New York Philharmonic Perform Romantic Classics

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 03 February 2025 15:01

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee.

At Lincoln Center’s excellent David Geffen Hall—on the night of Wednesday, January 29th—I had the exceptional privilege to attend an outstanding concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the confident direction of Marek Janowski, who debuted with the ensemble with these performances.

The event started enjoyably with Carl Maria von Weber’s seldom played Overture to The Ruler of the Spirits from 1811. In a note on the program, Edward Downes and James M. Keller provided some useful background on the piece:

Carl Maria von Weber spent much of his career in the orbit of the stage. He served as music director at a succession of civic and court theaters and opera houses, earning high marks for his work at Breslau (1804–06), at Duke Eugen Friedrich of Württemberg's castle at Karlsruhe in Upper Silesia (1806–07), in Prague (where he headed the German Opera Company from 1813 to 1816), and in Dresden (where, at the King of Saxony's behest, he oversaw the German Opera Theater from 1817 to 1821). 

Although some of Weber's instrumental works remain in the repertoire today, it was as a composer of opera that Weber made his most enduring mark. He worked on ten of them in his too-brief life (he died several months before his 40th birthday), in addition to which he produced more than two dozen contributions of incidental music for theatrical productions, ranging from single items (such as a chorus for an 1813 production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) to multimovement scores comprising vocal solos, choruses, and instrumental numbers. Not all of his operas were completed, and not everything he did complete seems to have survived. Four of them — Abu Hassan, Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon — remain at least marginally in the public's awareness today, and Der Freischütz is honored as a true classic. 

As a dazzlingly gifted 17-year-old, Weber was appointed conductor of the Breslau Opera, where he made many enemies, especially among mature musicians who had been passed up in his favor. But he also made many friends, among them the poet Johann Gottlieb Rhode. Rhode had ambitions as a dramatist, and it was not long before he offered Weber a libretto for a new opera to be called Rübezahl. Weber's overture to this projected opera eventually became the standalone concert overture you hear in this program. 

Rübezahl was notably depicted by the Romantic painter Moritz von Schwind as a gnomelike denizen of the forest. The character was a figure of German folklore: a rather Robin Hood–like ruler of spirits whose benign adventures were garbled into a thoroughly confused libretto. The teenaged Weber was not up to the task of bossing his librettist, or of shaping his own libretto, and he never finished the opera. Still, the composer thought enough of some of his music for it that he chose to incorporate it into several later works. The best material was his Overture, the original manuscript of which has been lost, except for a few bars of the first violin part. Seven years later, in 1811, stimulated probably by the prospect of an important orchestral concert he was to conduct in Munich, Weber, in his own words, “entirely reworked” his Rübezahl Overture, giving it the new title Der Beherrscher der Geister (The Ruler of the Spirits).

We no longer know which parts of the revised Overture refer to incidents in the discarded opera. It refers to a folktale that was central to the opera plot in which the ruler of the spirits is foiled in his designs on a beautiful princess. The princess has the presence of mind to steal Rübezahl's magic scepter, thus compelling him to go out into the garden and count turnips (his name has been translated as “counter of turnips”) while she makes her escape with the help of a friendly gryphon.

Later that year, Weber described it as the “most powerful and lucid thing I have yet written ... a veritable park of artillery!” 

The splendid soloist Beatrice Rana—who wore a lovely black gown—then entered the stage for a superb account of Felix Mendelssohn’s possibly underrated Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, from 1831. (In the 1970s, the scholar William S. Newman wrote in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that Mendelssohn’s two piano concertos were rapidly acquiring the status of “student concerti,” but the realization of the work on this evening demonstrated that—with respect to the first concerto, at least—such an assessment is unjust.) Keller’s commentary is again edifying:

The inspiration for Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 arrived during a visit to Italy he undertook in 1830–31, the same trip that gave rise to the Italian Symphony. The journey began with a two-week visit with Goethe in Weimar — the last time Mendelssohn saw the great poet — before the composer continued south to Munich, Pressburg, and finally Italy, where he arrived in October. Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Genoa, and Milan all delighted him, and he returned to Germany in October 1831. That's where he unveiled his G-minor Piano Concerto, on October 17, before an audience that included the King and Queen of Bavaria. Also on the program were his Symphony No. 1, his Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, and some solo keyboard improvisation. It seems that Mendelssohn had been contemplating this concerto a year earlier, in November 1830, when he was still in Rome, and began sketching the piece then. But he did not focus on it until October 1831, at which point he wrote it out speedily.

The initial, Molto allegro con fuoco movement is Romantic and dramatic but is interspersed with lyrical episodes. The exquisite, ensuing Andante is also song-like—and meditative as well—and concludes softly—it owes much to the slow movements in the piano concerti of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig von Beethoven. The finale opens with characteristically Mendelssohnian fanfares—this movement too is propulsive, energetic, virtuosic and Chopinesque, although like the first it has moments of repose. Enthusiastic applause elicited a wonderful encore from Rana: the Mendelssohn Song without Words, Op. 67, No. 4.

The second half of the program was even stronger than the first: a marvelous rendition of Robert Schumann’s extraordinary Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, the Rhenish, Op. 97, from 1850. Keller’s remarks are again educative:

Robert Schumann tended to turn sequentially from genre to genre, obsessively exploring a medium until he felt he had reached the current limit of his abilities and curiosity: piano music occupied him in the 1830s, songs in 1840, chamber music in 1842, oratorio in 1843. In 1841 the orchestra enjoyed his attention. In that year alone he produced his Symphony No. 1 (Spring); his buoyant Overture, Scherzo, and Finale (essentially a symphony without a slow movement); the original version of his Symphony in D minor (which he would recast a decade later into what we know as his Symphony No. 4); and yet another symphony, in C minor, which he left as an incomplete torso. After that he eased up on symphonic music. His Symphony No. 2 waited until 1845–46, and almost another five years would pass before he embarked on his Symphony No. 3. Its subtitle, Rhenish, bears tribute to the Rhine River, the waterway of Germany's western spine. The Schumanns had moved to the Rhineland in late 1850 — to Düsseldorf, where Schumann was appointed municipal music director. 

He adds:

It is a thoroughly German work; in fact, Schumann here used German movement markings — the first time he did so in a symphony — and he crafted themes that evoked the landscape, such as the Ländler-like folk-waltz of the Scherzo movement, which he initially intended to title “Morning on the Rhine.”

And further:

Schumann once told his biographer William Joseph von Wasielewski that, in this work, “popular elements should prevail, and the result, I think, has been a success,” and in 1851 he wrote to his publisher that “here and there [this symphony] reflects a bit of local color.” The Cologne Cathedral, the Gothic crown of one of the Rhine's great cities, makes an appearance, too; the fourth movement, Schumann wrote in the symphony's manuscript, should be “like the musical accompaniment for a solemn ceremony.” Trombones, historically taken to signify things ecclesiastical, do not make their first appearance in this symphony until this fourth movement, where their mellow tones sing forth an impressive chorale right at the outset. This music stands in high contrast to the overwhelmingly cheerful, or at least bucolic, material that has preceded it, but it proves essentially integrated into the symphony, and this solemn music will be recalled even in the bustling merriment of the finale.

The initial movement, marked “Lively,” which pronouncedly anticipates—and surely greatly influenced—the symphonic music of Schumann’s celebrated disciple, Johannes Brahms, is passionate with majestic passages and finishes affirmatively. The bewitching Scherzo—with the tempo of “Very moderate”—opens gracefully and liltingly; it has fugue-like interludes and ends quietly. The third movement, marked “Not fast,” is gentle in character, charming, and relatively subdued; it closes softly. The fourth movement begins weightily and seriously and concludes on a note of gravity. The finale, also marked “Lively,” is ebullient, even exuberant, although with more stately moments—it builds to a triumphant end.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

Broadway Musical Review—“Death Becomes Her” with Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard and Christopher Sieber

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 01 February 2025 03:54

Written by Kevin Filipski

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in Death Becomes Her (photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Shakespeare & Dvořák with the New York Philharmonic

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 31 January 2025 15:16

Written by Jack Angstreich

Daniele Rustioni, photo by Chris Lee

At Lincoln Center’s superior David Geffen Hall, on the night of Thursday, January 9th, I had the privilege to attend another excellent concert—amidst a strong season—presented by the New York Philharmonic, under the distinguished direction of Daniele Rustioni, who debuted with the ensemble with these performances.

The event began brilliantly with one of its highlights, i.e., a sterling account of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s marvelous, seldom played Overture to The Merchant of Venice, from 1933, after the famous play by William Shakespeare, who—according to the useful program note by Jack Sullivan—was the composer’s “favorite author.” Sullivan adds that he “wrote some 200 film scores, including Gaslight, And Then There Were None, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.” And further, that “He joined the faculty of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, becoming an influential teacher who had a huge impact on American music: among his pupils were John Williams, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, André Previn, and Jerry Goldsmith.” And finally:

He composed 11 Shakespeare overtures over a span of two decades, including The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, and Antony and Cleopatra. He called these “the overtures to operas I will never compose,” though in the late 1950s he did write two Shakespeare operas, All's Well That Ends Well and The Merchant of Venice.

The brilliant and celebrated soloist Joshua Bell then entered the stage for an impressive account of Antonín Dvořák’s rewarding Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, an undervalued work even if it is surpassed in greatness by the composer’s extraordinary Cello Concerto. Annotator James M. Keller provides a detailed background of its genesis:

He wrote it at the instigation of violinist Joseph Joachim, who had played the premiere of Brahms's Violin Concerto on New Year's Day, 1879. After composing the concerto in the late summer of that same year, Dvořák promptly sent it to Joachim, who responded appreciatively and promised that he was “looking forward to inspecting soon, con amore, your work.” In early April 1880 Joachim finally invited Dvořák to meet with him in Berlin, after which the composer embarked on a thorough revision. On May 9 Dvořák wrote to [his publisher Fritz] Simrock (who was eager to be informed of what was going on with the piece):

According to Mr. Joachim's wish I revised the whole Concerto and did not leave a single bar untouched. He will certainly be pleased by that. The whole work will now receive a new face. I kept the themes and added a few new ones, but the whole conception of the work is different. Harmony, orchestration, rhythm — all the development is new. I shall finish it as soon as possible and send it to Mr. Joachim immediately.

This Dvořák did, and there the piece sat again, this time for more than two years. Finally, on August 14, 1882, Joachim dropped a note to the composer:

Recently I made use of some spare time I had to revise the violin part of your Concerto and to make some of the passages, which were too difficult to perform, easier for the instrument. For even though the whole proves that you know the violin very well, from some single details it may still be seen that you yourself have not played for some time. While making this revision I was pleased by the many true beauties of your work, which will be a pleasure for me to perform. Saying this with the utmost sincerity, I may — without the danger of being misunderstood — confess that I still do not think the Violin Concerto in its present shape to be ripe for the public, especially because of its orchestral accompaniment, which is still rather heavy. I should prefer you to find this out by yourself by playing the work with me.

In mid-September 1882 Dvořák accordingly traveled again to Berlin to consult with Joachim, returning two months later for an orchestral reading. Quite a few changes inevitably followed, mostly involving small cuts and lightened orchestration. Simrock's adviser Robert Keller also attended the orchestral run-through and added his two cents, arguing that the first two movements, which Dvořák had laid out as a single, essentially connected span, should be separated entirely. At this Dvořák drew the line. To Simrock he wrote on December 16, 1882:

You know that I esteem this man and can appreciate him, but this time he went too far. The first movement would be too short and cannot be complete in itself: it would be necessary to add a third part and to this — sincerely speaking — I am not inclined. Therefore: first and second movement without any changes, some cuts in the third movement where the main motif in A major appears.

After all this, Joachim did not end up introducing the piece, notwithstanding his involvement in its difficult birth and the fact that his name remained at the head of the score as its dedicatee. The honor of the premiere went instead to František Ondřiček, who went on to premiere it also in Vienna and London and who became the work's most ardent champion. It seems that Joachim never played the piece in public.

The initial, Allegro ma non troppo movement, which opens with a lyrical statement of the primary theme, is largely affirmative and melodious with dramatic and passionate moments, while the ensuing Adagio ma non troppo is song-like and Romantic and closes quietly. The Finale—marked Allegrogiocoso, ma non troppo—is a rondo the principal theme of which is a furiant, a Bohemian folk dance, and a central interlude is a dumka, a Slavonic folk dance; jaunty—even exuberant—and virtuosic, the movement concludes triumphantly. Enthusiastic applause elicited a wonderful encore from Bell, accompanied by harpist Nancy Allen: an arrangement of Frédéric Chopin’s lovely Nocturne in C-sharp.

The second half of the evening was even more remarkable: a magnificent realization of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s fabulous Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. About it, to his pupil and friend the eminent composer Sergei Taneyev, Tchaikovsky wrote: 

Of course my symphony is program music, but it would be impossible to give the program in words. … But ought this not always to be the case with a symphony, the most lyrical of musical forms? Ought it not to express all those things for which words cannot be found but which nevertheless arise in the heart and cry out for expression?

In a letter from the late summer of 1877 to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck, he wrote:

Our symphony progresses. The first movement will give me a great deal of trouble with respect to orchestration. It is very long and complicated: at the same time I consider it the best movement. The three remaining movements are very simple, and it will be easy and pleasant to orchestrate them.

In another letter to von Meck, he described the opening movement:

The introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, undoubtedly the central theme. This is Fate, i.e., that fateful force which prevents the impulse toward happiness from entirely achieving its goal, forever on jealous guard lest peace and well-being should ever be attained in complete and unclouded form, hanging above us like the Sword of Damocles, constantly and unremittingly poisoning the soul. Its force is invisible, and can never be overcome. Our only choice is to surrender to it, and to languish fruitlessly. … When all seems lost, there appears a sweet and gentle daydream. Some blissful, radiant human image hurries by and beckons us away. … No! These were dreams, and fate wakes us from them. Thus all life is an unbroken alternation of harsh reality with fleeting dreams and visions of happiness … There is no escape. … We can only drift upon this sea until it engulfs and submerges us in its depths. That, roughly, is the program of the first movement.

The movement starts with a stirring fanfare that recurs throughout it, but much of it has a lugubrious quality, although there are lighter passages that alternate with more emotionally charged ones; it finishes forcefully. The second movement, marked Andantino in modo di canzona, is charming but also melancholic, with a beautiful main theme; it increases in intensity, ending softly. The brief Scherzo, an Allegro, is not unexpectedly more playful, even ebullient. The Allegro con fuoco Finale has a brash beginning and is dynamic in the extreme, although with more subdued interludes; it ultimately builds to an exhilarating—even extravagant—climax.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.