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AUSTRIAN POLAR OPPOSITES

Here are two SACD reviews I contributed to Fanfare some time ago, one disc drawing from Austrian Romanticism, the other from Austrian Classicism:

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 9 * Yannick Nézet-Séguin, cond; O Métropolitain du Grand Montréal * ATMA SACD2-2514 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 67:01)

Here’s a gloriously engineered Bruckner Ninth; alas, it’s not a very well-interpreted one. Montreal’s second orchestra, which has fared very well in earlier recordings, offers patches of drab playing here, perhaps the result of lack of inspiration from the score and the podium. It isn’t that Yannick Nézet-Séguin doesn’t have ideas; it’s just that they tend to sabotage the music. The balances can be odd, with the horns particularly distant, to the detriment of some of the chordal and melodic voicings.

Nézet-Séguin, I’m coming to realize, is an all-purpose slow conductor, like late Giulini and, more grotesquely, late Celibidache, and that has deadly results in this particular work. (But keep in mind that Giulini’s mid-career recordings of this symphony are superb; don’t overlook them.) At these tempos, the repeated figures in the first movement’s second subject immediately turn banal, and everything reaches a point of stasis just before the return of the introductory material after the exposition; this should be a moment of anticipation, not torpor. The second movement comes off all right, although it could benefit from a bit more punch, but the third movement fares no better than the first; within five minutes, the score is sinking into mud when it should be striving toward heaven. In general, Nézet-Séguin flounders when Bruckner fails to provide a strong melodic line, but even his manipulations of the best parts lack coherent motivation. Nézet-Séguin and Bruckner seem to be a poor match. James Reel

MOZART Serenade in D, K. 250, “Haffner”; March in D, K. 249 * Gordan Nikolić, cond; Netherlands Chamber Orchestra * PENTATONE PTC 5186 097 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 57:25)

Mozart wrote his K. 250 serenade in 1776 as entertainment music for a party celebrating the coming nuptials of the daughter of Salzburg’s mayor, Siegmund Haffner. This was about the same time Mozart was writing his five violin concertos, so not too surprisingly there’s, in effect, a violin concerto tucked into this work, constituting its second through fourth movements. There’s also slow “serenade” music, a couple more minuets beyond what’s in the concertante sequence, and two full-fledged sonata-allegro movements. Launch it all with the separate march that probably opened the festivities (or at least was played as the musicians made their entrance), and you have nearly a full hour of attractive Classical pleasure-music with flashes of substance going well beyond the requirements of the occasion.

Gordan Nikolić, former concertmaster of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, now serves as concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. He leads this performance from the first-violin desk, and plays his solos with a singing yet pulsating line. He presides over a performance (on modern instruments) in which the stately passages carry abundant inner life, while never sounding rushed, and the fast movements sprint by with lots of punch and impact along the way. It’s a taut, vibrant performance, engaging from beginning to end.

PentaTone has made some of the best-sounding orchestral SACDs on the market, with utterly natural reproduction of ensembles given clear spatial definition, but in this project, the upper frequencies are a little harsh. That’s very unusual for PentaTone, and the only drawback to an attractive release. James Reel

Classical Music,

AGAIN UPON THE MATTRESS

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time this morning perusing the 25th-anniversary issue of the Tucson Weekly. There’s a lot of fascinating material there, looking back at the last quarter century of the publication and of Tucson, and even looking ahead. But the main item of interest, of course, is my contribution, which this week is a review of a little show on the east side:

_Once Upon a Mattress_ is remarkable--a second-string musical that somehow holds up much, much better than some other 50-year-old shows. This fractured fairy-tale version of “The Princess and the Pea” is witty, a little cynical and not the least bit dated. It's getting an enjoyable production on Tucson's far eastside by the Da Vinci Players.

Note that the use of “eastside” in that last sentence was imposed by the editor. I would never use a compound word like that as a noun, no matter what the increasingly idiotic AP Style Manual says. “Eastside” is an adjective; “east side” is the noun. “Backyard” and “backseat” are adjectives; “back yard” and “back seat” are the nouns. There can be no argument over this until people start using “frontyard” and “frontseat” as nouns, too.

Anyway, you can read my review here.

tucson-arts,

A NON-CLASSICAL MUSICAL OBSESSION

At another blog, I stumbled upon a video of Jacques Brel singing his terrific song “Ne me quitte pas.” As you’d expect, Brel superbly brings out many of the song’s dark elements—but there’s a version by someone else I’ve always liked even more. First, get the song from the composer’s mouth (and seeing his face is tremendously important here):

If you can believe it, there’s an even more devastating version by Frida Boccara from 1970; by the end of the song, she sounds like she’s a candidate for the Suicide Hotline. This clip doesn’t show Frida singing; it’s just a montage of stills. But listen to her intense, disturbing performance:

quodlibet,

IT'S RODEO TIME: UPDATED BLOG

If you read Tuesday's blog about the Tucson Rodeo, I just wanted to let you know that I finally found part of the recording.

It turns out we had this song in an old 1995 documentary about old-time Tucson that appeared on KUAT-TV. All I could find was a snippet, but it's a good one. Enjoy!

As an added bonus, here's a link to sheet music for the song (thanks Nelson Warnell).

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IT'S RODEO TIME

Admittedly, I haven't been to the Tucson Rodeo since I was a tyke, but some memories still remain, at least due to good marketing.

One of the things I recall is the old rodeo theme song, called It's Rodeo Time in Old Tucson." I've come to find out in recent years that the song was recorded by Kenny Smith and the Westerners about 50 years ago.

I found the history of the song and an article about it a couple of years back in a Bonnie Henry column in the Arizona Daily Star. There's a link off that page that allows you to hear the song and see some old photos, but the music part is not working. I wanted to put up a sample here, but I'm unable to find a digital recording to do that. If anybody has a copy and would like to send it along so others can hear it, let me know and I'll get it posted before the rodeo ends this Sunday.

Until then, sing this in your head...

"Oh put your big hat on your head, 'cause if you don't you'll wish you had — it's rodeo time in old Tucson."

If you want to go to the parade, here's all you need to know.

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CLASSICIZING ITUNES

The people who design the leading databases that organize music files have never understood the special needs of classical music—like, for instance, the composer serves as a far more important organizing field than the performer. In this imperfect world, Randy Salas of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune offers a primer on how a classical fan can best manage iTunes.

Classical Music,

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