Showing posts with label Sergei Rachmaninoff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sergei Rachmaninoff. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Wildest expectations soar at the Washington Cathedral


Sergei Rachmaninoff, age 10 or 12, St. Petersburg/Wikimedia Commons

The title of the program was To the Wild Sky and my favorites were all there:  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Washington National Cathedral with Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and the Cathedral Choral Society

Who knew about their links? 

Conductor Steven Fox leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Cathedral Choral Society at the Washington National Cathedral, Mar. 19, 2023/By Patricia Leslie

In the Cathedral's crossing, the musicians, soloists, and chorus hypnotized the audience throughout the afternoon with Rachmaninoff's unsettling response to a painting and his intrepretation of Poe's  "bells! bells!  bells!" ringing everywhere.  
The Isle of the Dead, 1880 - 1886, Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901)

Also on the program was Tennyson's text of his poem, In Memoriam: A.H.H., sung by soprano Andriana Chuchman, who later joined the Symphony, other soloists, and Chorus in Poe's The Bells.
Soprano Andriana Chuchman at the Washington National Cathedral, Mar. 19, 2023

After all, it is the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninoff's birth (April 1 or [O.S.] Mar. 20, 1873) and the DMV has gone plumb Rachy with three performances in a week and I am going to them all.    

Lucky me!*

To combine the literary immortals with music is an astonishing feat and one which most assuredly exceeded expectations at the Cathedral from the first note to the last.  

The audience was as captivated as I who had anticipated the sounds would echo in the Cathedral's great hall, diminishing the aural effects but that was not to be.

 
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's percussionists at the Washington National Cathedral, Mar. 19, 2023
 
Guest artists, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Cathedral Choral Society at the conclusion of the performance, To the Wild Sky, Mar. 19, 2023
The Washington National Cathedral, Mar. 19, 2023/By Patricia Leslie

First on the program was The Isle of the Dead, Rachmaninoff's response to a popular painting by Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901).  

The music filled one with a sense of dread. In the boat as we neared the island, foreboding and heavy anxiety filled my emotions as waves and strings deepened, cymbals crashed and threw me around the vessel as it neared shore. The landscape echoed with the coming climax. 

Upon landing, a single violin greeted us with a rainbow  and not such an unpleasant ending.

Death be not proud.

The next selection, Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky was composed by Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 and a Pulitzer Prize finalist) in 2000 on commission to welcome the new millennium. 

For her base, the composer chose Tennyson's poem with its message of the "universal" drive for peace.  It begins with multiple voices singing like bells in tandem with Ms. Chuchman, chorus, and orchestra. 

Dare I write the best was saved for last?

"The bells!  The bells!  The bells!" so reads Poe's title he wrote in 1848-1849 and spoken confidently cappella before the musical presentation by an unidentified man on video.

"Hear the sledges with bells" is Poe's first line, a sledge, coincidentally or not, was the vehicle used by Rachmaninoff and his family to escape Russia forever in 1917 as the nation's revolution took hold. 

Program notes said an adaptation of Poe's Bells by the Russian Konstanin Balmont (1867-1942) led a student at the Moscow Conservatory in 1912 to recommend to Rachmaninoff that he put the poem to music. 

After the composer read the verses, he "decided at once to use them for a choral symphony," an incredible performance at the Cathedral for the audience to hear that which became "the one I like best of all my works."

The movements included solos by John Ramseyer, tenor, Ms. Chuchman, and Aleksey Bogdanov, baritone, all exceeding quality demanded by Washington's attending classical perfectionists. 

With a 20 minute intermission, the concert lasted almost two hours, an unforgettable production which will be hard to outperform by this week's remaining Rachmaninoff concerts.

More about Rachmaninoff: 

Is it Rachmaninoff or Rachmaninov? Music for Everyone says the Rachmaninoffs changed their name from Rachmaninov when they fled Russia, likely because the family was pre-revolution Russian bourgeoisie.


Boosey & Hawkes, "the" classical music publisher, says about Rachmaninoff: "The years up to the Russian Revolution were spent in an exhausting whirl of playing and conducting, with the family’s country estate at Ivanovka, in the countryside south-east of Moscow, offering a haven of peace where he could concentrate on composition. The works that emerged during this period include the Third Piano Concerto, the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, the choral symphony The Bells, and two a cappella choral works, the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and the Vespers."

Rachmaninoff was born into a musical family and began piano lessons at age 4. After fleeing Russia 
with his family and settling in the U.S. about four decades later, he made a living by giving many performances but, like many artists, finding little time to compose.  

On Feb. 17, 1943, already "gravely ill" and almost 70 years old, Rachmaninoff played his last recital at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where a statue to the composer was dedicated in 2003, the 130th anniversary of his birth, at the site of the 1982 World's Fair.

He became an American citizen shortly before he died of melanoma that year.

Conducting Sunday was Steven Fox, assisted by Joy Schreier, pianist.

*More Rachmaninoff:

The National Symphony Orchestra, 7 p.m., Mar. 23, 2023 at the Kennedy Center.

BSO, 8 p.m., Mar. 25, 2023, Music Center at Strathmore, Angel Blue and Rachmaninoff II; tickets starting at $35.

BSO, 8 p.m., Apr. 13, 2023, Music Center at Strathmore, Marin Conducts Rach 3; tickets starting at $35. 

In Baltimore BSO Rachmaninoff performances, Mar. 24, Mar. 26, and Apr. 15, 2023.

Of note, Poe and Tennyson were born in the same year, 1809, as was President Abraham Lincoln.

Why are most of the great composers Russian?  I am guessing many Ph.D. students have written their dissertations on this topic, at least one I would like to read!  Does their nation's turbulent past play a role?



patricialesli@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Noseda and the National Symphony



Gianandrea Noseda from his website


The performance on Saturday night was too good to pass up when circumstances took me to the Kennedy Center for the second time that day (after the ballet) and the opportunity to hear and see the National Symphony Orchestra again

At 7 p.m. I found myself stationed at the box office where indeed a last-minute ticket for another performance by the NSO awaited my purchase.

The Saturday presentation was as good as Thursday's, beginning with Ottorino Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, followed by my favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini I listen to now while writing this.
Francesco Piemontesi by Marco Borggreve

Making the debut in the second part of the program was Alfredo Casella's Symphony No. 2 in C minor, marvelous in every respect with especial adoration of the forces Casella composed, resurrected by conductor Gianandrea Noseda in 2010, the piece long languishing in music archives, according to notes in the program.

For my Saturday Symphony seatmates, neither of whom I knew, I was unable to restrain my enthusiasm and tipped them to the glorious earful which was coming in the second act. 

One seatmate said Casella was unknown to him, as I imagine he was to most in the audience. 

The other seatmate I may have frightened since she, a Latina, was either scared by my gushiness or may not have spoken English, since she smiled and looked at me in astonishment, never saying a word, but what does it matter when the international language of music speaks to us all?

I know she was not deaf. 

Maestro Noseda, 55, and guest artist Francesco Piemontesi, 35, received rapturous applause from audiences both nights, and it was odd, at least to me, that the conductor changed his introductory remarks from Thursday to Saturday, but this was not church, after all, where the preacher repeats his sermon from one service to the next to the next. (Thursday night Maestro talked about the "Italian connection." Saturday night? I have forgotten. It is a shame.)

(For encores demanded by both audiences at the conclusion of Rachmaninoff, Mr. Piemontesi played Clair de Lune on Saturday and a comparatively boring (is this heresy?) Bach (!) on Thursday.)

Given my wont to "explore," at intermission I "chanced" upon what turned out to be a member of the orchestra's technical staff whom I grilled as much as time allowed.  The person said it was common for the maestro to make comments which were never the same and no one knew ahead of time what they would be or if he would even talk!  

But, smiling the whole time, the technician said Maestro was quite beloved, and "you see, don't you?  That I am here listening and not in the back, reading my book like I usually do!"  

We marveled at Mr. Noseda's strength and endurance since he holds current leadership posts in London and Israel and Italy and Zurich and Catalonia and Georgia, and we figured he must reside in an airplane. 

On Thursday night I sat in the second row (B) and lost, I think, about five pounds just watching Mr. Noseda lead, afraid his baton might go sailing, as I have seen that happen.  

But Saturday found me far back in orchestra (row EE), my view of the conductor blocked by the lid of the piano open for Rachmaninoff and Mr. Piemontesi.  Not a heavy burden to suffer.

You see what you missed!  It pays to get out.

patricialesli@gmail.com 

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Russian composers invade D.C.

Haochen Zhang plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Piotr Gajewski conducting the National Philharmonic at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie

It was last month, and I do not think the Trump/Putin bromance (or sanctions or something worse?) had anything to do with the presentations since they were planned long before those two got together, and whatever, it was heaven!

The front row? The front row?

I got the last ticket on the front row at Strathmore.
Haochen Zhang plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Piotr Gajewski conducting the National Philharmonic at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie
National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski, right, and guest artist Haochen Zhang congratulate each other and the orchestra at the conclusion of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie

Starting off that weekend was the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center which played the Eighth Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) to celebrate what would have been the 90th birthday year of cellist and former NSO conductor and music director, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-1997)


Shostakovich was one of the honoree's teachers whom Rostropovich called "the most important man in my life, after my father."

In the program, "A Salute to Slava" (the nickname for Rostropovich), violinist Gidon Kremer played a concerto by  Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) under the direction of the renowned NSO Christoph Eschenbach (who's leaving the place, thanks to the perfectionists in this town who are never happy). 
 National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski, right, and guest artist Haochen Zhang congratulate each other and the orchestra at the conclusion of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie

Kremer, one of the world's leading violinists and winner of many international prizes, began studying music at age four with his father and grandfather, both distinguished musicians themselves.  

Never have I seen as many people at the NSO as were there that Friday night, and half, I think, were Russians.  Many newcomers were in the hall, made known by their clapping between movements. But, they were there.
National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski, right, and guest artist Haochen Zhang congratulate each other and the orchestra at the conclusion of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie


Then, two days later at Strathmore was my favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), whose Piano Concerto No. 2 was played by the young and debonair, Haochen Zhang, under the direction of Piotr Gajewski for the National Philharmonic.

Was it possible, a dream that I sat on the front row? On the pianist's side?
Haochen Zhang completes Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie

Only when I arrived at the Concert Hall did I realize the 
superb placement of my seat, the very last "cheap seat" ($23) which was available to me for purchase on Saturday, a gift to be seated just below Mr. Zhang's whip like fingers which I could watch move up and down the keyboard while he and Conductor Gajewski frequently exchanged meaningful glances.  

Or maybe that's the way it always is, between maestro and artist but my golden eagle's eye of what was happening lay before me.

Before Mr.Zhang touched one key, a hush filled the house, attendees knowing what pleasure awaited them (who did not clap between movements). 
National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski, left, and Haochen Zhang congratulate each other at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie
 
National Philharmonic Conductor Piotr Gajewski, left, and Haochen Zhang receive acclaim at the Music Center at Strathmore/photo by Patricia Leslie

Mr. Zhang did not have to watch his hands on the piano.  He frequently looked up at the conductor, waiting for a nod (or perhaps it was the other way around) while his fingers raced up and down the keyboard, and I believe his eyes were sometimes shut while he played, since my perspective, below and behind him, did not lend itself to confirm exactly what or where his eyes were doing or going.

But I could see his hair rustle when he leaped a few inches off the bench after a heavy pounding as if he had received an electrical shock. Meanwhile, the conductor weaved and bobbed and curled as if in Olympic competition, batonless, nodding, smiling when he turned halfway around to lock eyes with the guest star.

Pictures were verboten, but as I sat there and listened, I realized I would have to suffer the consequences and the anticipated verbal blows from those around me, because it was a gift, a gift, I tell you that I was there, right in that very seat, forced by circumstance to "fire away," and I did!

Heave ho!

Please forgive the poor quality of the photographs, but in stealth did I snap. And no one came to bid me "adieu" or much worse.

The best photograph would have had Mr. Gajewski standing in the background while he and Mr. Zhang exchanged glances, but I had to carefully choose timing for the crime (last movement, without clapping) in order to incur less wrath.  

(Before the performance began, I asked a startled usher who remained speechless but tried to smile, if I could take photos, please, during the presentation, and realizing my gaffe, told her: "We'll pretend we never had this conversation.")

Would anyone be surprised to learn Mr. Gajewski has a law degree, a license to practice law in two states, and formerly served on the city council in Rockville, Maryland?  He studied under Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Andre Previn, and is also the principal guest conductor of the Silesian Philharmonic in his native Poland.

Meanwhile, Mr. Zhang, 26, of China, a graduate of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, won a gold medal at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009 and performs around the world.  

Also on the program and not to be overlooked was the memorable Symphony No. 8 by Antonin Dvorak, born (1841) and died (1904) in his native Czech Republic.

I was in love.  Just in time for Valentine's Day.

Next up for the National Philharmonic at Strathmore this Saturday, February 18, will be Brian Ganz to play Chopin's Nocturnes, Polonaises, Mazurkas, and Etudes, under the direction of Conductor Gajewski.

And over at Ken Cen February 16 - 18, violinist Hilary Hahn will join the NSO to play Mendelssohn, Strauss, Janacek, and Dvorak.

I believe I can attend both. 

patricialesli@gmail.com 

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Rachmaninoff and Edgar Allan Poe star with the National Symphony Orchestra


Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)/Wikipedia

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)/Wikipedia
 
My favorite composers were on the National Symphony Orchestra program Thursday night, and if you rush today, you can hear them tonight.

It was practically an all Russian evening, from the guest conductor, Vassily Sinaisky (who never used a baton), to composers Sergei  Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), to the vocalists, guest soprano, Dina Kuznetsova, and tenor, Sergey Semishkur.

Other nations represented on the platform, besides Americans who are members of the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the NSO, and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), were guest tenor, Elchin Azizov from Azerbaijan, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) of Austria. 

Beginning the program was NSO's first performance of Borodin's Overture to Prince Igor, which began solemnly enough but soon gave way to vigorous double bass, building to a climax in a piece whose authorship is uncertain, according to the program.  (By day, Borodin was a professor of chemistry who had little time for composition, but around-the-clock he was an advocate of women's rights, founding the School of Medicine for Women in St. Petersburg.)

A NSO star, Loren Kitt, splendidly played the familiar but always welcome, Mozart's Concerto in A major for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622, in an almost nonchalant fashion, totally unruffled by the audience in front of him, and cleaning his instrument before he began, while the orchestra played on behind him.

The best composition of the night belonged to the second half of the program and Rachmaninoff's interpretation of Poe's The Bells: sleigh bells, wedding bells, alarm bells, and mournful bells, following life's trajectory, from childhood to adulthood to the grave, Poe's words augmented by those of Russian poet, Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942) as in "The Silver Sleigh Bells":

And their dreaming is a gleaming that a perfumed air exhales,
And their thoughts are but a shining,
And a luminous divining
Of the singing and the ringing, that a dreamless peace foretells.

From "The Mellow Wedding Bells":

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of tender passion their melodious voice foretells!

From "The Loud Alarum Bells":

Yet we know
By the booming and the clanging,
By the roaring and the twanging,
How the danger falls and rises like the tides that ebb and flow

From "The Mournful Iron Bells":

What a world of desolation in their iron utterance dwells!
And we tremble at our doom,
As we think upon the tomb,
Glad endeavour quenched for ever in the silence and the gloom.

The beauty of The Bells was magnified by the voices of Choral Arts Society (under the direction of Scott Tucker and composed of 130 members, a few more women than men, my count) and the guests performers named above, so eloquent and professional in their deliveries, one could think of no better singers to be hired for such an occasion.

(Have you ever heard of the "celesta," one of three keyboards played in Bells?  Neither has Dorling-Kindersley, Limited, which published the Complete Classical Music Guide (2012) or David Pogue and Scott Speck, authors of Classical Music for Dummies (1997), who all omit the instrument defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "a keyboard and metal plates struck by hammers (! (editor's addition)) that produce bell-like tones."  To the untrained, it makes sounds like one might imagine a grownup's toy piano would.  Delightful!  What a nice girl's name to bestow. Akin to "celestial.")

Who would have thought the night would become so glorious, and to think I just picked the performance for my #1 love, Rachmaninoff!

(Update:  At a later event I met a Russian scholar who told me if Poe were any other nationality besides American, he thought Poe would have been Russian, based on Poe's temperament. This was a man who said he read Poe's complete works every summer when he visited his grandmother.)

(Questions: Where were the floral arrangements usually found at the end of the aisles at the stage, and why were the first two rows of seats kept empty of concertgoers?)


What:  Borodin, Mozart, Poe, and Rachmaninoff

When:  Tonight, 8 p.m.

Where:  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.

Admission:  Tickets start at $10.

Duration:  About two hours with one 15 minute intermission

For more information: 202-467-4600

patricialesli@gmail.com