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      Ukraine’s National Anthem Reverberates Around the World

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      Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the soaring melody of Ukraine’s national anthem has been heard worldwide, from antiwar protests in Moscow to the stages of major concert halls, from N.B.A. basketball arenas to TikTok posts.Known by its opening line, “Ukraine’s glory has not perished,” the anthem is being heard daily in Ukraine too, played by military bands in the middle of bomb-damaged cities, sung tearfully by women sweeping up debris in their homes and, on Saturday, in a vital open-air performance by an opera company in the port city of Odessa, despite fears of an imminent Russian bombing campaign.L’opéra d’Odessa vient de donner un concert hors les murs. FrissonsL’hymne ukrainien : pic.twitter.com/KcEYkTUpWW— Pierre Alonso (@pierre_alonso) March 12, 2022
      And on Monday night, the anthem shook the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, whose white travertine exterior was draped in an enormous Ukrainian flag and bathed in blue and yellow lights for its “Concert for Ukraine.”Alyona Alyona, one of Ukraine’s biggest rappers, said in a Skype interview from her home in Baryshivka, a town east of Kyiv, that she was hearing the anthem about “20 times a day” on Ukrainian TV, where it was being used to rally the country. She had contributed to a compilation of the country’s music stars singing it, she added. “This song has a very big meaning,” she said.Even in Russia, Ukraine’s anthem has been heard, with some antiwar protesters in Moscow having been filmed defiantly singing it while being arrested.Paul Kubicek, a political scientist at Oakland University who has written extensively about Ukraine, said the anthem was penned in the 1860s when much of what is today Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. It was “a time of cultural awakening,” Kubicek said, with elites looking to “revive and celebrate a Ukrainian heritage that was at risk of being lost to a process of Russification.”Those elites included Pavlo Chubynsky, an ethnologist and poet, who in 1862 wrote the lyrics after being inspired by patriotic songs from Serbia and Poland. The following year, a composer and priest, Mykhailo Verbytsky, set Chubynsky’s words to music.Rory Finnin, a professor of Ukrainian studies at Cambridge University, said Chubynsky’s song was one of a host of texts that worried the Russian authorities around that time. In 1863, they began censoring almost all Ukrainian publications, Finnin said. Soon, Chubynsky was expelled from the country “for disturbing the minds” of the public, Finnin added.The Russian Empire’s efforts to quash Ukrainian identity didn’t meet with much success. After World War I, Chubynsky’s song was briefly made Ukraine’s anthem (in 1918, The New York Times published its lyrics) until the country was absorbed into the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities later gave Ukraine a new anthem, claiming the country had “found happiness in the Soviet Union.”It was only after the Soviet Union collapsed that Chubynsky and Verbytsky’s work returned as the national anthem., and it has been a vital part of Ukrainian life ever since. In 2013 and 2014, it was sung hourly in Kyiv’s Maidan Square at protests against President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s push to make the country closer to Russia. Finnin said he was present at some of those protests and the anthem “was almost used for counting time.”Now, the anthem’s being used to inspire once more, both within the country and abroad. Below are some of the more notable international performances from the past two weeks:Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo MaTo open a recent performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos said he wanted to play Ukraine’s anthem as a sign of “respect and solidarity” with the country. What starts as a gentle, almost brittle, rendition, soon brings out the melody’s power.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 7Olga Smirnova. More

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      Trinity Church Fires Conductor After Misconduct Accusation

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      The conductor, Julian Wachner, denied the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2014. The church said it had not verified the accusation, but fired him for behavior “inconsistent with our expectations.”Trinity Wall Street, the powerful New York church, said on Monday that it had fired its music director after receiving an allegation of sexual misconduct against him.On Saturday, Trinity said it had placed Julian Wachner, its acclaimed director of music and the arts, on leave as it investigated the allegation, which stemmed from a 2014 incident. But in a statement on Monday, the church’s rector, the Rev. Phillip A. Jackson, said that the church had fired Mr. Wachner.“The investigation is ongoing, and thus the investigator has not yet made any determination about the veracity of the 2014 allegations,” the church’s statement said. “Still, we have concluded based on recent information that Julian has otherwise conducted himself in a manner that is inconsistent with our expectations of anyone who occupies a leadership position. For this reason, Trinity has decided to end Julian’s employment with Trinity as of today.”The allegation was made by a former Juilliard School employee, Mary Poole. Ms. Poole said in an interview with The New York Times that during a music festival in Aiken, S.C., in 2014, Mr. Wachner pushed her against a wall, groped her and kissed her, and that he ignored her demands that he stop.Mr. Wachner denies the accusations. His lawyer, Andrew T. Miltenberg, said in an email on Monday: “We are exceptionally disappointed that Trinity has acted prior to completing a thorough investigation. Depriving Mr. Wachner of the benefit of the full narrative is the antithesis of due process and allows distortions to triumph over the truth.”Two people interviewed by The Times — a friend of Ms. Poole’s and a former colleague — recalled hearing Ms. Poole describe the details of the encounter with Mr. Wachner at the time. Ms. Poole said she did not report the incident to the police since she was in another state and pressed for time in the middle of a tour. She did report the incident to Juilliard, which said on Saturday that it was aware of “unacceptable conduct” by Mr. Wachner in 2014 and that it had not hired him again.Mr. Miltenberg, Mr. Wachner’s lawyer, said on Monday that “Juilliard’s statement, which Mr. Wachner saw for the first time in The New York Times, is flawed and erroneous.” He added that “Mr. Wachner continues to dispute the nearly decade-old, misleading and untrue allegations made against him.”In an interview on Monday, Ms. Poole praised Trinity’s decision to fire Mr. Wachner, adding that it was important that the church lead a thorough investigation into his behavior.“I hope this is the beginning of a bigger conversation about how we handle harassment in classical music, and how conductors are often held on a pedestal,” she said. “Everybody needs to be held accountable for the same kind of appropriate behavior in the workplace.”A conductor and composer, Mr. Wachner oversaw Trinity’s critically praised choir, Baroque orchestra and contemporary-music ensemble, which together present hundreds of events each year. These forces have perhaps been best known for their annual performances of Handel’s “Messiah”; in 2018, The Times credited Mr. Wachner with leading “the best ‘Messiah’ in New York.”In recent months, he has emerged as one of three finalists to serve as the next artistic director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival. The festival has not responded to requests for comment. More

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      Review: A Recital Brings Together Two Schubert Masters

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      The pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the tenor Mark Padmore subtly threaded a program of Beethoven songs and Schubert’s “Schwanengesang.”It’s difficult to avoid superlatives when writing about Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Padmore.Especially when it comes to Schubert. Among pianists, Uchida is our reigning interpreter of his music — returning to it repeatedly, revealing ever more layers of mystery, wit and aching beauty. And Padmore, his tenor sound delicate and direct, with an unforced undercurrent of sadness, can feel like the incarnation of this composer’s style.As a pairing, Uchida and Padmore are wellsprings of wisdom and sensitivity, a truly equal partnership. The performances that result from their deep study of these scores are unpretentious master classes in the art of letting music speak for itself.Yet they have never recorded any Schubert together. (Padmore has released albums of this repertory with Paul Lewis and Kristian Bezuidenhout; Uchida, with Ian Bostridge.) So it was a gift to hear them in recital at Zankel Hall on Sunday in the posthumous collection “Schwanengesang” and Beethoven songs, including the pioneering cycle “An die ferne Geliebte,” all studies in extreme longing.Apart from “An die ferne Geliebte,” Beethoven’s lieder are chronically overlooked next to his towering achievements in the symphony, sonata and string quartet. But his songs are fascinating and unwieldy: shifting with little predictability among folk melody, recitative and concert aria virtuosity, sometimes from verse to verse. With their voice-forward writing, they put the most strain of the recital on Padmore, who can fill an opera house but scaled his sound back to Zankel’s intimacy, with flashes of full power all the more effective for their judiciousness.There were rattling contrasts even in the first song of the program: the Op. 94 setting, Beethoven’s second, of “An die Hoffnung” (“To Hope”), which starts with a recitative-like questioning of God’s existence before launching into lyrical lines that showcase the fine softness of Padmore’s upper range, and a radiant climax. “Resignation,” which followed, had the Schubertian spareness to which his voice is best suited; simpler still was “Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel” (“Evening Song Beneath the Starry Sky”), its closing chords of childlike purity played by Uchida as if a private prayer.“An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”) is often regarded as the first song cycle: six brief text settings, flowing without pause, in a precursor to longer Schubert masterpieces like “Die schöne Müllerin” and “Winterreise.” Throughout, Uchida and Padmore behaved like a single instrument; so thorough was their shared vision that they almost never cued or acknowledged each other, even for rubato stretchings of the line or for abrupt changes in tempo.As in the account of “Schwanengesang” (“Swan Song”) that followed, Padmore’s sound was remarkable most for its balance of clarity and character. Similar to Uchida, his performances are compelling — without the theatricality of, for example, Bostridge, who tends to serve Schubert with a side of self-immolation.“Schwanengesang” wouldn’t benefit from histrionics, anyway; a loose collection of Schubert’s final songs, it lacks the through line of his cycles, packing their intensity into discrete pieces that demand discrete interpretations. If one trait united them here, though, it was restraint. The famous “Ständchen” (“Serenade”), for example, has an expressive style that invites schmaltz, but also maintains a chilly distance in its articulation — a tension borne out in Padmore’s wide vocal contours and Uchida’s staccato, choked off like a series of declarations repeatedly withheld.Schubert verges on tone painting in some of the collection’s later songs; Uchida responded with pedal work that, in “Die Stadt” (“The Town”), allowed the rumbling low notes to evoke a dense fog occasionally penetrated by a mysterious run in the right hand, like an image coming in and out of focus. In “Der Doppelgänger” — one of Schubert’s most terrifying songs — she sustained dissonances, letting their uneasiness warp and linger under Padmore’s stark melody.The frighteningly open chords of “Der Doppelgänger” recall those of “Der Leiermann” at the end of “Winterreise,” but “Schwanengesang” concludes in an entirely different mood: “Die Taubenpost” (“Carrier Pigeon”), a comparatively sunny setting of text by Johann Gabriel Seidl. That pigeon, the narrator reveals, is named “die Sehnsucht,” or Longing.Speaking from the stage earlier in the recital, Padmore reflected on that word. He tallied its appearances in the Schubert and Beethoven songs, as a noun and a verb, and noted that it figures in the finales of both “An die ferne Geliebte” and “Schwanengesang.”Yet “Die Taubenpost” also ends by describing the bird as “the messenger of faithfulness.” Longing can be painful, yes; this recital’s poems suggested as much. But Uchida and Padmore also made a subtle argument that it can also be — with a clue in the first song’s cry of “O Hoffnung!” — hopeful.Mitsuko Uchida and Mark PadmorePerformed on Sunday at Zankel Hall, Manhattan. More

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      A Conductor on Why He Stayed in Russia After the Invasion Began

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      The Estonian American conductor Paavo Järvi chose to remain in Moscow temporarily to lead a Russian youth orchestra: “I felt a responsibility.”As the Russian military began its attack on Ukraine in late February, the Estonian American conductor Paavo Järvi was in Moscow, leading rehearsals for a long-planned engagement with a Russian youth orchestra.Järvi, who was born in 1962 in Tallinn, Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union, had a difficult decision to make. Friends urged him to cancel on the ensemble to protest the invasion. But Järvi, saying he did not want to disappoint the players of the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, decided to stay in Moscow and lead the group in works by Richard Strauss on Feb. 26, two days after the invasion began, before departing on Feb. 27.Järvi’s appearance drew criticism in some corners of the music industry. The day after the concert, Järvi, the chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, released a statement decrying the invasion and defending his decision.“These young people should not and cannot be punished for the barbaric actions of their government,” Järvi said in the statement. “I cannot turn my back on my young colleagues: Musicians are all brothers and sisters.”In an interview with The New York Times by email from Florida, Järvi reflected on his visit to Moscow, the scrutiny of Russian artists in wartime, and the future of cultural exchange between Russia and the West. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.As an artist who was born in the former Soviet Union, how do you view Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?It is hard even to find any words for what’s happening in Ukraine at the moment. It is totally barbaric, horrible, inhuman and shocking, yet ultimately unsurprising: In 1944, the Soviets did the same to Estonia, practically carpet bombing Tallinn to the ground.How does your Estonian heritage affect how you see this war?Deep suspicion and distrust (to put it mildly) of Soviets is virtually encoded in our DNA. My family left Estonia when I was 17 years old to escape the Communists. My parents and my grandparents never trusted the Soviets, but life here in the West makes you forget certain realities. Over the years, we of the younger immigrant generation have become more westernized, complacent and slowly accepting of the view that Russians have somehow changed and evolved, that they are no longer dangerous and can be treated as partners.Many of the older Estonians living abroad are still afraid to go and visit, not to mention move back to Estonia, because of their deep fear and hatred of Soviets. (I deliberately avoid using the word “Russians” because it is really the hatred of Soviets, Communists and Soviet leaders that we are referring to.)You were in Moscow just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was getting underway. You have said you initially felt conflicted about your decision to stay to lead a concert. What was going through your mind?It has always been a part of my mission to give back to the next generation of musicians, which is why I regularly conduct youth orchestras. That was the reason I was in Moscow, but had the war already started, I would obviously not have traveled there.Everyone was already incredibly nervous and tense at the beginning of the week, and when it actually happened, there was complete shock.Why not cancel and leave, as some of your friends urged?I felt a responsibility. I could not turn my back on these young musicians at such a difficult and confusing time. I wanted for them to experience something meaningful. Something that could sustain them during the time of isolation and blockade that clearly was going to be imposed on them for a very long time, maybe decades.The concert was played in a spirit of defiance of the invasion and solidarity with the young musicians, and in deep solidarity and support of the Ukrainian people.Will you return to Russia to conduct while the invasion continues?I will definitely not return to Russia while the war is ongoing, and I find it very difficult to imagine returning even after the war is over, because long after it has finished, the human suffering, wounds, hatred and misery of ordinary people everywhere will continue for generations.What sort of engagement do you think artists in the West should have with Russia in light of the ongoing war? Is it necessary to isolate Moscow culturally, or should there be a free exchange of the arts?Artists outside of Russia should not be interacting with Russia at all so long as the war continues and innocent people are being bombed and dying.How do you think this war will affect the arts in Russia and Ukraine?The impact to Russian artists is going to be devastating. There will be a boycott for a very long time as a new Iron Curtain will be in effect. In the worst case scenario, there is probably going to be the old Soviet model that will be reinstituted. On every level — and culturally, of course, including music — life will be isolated from the West, similar to the former Soviet years.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 6Paavo Järvi. More

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      Trinity Church’s Conductor Put on Leave Amid Investigation

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      Julian Wachner has been accused of sexually assaulting a Juilliard School employee during a music festival in 2014. He denies the accusation.Trinity Wall Street, one of New York’s wealthiest and most powerful churches, said on Saturday that it was placing its high-profile director of music on leave as it investigates an allegation of sexual misconduct against him.The director, Julian Wachner, a highly-regarded conductor, composer and keyboardist who has been a fixture at the church for more than a decade, has been accused by a former Juilliard employee, Mary Poole, of sexual assault. Ms. Poole said in an interview with The New York Times that during a music festival in 2014, Mr. Wachner pushed her against a wall, groped her and kissed her, and that he ignored her demands that he stop. Mr. Wachner denies the accusations.In a statement to The Times on Saturday, Trinity did not mention Ms. Poole by name but said the church first learned of “allegations of sexual misconduct” against Mr. Wachner last month from social media. Ms. Poole recently posted a detailed account of her encounter with Mr. Wachner on her social media accounts, saying, “I was totally violated.”Trinity said it had hired outside counsel to investigate. “Julian was placed on administrative leave on March 1 and will remain on leave during the investigation,” the church said in its statement. “Trinity takes these allegations very seriously.”Mr. Wachner, through an attorney, denied the accusations.“We respect Trinity’s decision to conduct a thorough investigation,” said the attorney, Andrew T. Miltenberg. “Ms. Poole’s outrageous allegations are categorically false and my client looks forward to the matter being resolved. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation we cannot comment further at this time.”Ms. Poole helped organize a 2014 Juilliard festival in Aiken, S.C., that featured Mr. Wachner and the acclaimed Trinity choir. In the interview, Ms. Poole said that one evening, at a house where Juilliard staff members were staying, Mr. Wachner asked her to get him a drink. While she was preparing the drink in the kitchen, she said, he began to grope and kiss her for almost two minutes, even as she told him repeatedly to stop.Two people interviewed by The Times — a friend of Ms. Poole’s and a former colleague — recalled hearing Ms. Poole describe the details of the encounter with Mr. Wachner at the time. Ms. Poole said she did not report the incident to the police, since she was in another state and pressed for time in the middle of a tour.In the interview, Ms. Poole, who was 24 at the time, said that she felt powerless in dealing with Mr. Wachner, an influential figure in the classical music industry. “I felt like I could not defend myself,” she said, adding that at the time she worried she might suffer professional consequences if she spoke up. She said that she still has panic attacks that she attributes to the encounter.Ms. Poole reported the incident to Juilliard, which vowed not to hire Mr. Wachner again.In a statement on Saturday, Juilliard said it was aware of “unacceptable conduct” by Wachner in 2014.“Sexual misconduct or discrimination are not tolerated at Juilliard, and we take all allegations very seriously,” the school said in a statement. “At the time we offered our full support to Ms. Poole and informed Mr. Wachner that he would not be invited back to Juilliard in the future. Since that time we have had no relationship with Mr. Wachner.”Trinity, one of the city’s wealthiest churches, has a portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and residential development worth $6 billion — and a critically acclaimed music program.As director of music and the arts, Wachner oversees the church’s choir, its Baroque orchestra and its contemporary ensemble, which together present hundreds of events each year. He is perhaps best known for his annual performances of Handel’s “Messiah” — in 2018, The Times credited him with leading “the best ‘Messiah’ in New York.” He has been nominated for Grammy Awards and has collaborated with leading organizations, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Opera.In recent months, Wachner has emerged as one of three finalists to serve as the next artistic director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival. The festival did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. More

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      On a Stage 5,000 Miles Away, He Sings for His Family in Ukraine

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      At the Metropolitan Opera, the bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi has become a symbol of his country’s struggles.Sometimes lately, when he hasn’t been rehearsing Verdi or Tchaikovsky at the Metropolitan Opera, or practicing Italian with a diction coach on Zoom, the bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi takes out his phone and sends a one-word text message: “Mama.”The message is meant for Buialskyi’s mother, who is more than 5,000 miles away in his hometown, Berdyansk, a small port city in Ukraine that has been under siege since the Russian invasion began last month. His mother has been unable to flee because she is caring for his grandmother, who is 88 and has difficulty walking. Anxious about his mother’s safety, Buialskyi sends her messages around the clock, awaiting the replies that confirm she remains safe and reachable.“It’s a huge nightmare,” said Buialskyi, 24, who is enrolled in the Met’s prestigious young artists program. “You wake up each day hoping it’s not real, but it’s still happening.”Since the start of the invasion, Buialskyi has become a symbol at the Met of his country’s struggles. On Monday, when the Met hosts a concert in support of Ukraine, he will be featured in a rendition of its national anthem. He played a similar role last month, at the outset of the invasion, when the chorus and orchestra performed the anthem before a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.” Buialskyi — who was making his debut with the company in a small role that evening — stood center stage, his hand over his heart. Ukrainian news outlets later aired clips of the performance.Buialskyi, center, singing the Ukrainian national anthem with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and chorus on Feb. 28.Jonathan Tichler/Metropolitan Opera, via Associated Press“It was incredibly moving, because you could see how much it meant to him,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “The fact that it was such an emotional experience for him made it even more emotional for me and the other members of the company.”Gelb said he hoped the performance of the anthem on Monday would “show the world and our audiences that we are in solidarity with Ukraine.”Buialskyi said he was uneasy about the attention. But he said he wants to use his platform to help his friends and family back home.“I hope it inspires people not to give up,” he said. “Even though I’m far away, I want to be doing what I can.”Buialskyi grew up in eastern Ukraine, along the Sea of Azov, in a city known for its beaches and its port, a hub for coal and grain exports. The only child of an accountant and a driver, he showed an early interest in singing. As a two-year-old, he mimicked jingles on television and sang Ukrainian folk songs.His mother initially had visions of sending him to a college specializing in automotive studies, worried about the career prospects for an artist. But she soon recognized his gift, and at 17 he began conservatory studies, practicing standards of the repertoire like “Largo al factotum,” from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” His idol was Muslim Magomayev, a pop and classical singer from Azerbaijan.He came to the Met in 2020 as part of its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. The program’s participants take up tiny parts in Met productions, and this season Buialskyi is playing the role of a Flemish deputy in “Don Carlos” and a captain in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”Buialskyi rehearsing “Eugene Onegin” at the Metropolitan Opera.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesOne evening last month, on his way back to his apartment in Washington Heights after finishing up meetings at the Met, he got a call from his mother, who said she was hearing explosions. He checked news sites and soon realized that Moscow had begun invading Ukraine. Berdyansk is near the Russian border and was one of the first cities to be seized by Russian forces. Some citizens tried to resist the invasion by singing the Ukrainian national anthem, according to news reports.“I was just so scared,” Buialskyi said. “People who are not there right now still can’t believe that war is actually happening in our day and age.”His Met colleagues have rallied behind him, asking for updates on his family and donating to a crowdfunding effort he started to support Ukrainian families and soldiers. Russian artists at the Met have also reached out, he said, checking on his family’s safety.Melissa Wegner, the executive director of the Lindemann program, said she had been impressed with Buialskyi’s resolve in the face of trying circumstances.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 5Anna Netrebko. More

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      Unsuk Chin on the Violin Concerto She Swore She’d Never Write

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      Unsuk Chin was inspired by Leonidas Kavakos to return to the genre, and the result comes to Carnegie Hall on Monday.The 21st century has been a strong one for violin concertos. Think Jennifer Higdon, whose neo-Romantic showpiece for Hilary Hahn won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. And Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Adès, Harrison Birtwistle, Jörg Widmann (twice) and John Adams (the same).And also Unsuk Chin, whose exceptionally difficult, alluringly colorful 2001 concerto brought her prominence and won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 2004.That work, which still enchants, now has a successor, the Violin Concerto No. 2, “Scherben der Stille” (“Shards of Silence”). Despite the South Korean-born, Ligeti-taught Chin’s reluctance to write a second concerto for any instrument, she decided to make an exception for the violinist Leonidas Kavakos — who had met her but barely knew her music before she asked to write for him.After having its premiere delayed by the pandemic, the work was unveiled by the London Symphony Orchestra in January. It arrived in the United States last week for performances with another of its commissioners, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which joins Kavakos to perform the work under Andris Nelsons at Carnegie Hall on Monday, alongside Ives’s “The Unanswered Question” and Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.” (That ensemble gives a concert performance of Berg’s “Wozzeck” at Carnegie the following night.)Pages from the manuscript of the new concerto, “Scherben der Stille” (“Shards of Silence”).Unsuk ChinHeard in Boston on March 4, Chin’s concerto is striking in the intensity of its demands on Kavakos and the novel breadth of the palette it invites the orchestra to play with, both of which are typical traits of her works. Also impressive is the sense of narrative it creates over half an hour as it builds out a motif of just five notes: a flourish of three harmonics that settles down to two more tones.It’s entirely different from Chin’s earlier violin concerto, but equally powerful, and another worthy addition to the growing list of contemporary contributions to its genre.Speaking by phone from Berlin, Chin spoke about the inspiration behind the work, and particularly about its opening page. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Since your first violin concerto, you have written several concertos for other instruments. Has your thinking about the concerto as a genre changed at all, in these intervening two decades?Before my first violin concerto I wrote my piano concerto, which for me is also a very important work. They were not written for a certain soloist; they were very abstract, written for the instrument, rather than a person. Then I wrote my cello concerto for Alban Gerhardt and “Su,” my sheng concerto, for Wu Wei. I also wrote a clarinet concerto for Kari Kriikku.So my musical thinking changed a little bit because I became interested in musical personalities. Before that I didn’t have so much contact with musicians. I thought about my musical ideas in my mind in a very abstract way and then wrote the pieces.But this second violin concerto is again another turning point for me, because I was really enthusiastic about Leonidas’s playing, and it was something I’d never heard before. He plays music at an absolute level.How does what you admire in his playing translate into the concerto?I know all Leonidas’s repertoire, but especially his Beethoven concerto and all the sonatas. For me, it was a completely new kind of interpretation, really convincing and really strong. Through Leonidas’s playing, I rediscovered Beethoven’s music. Very often Beethoven’s materials and themes are banal, very simple, not very interesting, but he made huge artworks out of these small cells, small motifs. Then I thought, OK, I will take some very small material and try to go deeper.The music is quite different from all my other concertos. In my other pieces I have lots of ideas and a lot of colors and many movements, but this piece is just one movement, the longest one-movement piece I’ve written. The basic material is also extremely small.The first page of the published score of the concerto, which begins with a five-note motif for the solo violin, alone.Boosey & HawkesWe hear that material right at the start of the piece, for violin alone. Where does this motif go over the course of the work?The cell in total is five notes, but the first three notes are a kind of grace note; the main notes are the two after that. At the beginning they are the same note, but soon after, it changes. A semitone comes from the first cell.This small cell, or fragment, is permanently repeated through the whole piece, but every time with a different face. Sometimes it’s very melodic, Romantic; sometimes it sounds tragic; sometimes it sounds like abstract architecture. It is always the same thing, but in different layers, with different faces. It goes from beginning to end, but there is also abrupt change.A lot of concertos pit the orchestra against the soloist, but I didn’t get the sense that is what you were aiming for here.In this concerto the most important thing is the solo violin. The orchestra sometimes gives the violinist different colors, but it is mostly supporting the violin — except in one section near the middle, where everyone is doing their own thing and the soloist does not get any support from the orchestra. That is a huge fight between him and the orchestra.Previously you had banned yourself from writing more than one concerto for a given instrument. You have now broken that rule once; can we expect you to return to the piano or cello?I don’t think so. This is a very special, exceptional case. I don’t think I will be able to write a second piano concerto, even a second cello concerto. But you never know. Maybe in 20 years. More

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      ‘Wozzeck,’ the 20th Century’s Most Influential Opera, Turns 100

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      Alban Berg’s brutal classic, a tale of a lowly soldier’s degradation and death, continues to inspire artists.Theodor Adorno had to commiserate with Alban Berg late into the night on Dec. 14, 1925, after the premiere of “Wozzeck” at the Berlin State Opera.The problem was not that Berg’s first opera had been a disaster, that this unknown student of Arnold Schoenberg’s was poised to be sent back into his former anonymity and abject poverty.The problem for Berg was that his musically abrasive, politically unsparing work — based on a Georg Büchner play that he had seen in 1914 and immediately thought of setting to music — had been such a triumph that he started to question the work’s true worth. Adorno later recalled “literally consoling him over his success.”A success “Wozzeck” has remained in the 100 years since Berg finished revising the manuscript on July 16, 1922. The most radical opera of its time, still sounding strikingly modern in its centenary year, it became one of the most influential operas of the 20th century, along with works like Strauss’s “Salome” and Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande.”With its taut, swiftly scene-changing cinematic structure and its omnivorous stylistic appetite, not to mention its use of fleeting, devastating moments of tonality amid the precise constructions of its largely atonal score, the argument could easily be made that “Wozzeck” turned out to be, in fact, the most influential of them all.The premiere of “Wozzeck,” at the Berlin State Opera, received a front-page review in Das Theater, with a photo of Sigrid Johanson, left, as Marie and Leo Schützendorf as Wozzeck.Lebrecht Music & Arts/AlamyRight on cue come a range of performances, in celebration of an opera perhaps too dire to think of celebrating. A William Kentridge staging that played at the Met in 2019 runs through March 30 at the Paris Opera, with the conductor Susanna Malkki at the helm, before it arrives in Barcelona in May, with Matthias Goerne as its Wozzeck. A new Simon Stone production with the baritone Christian Gerhaher in the title role opens at the Vienna State Opera on March 21. And on Tuesday, Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra give a concert performance at Carnegie Hall, with Christine Goerke as Marie.Part of the overpowering force of “Wozzeck” comes from its plot. In 15 short scenes, Berg recounts the degradation and demise of Wozzeck, a destitute soldier abused by his captain, experimented on by a doctor, and wracked with suspicion that his partner, Marie, is being unfaithful with a drum major. Driven mad, Wozzeck murders Marie, then drowns himself. The curtain falls on their son rocking on a hobbyhorse. Whether he will escape the fate of his parents — and the general forces that bear down so ineluctably on what Wozzeck calls “we poor people” — is left unclear.What might explain the lasting power of Berg’s opera? And what has its influence truly been? Here are edited excerpts from interviews with artists who hold the work dear.Yuval Sharon, director“Wozzeck” was the first opera that made me believe in opera as a viable art form. It is this huge musical expression of the lives of really disempowered people. Thinking that opera could tell stories that are not just the stories of a privileged position, but could truly represent another point of view, and do it with incredible imagination, opened up the possibilities of what opera can still be.It’s one of the most compassionate operas that I know. It’s not the Beethoven model. It’s not speaking to that aspirational quality that some of us think music captures so well. There is no salvation in the piece, and that is precisely what is so powerful and urgent about it. It’s not going to be the horns that herald a miraculous overcoming of tyranny, like in “Fidelio.” It’s going to have to be us, in the audience, that will need to speak up for Wozzeck.William Kentridge’s production of “Wozzeck” at the Metropolitan Opera in 2019; Kentridge’s staging is now running at the Paris Opera.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesChristian Gerhaher, baritoneBüchner was much earlier than Karl Marx in his ideas, but they were similar. Büchner was not the founder of communism, but he was honest about the difficulties poor people face in creating a normal life. This is touching, without being too ideological.You have a work which deals with a horrific subject. What is going on is terrible, but the point as a singer and also in the audience is that you have this wonderful joy to see thoughts put into words and music in such a precise way. It is with practically no doubt the masterpiece of the 20th century. Nothing is decoration; nothing is neglectable; every tone is important; every word is important. It’s the essence of a quickly moving world, which is modernity.Brett Dean, composerWhat always struck me about “Wozzeck” was that although it came out of a score full of compositional thought which in itself was revolutionary in the history of music, Berg was the one who married process with engagement, married the head with the heart — or the stomach.Despite the strictness of studying with Schoenberg, he realized that you have to go where you need to go. The fact that, for example, in the interlude just before the end, he ingeniously reverts back to this early piano sketch in D minor, and realizes that’s what we need, right here, right now. From the point of view of a modernist, expressionist language, he’s able, willing and happy to embrace everything that he needs at the given time.Act III orchestral interludeVienna Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)Susanna Malkki, conductorPeople talk about how difficult it is, and it’s not entirely untrue, but I think it’s mostly a question of it being incredibly dense, and rich, and profound. You have several layers that make it interesting every time you hear it. I have been personally surprised, since I finally got the score and started to study it, to see how much warmth and beauty and even humor there is. The piece is scarily perfect.Berg is incredibly smart, of course. But when the story becomes unbearable in its sadness near the end, he actually simplifies the music, which gives us room to really feel the pain, and the destiny, and all of that. He gives us time to digest everything, and then of course the final hit comes. It’s just absolutely awful.Stuart Skelton, left, and Waltraud Meier in “Wozzeck” at the Met in 2011.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesDavid T. Little, composerIt was the first piece that I had encountered that I felt was really looking at the tougher parts of life, and not looking away. I had always been drawn to the idea of opera, but looking at Mozart and Verdi, it felt like we were dealing with characters who were not real people, at least not to me, with my background. When I first saw “Wozzeck,” these were ordinary people dealing with extraordinary things, and in the case of Wozzeck, a world that is really bearing down on this character.I remember being shaken by that big, unison B crescendo near the end, just the sense of it being so inescapable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the 12-minute crescendo at the end of my opera “Dog Days” is a B quarter flat; it’s a homage or reference to that moment. There’s life before that piece, and life after it.Act III, Scene 2Vienna Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)Matthias Goerne, baritoneWhat Berg has made out of Büchner’s play, I think it’s the most perfect piece we have, in terms of story, the characters. Everybody is completely in shape in their character and you immediately find out what kind of person it is, and about their relationship to all the others.You have two different levels. You have this very depressing underdog, Wozzeck, who is in this position of slavery. He constantly needs money. He can feel that something in his relationship is not right. He becomes more and more crazy, and out of control. On the other side, it’s a tragic love story. He becomes a murderer. You have empathy, you feel something for him — but in the end he is killing a human being.Christine Goerke, sopranoI find Marie to be such a complicated and conflicted character. Like so many of us right now, she tries to find the joy in simple things in what seems like an uncaring world. She doesn’t have much, so she tries to do the best with what she has. She grasps at her moments of joy, and then feels guilty for them later. She feels that she should do better, she should be better, she should be content with what she has, and if she can do that — perhaps it will help her to avoid judgment. She is a mother who struggles to keep her own identity as a woman. I have been this woman. Depending on the day, I am this woman.Berg, the composer Brett Dean said, “was the one who married process with engagement, married the head with the heart — or the stomach.”Imagno/Getty ImagesFranz Welser-Möst, conductorWhat Alban Berg did in making the story so compact and emotionally so intense — I think to this very day, people are just totally gripped with the story, especially at the end. We always have an enormous empathy with children, and when that boy comes out and sings “Hopp, hopp!” that’s the latest point, if you have any human emotions, when you start crying in that opera.Schoenberg, when he wrote 12-tone music, never broke the rules that he set up. Berg did, because Berg was such a genius in the theater that he knew, like Mozart, that sometimes you have to break the rules to be more impactful.Act III, Scene 5Vienna Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)Missy Mazzoli, composerThis was the first opera I saw live, at the Met in 1999, when I was 18. It awakened me to this idea that I now see as one of opera’s superpowers, which is to show us the darkest sides of human nature. In that 90 minutes I had this visceral experience of recognizing my own dark side, and allowing myself to go there because I was in the safe, velvet box of the theater.In a way, I’m shocked that it’s not more influential. I wish that opera had continued on this experimental path. “Wozzeck” was not an outlier; it was celebrated and performed everywhere. Berg lived off it for a long time, and had the honor of being denounced by the Nazis. Now opera has retreated — for the most part; there are many exceptions — into a safer, more palatable space. Part of me wishes we could bring back that momentum of the “degenerate” art. More