Silvestrov included a full string section in his score, as well as more winds, and he indulges in a much thicker soundworld.  I think Gergiev heard a little Scriabin here, especially the gauzy strings and harp section, which almost entered some kind of movie dreamworld and played it that way.

The dream state ends, and for some reason the previously hazy clouds of color come together as a slightly fractured Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, done at Leonard Bernstein's pace.  The sharp angles from the opening poke through the Mahler clouds, but don't break it up all together.  What happens is that the elements have become fragmented and fractured enough that they are no more than the little bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, constantly shifting around, but at well-timed intervals.  That's really the overall impression I get of this piece.

I have to admit Gergiev really brought out the details this time.  This is the kind of work that has so many seemingly static, episodic moments which can quickly turn into a disjointed mush.  Instead, I got a sense of clear forms and a focused direction.  He gets some really solid playing from everyone here, especially the brass, and I would imagine that as much as the various chords get transformed over and over, this must be really difficult to play in tune. It's also goes on for a long time (a real critic would say too long, in fact:  just over 55 minutes with no pause).  But to me Silvestrov lets that occasional breath of fresh air come back in just in time to set off the next wave of gauze, so I don't mind.  Gergiev was certainly in no hurry to get through it either.  Some may look down on the heavy reliance on such a famous melody, but in the end I think it ends up being so fractalized that one hardly notices that it's the anchor keeping the rest of the music from floating away and dissipating.

My confidence in Valery Gergiev has been restored somewhat, although not entirely.  I'm also going to find a recording of the Silvestrov, possibly here.

Brahms, Liszt, Scriabin, Andsnes, Muti: Reliving Some Beautiful Music

This was supposed to be the second part of my first attempt to give "before and after" posts about a particular broadcast, as I discussed here.  It didn't work out exactly as planned, but there are still some worthwhile things to be said about the music.

First of all, I have to admit to messing up my "Scheduled Post".  It was meant to go up a day earlier, obviously, and didn't actually appear until something like halfway through the first broadcast I listed.  I'll make sure to post any repeat broadcast of this concert.  The post was up in plenty of time to catch the second one (today's Valery Gergiev concert), and my review of that will be up tomorrow.

In any case, the only truly memorable part was the Liszt, although Leif Ove Andsnes was excellent in the Brahms.  Since there isn't much point in going over a performance nobody heard, I'll just leave it at that and recommend this instead.  Is it possible that Andsnes hasn't recorded the Second Concerto?  I like the first one better anyway.  I'm going to keep my eye out for him doing more chamber music this year.  On the Philharmonic website, they have some very good podcasts and video of an interview with Leif Ove Andsnes about the Brahms and working with conductors (this was apparently his first time working with Muti).  Charles Zachary Bornstein, the Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, talks about the Scriabin (which to my ears only really got going about half way in).  They completely ignore the Liszt work, so I'll talk about that by itself.

It turns out that I misremembered the opening of Liszt's symphonic poem, "From the Cradle to the Grave".  It's actually his Faust Symphony which opens up with that tone row.  Incidentally that piece also bears the stamp of the Princess Caroline, as it was she who recommended (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to Liszt that he add that final choral movement, with the tenor solo and Goethe verse.  Of course, Liszt was extremely fond of choral music, and wrote a fair bit of it himself, so he was most likely easily persuaded.  To me, that bit sounded out of place, even before I knew it was only tacked on much later.

"From the Cradle to the Grave", however, was even more beautiful than I remembered, and it's something that I think more people need to hear.  Regardless of whether or not one is a fan of his music (I'm not really a fan of his orchestral music outside of Faust and this), this is a special little piece.  Naturally, it begins with a gentle lullaby.  Liszt is already hinting at darker things to come, nudging just the right note up or down in the middle of a phrase.  At times the opening section hovers between Bruckner's best quiet melodies and a major/minor shifting that is more typical of Fauré.  I must say that Muti has the New York Phil. sounding very French towards the end of this section, and those players really are something when all the planets align.

An uplifting, Italian tune comes into view, quickly becoming more and more energetic, interrupted by a dotted figure in the brass.  This dotted figure becomes an undercurrent, then takes over the entire orchestra.  Eventually the more flamboyant, bombastic Liszt we know from Les Preludes and the like comes through, but the triumph doesn't last long.  That Italian tune points downwards now, slow and somber in the low strings and bassoon and bass clarinet.  The atmosphere is very moody now, with angular, almost menacing intervals that wouldn't be out of place in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which wouldn't be written for another twenty five years.  Muti has the mix of the full string chords and winds sounding almost Wagnerian here; it's quite appropriate, and without overdoing it at all.

The violins turn the melody back around to a reprise of the lullaby, still with a hint of the central melody.  Liszt plays it just as autumnal as Strauss in his famous twilight piece, with some more chords straight out of Fauré.  Since this is a Liszt form, the ominous dotted figure returns, as does everything else, but all is now muted, resigned.  Ever the spiritual one, he looks heavenward as the music slowly winds to a close, almost as if the life of the music itself has gone out.

This was a terrific performance, but this wonderful, different music can be found here (the Naxos version is too fast in the second and third parts).  I'm told torrents of the performance can also be found.

Classical Music Radio Broadcasts This Week - Attempting Something Different

(UPDATE:  Apparently today's (Monday) Gergiev concert on Klara doesn't start until 2pm EDT.  My apologies.)

I wrote something a while back about trying to find new and different ways to do music criticism and concert reviews.  With a bit of inspiration from Norman Lebrecht's take on more involved coverage of concerts and festivals, I'm going to try something a little different.

Rather than just a dry listing of a handful of interesting progams - which anyone can find through sites like this one - I'm going to list a couple of concert broadcasts and briefly discuss why I want to hear them, and what I might be listening for.   Afterwards I'll post a review, not only to give my view on the concert, but to follow up on my preliminary comments.  This should be a fun experiment, and we'll see how this kind of music commentary looks at the end of the week.

First, though, a bit of cheating.

I actually heard this concert months ago, but NRK is rebroadcasting it, and it's well worth hearing again, for a couple of reasons.  The program is:

Sept. 7 from 11:00am to 1:00pm EDT, broadcast on NRK Altid Klassik

Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B, op. 83
Franz Liszt: From the Cradle to the Grave (Symphonic Poem)
Alexander Skriabin: Le Poème de l'Extase

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
New York Philharmonic
Riccardo Muti, cond.

Other than one brief moment of chamber music, it's been a while since I've heard Leif Ove Andsnes play.  I'm not the biggest fan of the Brahms 2nd Concerto, but I'm always happy to hear Andsnes, as well as that famous cello solo in the second movement.  The main reason I want to hear this concert again, though, is for the Liszt.

From the Cradle to the Grave is the last of his symphonic poems, a form which he invented.  Written from 1881-82, the original title was From the Cradle to the Coffin, but Liszt's long-time lover/companion/editor/advisor/troublemaker advised him to soften the title (a little bit more about the Princess Carolyn can be found here).  I prefer the original title.  It's an odd piece right from the start.  Liszt had already been experimenting with the outer edges of tonality and form, and had even gone so far as to compose a Bagatelle sans tonalité, and had begun to think about breaking free of tonality entirely.  This symphonic poem opens with a haunting line, which is in fact a full-on twelve-tone row.  The piece itself is not atonal, of course, and well within the Late Romantic harmony of his other works of his last years.  But it is, I think, more personal and moody than any of his other orchestral works.  That's no surprise since he wrote it near the end of his life, with declining health.  Forget about the Faust Symphony or Les Préludes. I think I find more interesting things in this piece than in any of his other symphonic poems.  I don't know why Ricardo Muti decided to resurrect this piece, but it's almost a "must hear", I think.

(Anyone interested in seriously learning about his absolutely amazing, heroice life should check out the incredible three-volume biography by Alan Walker.  Even if one doesn't care much for his music, Liszt was superhuman and led an amazing life.)

Scriabin's Poème de l'Extase is a good compliment to the Liszt work, and is one which Muti knows really well and has been championing for a long time.  Combine all that with the excellent sound of the of the NY Phil., and this is a good evening of music.  Yes, I've heard it already, but the Liszt especially deserves attention.

(UPDATE:  Review - sort of - is here.)

Sept. 8 from 1:00pm - 4:00pm EDT, broadcast on Klara

Galina Ustvolskaya: Symphony No. 3 "Jesus Messiah, save us"
Peter Tchaikovsky:  Violin Concerto in D, Opus 365
Valentin Silvestrov: Symphony No. 6 "Pathètique"

Sergei Krilov, violin
Maryinsky Theater Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, cond.

This is from the end of the Klara Festival (Flemish radio).  Gergiev, as usual, has been all over the place this summer, with varying results.  Even though he's doing music by composers from his homeland, there's no guarantee he'll know the scores very well.  The Tchaikovsky, of course, he'll know cold.  I've never heard Sergei Krilov before, so it'll be good to be exposed to a new artist.  As for the other two works, they're both fairly recent (written within the last 25 years or so), and I'm always keen to hear works I don't know by interesting composers.

Galina Ustvolskaya is a rather unusual composer.  She's sometimes described as the heir to Shostakovich, but I think that's more because of the personal connections (teacher/student, alleged lovers) than because of her music.  I don't know too much of her stuff, but from what I have heard (only chamber music, now that I think about it) her music can be both energetic and dark, with rough textures and moods.  The same could be said about Shostakovich, I suppose, but the personalities are quite different.  In any event, I haven't heard any of her music in quite some time, and have no idea how her Third Symphony, from 1983, will sound.

I've only heard a couple of orchestral works by Valentin Silvestrov, and it seemed like he was all over the place.  HIs musical language is wide-ranging, and can be appealing, from what I remember.  Perhaps doing film scores led him to be more cosmopolitan?

In any case, I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting music, as well as new artists, and this concert looks like a good fit.  Will Gergiev be able to fly in from wherever he is now on his insanely hectic schedule and make all this music work?  Does he know the Ustvolskaya and Silvestrov works well enough to get this orchestra through them with his usual cavalier approach to rehearsal?  Who knows.  I hope so.  His conducting technique is beyond reproach, but I sometimes worry about his focus and ability to bring out the details in difficult works.

Sept. 10 from 1:30pm - 4:50pm EDT - BBC Proms #73, broadcast on BBC Radio 3

Ralph Vaughan-Williams:  Sinfonia Antarctica
Iannis Xenakis:  Plëiades
Gustav Holst:  The Planets

Elizabeth Watts soprano
4-Mality
O Duo
Holst Singers (women's voices)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins conductor

There's obviously an otherworldly theme going on here.  The Vaughan-Williams piece has not worn well with me as I get older, but if Brabbins gets a little excitement out of his players and doesn't fall into that lugubrious, ham-fisted film music style that too many people use for this, I might like it again.  I kind of doubt it, but I'll still give it a shot, just because I like Brabbins.

On the other hand, I can't wait to hear the Xennakis.  It took me a very long time to be able to hear all the things he tries to do in his works, and I'm sure I'll discover new things about this one as well.  He wrote several works contemplating space and other worlds.  Plëiades is for massed percussion (to borrow from Percy Grainger) and can be both maddening and enlightening.  The percussion quartet 4-Mality (get it?) and the O Duo lads will take center stage for this big work.  I don't know if they'll be joined by any percussionists from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

I have to say that I'm not the world's biggest fan of music strictly for percussion ensemble.  I find that too many composers rely on bursts of sound and dense layers, and assume that it's enough to just move these gestures around the different instruments without worrying about real complimentary colors or exploring the varieties of combinations available.  The results are often too episodic, less than deeply thought out, and lacking in direction for my taste, but that's certainly never the case with Xennakis.  This should be fun.

There's not much that needs to be said about The Planets, other than what I already mentioned about the Sinfonia Antarctica.  There's some good music here, which I like a lot better than Vaughan-Williams.  They had different approaches to sound and color, though, and Brabbins will know that and direct his musicians accordingly.

So that's three interesting concerts for the week, and some things to look forward to while listening to them.  I'll post separate reviews for each one, and we'll see how this approach to concert reviews develops.  Any reactions are welcome.

Video Game Music For The Concert Stage - Metal Gear Solid

Just a further note about my suggestion that one way to attract new audiences to Classical Music is through the not-so-new video game soundtracks which are derived from tradition.  In case anyone thinks I'm kidding, note the audience reaction to this, a little something from "Metal Gear Solid":

New Music For New Audiences - OR - New Audiences For New Music?

William Weir has an article in the Chicago Tribune which addresses a very important point about getting people to listen to Classical Music.  After describing the difficulty of getting new works performed in the usual places for the usual audiences, he suggests that this might be the wrong place to look.  What about finding new audiences for new music?

This is not a new idea anymore (fortunately), and Weir offers a good entry point into that new world.  He quotes Greg Sandow, who often says that we should try to cater to pop music audiences, as part of a larger argument that maybe the traditional audience shouldn't be expected to like new music as much as non-Classical Music fans might.

After all, Weir says, the genre of "Classical Music" is so wide-ranging that no one will automatically like it all just because it's "Classical".  The example of Hoagy Carmichael and Radiohead both being "pop" is a reasonable analogy for the vast chasm between, say Corelli and Xenakis.  Yet they're both in the same section in the record shops (online or not).  No other genre encompasses so many centuries, so many countries, so many cultures, and so many permutations.  Of course, in reality it's rather silly - almost arbitrary at this point in the industry - to put all this music into one capital-C "Category".  The term "Classical Music" itself is essentially obsolete anyway, but until something better comes along, I'll use it, along with "New Music" for the contemporary languages, for the sake of argument.  (There is certainly an academic case to be made for why all this music should be considered parts of a greater whole, but this is not the place for that discussion.)

In one sense, it's a marketing issue.  The listener only cares about categorizing music in this way so he or she knows where to go to buy it.  Call it something else, and they'll still like it.  In fact, I would submit that some contemporary Classical Music would be received by the non-Classical audience much more readily if it was called something else.

But it's more than just a question of marketing and terminology.  In order to figure out which audience is going to like which music, one has to address the issue of language.  The genre of "Classical Music" these days has become almost as diverse as the human species, and it's important to understand that there are a wide variety of languages being spoken with which not everyone is going to be conversant.  I've touched on how the language of New Music might be familiar to non-Classical audiences before.   Now I'm going to take this idea further, and posit that in fact there are some contemporary languages which will be more appealing to them than to traditional Classical Music audiences.

The language of the Standard Repertoire (I don't intend that as a pejorative, I swear) tends to be that of the European harmonies and structures of the late 18th Century through to the middle of the 20th.  Yes, this is a gross generalization, but bear with me.  When I say "harmonies and structures", I mean the shapes and colors and emotions of the language.  These affect different people in different ways, depending on many personal things.  In the end it's a personal perspective, and so much of life experience contributes to that.

The personal music experiences of today's younger generations tend to include far more that is over-amplified and distorted or strange-sounding, violent or ugly, or harsh and dissonant than in previous generations.  The sounds that some Classical audiences reject are much more readily accepted by people who listen to other kinds of music.  There's probably something to Thomas Beecham's old adage that the public don't like music, they just like the noise it makes, but what it really means in this case is that the audiences who like other kinds of "noisy" (to more conservative audiences) music will have less difficulty getting into this kind of "noisy" music.

I'm definitely not saying that the younger, pop audience is more open-minded than the traditional Classical audience.  In fact, I'm saying that they're at least as prejudiced and closed-minded - if not more so.  How many times have we heard that "Classical Music" is boring?  Or, "That's too pretty, it's putting me to sleep", or other casual dismissals of 1000 years of music?  As often as not, it's because they are only exposed to one of the "prettier" languages, and their own personal experience simply hasn't prepared them to understand it.  That should be a familiar argument to anyone who cares about New Music.

Someone who is very into the grungier, more experimental sounds in rock or electronica will find many appealing sounds in contemporary works.  But the same person who enjoys the purely electronic sounds coming out of IRCAM can just as easily run screaming from the room at the sound of a harpsichord.  The language of one is familiar and enjoyable, the other is Lurch from The Addams Family. 

What this means is that there are many more people for whom the language(s) of New Music won't be so alien after all.  It's time to reach out to that audience.

I will say, though, that this won't be accomplished by adding a piece by Radiohead or a film music suite to a concert of Brahms and Rachmaninov. And I also don't think the kind of blues and gospel stuff Weir mentions is the way to go either, even if it's fronted by Matt Haimowitz on cello.  That's the wrong message to send also, as if none of the amazing languages of our genre cut it anymore.

Instead, I'd like to see a little suite from one of the new video games, plus something like Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" (not exactly to my taste, but it will bring that other audience in) along with works by living, breathing, interesting New Music composers who write in the more interesting contemporary languages.  There are so many to choose from!  One can come up with a nearly infinite list of combinations like this.

It's time to give up for good the idea that the old school composers will lead the way to new school audiences.  That doesn't mean that music isn't great, or that it should die out because new audiences dont care for it.  Instead, it means that the path to the enjoyment of the Standard Rep. starts with the enjoyment of the New Rep.

UPDATE: (Sept. 4)  I see that AC Douglas over at Sounds & Fury disagress with me.  I understand where he's coming from, and I have to say that there is room for both our positions.  In fact, our two approaches can work side by side with little effort.

The audience whom Mr. Douglas describes as "young but already grown-up persons who presently have little or no understanding of and little or no interest in classical music" are buying tickets today, not in twenty years.  So, while I will always approve of the outreach programs for the very young, and any and all efforts to cultivate the next generation of Classical Music lovers (who wouldn't?), I don't accept that as the only solution.

I've been through the argument that people don't understand how to listen to this kind of music, that they need to develop a longer attention span, etc.  Having been in the trenches of various battles in this industry, I no longer buy that as the only way.  "Get 'em while they're young" is great, but I've seen too many adults (or even late teens and young adults) get enthusiastic about something in the Classical Music genre, even if they've never heard any masterpieces or hallowed chestnuts of the repertoire.

The key is to stop worrying about getting this new audience to sit through a Beethoven String Quartet cycle or something once they have their ear in the door.  There's a thousand plus years of music, in an infinite variety of colors and flavors, and it's illogical to expect all music lovers to follow one specific time-line or canon (as much as I would love to from an academic standpoint).  I can't even begin to recount how many times I've seen someone whose first exposure to this world was through something with contemporary sounds and structures.  They're into it, and they don't care if they're supposed to listen to Bach and Mozart first, or that this is more complex than the music they're used to listening to.  That means nothing.  The evidence is out there, and so is the audience, just waiting for someone to make the effort.

As for future generations, I hope we never stop encouraging them in exactly the way AC Douglas suggests.  And there's no reason whatsoever that my other suggestions should interfere with or contradict this approach.

Listening to Alan Gilbert and the NDR Sinfonieorchester, plus René Pape

I remember when both Alan Gilbert and René Pape were up-and-comers in their respective fields.  Pape was obviously a rising opera star to be watched.  Even after hearing his earliest efforts on disc, it was clear that this was a solid musician with a very rich instrument, one which would develop into something pretty outstanding.

Gilbert, on the other hand, was hardly on my radar at all.  I've heard him a few times over the years with various orchestras, at least twice on the radio with the band he led for the last eight years, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.  They were so happy with him that they just made him their conductor laureate, apparently only the third one ever named by that group.  Based on what I've heard, I'd considered him to be quite competent and very musical, with the ability to shape phrases clearly and get his ideas across.  But I could always think of a handful of conductors of a similar age and point in their career trajectory whom I would much rather hear.

When I finally saw him live with the New York Philharmonic earlier this year, they were doing Ein Heldenleben.  This was just after the official announcement of his appointment to take over as Music Director from Lorin Maazel next year, and it seemed like they were eager to please.  Of course, this is the kind of music the NY Phil loves to do, and I could tell why they like Gilbert (family issues aside):  he let's them flex their muscles, and to play loud and fast.  Some music commentators have described the orchestra as a well-tooled fancy sports car, meaning that this is a high-quality, luxurious, highly efficient machine.  But there's always a subtext hinting that maybe that sleek exterior masks a less than profound inner core.  I've had similar feelings sometimes, and that was why I knew they would pick Maazel when they did.  They just didn't realize what it would be like to have such a fussy, relentless driver for a full season or three.  We know how that ended up.

So now they have Gilbert.  The orchestra was pretty much allowed to play all-out as much as they wanted, but the overall interpretation was definitely his.  I could tell when there were clearly rehearsed phrases and gear changes which seemed ever so slightly at odds with the rest of the big-boned blasting (although that's kind of in the music already).  But there was something a bit strange about his technique which caught my eye.

Much of the time his elbows stick out at the sides, sometimes almost parallel to the floor.  With his broad shoulders and (kind of) stocky frame, he resembled at times a blocker for a New York football team.  That's just a superficial observation, of course, and none of that should affect his ability to conduct the orchestra.  However, I'm starting to feel that it just might do.

I happened to be sitting very close to the front, and way off to the right side.  This is very much the same vantage point I'm used to from playing in orchestras, so I spent much of the time watching Gilbert and trying to see just how well I could follow him as a player (part of the fun for me).  His elbows were not really so distracting, but the combination of those with his too-often clenched fists did make it difficult to read some cues.  I put this down to something that I would get used to soon enough if I played under him regularly.  After all, most (if not all) conductors have their little idiosyncrasies which players have to adjust to.  There are as many anecdotes about this for the biggest names around as there are for anyone.  Sometimes it's something as major as, "Where the hell is his beat?", but it's usually more in the details where one has to figure out if the beat is on the rebound, or "was that supposed to be my cue", or whether the conductor is showing the pick-up beat or not.  This is where Gilbert lost me a few times, and twice he lost the entire viola section as well.  Unfortunately, the second time was a the return of the same section solo that got screwed up earlier.  He also got lost and missed a big trumpet cue.  He knew it was coming and prepped it with an upturned finger, but when the time came he had his head in the score and the trumpets played without him.  He realized he still had his finger up and quickly retracted it with such a big shake of his head that the front desks of the strings (including his mother) burst out in big, big smiles.  I think Glenn Dicterow (the concertmaster) was giggling for another minute and a half.

In any case, it was a very strange, jerky cue from Gilbert which lost both me and the entire viola section.  I'm not exaggerating when, after the first time it happened, I actually sat on the edge of my seat waiting to see if maybe he'd be more clear, or maybe the violas had figured it out next time.  Oops.  He just shook his fists even more, and it was worse than before.  I don't think this is something I could ever just "get used to".  The violas had been working with him enough by that point - and they all know the piece cold anyway - that this shouldn't have been such a death spot.  Clear gestures are key, even when one is working with the same orchestra for a long period of time.  I got the sense that I was hearing more odd things from his technique than from any lack of good musical sense.  That's one main reason I was eager to hear this concert:  to see how the NDR - who play under all kinds of different conductors rather often - would deal with it in works which require quite a bit of give and take, especially the Mahler.

The program:  René Pape singt Wagner, Alan Gilbert dirigiert Mahlers 5. Sinfonie

The Meistersinger prelude was a pretty straightforward reading, as was the 'Was duftet doch der Flieder' monologue from its second act (except for a balance problem at the start).  I must admit I don't find a whole lot of substance in this music, but Gilbert and Pape made the most of the more interesting moments. Maybe Gilbert's elbows caused those rough edges at the end, when the music fizzled out rather than ending coherently.

The famous Prelude to Act 3 of Die Walküre went well enough.  This orchestra has a good sound for this kind of music. Although, there was an annoyingly heavy "gallop" feel most of the time.  That ubiquitous dotted figure was thumped too hard, and it added too much weight to any sense of upward motion.  The hooves of the Valkyries horses should not be clomping so hard when they're supposed to be riding through the air.  Are those elbows showing more than he intends them to?

Immediately, though the stark change in mood between between the previous big gestures and the melancholia of Wotan's Abschied was enough to cleanse the palate.  Gilbert got just the right sound and balance out of the orchestra.  René Pape caught just the right mood as well, demonstrating his fine sense of phrasing and steadiness. Gilbert proved to be a very sensitive accompanist here, although Pape has no trouble staying above just about any orchestra.  Nothing had to be forced, and there were some very lovely, perfectly timed moments where the tension and volume momentarily rises only to be held back by Wotan's reluctance to express his own emotions.  All natural, all coming directly, honestly, from the music.  Once again, I like Gilbert's ideas about phrasing and shapes.  Pape's sound was clear and warm and full, the way polished oak would sound if it could sing.  Of course, I didn't get quite the sense of humanity and pathos I want out of this bit, but it's hard for a singer to get deeply into character for these 'concert' performances of opera scenes.  I can, however, imagine just how great he might be when he's sunk deeply into this role for a real Ring Cycle.

It's only been about two years since Pape announced that he was going to add Wotan to his repertoire, with the goal of a first attempt in 2010.  Definitely something to watch out for.

Now to Mahler 5.

After a smooth opening section, maybe just a hair slower than I wanted it, but somber and lilting in all the right places, there is a sudden gear shift.  The first violins play this vigorous, angsty line, and Mahler writes instructions for them to play as violently as possible.  The seconds answer with an ascending figure of triplet sixteenth notes.  This was a very ragged entrance, and I was reminded of that problematic viola section moment from the Strauss.  But I can momentarily put that down to just a passing rough moment, which can happen even at the best of times.  Both violin sections do this a couple bars later, and it was just as ragged in both.  Seeing as how this is a similar figure to that Heldenleben spot, I wonder if it's just the way Gilbert is showing it?  When other sections take up that "after-the-beat" triplet figure a few moments later, it's not any better.  Late, even. But the main triplet figure which starts the whole thing off and is a recurring gesture here always seems to be very clear and consistent.  Hmm.

Hey, what's that?  Timid applause after the first movement?  From the smart, suave, culturally educated audience of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival?

Everything proceeds just right in the next movement.  No glossing over details here.  There's plenty of musical intelligence on offer, along with some fine playing from the NDR members.  I've been aware of just how good this orchestra really is for some time, and it's always a pleasure.  Maybe I would have liked a little more bite in the brass at times, but they do have that good German sound which works so well in this music, and play with the right amount of heft and emotion.  Clarity and attention to detail are vitally important in Mahler, and sometimes people forget this amongst all the notes and noise that goes on.  That wasn't a problem at all.  Gilbert led them with a sure hand, with plenty of rubato and sharp turns, although with a feeling of inevitability rather than mannered.  I suppose I could quibble about the interpretation of Pesante (it's not the same thing as "scrappy").  And there were some sour clams from the horns at unfortunate moments, something Gilbert is going to have to get used to in New York.

The Scherzo movement was very tastefully executed (barring the odd ragged wind entrance or horn honk).  This was, as it should be, a country dance, with some very pretty, almost Brucknerian lines in the strings.  Gilbert is good at creating the tension between the more agitated moments and the softer, lyrical passages.  There were another couple of rough spots in the bustling eight-note passages that made think "elbows" again (and maybe with a couple of sectional unisons which almost weren't), but over all it was tight enough.  That "chamber music" section, where it's just the string section leaders have these delicate, yet slightly menacing pizzicatos accompanying an oboe was very nicely done, but again I felt a couple of forced moments when the players seemed just the tiniest bit unsure of when the phrase should start.

Those elbows were back in the famous Adagietto, though.  Every time there was a gorgeous, melting line, it got stepped on at the chord change.  This went on throughout some rather long lines.  One string section would be late, or somebody plunked too hard on it.  I kept picturing the gestures I saw Gilbert do in New York, and I'm not surprised.  It's too bad, really, because I could tell it was some beautiful, expressive playing otherwise.

Fortunately, these problems seemed to mostly vanish in the last movement.  The real activity gets started in the cellos and then spreads elsewhere.  No jagged entrances here, no moments of uncertainty or ham-fistedness.  This was consistent throughout a thoroughly enjoyable finale.  All of Gilbert's positives - as well as the orchestra's - were on display.

There was a smattering of audience applause between all but the last two movements.  Maybe enough harsh glares were finally cast at the offenders?  Surely something can be done about this.

All in all, I have to say I'm still looking forward to what Alan Gilbert does in New York.  Maybe his musical ideas will be enough to get the NY players out of that cold, highly-engineered machine mentality, and he'll clean up whatever that odd hitch is in his technique.  I heard just as many excellent musical thoughts in this concert as I have in the last two or three times I've heard him combined, so that's encouraging.  But can he control the musicians without boring them?  Quite a few of the NY players have watched him grow up, and there is very obviously a great rapport there.  We shall see.

Another Way To Do Media Criticism

Norman Lebrecht has a very interesting post on his "Slipped Disc" blog on ArtsJournal.com:

In a critical condition (5)

Now that we're past the mourning period over the dismissal (for that's what it was) of so many music and arts critics in the last few months, it's time to look at what can be done now, and in the near future.  Lebrecth's key paragraphs:

"A newspaper that cherishes and promotes its critics - as The Scotsman does, for instance, during the Edinburgh Festival - offers readers a reliable benchmark against which they can measure their own reactions and opinions to things they have seen and heard. The Scotsman deploys its critical team strategically in festival time as a way of setting itself apart from the range of free newspapers that flood the city streets.

In Salzburg, likewise, the local Nachrichten is read more closely during festival time than any of the national or international papers because its critics provide a clearer context day by day of events in the present festival against triumphs of the past. Their value cannot be measured purely in payroll terms."

This got me thinking further along the lines of innovative ways to report on music.  I've already had some thoughts about this, but I'm going to take it a step further.  The combination of my earlier idea about posting audio and video clips to generate interest in an upcoming concert and the way Lebrecht describes the approaches of The Scotsman and the Nachrichten brings to mind another genre of journalism (the topical critical writing kind, I mean): sports coverage.

In sports, the local writers always do a little piece about tonight's game, discussing key match-ups, possible strategies, injuries, and other things fans think about in anticipation of a game.  I say that Classical Music fans have very similar thoughts before attending a concert.  It's an interesting parallel:  Why do we go to a ballgame?  Because we're interested in the kind of ball being played, and at least one of the players or teams involved.  We root for a good result for our favorites.  We're elated when they do well, and disappointed when they don't.  Our passions can be piqued by a good pre-game report which hits on key points.

Why do we go to a concert?  Because we're interested in the kind of music being played, and usually one of the players or ensembles involved.  We root for a good performance, especially of the one work we wanted to hear.  We're elated when it goes well, and disappointed when it doesn't.  But our passions aren't piqued by a good pre-concert report, because there aren't any, unless it's a general interview with some bigshot hitting town, or a composer's birthday overview.  None of that does what a pre-game sports piece does, though.  All we get are dry details on the concert listings page.  To continue my restaurant analogy from a previous post, we're expected to look at the menu and alreay know how everything tastes.

So why not up the ante with music reviews?  Surely there can be a little space somewhere for three hundred words about an up-coming concert which discusses something interesting about the program.  It could even be something similar to what many of us think before deciding whether or not to go to a concert.  Is there a special moment in one of the pieces we really ought to hear?  Does the conductor or soloist do well with this repertoire, or is does the visiting band have the best brass section ever and you have to go hear them?  There are all kinds of things that can be brought up, and with just a few words.  If there's no more room in the Amazing Shrinking Newspaper, then put something on the paper's website.  That can't be too hard to do.  From there people can sign up for email or text notices, etc.  Online journals, bloggers, etc., can do this now.  After all, it's not like nobody knows what they're going to review until the last minute.  Concerts are often scheduled even farther in advance than the current season.  If the critic doesn't know too far in advance, the editor who makes the assignment sure does, or ought to.  What I'm saying is that this can be done without making any adjustments.

It's time to move beyond thinking about concert reviews as news items to be reported on only after the incident has taken place.  It's also time to move beyond the mindset that basic publicity techniques needn't be used for this kind of music, and that the audiences won't respond.  Perhaps newspapers don't care anymore, but there are plenty of music writers out there who do.  Taking a more well-rounded approach to covering concerts is an important next step.