2018 is the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, as I’ve mentioned in reviewing recent commemorative performances of Candide by TIFT, TOT and the TSO. 

Anniversaries usually trigger a flood of books as well.  I’ve just read one of them cover to cover in the past 24 hours, an absorbing 212 pages by Paul R. Laird, in the “Critical Lives” series from Reaktion Books. (click for more info or to purchase)

I was sucked into the book immediately by the way it’s written.  Or maybe it’s the way Bernstein lived his life?  We’re in a breathless account of someone who is

• A pianist
• A conductor
• A composer
• A teacher
• A celebrity
• Sexually active
• A married man with children

This is neither an apology for the man nor a critical hatchet job, but a balanced account that channels much of the native self-doubt Bernstein lived with, as a composing performing commercially successful Jewish homosexual.  What I found extraordinary about this book that I was unable to put down all day was how Laird managed to create a truly multi-faceted portrait, reconciling if not balancing so many aspects of this complex figure.  Laird met Bernstein, but clearly spent a great deal of time studying and coming to understand the man.  Perhaps the reason it works so well is because this is no PhD thesis,  nor an attempt to prove a point or achieve anything revolutionary.  I was at times almost breathless turning the pages, waiting to discover what might happen next. We watch Bernstein live his life, month by month, year by year, as he conducts this, composes that, says this, broadcasts that, screws this person (sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes within the boundaries of marriage), flies here: and so on.

That isn’t to say there aren’t places where Laird zeroes in on something. There are segments where a composition’s creation is described via the people involved in the collaboration or the steps in the process. It’s very de facto, very matter of fact, as we glimpse a life of unrelenting activity.  I used to think Bernstein didn’t compose very much but reading this I realize wow considering how much else he was doing, he composed plenty.  And indeed when we’re down to the last years of Bernstein’s life we encounter a sad fact, that the conductor was the chief champion for the composer.  The late works haven’t been heard so often because: they’re still relatively new.

If you have any interest in Bernstein –as a fan of his compositions, or admirer of his conducting—you will encounter something you didn’t know.  I’m surprised how much I learned about him today in my dash through this book, how many things I need to revisit or seek out in the library.  Laird’s bio is not a portrait to distort your understanding of Bernstein.  We hear some fierce critiques of his superficiality, of his enjoyment of popularity.  There are places where Laird shows his interest in the music, but I wouldn’t call him an advocate.  And as far as the conducting Laird seems to be an agnostic, reporting the gigs without attempting to analyze Bernstein’s style.  But then again to do so would have slowed the book down considerably as we dashed to the sad conclusion.

Laird closes (after describing the last year leading up to Bernstein’s death) with a chapter called “A Final Evaluation”.  Much as I loved the book, at this point –meaning the final evaluation—I was disappointed at what Laird seemed to miss.  This is a matter of fact description, possibly conditioned by Bernstein’s celebrity.  I find myself once again irritated by the paralysis musicology seems to experience in the presence of popularity, as I recall Kerman’s inadequate response to Tosca.  While Laird does get some things right, for instance his praise for Bernstein’s promotion of classical music through his broadcast legacy, and his fascination with his celebrity, I find the language somewhat faint-hearted when it’s time to assess the artist, or the value of his eclectic sounds.  Throughout we hear admonitions quoted about the conducting style, but almost nothing about why his conducting might have been influential, if not loved by some (me for instance); admittedly it’s a tough subject, but the evaluation is missing a great deal in this area.  Similarly for the composer, we hear of the classical musicians uptight about rock or jazz, without anyone to talk about what’s brilliant in his output.  Yes many of us are reading this book because we love Bernstein:  the conductor, the composer, the broadcaster.  The book tells us about his life, but in my view it understates his greatness.  While we get an evaluation of his life, his art is presented as a fact.  I suppose it’s of a piece with what’s in the book.

I need to read it again, as there are scores I didn’t know about that I will now have to hunt down in the library.

I Hate Music?! Trouble in Tahiti.  A White House Cantata.  …And so much more.

The book is most persuasive because there’s no attempt to persuade. How ironic.

Consider me persuaded.    (click for more info or to purchase)

David Fallis’s tenure as the Artistic Director of the Toronto Consort ended with today’s final concert performance of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, one of the most elaborate presentations I’ve ever seen from this group.

Don’t get me wrong. We were still in the presence of something intimate rather than overblown, the closest I’ve ever been to the Florentine Camerata in spirit if not in the actuality of the performance. For many of us, L’Orfeo was something we understood to be the first opera from our teachers & books. I had asked David Fallis whether there was anything symbolic in choosing this for his last undertaking leading the Toronto Consort.

But apparently not. He said he simply liked Monteverdi.

Okay. If there’s any extra meaning it’s in the joyful recognition that this opera is a celebration of the power of music. And that’s as true now as it was in 1607.

I invoke the Camerata as a society of friends devoted to the exploration of music and its possibilities. That’s what Monteverdi was doing and what the Toronto Consort continue to do. Jeanne Lamon Hall is small enough that you can see and hear every individual contributor (including the violinist for whom the hall is named, splendid sounding), sometimes making eye contact with singers & instrumentalists, and never in any danger that the performance would lose the sense of ‘consort’ as a verb. The formal moments –especially when the brass stood for their part in the opening Toccata or the beginning of the Third Act—were handled in such a way to remind us of music’s eternal ritual function in processions or public events. We were right on a kind of interface between music serving the drama (as we expect it to do in centuries of operatic composition) and music before the conventions of opera were drilled into us. We watched a kind of friendly negotiation, the music helping but always seeming to be freely offered rather than merely accompaniment in the service of story-telling.

Tenor Charles Daniels (photo: Annelies van der Vegt)

This was especially clear whenever we were watching & listening to Charles Daniels as Orfeo, a textbook demonstration of the notion that “less is more”. Sometimes he began with ostentatious pauses, sometimes singing with such softness as to compel us to pay extra attention. On occasion the voice rose in its intensity, particularly in that amazing moment in Act III when the Goddess Hope must leave him, in obedience to the dictum “abandon hope ye who enter here”; and as she abandons him, his response is unexpected and overwhelming. But he mostly sings very delicately, at times so softly as to surprise you, wonderfully expressive and always inhabiting the character.

And sometimes the greatest moments were collective utterances. Since I first studied this work decades ago, there have been parts I loved, that I eagerly anticipated in today’s concert. Every one of those was better today via Fallis, the Toronto Consort & their guest participants. I was wiping my eyes during the Toccata, smiling like a little kid listening to “Lasciate i monti”, and hollering at the top of my lungs at the end, grateful for all the many contributors. Katherine Hill as Music and then as Euridice gave us lovely moments that were wonderfully accurate, Michele DeBoer giving us a different coloration but every bit as effective as Proserpina. Laura Pudwell as Silvia, and as Speranza (Hope) brought her wonderfully rich sound, but blending beautifully when part of the chorus of shepherds, with Kevin Skelton, Bud Roach David Roth & Cory Knight. Roth as Pluto and Skelton as Apollo each were suitably godlike, while Bud Roach had some lyrical moments as well.

It was a hot afternoon in the space, yet everyone was intense in their focus, giving their all, Fallis included.  It felt like a perfect send-off, although Fallis will be back from time to time, not as the Artistic Director but still a member of the Consort.

David Fallis (Photo credit: Paul Orenstein, digital work by Ross Duffin, background by Gerrit Dou 17th century, Dutch).

There it all is, everything a boy or girl could want in one headline.

Now in fact that’s the title of a big beautiful book that I’ve been reading.  And what good is a book if it doesn’t push your buttons? This one certainly intrigues and excites me.

In my experience big luscious books about opera that are full of nice pictures rarely have the depth or intellectual heft to match.  Hm, isn’t that funny? A book will be heavy to lift but light-weight where it matters most: in the text.  Aha,  that’s the usual, but not in this case.  I saw Opera: Passion, Power and Politics on the new arrivals shelf at the Edward Johnson Library, where I find so much great stuff (for instance that Bernstein book that I devoured just a few days ago): a book that arose in context with an exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum that ran quite recently, from September 2017 until February of this year.

Ah, if only we had a show like this in Toronto.

When I read you the conceptual overview from the back jacket, please note that I am describing text that is embossed in gold, embedded in the fabric of the cover.  It’s almost too beautiful for me to capture the words, a wonderfully sensuous book to handle, even before you discover the beautiful pictures inside.

Here’s that blurb, which may surprise you by being quite intriguing, certainly more than any such opera picture book I’ve ever seen before. I’ll bold-face it in gold-coloured text, although this doesn’t nearly do justice to this lovely object: as in the gleaming picture above.

Focusing on seven key premieres in seven European cities, this fascinating book –published in collaboration with the Royal opera House, London– captures the passion, power and spectacle of opera over its rich 400-year history.  With introductory essays by some of today’s leading practitioners including Plácido Domingo, Antonio Pappano and Simone Young, it celebrates an innovative and complex art form that continues to inspire new generations of audiences around the world. A product of its own time, each opera also acts as a lens through which we can examine contemporary politics, culture and society.

VENICE
Claudio Monteverdi L’incoronazione di Poppea 

LONDON
George Frideric Handel Rinaldo

VIENNA
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Le nozze di Figaro

MILAN
Giuseppe Verdi Nabucco

PARIS
Richard Wagner Tannhäuser

DRESDEN
Richard Strauss Salome

LENINGRAD
Dmitri Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

The jacket speaks of Domingo & Pappano perhaps because those names will help sell the book. But I’m more intrigued by Danielle de Niese talking about her role debut as Poppea, Robert Carsen musing on Rinaldo and Handel’s da capo arias, Roger Parker on the young Verdi, Michael Levine speaking of the design of Tannhäuser complete with a couple of intriguing photos, and Graham Vick speaking of Shostakovich.   It may not cover everything, but it does give you essays exploring opera in genuinely inter-disciplinary  ways.  I’m thinking of titles such as

• Nicholas Till writing about “Vienna and the Englightenment”, aiming to put Mozart into context
• “Wagner among the boulevards: Tannhäuser in Paris“, talking about the city and its culture as much as the opera
• “Visions of women: Salome and Dresden”, looking at Wilde, Strauss & Beardsley (yes some lovely images), and Strauss’s opera as seen through the lens of directors Peter Brook (with help from Salvador Dali’s designs), Robert Carsen & David McVicar.
• “Heroine, victim, or Criminal? Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, an ambitious essay from Elizabeth Wilson exploring the intersection of Soviet politics and opera.

Each of the seven pairings –an opera and a city—elicits a short introductory piece (such as Domingo’s or Carsen’s) plus a longer essay (such as the one by Parker or Wilson).

And there’s a concluding section that isn’t really necessary, that curiously reminds me of the Bernstein book I reviewed a few days ago, the way it weakens the book, perhaps by seeming to be trying too hard.

Even so it’s a magnificent book, a worthy gift for any opera lover of your acquaintance.  (if you follow the link you can see the book in soft or hard cover, an inexpensive opera tote bag and even an Aubrey Beardsley scarf.)

Oh heck, buy it for yourself. You’re worth it.

Charm of Finches, Canada’s Premiere Flute Quintet. Charm of Finches’ musicians are mavericks in the classical genre – all young, vibrant and electrifying musicians – and the force behind brilliant new arrangements and compositions with a reputation for delivering fresh and energetic concerts.

This concert features the Toronto premieres of Mendelssohn’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, arranged by Gudrun Hinze, and David Heath’s ‘Return to Avalon’ for SEVEN FLUTES, joined by Kelly Zimba and Camile Watts. The programme also includes the world premiere of ‘First came the temple…’ written by Toronto-based composer, Bekah Simms. And to round off the evening with ‘Raga Terah’ by JUNO and three-time ECMA award-winning Canadian composer, Derek Chark. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear these incredible musicians up close and personal, in the intimate venue of Hart House, East Common Room.

*******

Tonight was the second & concluding performance for Soundstreams presentation of David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, paired on the program with the world premiere of James Rolfe’s song cycle I Think We Are Angels at Crow’s Theatre.

Composer David Lang (photo: Peter Serling)

I hesitate to make too much of the similarities between the two pieces when some of them may have been forced onto Rolfe, whose commission likely was framed something like “hello James, could you please write a piece using the same personnel & (more or less the same) instruments as what we’re using for the other work we’re doing…?”   I don’t know how stringent the stipulations may have been upon Rolfe’s commission, which I think he fulfilled admirably.

The two works are similar and match rather well. Both works employ four vocal soloists, namely soprano Vania Chan, mezzo-soprano Andrea Ludwig,  tenor Colin Ainsworth &  bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus.

In addition,

• Lang’s work included tubular bells,  a bass drum and other hand-held percussion
• Rolfe’s work included accordion (played by Michael Bridge), bells & additional percussion
• Where Lang writes a cappella, tonal with occasional ventures into chromaticism, Rolfe is diatonic, the voices tunefully accompanied

I was intrigued by the process behind Lang’s work, which appears to take a sentimental story by Hans Christian Andersen—namely “The Little Match Girl”—and re-tell it employing elements from a Christian passion narrative.  Lang’s dramaturgy employs at least two different modes, at times telling a story, which is certainly something we find in any of Bach’s great passions, at other times stopping the action for something more ritualized, both in language and in the setting of those words.  There are points of contact with Christian passion stories, most explicitly when a voice says “Eli”, which is how Jesus cries out on the cross, but also the beginning of a great psalm where the psalmist says “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” (or in other words “God, God, why have you forsaken me”?)

As 21st Century compositions it’s clear we’ve moved well beyond Modernism into something entirely different.   Not only are both of these composers comfortable with tonal writing, but we’re engaged with textual elements that I don’t think we’ve seen in decades.  The source story for Lang is as sentimental as anything you’d encounter in Puccini, mitigated perhaps by the juxtaposition with the passion story.  Even so this is a story wearing its heart on its sleeve, almost demanding that you have tears.

Rolfe’s challenge was greater I think, as his cycle takes poems that don’t have anything remotely as solid as the Hans Christian Andersen storyline; as a result it’s a series of lovely moments, without the textual unity one might wish for.  The best song cycles –thinking for instance of Frauenliebe und Leben, Dichterliebe, Die schöne Müllerin or even Strauss’s Four Last Songs are pulled together by something like a storyline.  For me that’s the chief difference between the Lang piece and Rolfe’s work.  There is something delightful about the use of accordion, which humanizes the romance that’s lurking in several of Rolfe’s songs.  I devoutly wish I could have had more preparation for this work, (perhaps a look at the song texts?) as I never really succeeded in wrapping my head around the work, lovely as it was.  I kept wondering on each successive song if it was about to be over (the lights were out so we couldn’t follow the text that was in the program).  With the Lang piece I studiously read the text, which is maybe a great way to know what’s coming although in another sense, it took away any possibility that I would be surprised.

The four singers were wonderful, particularly in the Lang, where Chan’s small barefoot presence was extremely touching, matched by a clear but delicate delivery throughout.  Ludwig, Hegedus & Ainsworth all had their moments to shine, and all four were pressed into service as instrumentalists as well.  There’s more to it than what I’ve written, as we’re watching something resembling opera; but I feel Soundstreams avoided going there, leaning more towards the realm of a concert rather than a staged piece of drama or opera.  It’s a legitimate choice, allowing for mystery and the excitement of discovery, although for the first piece I was pretty much lost, nice as the music was.

Composer James Rolfe (Photo: Juliet Palmer)

It was the first in a series of concerts for the month-long celebration of Peter Oundjian’s achievement with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as he finishes his fourteen year tenure as music director.  In his introduction Oundjian explained some of the rationale for the program, as though in some respect these concerts tell a story.

“Peter Oundjian: this is your life.”

Or so it seemed as he told us some of his connections to the Bernstein, the Gershwin and the Brahms on the program.  We heard a charmingly funny horror story about Herbert von Karajan from his student days at Juilliard, pushed into a conductor’s role for a movement of the symphony we heard tonight, complete with the obligatory imitation of the great man.

It was the perfect preamble, something I will miss when he’s gone. Oundjian has a wonderfully collegial manner at the microphone, a generous teacher & mentor without much evident ego getting in the way.

We heard the TSO in three works:

• Three Dance Variations from Fancy Free by Leonard Bernstein
• The piano concerto in F by George Gershwin
• Johannes Brahms’ 1st Symphony in C Minor

It’s an odd sort of thing, this business of celebration.  Everyone was so pumped up that we were not watching an orchestra drilled by their master so much as an ensemble reminding me of  eager children performing their Christmas Pageant, complete with the adoring audience eating it all up.

The month to come won’t necessarily be the same as tonight, but for this occasion, the adrenaline was high.  Everything felt a bit louder than usual, as though the acoustics of Roy Thomson Hall had improved. But I think it was simply that everyone played with great commitment.

This was especially true of Jon Kimura Parker, substituting on short notice for an indisposed Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who was to have been the soloist in the Gershwin.  Parker practically ran onstage, bouncing in his seat a couple of times while playing.  This concerto is a favourite of mine, but I have to say this was a reading unlike any I’ve ever heard.  Oundjian played up the jazzy element from the orchestra, giving us big dynamic range.  And Oundjian gave Parker lots of room for his occasionally idiosyncratic rubati, an interpretation with genuine soul.  I’ve always found Oundjian especially generous in concerti, very thoughtful around his soloists with a wonderfully supportive approach: and that was again true tonight.

Oundjian shapes the orchestra in support of soloist Parker (photo: Jag Gundu).

Parker’s encore that he introduced as a tribute to Oundjian was a blistering reading of Oscar Peterson’s Blues Etude, red hot playing in one of the most impressive displays of pianism I’ve seen in a long time.  Wow.

The three brief Bernstein dance movements were little jewels, exploding with energy & verve.

Then came the Brahms, where the orchestra celebrating Oundjian seemed at odds with the need for balance in a large scale work, colliding with the subtleties of this symphony.  It’s weird, that the piece at times was subverted by energy, when I think I would have preferred something less intense, less edgy, more magisterial, unified and self-assured.  We heard solo after solo played beautifully, stunning playing from the string section (for instance in the main theme of the last movement) or the trombones (the choir near the end of the symphony).  I think tomorrow’s concert will be better when they settle down and simply play.

In the days ahead we’ll be hearing the TSO and Oundjian in Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, a concert featuring Christopher Plummer & music inspired by William Shakespeare, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and for the final weekend, Beethoven’s joyful Ninth Symphony.

The last month of Peter Oundjian’s tenure with the Toronto Symphony is unfolding as a celebration.  We’re partway through a series of concerts, with three more programs to come in the next fortnight.

In addition Chandos have released a TSO recording that in some ways epitomizes everything Oundjian stands for. It’s English music but performed by Canadians, a young group of soloists, including some of the talented players recruited & mentored by Oundjian.

I understand that the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams is a special favourite of Oundjian:

• Serenade to Music, for Four Soloists, Chorus, and Orchestra (1938)
• Concerto for Oboe & Strings (1944)
• Flos Campi , Suite for Solo Viola, Small Chorus and Small Orchestra (1924-25)
• Concerto, for Piano and Orchestra (1926-31)

While the four works are varied, they all serve to show off the exquisite sound of a TSO that Oundjian built & trained.

The Serenade to Music is a sensual delight, and as with most of Vaughan Williams output, takes us to a more tuneful & tonal place than what most of his contemporaries were producing.  The Serenade might have been written in the 19th century for its lush tonal palette, a hymn to romance and romantic music itself.  The Elmer Iseler Singers are quicksilver, fluid as breezes and sunshine illuminating the score from within, seemingly effortless.

The Oboe Concerto, composed during the Second World War, came from a composer likely seeking to uplift & inspire, as that’s how this music hits me. It takes us in a more playful & whimsical direction, suggesting a more vulnerable aspect to the composer, both in the achingly beautiful solos from Sarah Jeffrey, and in the textures that surround or answer her oboe.

Flos Campi (or “Flower of the field”) is arguably one of Vaughan Williams very best works.  The inspiration is the Songs of Songs, that most sensual part of the Bible.  Whether you choose to read this as something devotional or just plain sexy, I think your ear will be ravished one way or another, the TSO’s principal viola Teng Li teaming with the Iseler Singers again.

Finally the most surprising piece for me is the concluding Piano Concerto.  It doesn’t sound like the Vaughan Williams I thought I knew.   I’ll have to take the score out of the library to get inside the piece.  The liner notes suggest the influence of Busoni’s Bach transcriptions, which certainly suggests something on the very boundaries of what’s playable: yet I would never have guessed, listening to the ease with which Louis Lortie plays it. There are places that are lyrical, but also places that are more percussive, with a genuine ferocity.

Throughout, the TSO are at the service of the composer & the conductor, a joyful valedictory for Oundjian.  To obtain or download the recording click here.

Sometimes recordings can open a window on the past. I’ve got a “new” CD, actually an old one that’s only new to me. Forgive me if I choose to write about something that’s not easily available but the CD immediately took me back decades to several powerful moments.

1. One of my first live opera experiences, at the U of T Opera School (later the Opera Department)
2. One of my most powerful moments ever playing for singers
3. The first night of the Canadian Opera Company under Lotfi Mansouri

What or rather who do these three moments have in common?  Tenor Ermanno Mauro.

#1, up close in the MacMillan Theatre of the Edward Johnson Building, Mauro’s voice was a powerful experience, in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia.  I remember very little except the visceral pressure of the voice in a space that seemed tiny when he let fly, an effortless sound, and my first real experience of a huge voice.

#2: Playing? I think it must have been the year my brother sang Schaunard with the Canadian Opera Company opposite Mauro as Rodolfo, and so Ermanno came to dinner at my mom’s house: where I still lived, a teenager.  In Opera Viva (that wonderful and sometimes astonishing history of the COC by Ezra Schabas & Carl Morey), I see that it was in the autumn of 1972, when Peter was all of 23 singing on the COC’s mainstage, and Mauro? a mature singer ten years older than my brother with that huge voice.  His Rodolfo could be lyrical, but from an instrument of such power.  I’ve never heard anything like it before or since.

That 1972 experience (#2), one of the most powerful musical experiences of my young life, felt like I was riding a wild horse, playing the Otello vengeance duet while Peter & Ermanno sang.  I played as loud as I could, barely able to hear the piano, while the two voices enveloped me, in my mom’s back-room.  Afterwards I only recall the kindness of the man, so sweet to me while I had been struggling to keep up, sight-reading Verdi, turning pages,  while these two amazing voices belted out music that I had recently heard and embraced from records.  I was 17 and star-struck, but will never forget.  Ermanno’s voice is remarkable, an ideal instrument honed for verismo, spinto singing.   He can sing soft delicate phrases but has a direct sound and secure high notes.  I hear a bit of Giuseppe di Stefano here (particularly in the gentle oh so Italianate pianissimo passages), a bit of James McCracken there (the vowel diphthongs, a sound we sometimes hear from American tenor Russell Thomas).  But unlike di Stefano or McCracken the voice stayed together, the production impressive even in his maturity.

Listen to him sing Otello in this video, nearly 70 years old, and still an amazing voice.

#3 was a curious moment.  The opening of the 1977 fall season, I was sitting in the cheap seats at the back of the O’Keefe Centre for the opening night of Don Carlos, as the COC got the jump on the Metropolitan Opera as the first company in North America to present the original five act version in French. While its acoustics are famously bad, the back rows of the orchestra under the balcony actually tended to be better for sound, as there was a bit of a concentration of the sound there, unlike the dead spots in the midst of the orchestra.  I was back there because it was all I could get, but by a magical fluke, there he was.

Lotfi Mansouri.

He stood directly behind me, pacing, fidgeting about. What was he thinking, I wondered? I could feel his tension.  But the production was handsome and very beautiful in places.  Mauro played the title role.   And the production was the beginning of a quantum leap for the COC.

Pardon me for the preamble, but that’s more or less meant to indicate that when I slipped the CD into the player in my car, I was somewhat breathless in anticipation, encountering an old friend.  The CD is from the CBC SM5000 series in the 1980s, a DDD recording (meaning, fully digital), Mauro singing a dozen arias accompanied by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra conducted by Uri Mayer.  The Boheme aria you see shared via youtube above is from this recording.

In addition?

• “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” from Carmen
• “O souverain” from Le Cid
• “Nessun dorma” from Turandot
• “Un di all’azzuro spazio” from Andrea Chenier
• “Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci
• “Niun mi tema” from Otello
• “Pourquoi me réveiller” from Werther
• “Ah! lève-toi soleil” Romeo et Juliette
• ”Ma, se m’è forza perderti” from Un ballo in maschera
• “Ah si ben mio” from Il trovatore
• “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca

While a purist might take issue with some of the interpretations, Mauro’s pragmatic vocalism is a good match for most of these operas.  In 2018, we could use a voice like this. At times his muscular sound is as big and loud as any I’ve ever encountered, wonderfully reliable on top.  I’ve now listened to his “Niun mi tema” from Otello twice, totally destroyed by it both times.  While his “vesti la giubba” skips the histrionic crying, the way this Otello chooses to die is heart-breaking, and very original to my ear (and speaking of crying, I had enough sobs for the both of us).  Mauro has a very vulnerable soft voice he employs in places, for instance to begin the flower aria, or in “E lucevan le stelle”: but not in the places I expected.  His “oh dolce baci”, going up to the F-sharp, is soft as the kisses he would describe, so gently evocative that you can see the scene he is describing.  The middle voice is huge when he wants to call up a dark and passionate power, as Werther or in Le Cid.

Ermanno Mauro? Quite a voice.  I will be listening to the CD again and again.

The final week of Peter Oundjian’s tenure leading the Toronto Symphony is here, so tantalizing because there’s a genuine rapport between the players & their leader. The future conductors who lead the ensemble, whether as guests or residents, may never get this close to the musicians, all of whom know Oundjian at least from years working together, if not also as the man who found & recruited them to their position. It’s his band to steer for the moment even if he will soon let go of the tiller.

Tonight was in some ways a classic TSO concert, reminding me of so many nights at Roy Thomson Hall, when we’d hear sporadic applause between movements, including the looks of irritation from some who don’t want applause in their silent mid-symphony reverie (like that pensive soul sitting in front of me fidgeting at every noise). There was an early courteous pause to allow patrons to find their seats, and a dramatic eruption near the end from a child whose sobs surprised a parent who must have mistaken Mahler for the Muppets (what was he thinking? At least the child wasn’t separated from his dad, even if I was immediately reminded by the audible cries of other tearful moments on the news this week).  But for me this is typical TSO –in stark contrast to the discipline one sees from the Tafelmusik audience—as we remember that Oundjian has been a teacher not just to the symphonic colleagues he’s mentored but to his audience as well, nursed along in the Decades Project and other efforts to raise the literacy of his listeners. I recall a concert a decade ago that infuriated me for the inability of the audience to be quiet: but at that time the orchestra hadn’t yet persuaded us (the listeners) to keep still.

We’ve come a long way.

The two works on the program couldn’t be more different, both for what they require of the orchestra & leader, as well as what they demand of the listener.

Emanuel Ax at the piano with the TSO led by Peter Oundjian (photo: Nick Wons)

We began with Mozart in the guise of K 453, a piano concerto in G Major, employing veteran soloist Emanuel Ax. As with other concerts in this festival of Oundjiania, Ax has history with Oundjian, being his very first concerto soloist, and he’s now the last as well with this weekend’s concert. I’m sounding like a broken record in once more calling attention to the excellence with which Oundjian follows visiting virtuosi.  I am always impressed with how good he makes them sound, how masterfully the work comes off. Had it been Wolfgang Amadeus himself sitting at the keyboard I don’t think it would have been better (allowing that WA Mozart might have wanted to conduct his own ensemble from the piano, distracted by the big beautiful sounds coming out of his modern instrument, and dazzled to find himself alive in the 21st century surrounded by all the attractive patrons at Roy Thomson Hall). Ax? a humble servant of the music, even in its most challenging moments, never rocking the Mozartian boat.

The big work to conclude, Mahler’s 9th Symphony, was as much a treat for the conductor as for us, guaranteeing that a fun time was had by all: except perhaps the little child who was stunned by the intensity near the end, plus his embarrassed papa, carrying him to the safety of the lobby. For those of us who didn’t have to run away in terror it was quite an event. Oundjian had full commitment from his players this time out, everyone going all out. We got solos in every section, played flawlessly as far as I could tell. Teng Li was especially eloquent tonight in the last days of her tenure as principal violist, before she goes to Los Angeles as the Philharmonic’s new Principal. Oundjian’s interpretation opted for the faster tempi that I usually prefer in Mahler even if that can be fraught with risks, a greater challenge to hold it all together. The intensity never let up, particularly in a hair-raising third movement taken at a break-neck speed. With every year and new arrival, the virtuosity of this orchestra has risen ever higher, so it’s a treat to hear them tested in a showcase work such as this one.

The victory lap continues next week, with a Shakespeare program featuring Christopher Plummer and then Beethoven’s Ninth to finish next weekend.

Michael Slattery & La Nef are back with another recording from ATMA.

A few years ago they collaborated on Dowland in Dublin. On that occasion their project took the music  in a new direction, reminding me of folk music or even pub music. Layers of artifice were cleared away to expose an approach to the composer from a more informal world, a whole other way of hearing & performing the music.

At the time I remember wondering what they might do next, whether there were any other composers they might uncover, revisit, rethink.

And that’s what I thought of when I saw the cover of The People’s Purcell, their latest.

Was there something comparable at work? In the Dowland album they presented a theory that there was an Irish connection, and from there took the music in a wholly new direction, undertaken in a new way. The album made a compelling case for rethinking the composer, even if it began as nothing more than a fun experiment, like the ones we sometimes do when we’re playing around the piano, improvising something hypothetical. What happens if I play the Pathetique in Major instead of minor, or add a dotted rhythm to this Mozart sonata, or play this half as fast or twice as fast. What happens as in, is it funny or is it actually any good?

I am sometimes the fastest person I know: at watching & writing & publishing. I’ll see a show from 8-10 pm, drive home to Scarborough and usually have the review published within the hour, allowing me to go to bed & be up for work the next day. And sometimes? If I’m not sure, if there’s something deeper at work, I may balk, pausing to ponder. This is especially so with CDs & DVDs, where there is no public performance to be promoted by the review, and so the time-frame ceases to matter.

I first listened to The People’s Purcell months ago. It was winter and now spring is giving way to summer. I’ve driven about with this CD on my car’s stereo. I can hum most of this to myself by now because I know every note of the CD. Yet I was stopped, as I tried to understand what was really going on, to make sure I could get a handle on what they were doing, or at least to understand my response, my passionate enthusiasm.

Don’t lose sight of one thing. I really like The People’s Purcell even if I have been pondering it for weeks, unsure of what to say. Just because I can’t really explain its charm or deconstruct it into neat categories doesn’t diminish its achievement. Indeed it’s rather unpretentious, so maybe the key is to just accept it on its own terms. I don’t know what the thought process was behind the People’s Purcell nor do I know exactly what that title meant to them, only that it’s meaningful to me after having listened to this album for several weeks in the car, one of my favourite experimental laboratories.

I find the title very suggestive, very powerful, to tell me what this music has become in the hands of La Nef & Slattery, and perhaps along the way they’ve discovered something about Purcell and how he is traditionally approached. Please feel free to find the answer to the question if you would, in someone else’s review or interview.

The thing is, this really feels like a new way of approaching Purcell, a Purcell I’ve never heard before. The usual Purcell is more formal, more stuffy than this pub-flavored performance. The way La Nef make music it sounds like folk music, even when they’re playing something usually understood as serious baroque music. I found myself imagining musicians after hours, taking the music to the tavern, or playing among themselves, and making something fun out of more serious compositions.

Why you may ask, would anyone need a “people’s Purcell”? unless perhaps the composer has somehow been submerged in something else, lost, misplaced. Whose Purcell was it if not the people’s? Perhaps we’ve had a more pretentious Purcell, the virtuoso’s Purcell or the composer as treated by big institutions such as the church or conservatories. However he’s been represented, this is a kind of unpretentious re-think. Or maybe it’s simply Purcell among the people rather than up above us, a less lofty and ambitious version of a composer sometimes held up as the greatest of all English composers. And how wonderful must he be that he shows himself in a whole new light, even in this rough guise?  I should add, that if you’re someone who loves the way Purcell is usually performed, you’ll think what I just wrote is nonsense, hogwash, PR- BS. But I confess, I am always ready for another look, another approach.

And this is why I keep listening to this CD. Well, there’s also the small matter of my admiration & enjoyment of Michael Slattery’s voice, its impeccable diction & pitch, the directness of communication without the overlay of too much artifice. We have ornamented music on this CD where the ornaments feel natural and organic, rather than forced or artificial. That in itself is an achievement, as though we’re seeing the compositions more clearly, hearing the thought more truly. And his collaboration with La Nef is again such a natural thing, as though the music of Purcell were always played in taverns and bars. HAS it ever been played there?

Perhaps it’s most accurate to say that I was daunted initially by this CD because it straddles boundaries, doesn’t immediately declare itself as opera or classical, neither this nor that. That’s one of its strengths arguably even as that has been the reason I didn’t review it for weeks and weeks. And now as we’re into the summer I want to put out the review, to encourage people to have this the way I have it, ideal for the car as you travel to the cottage or just enjoying a drive with the windows down.

We begin with something called ”An Evening Hymn” that is a perfect illustration of what’s different about this CD.

Let me first link to a typical recording of this piece from youtube.

The voice is lovely, the accompaniment delightful. Notice that this is a hymn that addresses the whole question of how it would be sung, how to deport itself.

Now that the sun hath veil’d his light
And bid the world goodnight;
To the soft bed my body I dispose,
But where shall my soul repose?

Dear, dear God, even in Thy arms,
And can there be any so sweet security!
Then to thy rest, O my soul!
And singing, praise the mercy
That prolongs thy days.

Hallelujah!

This hymn is almost a prayer within a prayer, asking God: how to pray, how to approach God.

Here’s another recording, also quite wonderful!

I’ve listened to several, and they are ALL wonderful. It’s a fabulous little piece of music.

Dare I say it, the version by Slattery & La Nef (sorry I am not presenting it for you) manages to strip away the veneer of art, to get to the essence of the music without making it seem so difficult. In making it seem effortless I feel closer to spirit: the essence of prayer & spirituality. To each his own, naturally. But that’s where I was first won, in that sense of directness & sincerity, of a music with just enough art as to make something beautiful, with enough spontaneity as to allow me to feel what must be felt. Slattery’s evening hymn becomes a different hymn. We’re not in a church that’s for sure. Might we be alone with him as he prays? it’s not big and loud. Where would we imagine this being sung? It seems like a very direct address to the creator, as though in a private space, in a bed softly at bedtime or out in a field alone looking up at the night sky. I think it’s closer to the language of the actual hymn as it benefits from informality, creating intimacy missing from any other version I’ve encountered. They’re all more rhetorical, more formal. This one? is vulnerable and gentle and yes even cute. I find it adorable, heart-breaking in its simplicity.

Let’s try another example. “Let each gallant heart” is a song about love.

Let each gallant heart,
Untouch’d with love’s dart,
Prepare for his secret alarms;
That sluggish repose
Wherein now thou art,
Affords far less numerous charms,
For the warfare of love
Yields a thousand times more
Sweets and delights than your dull peace before.

Long torment ’tis sure
We must calmly endure,
Before the dear prize we obtain.
Yet still the hard toil
Is part of the cure,
And such pleasures we find in our pain,
That the warfare of love
Yields a thousand times more
Blissful delights than your dull peace before.

The text is playful, the realm of love becoming a metaphorical site of warfare. How to approach it?

Here’s one way to read the text & music

I find it somewhat formal, so caught up in being authentic to the baroque style that it’s not really playful. It’s a nice performance, but, well I’m comparing it to what Slattery & La Nef do, and that’s a problem, because I can’t unhear the fun they have.

So let’s finally hear some of Slattery & La Nef so you can have some idea what I’m raving about..!

After the People’s Purcell, I will never be quite the same about any of this music. I will always ask myself: how would they have done it? The entire CD asks me –and perhaps you too – to reconsider Purcell, hear him in a new way. Are we hearing some of the implications in the music, perhaps folk influences? or did they simply go off on a mad folk tangent? I am not sure it matters, or at least it doesn’t matter to me. I am not listening to this as a definitive Purcell but rather as an alternative, a kind of deconstructed or reconstructed Purcell, synthesized from folk music, as though he were played in pubs & taverns rather than concert halls & conservatories.  I am wondering, are all those precise classical artists perhaps being too strict, not playful enough? It’s an unpretentious project, this rethink of Purcell. If you ask them to document or prove this by some kind of musicological criteria, it must fail. But it’s the Purcell you might hear in a bar over a few drinks, not the Purcell you’d ever find in the concert hall: unless of course they invite La Nef & Slattery to perform there.

They certainly have my ear.

Tonight’s concert, the latest in the month-long Toronto Symphony celebration of Peter Oundjian, was like a cross between a pops concert and a play reading, titled “Christopher Plummer’s Symphonic Shakespeare”. It was like “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits”, a series of textual highlights delivered by Christopher Plummer, embellished with some of the famous music associated with each of the plays being sampled, and it was smooth as silk, effortless as if they’ve done this program a thousand times..

But it felt like an event. The fact that we watched The Great Man at work for a couple of hours felt very special. Plummer may be in his 80s, he may walk with a bit of a limp that he’s earned with years of toil onstage and onscreen, but he’s still capable of silencing a full theatre with his eloquence. We heard famous passages from several plays, as Plummer showed us the brilliance he still commands even now. Shakespearean magic was wound around the moments of appreciation for Oundjian, with whom he shared the stage & the adulation of a thrilled audience at Roy Thomson Hall. I wish I could tell you it’s to be repeated tomorrow but this is the only time, and I’ll never forget it.

We heard a relatively small sampler of the wonderful music Shakespeare has inspired (given that there’s such an enormous amount): yet it filled out the evening. Every nation’s music, every great composer has taken their turn, if not several turns either adapting Shakespeare (in opera, ballet or musicals), or writing music to accompany a presentation of a play or film adaptation. Over the course of this delightful program we heard from Wagner, Debussy, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Korngold, Rota, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, & Willan.

At times Plummer & Oundjian worked at the same time, the music underscoring a passage: for instance in the Walton “Passacaglia” from Henry V, as Plummer gave us first Falstaff and then the King answering.

But for the most part it was more of a give & take, the music and the text going back and forth, answering one another. In the end that’s the most natural thing, given that the text & music are part of a centuries-old dialogue, words inspiring the composition of music, the music inspiring the reading of the words.  And again. Again.

It was magical.

At times Plummer would give us BOTH characters in a scene, offering a contrast in the voice & body language to differentiate for us, so we’d know Falstaff from King Henry, or Puck from Oberon.

At the end there was huge applause for both men and the orchestra as well.

All that remains for Oundjian of his tenure as TSO Music Director are a series of performances of Beethoven’s Ninth this Thursday, Friday & Saturday nights with soloists & the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

Peter Oundjian, autographing the Scheherazade CD for (lucky) me

Composer Stephanie Martin & playwright Paul Ciufo are collaborating on their first opera, The Llandovery Castle.  They’re telling the story of the sinking of an unarmed hospital vessel of that name exactly 100 years ago. On the night of June 27th 1918 it was torpedoed by a German U-boat.

Martin and Ciufo worked with the Bicycle Opera Project team to present a workshop performance of the piece with a small ensemble of musicians using Calvin Presbyterian Church.  The location works for a piece ending with these final words:

You must bear witness 
In the darkest of times 
There were those who chose 
To walk in the light

Do operas about war help us AVOID war or GLORIFY war?

Just in the last few days, I confess I have listened to the following compositions that valorize sacrifice & battle:

• Some of William Walton’s music from Henry V at last night’s TSO concert with Christopher Plummer
• A new CD of Berlioz’s Les Troyens (new to me, as it was recorded in 1960), that I listen to, over and over, in the car
• And I keep watching Scorsese’s  Hugo including Sacha Baron Cohen as a WW I war veteran whose disability humanizes him

Do we even KNOW what war is anymore, or have we forgotten? Our films, like our operas before, invite us to repeat the same errors over and over, sensationalizing, commemorating, celebrating the ultimate horror.

Do we EVER learn? Perhaps this opera can help.

Martin composes with a very accessible style that’s a reminder if not an admonition to composers insisting on more challenging approaches to music-making. If opera is to be a piece of theatre, especially if it’s to move the audience, it can’t turn its back upon melody & diatonic composition.  The lesson is clear enough if you look at the most successful composers of the past century such as Puccini or Richard Strauss, composers employing a style of music sometimes seen as sentimental verging on kitsch, but in the process moving you to tears.

One might well ask how one could tell a story like this one without sentiment?

The Bicycle Opera production was completely successful in my view, given that we were watching a work in progress.  Director Tom Diamond had a fascinating conceit that framed the workshop presentation, by offering the performance as though we were watching a live presentation of a radio play.

Singing into the “microphone” of the radio broadcast. (photo: Will Ford)

That sets up the possibility of anachronism, as well as giving us a context that forgives any shortcomings in the staging, because of course in a radio play it’s all hand-made and improvised before us, into the “broadcast microphone” (which is a prop of course).  We were invited to use our imaginations, while we heard elements in the music to suggest the rhythms of the sea, the various anthems of countries, hymn tunes, and yes, desperate music when the torpedo hits.

Conductor Kimberley-Ann Bartczak gave a tidy account of the score, leading an ensemble of nine players, and nine singers, often all singing or playing at once, supplying plenty of sound for the church’s acoustic.

I can’t tell whether composer & librettist believe their piece is finished or not; while the current version felt complete yet they may see things in this workshop that leads them to change the work.  You may wish to explore the piece further by looking at their website that includes the program including a synopsis,  libretto and a link should you wish to contribute to the project.  (choose “Bicycle Opera Project” in the drop-down)

Tomorrow will be the last concert in this month-long celebration of Peter Oundjian’s tenure with the Toronto Symphony. I would have gone tomorrow but unfortunately I have to be somewhere else, and will miss that last encounter between orchestra & conductor, between Peter & his audience.

Peter Oundjian leading the massed forces of Beethoven’s 9, seen from the back of Roy Thomson Hall (photo: Nick Wons). And doesn’t that look like the mother ship is about to land?

Tonight was pretty good though even if it’s but the penultimate.

We heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.  The piece is ideal for this sort of occasion, an instant happening. For three movements the orchestra plays while a crowd of brooding faces watch and listen from the stage. It was almost like three different symphonies, totally unlike one another, each in the presence of the 150 formally attired singers of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, waiting their turn. The dissonance that opens the last movement might almost sum up the shock we feel when oh my they’re standing up, perfectly synchronized.

Something is going to happen!  Of course it won’t be a surprise when they also sing in perfect synchronization.

And –to quote Anna Russell—if Beethoven doesn’t tell the whole story, all over again (admittedly in miniature).

It’s quite a drama, with the conductor at the centre.

The first movement begins with a lot of nothing, as Harvey Olnick pronounced decades ago. Olnick was a music professor describing the opening of Die Walküre by Richard Wagner, pointing out the way Wagner’s opera begins with something reminiscent of Beethoven and the drama of pure ambiguity, “nothing” in the sense that Beethoven opened a discursive window, a space for us to listen and think, gradually filled in by the first big statement of the theme and lots more. Olnick felt that every composer wanted to do what Beethoven achieved, as so many others imitated this model, including Gustav Mahler with his own 9th symphony that Oundjian led just last week, also in D but much gentler to begin.

The second movement, a scherzo that could be titled “and now for something completely different” (like so many other scherzi come to think of it), gets them playing in a whole other way; and just when you think you know where Beethoven’s leading you (the timpani & that obsessive rhythm first in a string figure than enlarged to the whole orchestra), presto, he knocks you on your can for the trio, in an entirely different rhythm from a different part of the orchestra, and an entirely different flavour. Where the main section of the scherzo is powerfully rhythmic and even a bit scary, the trio is cute and nostalgic: as trios are wont to be.

Two movements down, and so far pretty close to perfect from the TSO & Oundjian, as far as I could tell.

We go off in another meditative direction for the third movement, lyrical & sublime, even at the quick tempo Oundjian takes: which as I must have said many times, is how I always prefer it. The orchestra are playing with great enthusiasm but entirely surrendering to the boss, following him to the ends of the earth or at least the end of the movement.

And then lordy by Jordy, we come to that cacophonous opening to the fourth movement when all heck seems to be breaking loose, and on top of everything else the choir is standing up.

And as I implied in invoking Madam Russell a moment ago, the opening reminds us of where we’ve been, the ups and down of emotion. Do we want to traverse such a path? shall we try a bit of movement #1? how about a sample of #2? or how about #3?

Perhaps.

But we are going to be admonished: not these tones, but joy instead. First it’s just the strings playing that recitative, then it’s the baritone solo sung by Tyler Duncan, one of the most impressive versions of this I’ve ever heard. It’s quite a challenge when you think about it. On the one hand there’s this big orchestra, sounding like all heck is breaking loose. So you have to sing big and loud just to be heard. But hold on a second, you have to sing big and loud, while saying “oh friends, not these tones” (meaning: not this emotional stuff….).

He will tell us that instead, let’s be joyful.

So you got that? He has to sing loudly while telling us to be joyful, which (if you think of a poor struggling baritone bleating as loudly as he can) often comes off with all the kindness and joy of a U-boat commander ordering you to put your hands in the air. (if you don’t believe me go look on youtube, but don’t say I didn’t warn you).  Yet Duncan managed to smile, managed to look friendly, and yes, managed to sing this audibly without bellowing or shouting, beautiful tone, coherent, perfect.

Amazing.

And so we’re into the “Ode to Joy”, Duncan’s baritone echoed by the big chorus standing behind who are now not just bearing witness in their silent formal splendor but adding weight to whatever anyone sings, and genuinely sounding joyful.

Soloists MacKinnon, Segal, Haji, Duncan, led by Peter Oundjian (photo: Nick Wons)

We’ll get some other solo burblings, echoing Duncan’s exhortations, as Andrew Haji, Lauren Segal & Kirsten MacKinnon join in or sing their own lovely solo moments.

We build then soften, then build some more, Oundjian leading them all to a wild Dionysian conclusion.

I’m sure he’ll come back to visit from time to time, especially as he remembers the passionate ovation at the end.

Joy indeed!

Peter Oundjian thanking the audience as they thank him (photo: Nick Wons)

It’s a testament to what might have been, this CD I’m reviewing, a relic to be sure.  In 1960 the stars didn’t quite align, wouldn’t permit the recording that was intended, Sir Thomas Beecham engaged to conduct Hector Berlioz’s mammoth Les Troyens in New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC: but it was not meant to be.

The complete Les Troyens wasn’t heard in the composer’s lifetime, a larger than life work I’d dearly love to see undertaken here in Toronto by the Canadian Opera Company. It might be ideal for the COC, with lots of big moments from the orchestra & chorus, although one does have to recruit at least one spectacular tenor soloist for the role of Aenée, and such a long work would be expensive to prepare.  That won’t stop me from dreaming of Berlioz’s orchestral colours.

The CD is conducted by Robert Lawrence, a noted Berlioz champion & scholar: or so say the liner notes.  He’s not the reason I obtained it, as the soloists on the cover were the reason I was attracted, after seeing the recording mentioned by a friend on social media.  But reading the liner notes I realize what might have been, that didn’t quite come to fruition.

The recording is actually from two different days, as Beecham’s plan was to honour Berlioz’s original division of the work into two different works, namely La prise de Troie and Les Troyens à Carthage.  The recording captures two concerts roughly two weeks apart.

Oh well, no Beecham.   But I bought it for three key parts:

• Aenée, sung by tenor Richard Cassilly
• Didon, sung by mezzo-soprano Regina Resnik
• Cassandre, sung by mezzo-soprano Eleanor Steber

The detailed account in the liner notes of the event in New York at the end of 1959 and to begin 1960 makes for a tale as epic as the one in the storyline.  Can the notes be believed? While it says the work was to be presented with few cuts, in fact there’s a lot missing from the 3 CD set. Three CDs?  Yes, the ballet has mostly been cut.  The Dutoit –OSM recording for example is more than three quarters of an hour longer, on 4 CDs not 3.  I am having a great time listening to the wonderful singing on this new recording: but the opera has been distorted.  If for example we’re missing the celebratory ballet in the First Act –after the dark procession, to open the 2nd scene and just before the overwhelming sadness in the pantomime of Hector’s son & widow: it’s continuously dark for most of the act as we’re then on to Cassandre’s desperate ranting just before the horse is brought into the city.   Here’s an example of what we’re missing (from another recording), one of those cheerful Berlioz divertissements.

No question, ballet sequences like this one make the opera longer: but they’re an essential part of the whole.

But I bought the CD hoping for great singing.  I heard Richard Cassilly sing a powerful Siegmund in the Canadian Opera Company’s Die Walküre in 1976, a singer who was a regular with the COC in the decade before.  I remembered the timbre of his voice very clearly, and eagerly wondered: what could he sound like in his youth?  Surely even better. This CD answers the question. The edge and ring are remarkable. He mostly sings on pitch, in one of the most difficult roles.  The live performance does undermine a few moments, as for example in Cassilly’s entrance for “inutile regrets”, when his first word is almost inaudible, possibly because he is entering. Or maybe the engineer simply messed up and had the microphone level too low? But live means dramatic, and I wouldn’t trade that for studio perfection.  His voice rings wonderfully even though he can’t reach the C in that final big aria.

The two female leads are also interesting to hear.  Steber’s Cassandre suffers from a grasp of the language that is mediocre.  Even so her vocalism is passionate, at times so dark as to sound almost painful in its intensity.

Resnik’s Didon is the most successful characterization on the recording, precisely sung and in tune.  Her final half-hour is devastatingly powerful, her heart-break showing more genuine anger than any Didon I’ve heard.  Once Aenée has gone –at her insistence—she shows another side, a sadder tone and a nostalgic love that must lead her to take her own life.  The characterization hangs together wonderfully well.  And I keep listening to her duet with Cassilly to close the fourth act, a wonderfully musical reading.

While Beecham didn’t participate his hand is still evident on the tiller.  The sound of this orchestra is deliciously full, the brass totally in your face.  Speaking of orchestras, it’s very vague on the notes as to what orchestra we’re hearing. There’s no orchestra mentioned in any of the usual places, although when you pore through the booklet you see one indirect mention of them, as it says “Robert Lawrence, critic, author, musicologist, and associate conductor of the American Opera Society, would step in.” Earlier we see that these concerts are being presented by the American Opera Society.  Can one conclude that this is their orchestra? Perhaps: but it’s totally undignified considering they the biggest contributors to this massive piece are never actually named, never credited; and ditto for the chorus.  Presumably they too are from the American Opera Society.  Too bad they’re not mentioned by name.

The bits of Beecham I’ve heard on youtube suggest that the substitution weakens the performance. Lawrence is a bit too respectful, at times dragging the piece and much slower than what I hear from Beecham’s 1947 recording.  In the big procession of the horse to conclude Act I –one of my favourite moments—Lawrence commits an unpardonable sin, mistaking this music for something symphonic rather than diegetic.  When a huge procession marches and comes to a big climax, to broaden the tempo and slow down for a musical effect makes it clear: you’re in a concert and not in a real procession. You wouldn’t do this in a real march.  But the orchestral sound is remarkable, big and powerful even if it’s mono.  For the key vocal ensembles, Lawrence and the orchestra sound just fine, Berlioz being well served.

So let me be clear.  Les Troyens is one of my favourite operas. As I’m eternally hungry to hear different interpretations of this music, I found it fascinating.  But unless you’re a rabid Berlioz fan like me, or perhaps a fervent admirer of Resnik, I can’t in good conscience recommend this recording, not when there are other versions available that give a better account of the score, and with better sound.

Toronto Summer Music Festival’s theme for 2018 is “Reflections of Wartime”, in the centennial of the last year of World War I.  Tonight was my first concert, a presentation titled “Tears of Exile”, a program by Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (SMAM), led by their artistic director Andrew McAnerney. While SMAM sometimes perform with period instrument ensembles tonight’s works were all unaccompanied. We heard 12 singers easily fill the Walter Hall space.

SMAM Artistic Director Andrew McAnerney

Here’s the programme note that you might expect to explain the rationale for what we heard:

In the 7th century BC Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, conquered Jerusalem. The destruction of the Temple of Solomon, the ruin of the Kingdom of Judah, and the captivity of the Jews in Babylon were described in the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah. The text, which considers this defeat to be a punishment from God, inspired several great composers of the Renaissance. This program features three magnificent and moving polyphonic Lamentations from the 16th century –by the Briton Thomas Tallis, Spaniard Cristóbal de Morales, and Flemish-German Roland de Lassus–, each adapting the magic of counterpoint in the spirit of his respective nation.

Okay, that’s a start, but doesn’t fully explain, particularly in context with the Festival’s theme. Perhaps the best idea would be to tell you what we actually heard in addition to those Renaissance works, a series of works that will be hard to surpass as Reflections of Wartime.

In the first half of the concert we heard Lamentations by Tallis, de Lassus and then a 20th century setting by Ralph Vaughan Wiliams  composed in the first decade after WW I even though employing the text in Latin. After intermission we heard the very same text as the Vaughan Williams but as though we were flashing back to the Renaissance for a setting by Lassus, followed by de Morales. And then we were treated to another 20th century setting: or at least I think it’s a setting. This last one by Rudolf Mauersberger, “Wie liegt die Stadt” was in German without a Biblical textual reference, yet was very much of a piece with the other texts, and sounded like it could be a lamentation from the Book of Jeremiah, if we ignore the missing letters from the Hebrew alphabet: a characteristic found in the Lamentations, and emulated by all the other composers, Vaughan Williams included.

That final work may have referenced Jerusalem –like all the others—but had additional resonance for the composer, who had seen the destruction of Dresden. So in other words for this concert it was as though we were standing outside time, looking at the exile of the Israelites, but with the benefit of those 20th century perspectives. All save the final German text closed with the line in Latin “Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum”, translated as “Jerusalem, turn back to the Lord your God.” Every one of the texts takes up that idea from Jeremiah, that God was punishing sinful humans, remembering, mourning, lamenting. With all the 20th century wartime images we’ve seen, bombs dropping, buildings shattered, one feels the ancient texts & scores with a great immediacy.

It was wonderful to be able to compare the different settings, to hear different approaches to text & to voice, sometimes contrapuntal in a smooth flowing texture, at other times voices emerging out of the background. And when we came to the German text its intelligibility is entirely different from the Latin ones, because the music isn’t a dense counterpoint but more direct statements, its events not something we read in the Bible but have seen in films & photographs.

SMAM have a wonderful versatility. When they’re singing the Renaissance texts you figure that early repertoire and a historically informed style is their strong-point. And then they start singing Vaughan Williams, making more sense of him than any of the local choirs I’ve heard recently, precisely because they are understated, with clear elegant phrasing. The Mauersberger too was excellently executed, the voices unforced and exactly as strong as they needed to be.

Toronto Summer Music Festival continues until August 4th.

It was all there tonight, on the stage of Koerner Hall.

Sometimes concerts are microcosms that allow you to see and grasp everything in one lucid moment. It’s the second year of Jonathan Crow’s tenure as Artistic Director of the Toronto Summer Music Festival, and already I’m seeing some wonderful indications, portents of what’s in store.

The progam was yin and yang, really, two contrasting items. We began with a lovely bit of music that functioned like the straight man, contrasting to what was to follow. Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring was warm, alternatively playful and sentimental. I suppose at one time this score was a cool surface, but in context with what was to follow, this was the softer gentler part of the evening.  While the second half would involve staging, the first half was a concert of music only.

We were listening not just to Crow & colleagues from the Toronto Symphony Chamber Soloists –especially Miles Jaques clarinet & Kelly Zimba flute—but Summer Fellows from the Festival sharing the stage: Katya Poplyansky, Jennifer Murphy & Samuel Park, violins; Cassia Drake & Damon Taheri, violas; Francesca McNeeley & Rebecca Shasberger, cellos, and Ana Manastireanu, piano.

How many hats does Crow already have? He’s the TSO’s concertmaster, the artistic director of the TSM Festival, but tonight we watched him also mentoring a group of wonderful young players.

And after intermission, things went in a totally different direction, as Crow turned to his colleague Alaina Viau for a production of L’Histoire du Soldat by Igor Stravinsky. Viau works on the production side of the TSO when she’s not also creating works as artistic director of Loose Tea Music Theatre.

(l-r) Derek Boyes as the narrator, Suzanne Roberts Smith, the Soldier, and Jennifer Nichols, the Princess.

I don’t know whose idea it was to program these works, as part of a festival whose theme is “Reflections of Wartime”. The title of Stravinsky’s work links it to war, although there’s not much actual soldiering or war in the piece. But it’s exactly the centennial of the work from that amazing decade when Stravinsky burst upon the world stage particularly with the Ballets Russes & the ballets premiered with Diaghilev. L’Histoire contains lots of moments that almost echo passages you’ve heard in Le Sacre du Printemps. But this is a work whose edginess pushes wonderfully against the safer sounds we heard in the first half (which is why I suggested Copland played straight man to Stravinsky). And it’s a delightful work of theatre, possibly anticipating the kind of things you could see in a cabaret  in Germany years later.

And so, after the intermission we watched six players sharing the stage with Derek Boyes our devilish narrator, Suzanne Roberts Smith, as the actor portraying the Soldier, and Jennifer Nichols, who joined in partway through as dancer & choreographer, portraying the Princess. It’s a version of the Faust story, the hero mostly at the mercy of this devil, naïve & innocent & largely helpless, but heroic nonetheless. Smith filled the stage with her persona, especially eloquent near the end. The unexpected gender of soldier is a welcome choice from Viau, one that made the work feel very new to me. As for Nichols, I think it’s astonishing to watch this eclectic work, listening to narration as though in a storybook or melodrama, and suddenly watch the romantic dancing between Smith & Nichols. The fact that one is a beautiful & accomplished dancer, while the other is not? A very theatrical element, actually. Instead of watching virtuoso dance, we were watching an encounter between two people. Boyes, Smith & Nichols were ably supported by Crow –especially in his wonderful solos playing the violin on behalf of Smith—and the TSO Chamber Soloists: Jaques, Zimba, Gordon Wolfe trombone, Jeffrey Beecher bass, Andrew McCandless trumpet, Michael Sweeney bassoon, Charles Settle percussion.

Part of the magic is in the knowledge that each of these programs is a one-shot deal. No further performances, alas! But that does make the ones we see that much more special.

TSM Festival continues until August 4th .

I write a lot about transcriptions possibly because they’re so much fun. Sometimes I can manage to play them, sometimes they’re too difficult but still fascinating to explore.  One plays a piano piece while imagining an original from another context, perhaps a Walter Mitty exercise, but sometimes magic.

I remember a conversational exchange I had once with Professor Carl Morey many years ago.  I told him I was transcribing a piece of music by Janacek, reducing it to a version for keyboards.

He simply asked “why would you want to do that? The original is fine as it is”.

The question has haunted me. I think it could spawn a dissertation or two, a profound question. Some people might say “why do it” in the spirit of wishing that the original be left alone and seeing little or no value in the exercise of transcription.

Of course that gets really funny when the transcribing goes in the opposite direction. This week I believe there will be two performances of Debussy’s Petite Suite on the very same night, Tuesday July 31^st.

• One is an orchestral version and likely the one most people know: even though it’s actually a transcription.
• One is piano four-hands: the original from which that well-known orchestral piece comes.

I’ll be going to the piano concert, as most times I prefer the original. Fascinated as I’ve been with the two great piano transcriptions of Bach’s violin partita –one by Busoni, one by Brahms—I still understand the unadorned Bach as the ideal from which the others come, adaptations that paraphrase, and in so doing hint at that other word “parody”.  Adaptations sometimes honour an original, and sometimes may seem to clothe it in funny shoes & clown make-up.  While the Ravel transcription of Mussorgskii’s Pictures at an Exhibition is probably far more popular than the piano original, I find that in places it distorts rather than illuminates.

I was dumbstruck by Carl’s question, so many years ago, and answer it differently now than I would have then.

I find myself thinking about a related field, namely translation, both as illustration and perhaps to help me understand my feelings.  Suppose you’ve heard of a wonderful play in Germany but don’t speak German. What can you do to explore this text?  Oh sure, someone might give you a capsule plot summary. But that’s surely no substitute, any more than reading the Wikipedia entry really tells you what a piece of music or a play is really like.

I’m reminded in passing of a friendly argument I had while trying to get control of the TV once very long ago.   “Why” she asked “do you need to watch the baseball game, when you can read about it later in the newspaper, to find out who won?”

I didn’t immediately come up with the smart-ass response that I later gave.  “But you can read the synopsis in the TV guide and know how the movie comes out”.

In other words, we don’t watch a movie to see who wins at the end.  We’re there for the journey, to see how they get from beginning to end. Ditto for the baseball game, and also for the transcription.  If I can’t play it for myself as I see the music on a page, I don’t get the same sense of it as when I simply hear it performed.

Now of course that analogy I made with the translation –where you can’t encounter it without the help of a translator—applies also to a transcription, although not so much now in the era of A-V media and youtube.  But imagine you’re living in 1850.  You’re aware of Beethoven’s symphonies or Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.  But how precisely were you supposed to hear them in the era before the phonograph? Or if the work was a difficult rarity such as a Wagner opera, and not being programmed?

That’s where Franz Liszt came in.  He made piano transcriptions of those works, helping people discover them who otherwise would never have been able to hear them.

Now of course Liszt was one of the greatest pianists in history, using these compositions as vehicles, impressive display pieces if nothing else.  In passing he was also a champion of Berlioz, Beethoven, Wagner and so many others.

Scores have value even to those of us who can’t play them.

I’m working with a rather unique transcription of Liszt’s, his piano + viola version of Harold in Italy.  Concerti can be huge fun to play at the piano, because the orchestral reduction is usually an easy thing to play.  Beethoven’s concerti for instance are available in two piano versions, where the soloist version is of course meant for a virtuoso, while the orchestral part is much easier.  The normal pattern in a concerto is that the reduced version of the orchestral part is much simpler than the soloist’s part.

But Liszt’s Harold in Italy is different.  The piano part is phenomenally challenging, almost unplayable in places.

So while in the past I have usually teamed up with a soloist while sight-reading the orchestral part, this is a different scenario entirely.  I have to practice: because it’s so difficult.  And only then would I approach a viola player.  I was thinking that for now it’s music minus one, but indeed, even if I never look for a viola player it’s wonderful stuff.  The two inner movements are much easier than the outer ones, which have all the virtuoso challenges one expects from a Liszt piano score.

You see in the picture that the score hints at the original, in telling us the orchestral instruments that would be playing in the usual version at this moment in the score.

Might one play this, seeking to imitate the original, at least aware of that overpowering orchestra surrounding the viola soloist?

But any transcription is an invitation to the imagination, inviting you to see & hear beyond what’s on the page.  We’re in the realm of virtual reality, as the score points back to that other world.

It seems like a lifetime ago, back when Glenn Gould was still alive. I’d first learned of him in my childhood as the one who showed us a new approach to Bach, a famous performer who had then abandoned live performance to communicate solely through virtual media such as the recording studio or the radio.

And when he then turned to Wagner I should not have been surprised when his interpretations were unique.

He’s gone of course.

More recently –this century, possibly even this decade—I discovered that Glenn Gould’s Wagner transcriptions that I’d heard so long ago as vinyl recordings, could be purchased as scores.

• Siegfried Idyll
• Dawn & Siegfried’s Rhine-Journey
• Die Meistersinger Prelude

I first encountered them in the Edward Johnson Library, which seems only fair & just, given that the editor is Carl Morey, a former Dean of the Faculty of Music.

The second encounter was when (after taking one out of the library) I realized I needed to buy these scores. And so I made the purchase in the spring of 2017 buying all three from Schott Music. They’re beautiful clear impressions of the music, with notes from Professor Morey.

You may have noticed that this makes two things I’m talking about today, that were in yesterday’s post, namely 1-transcriptions and 2-Carl Morey.

Okay, the Schott scores are my departure point to talk about Gould himself. Two of the three are in a separate category that is the reason for that funny headline. I believe the peculiarities of these two are at the very least a window on the elusive –or is that “reclusive”(?)—Mr Gould. The scores are full of contradictions that reflect the pianist. The contradictions on the page reflect the contradictions on the stage, the reclusive virtuoso, the invisible celebrity. Which of course is the first obvious thing we know about Gould, the pianist who retreated from public view, who opted for a life as a kind of virtual star of the recording studio and CBC, rather than the usual exhibitionism encountered on the concert stage. I think it’s assumed that performers are extroverted, that they want to be seen and even to show off their skills.

But what if a performer were introverted? I leave that question aside, while we turn our attention to the three transcriptions, especially the two anomalous ones.

You’re probably wondering “how can a piano transcription be oxymoronic??” Although the scores speak for themselves perhaps Morey’s notes are the clearest indication:

Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhein Journey has the unusual feature (shared with and more extended in the Prelude to Die Meistersinger) of having been written for a kind of four-hand duo performance.

Now of course if you don’t have four hands..? then that means you can’t play the piece, at least in those passages requiring four hands. A piano transcription is a magical kind of thing, something like a Bell Rocket belt, stilts or seven-league boots.

A piano can’t play a piece meant for the full orchestra, can it? It can and it can’t, depending on what you understand inside your head. When you’ve heard a lovely orchestral piece and then play a piano reduction you may hear the wonders of that reduction through your fingers. It’s magic, a bit of a contradiction in play, as you’re using your two hands to replicate the work of many hands, sometimes the work of over 100 people.

It’s helpful that my brain is less literal-minded than some. For example I am partial to Terry Gilliam’s Adventures of Baron Munchausen, celebrating the magic of story-telling with a huge assist from Michael Kamen.

And so, when you play something that teases you and suddenly requires four hands: you run into a real obstacle, as though your rocket belt suddenly has no fuel. Either you fake the parts that are missing (from the other two hands:  which some of us will do of course), or you leave something out. But there’s no question that at this point, where four hands are required, the transcriptions cease to be real transcriptions. You don’t really fly.

Let’s pause for a moment to speak of the one transcription of the three that is fully playable. Gould transcribed the Siegfried Idyll as a stunning piece of music. In a few places it gets a little difficult, yes. You’ll notice that when he plays the piece himself, he goes a little slowly in places. I can’t tell if that’s because he’s a perfectionist in his aim to play the music without any blemish or flaw, or because he’s aligning himself with a tradition of slower interpretations. For some people, any performance of Wagner should be slow & stately, soulful and stirring. This appears to have more to do with a performance tradition of conductors of the 20th century than anything Wagner told us.

When you hear all those inner voices that he’s bringing out, you can’t help thinking of that earlier Gould, the one who played the Goldbergs, bringing out all the hidden treasures. Hearing this Wagner, one suddenly sees a link back to the counterpoint of JS Bach. In fact since spotting this connection –in Gould’s transcription and performance—I have a whole different understanding of Meistersinger and even Parsifal, works that also have lots of inner voices that can be brought out.

So what was going on in those two that become unplayable (unless you were born with 4 hands)..?

I think they’re simply creatures of the studio. Gould was able to overdub, and so created versions that he played with himself in private, and shared with us. In a sense this is the most honest thing one can imagine, that the magician has shown us how he did his tricks.

I sometimes find myself lost in the contradictions, whether playing or thinking about playing such pieces. Gould is this textual idealist creating something that is in a sense like hypertext, illuminating while obscuring, as unreachable as Gould himself.

“5” is the Siegfried-Idyll, “6” the Meistersinger Prelude while the page is open to an unplayable passage in “7” during Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. Buddha had nothing to say.

Tonight’s installment of the Toronto Summer Music Festival might seem to have ignored their theme of “Reflections of Wartime”. The only real battle in Walter Hall was for our hearts, a friendly popularity contest between Angela Cheng and Alvin Chow.

Alvin Chow & Angela Cheng (photo © Lisa Kohler)

Tonight was about pleasure & beauty. In a year when I’ve had the most visceral fear of war this century I make no apologies, have no guilt. North Korea? they are at it again they tell us. Toronto is having a skirmish with the new Premier and  are discovering how powerful he has become, by moving up the road from Queen st (aka City Hall) to Queens Pk.

Nevermind, because as Beethoven might have reminded his friends: “Nicht diese tone”.

No, instead let’s think of vested monkeys in processions, rowboats, dances, dances and yet more dances.

It’s the summertime after all.

While I haven’t been to that many concerts in the festival, when I looked through the schedule this was one that caught my eye early on, a crowd-pleasing program. Tomorrow night’s is back to serious fare, but I needed this kind of escape. The first half was a solo recital by Angela Cheng, while the second half was twice the action, as Cheng was joined by her partner in real life & at the keyboard, Alvin Chow. We heard some four-handed playing –where both sit at the same instrument—and music for two pianos.

We sidled up to the fun stuff, beginning in a first half that was much more a celebration of beauty. Cheng began with Beethoven’s penultimate sonata in a genial reading, sometimes humming along (and to her credit, more in tune than Glenn Gould ever was). At times her head was down in concentration, at other times, her head back in a kind of ecstatic space, the music more soulful at those lyrical moments.

After our one nod towards the German side of the equation, the remainder of the program was progressively more French as we went on. To close the first half we went half French / half Polish in the person of Frédéric Chopin. His G minor Ballade is so well-known you could see audience members adjusting their bodies in anticipation of their favourite passages, and Cheng didn’t disappoint.

Is it apt for the festival theme that they programmed a warhorse? Cheng gave it a suitably operatic reading, delicate in soft melodic passages, fiery and passionate when the piece explodes into frenetic action. The audience were eating out of her hand by this point.

After the interval it was all French & all fun.

I was quite taken with Cheng & Chow in their reading of Debussy’s Petite Suite. In this, one of the four-handed pieces, we saw a phenomenal chemistry between the players. We heard terrific detail, lots of precise attacks & jagged rhythms all played with balance and wit, yet retreating in the middle sections into softer tones of nostalgia & regret, rubati that never overstepped the boundaries of good taste.

It must be fun to be them at home, don’t you think?

The pleasure principle was again on display in a dazzling reading of Milhaud’s Scaramouche suite. Where the Debussy was refined, elegant & retrained, the dynamics were much more extreme this time, both in the aggressive dissonances and the sheer energy. Yet the middle movement was particularly delicate, verging on voluptuous, every moment a sensuous delight.

To close we heard a tour de force reading of La Valse, Ravel giving us his musical Rorschach test. (Psst… what do you think it means?) Watching this wonderful couple work their magic, I think that if there’s any war in Ravel’s music, it’s the normal warfare of a husband and wife, libido & life itself.

For an encore I was again envious, watching them play the Berceuse from Fauré’s Dolly suite, in a four handed reading that was almost indecently intimate, beautiful beyond words.

Oh well, I had to go home at the end of the concert, one of the nicest evenings I’ve spent in awhile.  Tomorrow is a serious program, then Thursday is a big band celebration at Koerner.

Something for everyone!

It was promoted as a comedy.

That reminds me of a joke I heard years ago.

Stalin is addressing the Supreme Soviet, speaking and suddenly: a sneeze is heard.

Stalin stops speaking, and asks sternly “who snyeeezed?” (my friend who told the joke was trying to say the word with a Russian accent. Would Stalin have spoken with an accent? but never mind.)

Dead silence. Nobody dares answer!

Stalin gestures silently. Soldiers come, hustle everyone in the front row out of the theatre, and out they go at a dead run.

The door closes, and then Stalin resumes speaking, but partway through we hear from outside “rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat” of machine guns mowing them down.

Stalin stops speaking, and makes a stern face. “Alright. Who snyeeeeezed?!”

Dead silence. Nobody dares answer!

Stalin gestures silently. Soldiers come, hustle everyone in the second row out of the theatre, and out they go at a dead run.

The door closes, and then Stalin resumes speaking, but partway through we hear from outside “rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat” of machine guns, mowing them down.

Stalin stops speaking, and makes a stern face. “Okay?? So….Who SNYEEEEZED?!”

There’s dead silence…. But a hand is raised, shaking. And a thin voice is heard.

“It-it-it was I, C-c-comrade Stalin. I sneezed!”

To which Stalin responds. “Aha…! Gesundheit!”

I tell the joke because the whole movie reminds me of the same bizarre idea, that amid terror and death, humour is not just possible but necessary. Stalin was arguably the scariest tyrant of all. Hitler? no match for Stalin. Mao might have been responsible for comparable atrocities but I don’t think we know as much about him and his murderous ways.

When Stalin died, it may have been a cause for rejoicing in some quarters, but to many he was still a hero, the leader of the USSR during the great war with Germany. Even typing that much I am amazed that anyone could have admired him, a leader who was so paranoid, so intent on clinging to power that he arranged to have many of his best officers killed, purges and murders of thousands upon thousands, deportations to Siberia and a whole culture of distrust & murder. But of course history gives us a different perspective.

As I watched Armando Iannucci’s film The Death of Stalin (2017), I was astonished at the resonances with the current situation in the USA:

• the hypocrisy of the leadership
• the cognitive dissonance between assertions / propaganda and actual events
• the fluidity of truth, to the point that it becomes hard or even impossible to discern what is true and what is not true in a web of competing lies

But I didn’t laugh very much, any more than I laugh watching CNN. Yet I felt a huge catharsis all the same.

The music for this film is one of its strengths. I googled to find out more, reading  commentary from director Iannucci and the composer Christopher Willis. I wondered at parts of the score that reminded me of Shostakovich: and discovered that Willis had been instructed by Ianucci to write faux Shostakovich for his film. How perfect, to employ sounds suggestive of the composer who was in a real sense the voice of his country, suppressed by Stalin.

The comedy is dark indeed, with a higher body count than anything from Tarentino. Two talents I’ve known from comedy have shed their skins in new roles, namely Steve Buscemi as Khruschev and Michael Palin as Molotov. Why am I surprised, after so many comedians reinvented themselves in drama?

I’m not sure why I felt such satisfaction.

• Because it scratched my political itch? I’m eager to see Michael Moore’s latest for example, insatiable for political content, especially if it portends positive change rather than a further slide into chaos & despair. The death of someone like Stalin is a good thing even if there was lots of tyranny to follow.
• Because of the deft rendering of the period, complete with a satirical edge?

Or maybe it’s simply because I could escape for awhile, forgetting our troubles while watching the troubles of other people.

I’ll watch it again this weekend.  I wonder if I’ll laugh this time?