A Great Little(ton) Orchestra

Joy's college mate Nicki is a violinist with the Orchestra of Indian Hill. Nicki's husband Robb is a bassist; he gets some face time at 1:23 in the new publicity video. Joy and I even have a cameo – can you spot us?

Did you see us?


Need a hint?


Cue to 1:34.


Yup, that's us in the front row. Joy's in the red shirt and I'm just beyond her, enthusiastically applauding after one of the OIH concerts last spring. The drive out to Littleton is worth it for some fantastic music making.

Giant wolfhounds roam Manhattan

New York is a city of Yorkshire terriers, so I was startled to see a pair Irish wolfhounds crossing Lincoln Center Plaza. Who would keep one of the largest breeds of dogs (let alone two of them) in Manhattan? These are unlikely apartment pets. The answer became clear in Act I, Scene 3 of the Metropolitan Opera's production of Anna Bolena. The dogs were part of King Henry VIII's hunting party. 

The back story: Henry ousted his first queen, Catherine of Aragon, to marry her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. Now he is ousting Anne to marry her lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. After the opera ends this cycle will repeat three more times. 

Gaetano Donizetti wrote operas about three Tudor queens, and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, currently singing Anne, will perform all three at the Met this season. In Roberto Devereux she becomes Henry and Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I, and in Maria Stuarda she plays Elizabeth's political rival (and one-time childhood friend), Mary, Queen of Scots. 

These roles require an imperious stage presence with enough vocal stamina and flexibility to handle the acrobatic florid passages. Radvanovsky has all that. Her specialty is a pianissimo that carries the huge Metropolitan theater, but I heard a little rasp around the edges. I hope these dramatic bel canto conquests are not shortening her career. 

There was luxury casting in the supporting roles: Ildar Abdrazakov had all the charm, menace and bass notes for Henry. Jamie Barton gave a sympathetic performance as Jane, Anne's unwilling rival. Tamara Mumford wore her trousers well as Smeaton. Stephen Costello, as Anne's former lover, Percy, was secure in all but the very upper limit of his role. But for me, the two strangled top notes did not detract from his otherwise nimble and shimmering voice. Special mention goes to director David McVicar for his straightforward storytelling that kept the action and set moving between scenes. 

The Russians conquer Boston

The Boston Symphony Orchestra kicked off its 2015-2016 season on Thursday night with a program of Russian masterpieces. The bookends were works by Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, each composed in the 1940s, each showcasing various soloists within the orchestra.

Dmitri Shostakovich might seem like an unlikely curtain raiser, but his Symphony No. 9 is a compact work, with its five movements taking only 25 minutes. The abounding solo passages spotlighted the BSO's principal musicians, notably concertmaster Malcolm Lowe (playing on an endowed Stradivarius violin), Elizabeth Rowe (flute), John Ferrillo (oboe), William Hudgins (clarinet), Richard Svoboda (bassoon), James Sommerville (horn), Thomas Rolfs (trumpet) and Martha Babcock (associate principal cello). Boston is graced with a wealth of talent. Music director Andris Nelsons and the BSO have partnered with Deutsche Grammophon to produce a series called "Shostakovich Under Stalin's Shadow". The first CD of last year's performance of Symphony No. 10 was just released this summer.

Symphonic Dances, opus 45, is Sergei Rachmaninoff's final work, and he considered it "his finest composition". Like the Shostakovich 9th, it also features individual instruments, including an alto saxophone (played by Thomas Martin) within an extensive passage for the wind ensemble. Conductor Nelsons led a fine reading of all the orchestral colors, and he will repeat the work in the coming weeks with a different pairing: the Alexander Nevsky cantata by Sergei Prokofiev. I look forward to hearing the Dances again.

The centerpiece of the evening was Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. There was a pause while musicians left the stage and stage managers cleared a pathway to wheel out the Steinway grand piano. Most of the principal players got to rest for the concerto (after all, the focus was on the guest soloist), so many third- and fourth-chair alternates filled the ranks. Matbe the B team could have used more warmup time, because the beginning of the concerto was mushy: Pum-pum-pum-pahhh, bap, FHRP-pum-pum-pahhh... Check out a video of the opening bars from the BSO's Facebook page (a bit of the Symphonic Dances follows afterwards).

Andris Nelsons and Evgeny Kissin kicked off the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 135th Season tonight with an all-Russian program featuring a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Shostakovich's five-movement Symphony No. 9, and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. The Shostakovich is being recorded as part of a multi-year recording initiative with Deutsche Grammophon!
Posted by Boston Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, October 1, 2015

The soloist was Russian-born Evgeny Kissin, now a transplanted New Yorker. His performance of the Tchaikovsky was sure-fingered, but he couldn't obscure a sense of museum antiquity about the work, especially after the snappy Shostakovich. The piano writing has a lot of crashing octaves, which make for a large volume of sound, but not a lot of transparency and clarity. The pizzicato strings that open the second movement are a welcome respite. Regardless, when the last movement ended there was the most sustained ovation I have witnessed at Symphony Hall, and a gasping thrill went through the audience when Kissin sat down at the piano for an encore. He played Tchaikovsky's Meditation, which again had an air of fusty romanticism about it. That said, the piece ends with an extended right-hand trill while the left hand spins out the closing melody, and Kissin executed it masterfully.

Chamber music in my own back yard

The Boston Chamber Music Society appeals to me over other classical ensembles if only for one reason: geographic proximity. The majority of their concerts take place in Sanders Theater at Harvard University, just a 20-minute walk from my house. A few winter afternoons will bring them to the theater of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, just three more blocks beyond. The handiness of these venues beats a trek across the Charles River to Boston's South End or points further.

The five core musicians of the Boston Chamber Music Society augment their concerts with a rotating roster of guests artists who join in as the repertoire demands. On Sunday night I heard a Haydn piano trio (piano, violin and cello), a Beethoven string trio (violin, cello and viola), and a Strauss piano quartet (all of the above). Future concerts will swap in double bass, French horn, clarinet and vocalist. The BCMS season gives you the opportunity to hear live performances of smaller works by major composers in an intimate setting. As a bonus, the Society hosts a reception after each Sanders Theater concert, giving the audience a chance to mingle with the musicians and organizers over wine, cheese and cookie platters.

This concert demonstrated both the delights and the pitfalls of a live performance. Violinist Harumi Rhodes was alive to the music, sitting upright, her torso often mimicking the movement of her bow. In contrast, violist Marcus Thompson was more laid back, slouching into his chair. His laxness translated into some flabby notes that left me momentarily wondering what the intended harmony was supposed to be. The flat pitches drew genial glances from the other players: "Everything all right over there? Seems okay. Yes?"

Cellist Astrid Schween conveyed a lot with her eyes and was particularly engaged with the others during the bouncing rhythms of the Strauss quartet. Pianist Max Levinson sat behind the string players, so when he wasn't locked in to the printed music he had to read what body language he could from the back of the other musicians' heads. The pager turner went uncredited.

I am picking and choosing from the 8-concert BCMS season. I will skip the next two performances: another program of Beethoven and Strauss with some Bach; and an evening of Schubert and Brahms. But I am looking forward to the Parisian theme of the January concert with works by Ravel, Enescu and Franck.

Five one-sentence reviews

Boston has become an unlikely epicenter of operatic activity through May and June. American Repertory Theater is premiering a new work about Walt Whitman during the Civil War called Crossing. At the other end of the spectrum the Boston Early Music Festival is presenting some of the oldest surviving operas, a trilogy of works by Claudio Monteverdi. Boston Opera Collaborative is staging Ned Rorem's treatment of Our Town.

Odyssey Opera is in the middle of their spring festival, and on Saturday night I saw Kings, Queens, Saints & Sinners, five monodramas (scenes for one singer) by British composers. Each scene ran only about 15 minutes, so they merit short reviews.

1. Four Poems of St. Teresa of Avila by Lennox Berkeley – Contralto Stephanie Kacoyanis had a warm stage presence and a shimmering voice in these songs of devotion.

2. Ophelia by Richard Rodney Bennett – Countertenor Martin Near had unsteady pitch and no evident connection with the French text, ultimately just singing notes off the page.

3. Phaedra by Benjamin Britten – Mezzo-soprano Erica Brookhyser sacrificed diction for tone production, obscuring a third of the words; she wasn't really singing about turnips, was she?

4. King Harald's Saga by Judith Weir – Soprano Elizabeth Keusch sang a three-act opera (with epilogue) about Norway's failed invasion of England in ten minutes; her a cappella virtuosity and dramatic clarity crowned the evening.

5. Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies – Baritone Thomas Meglioranza took us inside the madness of King George, and he was definitely singing about cabbages.

Wine report: White Burgundy

When you mention Burgundy, people think of the dark red wines from which the color gets its name. But Burgundy, or Bourgogne, is a region in eastern France that should be equally known for its white wines. White Burgundy is made almost exclusively from the Chardonnay grape, and for the May wine tasting the Boston office sampled three entry-level varieties.

Most Americans grew up thinking Chablis was a generic term for white wine, but Chablis is a village in northern Bourgogne that gives its name to some very fine Chardonnays. We tried the 2013 Jacques Bourguignon Chablis, a Trader Joe's exclusive selling for $13 a bottle. All of the tasters liked this wine, but no one could say exactly why. I had a strong, immediate reaction, but it took two days to nail down the associations. When I was in Hawaii I tried the local pineapple wine, which was like rubbing alcohol with a thimble of pineapple juice waved past. It was undrinkable. This Chablis tasted like what that pineapple wine should have been: an initial statement of tropical fruit balanced by enough bitterness to keep it from cloying. This would be a light, summery companion to a pear half with cottage cheese on a bed of lettuce.

Our next offering was the 2013 Louis Jadot Mâcon-Villages, meaning meaning white wine from the greater vicinity of Mâcon. Also $13, this wine was more aromatic, but I was hard pressed to identify what that aroma was. Tangerine? Peach? Almond paste? Ultimately it smells and tastes like the subheading on the label indicates: Chardonnay. This is crisper than the typical oaky American style; tasters noticed green apple with a vanilla finish. Perhaps serve this with barbecued shrimp or fish tacos.

The final French wine was the 2013 Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé ($22), again taking its name from the producing villages. We spent a lot of effort trying to pronounce the name, but YouTube (click here) came to the rescue: Poo-yee Fwee-say. This Chardonnay had personality right from the first sniff. "Smoky" quickly gave way to "sulfurous", but several participants noted that it tasted better than it smelled. The minerals and acidity made this a surprising favorite. Our Dutch chef suggested pairing it with poached salmon or coquilles St. Jacques.

We tried a California Chardonnay for comparison. All of the white Burgundies had the pale yellow color of fresh straw, but the 2013 Shannon Ridge Chardonnay ($6 from a bin end) was a touch darker, almost golden honey. There was an aroma of bubble gum and bananas (Necco Banana Splits again?), but flavor notes of scotch and caramelization. This wine was much more pleasing than we expected for the price, and would go well with roasted chicken or banana flambé.

This was a successful final sampling before the Wine Tasting goes on its summer holiday. The Chablis and Pouilly-Fuissé had the most favorable responses, but there were no strong negatives across the board. The only downside is that now I am tempted to explore beyond the entry levels of white Burdundy. Oh, to have the bank account for a Beaune or Meursault or Puligny-Montrachet. Le sigh.

Patinkin and Mac and the End of the World

That's great, it starts with an earthquake....

American Repertory Theater is currently running The Last Two People on Earth: an Apocalyptic Vaudeville. Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac discovered that they love the same music, so they wove thirty tunes into a cautionary tale of climate change. If you know Mandy Patinkin from his recent television roles, you will be entertained to see him in an evening of song and soft shoe. If you know him from Sunday in the Park with George, you will weep for the ravages of time and belting.

The material spans Irving Berlin to R.E.M., Gilbert and Sullivan to The Pogues. Richard Rodgers, Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim are balanced by Randy Newman, Patty Griffin and Paul Simon. If you listen to college radio and enjoy the Broadway hour, this is the show for you. If you don't like show tunes, stay away; it will seem like an 80-minute drama school vanity project.

True to the Vaudeville style there was plenty of visual shtick, much of it involving hats and canes. An inflatable doll, stage snow and a pie in the face had their comic effect. Taylor Mac's minute-long puke into a hat earned my biggest gut laugh. Credit goes to director and choreographer Susan Stroman, who found the right movement for this pair of passable hoofers. She also knew when to keep the action quiet. Some of the best and most sobering moments came when the two singers were absolutely still.

Looks good on paper

The Boston Philharmonic closed their 2014-2015 season with three standards from the Romantic repertoire: the Overture to Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner, Cello Concerto no. 1 by Camille Saint-Saëns and Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. This program looked good on paper, and in fact it was excellent.

Conductor Benjamin Zander thrives on extroverted dramatic works, and he is fully engaged if there is some musical scholarship to reveal to the public. Previous successes include corrective interpretations of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and a fleet-footed Rite of Spring that followed Stravinsky's tempo markings.

Maestro Zander reconsidered a passage in the fifth movement of Symphonie Fantastique that is marked a whole note = 67 beats per minute. At this tempo everything is a blur. Based on the evidence of Franz Liszt's piano transcription of the work, Zander deduced that there is a notation error for what should be a half note = 67 beats, or half as fast. Now all the details of rhythm and texture come into focus. The conductor love to crow his bragging rights: "Of course, we're the first ones to actually play it at this tempo." And instead of sprinting to the end, the orchestra capered in a psychedelic rapture.

Young Boston cellist Jonah Ellsworth was the guest soloist for the Saint-Saëns concerto. BPO principal cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer was noticeably absent for this concert. Is it artistic courtesy (or jealousy) for a principal to step aside for a guest artist? Hmm.

The Boston Philharmonic bid farewell to one of their own, this being the final concert of Thomas Hill, principal clarinet for twenty-two years.

Wine report: White wedding / I thee Red

I was visiting my sister and stopped by Walmart, the mega-store, which in New Hampshire also has a beer and wine department. This is a novelty for Massachusetts shoppers. Walmart has a house label of wines, Oak Leaf, that sells for $2.97 a bottle. As I pondered the choices I heard a couple behind me wondering if they get some Oak Leaf for their reception. I was aghast. Who would serve $3 Walmart wine to their wedding guests? But then I considered that if you were having a typical catered affair with a choice of fish, chicken or prime rib, all you wanted was an inoffensive table wine to fill the glasses.

Inoffensive is the tricky part.

I picked up a few bottles to give them a try. The Shiraz was harsh, and the Merlot was silly. I gave the Chardonnay credit for boldly showing its fruit and oak. On my next visit to New Hampshire I stopped by Walmart again to try a few more varietals. The Oak Hill display had been ransacked, leaving only a few cases of Muscatel and White Zinfandel. Perhaps the young couple had hosted a huge reception with guests from multiple continents. I walked away.

The experience sparked a theme for the next Boston Office tasting. How would a super-budget wine stand up as a banquet offering? We tested the idea with Trader Joe's house brand, Charles Shaw, which sells for $2.99. I chose the Pinot grigio and Merlot because they seemed compatible with a variety of entrees, and I had seen some favorable reviews. Other tasters provided the comparison wines, keeping them under $15 dollars a bottle. The intent was to see if it was worth saving a hundred (or several hundred) dollars per case to put a passable wine on the table.

This was a blind tasting. I decanted six wines and labeled them A through F. I was the only one who knew which was which. Here's what we found, sampling the whites first.

Wine A was the Charles Shaw Pinot grigio. A fruity aroma greeted the nose; I found it balanced by a bitterness on the tongue. This wine had a dark amber color, and several tasters commented on the oaked, buttery flavor, reminding them of a Chardonnay. This selection had the fewest negative votes among the whites, but one taster called it "chicken-y".

Wine B was Kirkland, Costco's house label, selling for $6.99. This had the light green color you would expect of a Pinot grigio, but I was immediately struck by a bubble gum aroma, later pinpointed as Necco Banana Splits. The fans found the taste light and gentle, but the detractors were put off by a bitter aftertaste.

Wine C was Zenato, a single-vineyard Italian grigio selling for around $10. This got a shrug, not giving much on the nose, although someone described it as uriny. The fans found it cheese-friendly with a refreshing acidity; the foes called it metallic, or worse, bland.

On to the reds. They seemed to offer more personality than the whites.

Wine D was the Charles Shaw Merlot. I spent a long time trying to pin down the aroma. The best I could come up with was "new football". Other descriptions ranged from coffee to mustiness. The taste responses covered a wide spectrum, from "distinct and lovely" and "sweet, desserty" to "almost skunk" and "I ain't drinking no effing Merlot!" The color could only be described as purple.

Wine E was Dynamite Merlot, selling for around $10. I was almost blown backwards by a smell of Windex and a taste to match. Yet taste is subjective; several participants marked this as their favorite, loving the "dry fruit, cherry, slate", raving "delicious, awesome" and "yum!"

(One note about our tastings: we don't have a spit bucket; we finish what we pour. Legibility started to decline as we were into our fifth wine, hence this comment: "Smells good, tastes too [smartsy? smaltzy? ginptsy?]". Perhaps "smoky".)

Wine F was from Josh Cellars, $15. There were many favorable responses, admiring the cherry and dried fruit flavors. There was a comment on the appealing color, and I noted a chewy mouth feel. The haters were put off by a low-tide smell and smoky taste, and found the fruitiness pushing toward mulberry.

The tally: Tasters were instructed to circle their favorite choices on a ballot and cross out their least favorite. Within each varietal I arbitrarily assigned 5 points for each first-place vote, zero for the least favorite and 2 points for the default second choice, splitting one point each if there was no "least favorite" indication. I make no claims about scientific method, but I held aside my own ballot as a biased judge.

The results:

Pinot grigio
A, Charles Shaw – 28 points (33, adding my vote)
B, Kirkland – 34 points
C, Zenato – 24 points (26)

Merlot
D, Charles Shaw – 23 points (25)
E, Dynamite – 31 points
F, Josh Cellars – 30 points (35)

The judgment: Get a Costco membership for your white wine, but pay a little more for your red. If you figure in my vote for the Charles Shaw Pinot grigio, you would not embarrass yourself with a trip to Trader Joe's.

There were some crashers at our tasting, one being Dearly Beloved – I Thee Red, a California blend with a floral lacework skull on the label. Novelty wines can be a hazardous minefield, but this one was juicy and highly drinkable. It would be a suitable wedding gift to an edgy couple with a macabre sense of humor. Otherwise, definitely offensive.

Joe M. at the Boston Office makes his own Mead, and he brought in an apple and cinnamon based offering called Landfall. As with his previous Orange/Mango Mead, there is some dark alchemy that transforms the end product into something "other". I spent much time with my nose in the glass trying to pin down the aroma; a consultant and I finally arrived at Saddle Soap. The flavor was honeyed without being throat-chokingly cloying, and there was a touch of pruniness that evoked Sherry. In all, very quaffable.

In like a lion, out like a lamb

"In like a lion, out like a lamb" usually describes the month of March, but Boston's winter of 2015 has pushed that transformation into April. The record-breaking snowfall is finally disappearing, and crocuses have popped up only this first April weekend. The lion/lamb simile also applies to Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, describing this week's opening work, then expanding to the first half of the concert, then the concert as a whole, and finally broadening to the arc of the conductor's first season as music director.

The concert started with an orchestral scream. Looking down from the top balcony, I could see a giant crescendo mark drawn across the first page of the conductor's score:

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The Passacaglia from Dmitri Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is one of four interludes that allow the orchestra to amplify the emotional trajectory of the story. The anti-heroine has just poisoned her father-in-law, triggering her spiraling descent. The initial adrenaline rush can find no exit; the music keeps gnashing over a repeating baseline until finally collapsing with a whimper > .

Impressive, overwhelming, foursquare: these are the words that usually come to mind when I think of Ludwig van Beethoven. Imagine my delight when soloist Christian Tetzlaff joined the BSO in Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major. The work is downright ... well ... pretty. This has to be the most lyrical and delicate orchestral piece that Beethoven ever wrote. The poignancy of his plucked strings in the slow movement rivals French composers of 75 years later. Christian Tetzlaff played his own 3-page cadenza, which includes a passage for timpani accompaniment. Just plain fun.

The soloist treated us to an encore on Thursday's night, the Gavotte en rondeau from Bach's Violin Partita no. 3 in E major. It danced. I smiled.

The second half of the concert brought Shostakovich's Symphony no. 10 in E minor. Impressive, overwhelming, definitely not foursquare. What struck me most was the textures that Andris Nelsons got out of the orchestra. Yes, the second movement was a thumping rumpus, but elsewhere there were extended bassoon solos, a clarinet duet, flute and piccolo features. The quiet passages were softer and more detailed than I have heard this season, and Nelsons sheered off sudden outbursts with silences as powerful as the attacks.

For the first half of the season Nelsons seemed content to let the band rip, to test their lungs. The BSO is quite capable of a tremendous noise. Last week's Mahler was stunning, but there was a marked advancement this week: finesse, transparency, balance. Andris Nelsons has taken measure of the musicians, and now he is showing them to their best advantage. The BSO will repeat this Beethoven and Shostakovich program in a few weeks at New York's Carnegie Hall. It will be a distinguished calling card for the orchestra and its new music director.

Mahler on the money

This week's performance of Mahler's Symphony no. 6 underscored why the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired Andris Nelsons as their music director. The man knows how to conduct a large dramatic work.

I listened to several recordings of Mahler's "tragic" symphony in preparation for the concert. My favorite was an unflinching and harrowing performance by Gary Bertini and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Nelsons took a different approach: driven and relentless right from the downbeat. It was an equally valid reading that left me drained and exhilarated.

The BSO will perform Mahler 6 again during their April concerts at Carnegie Hall. From what I saw, New Yorkers will get their money's worth.

The organ concerto that wouldn't end

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony gave the world premiere of Michael Gandolfi's Ascending Light for organ and orchestra in late March. The work was commissioned in memory of long-time BSO organist Berj Zamkochian. It is strange that piece purportedly commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian genocide, because the first movement was 15 minutes of tutti goose-stepping over a cyclical four-chord progression. It evoked unquestioning obedience more than a sense of loss for the unrealized potential of an obliterated generation. The bombast seemed better suited as a soundtrack to a parade of tanks.

The second movement quieted down and showed more breath and texture. This section would have appeal as a standalone piece. The coda reverted to more cyclical tuttis and marched all the way home. When soloist Olivier Latry finished the final chord in the Thursday performance the root E flat got stuck. The organist gave a shocked look of "I didn't do it" to the conductor, then flipped a few stops and switches to no avail. Latry gave up and joined Nelson on the podium, the stuck pipe continuing to blow for another 30 seconds during the applause until a backstage technician pulled the plug.

Two pianist play Mozart concertos

German pianist Lars Vogt joined Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra mid-January for Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 24. I was uncomfortable throughout the performance. Vogt seemed to be playing against the orchestra instead of with it. His display was athletic, always pushing the runs faster than the accompaniment. His entrances were a fraction ahead of the beat, almost scolding the other musicians for being laggards. He was unheeding even to the audience: Vogt started the slow middle movement while the audience was still shifting, settling and coughing after the first movement. I booed his solo bow.

Emmanuel Ax played Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 14 under the baton of Christoph von Dohnányi in mid-February. The modest, genteel man gave a modest, genteel reading of the work. He blurred a few runs in the cadenza, where I felt more distinct separation of the notes might have injected a bit of sly humor. Regardless, the performance put a smile on my face.

Mozart the way I want to hear it

I am a fan of Christoph von Dohnányi. I would describe him as a gestalt conductor, meaning he sees the big picture of a work. Last season he conducted Mahler's second symphony just the way I wanted to hear it: clear-sighted, without any jarring eccentricities to break the momentum. Dohnányi has been back in town for two weeks as guest conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The program of his first week featured the music of Mozart and Richard Strauss.

What struck me in his reading of Mozart's Symphony no. 35 was that the conductor observed all of the written repeat signs. Many recordings made during the LP era omitted repeats in the closing section of each movement, perhaps due to the time constraints of an LP side, but also for fear of wearing out the listener's ear with too much of the same. The form of a Mozart menuetto movement in typical performance practice is AABB-CCDD-AB, but Dohnányi took the repeats in the Da Capo (from the top) for the longer AABB-CCDD-AABB.

The main reason to observe all of the repeats in a classical symphony is because the composer put them there, but there is a structural purpose. The A-section lays out the musical argument; a repeat of that section reinforces the themes and tonality of the work. In the B-section the composer expands the scope, often exploring remote harmonies. The results can be funky, disorienting or unsettling, but the composer safely guides us back to the home key. A subsequent repeat of the B-section shakes that false sense of security and raises our alert for the digressions ahead.

The second week of concerts was all Mozart – his last three symphonies: nos. 39 in E flat, 40 in G minor and 41 in C, "Jupiter". Maestro Dohnányi observed almost all of the repeats, omitting only those in the very longest sections. Perhaps my budget score from the library didn't reflect the latest scholarship; perhaps the conductor felt that Mozart had brought his ideas to a satisfactory conclusion; most likely it was to keep the concert under a time limit and avoid crippling overtime fees from the musicians' union. Even so, it was Mozart the way I want to hear it.

Case in point, the second movement of Symphony no. 41, Andante cantabile (a singing stroll). The tempo is a slow three beats to the bar, but each beat gets subdivided in various ways: sometimes two notes per beat, sometimes three or four or six or eight. Many conductors get so focused on the filigree of 24-to-the-bar that they lose the underlying propulsion. Dohnányi kept the quickest notes spinning so that there was always a coherent master pulse to the movement.

There are many delights in Mozart's last symphonies, regardless of who is conducting them. The second movement of Symphony no. 39 starts with a two-minute AABB section for the strings.

An uncomplicated little melody skips along in A flat major; a raised note in the seventh measure adds a sunny smile before the first repeat. The B-section starts climbing higher and higher, then hops around until it settles back down to the original melody. But then the second violin sneaks in a lowered note, darkening the mood to A flat minor. The cloud soon passes and all seems well, but now there is a slight question mark of uncertainty. It is a simple and magical touch, and I would feel deprived if the section were not repeated. Matters get more turbulent when the winds start blowing in the extended C-section.

Symphony no. 40 opens with one of Mozart's most recognizable melodies. Here is a graphic animation of the score. The form is AAB – watch for the repeat at 2:00. Enjoy!

Boston affirms its status as a provincial opera town

The story of Kátya Kabanová is a metaphor for the state of opera in Boston: Passion stifles in an oppressive backwater until its undignified death.

The singers in the current Boson Lyric Opera production were competent but not compelling. We knew the mother-in-law was a baddie not by anything the soprano did, but because the surtitles told us so. The third tenor was engagingly present, which only highlighted how absent the first two tenors were.

Others have commented on Shubert Theatre's funky acoustics, and this performance underscored the flaws. The tympani pocked like pickle buckets, sleigh bells squawked like tree beetles, and the strings sounded strained, as in passed through a colander with the juice extracted.

The production was borrowed from Opera North (U.K.), but it looked more like somebody trying their hardest to recreate the original sets. If this is the best Boston can do, I don't see opera surviving here much longer.

Wine tasting: Islands of the Mediterranean

Boston accumulated over 100 inches (250 cm) of snowfall this winter, so the Newton office took steps to encourage a reluctant spring. We held a sampling of wines from the islands of the Mediterranean to summon warm breezes and give winter a nudge out the door. Recent tastings have not been successful: The Year in Review brought forth some wines that couldn't withstand repeated scrutiny; then there was the Disappointments from Down Under. We struck gold this time, as there were many pleasant surprises and no outright dogs on the table.

The first two offerings were white wines from Greece. While Attica, home of Athens, is technically a peninsula, it is certainly surrounded by the wine-dark sea. The Kourtaki Retsina was a new experience for most of the tasters. We struggled to identify what we were sensing: rubber? sage? the vinyl of a Twister mat? It turns out that Retsina takes it name from the pine resin that is used to seal the wine casks. A second visit revealed a distinct aroma of Pine-Sol cleaner, but the flavor exceeded everyone's expectations. A trending Thanksgiving side dish has been oyster stuffing; if you are planning a gourmet turkey dinner, this Retsina can stand up to bolder flavors.


The other Greek wine was from the isle of Crete. Silenus Beta relies mostly on the local Vilana grape to make a lightly herbal, easy self-drinker. We found it similar to Sauvignon Blanc, with a whiff of nail polish remover/perm solution. This style of wine is meant to go with a variety of small plates, so keep it in mind for tapas or house parties. We had a wine novice visiting from the office in Pune, India, and this was his favorite.

Our next stop was Sardegna (Sardinia), a large island off the shinbone of Italy. For a white wine we tried La Cala, made from the native Vermentino grape. Several tasters experienced this sequence: fruit, mineral, metallic, bitter. On my second pour I tasted a blend of lemon and capers, which suggested a pairing with chicken or white fish.

Sardinian wines are characteristically fragrant. I have spent several half hours with my nose in a glass of Carignano red, smiling at the floral bouquet. The downside is that the taste can be too flowery, competing with food dishes. For this tasting we tried a Cannonau by Sella & Mosca, similarly aromatic, but not too overpowering. I could imagine serving this with herb-rubbed pork tenderloin.

We hopped to coastal Italy for the next offering, Tomaiolo from Tuscany. Some tasters found this Chianti Classico Riserva bold, borderline rude. "Just like my husband," said Annie, who brought the bottle, "which probably explains why he likes it so much." A dissenting voice called this a softer style Chianti. The Sangiovese grape produced a deep rose color, and my immediate response was that this would be a good dinner wine to serve with a steak.

From there we traveled to Sicily, another large island just off the toe of Italy. Cusumano from Avola blends the Nero (black) grape to produce a dark plummy color, almost inky. There was a hint of ball-point pen on the tongue as well. Perhaps serve this wine with marinated octopus. The tannins overwhelmed me, but others found the structure balanced; rich but not oaky. In some deep layer I noticed very dark cherry.

The Barcelona office sent us a bottle of ses Nines Negre from the island of Mallorca (Majorca). This blend of Manto Negro, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Callet and Merlot got a mixed response. Some liked the aroma better than the taste, finding it light but bitter. Others appreciated the peppery finish. Maybe this wine needs to test its mettle with a fiery vindaloo.

We left the Mediterranean behind, far behind, as we tried the final bottle, Château d'Lena from local garagistes Gavone Brothers. This Côtes du Rhône-style blend takes its name from Gavone matriarch Pasqualina. She nurtured this vintage while chief grape crusher Umberto was toiling at an offshore vineyard (ah, there is an island in this after all). The Brothers take pride in their new slogan, Il nostro vino non è più schifoso (Our wine doesn't suck anymore). Over time, reactions to the Gavone line have progressed from "like being mugged in a dark alley" to "beyond drinkable" and "surpassing mediocrity".

The Lena blend is virtually opaque in the glass, with a slight corona of dark magenta around the edges. Close your eyes as you inhale the vanilla airplane glue. The taste has intriguing notes of overripe raspberries and licorice, making this wine paradoxically suited to both red and black Twizzlers. Spare the main course; uncork this palate cleanser with the blueberry pie.

A sampling of the Calder Quartet

The Calder Quartet came to Jordan Hall on Friday night as part of the Boston Celebrity Series. These thirty-somethings are grounded in the classical repertoire, but they also champion new music. They divided the concert between past masters and living composers; here is a distillation of their program.

Sabina for string quartet by Andrew Norman – A fluttering shimmer of sunlit sonority. New music can be daunting, but this piece is mesmerizing. Click here for the Calders' recording of the work on SoundCloud. Andrew Bulbrook, the second violinist and a Massachusetts native, addressed the audience several times through the evening and let us know that Sabina will be included in an upcoming overview of new music. Based on this winning performance I am eager to give the other works a listen.

String Quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel – The players were fully engaged in the delights of the score, and the audience loved it. Honestly, if the performers aren't enjoying themselves in this work, they shouldn't be performing anymore. Click here for the first movement.

Arcadiana for string quartet, Opus 12 by Thomas Adès – Elusive. Like a stack of sheet music taken by a gust of wind. Just when you think you have caught a tune it twists and turns into something else. Click here for the sixth (and most accessible) movement, "O Albion". Bulbrook told us that Andrew Norman was concerned about having his new piece played on the same program, because he considers Arcadiana the best thing written in the last fifty years. The Calders have an ongoing relationship with Adès and will soon release an album entirely of his works. The composer will join in to play his piano quintet.

String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Opus 95 by Ludwig van Beethoven – The best compliment I can pay the musicians is that this work sounded like a fresh piece of music. Equal praise must go to the man who wrote it 200 years ago. Perhaps the Calders pushed the third movement a bit too much, verging on recklessness, but their energy and engagement couldn't be faulted. Click here for the snappy first movement.

One final note: The quartet took its name in tribute to American sculptor Alexander Calder. Here is a picture of his work Eagle, now standing in Seattle.

Paris in the 1920s

This weekend a French conductor leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a program of four works that had their premiere in Paris in the 1920s.

The BSO slimmed down to a chamber orchestra for much of tonight's program, and guest conductor Stéphane Denève got the musicians to underplay in an easygoing, genial style. The reduced volume revealed textural details of the scores, and it was only during the loudest ensemble sections that I was reminded how much power the Boston Symphony can unleash. Denève had the first and second violins divided left and right on the stage instead of this year's usual configuration of all the violins stacked to the left of the podium. From my vantage point at the top left balcony I couldn't detect any antiphonal counterpoint; perhaps those seated center in the auditorium had a better stereo experience. It will be worth listening with headphones to the live radio broadcast of Saturday night's concert.

The first work was a suite from Igor Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella, based on music of two centuries earlier by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Sleuthing musicologists have determined that over half of the source tunes were not by Pergolesi at all, but no matter. Stravinsky delighted in reorchestrating this material, overlaying his harmonic and rhythmic signature and launching what would be his neoclassical style.

Denève started the next work, Sergei Prokofiev's first violin concerto, in profile with a finger to his lips. This was a signal for the audience to allow the orchestra to enter at its quietest. Rarely have I heard the typically restive Symphony Hall so absolutely still. The soloist, James Ehnes, plays a 1715 Stradivarius. His tone grabbed my attention with the first note, and he had me completely focused by the third. His playing highlighted the lyricism that underlies much of Prokofiev's work. Ehnes treated us to an encore: the Adagio from Bach's Sonata No. 3, BWV 1005. What a gorgeous sound. During intermission I requested as many of his recordings as I could find from my library network.

[James Ehnes was born in Manitoba and currently resides in Florida. As a New Englander who has endured one of the most brutal winters in recent memory, I can empathize.]

The first piece after intermission was the score to Darius Milhaud's ballet La création du monde. The work only calls for eighteen musicians, including a featured alto saxophone. Milhaud drew upon American styles, and much of the music evokes Paul Whiting's jazz orchestra. As fine as the BSO players are, they didn't make a very convincing swing band.

The evening closed with a suite from Francis Poulenc's ballet Les Biches. Although this was the first time the BSO performed the work, Denève and the full orchestra were completely in their element, displaying light finesse and Gallic charm. After all, the Boston Symphony earned the reputation in the early twentieth century as the greatest French orchestra in the world.

How to conduct a false ending

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has performed two Haydn symphonies recently, each one with a false ending in the finale. The music builds up to a rousing final chord ... and then keeps going. The BSO readings were not very convincing, though. Here's how they played out.

How not to conduct a false ending, #1 – In the last week of November 2014 guest violinist Leonidas Kavakos conducted Symphony No 82 in C major, The Bear. The reading was genial but could have been peppier. In the final measures of the last movement there are several bars of orchestral hits on C major, which sound like (and in fact are) the closing of the work. But then Haydn puts in a repeat sign back to the middle of the movement. Kavakos came to a full stop and tried to sneak his way back into the music with a slow, building tempo. He over-finessed the moment, not giving clear direction to the orchestra. The entrance was sloppy.

How not to conduct a false ending, #2 – In the first week of January 2015 music director Andris Nelsons led the BSO in Haydn's Symphony No 90, also in C major. Nelsons was having fun with the work, sometimes not even conducting at all. He would clasp his hands and just smile as he listened to the balance of a woodwind passage, for example. When the music came to an apparent end in the fourth movement Nelsons kept his arms suspended to hold audience applause (as he often does, especially when the concert is being recorded). After about seven seconds he gave a surprised glance at the score with a look of "What? There's more music? Oh!" There were some chuckles from the audience as he brought the orchestra back in.

It was a lame bit of "accidental" comedy from a conductor who has studied and rehearsed the work. Even if he were sight reading, there is clearly more music on the page. It just keeps going after four measures of rest, no repeat, no need even to turn back pages. Nelsons tried to force the humor with a dramatic pause, but as a wise director once said, "There are no dramatic pauses." They only make a show longer.

So how do you conduct a false ending? Answer: Do nothing at all.

Joseph Haydn was a supreme classicist, meaning musical architecture took precedence over everything else. He also had a sense of humor. He devised these deceptive endings as jokes that were built into the very structure of the music. The humor is not that the orchestra stops and then starts again. The humor is HOW the orchestra comes back in to startle an audience that has already begun to applaud. The conductor doesn't have to do anything except keep the time going in his head and give the next downbeat. Haydn takes care of the rest.

(German conductor Bruno Weil understands this perfectly. Hear how he handles the false ending to The Bear in this YouTube clip [click here]. Scroll the time bar forward to 22:54 and listen to the next 20 seconds.)

Here is some musicology behind Haydn's technique. The last movement of Symphony No 82 "ends" in C major, but then the bassoons and middle strings start a droning scoop from G sharp to A, two notes very much NOT in a C major chord. This implies the key of A major, whose middle note (C sharp) would be a pungent clash against C, a musical pie in the face. But the low strings come in with a pedal F, establishing the key of F major, the subdominant of C major. The subdominant lowers the musical tension, as if Haydn is saying "Nope, nothing going on here" as he glances away with a suppressed smirk.

The fact is we have already heard this music the first time through the middle of the movement, but there it was a logical continuation of the previous passage. The jarring return to G#–A is not a random gimmick Haydn pulled out of his sleeve; he set up that motif in the very first measure of the movement, where a B scoops up to the droning root note, C. This carefully constructed interplay of beginning, middle, end and middle again is just one example of Haydn's mastery of the classical style.

Symphony No 90 "ends" with a clearly defined cadence in C major, followed by about four seconds of silence. A quiet D flat major passage then makes a tentative peep. D flat is a very odd neighbor to C major. It sounds like Haydn made a mistake and the wrong key is poking its head through the door. But this is all part of the master plan and things eventually sort their way back to C major. When Andris Nelsons held the pause and pandered to the audience for a laugh, he lost the tonal juxtaposition, missing the beat, so to speak, on the composer's intent.