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the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (IV), the fromm concert

The Festival of Contemporary Music always concludes Monday night with the Fromm Concert.  From the website:

The Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, founded by the late Paul Fromm in the fifties, has been located at Harvard University since 1972. Over the course of its existence, the Fromm Foundation has commissioned over 300 new compositions and their performances, and has sponsored hundreds of new music concerts and concert series, among them Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music and the Fromm Concert Series at Harvard University. In 1992-1993, the Paul Fromm Composer-in-Residence program at the American Academy in Rome was founded, and the annual Fromm concert and Paul Fromm Award for Composition at Tanglewood were established.

This year's concert was another of the highlights of the festival, bringing us as sole performance  “Blood on the Floor”  for three jazz soloists and large ensemble (1995) by the English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage.  Turnage, a protégé of Oliver Knussen and Hans Werner Henze, is this summer's composer-in-residence at Tanglewood.  He is also co-composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony.  His works are often based on paintings by Francis Bacon – the title of the work comes from a Bacon painting – poems, and plays.  A Langston Hughes poem allusion is also part of this piece. 

Turnage combines pop, funk, and jazz with classical music, but, as the program notes point out, “crossover”, as opposed to today's commercial term, with Turnage means a true hybrid.

A brief online description of the work.  The individual movements are listed with this CD:  Turnage: Blood on the Floor.  Fast movements alternate with slow ones – “in the good old Baroque pattern”, as the program notes say.  The latter were extensive and extremely helpful, too bad I can't scan and post them here.

To me, “Blood on the Floor” was a riveting piece of music!

The classical jazz soloists were Martin Robertson, soprano saxophone (although he did play at least two different types of saxes);  John Parricelli, guitar;  Peter Erskine, percussion;  and listed, Dave Carpenter, bass – I could not see him though, unless I missed him. There were several guest artists among the ensemble, especially the guitarist Michael Gandolfi.  The conductor was Stefan Asbury, the festival director.

BBC profile of Mark-Anthony Turnage
London Philharmonic profile

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (III), two concerti

Sunday evening, after a not too inspiring first half, those in the audience who stuck it out were rewarded with two pieces for solo instrument and ensemble:

Ron Ford:  Versus for solo violin and ensemble (2006)
Poul Ruders:  Psalmodies for guitar solo and nine instruments (1989)

Versus, by Ron Ford, was a world music premiere, commissioned by the TMC with support from the Paul Jacobs foundation.  The ensemble consists solely of winds with the exception of two double bases, which contrasts nicely with the violin, which has a quite melodic part.  The soloist, 21-year old Russian born Yevgeny Kutik, a resident of neighboring Pittsfield where his mother Alla Zernitskaya is a music teacher, is a Fellows of this year's Tanglewood Music Center.  He played the part beautifully!  Googling found that he has won various prizes, and most likely has a promising career ahead.  And so has the conductor Kazem Abdullah, another TMC Fellow.  He is the founder and conductor of the Aspen Mozart Orchestra and the University of Cincinnati Community Orchestra, and has been assistant conductor of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra and the Cincinnati Contemporary Music Ensemble.  In the fall he will become assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Opera.  I saw him several times, and he conducted “Hin und Zurück”.

In contrast, the soloist in Poul Ruders ' (more on him) Psalmodies was David Starobin, a renowned classical guitarist, proponent of contemporary music, and founder of Bridge Records.  Psalmodies was written for him and premiered in 1990.  Tomasz Golka, another TMC Fellow, was the conductor.  The piece consists of eleven movements, beginning and ending with the solo guitar.  The other movements vary in the number instruments playing.  The interactions between the guitar and the ensemble are a bit difficult to describe, all I can say is that it was very enjoyable.  The descriprion of the numbers can be found on this CD:

Ruders: Psalmodies, together with two other works by Ruders, Vox in Rama for violin, clarinet & piano, and Nightshade, for 10 instruments.

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (II), opera

The absolute highlight for me was the “Triple Bill” opera performance

Paul Hindemith: “Hin und Zurück” (There and Back), a Sketch with Music
Igor Stravinsky: “Mavra”
Elliott Carter: “What Next?” (conducted by James Levine with the composer in the audience)

The sets were by Doug Fitch (temporary available reviews:  Director brings unconventional ideas to opera and What’s Next for Opera).  Slighty surreal but in simple colors, they perfectly fit the stories but were not distracting from the happenings.  The costumes were by Catherine Zuber, and the lighting designer was Clifton Taylor.

Unfortunately, no photography whatsoever was allowed due to copyright protection, i.e., one could not take pictures of the sets & cast at the end of the performances.

Hin und Zurück is a farcical musical sketch, with a jealous husband shooting his wife to death (very funnily done by a little boy running with a bullet from the gun and poking the wife with it) and a midpoint from which everything is played backwards.  The piece begins with a sneeze by an otherwise mute (and deaf) aunt knitting and observing the proceedings, played formidably by Phyllis Curtin, and ends of course with a sneeze too.  Hindemith composed the sketch in 1927 in four days for the Baden-Baden Festival, at a time when unserious opera was de rigeur.

Mavra, composed in 1922, is an opéra bouffe about star-crossed lovers;  musically, compared to Hindemith, rather conservative, combining Stravinsky’s neo-classical period with his then pre-occupation with Tchaikovsky.  It is dedicated to the memory of Pushkin, from which he took the storyline; Glinka, whose influence is also shown;  and Tchaikovsky.  It is the last Russian-themed piece of music Stravinsky would compose.  The character of the lover Vasily, appearing in drag as the cook “Mavra”, has a wonderful buffo drag role.

What Next, a one-act tragic comedy about 40 minutes long, is Elliott Carter’s only opera, composed 1997/98.  Although he has written much for voice, and toyed with Aristophanes'  The Birds  (Mr. Carter studied the classics and literature at Harvard), and  The Emperor’s New Clothes, he didn’t get around to it until he was about 90 years old.  Working with the librettist Paul Griffith, who also took bows, Carter used a highly involved traffic accident sequence in Jaques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot movie Trafic to create the story.  When the curtain rises, a child is sitting on a rock and five adults emerge apparently unharmed from their smashed automobiles but in utter confusion about who they are and how they are related to each other;  and what follows is how the adults perceive each other, never quite getting it, it seems.  This makes for wonderful solos, duos, trios and on so on.  The child is a catalyst of sorts.  At one point, two road workers appear and inspect the scene, but do not notice the people.  One wonders at times, as the program notes author does, are they dead?  However hard they try, the characters can never resolve their situation, and at the end, the audience is left with the question “What Next?”

The singers, all TMC fellows, were outstanding, and they must have loved the Carter opera.

There were two performances on consecutive days.  I had so much fun and, through a mistake, an extra ticket, so that rather than giving it away, I went both times, and was by no means the only one who did so!  On the first day, one got the overall impression, on the second day one could concentrate on the music.

The happenings at the Friday afternoon performance were enlivened by a couple of tremendous thunderstorms, during which rain came through the roof of the “Theatre” building, an old wooden structure, which is the only one with an orchestra pit and stage facility.  It rained not only on the audience, but on the stage too, and the “What Next?” singers adapted quickly with appropriate gestures.  I thought the thunder claps fit quite well into the story...

The Theatre

Postcript:  Heidi Waleson, the Wall Street Journal's opera critic, just gave both the “Don Giovanni” and the “Triple Bill” a rather morose review.

the festival of contemporary music at the tanglewood music center (I)

Today is my last day in Lenox, there are no music performances, the play I wanted to go to is sold out, and outside, the humid heat is like a sauna…in other words, the perfect day for blogging…

One of the reasons I came up here at this particular time of the concert season was the annual (43^rd) Festival of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center (scroll down), with performances by the TMC Fellows, faculty, and guest artists, which concluded last night.  Stefan Asbury was the Festival Director, and John Harbison the Festival Adviser. Over five days, there were numerous concerts, and I did not go to all of them, partially because there is such a thing as musical overload, like three concerts in one day, and over the weekend I was joined by a friend who is not interested in contemporary music, so we did other things, like visiting the wonderful Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  However, I certainly caught some of the highlights of the festival and will individually blog forthwith.

Music was by Abrahamsen, Babbitt, Boulez, Campion, Carter, Chasalow, Druckman, Felder, Ford, Gustavson, Hindemith, Jaffe, Jolas, Ligeti, Martino, Norman, Ruders, Staud, Stravinsky, Taylor, and Turnage.  Don Martino had been commissioned to write a violin concerto, but unexpectedly passed away while working on it:  only a 90 seconds fragment is available, which was performed.  Ligeti was added because he too had recently died and was commemorated.  Unfortunately, I missed that performance, I like Ligeti’s music very much.

Here is a summary from the NYT (permanently available only to TimesSelect customers).

Most TMC concerts are perfomed in the Ozawa Hall.  The lawn behind the hall slopes upwards, so one can easily hear the music.

Click on the images for larger size

hans graf conducting

Hans Graf conducted two performances on the weekend.

Saturday brought us the Beethoven Violin Concerto, beautifully executed by Gil Shaham, and the complete  Firebird (scroll down that page and go to "1910 Ballet Score").  As my companion said, what a difference from the Firebird Suite only which one usually hears at concerts.  Another revelation!  It was played without pause, but it was easy to follow from the titles of the individual scenes, and the BSO was at its best.

Sunday, we had Midori (she looks a bit older than in the photo) play Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1.   In my opinion, she managed to breathe new life into that old war horse, it was very enjoyable.  Midori, without much fanfare, is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of her famous debut with Zubin Metha and the New York Philharmonic.

Before the concerto, there was Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, always a pleasure to listen to.  Although it's labeled Opus 90, it is a rather early piece, written when the composer was in his early twenties and traveling in Italy.  The final piece was Richard Strauss' tone poem Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks).  Again, one could easily follow the scene titles, which I could find online only in German, where they are a bit more elaborate than the ones listed in the program.  We did enjoy it;  and an aside:  I wish that Strauss' tone poems woulod be performed more often.

The lawn behind the Music Shed fills up before the concert – rain or shine.
A good sound system allows for quite decent listening.