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.

Opening night at Symphony Hall

Opening night of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 134th season, Symphony Hall. I am in the back row of the top left balcony next to the proscenium, which means I am practically sitting over the violins. I have a direct sight line to the conductor's profile, but since he lavishes most of his attention on the violins I get to see his face most of the time. It is a vicarious way to experience the music as he experiences it.

At the podium is associate conductor Marcelo Lehninger. He is a young Brazilian who had previously been the BSO's assistant conductor for several seasons. These titles are just a fancy way of saying he has to be available to fill in for an indisposed conductor at a moment's notice. His most notable feat a few years ago was stepping in for an injured James Levine, and then leading the BSO in their Carnegie Hall performances. There is no emergency tonight; Lehninger is the scheduled conductor.

The first item on tonight's program is Mozart's Sinfonia concertante in E flat, featuring John Ferrillo on oboe, William Hudgins on clarinet, James Sommerville on horn and Richard Svoboda on bassoon. The four have little solos and ensembles throughout, but at one point the conductor stops conducting as the quartet carries on by itself. Lehninger is clearly enjoying the music-making, and the soloists share smiles after favorite passages.

I turn my head to the hall during the performance and see a thousand spell-bound faces (with a few obligatory sleepers). Sixteen plaster statues of Greek gods keep watch over the audience; Symphony Hall is truly a meeting of arts and humanity.

The second item, Bachianas brasileiras No 5 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, calls for greatly reduced forces. The orchestra leaves the stage to be replaced by eight cellos, a vocal soloist and the conductor. That's it. The music evokes the mood of the lyrics: "As evening falls ... dreamlike and beautiful...." Oh, yes, absolutely. Soprano Nicole Cabell has a wonderfully lush tone. Her diction doesn't always cut through the tone production, but her hummed passages float to the entire auditorium. 

After intermission we hear the main item: Beethoven's Symphony No 5. I follow along with a study score and am struck by how attentively the musicians keep to the composer's phrasing. Lehninger's well chosen tempos suit the size of the orchestra and the acoustics of the hall. The presto of the final pages is perhaps a bit of a blurred prestissimo, but the rousing finish brings the audience to its feet. 

If you ever get a chance to hear Beethoven's Fifth performed live, by all means go. Just watching the timpanist is a pleasure in itself. And if you ever have the opportunity to hear the BSO play in Symphony Hall – this band in this house can't be beat.

Crowd control for The Dead City

Odyssey Opera gave a concert performance of Erich Korngold's Die tote Stadt tonight at Jordan Hall. A rainy evening before the sold-out show prompted creative crowd management. Patrons entering the foyer were led on a semicircular path along an interior corridor. Many grumbled about this Disneyland treatment, but I appreciated the efforts to get people inside and dry instead of huddled on the street. My favorite sign: "Will-call tickets are down the hall under the statue of Beethoven."

I had bought the cheapest ticket in the back row of the balcony, but the day before the event I got an email telling me I had been upgraded. It turns out the chorus needed to file past the last row during the performance to sing from the balcony proscenium. I wouldn't have minded this slightly obstructed (and obstructing) seat, but by moving me ten feet across the aisle to the right the company effectively doubled the value of my ticket. Thanks!

There was more crowd control during the first fifteen minutes of the first two acts as patrons on the waiting list were allotted unclaimed tickets. Bodies were shuffled into open seats as unobtrusively as possible under the circumstances. Everything sorted itself out by act three.

Conductor Gil Rose is a pleasure to watch in these concert performances, where he is not hidden in the pit. His orchestra is well prepared, so economical gestures produce big results. This efficiency doesn't mean he is idle, though. It is easy to see why the three occupations most susceptible to shoulder injury are baseball pitchers, swimmers and conductors. 

How was the opera? Paul becomes obsessed with a woman who is the living image of his dead wife. Obsession turns to murder ... but it was only a dream. There was modest staging as vocal soloists entered and exited from side doors to sing in front of the orchestra. The dead wife appeared in a backlit "ghost door" behind the timpani to signal her otherness. Tenor Jay Hunter Morris was a fine acting singer as Paul. I didn't buy into this psycho-supernatural symphonic thriller, but it was a harmless way to spend a dark and stormy night.

How the Wine Tasting spent its summer vacation

The Wine Tasting is an avid futbol (soccer) fan and spent its summer vacation at the World Cup. Upon its return to the Boston office, the Wine Tasting hosted a celebration of Argentina's second-place finish. We sampled a white wine and a red wine from Argentina, contrasted with a white and a red from Chile (all four from Trader Joe's). Here are some of the findings.

1. White – We tried a 2013 Alamos Torrontés by the Catena Family from Salta, Argentina. The Torrontés is one of the few new world grapes that makes drinkable wine. By all reports it is best drunk young, within a year of its vintage, so we seemed to be opening this bottle at its prime. No one was familiar with this varietal, so it was hard to verbalize what we were experiencing. My first reaction was "doggy," which uniformly baffled to the other tasters. I think I was reminded of the earthy slobber of a recently fetched stick. And I mean that in a good way: newly chewed wood with the sweet side of dog breath. (I think I'm digging myself a hole here.)

A second visit to this wine revealed an apricot aroma and a taste of apricot liqueur. And yet there was something more; not quite minty – perhaps basil? The tasters found this wine elusive but complex and appealing, and suggested the following food pairings: a) spicy food, leaning toward Indian, but the basil could make this the perfect complement to the right Thai dish; b) sitting on a porch in the summer eating fruit salad; c) I found myself craving banana cream pie with a dog lying at my feet.

2. White – The next bottle set a more grounding base level. We sampled a Chardonnay/Viognier blend by Viñedos Marchigüe from Colchagua Valley, Chile. There was an instantly familiar Chardonnay aroma but an unexpected non-fruity dryness with a touch of smoke. This wine was inoffensive, but it didn't wow anybody either. Decision: mezza mezz.

3. Red – Chile again, same producer, same region, this time a single-vineyard 2012 Carménère. This grape died out in Europe with the phylloxera blight of the 1800s, but transplants in Chile have been untouched and thriving for 150 years. And again it was hard to classify this unfamiliar varietal. Typical descriptions mention blueberry and mint, but we found this offering harshly tannic. Vigorous swirling in the glass softened it up a bit, and the most successful pairing on hand was Polcari's homemade salami. This Carménère shuns dainty finesse; the tasters imagined serving it with grilled tuna, grilled steak and mushrooms, or a grilled burger heavy on the onions.

4. Red – Back to Argentina with a 2011 Broquel Malbec by Bodegas Trapiche from the Mendoza region. This wine was easily the crowd pleaser. It was enjoyable on its own but also went well with many of the pairings: French sheep's-milk cheese (Brebis Abbaye de Belloc), stuffed mushroom caps, Lindt cabernet dark chocolate ... you name it. Pick up a bottle for your next dinner party; you can't go wrong.

So that's it from southern South America. Argentina re-defeats Chile 2–0. Next month the Wine Tasting honors the World Cup victor with an Oktoberfest of German wines. Stay tuned.