TEODORA MITEVA

posted by James Reel

    A listener has e-mailed me a link to a video of Teodora Miteva playing Bruch’s Kol Nidre, and my correspondent has high praise for Miteva’s performance. I haven’t had a chance to hear enough of it to form my own opinion, but I like what little I’ve heard. I didn’t know anything about Miteva until this morning, and I don't know much more after a cursory Googling. She was born 31 years ago in Bulgaria and seems to be active mainly in Austria and Germany. Her discography is extremely limited so far. The video clip, made with a single camera and thus not intended for normal broadcast, captures Miteva in concert with a women’s orchestra in Vienna—maybe it’s all the good female musicians who’ve been kept out of the Vienna Philharmonic. Or not. Follow the link and see what you think of her performance, and don’t forget to move on to the second half of the video in a separate file.

CAN YOU DIG IT?

posted by James Reel

    Borderlands Theater’s latest premiere proves to be a mild disappointment:

    Evangeline Ordaz's Hippie Mexicana is partly an affectionate nostalgia trip, looking back at a time when a "trip" didn't necessarily involve going away or falling down. Well, not going away, at least. The play is also a snort of exasperation over the institutionalized racism that kept a qualified man of part-Native American heritage from conducting credible scientific research on his own property. It's also a bittersweet story of how a bunch of likable, laid-back, optimistic people wind up 20 years later in dead-end jobs, and how these people who value their cultural and family history ultimately decide it makes sense to sell the old family home.
    Hippie Mexicana is getting its premiere performances courtesy of Borderlands Theater, and while it's the sort of play and production that one really wants to enjoy, it doesn't quite work.

CD REVIEWS: SOL GABETTA, BAIBA SKRIDE

posted by James Reel

    Evidence that the major labels have not gone completely down the drain: two fine new concerto discs from Sony/BMG. Now, it’s true that the soloists—cellist Sol Gabetta and violinist Baiba Skride—are tremendously photogenic, but their appeal is more than skin-deep. I just sent in a very brief review of each disc to a magazine you probably don’t read and which rarely posts CD reviews at its Web site, so I’ll share them with you here.

    Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme; Andante Cantabile; Pezo Capriccioso; Nocturne. Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1. Ginastera: Pampana No. 2. Sol Gabetta, cello; Ari Rasilainen conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra (RCA 82876759512).
    Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta introduces herself on disc with the more-or-less complete music for cello and orchestra by Tchaikovsky (a couple of song arrangements are missing), naturally mated with the Saint-Saëns First Concerto, plus the rarely (if ever) recorded orchestral version of Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 2. Best comes first: a fabulous performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. This isn’t for people who prefer big, loud, fast, beefy versions of the work; Gabetta’s way with it is quietly teasing. She tends to operate at a relatively low volume, but makes lots of little dynamic adjustments from bar to bar and stretches out phrases to romantic effect; her rubato in the fourth variation is especially impish, and the cadenza built into the fifth variation is full of personality. Overall, the work has rarely sounded so balletic.
    The rest of the disc comes off well, but with less individuality than the Rococo Variations. The outer movements of the Saint-Saëns are impassioned, and the central Allegretto is especially elegant. The other items respond well to Gabetta’s light touch and impeccable intonation.

    Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1; Janácek: Violin Concerto. Baiba Skride, violin; Mikko Franck conducts the Munich Philharmonic; Marek Janowski conducts the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Sony 82876-73146-2).
    For her third Sony recording, Baiba Skride takes up what has apparently become a rite of passage for all young violinists: Shostakovich’s First Concerto. Her way with the opening Nocturne is patient and dark; from the beginning, there’s a subtle sense of menace. The Scherzo is properly frantic, the Passacaglia warm and lyrical—not the dry meander it can become—and a fervent cadenza leads to a stunning Burlesque: The intepretation is gritty, but the intonation is pure, even in this concert performance. True, Skride’s tone sometimes does become wiry in high passages, but this happens in spots where it may be a conscious color decision.
    The filler is a welcome bonus, Janácek’s Violin Concerto, “The Wandering of a Little Soul.” There’s more than one reconstruction of this unfinished work, which shares material with the overture to Janácek’s prison-camp opera From the House of the Dead; this version is by Leos Faltus and Milos Stedron. Skide’s approach is as mercurial as it should be.
    This Latvian laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Competition clearly knows how to execute a keen conception of challenging, unhackneyed music; her earlier disc devoted to Mozart and the Haydn brothers should also be worth seeking out.

CODED MESSAGE

posted by James Reel

    A couple of leading online figures have called for a blogger’s code of conduct, and it’s about time. The code of conduct doesn’t so much address the posts of bloggers as the comments posted by readers. You can read the first draft here at Tim O’Reilly’s site, and find answers to some libertarian objections here. The libertarian types, as usual, are screaming “censorship.”
    So what’s with all this hand-wringing over “censorship,” anyway? There’s a huge difference between controlling someone’s independent expression and supervising the content of a site or publication for which you are responsible. The latter is not censorship; it’s editing, and it’s necessary even in a free, civil society if discourse isn’t to be hijacked by bullies with nothing to contribute.

THE HIGHER PRICE

posted by James Reel

    A friend had considered joining us for this Thursday's Tucson Symphony concert, but then reconsidered. She writes, "It turns out that a ticket, in the front balcony, would cost me $62 -- with Ticketmaster charges etc -- too much -- if it were for Der Rosenkavalier or Magic Flute I would do it in a heartbeat, but not for Orff." She has nothing against Carmina Burana; but she expects a substantial production for that kind of money in Tucson.
     From what I can see from my balcony seat, Thursday-night TSO attendance has been alarmingly low this season. If the orchestra wants to increase attendance next year, raising the ticket price seems, to put it politely, counterintuitive.

LOWERING THE COMMON DENOMINATOR

posted by James Reel

    When the Tucson Symphony announced its 2007-08 season a couple of weeks ago, I was appalled. Now that I’ve looked at the schedule a few more times and given it further thought, it doesn’t seem to pander to the lowest-common denominator audience as much as I initially thought, but the goosebumps of excitement have yet to rise. OK, I like Rossini’s William Tell Overture, Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat suites and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. But why do they occupy an entire program together, aside from the fact that they exist and they’re popular?
    The really bad news is that the core classical series has given up on contemporary music, aside from one item by local boy Dan Coleman (I don’t know the piece, but since it’s sharing a program with Rachmaninov’s big Symphony No. 2 and excepts from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, I can’t imagine that it’s very long), and a very short item by the UA’s Dan Asia. (Why is Asia’s Why (?) Jacob on a program called “Musique de la France”? There’s absolutely no French connection, not even a stylistic one. What a dopey programming decision.) Now, I have complained many times that starting every concert with a five-minute new piece hardly shows much commitment to contemporary music, but even that was better than nothing, which is pretty much what we’re getting next season.
    People might sneer at the November concert with its movie tie-ins—classical pieces used in films, with only one example of original film music—but that’s actually something I wish the TSO and other orchestras would do more of … and I especially wish this would become the pattern again for pops concerts, an evening of well-prepared light classics instead of half an hour of under-rehearsed potboilers followed by an appearance by some has-been pop singer or nostalgia act.
    And in the context of TSO programming history, several of the promised items have hardly worn out their welcome, particularly Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto and Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande Suite. (French music has been rather neglected during George Hanson’s tenure.)
    One—count ’em, one—of the programs is very well thought-out: “Old Vienna,” which includes Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite and Berg’s Violin Concerto, which the TSO hasn’t done since John Ferrell was concertmaster (he was the soloist last time) and, I think, George Trautwein was the music director, which was more than 20 years ago.
    Still, I’m not looking forward to another shlocky Mathieu piano concerto, and what, exactly, is Ravel’s “Suite from Mother Goose Suite”? Does that mean they’re playing only two or three of the pieces from the standard five-movement suite excerpted from Ravel’s full score?
    So, there are some lapses, but some interesting material does lurk among all the other things I can stay home and listen to in fabulous CD performances without having to submit to the poor acoustics of the TCC Music Hall. But is it worth the rising price of season tickets? The financially troubled orchestra is starting to look a little desperate, moving toward less sophisticated programming and higher ticket prices when other orchestras are actually playing more daring pieces and lowering their prices to attract younger or more casual audiences. I haven’t gotten out my credit card just yet.