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    Trinity Church’s ‘Messiah’ Is Still the Gold Standard

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    The church’s urgent and eloquent version of Handel’s classic oratorio remains an inspired communal rite.The holidays are a time for traditions — and for doubting them. Is Grandma’s ham drier than you thought when you were young? Is the movie the whole family watches every year maybe a little offensive?For me, the question on Wednesday was whether Trinity Wall Street’s version of Handel’s “Messiah” would be as good — as bracing, as riveting, as disturbing and consoling — as I remembered.Seeing Trinity’s “Messiah” for the first time, in 2011, showed me the galvanic possibilities of this classic work more than any recording or live outing I’d ever heard. This wasn’t the usual, quaintly sleepy Christmas routine, but a seething, electrically direct and dramatic enactment of an oratorio that both describes and calls for transformation: “And we shall be changed,” its crucial line promises.It had been a good few years since I’d heard the church’s Handel. But when people would ask me for a “Messiah” recommendation among the many options that pop up in New York each December, I always replied with a single word: Trinity.This “Messiah” long achieved its exhilarating quality because of an exceptional in-house choir and period-instrument orchestra — and because of Julian Wachner, Trinity’s director of music and the arts, who led the church’s medieval-to-modern music program with energy and ambition.Early last year, Wachner was fired by Trinity before the church completed an investigation into an allegation of sexual misconduct against him, but after it found he had “otherwise conducted himself in a manner that is inconsistent with our expectations of anyone who occupies a leadership position.” (He has denied the allegations.)His departure left one of the jewels of the city’s artistic and spiritual scenes leaderless until early this month, when the church announced that Melissa Attebury would be its next director of music. For almost two years, Trinity has depended on staff and guest conductors, including, for this year’s Handel, Ryan James Brandau.And what a relief to find that Trinity’s “Messiah” is still burning and gladdening, vivid in both darkness and light. If Brandau’s account lacked some of Wachner’s charged, even savage intensity, that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. The performance on Wednesday added some elegance to the urgent, heartfelt directness, the emphasis on communication, that has been Trinity’s standard in this piece.The soaringly resonant acoustics of Trinity Church smoothed some of the choir’s bite into airy creaminess, but the passion was still palpable. And while the orchestral sound was sleeker than I recalled, it had the same stirring commitment and bristling responsiveness to the vocalists, as well as a glistening, pastoral dawn quality to the shepherds.These forces are truly an ensemble, aided by my favorite aspect of the church’s version. Most “Messiah” presentations bring in a quartet of opera singers for the solos. Trinity’s soloists — almost 20 of them — come forward from the choir, giving the oratorio the feeling of an intimate, alternately sober and joyous communal rite, modest yet monumental.This practice also allows the ensemble to show off the strengths of its roster — no soprano is ideally suited to all the work’s soprano arias — and to experiment. In 2017, Wachner switched the traditional genders of all the solos, a change thrillingly recalled this year by having Jonathan Woody, a bass-baritone, blaze through “He was despised,” instead of the standard female alto.There was more sense than there usually is of the range of emotion within numbers, not just between them. The tenor Stephen Sands was calm, then pressing in the beginning of the work, and the soprano Madeline Apple Healey was sprightly, then tender in “Rejoice greatly.”Brandau guided the score so that “Hallelujah” seemed to emerge from the preceding numbers, which gradually rose in fieriness. And he, choir and orchestra built patiently to the work’s true climax — “The trumpet shall sound,” sung with annunciatory power by the bass-baritone Edmund Milly and accompanied with eloquence, on a difficult-to-control, valveless natural trumpet, by Caleb Hudson — before the shining waves of the final “Amen.”Though pleasant enough, a pared-down New York Philharmonic’s “Messiah,” heard on Tuesday, paled in comparison. Conducted by Fabio Biondi, the founder of the distinguished period-instrument group Europa Galante, in his debut with the orchestra, this Handel was a little stolid in the first part, though with more crispness and color in the second and third.Fabio Biondi made his debut with the New York Philharmonic conducting Handel’s “Messiah.”Chris LeeThe quartet of young vocal soloists made little impact in tone or interpretive zest; the star here was the venerable Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, from Boston. A few dozen strong, it sounded rich yet lucid, with metronomic clarity in the burbling 16th notes of “And He shall purify” and with evocative gauziness in “His yoke is easy.” Biondi led a lithe, brisk “Hallelujah,” seemingly designed to make this omnipresent number a bit more unassuming than the norm.Beyond the start of “Messiah” season, this was a banner week for early music in New York. On Saturday, the Miller Theater hosted the Tallis Scholars at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Manhattan, part of the ensemble’s 50th-anniversary tour. And yet more Handel: On Sunday, Harry Bicket and the English Concert continued their annual series of concert performances of his operas and oratorios at Carnegie Hall with “Rodelinda.”“Messiah” is Christmas music, but not entirely, since Jesus’ birth occupies only a few minutes of this long meditation on his life and example. The Tallis Scholars, though, offered a real Christmas program of largely Renaissance works focused on the shepherds who receive the news of the Nativity.Under their founder and director, Peter Phillips, these 10 singers displayed the floating silkiness, light without seeming insubstantial, that has been Tallis’s trademark over its remarkable career.With the parts of Clemens’s “Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis” interwoven with other pieces, the concert was notable for its exploration of different composers’ treatments of the same texts. Pedro de Cristo’s straightforwardly lyrical, almost folk-inflected “Quaeramus cum pastoribus” preceded Giovanni Croce’s grander version. And Jacob Obrecht’s plainchant-and-elaboration “Salve regina” came before Peter Philip’s later, more declamatory one.At Carnegie, the English Concert brought its characteristic spirited polish — moderate yet exciting — to “Rodelinda,” a work that Bicket has helped make a sterling recent addition to the Metropolitan Opera’s standard repertory. The cast of six was individually impressive and, even better, well matched. The soprano Lucy Crowe’s voice warmed in the title role as the afternoon went on, and her portrayal was gripping from the start. The countertenor Iestyn Davies, as her believed-to-be-dead husband, Bertarido, had, as usual, special time-stopping persuasiveness in slow music.It was refined work. But the performance over the past week that has lingered with me most is clear. If someone asks for a recommendation — for the holidays, or for music in New York in general — my answer is the same as it’s been for years: Trinity’s “Messiah.” More

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      Review: An Unexpectedly Relevant Oratorio at the Philharmonic

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      Planned over a year ago, Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” was presented while the Israel-Hamas war unfolds in the Middle East.Handel is not a composer typically associated with controversy, but the New York Philharmonic found itself entering a difficult public discourse with its performances of the oratorio “Israel in Egypt” this week at David Geffen Hall.As thousands have died in the Israel-Hamas war, and as the conflict has inflamed tensions around the world, Cambridge University’s opera society has canceled a performance of Handel’s “Saul,” which depicts the Israelite David’s victory over the Philistine Goliath. That is the oratorio Handel wrote before “Israel in Egypt,” about a powerless people fleeing the subjugation of an oppressive state.“Israel in Egypt” is less dramatic than “Saul,” and for its concerts, the Philharmonic opted for a program note. In it, the organization’s leadership clarified that this week’s performances were planned more than a year ago and added, “What we could not have anticipated is recent world events, making the timing of this program particularly relevant.”The oratorio’s tale could have been a source of empathy and catharsis for audiences, but that’s not exactly the piece Handel wrote. For those familiar with “Messiah,” Handel’s other English-language oratorio that lifts its text from Scripture, “Israel in Egypt” is an oddity. Written almost entirely for choral forces, with few showpieces for the soloists, it narrates the Jewish exodus that Moses led from Egypt. To modern ears, the text painting of the 10 plagues is so lightweight that it verges on silliness: The orchestra leaps to depict frogs, buzzes for flies and thumps for hailstones.Still, the melancholy-saturated lamentation that opens the piece, and the triumphant choruses that close it, adds substance. And on Wednesday, the conductor and Baroque specialist Jeannette Sorrell led a sonorous performance, drawing captivating singing from the choristers of Apollo’s Fire and intermittently inspiring the Philharmonic’s players to embrace fleeter, Handelian style on their modern instruments.The Apollo’s Fire chorus, a gem of an ensemble, anchored the evening with a beguiling sound. In the big, unified moments, the voice parts stacked atop one another in pellucid columns. Tricky double choruses and fugues had a lucent, weightless, nimble quality.Sorrell’s brisk adaptation trims the score to roughly 80 minutes, which offset the orchestra’s occasionally slackened energy. She wisely reinstated the intensely emotional, sometimes cut lamentation (a decision she also made on a recently released recording with Apollo’s Fire). With a theatrical flourish, she cut short the Exodus section so that it concluded with a thrilling depiction of Pharaoh’s army drowning in the Red Sea.Among the vocal soloists, Amanda Forsythe demonstrated a limpid soprano in “Thou didst blow,” and Edward Vogel showed a rather appealing, midweight baritone in his insertion aria, “To God our strength” (aided by Christopher Martin’s dignified trumpet solo). The tenor Jacob Perry and the soprano Sonya Headlam filled their music with character, and the countertenor Cody Bowers sang with a beautifully shaped tone and enthusiasm to spare.Handel devoted much of the final section, “Moses’ Song,” to a triumphant account of the Red Sea’s parting. In “The depths have covered them,” the strings were as broad and far-reaching as the water’s surface. In the score and the story it recounts, the moment is a deus ex machina. Today, though, we do not live in a time of miracles.New York PhilharmonicPerformed on Wednesday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan. More

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      Review: A ‘Rodelinda’ Brings Promise of Handel on the Hudson

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      R.B. Schlather’s new staging of this opera, with the excellent musicians of Ruckus, is the first of several Handel productions at Hudson Hall.Huge if true, as they say: The new production of Handel’s “Rodelinda” that opened on Friday at Hudson Hall is just the first in a series of annual Handel stagings there to come.For the next several years, Hudson, N.Y., has the potential to become a Baroque opera destination, even for those accustomed to the rich offerings of New York City. Sure, you can catch Handel down the river in Manhattan, but regularly programmed stage works of his are likely to be found only at the Metropolitan Opera or Carnegie Hall, two cavernous spaces not exactly suited to the precision and immediacy in which this composer’s music thrives.Hudson Hall is far from a traditional opera house; with no pit and seemingly indifferent acoustics, it was used in the 19th century for speeches by the likes of Emerson and Susan B. Anthony. But, outfitted with 281 folding chairs arranged around its boxy room’s tight proscenium on Friday, it was surprisingly ideal for the intimacy of Handel — despite having the look, as my companion told me, of “Waiting for Guffman.”The result was nothing so cringe-worthy as the kind of town hall community theater satirized in that movie. With smart direction by R.B. Schlather and excellent performances from the early-music group Ruckus, this is a “Rodelinda” worth of a multiyear commitment to Handel.Schlather, an American director who should be as well known in the United States as he is in Europe, is a trusted steward of this repertoire, having staged unconventional Handel productions at a Lower East Side gallery and at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. He also, crucially, was at the helm of a beloved, immersive “The Mother of Us All” at Hudson Hall in 2017.Futterer in the opera’s title role, the wife of a king who has fled after his throne is usurped.Matthew PlacekHis “Rodelinda” has enough dramaturgical sense to know that the opera — while melodramatic, about murderous and ultimately pointless palace intrigue in medieval Italy — can be a bit baggy in its second act, from which Schlather cut the most material for his more streamlined, two-and-a-half-hour production. But throughout, he is also largely restrained, with few interventions. His scenic and costume designs are redolent of the Victorian age (a nod to Hudson Hall’s era of moralistic speechmaking), though not meticulously devoted to specificity or accuracy with the aesthetic.Schlather’s intelligence comes through best in other details. His unit set of a single room may be a good money-saver, but it also casts “Rodelinda” as a kind of surreal purgatory between reigns, romances and stages of grief. (Hauntingly, the lone window looks out to a black void.) And he stages the arias — moments of reflection that stop action yet spin out rich psychology through repetition — as addresses rather than as inner thoughts, lending Handel’s small cast the preternatural honesty and self-awareness of Sally Rooney characters.Crucially, in the finale — after deaths both supposed and real; after lovers are spurned, separated and reunited — Schlather seats the six surviving characters at a table, where their exhausted faces betray the traumatic reality of Handel’s rejoicing, relieved music.In that scene, and throughout the evening, it was clear that Schlather had spent a lot of time with the singers on dramatic care. Action can move slowly in a Handel opera, but his production is one in which there is always something to see in the performers’ evolving expressions, whether they are directly involved in the action or simply observing it from across the room.The soprano Keely Futterer, in the title role, looks immediately as if she’s just been through a great tragedy and is staring down another as she desperately holds on to her child, Flavio (a silent role that Myles Fraser shares with Tessa K. Prast). But she is a strong character with a plush, powerful sound to match, at one point, as a power move, brazenly taking and drinking the wine of the man who usurped her husband’s throne. She ornamented her melodies with adventurousness, though those flourishes sometimes got lost in wide vibrato or proved unwieldy. The mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce was affectingly ardent and unsure as her husband, Bertarido.Williams, left, as the imperious Garibaldo, with Buchholz as Eduige.Matthew PlacekAs the two villains, Grimoaldo and Garibaldo, the tenor Karim Sulayman and the bass-baritone Douglas Williams had the finest vocal outings of the night. Sulayman’s Grimoaldo was appropriately barking yet small, the depiction of a true insecure beta. Here, as is often the case with him, he was driven as much by theatrical instinct as by beauty, holding them in elegant balance and smoothly flowing between the two. Williams’s Garibaldo, by contrast, was a mighty presence, booming and characterfully wicked, imperious in holding his strength and sexuality over others.The gift of a space like Hudson Hall is that, without too much effort by either the audience or the artists, you can hear every nuance of Handel’s music and its interpretation. But that can be double-edged, revealing any faults in what is already a vulnerably exposing style. So you could sense, on Friday, the relatively soft enunciation of the mezzo-soprano Teresa Buchholz’s Eduige, for example, or the pinched countertenor of Brennan Hall’s Unulfo.Lapses like those, though, were outweighed by the truly up-close performances of the evening’s stars: Ruckus. Their command of the score was immediate, precise and fleet in the overture, but also jittery, with questioning flashes of darkness and uncertainty. With a mercurial, almost improvisatory spirit that responded to the drama in real time, they played with the fieriness and emotional charge of verismo.It’s no surprise that, a few rows in front of me, someone in the audience was rocking along to the music. As Schlather brings Handel back to Hudson Hall over the next several years, let’s hope he brings Ruckus, too.RodelindaThrough Oct. 29 at Hudson Hall in Hudson, N.Y.; hudsonhall.org. More

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      Review: A Met Opera-Bound ‘Semele’ Takes Its First Bows

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      Claus Guth’s entertaining and often sexy new staging of Handel’s opera-oratorio hybrid in Munich is a coproduction with the Metropolitan Opera.Staging oratorios in the opera house is nearly routine nowadays, especially those by Handel; for every “Agrippina,” you’re likely to get a “Messiah” too.Somewhere in between is “Semele,” a dramatic work that Handel described as “after the manner of an oratorio.” It lends itself both to the concert hall and the opera house, and with a long list of principal characters thrives best with a luxury cast — which it received at the Bavarian State Opera in an entertaining, lucid and often sexy new staging by Claus Guth that premiered on Saturday, a coproduction with the Metropolitan Opera that will eventually travel to New York.That “Semele” has been categorized as an oratorio has more to do with context than form. By the time it premiered at Covent Garden in 1744, Italian operas, which Handel had been composing for decades, were falling out of fashion, and he had moved on to English-language concert works like “Messiah.”In writing “Semele,” Handel and an unknown collaborator adapted William Congreve’s early 18th-century opera libretto of the same name. But rather than present it as a theatrical work, Handel disguised it as an oratorio for the Lenten concert season — even though the secular story, based on Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” wasn’t right for the occasion. There was hardly anything Christian about its brazen eroticism and adultery, or about a god having to explain to his mortal mistress that she needs rest because she doesn’t have his sexual stamina.Handel wasn’t able to have it both ways; “Semele” ran for several performances, then languished until the 20th century. But its resurgence has been richly mined, with musicians and directors continuously inspired by its Epicurean longing and sensuality, its psychological complexity and its timeless treatment of incompatible love — all thoughts and feelings, in Handel’s aria writing, repeated, examined sculpturally and reconsidered with doubt and revelation.From left, Nadezhda Karyazina, Rae and Emily D’Angelo in the production, in which the world of Semele’s fantasies is rendered in shades of black to contrast with the white of reality.Monika RittershausGuth’s production dives into the Semele’s subconscious, her frustrations and fantasies, on the day of her wedding. A reluctant bride, she is first shown posing next her groom, Athamas, before stepping out of a shell-like gown that maintains its shape without her. It’s not the last time that happens; she always seems to be getting into or out of a dress as she drifts between reality and daydream, between accepting her life and rejecting it.During the overture, crisply and briskly articulated in the pit under Gianluca Capuano’s baton, Semele and Athamas are seen posing with friends and family for increasingly cringe-worthy group portraits, their forced smiles as uncomfortably glaring as the enormous floral letters spelling out “LOVE” behind them. Distracted by a black feather — Guth’s nod to the libretto’s depiction of the god Jupiter as an eagle — Semele retreats into her mind, represented by a sudden change in light from bright to dark in Michael Bauer’s design.She imagines breaking out of her wedding’s austerely white, grand room with an ax as she tears a hole into the wall of Michael Levine’s bandshell-like set of a three-sided room enclosed with a ceiling. In doing so, she opens a portal into the world of the gods, where her affair with Jupiter will set off a chain of events that leads to her doom.Here, however, the story isn’t so straightforward. And neither are the performances. A Guth production often demands actorly skill of its singers, and in Munich — at the Prinzregententheater, one of the Bavarian State Opera’s smaller halls — the principal cast members were intimately close to the audience, exposed both visually and musically.No one more so than the soprano Brenda Rae as Semele, who rarely leaves the stage and is given one of the show’s most athletic arias, “Myself I shall adore.” As an actor, she sympathetically traced a downward plunge from hesitation to ecstasy, then harried despair and hollowed catatonia. Musically, however, she struggled to match the challenging score; her voice on Saturday was agile but thin, particularly through runs and ornamentation. Even the soft serenity she achieved in “O sleep, why dost thou leave me?” gave way, on a sustained trill, to a disorientingly jagged warble.As Jupiter, Michael Spyres, too, gave an unsteady account of a difficult role. His instrument remains baffling: immense in its power and remarkable in its baritone-tenor range, but also unwieldy and better suited to the legato phrasing of the famous aria “Where’er you walk” than the more acrobatically breathless “I must with speed amuse her.” At the end of that, though, he impressively joined a high-kicking chorus line choreographed by Ramses Sigl.He wasn’t the only singer given movement onstage. Jakub Jozef Orlinski, the countertenor in the role of Athamas, is also a breakdancer, which Guth spotlights when his character desperately attempts to entertain Semele. Charismatic and handsome, Orlinski stopped the show with the applause his dance earned. But more enchanting was the purity of his sound — sublimely crystalline in “Come, Zephyrs, come” — which blended warmly with the lower end of Athamas’s altolike tessitura.Orlinski, a break dancer beyond the opera house, is made to do so in a scene of his character trying to impress Semele.Monika RittershausThat aria, put in Athamas’s mouth rather than Cupid’s, made for a shattering juxtaposition with Semele’s “O sleep.” Orlinski and Rae sang near, but not at, each other, embodying that painfully familiar feeling of two people expressing themselves yet failing to truly communicate.As Jupiter’s enraged and scheming wife, Juno, the typically mighty but pleasant mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo seemed to have been handed a part not suited to her voice; but with the sprightly soprano Jessica Niles as Iris, she provided much of the show’s levity, through musical delivery and physical comedy. Charming, as well, was the bass-baritone Philippe Sly, his sound focused and vibrant as Semele’s father, Cadmus, and the drowsy Somnus.Among the smaller roles, Nadezhda Karyazina, as Semele’s sister, Ino, was prone to excessive gesture, but found a touching balance of outward emotion and poise in the climactic scene of her stepping in to marry Athamas.By that point, Guth shows Semele as alive, but so deep in her imagination that she can’t find her way back to reality; rather than reduced to ashes by Jupiter’s thunderbolts, she sits in the wedding hall lifeless as the world goes on around her. Semele may be free from the institution of marriage, but the institution endures without her.It’s a bittersweet ending that comes through persuasively and clearly. In that regard, when it reaches New York, Guth’s staging will be a fitting addition to the Met’s current era of many handsome, cosmetically modern productions. More uncertain, though, is how it will scale from the Prinzregententheater — whose seating capacity barely tops 1,100 — to the 3,800-seat Met, a company in desperate need of a second, smaller house.Semele transforms in the final moments from lifelessness to something like rebirth, suggesting that she may be more of a prophet than a mere dreamer. But the change occurs on her face alone; the question, now, is whether Guth can repeat that subtlety at the Met.SemeleThrough July 25 at the Prinzregententheater in Munich; staatsoper.de. More

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      London Tours on Opera and Classical Music Offer Looks Behind the Curtain

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      Fans of music from centuries past will find a wide variety of experiences and collections. One even comes with a side of rock ’n’ roll.Have you ever wondered what happens behind the red velvet curtains at the Royal Opera House? Do you relish a bit of backstage gossip or enjoy looking at centuries-old instruments? London has a rich variety of tours and collections for opera and classical-music enthusiasts. Here’s a selection.Royal Opera HouseWho were some of the women who made history at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden? It’s a question that the opera house is answering in detail in a tour that runs through Aug. 12.Among the many stars the tour is spotlighting is a soprano who gave a whole new meaning to the word “diva”: Adelina Patti (1843-1919), an Italian who made her opera debut in New York at 16, then crossed the Atlantic for a 23-year Covent Garden career.She was admired for her coloratura singing and feared for her business chops. According to the tour organizers, she demanded to be paid in gold at least half an hour before each stage appearance and commanded $100,000 per show (in today’s money). And in a performance as Violetta in “La Traviata,” she wore a custom gown encrusted with 3,700 of her own diamonds.The singer comes up in another tour: an outdoor one organized jointly by the Royal Opera House and the Bow Street Police Museum that runs through Aug. 31. During Patti’s diamond-studded performance of “La Traviata” at the Theatre Royal (the precursor of the current opera house), security had to be reinforced in a big way because of the precious stones embedded in her gown. Covent Garden at the time teemed with pickpockets, robbers, criminals and even murderers. So police officers surreptitiously joined the chorus onstage — where they could get as close as possible to the soprano and go unnoticed.The Royal Albert Hall, named for Prince Albert and inaugurated in 1871, a decade after his death, has featured luminaries from Albert Einstein to Adele. Suzie Howell for The New York TimesRoyal Albert HallWith 5,272 seats, Royal Albert Hall is more comparable in size to an arena than to a classical-music concert hall; in fact, the Cirque du Soleil regularly performs there. It’s named after Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, and was inaugurated in 1871, a decade after his death. You can hear that royal back story and get the lowdown on the hall’s tricky acoustics in an hourlong tour. The tour also covers some of the luminaries who graced the main stage (such as Albert Einstein and Muhammad Ali) and some of the more outlandish events held in the hall, including a séance and an opera performance for which the auditorium was flooded with 56,000 liters (nearly 15,000 gallons) of water.Handel Hendrix HouseThe museum, in a Georgian townhouse at 25 Brook Street in Mayfair, has a rich history: George Frideric Handel lived there from 1723 until his death in 1759. (Jimi Hendrix rented an apartment on the top floor in the late 1960s, but that’s another story.) The house is now a museum where you can visit Handel’s bedroom, the dining room where he rehearsed and gave private recitals, and the basement kitchen. This is where Handel composed “Zadok the Priest,” the British coronation anthem, which was recently performed for King Charles III. Here, too, Handel wrote “Messiah,” which took him about three weeks to compose.Speaking of “Messiah,” if you would like to see the first published score of songs from the oratorio, head to the Foundling Museum, on the grounds of the Foundling Hospital, a children’s home in Bloomsbury. The score was donated by Handel, one of the hospital’s major benefactors, who gave benefit concerts there and even composed an anthem for his first one. Also on display: Handel’s will.A new exhibition at the Royal College of Music features hidden treasures such as this yuequin, a stringed instrument from China, which was brought to London in the early 19th century and acquired by King George IV.HM King Charles III; photo by Claire ChevalierRoyal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music has a collection of more than 14,000 objects covering five centuries of music making. That includes about 1,000 musical instruments, such as the world’s earliest-dated guitar.A new exhibition features hidden treasures from the collection, including a photograph of Mary Garden. She was a Scottish-born soprano who moved to the United States in the late 19th century, joined the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1900 and premiered the role of Mélisande in “Pelléas et Mélisande,” the only opera that Debussy ever completed.Also on display is a yuequin, a stringed instrument from the ancient city of Guangzhou in China, which was brought to London in the early 19th century and acquired by King George IV. More

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      Meet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This Year

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMeet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This YearListen as nine performers guide you through the emotional arc of Handel’s classic, from comfort to grief to jubilation.Dec. 23, 2020, 11:46 a.m. ETEvery year, Handel’s “Messiah” is a communal ritual — a glittering parade of recitatives, arias and choruses that binds listeners and performers together in a story of promise, betrayal and redemption.But not this year. In 2020 the oratorio, if you listen to it at all, will be by necessity a private matter. And many artists for whom it is a beloved (and remunerative) staple remain almost entirely out of work.In this context, the emotional arc of “Messiah” — from comfort to grief to eventual relief — can feel more powerful than ever. Here, listen along as seven singers and two conductors offer a behind-the-music guide through the work.Brian Giebler, tenor: ‘Comfort ye’When you step up to the stage at the beginning of “Messiah,” every eye in the room turns to you. For the next three minutes you have complete command over everyone’s emotions.“Comfort ye” is my moment to take everyone’s anxiety, and pause for a second to reflect on why we’re here. You come after the overture, which is this almost chaotic moment, like everybody bustling about trying to get presents, or running to Carnegie Hall after a busy day of work. And then the beginning of “Comfort ye” is so solemn.What I’m after is a sense of calm. It’s all about long lines. Baroque ornamentation is fun, but here, it’s about taking time and not doing anything too flashy.Luthien Brackett, mezzo-soprano: ‘O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion’It’s a bubbling up of excitement, this secret you can’t wait to tell.It starts with exuberant champagne bubbles in the strings, and by the time you’re ready to sing you almost can’t contain your excitement. It’s like you’re addressing a friend who’s been grieving and maybe has been home alone for a while, and you come over and say, OK, get your coat on, we’re going to have a great time: “Get thee up into the high mountains!”There’s healing, as well. Those exuberant string notes with that wonderful contrast between the high and the low feel like a weight is being lifted. You have this energy you didn’t know you possessed. The aria goes straight into a chorus and everybody joins in.Joélle Harvey, soprano: ‘Rejoice greatly’The soprano performs in the Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020 version of “Messiah.”CreditCredit…Handel and Haydn SocietyThe music sounds like skipping through a meadow. I don’t know how you can say the words “rejoice greatly” without smiling. But the challenge is how to make the joy last so it doesn’t feel false or overdone. In the da capo section — on the words “Shout! Shout!” — instead of letting them get louder, I now make it more internal. Something to rev yourself up.Straight from the beginning, the phrases expand with each iteration. And the melismatic passages are exciting, almost like a game. Once you’re past the technical part of it, it’s very easy to find the playfulness in this aria. The da capo is ecstatic, with ornaments on top of ornaments.Reginald Mobley, countertenor: ‘He was despised’With its limited range and simple placement of notes, this is a piece that needs more than a park and bark. This is an aria that needs more than a big-haired Texan soprano spinning some tone for an expanse of quite a bit of an hour. You as the artist are the conduit: You have to be a prism for this incredibly heavy emotion that sets the stage for the Passion portion of “Messiah.”If you speed up the “A” section and slow down the “B” section — which usually sounds like a cavalry charge — then you can hear the flagellation, you hear Christ being tortured. My job is to transmit the personal horror and shame of being responsible.In 2014 I was singing the aria in Kansas City. This was the year of the Ferguson riots following the killing of Michael Brown. As I was singing, I thought of him and all the others who have been murdered by an unjust system. I thought, I get to be a survivor and tell the story of my brothers, my sisters, who were scorned and shamed and spited and spat upon. And I have to carry that shame: of what Americans should feel allowing the system to go on as long as it has.Joe Miller, conductor: ‘All we like sheep’What Handel is good at doing is creating amazing emotional contrast. At the very end of this piece is the crux of humanity: The iniquity of everyone is going to be laid on this one person. Up until then you have this comedy of sheep turning around and running away — I always think of an English sheepdog trying to round everyone up — and all of a sudden it comes down to this very profound moment.In the runs, everyone in the choir gets to weave and turn away. And then people sing “Everyone to his own way” over and over, and it’s all on one note, like everyone running into a fence and not knowing what to do.Jonathan Woody, bass-baritone: ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together’I performed “Messiah” in Kansas City in December 2016. The recent election was on everyone’s mind. In between the dress rehearsal and the concert I read about a politician who, speaking about the Obamas, said something about Michelle returning to the Serengeti to live as a man. I read it on my phone and it broke my heart. In performance that day, what I was really doing was asking the people in the audience: Why do we hate each other, mistrust each other, dehumanize each other?I look around the world that we live in where we continue to treat people terribly. When Handel sets these rage arias, I get the sense that he understood that also. The world he lived in was not any less tumultuous than the one we live in today. I hear it in the music, in the intensity of the string figures, those 16th notes. I hear that angst.Kent Tritle, conductor: ‘Hallelujah’So much of the magic is the sheer jubilation that Handel conjures. The “Hallelujah” chorus sets out a firm, memorable exposition and then takes us to what is a short but extremely touching section about transformation. Then, through a sequence of sequentially rising pedal points on the words “King of kings,” he creates a sense of uplift, followed by a compaction of “Hallelujahs” as they barrel toward that cliff’s edge before the final absolute affirmation. It’s an incredible structure.When everyone in the hall rises from their seats it’s an amazing moment. You feel the energy shift in the house. And I see the glow on the faces of the choir as though they are a mirror reflecting what the audience is doing. Because of that choreographic moment, you get the sense that we are really on the same level. It’s magical and hair-raising.Jolle Greenleaf, soprano: ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’I see this as an opportunity to share a message of hope and love during a season when it’s getting darker, when people are looking for meaningful connections and ways to manage their emotions through the holidays. I try to look out at the audience and make as many personal connections with the people there so that they can feel that there truly is hope, that I’m a vessel for that hope.The tune feels very expansive. It just glides in a way that you can add ornaments to it. Those ornaments help create the gold filigree that you would see in a tapestry. Of course there is acknowledgment of darkness: “Though worms destroy this body.” I was 35 when I was diagnosed with cancer. It made everything related to death feel more fresh and raw and scary. But there’s power in reclaiming that and singing about hope despite that fear.Dashon Burton, bass-baritone: ‘The trumpet shall sound’This aria is about awe in every possible form. There’s the reverent awe of someone shocked into paying attention, hearing this mystery that says that no matter who you are, you are going to be raised after death, and no matter what trials you’ve gone through, you will have everlasting life.And then it’s the amazing sense of awe you get from hearing a rare trumpet solo. I just love that sense of grandeur: Even though it is a triumphant piece there is such mystery and quietude.The “B” section is a moment for reflection. As if shocked by this awesome presence, you need to take a moment: What have I just experienced? It’s a joy to sing those lines in one breath, to heighten the drama and really cinch these incredibly long phrases together. And to come back to the “A” section, now highly ornamented with all the regalia of your own vocal prowess and the entire emotional experience of having gone through this story. Not only to see, but to share. It’s the greatest moment onstage to be able to say to the audience: This is for you and this is with you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A ‘Messiah’ for the Multitudes, Freed From History’s Bonds

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA ‘Messiah’ for the Multitudes, Freed From History’s BondsA polyglot, nonsectarian, gender-inclusive film from Canada remakes the Handel classic for today’s world.Half of the 12 soloists in “Messiah/Complex” are Indigenous, including Diyet van Lieshout, a mezzo-soprano from Yukon, who is filmed traipsing through the snow in her traditional mukluk boots.Credit…Alistair MaitlandDec. 21, 2020A gay Chinese-Canadian tenor struts through the streets of Vancouver, joyously proclaiming that “ev’ry valley shall be exalted” as the camera focuses in on his six-inch-high stiletto heels.A Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano reimagines Jesus as a Muslim woman in a head scarf.In Yukon, an Indigenous singer praises the remote snow-covered landscape in Southern Tutchone, the language of her ancestors.“This is not your grandparents’ ‘Messiah,’” Spencer Britten, the tenor in heels, said in an interview. He and the other performers are part of “Messiah/Complex,” an iconoclastic new production of Handel’s classic oratorio, which draws on biblical texts to form a stylized narrative of suffering, hope and redemption.Spencer Britten, a gay Chinese-Canadian tenor, struts through the streets of Vancouver in this reimagined “Messiah.”Credit…Georgia Street MediaAn 80-minute film featuring a dozen soloists from all corners of the country, this unabashed celebration of Canadian multiculturalism has recast the work as a series of deeply personal video narratives. (The performance will be streaming through Jan. 7.)The brainchild of Joel Ivany, a Broadway-loving son of pastors, and his Toronto indie opera company, Against the Grain Theater, in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, “Messiah/Complex” seeks to revamp a Christmas favorite for a world upended by a pandemic and a renewed consciousness about the rights of Black people and other minorities.It mixes the sacred and profane as it journeys from Canada’s Far North to an urban hockey rink, engaging in a bit of high camp and translating passages into six languages, including Arabic, French, Dene and Inuttitut. The text Mr. Britten sings has been retooled as a coming-out anthem for a young man confronting his conservative Chinese relatives.The production may send some purists running. One comment on YouTube called it “blasphemy.” But the critical reception has been more enthusiastic; The Globe and Mail, a leading national newspaper, lauded a “daring interpretation” that nevertheless “might get a rise out of the ‘Hallelujah’ people.” (The stalwart “Hallelujah” chorus, by the way, is performed by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, whose members came together to record the vocals in a space divided into makeshift booths with shower curtains to observe pandemic health protocols. The group was later filmed lip-syncing it — socially distanced — in downtown Toronto.)At a time when opera houses and concert halls around the globe have been shuttered by the coronavirus and are battling to remain relevant, Mr. Ivany said he wanted to create a “Messiah” befitting the moment. He added that he hoped the online production, initially conceived for Toronto’s Winter Garden Theater, would attract a younger audience that didn’t usually come to the opera.“As the Black Lives Matter protests were happening across the world, the silence in the classical music world was deafening, and I thought, ‘What if every soloist in this “Messiah” was Indigenous, Black or a person of color?’” said Mr. Ivany, who previously staged “La Bohème” in a pub. Mindful, he added, that he was “a white man interpreting a piece by a dead European male,” he partnered with Reneltta Arluk, an Indigenous theater director based in Alberta.The mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb changed the words of her aria, “He was despised,” to “She is despised,” to evoke herself and her Muslim mother.Credit…Huei LinThis reimagining of Handel, Ms. Arluk said, was also a way to grapple with recent research suggesting that the German-born composer had investments in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. “We can’t control the actions of composers hundreds of years ago,” she said. “But we can claim Handel’s work in our voices.”“Messiah/Complex” is hardly the first adjustment to “Messiah,” which was reworked by Mozart in 1789 and has since been interpreted by rock guitarists and gospel and hip-hop artists. Handel himself was initially accused of sacrilege in some orthodox quarters for transposing the biblical text.“Can it make you angry that we dared to do such a thing, that we provoked you?” said Matthew Loden, the chief executive of the Toronto Symphony. “That is what art is supposed to do.”In Canada, where the global reckoning about systemic racism has spawned debate about the dearth of minority voices represented in popular culture, the production is also being seen as a cultural corrective of sorts. And all the more so since the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a priority of reconciling with Indigenous peoples.In 2018 “Slav,” a theater production by the prominent Canadian director Robert Lepage, closed early at the Montreal International Jazz Festival following an outcry because a majority-white cast was portraying Black slaves. Indigenous artists also lashed out after another Lepage production, “Kanata,” which recounts aspects of Indigenous Canadians’ subjugation by white people, did not include any Indigenous Canadians in the cast.Ms. van Lieshout, in red coat, said that translating her aria into Southern Tutchone, her First Nations language, had been a way to “decolonize myself.”Credit…Alistair MaitlandHalf of the 12 soloists in “Messiah/Complex” are Indigenous. Diyet van Lieshout, the mezzo-soprano from Yukon, is filmed traipsing through the snow in her traditional mukluk boots. She said that translating her aria, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion,” into Southern Tutchone, her First Nations language, with the help of her 91-year-old grandmother had been nothing less than a way to “decolonize myself.”In the 1960s, she said, her mother, like other Indigenous children, had been taken from her family at the age of 5 and sent to a government-sponsored residential school run by the church, where she was forbidden to speak her language. (In 2015, a government commission said that such schools, which were in operation for over a century, “can best be described as ‘cultural genocide.’”)Ms. van Lieshout said she had struggled to reconcile her love of church music with the suffering her mother had endured. She said that singing “O thou that tellest” in her native tongue had “given me a reason to like Handel again.”Deantha Edmunds, an Inuk soprano who translated her part into her native Inuttitut, said showcasing Indigenous opera divas would also help combat the stereotype that people like her were more likely to be seen hunting than singing arias. In fact, she said, classical music had been brought to Inuit communities in her native Labrador, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, by European missionaries from Moravia about 250 years ago. She recalled how her father used to serenade the family over Christmas by singing “Silent Night” in English, German and Inuttitut.Deantha Edmunds, an Inuk soprano, translated her part into her native Inuttitut.Credit…Justin OakeyPerhaps the most intense intervention is that of Rihab Chaieb, a Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano who has sung often with the Metropolitan Opera. She removed Jesus from her aria altogether, changing “He was despised” to “She is despised,” to evoke herself and her Muslim mother.Quebec recently passed a law banning teachers, and other public sector workers from wearing religious symbols like head scarves while at work. Ms. Chaieb said neighbors in Montreal had called her veiled mother a terrorist, inspiring this singer to use Handel’s music to express her estrangement.In her segment, Ms. Chaieb is portrayed in black and white as a dutiful daughter, drinking tea in her mother’s apartment. But when she is shown, in color, under a graffiti-splattered underpass in Montreal, her barely submerged pain gradually crescendos as she sings in her native French.“My reinterpretation of the ‘Messiah’ is about me feeling despised and rejected as a first-generation immigrant in Montreal,” she said. “Like me, Jesus felt wretched and despised. But by taking Jesus out of the equation and making it more personal, I have reclaimed the ‘Messiah’ as my own.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020Listen to our critics’ favorites from a year in which much of the energy in music came from recordings.Credit…The New York TimesAnthony Tommasini, Zachary Woolfe, Joshua Barone, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, David Allen and Dec. 17, 2020Thomas Adès: Berceuse from ‘The Exterminating Angel’“In Seven Days”; Kirill Gerstein, piano (Myrios)The composer Thomas Adès and the pianist Kirill Gerstein’s artistically fruitful friendship has given us two essential albums this year: the premiere recording of Mr. Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, featuring Mr. Gerstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon); and this one, which includes a solo arrangement of the harrowing and slippery Berceuse from Mr. Adès’s opera “The Exterminating Angel.” JOSHUA BARONEBerceuse from “The Exterminating Angel”Myrios◆ ◆ ◆Bach: Cello Suite No. 4, GigueBach: Complete Cello Suites (Transcribed for Violin); Johnny Gandelsman, violin (In a Circle)From the beginning of this movement, ornamented with the insouciance of folk music, it’s difficult to resist tapping along with your foot. That urge doesn’t really leave throughout the rest of the six cello suites, lithely rendered here on solo violin by Johnny Gandelsman. This is Bach in zero gravity: feather-light and freely dancing. JOSHUA BARONESuite No. 4, GigueIn a Circle◆ ◆ ◆Beethoven: Symphony No. 2, Allegro moltoBeethoven: Symphonies and Overtures; Vienna State Opera Orchestra and others; Hermann Scherchen, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The few new Beethoven symphonies released in this, his 250th birthday year, have largely offered more evidence for the drab state of interpretive tastes today. Not so the rereleases — above all this remastered and exceptionally bracing cycle that was eons ahead of its time when it first came out in the 1950s. Scherchen’s Beethoven — like this Second Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — is fast, sleek and astonishing detailed, as exciting as anything set down since. DAVID ALLENSymphony No. 2, Allegro moltoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Nadia Boulanger: ‘Soir d’hiver’“Clairières: Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger”; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Myra Huang, piano (Avie)After Lili Boulanger, the gifted French composer, died in 1918 at just 24, her devoted older sister Nadia suffered doubts about her own composing and turned to teaching. On this lovely recording, the tenor Nicholas Phan performs elegant songs by both sisters, ending with Nadia’s misty, rapturous “Soir d’hiver,” a 1915 setting of her poem about a young mother abandoned by her lover. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Soir d’hiver”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1, RomanceChopin: Piano Concertos; Benjamin Grosvenor, piano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Elim Chan, conductor (Decca)There’s pianism of historic caliber on this release, and another mark of Mr. Grosvenor’s breathtaking maturity, even though he is still in his 20s. Summoning playing of pure poetry, he lavishes on these concertos all his lauded sensitivity, innate sense of pace and effortless way with phrasing. He’s matched bar for bar by Ms. Chan, an impressive young conductor who makes an occasion of orchestral writing that in other hands sounds routine. DAVID ALLENPiano Concerto No. 1, RomanceDecca◆ ◆ ◆Duke Ellington: ‘Light’“Black, Brown and Beige”; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (Blue Engine)If Ellington’s 1943 Carnegie Hall performance of his “Black, Brown and Beige” remains matchless, its radio broadcast sound has dated, making the crispness of this faithful recent rendition worth savoring. Sterling interpretation and production values permit a fresh look at “Light,” including the elegant way Ellington weaves together motifs heard earlier in “Black,” just before a rousing finish. SETH COLTER WALLS“Light”Blue Engine◆ ◆ ◆Eriks Esenvalds: ‘Earth Teach Me Quiet’“Rising w/ the Crossing”; the Crossing (New Focus)Earlier this year, when singing together became just about the most dangerous thing you could do, Donald Nally, the magus behind the Crossing, our finest contemporary-music choir, began posting daily recordings from their archives. He called it “Rising w/ the Crossing,” also the title of an album of a dozen highlights. There’s David Lang’s eerily prescient reflection on the 1918 flu pandemic, performed last year, and Alex Berko’s stirring “Lincoln.” But I keep returning to Eriks Esenvalds’s dreamily unfolding appeal to the Earth, its text a prayer of the Ute people of the American Southwest: a work of true radiance, fired by the precision and passion of this spectacular group. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Earth Teach Me Quiet”New Focus◆ ◆ ◆Antoine Forqueray: ‘Jupiter’“Barricades”; Thomas Dunford, lute; Jean Rondeau, harpsichord (Erato)This is Baroque music as hard-rock jam: driving, intense, dizzying, two musicians facing off in a brash battle that raises both their levels. It is the raucous climax of an album that creates a new little repertory for lute and harpsichord duo, with arrangements of favorites and relative obscurities that highlight Thomas Dunford and Jean Rondeau’s sly, exuberant artistic chemistry. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Jupiter”Warner Classics◆ ◆ ◆Ash Fure: ‘Shiver Lung’“Something to Hunt”; International Contemporary Ensemble; Lucy Dhegrae and Alice Teyssier, vocalists (Sound American)I try not to be fussy with audio quality. But if anything calls for an exception, it’s this long-awaited collection of music by Ash Fure — works that experiment with how sounds are made and felt. So before hitting play, gather your focus, along with your best headphones or speakers, for an intensely visceral listening experience. JOSHUA BARONE“Shiver Lung”Sound American◆ ◆ ◆Handel: ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate’“Agrippina”; Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano; Il Pomo d’Oro; Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor (Erato)A shot of venom, boring its way into the brain: There are some arias that aim to soothe anxiety, but for pure cathartic transference of all the anger, fear and impotence that 2020 has sparked, this aria — “Thoughts, you torment me” — by the title character of Handel’s “Agrippina” is the ticket. The fiercely dramatic Joyce DiDonato brings her multihued mezzo and over-the-top embellishments to the music, while the period-instrument orchestra pushes things along with raw-edged insistence. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Pensieri, voi mi tormentate”Erato◆ ◆ ◆Handel: Harpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeHandel: Suites for Harpsichord; Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord (Mirare)Handel’s eight suites for harpsichord, published in 1720, haven’t always gotten as much attention or respect among performers as the keyboard works of Couperin, Rameau or, especially, Bach. Sometimes they’ve been viewed more or less as training exercises: good for technique but not quite sublime. Pierre Hantaï, known for his vivid Scarlatti, dispels the slightly derogatory preconceptions with suave danciness and lucid touch. ZACHARY WOOLFEHarpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeMirare◆ ◆ ◆David Hertzberg: ‘Is that you, my love?’“The Wake World”; Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Samantha Hankey, mezzo-soprano; Elizabeth Braden, conductor (Tzadik)With his playfully convoluted 2017 fairy tale opera “The Wake World,” David Hertzberg demonstrated that voluptuous, sweeping elements of grand opera could be reimagined for today. In the work’s swelling, shimmering climactic duet between a young seeker and her fairy prince, Ravel meets Messiaen, and Wagner meets Scriabin; the music is spiky, original and wondrous strange. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Is that you, my love?”Tzadik◆ ◆ ◆Nathalie Joachim: ‘Dam mwen yo’“Forward Music Project 1.0”; Amanda Gookin, cello (Bright Shiny Things)Even when brief and minimalist, Nathalie Joachim’s compositions cross complex ranges of emotion. Here, in a piece for cello (and vocals recorded by its composer), the somber cast of mood at the opening is complicated by a change in gait. The effect is akin to what you might feel inventing a new dance on the spot, while trudging through otherwise grim surroundings. SETH COLTER WALLS“Dam mwen yo”Bright Shiny Things◆ ◆ ◆George Lewis: ‘As We May Feel’“Breaking News”; Studio Dan (Hat Hut)Boisterous riffs and counter-riffs seem to suggest improvisatory practices; after all, this veteran artist has explored those practices. Yet George Lewis’s 25-minute joy ride is fully notated. And it was written for an Austrian ensemble which appreciates the chug and wail of Duke Ellington’s train-imitation music, as well as the rigors of extended-technique modernism. SETH COLTER WALLS“As We May Feel”Hat Hut◆ ◆ ◆Meredith Monk: ‘Downfall’“Memory Game”; Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble; Bang on a Can All-Stars (Cantaloupe Music)For almost 60 years, the composer and performer Meredith Monk has created works mainly for herself and her close circle, so it’s been an open question what will happen to those intricate, idiosyncratic pieces when she’s gone. This album of sympathetic but not slavish new arrangements — collaborations with the Bang on a Can collective — offers tantalizing experiments. The clarinetist Ken Thomson gives the hawing vocals of “Downfall,” part of Ms. Monk’s post-apocalyptic 1983 evening “The Games,” seductively sinister instrumental surroundings. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Downfall”Cantaloupe Music◆ ◆ ◆Tristan Perich: ‘Drift Multiply,’ Section 6“Drift Multiply” (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)Music emerges out of snowdrifts of white noise on this mesmerizing track. Tristan Perich is one of the most innovative tinkerers in electronic music, creating works of vibrant mystery. In “Drift Multiply,” 50 violins interact with 50 loudspeakers connected to as many custom-built circuit boards that channel the sound into one-bit audio. The result is a constantly evolving landscape where sounds coalesce and prism, where the violins both pull into focus and blur into a soothing ether. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Drift Multiply,” Section 6New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: ‘Ferguson: Summer of 2014’“The Grey Land”; Numinous (New Amsterdam)Joseph C. Phillips Jr.’s “The Grey Land” is a stirring, stylistically varied mono-opera that draws on its composer’s reflections on being Black in contemporary America. The longest movement on the premiere recording makes an early textual reference to Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” while dramatizing an expectant couple’s unease in the wake of the death of Michael Brown. SETH COLTER WALLS“Ferguson: Summer of 2014”New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2, Andantino“Silver Age”; Daniil Trifonov, piano; Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The thoughtful pianist Daniil Trifonov explores the music of Russia’s so-called “silver age” of the early 20th century on a fascinating album that offers various solo works and concertos by Scriabin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. The spacious yet fiendishly difficult first movement of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto is especially exciting. ANTHONY TOMMASINIPiano Concerto No. 2, AndantinoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Rameau: ‘The Arts and the Hours’“Debussy Rameau”; Vikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)Few musicians craft their albums with as much care as Vikingur Olafsson, whose “Debussy Rameau” is a brilliantly conceived, nearly 30-track conversation across centuries between two French masters. There is one modern intervention: Mr. Olafsson’s solo arrangement of an interlude from Rameau’s “Les Boréades” — tender and reverential, a wellspring of grace. JOSHUA BARONE“The Arts and the Hours”Deutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Jean-Féry Rebel: ‘Le Chaos’“Labyrinth”; David Greilsammer, piano (Naïve)In his riveting, aptly titled album “Labyrinth,” the formidable pianist David Greilsammer daringly juxtaposes pieces spanning centuries, from Lully to Ofer Pelz. The theme of the album is captured in Jonathan Keren’s arrangement of Rebel’s “Le Chaos,” which comes across like an early-18th-century venture into mind-spinning modernism. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Le Chaos”Naïve◆ ◆ ◆Rebecca Saunders: ‘Still’“Musica Viva, Vol. 35”; Carolin Widmann, violin; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Ilan Volkov, conductor (BR-Klassik)A renowned figure on Europe’s experimental music scene, Rebecca Saunders builds teeming systems of shimmying severity from the sparest melodic materials. In this live recording of her violin concerto, Carolin Widmann excels in fulfilling the score’s contrasting requirements of delicacy and power. Helping judge the balance is the conductor Ilan Volkov, an artist American orchestras might consider working with. SETH COLTER WALLS“Still”BR-Klassik◆ ◆ ◆Schubert: ‘Des Fischers Liebesglück’“Where Only Stars Can Hear Us: Schubert Songs”; Karim Sulayman, tenor; Yi-heng Yang, fortepiano (Avie)Intimate, sweet-toned and more easily given to dry humor than its powerful keyboard successors, the fortepiano should be a natural choice for Schubert lieder. Yet recordings such as this exquisitely personal recital — with the clear-voiced tenor Karim Sulayman and the sensitive pianist Yi-heng Yang — are still rare. Listen to them weave a storyteller’s spell in this song about a nighttime tryst in a fishing boat, and marvel at the emotional arc they weave with the simplest of gestures. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Des Fischers Liebesglück”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Ethel Smyth: ‘The Prisoner Awakes’“The Prison”; Experiential Orchestra and Chorus; James Blachly, conductor (Chandos)Ethel Smyth, suffragist and composer, is among several female composers receiving fresh, deserved attention as the classical music industry tackles its diversity problem. If they all receive recordings as perfect as this account of her last major work, we will all benefit. Half symphony, half oratorio, “The Prison” includes this striking chorale prelude, with dark and light in the same bars, at its heart. DAVID ALLEN“The Prisoner Awakes”Chandos◆ ◆ ◆Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ‘Mikros’“Epicycle II”; Gyda Valtysdottir (Sono Luminus)A subterranean hall of mirrors lures in the listener in this deeply affecting three-minute track. Gyda Valtysdottir’s cello takes on the guise of a modern-day Orpheus and the spectral sounds of the underworld as she layers her performance on top of two prerecorded tracks. As this protagonist cello line sighs, heaves and slackens, the taped parts add fragmented scratch tones, whispers and tremors, evoking terrain both alluring and treacherous. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Mikros”Sono Luminus◆ ◆ ◆Joseph Wölfl: Piano Sonata in E, Allegro“The Beethoven Connection”; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano (Chandos)No finer recording has emerged from the Beethoven celebration than this, and it has not a single work by Beethoven on it. Mr. Bavouzet’s inquisitive look at the musicians who were composing at the same time as their colleague and competitor features Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Jan Ladislav Dussek — but it’s the forgotten Joseph Wölfl, who once battled Beethoven in a duel of keyboard skills, who comes out best, in this immaculate, charming sonata. DAVID ALLENPiano Sonata in E, AllegroChandos◆ ◆ ◆[embedded content]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More