A cultural marathon

Mid-March brought a perfect storm of subscription tickets. Over the course of eight days I went to ten shows or concerts. I attend so many events in the hope of being uplifted by the humanities; a high percentage of very good to excellent performances fulfilled that quest.

Thursday evening: Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two artists I greatly admire, guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt and pianist Garrick Ohlsson, joined the BSO in an all-Beethoven program. They played Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 7 with such ease and clarity. This is how it's done.

Friday evening: Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall, performing Bach's St. John Passion. This group plays music of more than two centuries ago on period instruments, usually underpowered and out of tune. I left midway during part two for what will probably be my last H+H concert.

Saturday matinee: Irish film festival at Somerville Theatre – Taste: What's Going On. My sister has a passion for Celtic roots music, which led us to this documentary of Rory Gallagher's breakout 1970 concert on the Isle of Wight. His blues-rock trio opened the door for all the Irish rockers that followed. To call him an equal to Jimi Hendrix is not an exaggeration. Really fantastic to see – thanks, Denise!

Saturday evening: Orchestra of Indian Hill taking on The Classics. Conductor Bruce Hangen gave a gentle and transparent reading of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony. I heard little details that often get lost with big bands in big halls. It was enlightening to follow the basses when Schubert liberated them from just doubling the cellos.

The last movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 opens with comic timidity, the violins ever more hesitantly shying away from the starting gate before taking off at full gallop. Hangen played it for laughs, to the audience's vocal enjoyment.

Sunday matinee: Joy on clarinet with the Middlesex Concert Band in a program of movie music. Disney tunes, The Magnificent Seven, "Over the Rainbow", a John Williams medley – there was something for everyone. The highlight was the theme from The Pink Panther. This band swings hard!

Sunday evening: Boston Chamber Music Society at Sanders Theatre premiering a piano quartet by Harold Meltzer. The work has a palindromic structure – advancing through six or seven sections before exiting the way it came in. One of the central sections is palindromic notewise, playing the same forwards as backwards. It's an engaging work with rhythmic and textural interest and a touch of humor. I loved it.

Also on the program was Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor. Mendelssohn has five works that I rank high among all classical compositions: A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, his Octet, Violin Concerto, and String Quartet No. 2. Now I add this piano trio to the list. The first movement builds and builds and builds to unbearable heat, then suddenly backs off to avert self combustion. Mendelssohn is bad-ass. If you ever get a chance to see one of his works performed, please go.

Monday: laundry.

Tuesday evening: in New York City to see Donizetti's comic opera Don Pasquale at the Metropolitan Opera. I saw this same production ten years ago and left wishing I could live in Norina's rooftop terrace apartment. Soprano Eleanora Buratto was energetic, but not effervescent. There was a lot of telegraphed physical schtick that sapped any sense of spontaneity. But it was gratifying to hear this bel canto gem performed with admirable lyricism. The two baritones sang an encore of their patter duet in front of the scene-change scrim.

Tenor Javier Camarena excels in this genre. After his Act Two exit a two-minute ovation recalled him to the stage; he reprised the tail end of his aria with enhanced ornamentation. The best was yet to come in Act Three, when his character stole the show with a serenade sung entirely offstage.

Wednesday matinee: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theater. Who stabbed the neighbor's dog with a garden fork?

An autistic teen sleuth tries to unravel a tangled web of mysteries. Exponentially multiplying digital projections give a glimpse into Christopher's battle against sensory overload. Yet the story has great heart, and the last act pulls at your emotions in all the right ways. This play = (technical + dramatic) stagecraft raised to the highest power. 

Wednesday evening: a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Met. At first glance the stage looked like a giant hat box full of King Arthur's spare crowns. But once the overture started a turntable revolved the set to show different aspects of the Almaviva's turreted manor. The Count and one of the maids are gathering their clothing in a back corridor while the valet, Figaro, furnishes a chamber he will share with his bride-to-be, Susanna, who is attending to the Countess, who is asleep (alone) in her bedroom, while the gardener gets drunk in the garden. Within three minutes the opera's sexual politics and upstairs/downstairs dynamics are loud and clear.

An ensemble of acting singers brought a refreshing contrast to some unmotivated star turns I have seen in the past. Baritone Luca Pisaroni stood out as the Count, whose philandering and misguided jealousy of his wife repeatedly made him the comic butt of his own hypocrisy. 

Thursday evening: Boston Symphony Orchestra (back full circle). Guest conductor Stéphane Denève opened the concert with American composer Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral, which drifted away into thin air on wine glasses and Chinese bells. Gil Shaham joined the stage to perform John Williams's Violin Concerto. Anyone familiar with the soundtracks to Star Wars and Harry Potter would be hard-pressed to recognize the same composer in this willfully unmelodic work. Shaham gave an encore in honor of St. Patrick's Day – an Irish reel by Percy Grainger, arranged for solo violin by Fritz Kreisler. The reading lacked a strong, driving beat, coming across as more flash than dance.

The program ended with Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns. This work has echoes of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, but it distinguishes itself with the use of a pipe organ. The lowest pedal tones are felt as much as heard. A nice touch of scoring is a melody doubled by clarinet and trombone, and there are additional splashes of color from piano four-hands. The closing measures were a rousing finish to a week that tested my endurance. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Blind tasting: Rutherford dust

Rutherford Dust

The Rutherford growing region in the heart of California's Napa Valley has a combination of climate, slope of terrain and alluvial soil that is ideal for cultivating the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. Eons of volcanic deposits, mountain erosion and maritime sediment in a receded river bed have produced a gravelly, sandy clay loam affectionately called Rutherford dust. Rainfall drains easily to the Napa River, so the grapes don't become lazy and glutted with water. Warm, sunny days and cool nights allow the fruit to ripen at a steady pace. The result is a focused and concentrated juice.

The Boston office had a blind tasting of four Rutherford Cabernets. Beyond just exploring the character of these wines, there was a twofold challenge: 1) Could the tasters identify the most expensive wine? and 2) Which wine did the tasters prefer? The answers need not be the same.

The order of presentation was determined by drawing slips of paper out of a hat. As it turned out, the hat arranged the wines fom least to most expensive.

Our offerings

A – $20: 90+ Cellars, Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford, 2014. The 90+ mission is to seek out overstocked wine from respected producers and sell it with a cheaper label. This unburdens producers without eroding their brand names. This Rutherford Cabernet showed the most fruit flavor, and several tasters described it as smooth and light, perhaps the easiest self drinker. But one taster took a whiff and said, "This is not the most expensive wine."

B – $20-$30: Daniel Cohn Wine Company, Bellacosa Cabernet Sauvignon, North Coast, 2014. Daniel Cohn grew up in a family of winemakers, and now he has ventured out on his own label. "Bellacosa" means a beautiful thing, and for this, his first offering, he called in favors from his connections to get their best fruit. While the North Coast growing region is a vast area encompassing Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and more, this Cabernet has a significant content of grapes from Rutherford growers. I picked up an aroma of chocolate cherries, with some smoke and Asian fruit tartness on the tongue. This wine would be a great accompaniment to teriyaki tenderloin and baby purple eggplant.

C – $??: Caymus Vineyards, 40th Anniversary Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 2012. It's hard to put a price on this wine. This was a collector's edition one liter bottle. Some web sites list it as sold out at $85; others show it at $120; some are asking over $200. You could call this a trophy wine. A comparable 2013 Caymus in a traditional 750 ml bottle lists at $72, but for our purposes the 40th Anniversary qualifies as the most expensive. While the label names this a Napa wine, the Wagner family has extensive vineyards in Rutherford. We took it on faith that substantial Rutherford dust went into the making. It has deep flavors and calls for pairing with a hearty meal.

D – $50-$100: Chaix Wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford, 2013. If you go by the full list price, this one shares the honor as the most expensive wine in our tasting. (There were two possible correct answers to the first question.) The Chaix family has been producing wine for four generations. There is an earthiness to this Cabernet, as if you could taste the soil and the very vines that the grapes grew on. It has inky opacity in the glass, ripe plums in the nose, and grit and tannins on the tongue. It's a bit leathery on its own, but prime rib with glazed mushrooms might unlock the secrets of this true Rutherford.

For comparison and contrast we looked for a white wine from Rutherford, which is hard to find. Since Cabernet thrives there, why plant anything else? But our scouts picked up a $20 Franciscan Estate Chardonnay from Oakville, just south of Rutherford. This is a Chardonnay in the French style, showing delicate fruit that isn't overpowered by oak aging. It had a refreshing modesty next to the big gun Cabernets.

The results

Which wine is the most expensive? Five of eight tasters picked D (one with a comment "or C maybe"), and two picked C, so seven got it right. One taster picked B, which is a vote of confidence for Cohn's up-and-coming skills as a wine producer. No one picked A.

Which wine do you like best? Six of the eight chose C (thanks go to Marc, who supplied this crowd pleaser). One taster chose A. One chose B in a near tie with D; there was a non-voter showing a similar inclination.

All of these wines were new to me, and I was unable to choose a favorite. Probably not D, anyway. But each time I circled around to revisit them I appreciated more and more what each one had to offer. Unfortunately, even the least expensive bottles are priced out of range for casual drinking. If you were planning a special meal and had money to burn, however, you might indulge those near and dear to your heart with some Rutherford dust.

Many thanks to the Boston crew for this opportunity to explore a new region.