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Mozart, Ravel and Danielle de Niese

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2023 by telescoper

After last week’s magnificent concert I couldn’t miss another chance to see and hear Danielle de Niese in at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, again with the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Jaime Martin. It was another fascinating (and very full) programme.

For last week’s concert, the National Concert Hall was only about two-thirds full but this time it was packed. I think the glowing reviews of La Voix Humaine contributed to that, as did the round of media interviews Danielle de Niese has done since then contributed to the full house.

Danielle de Niese seems to like singing 20th century French music and the concert opened with Shéhérazade by Maurice Ravel. This is a cycle of three songs which are settings of poems inspired by The Arabian Nights written by the pseudonymous poet Tristan Klingsor: Asie, La flûte enchantée, and L’Indifférent. Ravel was a real master of orchestration, and he creates a succession of exotic textures to complement the vocal lines. It’s not a long piece -altogether the three songs last about 15 minutes – but it covers a vast territory. There’s more than a nod to Debussy in this work too.

After that Danielle de Niese went off stage to change her frock, which was lime green for the Ravel, while the orchestra played the overture to the singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I’ve actually reviwed the whole Opera (was that really 12 years ago?) and wrote then (about the plot):

It’s admittedly a bit thin, even by the standards of comic opera but, right from the fabulous overture, the music is lovely and there’s a great deal of good-humoured fun, 

The overture is great fun to listen to, and obviously also to play. Jaime Martin was beaming and bouncing up and down on the podium during the performance.

And then Danielle de Niese returned (this time in a lurid red dress) to sing another piece by Mozart. Exsultate, Jubilate is a piece for solo voice and orchestra usually described as a motet but technically really a cantata. There are three movements, marked Allegro, Andante and Allegro. It’s obviously a work,with a religious theme, and the central Andante movement does sound like it is sacred music, but the outer Allegro movements are very operatic, with demanding coloratura passages, especially in the final Hallelujah. I don’t usually associate such vocal acrobatics with religious music, but it’s certainly a very exuberant and joyful piece. Astonishingly, Mozart was just 17 years old when he wrote it.

That piece by Mozart presented very different challenges to the soloist, Danielle de Niese but she showed herself to be a very accomplished performer in this too. With that her two-week residence in Dublin came to an end. She was presented with a huge bouquet of flowers and a standing ovation before we headed off to the bar for the interval.

After the wine break the National Symphony Orchestra was joined by the National Symphony Chorus for complete performance of the music to the ballet Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel. As is the case with Stravinsky’s Firebird, music from this ballet is often played in the form of a suite or, in the case of this ballet, two suites, but I have to say the whole is much greater than the sum of the suites and this work has become one of my favourite pieces to hear live. It’s a gloriously sensual and dramatic work, again brilliantly orchestrated, full of vibrant colours and lush textures, and even more wonderful when accompanied by the wordless singing of the massed ranks of the National Symphony Chorus. The score lasts a good hour, but that time seemed to flash by in this performance which was extremely well received by a very appreciative audience.

This was a very full programme and I had to leave during the applause to make sure I got back to Pearse station in time to catch the train back to Maynooth. I’m not as quick on my pins as I used to be. I arrived at Pearse with about five minutes to spare only to find that the train was five minutes late so I didn’t have rushed.

I have to congratulate whoever is doing the programming for these NSO concerts at the NCH. The last few have been excellent, and next week’s recipe of Ives, Beethoven and Sibelius looks great too!

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Brahms, Poulenc and Danielle de Niese

Posted in Music, Opera with tags , , , , , , on January 28, 2023 by telescoper

After a very busy week and ahead of the start of a new term on Monday, it was nice to be back in the National Concert Hall in Dublin last night for a superb concert, featuring a double bill of Brahms and Poulenc. It is quite an unusual pairing to have a symphony first, but each work we heard was about 40 minutes long, so it was actually well balanced, and the contrast worked very well indeed.

Before the interval we had came the main course in the form of the Symphony No. 3 in F Major by Johannes Brahms. This is of course quite a familiar work, but I really like concerts that mix unfamiliar material with the standard concert repertoire. It also gave me the chance to persevere with Brahms as my friends keep telling me to. It’s not that I don’t like Brahms, it’s just that I don’t find that he moves me as much as many other composers and so many people rave about him that I think I must be missing something. The 3rd Symphony is a very fine work, offering lots of variety across its four movements while maintaining a strong sense of coherence. I’m no expert on Brahms but it seems to me that the 3rd Symphony is where he really found his voice as a symphonic composer and stepped out from the shadow of Beethoven. It was performed beautifully last night under the direction of Jaime Martin and the National Symphony Orchestra.

After the wine break we returned for a rare treat in the form of La Voix Humaine, a one-act Opera for soprano and orchestra by Francis Poulenc, featuring the wonderful Danielle de Niese. The staging for this work is shown in the picture taken before most the orchestra had returned: just a chaise longue, a chair, a small table and an old-fashioned telephone.

La Voix Humaine portrays the last conversation between an anonymous woman (referred to throughout as Elle, the French word for “she”) and her lover, with whom she has just broken up. Only one character appears on stage and we only hear Elle’s side of the conversation. She sings into the telephone throughout; . the audience has to infer what her ex is saying at the other end. There are also frequent interruptions from another character who keeps intruding on the conversation, as the call appears to be on a party line, a concept that younger readers will not understand! This, together with the frequent disconnections and reconnections, provides some darkly comic relief. As you can probably imagine, it doesn’t end happily.

The performance was in French and there were no surtitles. It struck me that this work would be very difficult to translate into another language, as the music so accurately follows the natural rhythm and emphasis of spoken French. We were given the full libretto, with English translation, in the programme notes, but fortunately my memory of schoolboy French was good enough to get me a pass mark on following it without having to refer to the translation.

Poulenc’s compelling and emotionally charged music helps suggest what is being said at the other end when Elle is not singing, as well as accompanying her. The score struck me as rather cinematic, in that parts could easily be imagined as incidental music in a movie. Given the nature of the libretto, much of the music is like a the recitatives you find in operatic scores, but it is also more expansive and sensual when Elle pours out her broken heart. There are definite touches of Debussy in the orchestration, but it’s a very original approach that Poulenc uses and the National Symphony Orchestra made it come alive with great intensity.

And what can I say about Danielle de Niese? Amazingly, this was the first time she had performed La Voix Humaine in front of a live audience. She was sensational. She has a lovely voice and sang beautifully but her acting was also utterly convincing and she had a compelling stage presence. This was not just a concert performance but a genuine opera. I was straight up on my feet at the end, along with the rest of the audience. Brava!

To be honest, this was the piece I went for, rather than the Brahms, as I had never heard it before. I wasn’t disappointed. It was an intensely moving performance of a remarkable work which had me in pieces at the end. I enjoyed Brahms 3rd Symphony, but La Voix Humaine hit me in the guts. I must listen to more Poulenc.

Danielle de Niese is back at the NCH next Friday, singing Ravel and Mozart. Needless to say, after last night’s performance I’ll definitely be going!

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The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Posted in Jazz with tags , on January 20, 2023 by telescoper

I was just reminded via social media that it was on this day 60 years ago, i.e. on 20th January 1963, that a recording session took place under the direction of Charles Mingus that led to the class album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. I hadn’t realized that this entire album was recorded in a single day!

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady relies much less on soloists than earlier Mingus performances and involves a rather bigger band: Mingus himself (bass, piano and composer); Jerome Richardson (soprano & baritone saxophone, flute), Dick Hafer (tenor saxophone, flute); Charlie Mariano (alto saxophone); Rolf Ericson and Richard Williams (trumpet); Quentin Jackson (trombone); Don Butterfield (tuba, contrabass trombone); Jaki Byard (piano); Jay Berliner (acoustic guitar); and Dannie Richmond (drums). Charlie Mariano is outstanding on this album but the other solos tend to be short, acting more as punctuation than as part of the actual composition. It is very much an orchestral work, with thematic material introduced and recycled in various ways, some of it from pervious recording sessions. That gives this work a retrospective feeling, as well as being very original in style. Overall the sense is of Mingus trying out how he could use elements of his past approaches in a new direction. A good example are the accelerando passages. Danny Richmond did have a bit of a habit of speeding up, but on this album these bits are intentional. The first, however, starts very abruptly and doesn’t really work. Mingus tries the idea again, much more successfully, and again a couple of times more.

This is a great album but I think it provided Mingus with a practical difficulty, in that he was clearly getting more interested in longer works with big orchestral textures but most of the venues he could play in could only cope with smaller bands. He responded by working more at jazz festivals that could indulge this taste.

Anyway, here is the whole album which I have just listened to all the way through. I have it on vinyl LP and CD but fortunately it is also on the YooToob:

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As Time Goes By – Dexter Gordon

Posted in Jazz with tags , on January 19, 2023 by telescoper

I’ve been grading examinations all day and still haven’t quite finished so here’s a quick post I’ve been keeping up my sleeve for a busy day. It’s the great Dexter Gordon recorded in 1980 playing As Time Goes By. Ever since Coleman Hawkins recorded Body and Soul in 1939, the yardstick by which tenor saxophonists have tended to be measured is their playing on ballads and Dexter Gordon was right up there among the best. It’s very hard to play with accuracy and imagination at slow tempo than it is to produce a quick flurry of notes. Young musicians can learn a lot from his intelligent, but never overcomplicated, improvisations.

This performance was filmed in 1980 when Dexter Gordon was 57 years old but it has to be said that he looks much older, no doubt as a result of his lifelong struggle with drugs and alcohol. He seems somewhat inebriated as he recites the words to the song at the start – something he did regularly in live performances – but once he’s in the zone he plays quite beautifully. I am sad I never got to see him live; Dexter Gordon passed away in 1990, at the age of 67.

P.S. When he was much younger, Dexter Gordon featured in one of the most famous of all jazz photographs taken by Herman Leonard in 1948 which I’m taking the liberty of posting here:

Time goes by indeed.

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Mahler, Weber, Schubert and Strauss at the NCH

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2023 by telescoper

And so it came to pass that last night I took the train into Dublin for my first concert of the year 2023 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin which happened to be by the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of guest conductor Carlos Kalmar.

It was an unusual programme in terms of its construction. Often the menu for such concerts begin with a short appetizer but this one started with the first movement of  Gustav Mahler‘s 10th Symphony. The composer died a hundred years ago in 1910 having not actually finished the rest of the symphony, but I gather that he left sufficiently detailed sketches and notes that complete versions have been constructed, but nevertheless the first movement is frequently performed on its own. It’s quintessentially Mahler in many ways, but it’s a strange opening for a symphony because it’s a very long Adagio movement (lasting about 30 minutes). It’s a complex and weighty movement for a full orchestra, rather cryptic in nature but overall with a rather dark tone, far from the usual lollipop to start a concert!

Originally this programme was supposed to feature the Duet Concertino by Richard Strauss but it was announced last week that this would be replaced by the Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F Minor by Carl Maria von Weber with the NSO’s principal clarinettist John Finucane. Unusually for a concerto performance, John Finucane was reading a score, which perhaps suggests he stood in at short notice but in any case the performance was very fine. The third movement, a spirited Rondo kicked off by a very jaunty theme, is probably the most familiar piece, but I particularly enjoyed the interplay between clarinet and horns in the slow (2nd movement). John Finucane had brought his fan club with him, and the audience responded warmly.

After the wine break we had Symphony No. 8 in B Minor by Franz Schubert, the famous “Unfinished Symphony”. Somewhat surprisingly, I am pretty sure that I had never heard this piece performed live until this concert.

Schubert apparently wrote the first two wonderful movements of this piece in the space of only eight days in 1822 but then seems to have abandoned it. The composition wasn’t interrupted by his death – he didn’t pass away until 1828 – so it’s a mystery why he didn’t finish it. It wasn’t even discovered until the 1860s. Unlike Mahler 10, we don’t have any idea what the rest of this symphony would have been but the two existing movements are exceptional, not least for the stream of lovely melodies. This work clearly belongs to the same world as the Weber piece (which was composed in 1811) but having one after the other emphasizes the transition from Classical to Romantic, and having Mahler on the same programme contrasts early and late Romantic in a very illuminating way.

The last piece was Music of the Spheres, a waltz by Josef Strauss, the younger brother of the more famous Johan Strauss II. It’s a jolly enough but rather insubstantial piece that seemed rather incongruous to me in this programme, especially at the end as it is the sort of piece one could imagine as an appetizer. It seems to have been decided that something was needed in place of the missing movement(s) of the Schubert Symphony, so perhaps it was meant to play the role of a dessert?

In any case it was an upbeat way to end the concert which was very enjoyable. I then made my way out into the rain to get the train back to Maynooth. For a Friday night, Dublin was very quiet indeed, perhaps because of the inclement weather and/or the post-Christmas lull. The NCH wasn’t full but there was a decent attendance and the performance was warmly appreciated.

P.S. Note that the National Symphony Orchestra is no longer the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra owing to some restructuring. Note also that it is planned to close down the NCH for at least two years for extensive refurbishment. I’m not sure what will happen to the NSO during this period.

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R.I.P. Terry Hall (1959-2022)

Posted in Biographical, Music, R.I.P. on December 20, 2022 by telescoper

I was very sad last night to hear the news of the death at the age of 63 of Terry Hall, lead singer of The Specials, one of the leading bands of the 2 Tone movement which swept the UK music scene in 1979. The Guardian obituary makes it clear what a tough upbringing Terry Hall had but also how firmly he stuck to his political ideals.

I was still at School in the 1970s and, though never a fan of Punk (which immediately preceded 2-Tone in popularity), I absolutely loved bands like The Specials, The Beat and especially Selecter. I enjoyed not only their music, but also their admirably inclusive multi-racial approach, exemplified by their adoption of Ska, the Jamaican music genre that paved the way to Reggae.

Being a bit of an anorak I actually managed way back then to get hold of some of the very rare original Ska recordings, principally by the superb Skatalites. This wonderful band specialized in irreverent and eccentric cover versions of movie film tunes from the 1960s including Doctor Zhivago and James Bond, plus the classic Guns of Navarone. Nowadays you can find lots of this music to download, but it was quite hard work getting vinyl recordings at that time. As well as enjoying 2-Tone itself I was immensely grateful for the window it provided to a treasure house of wonderful music.

Ska is usually played (at least nominally) in 4/4 time, but each beat is really a cluster of sub-beats forming a triplet so the usual 1-2-3-4 of the 4/4 turns into 123-123-123-123, etc . Usually the drummer puts a heavy bass accent (and usually a side stick or rim shot on the snare) on the 3rd component of each triplet, and there would be guitar chops, other percussion, and/or brass riffs on the “off” beats. It is said that this structure was inherited, at least in part, from the marching bands that played in Jamaica and it does give a kind of strutting feel to the overall pulse. But wherever it came from the beat gives the music an infectiously bouncy rhythm that gives anyone dancing to it an irresistible urge to jump up and down, especially on up-tempo numbers. The triplet structure also gives those with no sense of rhythm a greater probability of moving in time with at least one relevant beat.

Anyway, here as a tribute to Terry Hall are The Specials, in a typically exuberant live performance recorded on British TV in 1979 (a programme which I think I actually watched at the time). They are playing the theme from The Guns of Navarone as a direct tribute to the Skatalites, whose wonderful original version you can also find on Youtube here (although it is really just audio).

Rest in peace, Terry Hall (1959-2022)

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Free Jazz – A Collective Improvisation

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2022 by telescoper

In late 1960 the great saxophonist Ornette Coleman did a recording session with a stellar band of eight musicians: Coleman himself (alto sax); Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet); Freddie Hubbard and Don Cherry (trumpets); Charlie Haden and Scott Lafaro (both on bass); Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell (both on Drums). The octet thus formed is actually two quartets and these are presented one on each stereo channel.

What Ornette Coleman did with these musicians on that day was extraordinary, a piece of collective improvisation that lasted almost 40 minutes duration and which had never been attempted before on record. It’s not entirely improvised – there is a brief introduction and some pre-arranged polyphonic passages (some just an individual chord) between the soloists – but other than that the soloists were told to take turns playing whatever they liked while the rest of the band should accompany as they saw fit. The intervals between solos are largely dissonant which produces an interesting challenge for the soloists in deciding exactly how to start.

One aspect of this otherwise superb album that doesn’t work consistently for me is the inclusion of two drummers; tt least at the start they seem to get in each other’s way more than anything else but as the piece develops they seem to understand that a more subdued approach is needed and that makes it easier for the soloists as well as making the atmosphere looser and more relaxed. Listening to this track just now it struck me how much it is dominated by Ornette Coleman who directs the traffic as well as playing a terrific solo of his own in the middle.

This track was Free Jazz was originally released in two parts on a vinyl LP but it’s now available on CD in one track, along with the originally discarded first take. Not surprisingly given the nature of the piece, critics were divided, with some recognizing it as an important new development, and others hating it. This record is not exactly easy listening and when I first heard this about 40 years ago I didn’t get it at all, but now I think that for all its unevenness it’s a superb record. If you’ve got 40 minutes to spare you can now listen to it and make your own mind up!

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Hallowe’en in the Dark once more

Posted in Biographical, Film, Music with tags , , on October 31, 2022 by telescoper

So we have arrived at October 31st, Hallowe’en or, in pagan terms, Samhain. This, a cross-quarter day – roughly halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice – represents the start of winter (“the dark half of the year“) in the Celtic calendar. As it turns out I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters this evening. I think the torrential rain put the dampeners on any such adventures, and I could scarcely hear the fireworks for the sound of the rain stotting down on my roof.

Despite my own reservations about Hallowe’en, I’ve decided to resurrect the following little video which seems to be appropriate for the occasion. It’s made of bits of old horror B-movies but the music – by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-kickers is actually the second 7″ single I ever bought, way back in 1973…

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Angela Gheorghiu at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags , , , on October 15, 2022 by telescoper

I almost missed out on last night’s performance at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. I saw the details in the brochure when it arrived at the start of the season and marked the date in my diary but dithered about buying a ticket and when I did get round to trying a few weeks ago the concert was sold out. I kept checking on the website though and was fortunate enough to find that there were some returns, so I managed to get there after all.

Angela Gheorghiu is of course a celebrated Diva with a huge following around the world, so I should have known tickets would sell quickly. The foyers and bars of the National Concert Hall were as busy as I’ve ever seen them before a performance, and there was a bit of delay getting everyone into their seats at the start as it was so full.

Last night’s concert wasn’t the normal Friday night affair at the NCH. There were no microphones and no Paul Herriott on stage so I presume it wasn’t broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM as the weekly concerts usually are, or even recorded. I guess there were contractual reasons for that. The National Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Ciprian Teodorașcu from Romania, as of course is the star of the show herself.

I thought Angela Gheorghiu took a little while to get into her stride, not helped by the tempo for the second number Che farò senza Euridice? which I thought was far too slow. By the time we got to Song to the Moon from Rusalka, however, she was in full flow; thereafter the concert just got better and better, especially after the wine break (which was after the Habanera from Carmen). Gheorghiu’s voice seems well suited to Puccini, and the two of his arias in the second half were particularly fine.

Angela Gheorghiu was not only in excellent voice but also looked every inch the glamorous operatic superstar we expected. In the first half she was dressed in a black dress with a plunging neckline and in the second in a blazing red gown. She established a huge rapport with the audience, making a point of turning around from time to time and singing to the folk in the choir stalls.

Picture Credit: National Symphony Orchestra.

The concert was of standard operatic repertoire but I didn’t know what Parla più piano was until I read the programme notes: it’s the love them from The Godfather, usually sung in English as Speak Softly Love. The last time I heard that was at my Mother’s funeral. Can that really have been three years ago?

The performance was received very warmly indeed, with loud cheers and standing ovations. There were encores too, of course. I just knew the first would be an Irish song, and so it was – The Last Rose of Summer. The next was Puccini’s O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi and the one after that was Granada, another standard component of the concert repertoire.

There may have been more encores, but I had to leave after three to get the train home after an unforgettable evening which was a much needed tonic after an exhausting week.

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Tchaikovsky, O’Leary and Beethoven at the NCH

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , on October 8, 2022 by telescoper

Last night I attended another Friday evening concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin by the National Symphony Orchestra directed by Kenneth Montgomery, featuring yet another world premiere.

Friday evening concerts are all broadcast live on RTÉ Lyric FM and Jane O’Leary, the composer of the intriguing work unfolding soundscapes for piano and orchestra, was in the audience last night for what was the broadcast premiere of her composition; the world premiere of this piece was the night before, in Galway, where Jane O’Leary lives.   I thought it was a fascinating atmospheric piece with the brightness of the piano played by Finghin Collins contrasted with a wide variety of orchestral colours.

Talking of contrasts, the O’Leary piece was itself contrasted sharply with the two more familiar pieces performed either side of it. The concert opened with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. This is a bit more than the usual lollipop you tend to get to start a concert, as it is a substantial work of four movements that lasts about 30 minutes. Though not a symphony, and performed by strings only rather than a full orchestra, it is a rather symphonic piece in the way it develops. The first movement, in Sonatina form, is a clear tribute to Mozart. The second movement, Valse, is very familiar and is sometimes performed on its own. Though not in my view one of Tchaikovsky’s more compelling works, it makes for a very enjoyable listen.

After the wine break we had a very familiar piece, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (“The Pastoral”). It’s interesting that this hugely popular work was actually composed alongside the 5th Symphony (and both were premiered at the same concert in 1808) because they contrast so much in temperament and texture and that the 6th Symphony is an overtly programmatic work, which the 5th definitely is not. The Pastoral is celebration of the composer’s love of nature, starting with “awakening of joyful feelings upon arrival in the country” depicted in the first movement. It does have its darker moments, especially in the tempestuous 4th movement but the overall mood is upbeat and at times even jolly.

Unusually, Kenneth Montgomery had the double basses all lined up at the back of the orchestra, behind the wind instruments, for this performance which is something I’ve never seen before. The winds, especially the brass instruments, were in particularly good form and the orchestra definitely succeeded in evoking the elemental power expressed by Beethoven’s composition. The performance was much appreciated by the audience at the NCH.

It was quite a long programme and I only just made it back to Pearse station in time to have my usual hot sausage roll before the train back to Maynooth. This is the kind of concert I like very much, juxtaposing the familiar classics with brand new works and am very happy the NSO does programmes like this!

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