Latest

January 1, 2021 Locke’s List for 2020: Major Discoveries and Pleasant Diversions in Operatic and Other Vocal Music (Plus a Ballet to a Scenario by Arthur Schnitzler)
December 8, 2020 Coming Up on YouTube: the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Beloved Annual Christmas Concert—Virtually—December 13th at 4pm EST
November 23, 2020 A Crop of Recordings XXXII: Four Austrians and a Frenchman: Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, von Einem, Rott, and Messiaen
September 12, 2020 Tanglewood Stream Fishing 2020 Part 2: Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax Play Brahms, Beethoven, Mendelssohn
September 12, 2020 Tanglewood Stream Fishing Part 3-Daniil Trifonov Plays Bach’s Art of Fugue

August 2019

Opera

After the 2016 performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Berlioz and Wagner Were Right about Spontini: Olimpie in a Stupendous World-Premiere Recording of the Paris 1826 Version

August 27, 2019Ralph P. Locke

This world-premiere recording of the 1826 Paris version of Gaspare Spontini’s Olimpie makes a powerful case for a composer much admired in his own day and for a work that forms a link between Voltaire and the French Grand Operas of Meyerbeer, Halévy, and Verdi.

Dance

A Scene from Under Siege. Photo-LI-Yi-Jian.

Under Siege by Yang Liping Contemporary Dance at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival

August 22, 2019Mari S. Gold

Hundreds of silvery scissors hang above the stage in rows, gently swaying and giving off a tinkling metal sound. These scissors have a life of their own, rising and descending, sometimes in voluptuous swoops. On the right a woman sits amidst a pile of white material, cutting the fabric into Chinese characters which she holds aloft. Each time she does this the English translation of the characters appears on screens, introducing a segment of the performance.

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Locke’s List for 2020: Major Discoveries and Pleasant Diversions in Operatic and Other Vocal Music (Plus a Ballet to a Scenario by Arthur Schnitzler)

What a strange, scary, and remarkable year 2020 has been, in all our lives! The social isolation that I have carried out pretty consistently has led me to look to music even more than usual for solace, enlightenment, and pleasant distraction. I gather that many music lovers have traveled a somewhat similar path since mid-March.

My penchant for opera, and for vocal music and for the theatre generally, has led me to get to know a number of recent CD releases, many of which I have reviewed for American Record Guide or for various online magazines.

A Crop of Recordings XXXII: Four Austrians and a Frenchman: Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, von Einem, Rott, and Messiaen

It gladdens my heart to confirm that Alexander Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid is no longer a “rescue” known only to early twentieth century enthusiasts panning for neglected musical gold. It’s too good for a fate like that. There are 11 modern versions of this work now on Naxos’s streaming site, not to mention live performances on YouTube, most of them, like this one, quite fine. The piece has arrived. It’s a fitting outcome for music which premiered in 1905 on the same program as Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande and was actually preferred by the audience.

Summer Retrospective: Miranda Cuckson and Conrad Tao at PS21 in Chatham, New York

Miranda Cuckson and Conrad Tao held the stage at PS 21 on two successive Friday nights as part of a series of mostly contemporary music concerts at the semi-open stage in Chatham NY, on August 28 and September 4. Both performers captivated their audiences with superb focus and transcendent technique, conveying a fierce commitment to contemporary repertory that gained force by virtue of the context of the pandemic. Played to masked listeners seated in a distanced pattern, the intense performances knitted musician, audience, and composers together into a powerful matrix of expressive power and imaginative adventure.

Summer Retrospective: Timo Andres and (via stream) Conor Hanick at PS 21: Andres, Copland, Rzewski, and Ustvolskaya

Let’s now return to more hopeful times during the summer with further—and concluding—reports on PS21’s Modern Music Fest by Larry Wallach on concerts by violinist Miranda Cuckson and composer-piano virtuoso Conrad Tao and myself on a recital by another, no less virtuosic composer-pianist, Timo Andres. I am unaware of any other organization to have offered professionally presented, socially-distanced live music in the Hudson Valley or Berkshires during the summer season, and that in itself was most welcome. But, beyond that, the Modern Music Fest, organized by PS 21’s Artistic Director, Elena Siyanko, only weeks before it opened, to replace an ambitious program of visitors from abroad which was planned last year, long before anyone thought of Covid-19. Most impressive were the coherence and focus of the programming, as well as the level of musicianship among the performing artists, all of whom hailed from New York City. As we all know, New Yorkers were not entirely occupied with surviving a readily spread and often lethal microbial threat, but hostility from the federal executive, an equally dangerous disease threatening the basic rights of not just themselves but of all American citizens. Mr. Andres and Mr. Tao, as well as the leadership of PS21 were energetically participating in movements which, have, from this retrospective point in time, have preserved the right to vote and have reminded Americans of their duty to vote, so far. These urgent concerns brought them together while they were pursuing their daily lives under these radically altered circumstances, including the planning and rehearsal of the music that brought us all together in Chatham.

Tanglewood Stream Fishing Part 3-Daniil Trifonov Plays Bach’s Art of Fugue

In making this work seem a Romantic tour-de-force, yet being true in spirit to the music’s main mission is really astonishing and tricky to pull off. Having musical taste and a keen insight to Bach’s architecture gives room for his pianism.

Tanglewood Stream Fishing 2020 Part 2: Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax Play Brahms, Beethoven, Mendelssohn

Ax and Ma chatted about their relationship over the years and the personal idiosyncrasies that sustain or annoy them both. To engage novice listeners, the Beethoven’s sonata became the subject of some slightly nerdy talk about the tonic-dominant-tonic arches that propelled the Beethoven’s sonata. Finally, somehow, they drifted to discussing chef Jacques Pépin’s freaky tolerance for seizing hot skillets its supposed relevance in interpreting the piano attacks in the scherzo.

John Luther Adams’ “Ten Thousand Birds” Performed by Alarm Will Sound under Alan Pierson at PS 21

Elena Siyanko, Executive Director of PS21, in her introductory comments preceding Alarm Will Sound‘s performance of John Luther Adams‘ Ten Thousand Birds, said that this event has been in the works for a year. Its purpose, conceived months before there was any hint in people’s minds that the performance would occur under the restrictions imposed by the pandemic which continues without an end in sight, at least in the United States. The particular features of the new performance structure and the determination and resourcefulness of Ms. Siyanko and her staff have made PS21 a pioneer in offering live performances under safe conditions. The performance of Ten Thousand Birds was intended to showcase the new PS21 and its new semi-open performance space to the public. The beautiful grounds surrounding it are in integral part of its design and function in a way quite different from Tanglewood and SPAC, where lawns simply provide expanded seating for those who prefer to be out in the open.

Latest

January 1, 2021 Locke’s List for 2020: Major Discoveries and Pleasant Diversions in Operatic and Other Vocal Music (Plus a Ballet to a Scenario by Arthur Schnitzler)

December 8, 2020 Coming Up on YouTube: the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Beloved Annual Christmas Concert—Virtually—December 13th at 4pm EST

November 23, 2020 A Crop of Recordings XXXII: Four Austrians and a Frenchman: Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, von Einem, Rott, and Messiaen

September 12, 2020 Tanglewood Stream Fishing 2020 Part 2: Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax Play Brahms, Beethoven, Mendelssohn

September 12, 2020 Tanglewood Stream Fishing Part 3-Daniil Trifonov Plays Bach’s Art of Fugue

August 2019