Vienna Philharmonic

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Vienna Philharmonic to Honor Players Lost in World War II

      by

      In the new year, the Vienna Philharmonic will pay tribute to more than a dozen of its members who were ousted, exiled and killed during World War II.VIENNA — When armed forces stormed the State Opera here during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” on March 11, 1938, prominent players from the Vienna Philharmonic fled through the back door and would never regain their positions.The solo bassoonist Hugo Burghauser was removed from his post as chairman and replaced with Wilhelm Jerger, a member of the Nazi Party. By the next week, all other orchestra members affected by the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws had been expelled.More than 80 years later, after the Vienna Philharmonic’s 180th anniversary and before its next New Year’s Concert, the orchestra’s current chairman, Daniel Froschauer, has decided to commemorate the players who were victimized during World War II.In 2023, Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones” for the 16 lost members will be laid in the sidewalk in front of their former homes in the Austrian capital. An additional stone will be laid for Alma Rosé, daughter of the veteran concert master Arnold Rosé. The tradition of creating these small plaques to memorialize victims of the Holocaust began in Germany in 1992. The Philharmonic stones include the name of each player, their position with the orchestra, and when and where they died.On March 28, a chamber music concert will take place in front of the onetime building of the Rosés. Also planned is a concert with the orchestra’s academy at the Theresienstadt ghetto in May.In a recent interview, Mr. Froschauer recalled arriving on New York’s Upper West Side as a student in 1982, violin case in hand, and being greeted enthusiastically by local residents of Austrian Jewish descent. Among the people he contacted at his father’s behest was Burghauser, who died three months after they spoke by phone.Hugo Burghauser, a solo bassoonist, in an undated photo. In 1938, he was forced out as chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic. He emigrated to North America.Wiener PhilharmonikerThe brass plaque to be attached to Burghauser’s “stumbling stone.” Details on it include his roles with the orchestra and the date of his death in New York.Wiener PhilharmonikerMr. Froschauer pointed out that while Burghauser was fortunate to find work through the support of the conductor Arturo Toscanini — playing in the Toronto Symphony before joining the NBC Symphony Orchestra and then the ensemble of the Metropolitan Opera — others were left to struggle. Seven members were murdered or died during the war.“There was something inside me that hadn’t yet been worked out,” Mr. Froschauer said of the effort to pay tribute to the lost musicians. “This project should a create a consciousness for what these people had to endure.”Postwar Vienna was slow to face wartime atrocities. According to Fritz Trümpi, author of “The Political Orchestra: The Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics During the Third Reich,” the remaining Vienna players seemed more interested in symbolic gestures. With former party members as the majority of the executive committee into the 1960s, the orchestra’s attitude was marked by a kind of indifference, he explains in his book, and attempts to ward off responsibility.“When the question of financial compensation comes up — pensions, extra pay — the orchestra members dismiss them with at times crude arguments,” Mr. Trümpi said in an interview. “It is all the more bitter in a situation when someone is sick but told, ‘You will receive nothing, you are not here anymore.’”The Philharmonic granted modest financial support mostly because of “image concerns,” he concluded in the book “Orchestrated Expulsion,” written with Bernadette Mayrhofer. Among the beneficiaries was the violinist Berthold Salander, who arrived in New York a ruined man and never resumed his orchestra activities.In Berlin last year, a resident polished “stumbling stones” that commemorated four members of a family who died at Auschwitz. The tradition of installing the stones began in Germany in 1992. Markus Schreiber/Associated PressThe violinist Ludwig Wittels had to leave his position with the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera because he had lung cancer. According to “Orchestrated Expulsion,” requests for financial aid from Vienna led to an exchange in which the orchestra’s chairman and executive director accused him and his wife of “blackmail.” They ultimately granted a sum that was a tiny fraction of the funds allocated for a U.S. tour in 1956. Wittels died in December of that year.In 1952, seven exiled members of the orchestra were presented with silver medals celebrating its centenary at the Austrian Consulate in New York — an event originally planned for 1948. “Overdue,” read the headline in The New York Times on Dec. 21.Efforts to reconcile the orchestra with its ousted members met with resistance on both sides. The violinist Dr. Daniel Falk, who lost several close family members to the Holocaust, replied to an invitation to rejoin the Philharmonic in 1946 that a return would “raise questions” that neither he nor his “adored colleagues” were “in the position to solve.”The Argentine-born Ricardo Odnoposoff became an exception, returning to Vienna as a professor in 1956 and appearing as a soloist with the Philharmonic where he once served as concert master. The violinist Leopold Förderl and his wife, Eva, who was Jewish, also returned to their home city, in 1953.Leopold Föderl returned to Vienna in 1953.Wiener PhilharmonikerRicardo Odnoposoff also returned to Vienna, in 1956, and played again with the Philharmonic.Wiener PhilharmonikerMichael Haas, senior researcher at the Exilarte Center for Banned Music at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts, said that postwar Austria in general was reluctant to welcome back former citizens who had the right to reparations because it “would have bankrupted the country.” In turn, he continued, the fact that Austria emerged from the war “relatively unscathed” may have led to resentment among Jewish families.He said that in the past decade, however, the Philharmonic had undertaken a “much more honest and sober appraisal” of its history: “I would probably say that we’ve seen the orchestra begin to confront its own past and deal with some of its issues.”Mr. Trümpi noted that there was still “a need for discussion,” and not only with regard to the history of the Philharmonic. Ms. Mayrhofer, his co-author on “Orchestrated Expulsion,” has estimated that about 100 workers at the State Opera — from stagehands to choristers — were ousted, exiled or murdered after the events of 1938.Ms. Mayrhofer has also found that Jerger, who took over as chairman in 1938, tried to save five members of the Philharmonic from deportation in 1941, but that his efforts were too late: All of them died in the Holocaust. He did manage, however, to facilitate the release of the violinist Josef Geringer from the Dachau concentration camp in December 1938 (he emigrated to New York, passing away in 1979).The Philharmonic recently acquired the correspondence of the former concert master Franz Mairecker, who remained in touch with the cellist Friedrich Buxbaum after he emigrated to London (they were close friends and chamber music partners). And Clemens Hellsberger, chairman of the Philharmonic from 1997 to 2014, is updating his 1992 book “Democracy of the Kings,” a history of the orchestra that reckons with World War II and its aftermath.Mr. Haas said reinstating repertoire by Jewish composers that was performed before the war would represent a further step in repairing cultural damage. He noted that Meyerbeer’s “Robert le diable” (performed in German as “Robert der Teufel”) was one of the most popular works at the Vienna State Opera in the second half of the 19th century. He also mentioned Karl Goldmark’s “Könign von Saba” (Queen of Sheba), which premiered there in 1875 and remained in repertoire until December 1937.The operetta composer Jacques Offenbach, who visited Vienna frequently and inspired Johann Strauss to write “Die Fledermaus,” was also well received before World War II. Operettas in Viennese dialect, such as the works of Edmund Eysler, also thrived.With the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, local traditions were altered to fit antisemitic propaganda. For example, the National Socialists modified baptismal documents to conceal the fact that Strauss had a Jewish great-grandfather, while Mr. Trümpi’s research has revealed that more than 40 percent of the Vienna Philharmonic’s programming from 1940 to 1945 consisted of works by the Strauss dynasty.The New Year’s Concert on Jan. 1, 2022, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. The concert’s origins stem from World War II.Wiener PhilharmonikerOn Dec. 31, 1939, a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic performing Strauss works served to support the War Winter Relief Program. After World War II, the tradition continued as a vehicle of hope and joy on the first day of every year.This year’s New Year’s Concert includes works by Carl Michael Ziehrer and Franz von Suppé — and Josef Hellmesberger Jr., who in addition to playing and teaching violin served as the Philharmonic chairman and composed ballets.Among Hellmesberger’s students was Fritz Kreisler, a prodigy who began his conservatory studies at age 7 and emigrated to New York in 1938. He had performed as a soloist with both the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras, premiering Elgar’s Violin Concerto in 1910 (an exhibit is currently on view at the Exilarte Center for Banned Music).Mr. Haas said that “it is only slowly beginning to seep in” to what extent Austrian Jewish musicians contributed to Viennese cultural life. Although there were also prominent doctors, scientists and writers, he explained, “music was greater than any other discipline.”For Mr. Froschauer, laying down the “stumbling stones” for the lost members of his orchestra is a moving opportunity to create awareness about the challenges these individuals faced while the rest of the ensemble was able to carry on with a degree of normalcy.“One should simply never forget,” he said. “This is a very late apology and a sign of gratitude for their accomplishments.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      At the Salzburg Festival, Riches, Retreads and Notes of Caution

      by

      Classical music’s pre-eminent annual event had more revivals than usual, but also a breathless new staging of Janacek’s “Kat’a Kabanova.”SALZBURG, Austria — The premiere of a new production of Janacek’s opera “Kat’a Kabanova” had just ended at the Salzburg Festival here last week. When the lights went up, Kristina Hammer, the festival’s new president, was wiping tears off her cheeks.It was hard to blame her for crying. “Kat’a” is a breathless tragedy about a small-town woman trapped in a loveless marriage and driven to suicide after having a brief affair. Janacek’s music stamps out her ethereal fantasies with the brutal fist of reality.Barrie Kosky’s staging was the highlight of a week at Salzburg, classical music’s pre-eminent annual event, which runs through Aug. 31. Kosky has pared down this pared-down work even further, to its core of quivering human beings.The only set is rows of uncannily realistic models of people, standing, wearing street clothes, and facing away from us — and away from Kat’a and her pain. (I admit: I was fooled into thinking these were many dozens of very still extras.) Behind them loom the stone walls of the Felsenreitschule theater, whose vast stage has rarely seemed bigger or lonelier than when the soprano Corinne Winters races across it, running with nowhere to go.David Butt Philip and Winters in “Kat’a.” Behind them are uncannily realistic models of people standing in street clothes.Monika RittershausJittery and balletic, ecstatic and anxious, Winters has a child’s volatile presence, and her live-wire voice conveys Kat’a’s wonder and vulnerability. She is the production’s center, but the entire cast is powerful; Winters’s interactions with Jarmila Balazova’s headstrong Varvara make years of friendship between the characters easy to believe. The conductor Jakub Hrusa confidently paces the work as a bitter, intermission-less single shot, even if the Vienna Philharmonic — the festival’s longtime house band — sounded a bit thin and uncertain in what should be heated unanimity.There is a kind of familial resemblance between Kat’a and Suor Angelica, the agonized young nun at the center of one of Puccini’s three one-acts in “Il Trittico,” directed here by Christof Loy, with the Philharmonic conducted with sensual lightness by Franz Welser-Möst. Like Winters, the soprano Asmik Grigorian, who stars in all three acts, is an intense actress with a voice of shivery directness. (This is the vocal taste at the moment in Salzburg; the days in which Anna Netrebko’s plush tone ruled here seem over.)Spare yet detailed, unified by an airy buff-color space with shifting walls, Loy’s staging reorders the triptych, beginning rather than ending with the comic “Gianni Schicchi,” which now precedes the grim adultery tale “Il Tabarro,” with Roman Burdenko as a firm Michele.In “Suor Angelica,” Asmik Grigorian, left, faces off against Karita Mattila in a blazing confrontation of dueling pains.Barbara Gindl/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Suor Angelica,” the closer, is the reason to see this “Trittico”; it’s the only one of the three roles in which Grigorian’s lack of tonal warmth plays fully to her advantage. Her face-off against the veteran soprano Karita Mattila — not an alto, as the role of Angelica’s aunt really requires, but properly imperious — is a blazing confrontation of dueling pains. And Grigorian’s final scene, which milks the unexpected poignancy of her simply changing in front of us from her habit into a sleek black cocktail dress and letting down her hair, is just as wrenching.A woman is also on the verge of a breakdown, but far more amusingly, in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” Now that the star mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli runs the springtime Whitsun Festival here, every summer includes a production vehicle for her. But there were snickers when it was announced that Bartoli, at 56, planned to play Rosina, usually sung at the start of careers. (Bartoli made her professional stage debut in the role, 35 years ago.)But her voice — and her rapid-fire coloratura — are remarkably well preserved, and her enthusiasm is irresistible. Directed by Rolando Villazón, the show is a love letter to the movies, like “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” which has characters walking on and off screen. Here it’s the silent era that comes to life, with Bartoli as a diva whose experience is winked at in a rundown of her pictures, from Joan of Arc to pirates, projected during the overture. But the concept is not held to so stringently that it detracts from the adorably madcap fun.Cecilia Bartoli, right, as Rosina in “The Barber of Seville,” a role usually sung at the start of careers.Monika RittershausThe ensemble Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco plays with silky spirit for Gianluca Capuano, who leads a cast as expertly easygoing as Bartoli — including Alessandro Corbelli, Nicola Alaimo and, as a Nosferatu-esque Basilio, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo. And the existence of a rarely performed mezzo version of the climactic aria “Cessa di più resistere” lets Bartoli trade off verses with the agile young tenor Edgardo Rocha.The other opera in the relatively intimate Haus für Mozart this summer also takes a hint from the movies: Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” framed by the director Lydia Steier like “The Princess Bride,” with a grandfather telling the story to a young child — here, three boys. As when this staging was new, in 2018, this is a clever way of super-compressing the work’s extensive spoken dialogue.Four years ago, the production sprawled in the festival’s largest theater; now it’s been smushed into its smallest. Steier has wisely jettisoned a whole strand of steampunk circus imagery and concentrated more on the plot as a parable of the start of World War I, with “Little Nemo” touches. It’s subtle work as the boys gradually become participants in the action, not merely observers. The Philharmonic played under Joana Mallwitz with an ideal mixture of crispness and roundedness.Not every Salzburg Festival includes a revival of a past show; this year there are two. In 2017, the Iranian-born photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat’s staging of Verdi’s “Aida” was that summer’s most eagerly awaited offering, a rare full production conducted by the Verdian giant Riccardo Muti, and Netrebko’s debut in the title role.Rather in the background was Neshat, her first time doing opera — and a pristine, bland effort. Now, with less starry collaborators, her work has come to the fore, still decorous but deeper. To poetic effect, some of her blurry, languid early videos of slow-moving crowds on Middle Eastern streets and coasts have been added; her photographs also now play a part, and some dancers are covered in Arabic calligraphy, a trademark of her art.Directed by Rolando Villazón, “The Barber of Seville” is a love letter to the movies.Monika RittershausThere are some good ideas, like the ominous, violent renderings of the ballet in Amneris’s chamber and the Triumphal Scene. Also some bad ones: Amonasro, Aida’s father, here seems to be a specter, already dead, at the start of Act III, which makes the plot incomprehensible. Alain Altinoglu’s conducting of the Philharmonic is sensibly paced but, compared to the exquisite colors and textures Muti elicited, otherwise ordinary. (The nocturnal beginning of the Nile Scene is one of many passages less evocative this year than in 2017.)Elena Stikhina’s soft-grained Aida and Ève-Maud Hubeaux’s dignified Amneris were impressive, but Piotr Beczala, a shining Radamès, was the only really glamorous singer. And glamour is, like it or not, part and parcel of the ideal Salzburg experience: an extravagance of imagination and achievement that surpasses what you can get at the Met or the Vienna State Opera.There was grumbling among Salzburg watchers about the two revivals and the not-quite-new “Barber,” which premiered in June. An almost $70 million budget for just three truly new stagings?This was clearly a note of caution as the pandemic wears on. “I’m convinced it is the right thing artistically, and from the economic side,” Markus Hinterhäuser, the festival’s artistic director, said when the season was announced last year.But the economic part seems truer than the artistic. “Flute” and “Aida” were improved — the Mozart was tighter, the Verdi more nuanced. The question is whether opera’s most famous and rich summer festival needed repeats of two repertory standards — works that can be seen all over the world during the regular season — in performances that, while solid, weren’t much more distinguished than what you’d get in any major house.It is a telling bit of weakness as Salzburg faces renewed competition, especially from the growing Aix-en-Provence Festival in France — and even from the likes of Santa Fe Opera, which this year presented “Tristan und Isolde,” its first Wagner in decades, and a world premiere (“M. Butterfly”). For all its resources, Salzburg has of late abandoned major commissions in favor of bringing back underappreciated modern works.Aix and Salzburg went head-to-head this summer, both offering productions by the in-demand auteur Romeo Castellucci. It was a showdown that Salzburg soundly lost. Aix got a huge, haunting staging of Mahler’s Second Symphony as the exhumation of a mass grave. Here in Austria, though, as Joshua Barone wrote in The Times, Castellucci’s double bill of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and Orff’s “De Temporum Fine Comoedia” was a grim, murky slog, played sludgily by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Teodor Currentzis.But even an expanding Aix lacks the scope of Salzburg’s concert schedule, which begins with a long Ouverture Spirituelle mini-festival and offers an enviable, overlapping array of often superb orchestral programs and recitals.Though less widely publicized, the weekend Mozart Matinees featuring the Mozarteum Orchestra often present the most joyful, vibrant playing of the festival. Marco BorelliThis year the concerts didn’t all satisfy. The pianist Grigory Sokolov’s pillowy touch was alluring in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations and Brahms’s Op. 117 pieces, but smoothed Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” into slumber. The tenor Jonas Kaufmann’s voice rarely came alive in a recital whose halves were dully drawn from his two most recent albums.But it was touching to see the superstar pianist Lang Lang show his respect for Daniel Barenboim by joining that conductor and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra for Manuel de Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain,” not at all a virtuoso showpiece. And while the Vienna Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons made a muddle of Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Yefim Bronfman, the orchestra sounded sumptuously ripe in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.More memorable was a less exalted, less widely publicized concert: one of the festival’s 11 a.m. weekend Mozart Matinees featuring the Mozarteum Orchestra. These mornings often have the most joyful, vibrant playing of the festival, and last week’s program was no exception, led with verve by Adam Fischer.The Mozart Matinees are well attended and happily received. But they still feel like a Salzburg secret. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      After a Punishing Sprint, Yannick Nézet-Séguin Can Celebrate

      by

      The Met Opera and Philadelphia Orchestra conductor recently took a break because of exhaustion. Then he found himself in the middle of a performance marathon.However busy your past two weeks were, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s were probably busier.On Feb. 21, he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the conclusion of its Beethoven cycle at Carnegie Hall, and was planning, in the days ahead, to lead the opening of a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at the Metropolitan Opera, followed soon after by a revival of Puccini’s “Tosca.”Nothing out of the ordinary for him, as the music director of both institutions. But that Thursday — as the Vienna Philharmonic dropped Valery Gergiev from its three-day stint at Carnegie over his ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — Nézet-Séguin got a call asking if he could step in. He said yes.“I said the only condition is, I need to tell the orchestra, ‘You won’t be able to rehearse with me a lot, because it’s just not possible,’” Nézet-Séguin recalled in a recent interview.He wasn’t lying. On the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 25, he was at the Met to lead the final dress rehearsal for “Don Carlos” — which, with intermissions, runs nearly five hours. Then, after a short break, he was able to meet with the Vienna Philharmonic for just 75 minutes to prepare Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Second Symphony, which together run longer than 90 minutes.At 8 p.m., the concert began. The resulting performance would have been a triumph even under normal circumstances. But Nézet-Séguin didn’t have long to celebrate: “Tosca” had to be rehearsed on Saturday, not to mention that night’s Vienna program.Nézet-Séguin ended up on the podium every day for a weeklong marathon, including an overnight trip to Florida to lead the Vienna Philharmonic in Naples. On Friday, his day off, he taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and was back in New York the next day for “Tosca,” then “Don Carlos” on Sunday — his 47th birthday.Nézet-Séguin leading the Vienna Philharmonic, with the pianist Seong-Jin Cho, in the first of its three concerts at Carnegie Hall.Chris LeeIt’s a maddening schedule, reminiscent of Nézet-Séguin’s early career of perpetual overbooking and occasional cancellations. Last fall, signs of that lifestyle began to creep back: two contemporary operas at the Met, along with revivals and concerts there before opening night and a Beethoven cycle (part of what has ballooned into a staggering 14 appearances for him at Carnegie Hall this season). Facing exhaustion, he took a three-week break starting in mid-December, withdrawing from a run of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” at the Met and two performances in Philadelphia.“Maybe the fact that my energies were recharged recently meant that I could be up for this,” he said.During a phone call while en route to New York on Saturday, Nézet-Séguin reflected on that much-needed hiatus, and how he got through his recent grind. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.What made you want to say yes to Vienna?My first instinct as a conductor is that I want to help.I have been making some hard decisions in the past decade, about certain opportunities in Europe with orchestras that I have developed relationships with, like Vienna. But my first responsibility is to the institutions that I am the leader of: It’s the Met, it’s Philadelphia, it’s Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal.So I end up having to say no very often. And now here they are, and Carnegie — which has been such a great partner of mine at the Philadelphia Orchestra — needs my help. It didn’t take much time for me to say yes.How did you use that 75-minute rehearsal?When I said yes, I knew that if I took a two- or three-hour rehearsal in the morning, the energy needed would be too much. So the orchestra told me what they needed most from me, and we fixed two or three obvious spots in the Rachmaninoff symphony. But this appeals to what a conductor should be doing. You just make things work. The Rachmaninoff thrives on being free and beautiful. Some things need to be clear, but some things just need to be in the moment. I could never be stressed, because if I start to be stressed, then everyone is, and the result is bad for the audience.Because of the Vienna concerts, you were suddenly holding seven additional works in your head. How did you manage that, on top of “Don Carlos” and “Tosca”?It takes a lot of discipline, because I have music constantly in my head, but rarely the piece that I’m about to do. When I’m juggling a lot of pieces like this, I have to almost press play on a recording, a mental recording. So the day of the Rachmaninoff, I had to force myself to open up the score to get in the right mode. I had a bit more time on Saturday to recuperate and study, but I purposefully decided to not prepare for Sunday. If you take it one day at a time, it really helps.Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make a habit of these things. Someone from the Met Orchestra asked me, “Have you ever been more busy?” My answer was: I think yes, in my early years as a conductor. I had two different choirs and I was still doing recitals and chamber music, and I was already conducting my Baroque ensemble. I feel like what I’ve been doing this week is rooted in years of experience juggling different repertoire.“I feel like what I’ve been doing this week,” Nézet-Séguin said, “is rooted in years of experience juggling different repertoire.”Jingyu Lin for The New York TimesPhysically and mentally, how did you prepare and unwind?I needed to study a lot, so I really couldn’t think about rest or anything like that. I usually work out very regularly, and that helps for these moments. But now I could not work out simply because one, I didn’t have time, and two, I thought this was also physically demanding.The morning I got the call from Carnegie, I was actually working out with my personal trainer from Montreal, a virtual workout, and I told her, “I would like to focus on shoulders and back because I just feel like it’s been a while.” At that point I thought, Oh, I’m just doing the dress rehearsal of “Don Carlos.” Then two hours later I got this call.Part of my ritual after performances is to go a restaurant or cafe for a quiet meal, whether with my husband, Pierre, or with close friends. In this case, I needed to keep it much more quiet and just go home. Usually my go-to is HGTV; my favorite is “House Hunters” or anything about the Caribbean or island life. But now I tried to unwind with chamomile tea, and with some smooth R&B and a bath. Last night, I realized that I did not watch TV for the past week.In December, you withdrew from performances in New York and Philadelphia.I want to stress that what I did was a three-week break that’s kind of a normal three weeks that people take around the holiday. I don’t want to underestimate what it’s like to cancel those, but I want to put it back in perspective. The fall had been especially intense.The summer, even. You conducted Mahler’s Second Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem at the Met before the season began.Absolutely. For me, it’s a question of being aware of your limitations. What people don’t see is what it needs to put on a concert or an opera. It’s not just rehearsals and studying. It’s a lot of discussions, emails, meetings, conversations, Zoom calls. That’s part of my job, but it can — especially as we re-emerge from the pandemic — be really taxing.It really was the mind: I didn’t want to push my mind to the extent that maybe at some point my body would react in the way of becoming sick. Because that’s a big catastrophe, if I have to drop out of several performances the day before. I thought it was better to plan something before that happened. It was really three weeks without even opening a score. It cleared the mind, in the best way.What did that teach you, then, about planning for the future?This scramble at the beginning of the season was something that I wanted to do. But I eventually managed, by doing little adjustments here and there in my schedule, to plan the next seasons with a certain percentage of less work, less commitment — and better balance of weeks and days here and there where I can just regroup and breathe. I didn’t need to go into that recent break to know that, and this fall was just this exceptional moment. But in the future, my life will be better.Are you at least able to do anything for your birthday, since you have “Don Carlos”?My parents are coming to New York. I’m going to have some kind of family celebration after. I let them organize it; it’s a surprise.And then you’ll have plenty of time for HGTV.I promise you, I will. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Review: Upended by Global Conflict, the Vienna Philharmonic Plays On

      by

      Yannick Nézet-Séguin picked up the baton at Carnegie Hall, after a conductor with ties to Vladimir Putin was dropped amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.A week ago, the Vienna Philharmonic’s three-night stop at Carnegie Hall, which began Friday, was remarkable mostly for signifying a major step in the slow return of international orchestras to New York. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.The Viennese had been set to be conducted by Valery Gergiev, a frequent magnet for protests at Carnegie Hall over his close ties with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Both Carnegie and the Philharmonic had previously been outspoken about separating Gergiev’s politics and his artistry, even though his artistry is inseparable from the government.Come Thursday, when phrases like “the whole world has changed” started to surface, Gergiev’s relationship with Putin became “untenable,” as Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, told The New York Times. Gergiev was dropped from Philharmonic concerts; so was Denis Matsuev, the planned soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, who had publicly endorsed Putin’s policies in the past.Gergiev has not commented on the invasion, even as many classical musicians who didn’t need to have. (Until Saturday, the star soprano Anna Netrebko, another Putin supporter, was also silent before she posted a face-saving statement to Instagram saying she was “opposed to this war,” with a defiant coda that “forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right.”) If Gergiev doesn’t speak out, he faces more cancellations: from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; the Munich Philharmonic, where he is the chief conductor; and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, which had been planning a festival in his honor.But back to the Vienna Philharmonic.With the news of Gergiev’s departure came the announcement that Yannick Nézet-Séguin, neither a stranger to the Philharmonic nor much of a regular, would step in — bringing his total number of appearances at Carnegie this season to more than a dozen. He had just led the Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he is the music director, there on Monday, and was preparing to open a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” on Feb. 28 at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is also the music director. Suddenly, he was conducting three Vienna concerts, with three different programs, in between. (As if that weren’t enough, he opens a revival of “Tosca” at the Met on Wednesday; when vacation comes, it will be well earned.)Then a pianist needed to be found. Seong-Jin Cho, who lives in Berlin, agreed around midnight his time on Friday, and was on a plane to New York within about seven hours. He hadn’t played the Rachmaninoff concerto since 2019, and had never worked with the Philharmonic; for more pressure, this was going to be his orchestral debut at Carnegie.Nézet-Séguin and the Philharmonic with the pianist Seong-Jin Cho, a last-minute replacement who flew in from Berlin to make his orchestral debut at Carnegie.Chris LeeBecause Nézet-Séguin was spending much of Friday in the final dress rehearsal for “Don Carlos,” the Vienna concert wasn’t rehearsed until 6 p.m. — and even then, for only 75 minutes ahead of the start time at 8. Never mind that the program, of the concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, contained over 90 minutes of music.Yet someone living under a rock could have walked into this concert, knowing none of its context, and been perfectly happy. Indeed, Friday’s performance was probably better than it would have been under the baton of Gergiev — who, politics aside, is too often an unreliable conductor — and with Matsuev, who tends to barrel insensitively through war horses like the Rachmaninoff.Nézet-Séguin didn’t merely keep time or hold the Philharmonic together; he led them with passion and decisive interpretation. And Cho didn’t simply get through the concerto; he played it from memory, with moments of sublime delicacy. This was expert music-making, notable for happening at all and miraculous in its execution.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Valery Gergiev Faces Removal From Podiums Over Support for Putin

      by

      A day after he was dropped from concerts at Carnegie Hall, the star Russian maestro Valery Gergiev on Friday faced rising anger over his record of support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, with several leading European institutions — including the Munich Philharmonic, of which Mr. Gergiev is chief conductor — threatening to sever ties with him unless he denounced Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.The fallout, encompassing Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, was a rare rebuke of a titan of the classical music industry, and it reflected growing global outrage over Mr. Putin’s ongoing military offensive in Ukraine.Mr. Gergiev, 68, one of Russia’s most prominent cultural ambassadors, is now being shunned because of his ties to Mr. Putin, his longtime friend and benefactor. He seems in peril of losing several key posts, including the podium in Munich and his position as honorary conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.Munich’s mayor, Dieter Reiter, issued an ultimatum on Friday, saying Mr. Gergiev must denounce the “brutal war of aggression that Putin is waging against Ukraine” before Monday or be fired by the orchestra, three years before his contract is set to expire.The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra offered a similar warning, threatening to cancel its “Gergiev Festival,” planned for September. The Teatro alla Scala in Milan said Mr. Gergiev would be dropped from upcoming performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” and other engagements if he did not immediately call for peace.And after Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic announced on Thursday that Mr. Gergiev would no longer lead the orchestra in three high-profile concerts starting Friday evening, Carnegie on Friday canceled two concerts by the Mariinsky Orchestra in May that were to have been led by Mr. Gergiev.Mr. Gergiev did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.The uproar was a significant blow to a conductor who has built a busy international career while maintaining deep ties to the Russian state, including in his role as general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.Mr. Putin has been critical to Mr. Gergiev’s success, providing funding to his theater and showering him with awards. Mr. Gergiev has emerged as a prominent supporter of Mr. Putin, endorsing his re-election and appearing at concerts in Russia and abroad to promote his policies. The two have known each other since the early 1990s, when Mr. Putin was an official in St. Petersburg and Mr. Gergiev was beginning his tenure as the leader of the Mariinsky, then called the Kirov.Western cultural institutions have largely looked beyond Mr. Gergiev’s ties to Mr. Putin, even as the conductor became the target of repeated protests over the past decade, at Carnegie, the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere.Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine this week put new pressure on arts leaders to reconsider their ties to Mr. Gergiev. After a hastily arranged meeting on Thursday morning, Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic made the announcement that the orchestra would go on without him. The Russian pianist Denis Matsuev, who had been scheduled to perform with Mr. Gergiev and the Philharmonic on Friday, and who has expressed support for Mr. Putin’s policies in the past, was also taken off the program.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Valery Gergiev, a Putin Supporter, Will Not Conduct at Carnegie Hall

      by

      The star maestro, scheduled to lead three high-profile Vienna Philharmonic concerts this week, will not appear after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic announced on Thursday that the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, a friend and prominent supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, would no longer lead a series of concerts there this week amid growing international condemnation of Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.Mr. Gergiev, who had been slated to conduct the Philharmonic in three high-profile appearances at the hall beginning Friday evening, has come under growing scrutiny because of his support for Mr. Putin, whom he has known for three decades and has repeatedly defended.No reason was cited for his removal from the programs. But the extraordinary last-minute decision to replace a star maestro apparently over his ties to Mr. Putin — just days after the Philharmonic’s chairman insisted that Gergiev would be appearing as an artist, not a politician — reflected the rapidly intensifying global uproar over the invasion.While Mr. Gergiev has not spoken publicly about the unfolding attack, he has supported Mr. Putin’s past moves against Ukraine, and his appearance at Carnegie was expected to draw vocal protests. He was the target of similar demonstrations during previous appearances in New York amid criticism of Mr. Putin’s law banning “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships,” which was seen as an effort to suppress Russia’s gay rights movement, and his annexation of Crimea.Carnegie and the Philharmonic also said that the Russian pianist Denis Matsuev, who had been scheduled to perform with Mr. Gergiev and the orchestra on Friday, would not appear. Mr. Matsuev is also an associate of Mr. Putin; in 2014, he expressed support for the annexation of Crimea.Mr. Gergiev will be replaced for the three Carnegie concerts by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who on Monday leads a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is music director. A replacement for Mr. Matsuev was not immediately announced.Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic had defended Mr. Gergiev, but were under new pressure to reconsider after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesBoth Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic had previously defended Mr. Gergiev. But Mr. Putin’s declaration of the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday placed new pressure on the hall and orchestra to reconsider.Activists started a #CancelGergiev hashtag on Twitter and were circulating photos of Mr. Gergiev alongside Mr. Putin. The two have known each other since the early 1990s, when Mr. Putin was an official in St. Petersburg and Mr. Gergiev was beginning his tenure as the leader of the Kirov (later the Mariinsky) Theater there.In 2012, Mr. Gergiev appeared in a television ad for Mr. Putin’s third presidential campaign. In 2014, he signed a petition hailing the annexation of Crimea, after Russia’s Ministry of Culture called leading artists and intellectuals to suggest they endorse the move. Mr. Gergiev was quoted at the time by a state-run newspaper as saying, “Ukraine for us is an essential part of our cultural space, in which we were brought up and in which we have lived until now.”In 2016, Mr. Gergiev led a patriotic concert in the Syrian city of Palmyra, shortly after Russian airstrikes helped drive the Islamic State out of the city. On Russian television, the concert was spliced with videos of Islamic State atrocities, part of a propaganda effort to nurture pride in Russia’s military role abroad, including its support for the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Mr. Putin was shown thanking the musicians by video link from his vacation home on the Black Sea.In recent days Mr. Gergiev has also come under pressure in Europe, where he maintains a busy touring schedule. Officials in Milan said on Thursday that he should condemn the invasion or face the prospect of canceled engagements with the Teatro alla Scala, where he has been leading Tchaikovsky’s opera “Queen of Spades,” according to Italian media reports.The Vienna Philharmonic said as recently as a few days ago that Mr. Gergiev was a gifted artist and would take the podium for the Carnegie dates. “He’s going as a performer, not a politician,” Daniel Froschauer, the orchestra’s chairman, said in an interview on Sunday with The New York Times.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      At New Year’s in Vienna, Everything Old Is New Again

      by

      The Vienna Philharmonic’s annual performance brings to light memories and traditions, both bright and dark.Every year, classical music fans can count on the Vienna Philharmonic to ring in the New Year with style — whether they are among the exclusive crowd that attends in person or one of the millions of viewers who tune in from over 90 countries.The New Year’s Concert at the Musikverein, the concert hall that is the orchestra’s home in Vienna, took place on television and online in 2021 because of pandemic restrictions. For 2022, it returns live and will also be made available as a web stream on medici.tv. Daniel Barenboim conducts for the third time.The program, consisting primarily of dance numbers by the Strauss dynasty, creates a festive atmosphere. But if the waltz rhythms are intoxicating, the numbers are laden with layers of history.“Every work is like a microcosm,” said the Philharmonic’s chairman, Daniel Froschauer, of the period in the mid-19th century when this music emerged. “Austria was increasingly losing political power. The monarchy was in this sense dying away. This melancholy or yearning for the past comes strongly to the fore.”The universality of these emotions, he said, is part of the annual concert’s “recipe for success.”“Everyone carries a longing for something in the past — childhood, a homeland, a love. This music speaks to everyone.”For Mr. Barenboim, the orchestra brings a “seriousness” to the works, which he considers “one of the most wonderful things about conducting them.”“You would think that they know the style and take it lightheartedly,” he said, but that is not the case. “Not at all,” he added, noting that there is deep concentration during rehearsals.The conductor Daniel Barenboim.Jörg Carstensen/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesAt the same time, Mr. Barenboim said, certain turns such as the delay on the third beat of a Viennese waltz are “so deeply installed” that “you don’t really need to talk about them” because they are “deep in the culture.”Such music, he said, “requires quite a lot of freedom” and “it is dangerous to either overdo or underdo it.”Each year’s program is carefully designed by Mr. Froschauer and the general manager Michael Bladerer in collaboration with the conductor. Mr. Barenboim chose to include the Josef Strauss waltz “Sphärenklänge,” which he called “one of my favorite pieces of music in any context,” and the overture of the Johann Strauss Jr. operetta “Die Fledermaus.”Mr. Barenboim said the process was collaborative and comfortable. “They give you the chance to suggest works that you would like to do, and they tell you some pieces that they would like you to do.”Together with the orchestra’s four archivists, Mr. Froschauer and Mr. Bladerer also undertake research about the music’s historic context. Many of the works’ titles reflect everyday events or daily politics at the time.Both the “Phoenix March” by Josef Strauss, which opens the program this year, and the Johann Strauss waltz “Phoenix Wings” are named for a company that manufactured carriages. The march was first performed in 1861 at a concert and garden fair to mark the opening of a new park in Vienna.Josef Strauss, whose “Phoenix March” will open the New Year’s Concert this year.DeAgostini/Getty Images“All these works have a connection to something that happened in Vienna,” Mr. Froschauer said.The Johann Strauss waltz “Morning Papers,” meanwhile, was composed in the 1860s for a journalists’ association, Concordia. The “Champagne Polka” (also by Johann Strauss Jr.) that enters in the second half of the 2022 program was written in 1858 upon the appointment of the diplomat Karl Ludwig von Bruck Jr. to St. Petersburg.The coming program features two works by Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., who both performed as a violinist and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the late 19th century. The character piece “Heinzelmännchen” will be featured for the first time in the history of the concert.Joseph Hellmesberger Jr. not only played violin in the Vienna Philharmonic in the late 19th century but also conducted the orchestra.Imagno/Getty ImagesMr. Froschauer also said he considered it important to include Eduard Strauss, the youngest son of Johann Strauss, with two polkas. Several members Eduard conducted in the Strauss Capelle Vienna, the orchestra founded by his father, would go on to become members of the Vienna Philharmonic.It was not until 1873, however, that the orchestra warmed up to the popular dance style of the Strauss’. The first program of exclusively Strauss works took place in 1925, under the baton of Franz Schalk.The tradition of performing works from this canon for the new year, meanwhile, began in the early months of World War II. A concert of works from the Strauss dynasty on Dec. 31, 1939, served as a fund-raiser for a program of the Nazi Party.Despite their association with the “darkest chapter” in Austrian history and that of the Philharmonic, these waltzes and polkas have also lived on as symbols of Viennese charm.The televised version of the upcoming concert will feature a dance interlude of the Lipizzaner horses, a breed that has been trained since the days of the Hapsburg Empire to execute jumps and choreographed steps.The Musikverein circa 1870.Oprawil/Imagno, via Getty ImagesMr. Froschauer explained the need to juxtapose different kinds of dance numbers — from a classic waltz such as “Morgenblätter,” to the fast polka “Kleine Chronik,” to the chorale-inflected waltz “Nachtschwärmer” of Carl Michael Ziehrer, which will have its premiere at a New Year’s Concert. “We try to keep things interesting for the orchestra,” he said.That also includes bringing in a different conductor every year. A maestro such as Mr. Barenboim, who celebrates his 80th birthday next year, enjoys a relationship based on not only years of artistic partnership but also mutual friendship.“When I’m with them, I feel part of them,” he said. “And I feel they are part of me — knowing very well that in a few days’ time, somebody else will be in a similar situation.”Mr. Barenboim noted that because the self-governed orchestra operates without a general music director, “they have a sense of responsibility. And of historical significance. Therefore, they can treat the guest conductors in a spirit of admiration, knowing that nobody will get jealous about his colleagues.”Mr. Froschauer called the New Year’s Concert “a sign of hope and love” — “that the whole world is a concert hall, that everyone can listen to the concert together.”“It is something reassuring,” Mr. Bladerer added.“Everyone knows they can turn on the television on the first [of January] and hear this music. That would also be important during a pandemic, in this difficult time.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Using a Pandemic Break to Tackle Bruckner

      by

      The Vienna Philharmonic records symphonies by Anton Bruckner, a 19th-century composer, whose history with the orchestra is complicated.When the pandemic upended its plans to tour European cathedrals playing symphonies by Anton Bruckner, the Vienna Philharmonic hit the reset button.With more time than ever at home, the orchestra immersed itself in recording the works under the conductor Christian Thielemann, exploring different versions of the scores and digging into the composer’s history with the philharmonic.Symphony No. 3, No. 4 and No. 8 have already been released on the label Sony Classical. A full symphonic cycle will be rolled out both on audio and on DVD, by the classical music production company Unitel, in time for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2024.The orchestra’s general manager, Michael Bladerer, said the project allowed the musicians not just “to maintain also but improve their form” during months of lockdown when live concerts were prohibited but the orchestra was allowed to rehearse and record.“The conditions were optimal,” Mr. Bladerer said. “We could concentrate on the recordings, doing a three-hour sitting every day and working calmly.”After listening to a playback of the First Symphony, Daniel Froschauer, the philharmonic’s chairman, concluded that “the quality is simply the best, given that we had the time. The musicians were all well rested. It was the one positive experience during corona.”For the first time, thanks to periods of curtailed travel during the pandemic, the orchestra is performing not only the nine symphonies but also the Symphony in D minor — written between the first and second but never assigned an opus number — and the “Study” Symphony, which is sometimes known as No. 00.Mr. Bladerer, who happens to be a direct descendant of Bruckner through his great-grandmother, called it a “highly interesting” process to learn more about the composer’s origins through this “Nullte” or “Nullified” Symphony: “One hears a bit of [Wagner’s] ‘Lohengrin,’ Schumann, Weber,” he said. “But it is totally Bruckner.”Mr. Froschauer added that “the first day of recording was incredible”: “We were playing a work that the conductor had never led — that our orchestra had never played — by a composer named Anton Bruckner. And nevertheless I have to say that we grew together quickly.”According to Mr. Bladerer, the composer withdrew Symphony No. 00 from his catalog only after the German conductor and composer Felix Otto Dessoff, who worked with the philharmonic, called it “a symphony without a main theme.”In the case of the Second Symphony, Bruckner wanted to dedicate it to the Vienna Philharmonic. But the orchestra never even responded.“That offers a view into how one treated Bruckner at the time,” Mr. Froschauer said. “One didn’t take him seriously in Viennese [high] society,” Mr. Bladerer added. “He spoke a heavy upper Austrian dialect and moved clumsily in these circles.”The Third Symphony, dedicated to Wagner, also has a problematic history: The philharmonic rejected the work three times. At the premiere of a revised version, in 1877, audience members left the Musikverein during the finale. And the influential critic Eduard Hanslick, once a supporter of Bruckner, wrote a scathing review.For the recently released recording, Mr. Thielemann chose to conduct this version (the second of three). Mr. Bladerer said that while the first edition has very long quotes from Wagner’s music, the last contains such substantial cuts that they affect the overall form.Mr. Bladerer summed up the power of Bruckner by quoting the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who likened the composer to “a rock who fell on earth from the moon.”In other words, Mr. Bladerer explained, “after hearing a couple of measures, one knows that it’s Bruckner.” More