The Valkyrie – Act Three

A bit of Valhalla descended on New England Conservatory Wednesday night as guest conductor Robert Spano and veteran Wagnerians Greer Grimsley and Jane Eaglen performed Act Three of Die Walküre. NEC presented this concert excerpt from Richard Wagner's saga as a fundraiser for a new Student Life and Performance Center, slated to break ground in the spring and open in 2017. 

Die Walküre is the second of four operas that make up The Ring of the Nibelung. Act Three runs 70 minutes, which is less than a tenth of the fourteen hours of music in the entire cycle, but it is a good introduction to two of the major characters: Wotan, ruler of the Norse gods, and Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie (battle maiden). She was once Wotan's favorite daughter, but now she is estranged for disobeying his command. Wotan would rather not punish her, but his hands are tied by the treaties he has forged to gain power.

The act begins with Wagner's most recognizable music, The Ride of the Valkyries. NEC's sopranos and mezzos took on the roles of Brünnhilde's battle sisters, who carry fallen heros to glory in Valhalla. The first voice we hear ("Hoyotoho!") is Gerhilde; soprano Cheyanne Coss had a shining and secure voice that boded well for the rest of the evening. The eight women made a formidable ensemble. 

There is one more person in Act Three: Sieglinde, Wotan's daughter by a human mother. Sieglinde is fleeing man and gods because she is carrying her dead twin's unborn child. (It's complicated.) Wotan is hunting down Brünnhilde for aiding and abetting Sieglinde's escape. Graduate student Kirsten Hart was commendable as the half-human outcast, but her character departs early in Act Three. Her brief outing could be seen as role-building for a dramatic soprano; the bulk of Sieglinde's music is in the first two acts.

Jane Eaglen has performed Die Walküre onstage 85 times (by her husband's reckoning). She is a muscular soprano, still able to sustain an act as Brünnhilde, but she is at a point in her career when it is time to pass along her wisdom in the role to others. She is currently on staff at New England Conservatory, and several of this evening's sister Valkyries were her students.

Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley is a lean man who generates an improbably huge amount of sound. Wearing tuxedo tails for this benefit performance, he commanded the stage and showed why he is the actor's singer of choice for Ring cycles around the world.

Conductor Spano started with a cautiously controlled reading of the first few pages, but he guided the student orchestra admirably through Wagner's superhuman score. During the bows he singled out the English Horn and Bass Clarinet soloists to roaring applause.

Postscript – Die Walküre ends with Wotan taking away Brünnhilde's immortality and sending her to sleep within a ring of fire. In the next opera Sieglinde's grown son will brave the fire and awaken his mother's half-sister with a kiss; Brünnhilde takes her nephew as husband. (It's complicated.) The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra will perform Act Three of Siegfried with guest soloists in the spring ... stay tuned.

The Fantastic Mr Fox: the opera

Odyssey Opera presented a concert version of Tobias Picker's 1998 opera, The Fantastic Mr Fox, borrowing costumes (and most of the cast) from San Antonio's recent stage production. This was a family-friendly performance: two kids could attend free with each paid adult ticket. Yet it is hard to consider this a children's work; the words come faster than the ear can register, and I would have been lost without the projected surtitles. I can't imagine what the youngest listeners were able to pick up.

Tobias Picker was on hand to hear the show, this being the first American revival of the fully orchestrated score since the Los Angeles Opera premiere. He had made subsequent chamber versions for fifteen and then seven musicians to accommodate smaller productions. The full score was most effective when depicting the destructive power of Agnes the Digger, a juggernaut of an excavating machine bent on rooting out Mr Fox's den. While the role of Agnes was written for a mezzo-soprano, here it was performed, brilliantly, by countertenor Andrey Nemzer. This put a double-reverse gender twist on Agnes the Digger's romantic sparks with Mavis the Tractor.

The vocal star of the evening was soprano Elizabeth Futral, in her fully engaged portrayal of Miss Hedgehog. She has an Act Two lament about her incipient spinsterhood but radiates rapture in an Act Three duet with her newfound love, Mr Porcupine. Incidentally, Theo Lebow, who sang Mr Porcupine, was one of the foxcubs in the original LA production sixteen years ago. He has grown up into an admirable lyric tenor.

Other singers brought varying degrees of acting ability to their roles. John Brancy's Mr Fox was, if not fantastic, at least jauntily approximating the hero's charm. Krista River's Mrs Fox was pleasant, but not dramatically present. Ironically, this concert performance would have benefitted by one of the composer's reduced orchestrations. The full complement of onstage musicians frequently overpowered the singers in this lively but word-heavy score.

O.P.C. at A.R.T.

The first thing you notice upon entering the theater for American Repertory's latest production is that the usher doesn't hand you a program. The next thing you notice is that the set is a looming collage of recycled trash. Eve Ensler's new play, O.P.C. (obsessive political correctness), is about the ravages of consumerism. The character Romi is so crippled by environmental anxiety that she drops out of Harvard and becomes a scavenging squatter, much to the dismay of her mother, who is running for U.S. Senate. The opening scene between the two makes it clear that what lies ahead is two hours of proselytizing.

The play is billed as a comedy, and some people were amused by the social satire and political cynicism, but I would have been more entertained by subtler treatment. Ensler is adept at character studies that draw us into a person, giving us a window to their outlook on the world. That empathy was missing in O.P.C.; the playwright opted for preachy activism.

The most provocative idea was the absence of a printed playbill. At intermission you could find a few ring binders with the cast list and production notes; the list of show sponsors was written in soap on the lobby windows. It will be interesting to see if A.R.T. continues to go paperless for all future productions. They would need to take it a step further, placing scan codes around the entrances (or on the tickets) to point mobile devices to a virtual program, with pop-up ads to satisfy underwriters. A downside would be the distraction of the audience lighting up screens during a performance to see who's who.

Romi's ultimate objective was the protection of endangered species. I had to applaud A.R.T. for saving several trees and repurposing thousands of plastic bottles.

Sibelius 7, Brahms 2

Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra consistently excel with three composers: Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Sibelius. The conductor seems to respond to the extroverted dramatics of their output. The first half of Sunday's concert featured three works by Jean Sibelius, and the musicians never sounded better. The opening bars of Finlandia were exactly the way I want to hear them (reference John Barbirolli and the Halle Orchestra in their 1966 recording): swell—hit—silence [repeat]. The acoustics of Sanders Theatre embraced the volume of sound without blurring the force. It was like a beast breathing down your neck. The Swan of Tuonela, with Peggy Pearson's harrowingly calm English horn solo, and Symphony No 7 were equally captivating. I didn't dare turn my back on the orchestra. Maestro Zander was visibly affected at the close of the symphony. There must have been pride in his orchestra, but also perhaps a feeling of letting go. He is of an age where any concert might mark his final performance of a given work.

I changed seats for the second half of the concert in order to get a better view of the soloist for Brahms's Piano Concerto No 2. My mistake. I moved behind a family with three sons; let's call them six, eight and eleven years old. The boys were well behaved, in that they were quiet during the concert. When they whispered to each other it was a true whisper, not a throaty stage whisper. The middle son was apparently a musician. He had a notebook of hand-written music and drawings. It looked like during the Sibelius he had sketched one of the double-bassists, and during the Brahms he drew the back profile of the conductor. The elder son spent the entire concert playing a racing car game on his mobile device. Granted, it was in silent mode, but I had to tune him out of my peripheral vision. The youngest was playing a video game on his mother's phone right in front of me, so I held up my program to block his display. He settled down and tried to nap for the the second movement, so the mother took the phone to check her email. The six-year-old got an attack of the fidgets during the third movement and was in desperate need of a jungle gym during the finale.

I don't understand why a family would pay several hundred dollars for an afternoon of video games. If they wanted a shared classical music experience, why not listen to the radio together in the living room, or watch a video of the Berlin Philharmonic? Very puzzling.

How was the piano soloist, HaeSun Paik? Okay, I guess.

Ornithology and matrimony

A jilted bride languishes in a self-imposed prison of madness and decay. An amateur naturalist fathoms the fetters of his marriage during a lecture on the mating habits of waterfowl. This is the basis for two one-act operas by American composer Dominick Argento.

Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is based on a character from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Aurelia Havisham is jilted not so much at the altar but in her parlor, where she receives a note of regret during her final preparations for the ceremony. She smashes all the clocks and remains in her wedding attire (less one shoe she had yet to put on) for the next fifty years. The opera is a forty-minute virtuoso mad scene in which Aurelia replays that fateful day in her mind. Soprano Heather Buck's greatest talent was showing that Miss Havisham is aware of her madness. It was a heartbreaking display of noble indignity.

A Water Bird Talk is loosely based on Anton Chekhov's short play On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco, with slides and excerpts from John James Audubon's The Birds of America. The reluctant Lecturer cowers onstage in the shadow of his offstage wife. Each new slide of a bird elicits a tangent on his own home life, where he has a brood of seven daughters (all born on the 13th). When the Lecturer sits down at a piano to demonstrate a birdcall we see him fly free into dreams of what he once might have been. Baritone Aaron Engebreth had the right sympathetic humor to make us love and pity the hen-pecked husband.

Suffolk University's refurbished 100-seat Modern Theatre was an ideal venue for these two intimate monodramas. A dozen or so musicians filled the small pit, with a harp and keyboards in the left and right loges. Odyssey Opera's conductor Gil Rose is a champion of Argento's works, and all of the artists involved did the composer justice.

Yo-Yo Ma and the kitchen sink

There was a little bit of everything at Symphony Hall on Thursday: a world premiere, some works for chorus and orchestra, three vocal soloists, and a superstar cellist playing a concerto. Music director Andris Nelsons opened the evening with Koussevitzky Said:, a choral scherzo by American composer John Harbison. This 2012 commission celebrated the 75th anniversary of Tanglewood, setting to music some commentaries by former Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor and Tanglewood founder, Serge Koussevitzky. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus joined the BSO onstage, and their most memorable lyric was "The next Beethoven will from Colorado come."

The second item was the world premiere performance of Lakes Awake at Dawn, a meditation for mixed chorus and orchestra by Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds. This was easily the most accessible composition of the new millennium I have heard so far, with calm harmonies and comforting dissonances. The remaining concerts are likely sold out; listen to the first half hour of the live radio broadcast on Saturday night if you are interested.

The capper for the first half of the program was Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra featuring soloist Yo-Yo Ma. The best part was unscripted collaborative musicianship during the second movement; a draft caught the cellist's sheet music and half turned a page. He tried to settle it with his bow, but had to continue playing. Without missing a beat Andris Nelsons reached over and turned the page forward. Yo-Yo Ma shook his head, and the conductor turned the page back. Five minutes later another draft, conductor turned the page, soloist shook his head, conductor turned the page back. When a third gust took the music, a violist sprang forward and held the page down. She remained crouched by the soloist for the rest of the movement. A violinist even passed along a pencil to weigh down the bottom of the page. Watching this silent communication and generous cooperation among musicians during a blazing performance made the Prokofiev concerto the high point of the season.

The large feature after the intermission was Sergei Rachmaninoff's choral symphony, The Bells, based on a loose translation of the poem by Edgar Allen Poe. Joining the BSO and full chorus were Russian soprano Victoria Yastrebova, Czech tenor Pavel Cernoch and Lithuanian bass-baritone Kostas Smoriginas. I was afraid the work would be a unwieldy beast, but my fears were unfounded. Andris Nelsons proved that he can hold together large forces and bring out both nuance and magnitude. 

Venezuelan quartet comes to Cambridge

Wednesday was to be the Boston debut of the Simón Bolívar String Quartet, but when that concert sold out the Celebrity Series added another concert for the evening before, on Tuesday. So I ended up seeing their second concert, and it wasn't really in Boston; both performances took place in Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music on the fringe of Harvard Square, Cambridge.

The members of the quartet came up through el Sistema, a program in Venezuela that puts instruments in the hands of young children and fosters their classical music education. These four players are currently the principal chairs in the string section of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra (formerly Youth Orchestra, but its musicians grew up). As the recordings and videos of the orchestra demonstrate, el Sistema has produced some great results.

The evening began with Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet No 2 in A minor. This work, written when the composer was seventeen, is a perfect calling card for prodigious, youthful musicians. The piece can handle athletic vigor or stripped-down transparency; there are any number of valid readings. The SBSQ played the first two movements with lyrical romanticism, which left me expecting delicate tenderness in the third movement. The tempo marking is Allegretto con moto (moving slightly fast), but it came across as 'pedaling wicked fast', about twice the tempo that the opening movements had prepared me for. They then slashed their way through the Presto of the fourth movement. My overall impression of the Mendelssohn was one of liberation. These players were not bound by any one playing tradition, but that freedom didn't make for a coherent whole.

The next work, Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera's String Quartet No 1, was made for slashing. The SBSQ reveled in the rhythmic percussiveness of the opening Allegro violento ed agitato and the following Vivacissimo (wicked lively), yet played appropriately Calmo e poetico in the third movement. That section opens with the cello, viola and second violin droning on the standard tuning notes of a guitar while the first violin explores various melodic tangents. The final Allegramente rustico got the audience's hearts and hands thumping.

After intermission we heard the final work, String Quartet in C minor by Johannes Brahms. Given the energized interpretation of the Mendelssohn, I was surprised by the placid understatement of the slow movement in the Brahms. As the concert entered its second hour I couldn't shake the image that the cello and lead violin sounded pudgy, like the instruments didn't fit easily into the notes they were supposed wear. There is a middle ground between reckless abandon and clinical precision, but the Simón Bolívar String Quartet has yet to find a convincing artistic voice.

Underwater and backwards

It is hard to justify paying the premium for a Celebrity Series of Boston ticket when it comes to visiting orchestras. Boston already has a top-level orchestra that you can see perform most weeks of the year either at Symphony Hall or Tanglewood. The appeal would have to be for the infrequent concertgoer who is drawn by name power. Case in point, on Sunday evening American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas brought the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra to Symphony Hall with guest violinist Gil Shaham. Fine musicians all, but it would have been more of a treat if the Celebrity Series flew the ticket holders out to San Francisco to see them perform.

The first half of the program had a diabolical theme, starting with Franz Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. Gil Shaham then joined the orchestra in Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No 2 in G minor. The first two movements contain some of Prokofiev's most lyrical writing, but the third movement bears the composer's devilish grin. Shaham played with animation, but his sound didn't carry well to the back of the hall and was sometimes covered by the orchestra.

The second half of the program had a water theme, starting with a new commission by young American composer Samuel Adams. Drift and Providence uses fragmentary motifs and soft attacks to paint a liquid mood. I can't say that it blurs the melodic line, because there isn't any line of melody to blur. The work sounds like it is being played underwater and backwards.

The SFSO closed the evening with Daphnis and Chloé, Suite No 2 by Maurice Ravel. This is an apt companion piece to Adams's new work; the rise and fall of the opening measures suggests a seascape, and when Daphnis and Chloé premiered a hundred years ago audiences didn't quite know what to make of it. The second suite has since become a rhapsodic staple of the orchestral repertoire. It will be interesting to see which of the new works emerging in the 21st century will gain foothold twenty-five, fifty or a hundred years from now.

Hamlet, Stravinsky and air traffic control

This week I swapped my Boston Symphony Orchestra ticket from Thursday to Saturday, also swapping sides of the balcony. I usually sit over the violins, but this evening I sat over the cellos, giving me an open view to the percussion section. Percussionists were in full force tonight, with five players for Australian composer Brett Dean's trumpet concerto, Dramatis Personae, and six players for Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Andris Nelsons opened the concert with Tchaikovsky's overture-fantasy Hamlet, which had thematic links to the other works. The middle movement of Dean's concerto is entitled 'Soliloquy', and Stravinsky's ballet score ends with the self-sacrificial death of a young maiden (Ophelia).

Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger played the 2013 world premiere of Dramatis Personae in Austria, and has since played the local premieres in England, Germany, and now Boston. The first movement, 'Fall of a Superhero', pits the soloist against his arch-enemy, the orchestra. The orchestra wins. The entire concerto is an exploration of sound textures: at one point the timpanist places an upside-down cymbal on his kettledrum and beats the cymbal while pumping the pitch pedal. The third movement, 'The Accidental Revolutionary', shows the composer's sense of humor; the finale sounds like a Salvation Army band playing the march from Symphonie fantastique on a runway, tying up air traffic for the entire northeast corridor.

The Rite of Spring lets two timpanists give nine kettledrums a good thumping. I'm glad I had a direct sightline to the rhythmic display.

Rosanne Cash in Cambridge

I celebrated my sister's birthday by taking her to see her all-time favorite singer and songwriter, Rosanne Cash. We went to Sanders Theatre in Cambridge on Thursday night to see Cash and company perform her latest release, The River & The Thread. Leading the band on acoustic and Telecaster guitars was Rosanne's husband and music director, John Leventhal. His wing man on Telecaster, acoustic and lap steel was Kevin Barry, a Boston-based teacher at the Berklee College of Music. Each guitarist was masterful at weaving unobtrusive support around the other's blazing solos. The bassist was Zev Katz, a longtime collaborator with Cash and Leventhal. Rounding out the band were keyboardist Glenn Patscha and drummer Dan Rieser.

The first set was all the songs from The River & The Thread played in sequence. Rosanne's patter between numbers shed light on the creative sparks behind the songs and continually showed her humor, intelligence and love for music. Here is a distillation of the playlist:

A Feather's Not A Bird – Rosanne set the tone with her American roots style. She draws on country, folk and gospel influences without sounding derivative. What makes Rosanne Cash a great songwriter is that she is a great listener, to both the musical tradition and the stories of the people she encounters. Cash's voice, with its clear, light twang, is ageless.

The Sunken Lands – Her father's first memory of the old family home was five cans of paint.

Etta's Tune – The secret to 65 years of marriage is to repeat each morning, "What's the temperature, darlin'?" As Rosanne observed: "what a non-confrontational way to start the day."

Modern Blue – This is the first time that Barcelona and Memphis have appeared in the same song.

Tell Heaven – A gospel number that embraces agnostics.

The Long Way Home – Life's journey has too many left turns.

World Of Strange Design – As seen through the prism of the deep South.

Night School – A musing on Mobile, Alabama. She's never been there, but she vetted the details on the internet.

50,000 Watts – The transformative power of radio.

When The Master Calls The Roll – Rosanne's current husband John Leventhal and her former husband Rodney Crowell co-wrote this tune for Emmylou Harris. Rosanne wasn't having that. She eventually got Crowell to rewrite the lyrics with her, turning the song into a tribute to the Cash ancestors of the civil war.

Money Road – It's a dark trail from William Faulkner's home to the Tallahatchie River.

The second set intermixed a few of Rosanne's early originals with covers from the American folk and country songbook. Most of these latter songs came from her album, The List, a selection of titles that her father, Johnny Cash, thought essential for her exploration. Here's the set:

Radio Operator
Movin' On (by Hank Snow)
Blue Moon With Heartache

Rosanne and Leventhal performed the next three songs as a duo:

Ode To Billie Joe (the Tallahatchie makes another appearance)
Long Black Veil
Sea Of Heartbreak (she recorded this with Springsteen; he never shows up)

The full band returned to the stage to close the show:

Tennessee Flat Top Box
Seven Year Ache
Encore: 500 Miles

How was the concert? Engaging vocals with excellent musicianship – my sister and I loved it.

Programming: Know your audience

The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra held a concert on Sunday in Symphony Hall. The orchestra is made up of teens and young adults studying throughout New England. These prodigies exhibit the highest levels of musicianship with adventurous repertoire. Here was this afternoon's program:

Shostakovich: Festival Overture

Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B minor

– Intermission –

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

This follows a typical format: a short stirring piece to kick off the concert; [brief pause to seat latecomers]; something to feature a guest artist; intermission; a large work to show off the orchestra.

Children should be seen and not heard

The BPYO concerts give family and friends an opportunity to see the young musicians perform in the Big House. Of course, "family" means that some parents will bring infants and toddlers. This wasn't a problem during the lively Festival Overture, but quieter passages of the Cello Concerto were accompanied by cooing, fussing and non-descript gutteral sounds. After the first movement conrductor Benjamin Zander turned to the audience and said, "I love children ... but perhaps they would be happier outside." Nobody moved, and the slow second movement was augmented by more of the same. After that movement an usher escorted a parent and vocal child out of the auditorium. Just as the conductor raised his baton for the third movement, another squall threatened in the balcony. Zander turned with a warning finger, then gave the downbeat.

The folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary used to save their hit "Puff, the Magic Dragon" till the end of their concerts. When they eventually realized that most of the children were asleep by that point, they started playing the song earlier in their shows. I can understand why the BPYO put the Bartók concerto at the end of the concert; it's rousing finale made a matching bookend to the whirlwind Shostakovich overture. But the Bartók had more energy to withstand a restive audience than the Dvorák did.

By intermission many parents realized their children had had enough, and they took them home. A more pragmatic sequence for the afternoon would have been:

Shostakovich
Bartók
– Intermission –
Dvorák

The guest soloist for the Cello Concerto was Natalia Gutman. This 72-yeal-old Russian cellist is a living link to musicians of the Soviet era such as Mstislav Rostropovich and Svatislav Richter. It would have been more respectful of her artistry and interpretation to give her the quieter audience of the second half. Regardless, it was lovely to hear her encore of the bourées from Bach's Cello Suite No 3 in C major, BWV1009.

Wine report: It's called WHAT?

There is a growing breed of winemakers trying to break the mold of fusty respectability. They are using oddball names for their labels in order to grab casual drinkers and build brand recognition. On Thursday evening the Boston office held a competition to find the best-tasting wine with a funny or irreverent name. The judges rated the wines for name appeal on a scale of 1 (huh?) to 5 (HAH!). They also judged drinkability on a scale of 1 (um....) to 5 (YUM!).

The entrants who supplied the wine joined impartial tasters to form the panel of judges. This was a biased, non-blind tasting. Contestants could stuff the ballot box in their favor if they chose, but were cautioned that they might actually win the as yet unrevealed "prize". Many thanks to all who participated.

For food pairings we found offerings with similarly improbable names. There were four cheeses: The Drunken Goat, Hooligan (a soft stinky cheese ready for a brawl), Moses Sleeper and Red Witch. We also had Pigs in a Blanket and Orville Redenbacher's Poppycock. There was one respectable offering (really better than we deserved), a Tortilla española with aioli sauce, but since there was a mustache over the ñ it qualified.

First the white wines. They are presented in alphabetical order. The numbers denote the average name appeal / average drinkability score / combined total.

Armas de Guerra (Weapons of War) – 3.42 / 3.0 / 6.42 – Spain, 85% Doña Blanca, 15% Godello. The tasters noticed a sweet or floral aroma, and the taste response ranged from yummy, honey and floral to bitter esters and a saltiness that finished like contact solution.

Fat Bastard – 3.75 / 3.3 / 7.05 – France, Chardonnay. We either loved or hated the smoky nose. It had a bold, forward taste that some loved start to finish and others found sharp or harsh.

KungFu Girl – 3.64 / 3.36 / 7.0 – USA, Riesling. Many liked the honeydew aroma; the dissenter called it sophisticated grape soda. Most noticed the sweetness, and were either put off by it or found it not as typically sweet as an American Riesling. The favorable responses found it pleasant sipping and the best of all the whites.

Vineyard Salute, Flygirl White – 2.58 / 2.3 / 4.88 – USA, 52% Pinot Gris, 38% Viognier, 10% Roussanne. The wartime propaganda artwork had mixed appeal, but there were strong reactions to the aroma and taste: one liked the Moscato character, another called it "both sweet and ... jarring". It turned unflattering after that: "jet fuel perm solution" and "smells and tastes like a burnt tire".

Woop Woop – 3.67 / 2.55 / 6.22 – Australia, Chardonnay. We were expecting something rowdy out of this bottle, but the artwork on the label was just so, well, pretty. One drinker was surprised to find this was Australian because it was such a modest Chardonnay. Apparently "Woop Woop" is the equivalent for "the boonies" and tasters kept their distance.

Then the red wines:

Goats do Roam – 3.25 / 3.09 / 6.34 – South Africa, Red blend. The first impressions were favorable with notes of stone fruits and easy drinkability, but a second visit found it harsh, bitter and tannic.

Ménage à Trois – 3.25 / 3.36 / 6.61 – USA, Cabernet sauvignon. This is the one wine whose taste appeal exceeded its branding. The fans: Wow! Yum! Delish! The trolls: Flat. One-dimensional.

The Pope's Funny Hat – 3.42 / 2.45 / 5.87 – USA, Red blend, Châteauneuf-du-Pape style. This homemade wine by local garagistes Gavone Brothers was young, slightly watery and had a light pomegranate color. But it was also the most complex of the red entries. Several samplers were put off by the aroma, but I found an intriguing mixture of spiced plum, boot leather and toasted cheese (this would go great with a ratatouille parmesan). There were flavor notes of mocha that either drew you in or pushed you away. Perhaps this one had too much character for its own good.

Troublemaker – 3.5 / 2.7 / 6.2 – USA, Red blend. A bouquet of rubbing alcohol and airplane glue yielded to a spicy gasoline palate with a finish of cleaner. The most damning praise was "Agreeable, nice". This Troublemaker was ready to take on the Hooligan cheese.

Someone dropped a surprise on us with this write-in entry:

First-rate Old Fart – 3.63 / 2.13 / 5.76 – Italy, Red. There was an explosive shock appeal to the name, but for flavor this was a first-rate stinker. It smelled like an ashtray and tasted like ZaRex. Not surprisingly, this scored the lowest in drinkability.

The non-alcoholic Flying Cauldron Butterscotch Beer was almost entirely overlooked, but it earned a middle-of-the-road 3 / 3 / 6 and tasted like candy.

The results

Top three names: Fat Bastard, Woop Woop, KungFu Girl

Top three tastes: KungFu Girl & Ménage à Trois [tie], Fat Bastard

Top three combined scores:
Fat Bastard – 7.05
KungFu Girl – 7.0
Ménage à Trois – 6.61

The scorekeeper recused himself, disqualifying Fat Bastard, so the winner was:

KungFu Girl!

Amanda R. won an aerating pour spout and a Box of Boogers!

Around the world with Andris Nelsons

New music director Andris Nelsons is back in town for three weeks of concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The globe-hopping conductor is simultaneously finishing his final season as music director of the City of Birmingham (England) Symphony Orchestra. In addition to a European tour with the CBSO, he will guest conduct the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. He also takes the podium in February for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman.

This evening's program stayed close to the conductor's native roots. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride joined him and the BSO in a performance of Sofia Gubaidulina's Offertorium. This contemporary Russian work starts with the melody jumping around from instrument to instrument and then expands to a kaleidoscope of sound. Sometimes the notes crunch like an avalanche, sometimes they bounce off each other in zero gravity. There is so much harmonic exploration that when a major chord comes around it sounds dissonant. Baiba Skride used the same violin that fellow Latvian Gidon Kremer used in the 1981 premiere of the work. She coaxed a variety of textures out of the instrument, from sliding harmonics to a biting snarl. Andris Nelsons had full command of the score's shape-shifting idiom; the orchestra evoked sunlight sparkling on glass and a waterlogged hull becalmed in the doldrums. 

The other item on the program was from Finland, Jean Sibelius's Symphony No 2. This was a more traditional and familiar soundscape, and Nelsons reveled in the symphonic splendor. There were chances for the trumpets to shine, and they shone like molten silver. Equally fine were the principal violist, cellist, timpanist and the many wind soloists. The conductor was in brilliant form tonight, yet he was reluctant to bask in the applause. He is clearly honored to be associated with such a group of exceptional musicians. He singled out individual players, then sections, then the entire orchestra, deflecting the audience's ovation toward them before taking his own modest bow.

A madwoman crosses a river

A wandering madwoman, in search of her lost son, crosses a river. On the far bank she finds a grave, the boy's ghost, and her sanity. This barebones tale of miracle and redemption is the premise of Benjamin Britten's church parable, Curlew River. The style is a mixture of Latin ritual and Japanese Noh play.

The venue was Synod House in New York's Morningside Heights. A haze of incense in the neo-Gothic architecture turned the clock back several centuries in the Christian Era. Seven musicians sat at one end of the grand hall. A raised white platform ran the length of the hall with banks of tiered seating on either side, four rows deep. At the far end was a tall mast, topped with a cross.

Ian Bostridge sang the madwoman. The British tenor, who turns fifty this Christmas, still looks like a gangly teen. His voice has kept its elasticity, but his youthfulness undermines his credibility as commanding sea captains or ancient monarchs. Here, however, his towering gaunt frame augmented the madwoman's deprivation.

Jeremy White, Neal Davies and Mark Stone played an abbot, a traveler and a ferryman. Eight men and two boy trebles were a chorus of pilgrims and acolytes. A third treble sang the dead son. Britten's score calls for flute, horn, percussion, harp, viola and double bass; Martin Fitzpatrick conducted from a chamber organ.

Monochrome video projections on the platform and ferry sail depicted the river, the grave, the gulls mistaken for curlews. The madwoman spattered white grief upon a black void. The power of this production lay in what director and designer Netia Jones found below the surface of the stark text.

Bach is a volcano

Pablo Casals described Johann Sebastian Bach as a volcano, but on Thursday night at Symphony Hall Bach simmered like a hot spring in a Finnish landscape. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was a brooding force of nature in Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor, and soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann encored with a selection from Bach's Partita in E major, BWV1006. Zimmermann kept the Prelude at a rolling boil, and the violin gleamed in the auditorium's acoustic sweet spot.

Symphony Hall also cast its sonic embrace around Schubert's Symphony in C, 'The Great', D944. This is the music the building was made for. This work is usually performed as a stately tribute to a composer who died too young, but Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena took it at a scampering clip. This is the opus of a young man who finally found his voice in the symphonic form. Mena's reading had the ebullience of Felix Mendelssohn, who conducted the premiere after Schubert's death.

Mark Volpe, the BSO's managing director, addressed the audience before the concert to acknowledge the passing of Tom Menino. The evening was dedicated to Boston's former mayor, and the performance proved to be an affirmation of life.

Boston's other orchestras – part one: Indian Hill

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has a fall season, a winter season, holiday Pops, spring Pops, summers at Tanglewood and worldwide concert tours: they are a year-round operation with international acclaim. There are other groups in and around Boston that are more orchestras of occasion; they might perform only six one-night concerts in the course of a year. The classical repertoire is the classical repertoire (new commissions aside), and there are bound to be overlaps in programming. Last year I saw two ensembles perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No 25, and this year I have already heard Beethoven's Symphony No 8 twice in as many weeks. So how do Boston's alternative orchestras distinguish themselves?

A visit to the BSO at Symphony Hall provides a grand-scale musical experience, but it is possible that you will be sitting a city block away and several stories above the musicians. The other orchestras usually perform in smaller venues where you can get an up-close experience. The conductors often give pre-concert lectures that spotlight various aspects of the music you are about to hear; there are even post-concert receptions where the conductor and musicians will discuss the performance with the audience over coffee and desserts. These interactions offer insight to the interpretive choices that make familiar repertoire come off in ever-surprising new ways.

On Saturday night I was in Littleton, Massachusetts, where the Orchestra of Indian Hill kicked off its 40th season. This group comprises full-time musicians, who perform with various organizations and teach music on the side, and semi-professionals, typically conservatory-trained musicians who have other day gigs. The conductor, Bruce Hangen, directs the orchestral programs at Boston Conservatory and was a guest conductor with the Boston Pops for decades. Indian Hill's selection of works for this concert highlighted the top-level abilities of the orchestra. Richard Strauss's tone poem, Don Juan, is a showcase for all the instruments, but the oboe and the clarinet in the central section stood out in particular. If Don Juan paints in sweeping oil colors, Mozart's Symphony No 31, 'Paris', is finely etched pen and ink. The occasional flute passages caught my ear, making me want to hear more of principal flutist Melissa Mielens's gorgeous tone.

The main work of the evening was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 4, a masterpiece of melodic Romanticism. It starts with a fanfare in the horns, who pass it down to the trombones and tuba, who then yield to the trumpets. This was as fine as any brass playing you will hear anywhere. In the second movement maestro Hangen (as he explained in the post-concert debriefing) let the oboe set the pace and gave the violins freedom to follow suit. The result had relaxed charm and a waltzing swing. The third movement features the violins, violas, cellos and basses playing pizzicato (on plucked strings). The strings give way to a passage of exemplary scoring for winds; the brass have their little say before handing it back to the strings. Hangen took this movement slower than I am used to hearing, but the pulse and phrasing had satisfying logic. The cumulative effect was both whimsical and breathtaking. The fourth movement built to a huge finale that was thunderous without crossing into blare.

Instead of my usual perch in the top balcony, I sat in the front row for this concert. There is a noticeably different connection to a performance when you can see the eyes of the players. There were points when the violins swayed back and forth as one body, and I found myself swaying with them. My only complaint was intermittent tuning problems in the cellos. Some passages gleamed with locked-in unison, but others soured with one cello under pitch. Still, it wasn't enough to dampen my enthusiasm for a night of terrific music-making. [Click for part two]

Boston's other orchestras – part two: BPO

[Click for part one] On Sunday afternoon I heard the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra perform in Cambridge. The BPO has passed their 35th anniversary, with conductor Benjamin Zander at the podium for all 35 years. They typically perform four programs a season with concerts taking place over an extended weekend in New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, Harvard's Sanders Theatre and sometimes at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. Gala events calling for choral accompaniment take place in Symphony Hall. I have heard Benjamin Zander in many of his pre-concert talks; most of what I learned about Gustav Mahler and his symphonies came from the maestro's lectures.

The Philharmonic began Sunday's concert with about a third of its members onstage to play the overture to Mozart's opera, Così fan tutte. Zander took this piece at a brisk pace, faster than I have ever heard it played before, but the reduced forces had the lightness to pull it off. The tempo accentuated the comic tone of the opera and revealed the balanced relationship of some early phrases to later ones in the overture. It is easy to see why most conductors take it slower: there are some murderously quick runs that can trip up wind players.

The next work was also by Mozart, his Sinfonia concertante in E flat major, K364. A few more unneeded players left the stage, and two teachers from the New England Conservatory joined the orchestra to play the solo violin and viola parts. The conductor executed an impressive long crescendo over the first few pages, but things got strange after that. The violist scooped around her pitches, and the violinist seemed just plain careless. The simplest definition of good technic is the ability to make something difficult look easy. These two soloists made Mozart's music sound difficult. The Sinfonia concertante came off as a collegial vanity piece and a waste of the BPO's resources.

Fortunately, the conductor and orchestra were in their element for the second half of the program. All 90 or so musicians took the stage for Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No 2 in in E minor. The response to the soaring late-Romantic lyricism was immediate. The English horn has a solo in the first movement, and Nicole Caligiuri made it glow. Eric Carmen's 1975 ballad "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" is based on the main theme of the third movement, so it is impossible to listen to Rachmaninoff's symphony without hearing that soppy torch song. Fourth movement – big finish – much applause. I left the concert regretting the missed opportunity for the Boston Philharmonic to repeat the magic of last year's all-Russian program (see my past report, BPO conquers Russia).

R.I.P. Frühbeck, part two

This is the second weekend of concerts that the late Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was meant to conduct with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His original program remains in place, and in retrospect it seems he had planned his own swansong. The first item is J.S. Bach's Cantata No 82, 'Ich habe genug'. The title aria translates as "I am content", and Frühbeck could certainly reflect back on his career with satisfaction. He was principal conductor in Berlin, Montreal, Vienna, Tokyo and Dresden, and he guest conducted in most of the major cities around the world, including New York, London, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston. The other arias from the cantata, Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen (Fall asleep, you weary eyes) and Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod (I look forward to my death) suggest that Frühbeck had his own mortality in mind when he chose this composition.

The second item on the program is A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms. The work spans seven movements; the selected texts from the Lutheran bible offer comfort to our suffering, meditate on the fleetingness of human life and anticipate the joys that await us hereafter. The themes of contented resignation from the Bach cantata resonate in the closing section of the requiem: "they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."

Welsh conductor Bramwell Tovey took the baton for this concert and proved himself adept in vocal works. Joining him for the Bach cantata was fellow Welshman Bryn Terfel. This bass-baritone looks and sounds like he could hail a ship from shore, yet riding above his robust set of lungs is a shimmer of sweet facial resonance. Terfel could just as easily sing a baby to sleep in his arms. 

The Bach employed just 21 musicians: an oboe soloist, a bassoon, a console organ with cello to accompany the recitatives, one string bass, four violas and a dozen violins. In contrast, the Brahms used a full orchestra, harp, pipe organ, chorus and two vocal soloists. There were easily two hundred performers onstage. In order to accommodate forces of this size, the Symphony Hall house managers remove the first few rows of audience seating and extend the stage with a ten-foot thrust. It took four and a half minutes for the 120 members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus to file in to the five levels of risers behind the orchestra. 

The chorus sang from memory and stood through most of the hour-long work (one alto needed to take an early seat). They matched Bryn Terfel's impact with some full-throated singing, but they were most impressive in the blended harmonies of the quietest sections. The full chorus got to sit in the fifth movement, when we finally heard the female soloist, Rosemary Joshua. The Welsh soprano had a rich, ringing sound that carried the hall. 

Bramwell Tovey conducted with fluid gestures but never called attention to himself. What struck me most was how right the two works sounded, with well judged tempos and no jarring eccentricities. The requiem closed with a brief silence, a fitting tribute to Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, may he rest in peace.

Free concert in a sub-basement

Members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra are in the midst of a series of free community chamber concerts. Last weekend a string quartet performed at Beverly's Larcom Theatre, and today they repeated the same program in Cambridge. The venue was the 200-seat blondwood lecture hall in the sub-basement of the new main library. The gently raked seating had good sight lines and made for a comfortable hour of up-close music appreciation.

The players were Victor Romanul and Jason Horowitz on violins, Michael Zaretsky on viola and Blaise Déjardin on cello. Their program dovetailed with items heard in recent concerts of the full orchestra. Carl Nielsen's String Quartet No 4 in F had a Nordic flavor in the third movement, with skipping folk rhythms and a few fiddling slides. The musicians were having fun, and it was equally fun to listen to. 

The violinists swapped first and second chairs for Franz Schubert's String Quartet in A minor, D804. The second movement quoted the main theme from the incidental music to Rosamunde, which the BSO played two weeks ago. It must be an engaging change of pace for these orchestral musicians to work as a chamber ensemble, but there was a sense that this was a pick-up quartet sight reading their parts. They seemed more attuned to the sheet music than each other; there was little of the eye contact that would indicate shared familiarity with the material. There were quick corrections of missed notes, the cello had a tendency to play flat, and they could have milked more expression out of the final movement of the Schubert without going overboard.

Still, I got my money's worth, and there was even a coffee and dessert reception afterwards. The coming weekends will feature a string quintet playing in Medford, Lowell, East Boston and Dedham. Go to BSO.org for locations and to reserve your free ticket.

R.I.P. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

Conductors don't seem to have a retirement age; they just keep conducting until the final beat. Arthur Fiedler led the Boston Pops from 1930 until his death in 1979 at the age of 84. Leopold Stokowski, the maestro from Walt Disney's Fantasia, conducted with willful vigor until shortly before his death at the age of 95. Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos had a contract with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra as their principal conductor through 2015, but he put down his baton earlier this year due to failing health. He was meant to conduct the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood this summer, but he succumbed to cancer on June 11th, aged 80. Canadian conductor Jacques Lacombe stepped in to lead the Tanglewood program of Rachmaninoff and Verdi.

Frühbeck was also scheduled to lead the current two weekends at Symphony Hall. After his death the BSO website listed the conductor for these programs as TBA. Finally, six weeks ago the BSO announced in a press release that Swiss conductor Thierry Fischer would conduct the first weekend, keeping the same program of Brahms's Piano Concerto No 1 and Carl Nielsen's Symphony No 4, 'The Inextinguishable'. Welsh conductor Bramwell Tovey seems an appropriate choice to take over next week's program of vocal works, joining Welsh soloists Bryn Terfel and Rosemary Joshua. 

For tonight's concert Maestro Fischer came to the stage with Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, and together they set to work on the Brahms concerto. Fischer had sharp arm gestures that got the right orchestral snap out of the first movement. I was again seated above the violins, so I got to look over Mr Buchbinder's shoulder while he played, his hands reflected in the polished keyboard cover. It was a pleasure to watch the economical fluidity of his fingers produce such big results. The second movement was more of a piano meditation decorated by wind ensembles and a tender viola solo. The piano launched the third movement and kept the energy driving to a rousing finish. Although Symphony Hall was only at quarter capacity this evening, the audience applauded as if it were a full house.

Nielsen's symphony broke like a calving glacier, with a wall of brass and shuddering violas. The continuous four movements were a cascade of textures, with wind chorales, plucked strings, soaring strings and dueling timpanists stage left and stage right. It was interesting to see how many of the musicians fitted ear plugs in and out during the performance. The conductor and orchestra earned another thunderous ovation, marking an auspicious debut for Thierry Fischer.

Opera and foliage

Opera in Boston is like peak foliage: it lasts about a week and then it's over. Sometimes it is spectacular, sometimes less so, but you can't control what you will see. You have to take what comes your way and look for the beauty in it.

Boston Lyric Opera mounts three or four productions a year, with five or so performances each. The company is currently performing Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata (the fallen woman). The story centers around Violetta, a terminally consumptive courtesan who gives her heart to Alfredo, a young admirer. Germont, Alfredo's father, demands the end of the romance to save the honor of his family. Violetta's moment of true love is all too brief, like her own life. She will be dead by the end of Act Three.

The overall quality of Wednesday's performance was quite good, a straightforward telling of the story, for the most part uncluttered by misguided directorial concepts. There was a moment of perhaps unintended irony in the third scene: a chorus of debauchers stands aghast when the forsaken Alfredo flings a pile of money at Violetta. "What's wrong with you? How could you do that?"

Anya Matanovic, in her BLO debut, won the audience over as Violetta. Her rich tone never obscured the words she was singing; she savored the text and found nuances that were clear without the surtitles. She didn't go for the optional high note near the end of the first scene, but if any soprano in any opera  sang as well as she did, the art form would be in an enviable state.

Michael Wade Lee, also in his company debut, has all the makings of an Italianate tenor: robust sound, easy high notes, unforced emotional instincts. He's still unpolished, though, and there were quite a few wayward pitches. Nevertheless, I liked his Alfredo. He was a refreshing change from the usual Boston fare of straining tenors with unpleasant tone.

Baritone Weston Hurt was a more than satisfactory Germont. He had a secure voice that, again, you could only hope for on any given night at the opera. Germont in this production was a military commander who had lost an arm in some past battle. The singer couldn't rely on stock arm gestures [read bad operatic acting] with one sleeve pinned to his shoulder, but he hadn't yet developed other means of bringing his character to life.

Conductor Arthur Fagen led a good pace and kept steady control between the pit and stage. The orchestra showed some rumbling power in the bass drum and timpani, but the violins had trouble playing in tune with each other. The chorus and secondary singers were commendable, although some voices came across as unnaturally amplified. If Boston had an ongoing, continuous season, this production of La traviata would be considered a fine night at the opera, and the rough edges would yield to more refinement. For now, audiences have to be content with seeing the occasional display and hoping for the spectacular.

Pro Arte – a double echo from the past

The Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra played a concert of Respighi, Mozart and Beethoven in Harvard Square on Saturday night. The venue was the spacious First Church Cambridge, with fifty-foot vaulted ceilings over the nave and a deeply recessed altar. The acoustics of this architecture would be well suited to plainchant, its long meandering vocal lines lingering in a cavernous echo to evoke infinite time and space. The orchestra used this reverberation to its advantage in the first item of the program.

Ottorino Respighi was a twentieth-century composer who very much looked back to earlier musical eras. His 1932 work for string orchestra, Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No 3, is an adaptation of 16th- and 17th-century music for lute and guitar. The Pro Arte string section comprises twenty players: 6 first violins, 5 second violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos and 2 basses. The violins sat to the left (as we looked at them) with their sound holes facing the audience. This gave their instruments an immediate and bright sound. The violas, larger and darker-toned instruments, were to the center right of the semicircle, with their sound holes facing the altar. This means their sound had to travel to the far curves of the chancel before coming back to the audience. In the "Arie di corte" the viola answer to the violin theme was quieter and carried more reverb; the effect was like a ghost of music past summoned across the centuries.

The Pro Arte bills itself as a "Mozart-sized orchestra", which means they perform with 20 to 35 players, in contrast to the 50 to 60+ players of a full symphony orchestra. This leanness paid off in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K622. The soloist was Ian Greitzer, the principal clarinetist of the ensemble, and he showed a masterful ability to play with whisper softness. This in turn drew quiet support from the musicians behind him, keeping the cavernous echo out of play.

The final piece was Beethoven's Symphony No 8 in F major. The historically informed movement of recent decades has led to a reexamination of Beethoven's music. Bloated performance practice has been swept aside in favor of the quicker tempos that the composer actually marked in his scores. Is there an absolute correct way to play Beethoven's symphonies? The results from Pro Arte's attempt would suggest not.

Conductor Kevin Rhodes gave a spirited reading of the symphony but didn't reckon with the acoustics of the church. Any loud passage, and there were quite a few, produced an over-reverberation that blurred the details of the score. There are several points in the the first movement where Beethoven writes five beats of silence. The echo was just dying away by the time the instruments came in again. The second movement has the winds playing repeated pulses in the background, but these musicians were competing with their own slap-back. It would have been more rewarding for Rhodes to find a slower tempo that aligned the echo of one note to the attack of a following note. A stately, genial reading could have been just as valid as a sprightly one in the given circumstances.

The B-section of the third movement begins with two horns harmonizing on a broad melody, with a solo cello skipping up and down the fingerboard and basses plucking the downbeats. The Pro Arte horns warbled away, obliterating the cello. The cellist might just have well not played at all; the moment would have come off better with the "uninformed" practice of all three cellos playing a sectional soli. The rollicking fourth movement was mud.

I applaud Pro Arte's mission, but this chamber orchestra needs to find the right chamber. The next concert in January is at First Baptist Church Newton. I am not optimistic.

Vini del Piemonte – past report 3/20/2014

On Thursday evening the Boston office had a sampling of wines from the Piedmont region of Italy. Here is a summary of what we experienced.

Roero, Arneis – The name of this white grape, Arneis, literally means 'little rascal', because it is tricky to grow this variety properly. But our bottle was a perfect exemplar of the style: a characteristic dryness carried the aroma and flavor of pears. This wine would be a fine pairing for fish or chicken, or just in a glass by itself. It went surprisingly well with H—'s homemade chocolate biscotti, evoking chocolate-dipped fruit. There were many satisfied nods from the tasters.

Scarpa, RossoScarpa, 2010 – this 90/10 blend of Dolcetto and Ruchè grapes came across as inoffensive yet unappealing. Somewhat watery, it gave an aroma of school paste. The Dolcetto is sometimes called the Beaujolais of Italy, and our classification of table wine was amended to lunch wine, and then re-amended to breakfast wine. It would certainly be improved by whatever you were eating at the time, like J—'s diced vegetable salsa.

Sabinot, Barbera, 2011 – the deep purple color was immediately striking, and a swirl in the glass released an aroma of dark cherries. The taste carried the flavors of blackberry jam and unripe plums, which reminded me of Pinot Noir. I found this wine to be a flavor amplifier, bringing a 10x magnification to M—'s mini quiches. This bottle was hands-down the crowd pleaser.

Barbaresco, Nebbiolo, 2009 – it was hard to take in the next two wines, because they are heavily tannic and want to be partnered with meat and bold cheeses. Even the aroma of this Barbaresco showed more muscle: this time I picked up wallpaper paste. There was also a whiff of menthol and anise, which was a turnoff to some of the tasters.

Barolo, Nebbiolo, 2009 – this was a somewhat tamer expression of the Nebbiolo grape that became friendlier the more you swirled it in your glass. I found the edge of the tannins made a perfect right angle to the garlic in H—'s Salsa di Parmesan.

Mozart conducted from the piano

Christian Zacharias, a German conductor and pianist, joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra this weekend for a program of Austrian composers. He began Thursday evening's concert with Franz Schubert's incidental music to the play Rosamunde. The play died after two performances, but the score has lived on in the orchestral repertoire.

Zacharias conducted Ballet Music I and Entr'actes II & III from memory and without a baton. He drew a detailed balance from the orchestra that lifted this incidental music to a higher level. The interplay among the wind instruments was particularly ear-catching. 

After the Schubert suite there was a brief pause as the lower strings left the stage. Stage managers cleared a wide path, struck the podium and wheeled in a Steinway concert grand. The players came back in followed by Zacharias, who went to the piano to perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No 17 in G major, K453. The keyboard faced the orchestra, with the piano lid removed to give the musicians a clear sight line to the pianist/conductor. 

Zacharias stood and conducted the first seventy measures, again batonless and from memory, then sat to prepare his first piano entrance. The BSO didn't need much guidance to continue in tempo, but the soloist would use a free hand, a head nod or body language to emphasize downbeats or shape the dynamics. He played Mozart's own written cadenzas, showing that there is no need to improve on the master. Zacharias loves this music, the musicians loved playing it with him, and I loved being there to hear it.

The piano disappeared during the intermission, and the second half of the program returned to Schubert. The orchestra played Entr'acte I from Rosamunde as a pre-movement to Symphony in B minor, 'Unfinished'. I was again struck by the textures that Zacharias got out of the musicians: a whisper of a tremolo from the violas and cellos in the entr'acte; the singing tone of the cellos in the main melody of the symphony's first movement. The softs were delicate, the louds were full but never overblown.

I go to Symphony Hall in the hope of witnessing excellence.This evening it was hope fulfilled. If you get a chance to attend Saturday's concert, or at least listen to the live radio broadcast, you will be rewarded with exemplary music-making.

An Oktoberfest of German wines

Nothing says October like Oktober, and the Boston office welcomed the fall season with a sampling of German wines. This event doubled as a belated celebration of Germany's victory in the World Cup.

First up was Unckrich, a 2011 Pfalz Spätburgunder, which we know better as Pinot Noir. There was some debate as to whether we were detecting black cherries or sour cherries, but a second visit revealed a hint of baking chocolate. While this is a dry red, it would complement a meal that was meant to finish with Black Forest Cherry Cake.

Next we compared two Gewürtztraminers. The Lucien Albrecht 2009 Réserve is from Alsace, which is technically in France. But this border region has been contested for centuries enough to be partly German in spirit. Alsacian wines generally have a drier and more floral character than their German counterparts, but this bottle gave off a strong aroma and flavor of honey. We would recommended this as a white wine for mead lovers. The G & M Machmer 2011 Gewürtz from Bechtheim, Germany, was an unapologetic dessert wine. One of our tasters found liquid love and melted into a puddle of happiness.

We then moved on to three Rieslings. The 2013 George Albrecht Schneider Kabinett (dry Riesling) cleared the palate with its limestone astringency. It proved a good pairing to the Sauerkraut over slow-cooked Kielbasa in Beer. The medium-dry Ulrich Langguth 2012 Hessian Riesling was modest on its own, but it sprang to life with the cinnamon, toasted nut and dried fruit in the homemade Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut cookies. The Loosen Brothers 2013 Dr. L, a Mosel Riesling with engaging complexities over a medium-sweet base, got many favorable nods.

The hands-down crowd pleaser was the non-alcoholic Welch's Sparkling Caramel Apple juice. An aroma of unwrapped caramels invited you into a flavor playground of apple-infused cream soda. We were a bunch of grinning kids sipping candy in a glass. Pass the Gummi Bears!

Pollini and the sound of silence

Maurizio Pollini gave a solo piano recital at Symphony Hall on Sunday afternoon as part of the Celebrity Series. This concert was notable for one thing I didn't hear: the clatter of unoccupied seats during the performance.

Harvard University physicist Wallace Clement Sabine was responsible for the acoustic design of Symphony Hall. He felt that the ideal reverberation time for symphonic music was 2–2.5 seconds, and he guided the design of the ceiling, wall niches, seat cushions, ventilation system and overall shape of the auditorium to achieve this ideal. When Symphony Hall opened in 1900 it was praised for its acoustic perfection.

Unfortunately, audience noise carried just as well as the music coming from the stage. In any given performance you would hear the wooden THUNK of a folded seat accidentally falling to its open position.

Innovation has come 114 years later in the form of spring hinges. Empty seats now stay upright, and the hall's renowned acoustics are free from distracting detonations. If only engineers could do something about the HACK of ill-timed coughing, the SMACK of programs falling from laps, and the BOODLE-OODLE-OODLE-OO of unsilenced mobile phones.

On to the concert.

Maurizio Pollini has had a 50-year career as a classical pianist. He made his mark as an interpreter of 20th-century music, but for Sunday's recital he looked back to two early Romantic composers. In the first half of the program he played Robert Schumann's Arabeske in C major, Op 18, and the eight-movement Kreisleriana, Op 16. Symphony Hall's reverb proved a bit too much for a solo piano, blurring the details of quick passages. But it was satisfying to hear an elder statesman of the instrument give these works their due, with attention to dynamic shading and the long arcs of the melodic structures.

The second half of the recital comprised music of Frédéric Chopin. Pollini started with Sonata No 2 in B-flat minor, Op 35, featuring the instantly recognizable funeral march ("Pray for the dead, and the dead will pray for you"). He followed with Berceuse in D flat major, Op 57, a form of lullaby with a rocking, repetitive base line, then launched into Polonaise héroïque in A flat major, Op 53. It was heroic indeed. There were two encores: Nocturne in D flat major, Op 27, no 2, and Scherzo No 3 in C sharp minor, Op 39. After several bows there was a tease of a third encore, but Pollini exited the stage to the audience's clearly audible disappointment.

Growing pains at the BSO

Andris Nelsons is a native of Riga, Latvia, and his first full weekend as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra showcased the core repertoire of his roots. German: he started the concert with Beethoven's Symphony No 8. Eastern European: the second item was the suite from Béla Bartók's pantomime, The Magic Mandarin. Russian: the conductor closed the evening with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6, 'Pathétique'.

Nelsons has a visceral style of conducting. The music dances through him, and his whole body becomes an expression of the score. At times he stabs with his baton like a sword; at other times puts the baton away and weaves the music with his fingers. For the quietest passages he will retreat to his rail and shield his face with his hands. The large gestures allow players to follow him with their peripheral vision and focus on the notes on the page. 

That said, tonight's concert showed some growing pains between the orchestra and conductor. A cello solo in the Beethoven was drowned by the horns. The Bartók was generally loud and didn't take advantage of all the textures of the score. The third movement of the Tchaikovsky opened with a tempo struggle between the strings and winds. Throughout the night there were more than a handful of false entrances, burbled attacks and wrong notes. 

The audience enthusiastically cheered the first two works. But as the low strings faded into nothingness in the final movement of the Pathétique there were a few stifled attempts at an ovation. Nelsons held the silence for fifteen seconds before releasing his baton for applause. This introspective gesture seemed at odds with his otherwise extrovert performance. Perhaps it will take some time for the audience and orchestra to read the new conductor's body language. 

Concert envy

Saturday, September 27, marks the debut of Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons as the new music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He will lead a one-night gala event joined by his wife, Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, and German tenor Jonas Kaufmann. The first half of the evening features scenes from Wagner, the second half highlighting Italian arias, duets and orchestral works.

The concert is sold out. I do not have a ticket.

I ran into some friends at last week's concert who do have tickets for the gala. They said if one of them came down with Ebola they would keep me in mind.

I have three options:

1. I could stand in front of Symphony Hall with a "Need One Ticket" sign. This is effective when there is a group of concertgoers and someone had to beg out at the last minute. If this plan didn't work:
2. I could cross Huntington Avenue to Jordan Hall where Chinese pianist Jue Wang is giving a solo recital of Russian composers. I saw his electrifying performance of Prokofiev's second piano concerto last year with the Boston Philharmonic (see my past report). It wouldn't be a bad consolation prize. Alternatively:
3. I could stay home and listen to a live broadcast of the BSO concert on Boston's classical radio station. Several people whom I respect as voices of reason (curse them) have suggested I follow option three.

So Saturday night will most likely find me at home savoring the Wagnerfest with a bottle of Gewurtztraminer. If you are at the concert, here's to your health.

UPDATE: the concert sounded great over the airways. My biggest impression was of the transparency and detail that Nelsons got out of the orchestra. This bodes well for the continuing partnership. The best news is that camera crews were at Symphony Hall recording this performance for a future PBS telecast. It will almost seem like I was there after all.

What happens when a concert venue changes?

For many of its 20 years the Lexington Symphony Orchestra has made its home in Cary Hall in the center of historic Lexington, Mass. The auditorium is a box with rising tiers meeting at right angles, which makes it look like the packing crate for Boston's City Hall. But the acoustics are gorgeous, allowing detailed clarity with a satisfying reverberation. Unfortunately the hall is now under renovation planned to last more than a year, so the Lexington Symphony had to seek another performance venue. Their 2014-2015 season will take place in the auditorium of Lexington High School.

Before the close of the final concert of last season, conductor Jonathan McPhee addressed the audience from the podium with the following narrative. When he was a conductor with the New York City Ballet the company moved from City Center on 55th Street to Lincoln Center on 63rd. Just eight blocks north; they lost 30% of their subscribers. It took several seasons to rebuild their subscription base. As music director for Boston Ballet McPhee saw the company move from the Wang Theatre to the Opera House, just four blocks north. They lost 30% of their subscribers. McPhee urged the Lexington audience to renew their subscriptions and reminded them that the high school had plenty of parking.

Fortunately on Saturday night the high school auditorium was mostly full for the first concert of the new season. The core of the program was several works by Arvo Pärt, a contemporary Estonian minimalist. Pärt's music strips away the traditions of the European symphonic style and explores the harmonic structure of sound itself. One of his major works, Tabula Rasa (blank slate), features a prepared piano, in this case meaning that screws have been placed at specific intervals along the piano strings. The screws disrupt the harmonic overtones of the strings, resulting in a sound very much like Tibetan bells.

Pärt writes silence as much as he writes sound to let the harmonic effects linger and leave an impression on the listener. These tides of sound induce a meditative surrender. Unfortunately the Lexington High School was not the right venue for this style. The auditorium is so acoustically dry that the music dropped dead as soon as it reached the ear. The silences were filled by the persistent whoosh of the facility's ventilation system.

Other items on the evening's program fared better. The Estonian Dance Suite by Eduard Tubin and Karelia Suite by Jean Sibelius have a more traditional style, and the denser scoring of continual music masked the deficiencies of the hall. Future concerts should be less problematic, with traditional works by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky and Elgar. A movie-themed concert will take advantage of the high school's projection screen, but I'm sure the orchestra and most of the subscribers can't wait for the return home to Cary Hall.