Voici la vidéo de If I should fall behind par de Bruce Springsteen en solo live au Carnegie Hall lors du concert pour les autistes du 17 novembre 2009.

Bruce Springsteen a participé le 18 novembre 2009 à un concert de charité au profit de l’association Autism Speaks au Carnegie Hall de New York.

Voici la setlist (source Badlands).

1. No Surrender
2. If I Should Fall Behind
3. Working On The Highway
4. Thunder Road

Every gala programme requires good infrastructural set up in order to make it a successful event. The New York City has every possible amenity that is just the right kind of ingredient to make a concert an absolutely sold out affair. The New York City is a modern developed city that easily boasts off several venues that are capable of holding world famous concerts of eminent artists across the continents. The best concert venues in New York City always are in high demand among the common public so that they can get a glimpse of their music idols.

To begin with, the prestigious Carnegie Hall comes to the foray. Eminent classical musicians and also the artists of popular music perform regularly at this hall. It is known across every country in the world for its sheer interior beauty, and top class acoustics. The Carnegie Hall has its artistic programming systems and inbuilt development infrastructural set ups alongside fine marketing departments. It boats off around two hundred and fifty artistic performances in each season and is also conveniently rented out to the various performing groups of different countries. Each and every person feels really proud to witness a gorgeous concert in the Carnegie Hall in New York City.

No person can deny the prominence of the world famous Roseland Ballroom in the cultural scenario of New York City. It is also known as the Roseland Dance City. It serves for several purposes taking into account the nature of various artistic performances. The Roseland Ballroom simultaneously acts as a fine dance hall and also for the venue of world class concerts. It accommodates more than 2000 people for a well flourished concert and every person wants to be among the audiences witnessing the wonderful cultural events. Bands and artists like AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Madonna, Paul McCartney etc have performed here. Even mega events like huge movie premiers take place at the Roseland Ballroom.

The Bowery Ballroom is yet another excellent venue for the purpose of world class concerts in New York City. It has a long history behind it as it was built just before the beginning of the period of the Great Depression and later it was converted to a concert hall to meet the cultural needs of the common public. It is comparatively a much more compact concert hall with more limited seating capacity and arrangements but is equipped with all sorts of modern facilities that are essential for conducting massive concerts. The rush for the tickets of the concerts at the Bowery Ballroom is huge as world class artists from every corner of the musical arena perform at this prestigious locale.

The list of the best concert venues in New York City is further prolonged by the addition of the Radio City Music Hall. As the name suggests, it primarily concentrates on the musical platforms of the artists and the corresponding mega events such as massive concerts. The Radio City Music Hall is at the Rockefeller Centre of New York City. It has got an interesting nick name – the Showplace of the Nation – indicating its immense significance in the musical arena not only in New York City but also in USA from an overall perspective. Coveted award shows like the Grammy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards are being frequently held at the Radio City Music Hall.

Next comes the lovable Madison Square Garden. It is the main hub of several kinds of cultural events and many gala sporting events that pull huge amount of crowds from various regions. People virtually go berserk in order to get tickets to watch concerts at the Madison Square Garden. It hosts a whopping over three hundred events annually which is arguably matched by very few venues all over the world.

The Beacon Theatre is also a marvellous venue for the purpose of organizing world class concerts in New York City. It is a historic place and is located in the upper Broadway region in Manhattan. Several rock and blues bands perform at this venue round the year.

The Irving Plaza is yet another gorgeous venue in New York City that hosts top class concerts of world famous artists and also gives platforms to the local performing bands and solo musicians.

A recent rant by classical music gossip Norman Lebrecht makes me wonder just what all his fuss is about. A complaint that the Metropolitan Opera does not produce the most cutting edge work is both absolutely correct and absolutely meaningless. The Met is dedicated to the entire tradition of opera and is already demonstrating that under Peter Gelb’s direction they understand that tradition includes contemporary works as well (an article of mine in the upcoming issue of The Brooklyn Rail will discuss this). They are not an experimental house, they never have been and they never will be, and that’s perfectly fine. If they can, and should, be criticized it is for failing to understand the scope and meaning of the history of opera and again they are proving this awareness. Other houses may and do decide to question that tradition, the Met chooses to present it. Good for them.

In this, in New York City, they are like the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall, which are each like the Metropolitan Museum. These are institutions that are about preserving and presenting a history and tradition to the public, and striving to widen that audience. Their roles are important, just as the roles of avant-garde ensembles and cutting edge art and performance spaces are important. Altogether, they are complimentary. And on a personal level, the Met Opera, the Phil and Carnegie Hall have shown their openness to the interested public. I am an independent writer in every way, hopefully in that my ideas and values are the product of thinking for myself, but especially in the sense that I am completely on my own, working for no one but myself. There are benefits in that I am my own Assignment Editor and the blog format allows me to go on at some length (hopefully not too great). The drawbacks are that I have no institutional resources or connections. I am sent music to review, and I am occasionally offered tickets, but a great deal of what I write about comes from my own decision to spend what is a very limited amount of money. That means there is some bias involved in that I’ve already made the decision that something is worthwhile, but I am confident that my criticism is completely honest.

Because I’m serious about this work, I have presented myself to a variety of New York City performing institutions, offering my work and requesting access to performances so I can write about them and share them with my readers.  Miller Theater has already been a welcome partner in the discussion of great music.  The institutions that at first thought would seem to be stuffy and thus dismissive of someone without an institutional domain in my email address have proven to be accessible, open and generous, putting effort into making it possible for me to see and review their performances, while the institutions that would seem to be cutting-edge, hip, looking for alternative audiences have been silent, rudely unresponsive. So in the coming months my readers will see my thoughts on the wide variety of musical art being presented at the Met Opera, at the NY Phil, at Carnegie Hall, while unfortunately there will be no news from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Surprising and disappointing, perhaps, but there it is.

As a postscript, I would like to quietly announce a general fundraiser for my work here at The Big City. I do this work out of something more than love, something more like the idea that this is important for the world around me, but it is work. Any donations (via the PayPal button upper right) obviously would go directly to supporting my work generally and make it possible to do some additional things on the blog, such as add more media, including examples of my own work. The same is true for the items on this blog’s Amazon Wish List, which is a mix of things that I would write about specifically, things that would give me context for other reviews and projects, and things that would further my own music production for the long term. If you find value for yourself here, even the smallest donation would be helpful and deeply appreciated. Thank you all, and keep reading.

11/11 The Berlin Philharmonic @ Carnegie Hall

 Brahms-Piano Quartet No. 1 arr. Schoenberg

 Brahms-Symphony No. 1

 Sir Simon Rattle-Conductor

 Having never seen the Berlin Philharmonic before, their concert on Wednesday was a true pleasure to attend. The program explained the orchestra’s compelling idea for their American tour- to pair the four Brahms symphonies they had recently recorded with works by Arnold Schoenberg, who was apparently a big fan of Brahms. This concert paired Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 with his first symphony, which gave interesting insight into each composer.

To be honest, I was not that familiar with Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1. I had listened to it once and really enjoyed it, so I was excited for the piece. In the arrangement one can see the beginnings of Brahms’ symphonies. The Schoenberg arrangement is very interesting, because in the first two movements it sticks closely to the original, but in the last two it becomes modern, bringing in percussion and calls from the horns that certainly update the piece. On the whole, it is a lovely rendering of the unexplored possibilities in the quartet form. The Berlin Philharmonic played with intensity and energy, sounding particularly great in the berserk final movement. The unity of the all the strings-truly, truly sounding like one single instrument was playing, the clarity of the lower strings-particularly the bass, and the rounded sound of the brass were all standouts of this piece. The woodwinds of the orchestra were also quite superb, especially in their solos. The most impressive thing about the orchestra, in both pieces, was how great they sounded both in their sections and when they had solos. There is moment near the very end of the piece in which the large forces of the orchestra give way to a short “string quartet” of the principals (probably a tribute by Schoenberg to his original subject matter) that then builds up to full strength of the orchestra-this was truly magical. A wonderful piece played by a wonderful orchestra.       

As opposed to the first piece, I am very familiar with Brahms Symphony No. 1 as it is one of my favorite pieces. But the orchestra was transcendental to the point that I became so caught up in the music that I forgot what came next.  It was a lovely rendering of the piece, full of force and soul. Sir Simon Rattle kept the work moving, shaping the movement from the dark grandeur of the first movement to the shining triumph of the last. The orchestra sounded clean, crisp and expressive throughout the work, bringing out the dynamics and contrasts. The solo part by concertmaster Guy Braunstein was breathtaking, and the horn accents, an important part of this piece, sounded lovely. The third movement, one I had not appreciated enough before was particularly affecting. On whole, it was a wonderful conception and delivery of the piece.

A recent blog entry by Greg Sandow (http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2009/11/no-star_game.html)  talked about the abilities of true stars to “curve time and space,” and I think that the Berlin Philharmonic fits this description. There was literally not an empty seat in the house. The audience bravo-ed merely because Sir Simon Rattle had decided to walk on the stage. The music captivated, the audience became enthralled and time became fluid. It was an affirming moment for me as a fan of classical music-here was an ensemble dedicated to achieving the highest level of musicality they could and there was audience to appreciate it. The repertoire was fairly standard and while not revelatory, the quality of the orchestra and attention they paid to the music was inspiring and revealing. Classical music may or may not be dying, but here was an orchestra that could draw a full, extremely enthusiastic audience to its feet by virtue of its thoughtfulness. The Berlin Philharmonic cared about those pieces, and thus so did the audience.

Bravo and encore.

A Face of Creativity

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP9GTbOZ9-I]

Esperanza Spalding @ Carnegie Hall

Woow! She’s just incredible! Too much talent! Her life story is already really impressive, but now at 25 her career seems to be certain and going where sky is the limit. She sang quite a lot, but I especially liked her bass playing – so natural, effortless… What grooves! She played a solo piece and the electric bass too. Was so killin! They did mostly Esperanza’s originals, but also a Jobim tune, a groovy Body and Soul in 5 and finally (when Tineke Postma switched to soprano and Leonardo Genovese on Rhodes, I couldn’t help thinking how it reminded me of Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer) closing with Milton Nascimento’s Ponta de Areia.

A sold out show @ Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall featuring Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma on alto and soprano sax, Leonardo Genovese on piano & Rhodes and the amazing Terri Lyne Carrington on drums.

Rihanna has used her admirers with eccentric outfits, with every new appearance ravishing the imagination of her fans.

The Glamor magazine awards gala held Monday evening made no exception. She wore a long white dress, whit a transparent side that the paparazzi on fire.

Let’s just say that the people invited at the Carnegie Hall in New York, had a nice view when they passed along Rihanna’s left side. The paparazzi surprised Rihanna’s left breast protected only by a thin piece of transparent material. And what a left side…

There goes our former governor, walking down 57th Street. He’s all puffed up, confident, and ready to greet his supporters. No one noticed him but me.

A little later, up the street at Carnegie Hall, Glamour Magazine was handing out its Woman of the Year Awards. It’s going to be a while before the “man who left his socks on” gets an invite to that event.

Serena Williams in red dress at Glamour Women of the Year.

Wow! Red hot Serena Williams looking better than ever at the Glamour Women of the Year Award Ceremony, at the Carnegie Hall in New York. Great hair, simple dress and a good colour on her.

And check out the makeup, smokey eyes and pale lips suits her so well!

I saw Tracy Morgan last Friday at Carnegie Hall for the New York Comedy Festival. And I’m not writing about it until now. This could mean either A) I am extremely lazy or B) I don’t really have to much to say.

Unfortunately, it is the latter.

Tracy Morgan was a bit of a let down. The woman who opened up for him actually made me laugh. It seemed like Tracy Morgan just wanted to distance himself from Tracy Jordan, the character he plays on 30 Rock. And I like Tracy Jordan better. He’s silly and he’s fun. Tracy Morgan was just crass. I mean, I expect comedians to push people’s buttons and cross the line, but Tracy had one topic, pushed it as far as he could and stayed there for the nextr hour and twenty minutes. It was boring. And also, at times, extremely homophobic.

We did have nice seats. It was my friend M’s first time at Carnegie, so she was excited and I think we were both reluctant to tell each other afterward that we were a little disappointed. I need to go back to Carnegie now and see something really sweet, cause Tracy Morgan was not it.

Oh, I got some (anonymous) flack on my first Carnegie post for putting up pictures of Ricky Gervais when you weren’t supposed to take pictures, so I’ll say that this time around, there was no such announcement, and people taking pictures were not told to stop.

Two things from Tracy I did like:

1) The fact that he would call out everyone who interrupted him. I loved when he talked back to the audience.

2) One joke he made about how women get all dressed up and go out just to say no. He was like, “You talk to a girl at a club and she’s like, ‘Oh, I have a boyfriend.’ Well, where he AT? You’re at the CLUB!”

I thought that was funny.

Well, time to catch up on 30 Rock. I still love that show and I still love Mr. Tracy and I still think he’s great, I’m just not the biggest fan of Mr. Tracy live.

Times Square / New-York

TIMES SQUARE A l’angle de la 42e rue et de Broadway, Times Square – facile à reconnaître avec ses publicités géantes partout (les billboards) – est le coeur de New-York et de Manhattan, l’un des endroits les plus animé du monde, sans compter les jours de rassemblements, comme pour le jour de l’an ou encore une élection présidentielle, moment où les New-yorkais se rassemblent ici spontanément. Près de 400 000 personnes passent ainsi chaque jours sur cette place qui doit son nom au New York Times, le journal qui y avait installé son siège en 1904…

CLIQUEZ POUR LIRE LA SUITE DU GUIDE DE VOYAGE COMPLET SUR TIMES SQUARE / NEW-YORK

L’avenue la plus célèbre de Manhattan est le seul axe qui traverse intégralement l’île du Nord au Sud, et qui a la particularité de ne pas être rectiligne, mais en diagonale. Depuis l’inauguration de la statue de la Liberté, Broadway a accueilli nombre d’autres parades afin de célébrer des événements ou des peronalités telles Charles Lindbergh, Charles De Gaulle, les premiers hommes sur la Lune…. Broadway étant en biais, on trouve à certains de ses carrefours des immeubles… en biais, comme le fameux…

LIRE LA SUITE : GUIDE DE VOYAGE COMPLET BROADWAY / NEW-YORK

11/4 Saint Louis Symphony @ Carnegie Hall

Igor Stravinsky – Chant du rossignol

Tan Dun – Water Concerto

Bright Sheng – Colors of Crimson

Béla Bartók – The Miraculous Mandarin Suite     

David Robertson-Conductor, Colin Currie-Percussion

I decided to go to this concert because I was too intrigued not to go. The concert was part of Carnegie Hall’s recent series “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices,” celebrating Chinese music both traditional and recent. It featured two modern works by Chinese composers bookended by two older works by Western composers –obviously meant to showcase the depth of modern voices (yes, there is more to Chinese music than pentatonic scales!) while also showing the mythical and fantastical aspect of the West’s perceptions of China. The concert certainly provided food for thought, as well as an opportunity to hear a world class orchestra perform with skill and precision.

The first piece of the night was Stravinsky’s Chant du rossignol, or Song of the Nightingale, a symphonic poem that tells the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale, a fairytale set in China about an Emperor , a beautiful Nightingale and the mechanical bird that replaces it. Stravinsky was an evocative storyteller, and this piece is no different, with the various timbres of the orchestra effectively used to characterize the characters (a flute melody for the Nightingale, pompous horns for the Emperor.) The Saint Louis Symphony played wonderfully on this piece, enthusiastically bringing the story to life while displaying mastery of the difficult rhythms. The brass was especially impressive, with a clear and beautiful tone in solo passages and as a group. The low brass was particularly clear and avoided the murky sound that can frequently occur.

The second piece of the night, Tan Dun’s Water Concerto was the most novel. The work could be best described as a soundscape for orchestra and water sonorities. Instead of rolling a grand piano onstage, a large container of water and bowls on lighted stands were put centerstage. The percussionist, Colin Currie, used the water throughout the piece, running his hands through it, splashing with it, and submerging various other things in it to play (wooden bowls, gongs, cups etc.) The orchestra played an accompaniment  that alternated between folk melodies with lush orchestral sounds and brass players percussively taping their mouthpieces and a strange melody reminiscent of children jeering that was produced using the mouthpieces of the brass and woodwinds (or something else; from the balcony I couldn’t really be sure.) The piece overall may not have been spectacular, but the sonorities of the water, in combination both with the orchestra and various other percussion instruments, were arresting. The juxtaposition of the sounds of someone bathing with runs in the violins was unique-a proposition that I hadn’t considered before. I think this juxtaposition spoke particularly to Tan Dun’s background both as a Chinese composer and as someone sent to the countryside during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. A Western composer would not have thought to use water as the basis of a percussion concerto, nor created the effect of “river music.”

After intermission, Colin Currie returned to play the marimba in Bright Sheng’s Colors of Crimson, a concerto for marimba and orchestra. In the program the composer declared his goal to be to balance out the monotimbre of the marimba with a variety of orchestration, thus creating “colors of crimson.” Although the lack of timbre remained apparent, there was a variety of soloing and accompaniment; at times the marimba played a simple melody over a lush string background, while at other times complex conflicts between the orchestra and the marimba seemed to erupt. Of all the pieces of the night, this piece evoked the most real version of China. I could see a country that was more than a fairytale land of pagodas and rivers-it was one that had gone through a Cultural Revolution and torn itself apart, and was slowly trying to piece itself together, trying to find a new identity in our modern world, though conflicting with itself. The thematic folk song material Bright Sheng used was reminiscent of Bartok-vividly used, but never clichéd-an evocation of a China both past and present.

The concert closed with Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin Suite, a macabre work of, to quote the program, “lurid Expressionism.” Based on Bartók’s ballet of the same name, the piece tells the story of a young woman forced by three thieves to lure victims to their death. Her third victim is the mysterious Mandarin, who chases her, is wounded by the thieves, but does not bleed until the woman kisses him, whereupon he dies in “an ecstatic love-death.” The piece is lurid and dark, a picture of a fantastically horrible underworld. The St. Louis Symphony played with gusto, evocative and brutal by turns, until the devastating climax. David Robertson was called back three times, and the audience showed its appreciation for the effort of the Saint Louis Symphony.

The concert provided an interesting outlet to address one’s perceptions of China, with four different portraits-the magical fantasy land of old, the lurid opium den of the past, the more modern countryside, and the China of the present. I think it would have been more interesting if the pieces had been presented in chronological order of composition, which would have shown the development of perceptions of China, but the inquiry was effective nonetheless. It left me wondering what new direction China might turn in the future.

Kudos to David Robertson, Colin Currie, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for a job well done on some challenging pieces. Not being familiar with the SLSO, their polished sound was a welcome delight.

Until next time!

Last night was my first trip to Carnegie Hall and it was pretty impressive. When I bought our seats, I had no idea what I was doing, so when we got there and they kept sending us up the stairs, I got a little confused. Even more confused when we had to look for a door with our number on it. I was like, “Did I get us a private box?” We found the door, opened it to see a mini hallway (which P joked was about the size of my last apartment in the East Village) and another door, which we opened to find a box, which had about eight seats in it. Our seats were in the very front, that part I remember from getting the tickets. It was not a bad spot.

I got busted twice for taking pictures. The first time, I hadn’t even turned my camera on, but the woman saw it and told me pictures weren’t allowed. The second time, I had JUST taken a photo of the stage (with the flash off) and she came over, tapped me on the shoulder and sternly told me to put my camera away. This picture I snuck later on and was a little nervous that she would catch me again and confiscate my camera or something. But I just had to document this!

Carnegie Hall is amazing! I love the way the seats are laid out, I’ll have to get a better picture of that today (since I’m going back for Tracy Morgan!). I would recommend everyone to go to Carnegie, it’s quite the experience.

Rickey Gervais was hilarious, as always. He was slightly (and by that I mean totally) inappropriate. Sometimes he would even be like, “Wow, look at what I’m doing in Carnegie Hall.” But we definitely enjoyed it and laughed a lot. And the guy sitting next to us had the most distinct laugh ever. P was annoyed, but I thought it just added to the atmosphere.

For his final bit, Ricky left and came back out in a tux, with a grand piano and Elmo to sing their rendition of, Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” I did not know Ricky had that voice. It was really impressive, done really well, and the whole Elmo thing put a giant smile on my face. Too cute.

See you again tonight, Carnegie!

This is a veritable quickie! Tonight on Graffiti you will be confronted by the joys of fund-raising or as I call it: FUN-raising.  But we also have in the studio with us (Anthoula Katsimatides from “Color Your Life” will be co-hosting tonight) Sergio Salvatore and Christos Rafalides.

They will be talking about their concert tomorrow night (Friday, October 30) at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall at 8 pm–and their new disk, “Dark Sand”.

Click here for a sample of what you can expect.

After the interview Sergio and Christos signed a copy of “Dark Sand” for Anthoula.

bb  10/29/09

              There’s a plant on my shelf that sits in a metal pot and for some reason (sympathetic vibrations) it rattles when certain tones are played loudly on the stereo speakers nearby. I first noticed this while listening to a recording by Lang Lang, the 27-year-old piano phenomenon. In fact, most of Lang Lang’s recordings at some point make this poor plant buzz in its pot. All plants deserve names, so naturally I call this one Lang Lang.

            Poor Lang Lang (the plant) has had quite a work out after an afternoon spent listening to a new Deutsche Grammophon recording of Lang Lang (the pianist) performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor (with cellist Mischa Maisky and violinist Vadim Repin). It’s a big boned piece, almost a piano concerto with chamber accompaniment, and I’m afraid that if there are concerns out there about Lang Lang’s tendency to big-boned and somewhat unrefined playing, this new disk won’t allay them.

            And if there are concerns about the tendency of all-star chamber music ensembles—the kind that come together for a one-off performance or recording—to sound not particularly cohesive, this disk won’t allay them either. The Tchaikovsky trio is a famously over-scaled piece, orchestral in its basic thinking and not well adapted in its gestures and accompaniment figures to the chamber music sensibility. Tchaikovsky can be terribly blunt, and he needs an orchestra to carry the weight of the ideas he explores in this chamber work.

            We have Tchaikovsky’s busy correspondent Madame von Meck to thank, in part, for the score. She spent the summer of 1880 near Florence, and hired a trio of musicians to entertain her. Among them was an 18-year-old pianist she called Bussy, who was none other than Debussy. The French musician’s time there inspired him to compose an early piano trio (long lost, but discovered and returned to the repertoire in the 1980s). And it seems to have inspired Madame von Meck to pressure her epistolary friend to write his own trio, which he did in 1882.

            Even Tchaikovsky recognized that he had merely “arranged music of a symphonic character as a trio, instead of writing directly for my instruments.” But the piece still works, if the players throw themselves into it with emotional abandon and the dramatic sensibility a film by Douglas Sirk. So perhaps this is perfect Lang Lang material.

            Except that one would like to hear him tackle a piece that wasn’t quite so much up his natural allies, especially in his first chamber music recording. “Chamber music is like you’re playing in midfield, passing the ball everywhere,” he told Gramophone magazine a few months ago. “It’s about teamwork.”

            Indeed. But it’s also about scale and balance and textural clarity, and while there are patches throughout the recording that suggest ample teamwork, there are many passages that make one wish Lang Lang had chosen something by Beethoven or Mozart or Haydn. One feels compelled to listen because this is his first chamber music recording, and in the end, you get very little chamber music. And a whole lot of Lang Lang.

            It is possible to pull three famous musicians who don’t work together into the same room and get a respectable, even thrilling performance of the Tchaikovsky trio. I still cherish a silly album memorializing an 85^th anniversary concert held at Carnegie Hall in 1976, including a magnificent reading of the trio by Vladimir Horowitz, Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich. Teamwork is precisely the wrong word for the performance. It’s more like a collective hallucination, which we’re allowed to watch from the outside.

             But Lang Lang and his mates don’t get there. It is strangely fussy, this album, filled with misguided attempts to patch over the all too apparent seams of the music, strange tempo fluctuations, heightened dynamic extremes, and sustained fortissimo playing that loses character and impact. I keep thinking of that word, teamwork, and I wonder if it’s become a pernicious term in the way people think about chamber music, a mindless reflection of the status “teams” have taken on in corporate culture.

            Lang Lang has a very good team here. Maisky is fantastic throughout, and Repin, though he can be coarse, manages to project the violin line with enough force and presence that it isn’t lost in the piano thickets. But I suspect that most people will buy this recording because they’re Lang Lang fans, or interested in his development. And they won’t be surprised to learn that even when taking new steps, Lang Lang hasn’t strayed far from the comfort zone.

            I can’t say that for poor Lang Lang the vine, addled all day, and wishing, I’m sure, for something a little lighter, softer, and more delicate. Perhaps Bussy’s first piano trio will do the trick.

Yesterday the Sunday New York Times suddenly became worth its asking price of $6 by carrying a large advertisement laying out the immense variety of China-related musical activites going on in Manhattan this week.  In effect, the PRC is taking over the beating heart of the classical music world, with the exception of the Metropolitan Opera, an institution which has already lionized Placido Domingo as Qin Shihuangdi.  For East Asia’s biggest country, whose cultural ensembles used to be denied entrance to the U.S. on account of their insistence on singing songs about Taiwan’s pending liberation, this is a major success.

It is also a testimony to how far arts groups will go when they smell money.  For Chinese music is not simply a matter of laying some exotic ephemera out every so often for largely white audiences in North American concert halls: today there is a global marketplace for Chinese composers, and the Chinese government and corporations are flush with cash.

But soft!  What right-wing pundit through yonder window breaks?

Cue squawker Lou Dobbs:

“ChiComs turn Juilliard Red;

they have to stop before we outsource again

the very musical DNA of our octatonic pledge

to future generations / this is an assault

on American harmony that not even John Galt

could envision in his self-built ivory tower

but the academics and professoriat have turned tail.

Musicologist philosophers hear coin:

loins are girded for harmonic hegemony,

imperial pretensions fall away like J.B. Lully’s foot

after being stamped by the heavy truncheon of rectification campaigns.

Because that is the toxic loot windblown on our shores

in New Amsterdam: Qingdao beer no longer Anheuser,

the promontory statues of the Christian Tannhäuser

soon replaced by a lithe Tan Dun tanned from junkets

as a sent-down youth?

This is treachery the likes of which has not been seen

since Hoover sold out in paroxysms of premature jack-backwards

appeasement to the 12-tone harmonists Viennese:

– Gesamtkunstwerk means jobs for migrant mural painters –

and now Phil Glass talks mantras, not Boeing

Jon Adams writes Chairman, not glowing reviews of Nixon’s

brow collaborating again with nervous sweat.

Opera composers don futile expressions

at my exposé of pentatonic malaise,

imperial confessions of R. Emmanuel follow,

throat-singing lamas in the halls of the House.

Now the myrmidons puff, blasting imperial semi-quavers

heralding the Chairman,

or so suspicions have been whispered by my Auto-tune Producer.”

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park.

Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most famous venues in the United States for classical music and popular music, renowned for its beauty, history and acoustics. Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments, and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups. The hall has not had a resident company since the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall in 1962.

Carnegie Hall’s main auditorium seats 2,804 on five levels. It was named for the violinist Isaac Stern in 1997. The Main Hall is enormously tall, and visitors to the top balcony must climb 137 steps. All but the top level can be reached by elevator.

Carnegie Hall is one of the last large buildings in New York built entirely of masonry, without a steel frame; however, when several flights of studio spaces were added to the building near the turn of the 20th century, a steel framework was erected around segments of the building. The exterior is rendered in narrow Roman bricks of a mellow ochre hue, with details in terracotta and brownstone.

The celebration ended with "Gee Officer Krupke" from West Side Story.

Having been in choir for the past 15 years of my life, it would be an understatement to say that the songs of Leonard Bernstein have a special and nostalgic value to them. Growing up, my stepmom forced us to watch West Side Story more times than I can count, and seeing the way the music affected and entertained my family no matter what age or gender has made me realize just how approachable Bernstein’s works are. That being said, watching Michael Tilson Thomas’s “A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein” was  walk down memory lane. But more importantly, it shows the flexibility of Bernstein’s work and just how many different people his music has impacted and inspired, from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to famous soprano Christine Ebersole.

The performances took place on October 29th at Carnegie Hall, and featured famous Bernstein selections as played by the San Fransisco Symphony. The celebration opened with Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Never in my life have I seen a symphony play with so much joy and vibrancy. Michael Tilson Thomas’s precise and passionate directing came together with the expertise of the players to create sounds that were composed and exact while being heartfelt and real enjoyment–there was this quality to the music that made it seem like the sounds themselves were dancing and smiling throughout the hall.

The vocal songs, too, were  very lively and done with great proficiency. Their performance of “I Can Cook Too” from On The Town featured Christine Ebersole and was fun and impossible not to tap your toes to. The Symphony showed its ability to play as a commanding front line or as a support for Ebersole, and Ebersole’s voice was full of personality and character–her growling alto range and powerful belts generated a sense of confidence and cheekiness that fit with the mood of the song excellently.

Another personal favorite of the show was  Yo-Yo Ma’s performance. I’m a huge fan of Yo-Yo Ma’s playing, and I was taken aback by his interpretation of “Meditation No. 1.” I loved the way his face and playing always seemed to match up perfectly–he is a perfect example of the way music can have a visceral effect on a musician or listener. There’s this palpable sense of intensity coming from his masterful playing in combination with the harsh yet meticulous accompaniment that the symphony played. In particular, I thought the way all the string parts contrasted and convened was remarkable and gripping.

My favorite part of the production in general was the overall versatility of the show. As I mentioned before, Bernstein’s works touch a lot of different people, and this is perhaps because of his wide range of compositions. Well I appreciated the video excerpts of Michael Tilson Thomas speaking with various soloists and musicians about their musical history and relationship with Bernstein, I did think they were a little contrived. The conversations felt forced and staged, and I would have rather experienced the musician’s answers through their playing rather through an insincere speech.

-K

TNT Theater’s Tour Will Visit Tianjin, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, Ningbo, Hangzhou And Xi’an

TNT's past staging of "Oliver Twist" was a big hit in Beijing

It seems that cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world are becoming increasingly commonplace, with large-scale events like Carnegie Hall’s “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices” festivals in New York and Orange County, the ”Experience China in Israel” event in Tel Aviv giving foreign audiences a chance to see a cultural cross-section. Over the past few years in China, foreign cultural organizations and groups have made regular trips to the country to give Chinese audiences a chance to do the same. The most recent of these cultural exchanges, a staging of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” performed by Britain’s TNT Theater, began its seven-city tour of China this week, and is set to perform the play throughout the country until November 29. From Xinhua:

Cui Yang, general manager of the Beijing-based Milky Way Arts and Communications Co., Ltd, the play’s importer, said the new version featured a cappella (singing without instrumental accompaniment) and live score which was specially commissioned for the play. 

 According to Cui, all the sound effects in the drama were created by human voices instead of being pre-recorded.

The TNT Theater, founded in 1980, has been distinguished for its simple stage decoration, strong British style and cross-gender performances. It has previously won the acclaim of Chinese audience with dramas such as Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.

In the run-up to next year’s Shanghai’s World Expo, and certainly in its aftermath, we should see a great deal more cultural exchange going on both inside and outside China, as more foreign audiences look to learn about China’s ancient and modern cultures, and Chinese audiences look to learn more about important global and historical trends.

AND THERE WAS LIGHT!

Last night John Eliot Gardiner brought his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir to Carnegie Hall to perform Haydn’s most popular choral work, The Creation (or, as this performance, sung by English-speakers for English speakers, sang it, Die Schöpfung). It was a wonderfully detailed and altogether thrilling performance, but I want to share here a couple of aspects of the evening that were not essentially musical but have much effect on the experience of music.

All too often in classical music, the performers on stage seem to forget that they are performers in any but a narrowly sonic sense. They often seem to forget that the audience is made up of people who have more than one sense and that all these ways of perceiving work together to make up our experience.

It is true that many a valuable artist is simply not gifted with anything but musical tools — musical, that is, in its narrowest possible definition; and, when the single gift is of sufficient magnificence, we’re right to be grateful for what we get. But stable, world-famous touring organizations really have no excuse not to consider how their behavior can enhance or inhibit the musical experience. (I have railed here before on the poker-face with which some musicians would seem to communicate, visually, the absence of a human soul behind their playing or singing.) This is why it brought special pleasure last evening to note the care with which, so to speak, the table was set and the meal served.

What amounted to a simple, graceful “choreography” for the singers was very striking to me. Instead of the conventional stand-up-to-sing/sit-down-to-wait-out-others’-singing that we see at oratorios, in which people bob up and down in a routine and utilitarian manner, this chorus stood in attentive union throughout the orchestral overture, with their scores out of sight in their right hands. Towards the end of that dramatic overture, the bass who was to sing the introductory recitative readied himself to sing, well before his time. When he came to the mysterious incantation (in German), “And darkness was upon the face of the deep,” there arose a mist of choral sound softly singing “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” And all that moved was that Spirit, since the chorus stood stock-still, their scores still unopened, as they led up to the most famous “special effect” of Haydn’s masterpiece, the sudden C-Major fortississimo on the word “LIGHT.”

It would be difficult to overemphasize how important someone’s simple decisions were for the the success of these marvelous moments and to that culminating coup de théâtre of the First Day of Creation that Haydn had prepared for us.

And perhaps best of all: it was entirely unobtrusive. Had I not been so experienced at both arranging and observing such details, I’m convinced that my reaction would have been an apparently “only musical” one. But surely we all know by now that it is impossible to draw tidy boundaries between the music and its accompanying actions and conditions.

The second pleasant surprise was a personal one. Because of professional reasons and the powers and motives that normally bring me to such concerts, I tend to be seated at the orchestra level (not, I feel bound to disclose, out of any grandiosity or opulence on my part). So last night was the first time in years that I have been in the balcony of Carnegie Hall. I was immediately struck by something (besides the advantages a mountain goat would have in dealing with the incline of those steep rows of seats). Turning to the old friend — an inveterate denizen of world-wide concert-life — who had procured tickets for us, I whispered: “What is it about The Creation that brings out such a young audience?” As I pronounced the words, I began to suspect the truth.

“That’s the way it always is up here, Roger.”

Oh.

While the statistics on the ages of concert attendees presumably don’t lie, this experience of being surrounded by an amazing number of really young people in singles, couples, and small groups of friends, led me to wonder how much of the gloom in music journalism about an aging classical-concert population is influenced by the writers’ sitting night after night down in the expensive seats surrounded by the folks Alan Rich used to call “Daddy and Mammy Warbucks,” when a much younger crowd is upstairs.