Ever since starting my blog here at Bloogiversity.org, I've been trying to debunk myths about classical music . Here is a recap of some of these myths , half-truths and canards . Some of these are myths about classical music which people who know little or nothing about it accept blindly , and others are myths spread by the so-called experts who really have an agenda of their own or are simply deluded .
Classical music is "stuffy, boring and elitist ". Some people assume that concerts and opera etc are "stuffy" merely because classical musicians tend to dress formally at concerts . By no means all do ; there has been a growing trend for solo performers and conductors to wear their own style clothes and for men to avoid using black or white ties , although male orchestra members still tend to use these ties . So what ? It's the music that counts . People don't go to concerts to see what the musicians are wearing, but to enjoy the music .
Concerts and opera performances are "boring " ? The music itself is "boring"? Then why the heck do so many people faithfully attend these classical performances ? If you go to performances , the chances are that the audience will be applauding and cheering the musicians , not sleeping . The fact is that clasiscal and opera fans are every bit as passionate and enthusiastic as sports fans . They cheer their home orchestras or visiting ones just as enthusiastically as sports fans cheer their favorite team . However, unlike sports fans in stadiums,, they don't trash te concert halls or opera houses after performances .
They argue about their favorite conductors, pianists, violinists, cellists and opera singers the way sports fans argue over Michael Jordan vs Magic Johnson or this or that quarterback , pitcher or goalie . They also argue over whether Beethoven or Mozart is the greater composer ,or whether Verdi or Wagner is the greater opera composer .
Is classical music "elitist ?" The term elitist applied to this kind of music implies that orchestras and opera companies are trying to exclude people who are not rich and white . Wrong ! On the contrary , they very much want to increase the audience for classical music , and to reach people whether they are black,white or purple .
Another myth : You have to be wealthy to attend the opera . Not at all . Of course , tickets aren't exactly cheap , and ones at the Metropolitan opera can run up to $250 or more . But you can get perfectly good ones there and elsewhere for much less . These tickets are expensive because it costs a lot of money to produce world-class opera , and there are so many people involved in the enterprise eyond the singers ; the orchestra,chorus, stagehands, production staff , musical staff , people who work on costumes and lighting etc . And remember - tickets to see your favorite pop stars or to see Broadway musicals can be just as expensive . Most opera goers are in fact middle-class people who go because they love opera . You don't have to dress formally at all ; many people gp to the opera straight from work . Some people dress formally on opening nights of the season at the Metropolitna opera, but opening nights are special gala events .
You can also see live performances from the Met in your local movie theater for only about twenty dollars , as well as on the internet , or see them on PBS stations and listen to Saturday matinee performances on the radio .
Classical music isn't "relevant" . It's all just musty and moldy music from the distant past . It doesn't have anything to offer people today . Well, relevant is a loaded term, because what is relevant to one person is not necessarily relevant to another . Every kind of music is relevant to those who are devotees of it , and classical is no exception .
Yes, music from the past is a major part of classical , but there is absolutely no lack of new or recent music by a wide variety of living or recently deceased ocmposers . Hans Werner Henze is a German composer just as Beethoven was , and he is one of today's leading composers , but his music co-exists with Beethoven's. It may may not be played as much as Beethoven is now, but in the future he might be as famous as Beethoven is today . People still read the novels of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Jane Austen today , but they also read those of today's leading novelists . Where is there a conflict between old and new ?
Here is a misconception about classical music spread by the so-called experts . " There's something wrong with classical music today because most of the music performed is from the past . In past centuries classical music was a much more vital and healthy art form, because most music was new ." Well, this is a half truth . When Mozart and Haydn were alive ,composing and performing int he 18th century , the symphony orchestra as we know it was a new thing . It had only been in existnece for a brief time, and they simply did not have the huge acumulation of repertoire we have today .
They had no orchestral music from past centuries ot draw on. In addition , there were only a tiny fraction of the symphony orchestras and opera ocmpanies which exist today , and concerts were pretty much sporadic, ad hoc affairs . America did not get its first permanent orchestra until the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 , and for its first decades ,it played only a handful of concerts a year . The musicians were free lancers and amateurs and could not earn a living from the orchestra alone .
Now there are hundreds of orchestras in America , in all 50 states . There are also an enormous number in Europe, and more and more in Asia and elsewhere . Today ,orchestras play not only music by beethoven,Mozart, and Haydn , but works by who knows how many different composers from different centuries and who are not only "Dead White European Males " , but women ,Asians, Americans , and Latin Americans etc .
Many people assume that people who attend concerts and opera are "snobs " . This may be true of some of them, but on the whole, they are no more snobbish than fans of other kinds of music .
For all its problems today , classical music is still very much alive and kicking , and one of the greatest glories of humanity .
This post has nothing to do with the famous Rock band , but rather the controversial production of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen by the Metropolitan opera which has recently been presenting in full after the gradual unveiling of the four part operatic marathon beginning last season .
The so-called "machine" is the production's enormous unit set, which consists largely of massive metal planks which constantly shift shape across the stage to represent the different lanscapes of the action , and which combine with computer-generated images onstage ,enabling the stage to portray the many extravagant special effects which the composer Richard Wagner imagined but was never able to realize adequately with the promitive scenic technology of the 19th century , and which are difficult enough to realize in the present day .
Such fanciful images include the flying horses which the Valkyries, or daughters of the god Wotan use to carry the bodies of slain heroes to Valhalla, a huge dragon which the evil giant Fafner has become after using a magic helmet to transform himself into in order to guard the magic gold of the Rhine, and so forth . Such special effects could best be realized on film , as in the Lord of the Rings saga , which superficially resembles Wagner's magnum opus .
The director is the renowned French Canadian director Robert Lepage of Cirque du Soleil , yet his production has come in for an unusual amount of critical drubbing by most of the New York critics who have reviewed as well as many from out of town . Some have dismissed the multi-million dollar production as the worst they have ever seen of the mighty Ring, and deplore it as a massive waste of money , calling for it to be scrapped as soon as possible .
Even the usually benign Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times jas had serious reservatipons about the whole affair, and the Met's general manager Peter Gelb has become highly defensive , even trying to censor some of the critical snark on the Met's website and WQXR, New York's only surviving classical radio station .
There have been complaints about the noisiness of the massive metal planks as they move around the Met's enormoyus stage , largest of any opera house in the world , and accusations that Lepage has failed to do dramatic justice to the huge operatic cycle and a lack of any real dramatic concept . There have also been a number of technical glitches during performances , causing certain dramatic effects to fall flat . Bu taccording to reports from the Met's administration, these glitches have been largely worked out .
Not having seen the production yet, I will have to withhold judgement, and more than a few audience members have been much more favorabey disposed to it . However, as far as I can tell, it does not seem to be anywhere near as perverse and wrong-headed as any of the so-called "Eurotrash" productions of the Ring and other Wagner operas which are currently th enorm in Europe , and which are full of all manner of ridiculous arbitrary gimmicks and anachronistic sets and costumes . The recent Ring by the San Francosco opera sets the action in the 19th century American wild west !
Typically, you will see the supreme Teutonic god Wotan dressed in modern day clothing yet still carrying the spear which he does throughout the Ring , as well as the other gods , the superheroes Siegmund and his son Siegried , and the Valkiries . The first part of the Ring, Das Rheingold, or the Rhine gold, opens in the river Rhine where you find the Rhine maidens ,who guard the magic gold of the Rhine cavorting . Yet the Bayreuth centennial production of the Ring in 1976 and which is regarded as the granddaddy of Europtrash Wagner productions, had the curtain opening on a hydro-electric dam instead of the Rhine, and the Rhine maidens were dressed as hookers !
More recent Rings in Europe have gone far beyond this in ourtrageousness . The Met's previous Ring , which set the action in Wagner's own mythical Germanic world and which was premiered in the mid 1980s, was also sneered at by many critics , yet audiences loved it on the whole . No gimmicks, no pretrentiousness at all .
All this just go to show you that so many of the critics who review the Met's productions are extremely captious carpers who never seem to be satisfied by any production there . They hate the lavish realistic sets and costumes of operas by Verdi and Puccini at the Met by the renowned Franco Zeffirelli , such as Tosca, la Boheme and La Traviata . Yet, a couplle of years ago, when the Met replaced the sumptuous realiistic Zeffirellli Tosca, an opera set in Rome at actual Roman locations, and which represents those locations exactly with a much more austere and drab-looking production, they hated it too .
They complained about the austere -looking sets of the Met's recent production of Donizetti's Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn ) . Yet if the production had been sumptous and elaborate, they would have hated it also . Let's face it ; the Met is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't . Like it or not, the "machine" seems here to stay for quite a while .
After a two year search , the Cincinnati symphony , America's fifth oldest orchestra , has chosen French conductor Louis Langree ,51 , as its next music director . Langree will take over the position from Estonian conductor Paavo Jarvi , son of the renowned conductor Neeme Jarvi . Langree has served for several years as music director of Lincoln Center's world-famous Mostly Mozart festival and is also principal conductor of the Camerata Salzburg in Mozart's birthplace .
Langree has also appeared successfully at the Metroplitan opera , most recently conducting the revival of the once famous opera Hamlet by 19th century French composer Ambroise Thomas , as well as with leading orchestras and opera companies internationally . The members of the Cincinnati symphony are from all reports highly enthusiastic about the choice and are looking forward to working with the French maestro, who will be the orchestra's first music director from that nation .
The Cincinnati symphony was founded well over a century ago , and its music directors have included such eminent conductors as Leopold Stokowslki , Fritz Reiner ,Max Rudolf , and Thomas Schippers , and is considered to be a world-class ensemble by many critics and conductors .
Thus far, Langree is best known to the general public for Mozart and French music , so it remains to be seen how he will handle a wide variety of repertoire , ranging from the 18th century to the present day . But his appointment certainly looks very promising .
With all the orchestras and opera comapnies in America and elsewhere either folding or teetering dangerously on the edge of non-existence , many critics and commentators seem to be wondering if they are actually to blame for their predicament . Is it true that these supposedly "elitist" performing arts organizations are no longer "relevant" and have failed to make concertgoing and attending the opera worthwhile ?
So these so-called experts use loaded words in describing these troubled groups as "dinosaurs" and "museums" , as if there were anything wrong with museums in the first place . Yes, dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years , but for all their difficulties, our opera companies and orchestras are far from extinct . The vast majority of them are alive and kicking , and they still enrich the lives of countless people all over the world , not only rich white people . And even though they are extinct, why are so many people fascinated by dinosaurs ? They should also be interested in classical music and don't know what they are missing .
No, the notion that these institutions have failed to make it worthwhile to attend their performances mst be rejected firmly . The music of Beethoven,Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, Berlioz, Schubert and the other great composers of the past can never become dated . It has stood the test of time , and there will always be new generations of people to discover the greatness of what they have bequeathed to the world . There are an enormous number of talented , dedicated and hard-working musicians , conductors, solo performers, members of orchestras and singers who have devoted their lives to bringing the music of the past to life as well as giving new works a chance to be heard .
These musicians provide an extremely high quality product , and the orchestras and opera companies of which they are members deserve not only to survive but to flourish . There are a variety of factors involved in the woes of our orchestras and opera companies, but lack of excellence is not one of them . If more people could only come to discover what a treasure these organizations are , they would not sneer at them . Difficult economic times , the considerable expenses of running these organizations and lack of support , at oeast in America , have caused quite a few of them to founder and in some cases go under . But don' blame them or accuse them of deserving to vanish from the earth !
The prestigious Southwest German radio orchestra of Baden Baden is in danger of being liquidated by the German government because of financial difficulties . It's hard to believe that this could be the fate of a major German orchestra, but this oculd very well happen . Even Europe, where generous government support for orchestras and dopera companies has long been taken for granted , is no longer immune the the financial difficulties endemic to those of America .
The government run radio stations of major German and other European countries have long supported world-class orchestras with eminent maestros as their chief conductors , and they have made numerous recordings as well as touring internationally . Something like this would unfortunately be impossible in America . The closest we have ever had to it was the legendary NBC symphony ,founded for the great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini , which played concerts and radio broadcasts in at a studio in Rockefeller center now used for NBC's Saturday Night Live broadcasts from 1937 to 1954 , and was supported by the RCA corporation .
But world class radio orchestras function in Berlin,Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and elsewhere in Germany . The Southwest German radio orchestra is resident at the famous resort and Spa town of Baden Baden, Swabia , and has had renowned conductors such as Hans Rosbaud and Michael Gielen as its principal conductors , as well as numerous distinguished guest ocnductors . The orchestra is renowned for its performances of difficult contemporary music by a wide variety of German and European composers, and even America's most venerable composer , the centenarian Eliott Carter .
Government support allows these radio orchestras to devote ample rehearsal time to difficult works by contemporary composers , a luxiury whcih American orchestras do not have . Unlike those of America, they are not bound by rigid union rules requiring overtime for extra rehearsal and for those rehearsals to last a specific amount of time . Composers appreciate this greatly .
A number of distinguished ocnductors and instrumentalists have signed a petition asking for this orchestra to be saved , and you can add your signature by going to artsjournal.com and checking Norman Lebrecht's blog Slipped Disc . An English translation is available .
Don't sit by idly while a great orchestra is destroyed !
The great french composer Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992 ) wrote many quirky masterpieces based on his singular fusion of devout Catholic faith and mysticism , birdsong , and Buddhist and Hindu philosophy , but wrote only one opera , which had its world premiere at the Paris opera in 1983 . And what an opera ! The opera is called St. Francois D'Assise ( Saint francis of Assisi ) , a natiural subject for a devout catholic composer .
But it is no ordinary opera . It is a vast an dauntingly complex work calling for a huge orchestra and chorus which lasst about four hours and is extremely static froma dramatic viewpoint , and the role of St. Francis, sung by a bass baritone, is one of the longest and most diffiuclt in opera . Naturally , the opera has had relatively few productions in the last 30 years, nor is it ever likely to become as popular as such staples of the operatic repertoire as La Boheme,Carmen and Aida .
Recently, the Metropolitan opera has released plans for upcoming repertoire in the next few seasons, and lo and behold, the Messiaen opera will receive a production in 2017 . This is extraordinary news , and the outstanding African-American bass Eric Owen, whose protrayal of the evil Nibelung dwarf Alberich in the Met's new Ring cycle has received considerable critical acclaim , will take on the formidable demands of the role of St. Francis.
The San Francisco opera did the Americna premiere of St. Francis several years ago, and there have been a number of concert performances ,some of only extended excerpts, , but this will be the New York stage premiere . The Belgian opera manager Gerard Mortier ,who resigned as general manager of the New York City opera a few years ago before taking over because of lack of siufficient funds for his ambitious plans for the company was plaaning to do the opera in New York, but his vision was thwarted . But the Met, which has far greater resources an dmoney, should be able to do justice to the huge work .
One problem however, may be the many conservative members of the Met''s audience, who are extremely reluctant to hear challenging rare operas , and who may find the work baffling and leave early , as they sometimes do with th emore esoteric works of the operatic repertoire . Let''s hope the opera will not play to sparse audiences ! The production will certainly not be cheap .
ther ehave been two CD recordings of St. Francis, a live one from the Paris premiere ocnducted by Seiji Ozawa, a longtime champion of Messiaen's music but now ailing , and one on Deitsche grammophon based on a production at the Salzburg fesitval conducted by another notable Messiaen specialist, Japanese-American conductor Kent Nagano . These may not be easy to find, but are well worth ooking for, and there is a DVD of a production from the Netherlands opera in Amsterdam . If you don't mind a musicla challenge, give these a try ! The opera may grow on you, as it did with me from the two CD recordings. I haven't seen the DVD , but hope to soon .
Sir Colin Davis, 85 , one of the most revered conductors of our time , has recently vented his spleen at the so-called "Historically Informed Performance " crowd . Period instrument ensembles, which use instruments of the past or reproductions thereof , and which follow th elatest musicological research on the supposedly "correct" and "authentic way to perform the music of the past , have been all the rage for many years now, and conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner,Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood of England ,Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Frans Bruggen , and others from mainland Europe have become classical superstars .
But in a recent interview in London according to musical journalist Norman Lebrecht at his blog , Sir Colin is frankly appalled by many of these so-called "authentic" performances . According to Sir Colin , who has conducted virtually all the world's greatest orchestras and opera ocmpanies for nearly 60 years in a repertoire ranging from the 18th century to the present day , the proverbial baby has been thrown pout with the bathwater .
In their zeal to rid performances of the music of Bach,Handel,Mozart,Haydn, Beethoven and even Brahms of "stylistic anachronisms" and to come as close as possible to the way things were actually done in the past , many of these "HIP" musicians have reduced the performance of music to a didactic display of mere correctness rather than a spontaneous and passionate communication of the spirit of the music .
According to this old lion of English classical music, " I think that these people have hijacked the repertory to give themselves something to do . The way they play baroque music is unspeakable. It's entirely theoretic . Most don't play the music because it's moving . They do it to crank out theories about bows, gut strings , old instruments and phrasing . I've heard Bach especially mangled as though he has no emotional content ."
Whew ! it takes guts to say something like this in these days when it's not at all politicaly correct , and so many HIP musicians claim to have founjd the one and only "right" way to perform the music of the past and sneer at those musicians who insist upon using modern instruments as hopelessly "unenlightened".
Sir Colin goes on to blast his slightly younger contemporary Sir Roger Norrington for performing th emusic of Hector Berlioz, a 19th century composer , without string vibrato, something he mainstains is absolutely necessary for expressive string playing , and which despite the claims of the authenticity crowd , has been used for centuries ,even in the time of Bach and Handel over 250 years ago.
He cites a famous Italian composer who was a contemporary of Bach and Handel as saying that string players should imitate the human voice, which has a natural vibrato . He is correct . Norrington is completely misguided and appallingly dogmatic . He has even gone so far as to play the music of Sir Edward Elgar, who lived from 1857 to 1934 , without string vibrato, which is completely off the wall .
To be fair, I have heard some HIP performances which I enjoyed very much DESPITE the fact that they used period instruments, not because of them . But this just goes to show you , as the noted American musicologist Richard Taruskin has said ,"Instruments don't make music - people do !"
The April issue of Opera News magazine covers, among other things , the annual awards ceremonies for lifetime achievement in opera which will be held in New York next month the magazine hosts . The honorees are the brilliant but highly controversial opera and stage director Peter Sellars , Finnish sopranos Karita Mattila and Anja Silja , Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Swedish baritone Peter Mattei .
Each is profiled in the magazine by members of the magazine's staff . Writer William R. Braun has an interesting article on the mysterious character of Erda , the earth mother of Wagner's Ring , and her significance in the complex story of the huge operatic cycle . Philip Kennicott , chief arts critic of the Washington Post , discusses the significance of the Ring as not only a work of art but one which "connects to bigger issues in the world around us ".
Musicologist Hugh McDonald discusses the tenor roles in some of the most famous operas of Jules Massenet , on th eoccaision of the Met's new production of the composer's most famous opera , Manon, which just had its first performance a few days ago .
As usual duirng the raqdio broadcast season , there is coverage of this months broadcasts : Manon, La Traviata, Die Walkure and Siegfried from the Ring , and Janacek's The Makropoulos Case . There are lists of cast, conductors , directors, designers etc, plus photos of the sets from the productions , plot synopses, background information about the operas and the composers etc, everything you need to enjoy the broadcasts .
The magazine's roving corrrespondants review performances of operas from the Met , Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Miami , and Paris, Berlin and Stuttgart in Europe . Among these are the Met's new Gotterdammerung, conclusion of the Ring, Aida from Chicago and Manon form Paris, all new productions .
CD reviews include a recital of Slavic baritone arias by Mariusz Kwecien of Poland, baroque arias by soprano Danielle De Niese , Dmitri Hvorostovsky in songs by Rachmaninov , and Bach cantatas by German countertenor Andreas Scholl .
DVD reviews include Carmen and Berg's Lulu from Barcelons , and Capriccio, the final opera by Roichard Strauss from the Met . There's plenty of interest , as in every month, and even if you're not particularly into opera, it's always stimulating to read .
Amadeus Press , which specializes in books on classical music , has recently come out with a book on the illustrious career of the great but currently ailing American conductor James Levine (1943-) , and his 40 association with the Metropolitan opera . It's a collection of tributes to the maestro by numerous renowned singers with whom he has worked over the years , fellow conductors , music critics, contemporary composers and others who have also been associated with him .
Among the great singers are Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, Lucian Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, Montserrat Caballe, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jon Vickers, Cornell McNeill, Jose Van Dam, Teresa Stratas, Leonie Rysanek, Kurt Moll , Birgit Nilsson, Marilyn Horne, Frederica Von Stade, Leontyne Price and many others - a virtual who's who of the greatest names in opera in our time and the late 20th century .
There are numerous handsome color photos of the sets of many of the operas he has conducted at the Met , including Wagner's Ring , Verdi's Otello , Berg's Wozzeck , Puccini's Turandot , Les Troyens by Berlioz , Mozart's The Magic Flute and others .
You might be suspicious about the relentlessly lavish praise which so many distinguished people offer to him in this book, but they appear to be absolutely sincere . Levine is acknowledgfed to be enormously gifted , dedicated , boundlessly enthusiastic and amazingly energetic , as well as a kind , patient , tactful and likeable , these last characteristics not being characteristics one normally associates with great conductors , many of whom have been downright tyrannical with singers and orchestra musicians .
Members of the Met orchestra acknowledge his enormous knowledge , technical skill and inspiring leadershp , and singers have always loved working with him . In his 40 years at the Met , Levine made a staggeringly great contribution to the company and accomplished an astonishing number of things . Among them are transforming the Met orchestra into one of the finest in the world and initiating a series of orchestra concerts with it , helping many gifted young opera singers ot reach their full potentila with regular coaching , expanding the Met's repertoire enormously , introducing such operatic masterpieces as Berg's Lulu, Mozart's Idomeneo , Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz , Schoenberg's Moses & Aron , Verdi's I Vesrpri Siciliani , Gershwin's Porgy and Bess , and world premieres of operas by John Corigliano and John Harbison .
Other Met premieres which he did not conduct include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich , Dvorak's Rusalka, Prokofiev's War and Peace and The Gambler , Handel's Giulio Cesare , Rodelinada and Rinaldo , Verdi's Attila, Janacek's Katya Kabanova, The Makropoulos Case and From the House of the Dead , The Dialogues of the Carmelites by Poulenc , Satyagraha and The Voyage by Philip Glass, Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic by John Adams, The First Emperor by Tan Dun , etc.
The book also includes a list of all of the operas Levine has conducted at the Met,( over 80 ! )and the numbers of perfornances of each he has led , all of the Met premieres during his tenure , opening nights he has ocnducted , his numerous PBS telecast performances , and a discography of the numerous recordings he has nmade with the company, including complete operas by Wagner, Mozart, Verdi, and Donizetti for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical and Decca records .
No one ever deserved this kind of book more than James Levine . Let's wish him a total recovery from his current ailments and many more years with the Metropolitan opera .
The world-famous Vienna Pilharmonic has embroiled for some years in a controversy over its allegedly racist and sexist hiring policies . The legendary ensemble, renowned for the golden sonorities it produces has until recently been an all male orchestra with a membership consisting almost entirely of Viennese or Austrian-born musicians playing special and unique Viennese instruments with a distinctively rich and mellow "Viennese " sound .
The members of the orchestra are all members of the orchestra of the equally famous Vienna State opera , and play sporadic orchestral concerts in Vienna's Musikverein concert hall under the world's leading conductors , as well as making international tours and appearances at the presitigious Salzburg festival every Summer . However, not all the members of the opera orchestra are members of the Philharmonic , and have to audition for the orchestra when there is an opening .
For some time , there have been complaints about the Philharmonic's lack of female and non-white members . The orchestra ,which is a self-governing institution , has maintained that native Austrian musicians are best-suited to maintaining the orchestra's distinctive and unique sound ; the members have traditionally studied at Vienna's Academy of music with musicians in the orchestra , and positions have often been handed down from father to son .
Supposedly, women musicians ,if married , have to take time off to have and bring up children , and musicians who are not trained in the authentic Viennese style of playing and sound are ill-suited to the orchestra and would cause it to lose its distinctive Viennese sound .
But things have been changing somewhat , and a number of women , all string players and harpists , have been allowed ot play in concerts as substitutes . The opera orchestra already has a number of women and non-viennese members, including a Bulgarian female concertmaster .
One of the prime instigators of the crusade to end racist and sexist hiring practices as been an American composer and write on music called William Osborne . Osborne's wife Abbey Conant , is a gifted American trombonist who was hired some years ago as principal trombone of the Munich Philharmonic under the brilliant but eccentric Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996). However, the conductor , who had the reputation of being somewhat prejudiced against female musicians as beass players , expressed the desire to have a male trombonist for the position , and Conant lost her job , despite the fact that she is considered on of the finest trombonists anywhere, male or female .
Osborne orgnanized a campaign to force the Vienna Philharmonic to allow women and non whites into the orchestra . It does hold auditions behind a screen like American orchestras , and recently , a Japanese tuba player was chosen from a blind audition , but was not retained after one season .
Recently , at the blog of the controversial British writer on music Norman Lebrecht called "Slipped Disk " at artsjournal.org , Osborne has been attacking the Vienna Philharmonic again . In addition , the orchestra's principal trombone Ian Bousefield , first English member of the orchestra , has decided to resign from the orchestra for personal reasons , including job disastisfation because of what he claims to be overwork , and there has been discussion of how the hiring of an English trombonist supposedly endangered the orchestra's distinctive Viennese sound . However, Bousefield would never have been hired unless he produced the kind of sound the orchestra wants .
The Osbornes have their own interesting website osborne-conant.org , which discusses the Vienna Philharmonic and other musical topics . Will the orchestra lose that distinctive Viennese sound ? Not very likely . The brass players still mostly use the traditional Viennese brass and woodwind instruments , as well as the woodwinds and percussion . The trombonists have switched to German instruments, but my ears could not detect any loss of the orchestra's precious sonorities from recent recordings and DVDs . I've also heard the orchestra play at Carnegie hall some years ago , and it was an unforgettable experience . That golden Viennese sound is indeed miraculous .
Next year, the classical music world will celebrate the bicentennial of two towering but vastly different opera ocmposers - Richard Wagner of Germany and Giuseppe Verdi of Italy . Both are among the most famous and popular opera ocmposers and their outputs are cornerstones of the operatic repertoire .
Wagner died in 1883 and Verdi in 1901 . Both as composers and human beings , they were vastly different , yet both weilded enormous influence on opera , both in their lifetimes and after . Verdi was a practical man of the theater who wrote operas which were designed to please audiences ; Wagner was a radical reformer and musico/drammatical theorist whose stage works created enormous controversy both in his lifetime up to the present day , and were wildly innovate and often impractical to produce .
Verdi was a down-to-earth , unpretentious , modest and retiring man , and Wagner was something of a megalomaniac and a dreamer who was impractical and uncompromising in his vision of a revolutionary kind of opera . Verdi produced about 26 operas in his long lifetime and Wagner only about half as many , mainly because he was also very much active as a conductor and a writer . Neither wrote a large amount of non-operatic music , but Verdi wrote one of the greatest musical setting of the Catholic mass for the dead ,and Wagner wrote one early symphony and several other orchestral works etc, and both wrote a number of art songs .
Wagner wrote the vast and awesome Ring of the Nibelungen , a tetralogy of four operas ,or music dramas as he preferred to call them , based on Norse and Germanic mythology , a continuing story which requires no fewer trhan 14 hours to perform complete over a series of four days , a mind-boggling creation which was written over a period of over 20 years , as well as the passionate love drama Tristan &Isolde , based on medieval Celtic legend , his only comedy Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg, and the mystical and enigmatic quasi-religious Parsifal , his last work .
His first three matiure operas are Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman ) , a kind of nautical ghost story , Tannhauser , the story of a medieval German troubador who is caught between sacred and profane love , and Lohengrin, the story of a knight of the Holy Grail who comes to defend a young noblewoman in what is now Belgium from charges of fraticide . There are two early operas which are almost never performed , and his first success was Rienzi , the story of an idealistic Roman papal legate in medieval Italy who tries to crush the power of the corrupt Roman nobles but dies in the attempt . This is occaisionally revived , most recently in a concert performance in Carnegie hall a couple of months ago .
Verdi's most popular operas include Rigoletto , La Traviata (the woman who strayed ),Il Trovatore (the troubador) , Aida , which takes place in ancient Egypt , Otello, based on Shakespeare's Othello ,Don Carlo , La Forza Del Destino (the force of destiny ) , Un Ballo in Maschera (a masked ball), Macbetto, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth , and his final masterpiece Falstaff , based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives Of Windsor .
Wagner wrote the librettos to all of his operas , and painstakingly researched the historical backgrounds of the stories . Verdi relied on professional librettists , some of whom were frankly hack writers , but was able to engage the services of the distinguished Italian writer and composer Arrigo Boito late in life ,who provided first-rate librettos for Otello and Falstaff .
Musically , the two are vastly different ; Verdi's music tends to be much simpler in harmony and is much easier to grasp at first , and most of his operas are much shorter than Wagner's , which do tend to be VERY long . Verdi's early operas can be somewhat formulaic and almost simplistic at times, but his later works are far more sophisticated . But all are highly melodious and drammaticaly effective .
Wagner used highly complex harmonies and his orchestration tends to be far more elaborate ,sumptuous-sounding and complex than Verdi's , and more than a few critics and listeners accused his music of "lacking melody ", although this is far from being the case . He developed a highly complex system of what are called "Leitmotifs", or leading motives, reoccurring melodic ideas which describe the different characters and even abstract ideas of fate , and which undergo constant transformation and polyphonic combination .
Wagner has been accused of writing operas which were almost more like symphonies than stage works , but Verdi used recurring themes at times, too . In Wagner, the orchestra is not a simple accompaniment but a highly complex orchestral fabric which is an integral part of the action . The overtures and preludes to his stage works are frequently performed in the concert hall , and several of Verdi's overtures are also sometimes heard in concerts .
Late in life, Wagner had a special festival theater built in the northern Bavarian town of Bayreuth designed with his stage works in mind . The Wagner festival there opened in 1876 with the first ocmplete performances of his Ring, and the festival has become world-famous . It still exists, and every Summer, leading singers and conductors come there to perform his operas . Countless Wagner lovers have come there every year in a kind of pilgramege to hear special performances performaed under festival conditions . In order to get tickets , you have to be placed under a waiting list of ten years ,before ypou can attend performances !
Which is greater , or the better composer ? This is a futile question , and comparing apples and oranges . Both are towering geniuses . One thing is certain ; Verdi is the more immediately approachable of the two , and Wagner more demanding of listeners by far .But you should not miss the music of either .
If you would like to become familiar with their works , there are an enormous number of complete recordings of their operas , as well as excerpts , and DVDs of live performances on the market . The greatest singers of the 20th century can be heard performing their music ; such great names as Caruso, Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi , Tito Gobbi , Robert Merrill, Renata Scotto, Sherrill Milnes , Nicolai Ghiarov , and many,many others in Verdi, and such great Wagner singers as Kirsten Flagstad , Lauritz Melchior, Birgit Nilsson , Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and others in Wagner . Some sngers, such as Domingo, have recorded both .
Great conductors of Wagner you can hear on record include Sir Georg Solti, Herbert Von Karajan, Hans Knappertsbusch, James Levine, Daniel Barenboim , Karl Bohm, Rudolf Kempe, Wolfgang Sawallisch , Wilhelm Furtwangler , to name only some, both on complete recordings and orchestral excerpts .
Notable conductors of Verdi on record include Arturo Toscanini, who knew the composer personally , Tullio Serafin , Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli , etc, and Karajan,Solti, Levine and some others have been outstanding interpreters of both composers .
The classical music world is currently experiencing difficulties caused by the illnesses of a number of distinguished conductors and other performers . 76-year old Seiji Ozawa, former music director of the Boston symphony , is recovering from cancer of the esophagus and has decided to take a year off from conducting ; he has also had a bout with pneumonia .
As is well-known in the classical music world, James Levine has been suffering from severe back trouble and spinal problems for years , and will be absent from the Metropolitan opera's pit for the first time in 40 years next season . The veteran German maestro Kurt Masur, former music director of the New York Philharmonic, Gewandhaus orchestra of Leipzig, London Philharmonic and French national orchestra of Paris was recently forced to cancel a performance of Beethoven's monumental Missa Solemnis with the Boston symphony recently, and choral conductor John Oliver, who has prepared choruses for concerts for many years in Boston and the Tanglewood festifal , stepped in for him .
The renowned Canadian operatic tenor Ben Heppner has also been plagued by illness intermittantly and recently had to cancel appearances in one of America's regional opera companies in the role of Captain Ahab in the recent opera Moby ***, by Jake Heggie .
Other renowned conductors who have been health problems include the distinguished latvian maestro Mariss Jansons ,music director of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw orchestra and Munich's Bavarian radio orchestra, and Leonard Slatkin of the Detroit symphony .
The life of a classical musician is anything but an easy one ; it's extremely strenuous and constant travel around the world is highly stressful . Opera singers have to sing in large opera houses with large orchestra WITHOUT MICROPHONES, unlke pop singers . Conducting is very strenuous aerobic excercize and conductors are prone to ailments such as bursitis from constantly waving their arms around .
However , there is always the chance of some promising young conductor , musician or opera singer getting his or her big break by substituting at the last minute . In 1943 , a 25 -year old aspiring conductor who was serving as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic had to step in at the last minute for the eminent German conductor Bruno Walter, who was ailing . Who was this ? None other than Leonard Bernstein . And the rest was history .
Every has pet peeves , and here are some of mine regarding classical music :
1. Critics , musicologists and fans who are always longing for the "golden age of classical music" and using this as an excuse to knock musicians of the present day they hapen they dislike .
2. People who automatically prefer old recordings by legendary musicians of the past to recordings or live performances by today's classical musicians , and use those old recordings as sticks with which to bash them .
3. Musicologists and performing musicians who claim to have found the one and only "right" way to perform any given work or the music of a particular composer . There is no such thing as one "right" way to perform music .
4. Music critics who instead of criticizing a performance or recording they dislike use their reviews as an excuse to take pot shots against the performers and make ad hominem attacks on them as musicians .
5. The tendency of carrying the use of period instruments later and later in time, closer to the present day .
6. Musicologogists, critics and performers who claim to "know" the composer's intentions , even with long dead composers . The only way to know whther a performance has actually done this is when the composer hears th eperforms and states whether it satisfied him or not .
7. Period instrument fanatics who automaticaly sneer at , belittle and dismiss any performance or recording which does not use them .
8. Composers and critics who are always complaining that new music is neglected ,despite the fact that new works are constantly being premiered everywhere .
9 . People who are always complaining that all orchestras today sound alike, despite the fact that it's impossible for orchestras to sound alike .
10. Critics who are always complaining that today's pianists, violinists ,singers, conductors are much too literal and pedantic in interpretation and don't take enough liberties with the music , yet are always blasting these musicians of today for the liberties they take with it .
New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini is one of the best currently writing today, and his reviews are usually scrupulously fair and balanced . But he has one failing ; he has an unfortunate tendency to complain endlessly about the supposedly "stodgy" programming of America's oldest orchestra, the New York Philharmonic , the same as many other classical music critics .
He has given its current music director Alan Gilbert credit for beig a committed advocate of cntemporary composers and trying to bring fresh air into this supposedly staid an dconservative orchestra . But there's just one problem with this ; it has in fact been one of the most adventurous orchestras in the world in terms of programming for decades before Gilbert .
His latest review of a concert by the Juilliard orchestra conducted by Gilbert, who heads the conducting program at the famed conservatory is typical . He accuses the orchestra of "playing it safe ". Unbelievable . This is an orchestra which puts most of the world's other orchestra to shame in its consistently adventurous programming, and Gilbert's programming is not really radically innovative there at all . He is merely contuing this admirable trend .
How many orchestras play the music of Arnold Schoenberg, (1874 - 1951) , the great though still high;ly controversial Austrian composer who is considerede box office poison by so many orchestras ? Not many . But the renowned pianist Emanuel Ax will be playing his piano concerto with the orchestra next season . It's not such a terrible work at all if you give it a chance . In fact, it's a genuine masterpiece .
There will also be more new music than most other orchestras play next season, including a number of world premieres by leading contemporary composers , and some interesting works from the past which are rarely encountered in the concert hall .
Compare this to your average orchestra . Any of these usually offer a steady stream of the same old familiar warhorses by Beethoven,Brahms Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov , Ravel , Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rimsky-Korsakov , etc. Of course , these are deservedly popular works . But the management of these orchestras are terrified of audiences voting with their feet and are extremely reluctant to allow conductors, whether music directors or guests, to program anything out of the ordinary , because they are saddled with extremely conservative audiences who are terrified of that awful "modern" music . You can't blame the management, given this deplorable situation .
Yes, the New York Philharmonic still plays those beloved warhorses . But it's irritatingly disingenuous the way critics are always using this fact to accuse the New York Philharmonic of "stodginess", despite its consistent championship of new music . You can get an idea of what the orchestra will e offering next seasn at its website, newyorkphil.org .
The March issue of Opera News magazine features Italian conductor Fabio Luisi , recently installed as the Met's principal conductor in the wake of James Levine's chronic health problems . Writer Lisa Mercurio interviews the busy maestro , who will also assume duties as music director of the Zurich opera in Switzerland . Luisi will be leading the Met's complete Ring cycles this season and next , as well as a variety of other operas .
Heidi Waleson , a music critic of the Wall Street Journal , has an article on the enterprising Gotham City Opera of New York , which presents small-scale obscure operas ranging from Haydn and Mozart to contemporary in an intimate setting . William R. Broun has an article on the teaching activities of the noted American soprano Carol Vaness , who guides promising young people who are aiming at a career as opera singers .
Film and theater teacher Steve Vineberg has an interesting discussion of film versions of operas based on Shakespeare plays
As usual, there is coverage of this month's Met radio broadcasts , which include Verdi's Aida, the new production of Don Giovanni , Mussorgsky's epic Russian opera Khovanshchina, which deals with the struggle for power in Russia just before the rise of Peter the Great , Verdi's Macbeth and Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore , with lists of the cast, conductors, etc, plot synopses, and interesting background information on the operas, as well as photos of the sets .
The magazine's critics review among other things , the Met's new production of the baroque opera pastiche "The Enchanted Island ", as well as a variety of opera productions from Milan, Geneva, Barcelona, Zurich and Berlin .
Reviews of new opera and vocal CDs include Donizetti's rarely heard "Maria Di Rohan " and Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," both from London, as well as historic performances by the Met of Carmen and Mignon by the 19th century French composer Ambroise Thomas , with such legendary opera stars of theetc. past as Rise Stevens, Richard Tucker, and others, released by Sony Classical records as part of its ongoing series of performances from the Met's broadcast archives .
DVD reviews include Giordano's Andrea Chenier from the Met and La Traviata from Graz, Austria, and lesser-known operas such as Atys, by the 17th century French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the German born, Italian-based composer Giovanni Simon Mayr's opera Medea in Corinth .
There is also a review of a new book by Helena Matheopoulos called "Fashion Designers At The Opera", which deals with famous fashion designers who have designed costumed for operas in our time . Whether you are a die-hard opera fan or an opera newbie , you should never miss an issue of this magazine, and you can also visit its website ,operanews.com .
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