Music

Project 19, the orchestra’s series commissioning female composers, came back with a new work by Joan Tower.After a long delay, Joan Tower’s “1920/2019” was premiered on Friday by the New York Philharmonic at Alice Tully Hall. It was worth the wait to hear this 14-minute work by one of America’s most eminent composers — who, at 83, is as inventive as ever.The piece is part of Project 19, the orchestra’s initiative to commission 19 female composers to honor the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which extended the vote to women. It began auspiciously in February 2020 with Nina C. Young’s “Tread softly” and, later that month, Tania León’s “Stride,” which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize this year.Ellen Reid also got her work in under the wire before the pandemic shut down the performing arts. But with the premiere of Tower’s hurtling, dark new piece, Project 19 has finally resumed. Her title juxtaposes 1920, when the amendment was ratified, with 2019 — “another significant year for women,” as Tower writes in a program note, “the height of the #MeToo movement, which raised the status of women to yet another level.”In her description Tower leaves the larger thematic resonances to listeners’ perceptions and focuses on the materials — steady repeated notes, chords, runs in scales and such — that drive the music. The piece begins with weighty blocks of orchestral chords heaving over kinetic rhythmic riffs. Rising runs and, soon, a persistent yet varying five-note motif keep spiraling forward. Imaginative writing for percussion and bustling rhythmic activity — long traits of Tower’s music — course through this restless, episodic score. On the surface the mood is ominous, even threatening. But the sheer intricacy lends a stirring fortitude to the music.During a long later section, the piece becomes like a little concerto for orchestra, featuring star turns for instruments in solo, duo, trio and small ensemble groups. Some observers have found Tower’s lucid music accessible almost to a fault. A better word to describe this engrossing, effective piece — and her style overall — is audible: All the multilayered, meter-fracturing workings of the score are laid out clearly. The Philharmonic’s music director, Jaap van Zweden drew a glittering, moody performance from the orchestra.Though the program didn’t make thematic or musical connections between Tower’s piece and the longer works that followed — Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 and Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony — it was a pleasure to hear both those classic scores in such winning performances. Emanuel Ax was the animated and elegant soloist in the Mozart.The variety of his articulations and shadings was especially fine: sometimes crisp and sparkling, other times milky and subdued, as when the piano part shifts into wistful, minor-mode excursions during the sunny first movement. In the restrained, lyrical slow movement, Ax proved sensitive to Mozart’s evocations of his operatic aria style. The finale, a buoyant theme and variations, was splendidly stylish.Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony is suffused with the breadth, lyricism and wayward approach to harmony of his hero, Brahms. Yet Dvorak’s distinctive, rustic voice pervades the score. The Philharmonic’s performance captured the engaging yet elusive quality of the episodic first movement, and the dancing, bucolic third movement was especially vibrant. Van Zweden summoned fervor and opulent sound in the teeming finale without slipping into overdrive, as he sometimes does. And the players finally seem to be adapting to Tully, one of their temporary homes as David Geffen Hall is renovated.New York PhilharmonicPerformed on Friday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan. More

This year’s data dump from the streaming music service leaned heavily on contemporary buzzwords and slang — and inspired many, many memes.“In 2021 you did what you had to do.”“You always understood the assignment.”“You deserve a playlist as long as your skincare routine.”No, these phrases were not uttered by a TikTok star or a cool mom. Instead, they are idioms that appear in the annual data-driven marketing campaign known as Spotify Wrapped.The feature, which was released on Dec. 1, shows users of the streaming music service the songs and artists they listened to most throughout the year. Its arrival reliably inspires a number of screenshots and memes on social media. In 2020, for example, people posted about how fittingly depressing (or soothing) some of their most-listened-to tracks were.This time, much of the commentary revolved around the campaign’s use of internet slang (“living rent-free in my head,” “vibe check,” “main character”) and its references to popular topics (NFTs, skin care regimens). In one meme, a Twitter user joked about personal finance using the tone of the Spotify campaign: “Your checking account balance was in the bottom .003%. Weird flex but ok!”Some users also noted surprising revelations about their listening habits. (Who knew they were in the top .05 percent of Doja Cat listeners?) Others found something resembling self-knowledge in the “aura” readings that Spotify generated based on the moods suggested by their music tastes. (One person on Twitter jokingly reported that Spotify had deemed their audio aura as being “fertile and breedable.”)After the feature’s Dec. 1 release, the hashtag #SpotifyWrapped trended for a couple of days, and the memes have been endless. In short, Spotify has collected a lot of data and is now reaping the benefits.Kelsey McGarry, 28, who lives in Los Angeles and works as a grant writer and coordinator for the city’s homeless services, spent practically a whole day poring over her own Spotify Wrapped. She said that the results felt like an accurate read of who she is.“My Spotify Wrapped is very gay,” said Ms. McGarry, who added that her top artist of the year was Charlie XCX. She enjoyed looking back at her year in music but noted that the language in this year’s Wrapped was occasionally distracting.“My skin care routine isn’t even long,” Ms. McGarry said. “Like, what are you talking about?”Rajat Suresh, a 26-year-old comedian and writer, was one of the many people online who joked about Spotify leaning into playful language and buzzwords.via Spotify“In 2021, you were not cancelled,” Mr. Suresh wrote in a meme he posted on Twitter. “Bye Felicia! You got your Fauci Ouchie, and that’s got the whole world shook.” Along with the image, he added a question: “Why does Spotify talk like this?”Ms. McGarry said that for her, those “cringe” moments, where the app seemed to be pulling phrases from a word cloud of popular slang and search terms, were a reminder that Spotify was a corporation and that sharing snippets from its Wrapped campaign on social media was “free advertising.”According to Taj Alavi, the global head of marketing at Spotify, the company is always looking for new and creative ways to connect with Spotify listeners, of which there are more than 381 million worldwide.“We often lean into playful language and user experiences — it’s a core part of who we are as a brand,” Ms. Alavi wrote in an email. “When we consider what the user experience will include, one of the most important factors is connecting with culture, not just making it all about Spotify. So you’ll notice playful references to cultural trends from 2021 reflected in the interactive user experience.”Mr. Suresh said that he uses Spotify a lot, making it “one of the companies that knows everything” about him. For him, though, this year’s roundup reached a little too far.“It just felt like a classic Twitter thing of when the brand is trying to seem like a human or something,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Brooklyn, noting that he’d rather just see the data.That’s not to say he didn’t check his Spotify Wrapped with genuine curiosity. His top artist, he said, was Elliott Smith. More

He accumulated more than 1,000 items with provenances spanning centuries, all housed for a time in a converted barn in rural Pennsylvania.Franz Streitwieser, a German-born trumpeter who amassed a collection of brass instruments that encompassed centuries of music history and drew musicians from around the world to its home in a converted barn in Pennsylvania, died on Nov. 8 in a hospice in Sebring, Fla. He was 82.The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, his son Bernhard said.While a performer by profession — on one of the most extroverted of orchestral instruments, no less — Mr. Streitwieser had the soul of an archivist.He took a 19th-century yellow-and-white barn in bucolic Pennsylvania and converted it into a museum to house one of the world’s largest collections of brass instruments and to serve as well as a concert space. The Streitwieser Foundation Trumpet Museum, in Pottstown, opened in 1980 and was home to approximately 1,000 items until 1995, when it found a new home in Europe.Mr. Streitwieser (pronounced STRITE-vee-zer) sought to elevate the trumpet’s status.“When somebody finds an old violin in the attic, they think it’s a Stradivarius and it’s valuable,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1983. “But when somebody finds an old brass instrument in the attic, they just throw it out. We want to change that.”In addition to its standard brass fare, including valved trumpets, French horns and trombones, the museum showcased a variety of curiosities: over-the-shoulder trumpets used in the Civil War, replicas of Bronze Age Viking trumpets, horns carved from elephant tusks. Visitors would have encountered a life-size cardboard cutout of the composer John Philip Sousa and a 12-foot-long horn carved from pine wood, made for Swiss shepherds.Mr. Streitwieser situated the museum in Pottstown because he and his wife, Katherine, had moved there to be closer to her relatives. She was a descendant of the DuPont family, of chemical company renown, which helped support the museum.The museum stood on a 17-acre plot called Fairway Farm (it also had a bed-and-breakfast), and it drew brass devotees from far and wide. The music historian Herbert Heyde, who later curated the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s instrument collection, spent six months cataloging the Pottstown museum’s contents in the 1990s.But Pottstown, which is about 40 miles from Philadelphia and closer in culture to the state’s rural center, lacked strong funding for arts programs, and attendance at the museum lagged. After Ms. Streitwieser’s death in 1993, Mr. Streitwieser could not afford to keep the museum going and was forced to find a new home for his trove. Local universities expressed interest, but none had the space.It was Austria to the rescue. Kremsegg Castle, near Linz, was establishing a government-funded musical instrument museum, and officials there knew of Mr. Streitwieser as a prominent collector. They offered to take in his holdings — and him as well, as a consultant. The collection was packed up and sent off in 1995.Franz Xaver Streitwieser was born on Sept. 16, 1939, in Laufen, Germany, a Bavarian town just across the border from Austria. He was one of five children of Simon and Cecilia (Auer) Streitwieser, who were farmers.As a boy, Franz visited a music store with his mother one day and felt drawn to a gleaming brass trumpet. But it was prohibitively expensive, so the shopkeeper pointed him to a tarnished, less costly trumpet toward the back of the store. He bought it, and after a teacher of his gave him a can of polish, it gleamed. It was the first of many instruments in his life.Franz soon joined the town band and went on to Mozarteum University Salzburg in Austria, graduating in 1961 with a degree in trumpet performance.While at the university he met Katherine Schutt, an oboe and piano student from Wilmington, Del. Their courtship played out during the filming of “The Sound of Music” in and around Salzburg, and the couple became extras in several scenes.Mr. Streitwieser and Ms. Schutt married in 1963. They lived mainly in Freiburg, Germany, where Mr. Streitwieser was principal trumpet of the Freiburg Philharmonic from 1965 to 1972. Traveling to the United States regularly, he spent a year in New York City studying at Juilliard. The couple had five children, one of whom, Heinrich, died in infancy.Mr. Streitwieser began collecting brass instruments early on in Freiburg — his son Bernhard said the family home sometimes resembled a trumpet repair shop.In 1977, Mr. Streitwieser worked with the German instrument maker Hans Gillhaus in designing a modern version of the corno da caccia, a circular horn popular in the 18th century; they called it a clarinhorn.The family moved to Pottstown in 1978. Mr. Streitwieser played in local orchestras and in 1980 received a master’s degree in music from the University of South Dakota. With Ralph T. Dudgeon, he wrote “The Flügelhorn” (2004), a history of that member of the trumpet family.After the death of his first wife, Mr. Streitwieser married Katharine Bright in 1994 and soon moved with her to Austria in the company of his brass collection. The couple spent half the year in an apartment in the 13th-century Kremsegg Castle, at home among their horns. The rest of the time they lived in Florida, moving for good to Lake Wales, in the central part of the state, in 2004. Mr. Streitwieser founded a brass quintet and continued to perform in local festivals.The Streitwieser collection remained at Kremsegg until the musical instrument museum closed in 2018. Much of its contents were moved to Linz Castle and Museum or other museums in Upper Austria.In addition to his son Bernhard, Mr. Streitwieser is survived by his wife; his sons Erik and Charles; his daughter, Christiane Bunn; his stepdaughter, Henrietta Trachsel; a sister, Anna Breitkreutz Neumann; and 13 grandchildren.Dr. Dudgeon, who also played music with Mr. Streitwieser and help catalog the brass collection, said he first heard of him in the 1970s. He had come to pick up a purchase from a Massachusetts music store and found that the shop had very few brass instruments left.He knew he had to meet Mr. Streitwieser, he said, when the shopkeeper told him that “a Bavarian fellow came in and bought them all.” More

5 Minutes to Make You Love Classical 🎶Maya Salam🌟 Expanding my musical knowledge Angie WangChoral MusicAncient, contemporary, gospel, opera, sacred, romantic: Here are the works that Charmaine Lee, Marcos Pavan and Leila Adu-Gilmore believe capture the gorgeous sound of a mass of voices.Listen to their choices. More

Sondra Radvanovsky and Brian Jagde sing thrillingly, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a superb performance of Puccini’s classic.Sometimes, for reasons no one can fully explain, an opera performance just catches fire. That’s what happened at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday, when Puccini’s “Tosca” returned.In a fall at the Met that’s been full of momentous new works, intriguing repertory firsts and six-hour epics, this seemed on paper just an ordinary revival of David McVicar’s production. The soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was returning in the title role; the tenor Brian Jagde was appearing at the Met for the second time, singing Cavaradossi; the veteran baritone George Gagnidze (a late replacement for Evgeny Nikitin) was Scarpia; and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, was in the pit.Yet starting with the opening measures, chilling orchestral chords that represent the villainous Scarpia, this performance abounded in crackling energy, sure-paced suspense, romantic reverie and thrilling singing from Radvanovsky and Jagde.It was Nézet-Séguin who seemed to be inspiring these formidable singers and the orchestra. On Monday, the Met announced that he was withdrawing from a January run of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and taking a nearly four-week sabbatical from his conducting duties, including his directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra.Nézet-Séguin has been maintaining a busy schedule this fall, including Met runs of two demanding contemporary works, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Eurydice”; in the announcement he said he needed some time to “re-energize.” Though it was a concerning decision, and it’s disappointing to lose him for “Figaro,” if taking a short break will allow him to keep summoning the kind of energy he had for “Tosca,” then so be it.He didn’t bring an unusual interpretive approach to Puccini’s familiar score. He simply led a splendid performance: rhythmically crisp, transparent, textured and colorful. While giving singers expressive leeway, he maintained shape and direction and favored slightly brisker than usual pacing. When, in Act I, Cavaradossi, trying to calm his jealous lover’s suspicions, turns to Tosca with a lyrical outpouring that begins their duet, Jagde and Radvanovsky sang with plenty of melting lyricism. Still, what a pleasure it was to hear the music — thanks to Nézet-Séguin’s subtle control — performed with a clear pulse, in a tempo that did not allow for any indulgences.Radvanovsky’s account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful, our critic writes.Ken Howard/Metropolitan OperaRadvanovsky was extraordinary. Like Maria Callas, perhaps the 20th century’s defining Tosca, she uses the slightly grainy quality of her sound to exciting dramatic purpose. Her account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful. The ovation went on so long it seemed Radvanovsky might be forced to break character and acknowledge it. But not this Tosca. One of the best actresses in opera, she made the character her own with affecting touches — flirtatious and playful one moment, fearful and anguished the next.In Jagde she had a tenor who could match her soaring power. It’s hard to believe that he spent almost 10 years early in his career as a baritone. On Thursday his enormous, vibrant voice was capped by exciting top notes. Now and then I wanted a little more subtlety and elegance. But it’s hard to complain when you have a singer with such a big, beefy instrument.Gagnidze held his own as Scarpia, conveying the character’s malevolence but also his aristocratic disdain. Patrick Carfizzi as the Sacristan, Kevin Short as Angelotti and Tony Stevenson as Spoletta were all excellent.There are just four more performances this month with Radvanovsky, Jagde and Nézet-Séguin. When word gets out, tickets may be scarce.ToscaThrough Dec. 18 with this cast (and in January and March with different artists) at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

Hear tracks by Grimes, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Kim Petras and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Mary J. Blige, ‘Good Morning Gorgeous’Once again, Mary J. Blige battles and overcomes self-doubt. “I’m so tired of feeling empty,” she sings in a gritty croon over a slow-rolling, vintage-style soul track, abetted by a moody string arrangement. But she’s got the solution: looking in the mirror every morning with the self-affirmation, “Good morning, gorgeous.” She adds, “I ain’t talking about getting no hair and makeup/I’m talking about soon as I wake up.” The video makes clear she’s waking up in a mansion, toned and bejeweled, a long way from “all the times that I hated myself.” JON PARELESHurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Jupiter’s Dance’“Jupiter’s Dance” is an exercise in tenderness. It is a welcome departure for Alynda Segarra, who typically makes warm folk-punk as Hurray for the Riff Raff, here trading grit for cosmic reverie. In a breathy whisper, Segarra coos: “Seven revolutions around the sun/Blessings on our way, it has only begun.” The video juxtaposes celestial NASA images with found footage of people dancing to the Afro-Puerto Rican genres bomba and plena. It is a galactic prayer, a belief in the promise of the future, rooted in the vitality of the past. ISABELIA HERRERAKali Uchis and Ozuna, ‘Another Day in America’Pointedly released on Thanksgiving Day, “Another Day in America” borrows the tune of “America” from “West Side Story,” anticipating the release next week of the Steven Spielberg remake. Over syncopated guitar and a boom-bap beat, Kali Uchis sings and raps in English, keeping her tone cheerful but not mincing words: “Say ‘land of the free’/But the land was always stolen.” Ozuna, from Puerto Rico, sing-raps in Spanish, declaring, “Quisiera tumbar las fronteras de México a Nigeria”: “I would like to bring down the borders from Mexico to Nigeria.” It’s a conversation starter. PARELESAurora, ‘Heathens’The Norwegian songwriter Aurora has announced her next album, due Jan. 21, is titled “The Gods We Can Touch,” and on “Heathens” she sings about Eve, Eden and falling from grace to a life on Mother Earth. It’s a shimmering, wide-screen production, with pealing harp, Aurora’s choir-like harmonies and a seismic beat that comes and goes. It’s also a warning that paradise was lost. “Everything we touch is evil,” Aurora sings. “That is why we live like heathens.” PARELESGrimes, ‘Player of Games’Recently “semi-separated” from the Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, with whom she has a child, Grimes (Claire Boucher) coos club-ready recriminations in “Player of Games,” which she sometimes sings like “play your love games.” Over a brisk house track written and produced with Illangelo, she asks questions like “Baby, will you still love me?” and “How can I compare to the adventure out there?” as the arpeggios repeat and the four-on-the-floor thumps. “If I loved him any less, I’d make him stay,” she asserts, teasing the gossip-industrial complex. PARELESKim Petras, ‘Coconuts’A deliriously comic, sexually playful disco anthem from Kim Petras, advocating for, one could say, one kind of fruit over all the rest: “Strawberry, mango, lime/don’t compare to these.” JON CARAMANICAKerozen, ‘Motivation’Kerozen, from Ivory Coast, praises patient, diligent hard work in “Motivation,” but the song provides instant gratification anyway. A galloping six-beat groove carries exultant close-harmony vocals, punched up by pattering snare drums and bursts of synthesizers and simulated horns — pure positive energy. PARELESJoe Meah, ‘Ahwene Pa Nkasa’The latest find from the indefatigable crate-diggers at Analog Africa is “Essiebon Special 1973-1984: Ghana Power House,” from the archives of the Essiebons and Dix labels. It’s Ghanaian highlife souped up with funk, Afrobeat, synthesizers and psychedelia, like “Ahwene Pa Nkasa,” a groove that materializes out of a funk backbeat, turns into a chattery, competitive stereo dialogue between two synthesizer keyboards and eventually gets around to its call-and-response vocals, fading out before the chorus gets done. PARELESCordae featuring Lil Wayne, ‘Sinister’A casually excellent rhyme workout from Cordae, who reveres the complexity of the 1990s — “Eight months with no phone, dog/we aiming for brilliance” — and Lil Wayne, who at his late 2000s mixtape peak, which he recalls here, turned complexity into extraterrestriality. CARAMANICAEladio Carrión and Luar la L, ‘Socio’A strategically placed beat change is more than a secret weapon: It can turn a standard rap track into delicious deviance. Elado Carrión’s “Socio” opens with a soulful piano intro and snare-driven beat reminiscent of something Drake’s go-to producer Noah “40” Shebib might pull out of his hard drive. But before long, the barbs arrive. A muted echo of Russell Crowe’s infamous “Gladiator” line “Are you not entertained?!” crashes into the production, and a muscular, speaker-knocking beat unravels. The guest rapper Luar la L shoots off punch lines like rounds of silver bullets, his full-throated baritone landing each with serrated precision. HERRERAChayce Beckham and Lindsay Ell, ‘Can’t Do Without Me’A good old-fashioned power country duet, with references to the grim day job, a speeding car and the high-horsepower intensity of a rough-hewed love. CARAMANICAChristian McBride and Inside Straight, ‘Gang Gang’The Village Vanguard is where the bassist Christian McBride first performed, over a decade ago, with Inside Straight, which has become maybe the most distinguished acoustic quintet in jazz. McBride’s latest release with Inside Straight, “Live at the Village Vanguard,” was recorded there years later, in 2014, during another weeklong run. “Gang Gang,” written by the vibraphonist Warren Wolf, is the album’s longest track and its most intense. The group centers itself around the drummer Carl Allen’s heavy, spiraling swing feel, and Wolf takes a solo full of pelted, bluesy notes, painting a cloud of energy in pointillist strokes. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOSara Serpa and Emmanuel Iduma, ‘First Song’The Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa traces an etched, wordless line while Sofîa Rei and Aubrey Johnson circle her with sung melodies of their own, and ambient street sounds gargle below. Soon Serpa begins singing words from the Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma’s book, “A Stranger’s Pose,” about his travels across the African continent: “I can recite distances by heart feet memory/I can tell wanderlust rounded as the eyes,” she sings. Then Iduma’s voice enters, accompanied by the pianist Matt Mitchell, reading a passage on the power of language to create a space “between reality and dream.” “First Song” opens Serpa and Iduma’s impressive new collaborative album, “Intimate Strangers,” a collage of her swimming melodies and his words — many of which describe the experiences of laborers seeking their fate on the road, sometimes heading north to Europe, but in many cases stuck waiting for something to change around them. RUSSONELLO More

Listen to the biggest, loudest, most extravagant (yet incredibly subtle) instrument of them all.In the past we’ve chosen the five minutes or so we would play to make our friends fall in love with classical music, piano, opera, cello, Mozart, 21st-century composers, violin, Baroque music, sopranos, Beethoven, flute, string quartets, tenors, Brahms, choral music, percussion, symphonies, Stravinsky, trumpet, Maria Callas and Bach.Now we want to convince those curious friends to love the grandeur and colors of the organ — a full orchestra in a single instrument. We hope you find lots here to discover and enjoy; leave your favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆James McVinnie, organistIf I had a time machine, I would go back to 1740 to hear Johann Sebastian Bach play the organ in Leipzig, Germany. Bach is the ultimate composer for this extraordinary, timeless instrument. Much of his organ music is intense, revealing its multilayered, life-affirming majesty slowly, through repeated listening. The opening to his 29th cantata, however, leaps and bounds with immediate joy. There is something visceral about hearing this music played live, on a great organ, in a vast cathedral space: The building shakes, the air shimmers and the music is as much felt as heard.Bach’s “Wir danken dir, Gott”Robert Quinney (Hyperion)◆ ◆ ◆Joy-Leilani Garbutt, organist and Boulanger Initiative co-founderThis piece stops me in my tracks every time I hear it, conjuring the phrases “tour de force” and “pièce de résistance.” In an incredible display of badassery, Demessieux unleashes the full spectrum of the organ’s capabilities, with all its sounds, timbres, colors and contrasts. Too often people associate this instrument with dirges or spooky music; this piece is energetic and exuberant.The middle section is like a slow jazz waltz sound bath, filled with luscious chords and featuring an inverted texture that places the solo in the pedals and the bass line on the keyboards. As a performer, it’s always a great adventure to tackle music written by a virtuoso composer to showcase her own instrument. Demessieux knows exactly what the organ can do, and she uses all of it.Jeanne Demessieux’s “Te Deum”Hampus Lindwall (Ligia)◆ ◆ ◆Zachary Woolfe, Times classical music editorIt hardly gets grander than Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony, which he titled “with organ.” And yet, with the right musicians, this gigantic Romantic wedding cake of a piece is shining elegance, not overkill. After its first C-major blast in the finale, the organ is woven into the orchestra so lovingly that it never seems to be used for mere effect; the instrument is treated like a jewel, to be placed in one of the repertory’s most sumptuous, stirring settings. A delightful bonus in this finely detailed recording: a father-and-son pair of eminences as organist and conductor.Saint-Saëns’s Third SymphonyDaniel Roth; Les Siècles; François-Xavier Roth, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)◆ ◆ ◆Sarah Kirkland Snider, composerOne remarkable thing about the organ is its ability to generate acoustic sounds that seem electronic. The Scottish composer Claire M. Singer explores this to rapturous effect in “The Molendinar,” a slowly morphing, 25-minute journey that intricately builds beautiful, bending overtones over a simple ground bass through her manipulation of the organ’s mechanical stop action. The Molendinar is a hidden watercourse above which the city of Glasgow was founded in the sixth century, but the music’s grand, glacial build, and ghostly evanescence, remind me of the Breton legend of Ys, its mythological cathedral rising and then sinking back into the ocean.Claire M. Singer’s “The Molendinar”Claire M. Singer◆ ◆ ◆Cameron Carpenter, organistIf I’m introducing someone, I can only submit my most recent recording, since it is played on an instrument I designed whose very point is to demonstrate the possibilities of the modern organ. The transition of the instrument to the digital realm gives us a glimpse of the part of it that transcends moving parts. In pairing Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations with Howard Hanson‘s 1930 Symphony No. 2, “Romantic,” I wanted to contrast two masterpieces from outside the organ repertoire. I didn’t intrude on any organ works in which others are better versed, and the instrument’s clarity and color helps us to understand these well-loved pieces anew.Howard Hanson’s “Romantic” SymphonyCameron Carpenter (Decca Gold)◆ ◆ ◆David Allen, Times writerAlthough César Franck wrote relatively few works for the organ, he was still arguably the greatest composer for the instrument since Bach, and it was in Bach’s shadow that he composed three chorales in 1890, the year he died. What Franck called a chorale, though, bears little resemblance to Bach’s settings of hymn tunes; the three are vast, 15-minute ruminations on belief, none more spiritual than the second, a passacaglia that hypnotically winds its way to what the ear thinks is going to be an imposing declaration of faith, before it falls away to a quieter, more personal hope.Franck’s Chorale No. 2 in B minorJeanne Demessieux (Eloquence)◆ ◆ ◆Paul Jacobs, organistBeethoven considered organists “the greatest of all virtuosi.” But if making music with all four limbs isn’t hard enough, Lou Harrison also expects the soloist in his Concerto for Organ and Percussion to play clamorous clusters of keys with felt padded slabs — to match a full battery of percussion that includes Chinese crash cymbals, oxygen tank bells and gongs galore. While I’ve always prized the organ’s uncanny ability to arouse our numinous instincts, sometimes we just want to let our hair down. The irrepressible joy of the final movement will wake the dead and make them dance.Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Organ with Percussion OrchestraPaul Jacobs; San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (SFS Media)◆ ◆ ◆Anthony Tommasini, Times chief classical music criticThe young Aaron Copland wrote his Symphony for Organ and Orchestra at the behest of his teacher, Nadia Boulanger, who played the solo part at the premiere, in 1925. Copland’s friend and colleague Virgil Thomson later described the symphony as “the voice of America in our generation.” He was right. While looking back at the European symphonic heritage, Copland’s ambitious piece is fresh, direct, unsentimental and sassy in a way that seems somehow American, especially the feisty, unabashedly dissonant finale. And I love the ruminative opening Andante, which glows and sighs in this live recording.Copland’s Organ SymphonyPaul Jacobs; San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (SFS Media)◆ ◆ ◆Javier C. Hernández, Times classical music and dance reporterHandel is best known for his operas and oratorios. But his organ concertos contain some of his most lively and playful music. A gifted virtuoso on the instrument, he performed several of these pieces as entertainment for audiences between acts of his oratorios. The Organ Concerto in F, which premiered in 1739, goes by the nickname “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale” for its chirpy motifs. Marie-Claire Alain plays with precision and zeal, gliding through the many improvisatory sections.Handel’s Organ Concerto No. 13Marie-Claire Alain; Orchestra de Chambre Jean-François Paillard (Erato)◆ ◆ ◆Nico Muhly, composerThe organ in church can be like a piece of beautiful architecture, or a wonderful sermon: It is sometimes taken for granted. And there is a subtle art to playing with a choir; the organist must wrestle with the acoustics of the space to make sure everything aligns, as the player is oftentimes quite far from the singers, and the pipes can be practically miles away.One beautiful challenge is the “Jubilate” from Herbert Howells’s morning service for the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and the extraordinary and specific acoustics of the chapel there. Even when the organ is under the choir, Howells is masterly at doubling the voices and weaving in and out of them, foretelling little themes or echoing them after. The acoustics of the space turn the simple counterpoint into something intentionally blurry but somehow precise, like a house at night lit from within but seen from outside, with shapes flickering in and out of view.The beginning of the piece starts with the organ in its simplest incarnation, just holding an E-flat minor chord. In the last phrase, on the text “world without end, amen,” the choir sings in unison, and the organ, here the primary voice, unspools a long melody, crabwise but ultimately pointing downward toward a resolution in E-flat major.Herbert Howells’s “Jubilate”Peter Barley; King’s College Choir; Stephen Cleobury, conductor (Argo)◆ ◆ ◆Joshua Barone, Times editorYou can’t help but appreciate the too-muchness of the organ. Its extremity goes both ways: It can whisper, or shake the ground you stand on with the awe-inspiring sound of a full-voiced choir. Both ends of the spectrum coexist in Samuel Barber’s 1960 “Toccata Festiva.” About two-thirds into the piece, after an opening of Romantic excess and concerto-like flair, comes a cadenza that rises from foreboding depths to episodes that are by turns agile, luminous and borderline outrageous — but arriving at a mysterious peace. When the orchestra returns in a crowded dash to the ending, all of its might is necessary to meet the grandeur of what may be our most extravagant instrument.Barber’s “Toccata Festiva”Paul Jacobs; Lucerne Symphony Orchestra; James Gaffigan, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)◆ ◆ ◆Anna Lapwood, organistIt’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer power a pipe organ can produce, but it is also an instrument with an amazing capacity for beauty and sensitivity, characteristics that are often overlooked when talking about it. We hear this more subtle side in Robilliard’s transcription of Fauré’s “Sicilienne,” performed here by Thomas Ospital in the Church of St. Eustache in Paris. It’s in this kind of music that the building becomes integral to the success of a performance; as we hear the individual flute stops dancing around the space, the acoustic bloom becomes an architectural sustaining pedal.Fauré’s “Sicilienne”Thomas Ospital◆ ◆ ◆Seth Colter Walls, Times writerWhen the Los Angeles Philharmonic wanted to commission organ music from Terry Riley, they let him hang out all night playing on Hurricane Mama, the potent pipe instrument inside Walt Disney Concert Hall. Some of the material Riley improvised there made its way into his 2013 concerto “At the Royal Majestic.” One of his grandest late-career works, it’s punchy, mystical and gorgeous. (It’s also a reminder that his artistic development did not stop with the early Minimalist touchstone “In C.”)The close of the first movement — called “Negro Hall,” after a drawing by the fin-de-siècle Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli — occasionally seesaws between sugar-sweet orchestral motifs and gloomier exhalations from the organ. Riley presents such contrasts not with postmodern irony, but with tangible, genuine delight. Even after a climactic turn toward frenzied rhythmic patterns, his joyous sensibility is always perceptible, and the final chords are exhilarating.Terry Riley’s “At the Royal Majestic”Todd Wilson; Nashville Symphony; Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor (Naxos)◆ ◆ ◆Olivier Latry, an organist at Notre-DameApril 15, 2019: The whole world was horrified to discover the images of Notre-Dame on fire. A few weeks earlier, I was in the cathedral recording this “Little” Fugue in G minor for an album called “Bach to the Future.”“Little” — but it is nevertheless great Bach! In a few minutes, the cantor of Leipzig tells us such a story. I love the fragility that shines throughout this work, a fragility that brings us back to our human condition in front of current events: the fire of Notre-Dame, the health situation, climate change. May this music make us aware of our determining role in humanity.Bach’s Fugue in G minor, BWV 578Olivier Latry (La Prima Volta)◆ ◆ ◆ More

The Recording Academy has made various changes to its list for the 64th awards, adding Linda Chorney, whose name appeared on an earlier version of the ballot, back to the competition.Since the 64th annual Grammy nominations were announced last week, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the awards, has made various changes to its list, correcting misspellings and adding names that had been omitted from credits. Among the most notable revisions: Marilyn Manson lost one nomination, and a little-known songwriter, Linda Chorney, was added to the competitors for best American roots song.Manson, the shock rocker who is being investigated by the authorities in Los Angeles on accusations of sexual assault (numerous women have come forward), had been nominated twice for his work with Kanye West, including in the album of the year category as a featured artist and a songwriter on West’s album “Donda,” and for best rap song, as one of the writers of West’s “Jail.”Manson, whose real name — and official songwriting credit — is Brian Hugh Warner, has been removed from the rap song category; although Manson is credited as a writer on “Jail, Pt 2,” another track from “Donda,” he is not listed among the writers on the most current version of the album..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The addition of Chorney is more complex, and offers a partial if confusing glimpse into the Grammys’ behind-the-scenes process of tabulating votes.Chorney had been on an initial version of the ballot under best American roots song, for her “Bored.” That version of the list, which circulated outside the Recording Academy in the days before the nominations were announced on Nov. 23, also had just eight slots for the top four categories; the day before that announcement, the Grammys’ board approved increasing that number to 10, adding artists including West and Taylor Swift. When the final nominations list came out, Chorney had been replaced by another artist, though some news outlets online still included her name.This week, the Grammys added Chorney back in. She had been removed, the academy said, because the accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the awards’ longtime partner in collecting and tabulating votes, had performed an “audit” on the votes she received, and the academy decided to remove her name from the ballot.“That audit has now concluded, and Ms. Chorney’s recording has been added back in,” the academy said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused, but ensuring the integrity of our voting process is paramount.” It offered no explanation for how the early nominations list, which contained Chorney’s name, was released.Why was the audit conducted? In an interview on Wednesday, Chorney said that Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s chief executive, told her in a phone call this week that she had been “flagged” because of her previous public comments about the Grammys. In 2011, her “Emotional Jukebox” was a surprise nominee for best Americana album. She was criticized at the time for “gaming the system” — she acknowledged using the Grammys’ website to promote herself, a common and permitted tactic at the time — and said she even got death threats. She helped make a movie about the experience titled “When I Sing.”Days after this year’s nominations were announced, the Grammys came under scrutiny for giving nominations to figures like Manson and Louis C.K., the comedian who in 2017 admitted to sexual misconduct. In a recent interview with The Wrap, Mason said that Grammy eligibility is based only on the recordings submitted for the awards, not any artist’s past behavior. “We won’t look back at people’s history,” he said.Chorney praised Mason for looking into the problem and addressing it quickly. When he called her, she said, “I was ecstatic. I felt validated.”The Grammys ceremony will be held on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles, hosted by Trevor Noah. More