Monday, August 31, 2009

Post-Classical Ensemble To Push Exploration of Late Schubert Songs To The Fourth Dimension (Cutting Edge Trombone & Ensemble At Cutting Edge Art Hall)



I mentioned Schubert’s late Heinrich Heine-based song "Der Doppelgaenger" in my recent review of the San Francisco Symphony’s newly released recordings of Mahler’s Symphonies #8 and 10 (Adagio). I also mentioned the San Francisco Symphony’s upcoming, three-week Mahler Festival, which will be filmed for inclusion in the SFS’s pathbreaking Keeping Score television project.

I now see that -- for those on the East Coast who do not have music critics’ budgets to attend this major SFS Festival -- Angel Gil-Ordóñez and Washington's Post-Classical Ensemble will be joined by William Sharp, baritone, in several great late Schubert songs, and by David Taylor, avant garde bass trombonist on Thursday, October 1, 2009, at 7:30 PM, at the District of Columbia’s very own ultra-modern performing arts center – The Harman Center for the Arts, at Gallery Place-Chinatown, 610 F St. NW. 202-547-11-22. (Remember, Thursdays are contemporary art nights in this City, and in many other modern cities worldwide.)

Here is the exceptionally interesting program the Angel has curated for, and will conduct, that evening:

Schubert/Mahler: Death and the Maiden (string orchestra)
Schubert: Doppelgänger and other late songs

Stravinsky: Suite from A Soldier’s Tale
Daniel Schnyder: Works for bass trombone and orchestra

Be sure to bring your teenage and even younger kids (who certainly will know where Gallery Place-Chinatown is, even if a few readers and music critics might not know)!

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"Are you in the mood for something really edgy? Post-Classical Ensemble showcases one of the world’s great instrumentalists: the bass trombonist David Taylor, whose flamboyant virtuosity and eruptive temperament astonishingly transfigure music of every stripe. With P-CE, Taylor performs a medley of harrowing late Schubert songs, plus a pair of jazzy and rambunctious Daniel Schnyder scores: subZERO Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra (DC premiere) and roTo’r (American premiere)."

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Washington, D.C.'s new downtown Harman Center for the Arts, Michael Kahn, Artistic Director.

The Post-Classical Ensemble

Fourth dimension

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Image: (c) Naxos Recordings. Copyright controlled.

End Of Slavic Summer Old And New Postcards From Kyiv, Ukraine, Future European Union







[Click on images for enlargements.]

Many readers will recognize the top drawing of the Great Gate of Kyiv, by Viktor Hartmann.

The American conductor John McLaughlin Williams shared the second photo of the Golda Meir memorial with me last week. He took the photo in Kyiv during a business trip in which he recorded, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, his first Nicolas Flagello CD for Naxos recordings, which included the 1st Piano Concerto & Dante's Farewell.

Our niece is a scholarship student completing her Masters Degree at the historic and elite National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine, Future European Union.

The second to last 'postcard' is of the former Bohoyavlensky Cathedral of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. It was destroyed by Soviet authorities in 1935. It was built in the 19th century in Ukrainian-revival style.

Photo credits: Gold Meir memorial on Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv, Ukraine (c) John McLaughlin Williams. Copyright controlled. Other images (except last) via Wikipedia. With thanks.

Last image of the proposal for reconstruction on the Rybalskyi Peninsula, Kyiv (c) archunion.com.ua 2005. Copyright controlled. All rights reserved. Via Wikipedia.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Extra! Extra! Classical WETA Tonight Tries To Sneak In Its American Classical Music Quota For The Rest Of Year Without Pan Cogito Noticing!



[Click on image for enlargement.]

10:21 pm
Edward MacDowell
Piano Concerto #1
Thomas Tirino (piano) | Bulgarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | Vassil Kazandjiev (conductor)
Centaur 2149

11:19 pm
Arthur Foote
Piano Quartet
James Barbagallo (piano) | Da Vinci Quartet
Naxos 559.014

Classical WETA, public radio in the Nation's Capital

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Header:

George Bellows
American, 1882 - 1925
Both Members of This Club, 1909
Chester Dale Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1944.13.1

"A robust and vigorous man, George Bellows played semiprofessional baseball before moving to New York City to study art under Robert Henri. There, Bellows found that corruption had made public boxing illegal. Private sport clubs managed to circumvent the law, but they also barred the fighters, who were deemed socially unacceptable, from joining. The title of Both Members of This Club refers to the practice of granting “membership” to boxers only for the duration of their bouts. Bellows indicated his low opinion of the elitist crowd by converting them into grotesque caricatures roaring approval of the bloodshed. Creating a sense of immediacy, three rows of spectators block off our view, and the ringside ropes loom overhead.

The location is Tom Sharkey's Athletic Club. (Sharkey's is also the setting for Bellows' Club Night of 1907 in the National Gallery, the first of his six oil paintings of boxing matches.) The black contestant is Joe Gans, lightweight champion for eight years. Gans' famous “right punch after blocking a lead” may have led Bellows to record that maneuver for its own sake."

Text and image credit: Copyright © 2009 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

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American Realist Painting of the Early 20th Century in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Power Of Gouache [Or, 20th Century Trios]



[Click on image for enlargement.]

The Kreeger Museum, Washington, D.C.: Kentridge and Kudryashov: Against the Grain -- October 3 - December 30, 2009

Gouache

Image credit: Kukryniksy, a famous Soviet trio of caricaturists. Via Foreign Policy web-magazine and courtesy of David King and Abrams publishing house. [13-image photo essay at link]

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Two More End Of Summer Postcards From Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine, Future European Union




[Click on images for enlargements.]

Saint Basil's Church, Ovruch, Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine. Built 1209, restored 1909 CE.

Carmelite fortified convent in Berdichev, Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine, Future European Union.

“St. Basil's Church, Ovruch, Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine, was commissioned by Rurik II of Kiev from his court architect Pyotr Miloneg in the late 1190s. The church was built in Rurik's votchina and was dedicated to his patron saint.

St. Basil's Church has four pillars, three apses and one dome. The western facade is flanked by two round towers, probably in imitation of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. The building is distinguished by elaborate brick facades, interlaced with bands of polished colored stone. The complicated design of pilasters points to a complex system of roofing and to a very high dome. The dome and vaults collapsed during the siege of Ovruch by Gediminas in 1321. The ruins of the church survived until 1842, when they crumbled, with the exception of three apses and a portion of the northern wall with an arch.

In 1907 Aleksey Shchusev was commissioned to restore the church to its presumed original form, incorporating the remains of Rurik's church into his edifice. Restoration works lasted for two years and won Schusev the prestigious title of the Academician of Architecture. More recently, the accuracy of his restoration has been questioned, as it did not take into account the complicated system of vaulting and the considerable height of the drum. As a consequence of this oversight, the drum was restored according to a model characteristic of more archaic churches rather than for the turn of the 13th century. Adjacent buildings of St. Basil's Convent were built on the model of medieval architecture of Pskov simultaneously with the restoration of the main church.”

Text and photo credits: Wikipedia. Photo of convent courtesy of Petro Vlasenko (sk.vlasenko.net). With thanks.

End Of Summer Postcards From The Tereschenko Castle In Chervone, Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine, Future European Union




[Click on images for enlargements.]

Ukrainian industrialist (sugar), aviation pioneer, and arts patron Fedor F. Tereschenko built his neo-gothic castle in ca. 1910-1915 in Chervone, Zhytomyr Province, Ukraine.

Photo credits: (c) www.chervone.com 2009. All rights reserved. With thanks.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cultural And Political "Works And Days"





I could not bear to stand in the final room of the "Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004" exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this past Saturday.

Photo credits: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (c) Richard Avedon 2003. Copyright controlled. All rights reserved. Dina Koston (c) Robert Huber 2003 via Greenpeace Magazine. All rights reserved.

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Hesiod "Works and Days"

Sunday, August 23, 2009

The SFS's New Mahler Symphony #8 Recording: A Late Romantic, Supreme Masterpiece "Out of Time" With The Western Musical Tradition?



The San Francisco Symphony, under Michael Tilson Thomas, has just released the latest in its series of self-produced, live recordings of the complete major works of Gustav Mahler - a multi-year project begun in the late summer of 2001, in the shadow of 9/11. On the new, two-CD set, Mahler's crowning Symphony #8 for eight vocal soloists, adult and children's choruses, and very large orchestra -- recorded in Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco in November 2008 -- is satisfyingly coupled with Mahler's extended opening Adagio from his 10th Symphony, the only movement which Mahler lived to orchestrate fully, recorded in April 2006. The Symphony #8, in a somewhat conservative musical language largely stripped of the Austro-Hungarian imperial militaristic, Jewish, and Alpine folk musical elements incorporated into many of Mahler's other symphonies and song cycles, lasts approximately 85 minutes in this welcome version; while the Adagio from the Symphony #10 (in Mahler's newer, forward looking musical language, again "purified" of most outside musical contexts) lasts 28 minutes. (Despite the coupling order which could not be finessed here on CD, one should certainly listen to -- and study in depth -- the Symphony #8 before the Adagio to Symphony #10, given the two works' strikingly different musical languages. Also, despite a small typo on the box set, the two CDs last for almost two hours.) While single CD versions of Mahler's Symphony #8 exist, lasting, for example, 77 and 80 minutes in new and old versions, respectively, under Gergiev and Solti, the new San Francisco Symphony version, under Michael Tilson Thomas, is musically and emotionally outstanding, alternating somewhat relaxed and highly lucid soloistic passages with full-throated and well-balanced choral passages at different moments in the music drama. All of the soloists are excellent, as are the boys and girls choruses and the orchestra. The CD set includes expert program notes by the late Michael Steinberg.

How should we place Mahler's Symphony #8 in the tradition of Western music? Alongside Mahler's symphonic song cycle "Das Lied von der Erde", it is almost certainly Mahler's finest masterpiece of post-Wagnerian, conservative diatonic musical Romanticism. This late "symphony" is ultimately richer than the now ever popular Mahler Symphonies #1 and #5 (each to be performed by the San Francisco Symphony, under Michael Tilson Thomas, next month as part of the San Francisco Symphony's important, three-week Mahler Festival); and equal to, if not surpassing, the harmonically richer and exploratory (matching mature Wagner, and, for example, the opening of Bruckner's Symphony #9) Mahler Symphonies # 6, 7, 9, and 10. And, Mahler's Symphonies # 2, 3, and 4, despite their highly unusual and imaginative wonders, fall short musically and conceptually compared to Mahler's Symphony #8.

Again, how should we place Mahler's Symphony #8 in the tradition of Western music? We all recognize that the supreme masterpieces of the Western baroque era are Monteverdi's music dramas, J.S. Bach's Passions and his musically (and theologically) quasi-encyclical Mass in B minor, and a still musicologically evolving set of Handel's operas and oratorios. The "purely" classical age (through either Beethoven's Symphony #3 or Symphony #5) added the Mozart-da Ponte trilogy of operas and Haydn's autumnal oratorios -- "The Creation" and "The Seasons".

But how do we think about the flowerings of musical Romanticism that took place during the "long 19th century" (see, for example, the writings of Michael P. Steinberg) that lasted from the late, "dark" works of Mozart through Mahler, Wolf, and Scryabin? In the early 19th century "proper", we have Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, as well as the supreme miniature musical-dramatic masterpieces of Schubert -- many of the greatest (and last) based on Goethe or Heinrich Heine (for example, Schubert's "Der Doppelganger"). By the later 19th century, we have Brahms's balanced and human German Requiem, Verdi's and Faure's alternative concepts of a Latin Requiem (as well as Verdi's great cycle of mature operas), and Wagner's tetralogy, which composers on both sides of the Altantic ocean tried to "match" through tetralogies of oratorios -- in America, by Horace Nichol[l]s in his "Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" tetralogy of oratorios of 1890 (most likely, not achieved in full orchestration), and in Germany, by Felix Draeseke in his "Christus" tetralogy of oratorios (1899, fully achieved, orchestrated, and available today on CDs.)

The San Francisco Symphony Mahler Symphony #8 helps the listener to understand the composer's late Romantic musical conception by providing four tracks for the First Part of the "Symphony", based on a 28 short line medieval Latin hymn (in seven segments) starting "Veni, creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita [Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid]," before the usual separate trackings for the segments of Mahler's setting of the extended German-language closing of the Second Part of Goethe's "Faust" (with the extended musical landscape painting of the opening of the Second Part matching the extended musical landscapre painting which opens the disproportionally long final song of the "Das Lied von der Erde" symphonic song-cycle). While the First Part (in four sections) of the Symphony #8 is really not the supreme musical masterpiece that are the late Josquin des Prez Masses (in five traditional sections, but of comparable length, if not sonic and human vocal resources), the Second Part of the Mahler Symphony #8 achieves for its composer a supreme masterpiece of Western music, one that composers writing at the time of Goethe -- Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert -- were not able to attain in a similar, traditionally humanistic manner of text-setting and artistic collaboration, given Goethe problematic relationship to classical music. In this late "Symphony", Mahler "completes" 19th century Romanticism in a manner unlike Schubert's "Der Doppelganger", Wagner's "Ring", or Brahms's German Requiem (and in an "experimental" way that is matched at the end of the long 19th century by, perhaps, only Hugo Wolf.)

The San Francisco Symphony's upcoming three-week Mahler Festival, in September, will feature, in addition to Symphonies #1 and #5, the Ruckert Songs, the Songs of a Wayfarer, the Scherzo from the Symphony #7, and selections from Symphonies #9 and #10. The featured soloists in the song cycles will be Susan Graham and Thomas Hampson. The second week of the Festival will feature mixed programming and will be filmed as part of the San Francisco Symphony's excellent "Keeping Score" educational programming for PBS.

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San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony live performances of Mahler Symphonies #8 and 10 (Adagio)

Keeping Score

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Header photo: Buchenwald, Germany in the middle of the twentieth century.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

About Forty Years Ago Pan Cogito Was Given As A Birthday Gift A Two-Volume Encyclopedia Of Great Composers And Their Music



[Click on image for enlargement.]

..."[These two volumes] basically are about the foremost composers of the past and present (seventy-eight in number) and their music. Here will be found exhaustive biographies [sic] not only of the giant figures but also of secondary composers about whom biographical and critical material is not so readily accessible; thirty contemporaries are included in the gallery of composers, among them seven representative Americans." ...

Milton Cross and David Ewen "Milton Cross's Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and their Music" New Revised Edition 1962 Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Photo credit: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA. [1935]

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Happy Birthday, P.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Four Years Later: More On The Choral Synagogue Of Drohobych, Ukraine, Future European Union



"I stumbled on this blog, wanted to add that i am a photographer who has documented the renaissance of Jewish life in Ukraine. I have been following this synagogue's rebirth with my photography from 2005-2008. The synagogue has been cleaned up and has one room which is now used for prayer. I participated in the first passover Seder there in 60 years and the first Sukah. I will write more later.

You can view some of my work at lolikantor.com"

Loli Kantor Photography

The Choral Synagogue Of Drohobych, Ukraine [Renaissance Research, August 2005]

Bruno Schulz

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Thanks so much for your note, Loli. Your photographs are beautiful. I look forward to returning to Drohobych soon.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

A Farwell To The Guns Of August?




a ballad about us not ceasing to exit by Zbigniew Herbert


Those who sailed out at dawn
but will never come back
they left their trace on the surface --

at such times into the deep of sea falls a shell
beautiful as a mouth turned to stone

those who walked the sandy trail
but did not make it to the shutters
although the roofs were already in sight

within a bell of air they have shelter

and those who orphaned only
a cold room a few books
an empty inkwell blank sheets --

indeed those did not die completely

their whisper wafts through thickets of wallpaper
in the ceiling a flat head lives on
of air water lime earth
a paradise was fixed for them their angel of wind
crumbles the body in hand
they will
carry upon the meadows of this here earth


Translated by Marek Lugowski

© crossconnect 1995-1998


Photo credit: Copyright © 2009 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Berlioz, Ives, & Shostakovich vs. Berlioz, Britten, & Saariaho: "Digital Concert Hall" Offering Half-Price Opening Concert; “Keeping Score" To Follow





First Salzburg streamed Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte" live, and a week later Bayreuth streamed Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" live. For orchestral music fans, the Berlin Philharmonic's "Digital Concert Hall" is offering its season opening concert streamed live on August 28, 2009 at 1 PM East Coast Time and 10 AM West Coast Time. The program -- under Sir Simon Rattle -- includes a work by Britten, a world premiere by Kaija Saariaho, and Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique".

Ticket's for this opening concert are half the price of the remaining 32 concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic's 2009-10 "Digital Concert Hall" season -- about $7, rather than the normal $14. Monthly and full seasonal passes are also available, as is access to the archives of the "Digital Concert Hall's" Berlin 2009 spring season. Student's can receive a 30% discount; and individual works can also be heard for about $4.25 each. (Lots of Lutoslawski, Boulez, and especially Carter to choose from; as well as major orchestral and choral works and the Haydn opera "Orlando Paladino" revived recently in both Berlin and Amsterdam.)

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphonies #4 and #12 and the first Violin Concerto (with Guy Braunstein) will be highlights of the Berlin Philharmonic "Digital Concert Hall" programming in September and early October 2009.

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In San Francisco, the San Francisco Symphony will focus its energies in September on a three week series of concerts featuring works of Gustav Mahler, which will be recorded for later audio and DVD/Blu Ray release. Included will be the popular Mahler Symphonies #1 and 5, and Susan Graham and Thomas Hampson singing two rarer but exquisite Mahler song cycles (which will be recorded and filmed, as part of the "Origins and Legacies" in-depth component of the San Francisco Symphony "Keeping Score" programs on Mahler).

The Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony and Chorus new recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand, and the Adagio from Symphony No. 10 is available starting today on itunes, and on August 25 in the Symphony Store and in other stores. (Subscribers can get a copy for free to keep or give as a gift with their paid subscription.)

Finally, the second season of the San Francisco Symphony's great "Keeping Score" television and DVD/Blu Ray series kicks off with three new PBS national broadcasts during the second half of October 2009 -- documentary and musical programs on Berlioz, Ives, and Shostakovich (and featuring complete performances of the Symphony Fantastique, the Holidays Symphony, and the Fifth Symphony, respectively).

An in-depth preview of this second San Francisco Symphony "Keeping Score" season to follow. (Photo treatments above courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.)

Working As If Life Mattered ... In Memorium, Zarema Sadulayeva And Alik Djabrailov.



[Click on map for enlargement.]

"The leader of a small nonprofit group in Russia’s volatile region of Chechnya and her husband were abducted and killed, officials said on Tuesday, underscoring the worsening human rights situation there.

The two, who worked at a group called Save the Generation, which assisted young people affected by the turmoil in Chechnya, were seized from an office on Monday afternoon in the Chechen capital of Grozny, said Aleksandr Cherkasov, an official with Memorial, one of Russia’s most prominent human rights groups.

Their bodies were discovered early Tuesday in the trunk of their car in Grozny, according to Mr. Cherkasov and local officials. They were identified as Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Djabrailov." ...

Clifford J. Levy "2 Aid Workers Killed in Chechnya" New York Times August 11, 2009

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Grozny is a sister city of Warsaw, Krakow, Lviv, Odesa, and Istanbul.

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Map credit: Via Multi-lingual Human Rights/Multi-lingual Child Rights.

Monday, August 10, 2009

In Memorium, Mike Seeger, Proud American Musician



Photo credit: (c) New York Folklore Society 2009. Copyright controlled. With thanks.

Peekaboo ... In Re: LOC Mus 09-10, Music And The Brain, And Lviv Conservatory Of Music, Lviv, Ukraine, Future European Union



Library of Congress Concert, Lecture, Seminar, and Film Series, 2009-2010: "Because Great Nations Deserve Great Art"

The Nation's Capital (of the United States) does not have a music conservatory.

Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa, Ukraine, Future European Union, do have music conservatories.

Header photo credit: Lviv Conservatory of Music, Lviv, Ukraine, Future European Union. (c) www.orpheusandlyra.com 2009. With thanks.

For Symphony Weekend, Classical WETA Finally Programs Bruckner And Mahler Symphonies ... But Did They Program An American Symphony?




And what about Prokofiev's Symphony #6 or Shostakovich's Symphony #10?

(Mstislav Rostropovich, you are sorely missed in today's Washington, D.C.)

San Francisco Symphony's "Keeping Score" to feature musical documentary on Dmitri Shostakovich this fall.

Will it be shown on Sharon Rockefeller's WETA-TV?

Photo credits: (c) Nikolina Cora and Lincoln Center via andante.com. Copyright controlled material. All rights reserved. With thanks.

Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter ... Or The Librettist's Revenge



Sunday August 23 4 PM

OPERA INTERNATIONAL
Operatic Vocal Gala
Strathmore Hall, North Bethesda, Maryland

Excerpts from Amy Tan's Bonesetter's Daughter, arias from
Don Giovanni, Cenerentola, and Manon.

Photo credit: Copyright © 2009 KQED. All Rights Reserved.

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Anyone know who wrote the music to the opera?

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Poll: Does Pan Cogito Deserve A Short August Summer Holiday This Year Based Upon Newly Instituted Blogger Holiday-For-Performance Criteria?









Dear Pan Cogito,

Summer is well underway... certainly time for a refreshing break. Why not spoil yourself and take advantage of the current low prices of air travel, and combine these with our competitive Early Booker or Weekend rates?

These attractive rates are valid across Kempinski hotels worldwide. In addition, get inspired by distinctive offers at four of our most famous properties: the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski in Munich, the Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin, the Kempinski Grand Hotel des Bains in St. Moritz and the Grand Hotel Kempinski in Geneva. All perfect candidates for a regenerating getaway.

We look forward to hosting you.

With best regards,



Header: Newly-opened Lviv Citadel Inn, Lviv, Ukraine, Future European Union.

Photo credits: (c) www.inlviv.info 2009. Copyright controlled. All rights reserved.

From The Decline, Fall, And Rebirth News Department: “Why did no one see the crisis coming?” asked Queen Elizabeth recently at the British Academy

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

With Funding From “A Great Nation Deserves Great Art” NEA, Sharon Rockefeller’s WETA/WGMS To Broadcast Handel’s Faramondo & Haydn’s Orlando Paladino



Haydn's and Fertőd’s Esterházy Palace is part of the Fertö-Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001. I visited in September 2002.

[Click on image for enlargement.]

Faramondo
Metropolitan Theatre of Lausanne
August 8, 2009, 1:00 pm

Composer: G. F. Handel
Conductor: Diego Fasolis

The up and coming Swiss Baroque ensemble I Barocchisti brings us a seldom-heard drama by Handel, sung by a top-notch cast, from Lausanne's beautiful Salle Metropole.

Cast: Max Emanuel Cencic (Faramondo); Sophie Karthäuser (Clotilde); Marina de Liso (Rosimonda); Insung Sinn (Gustavo); Philippe Jaroussky (Adolfo); Xavier Sabata Corominas (Gernando); Fulvio Bettini (Teobaldo); Johann Ebert (Childerico)


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Orlando Paladino
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
August 29, 2009, 1:00 pm

Composer: Joseph Hadyn
Conductor: Alessandro De Marchi

Of all Haydn's operas, this was the most popular in his lifetime, and arguably his best, described as "a comedy of errors in which most of the characters are in love with the wrong partner." Orlando, literally crazy for love, goes in search of Medoro and Angelica, while Rodomonte is trying to kill him, and the witch Alcina targets him with fiendish hexes.

Cast: Henriette Bonde-Hansen (Angelica); Marcel Reijans (Orlando); Pietro Spagnoli (Rodomonte); Elena Monti (Alcina); Kenneth Tarver (Medoro); Nikolay Borchev (Pasquale); Martijn Cornet (Caronte); Peter Gijsbertsen (Licone); Laura Cherici (Eurilla)

Source

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But will Sharon Rockefeller's WETA-TV ever broadcast the San Francisco Symphony's Keeping Score project, which contains 'modern' music by Mahler, Ives, Copland, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich banned on Sharon Rockefeller's WETA/WGMS?

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Photo credit: (c) Zsolt and Budapest (Hunagary) Daily Photo 2009. Copyright controlled. With thanks.

Can't Seem To Focus On My "Clinton In Korea" Opera This Morning


Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Before There Was 'Burning Man', There Was 'Running Man' And The Holodomor



Kazimir Malevich, "Running man", 1932-1933. Oil, canvas, George Pompidou Art Centre, Paris. Copyright controlled.

Holodomor

OK, Got It. Sorry. - Upcoming Review Of Michael Tilson Thomas And San Francisco Symphony & Berlioz, Ives, Shostakovich - Not Mahler, Ives, Stravinsky





SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY: KEEPING SCORE


Photo credits: (c) Alexander Sokurov via Harvard Film Archive.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Claus Guth’s Cosi Fan Tutte from Salzburg, Lowell Liebermann’s Symphony #2, and Delius's 'A Mass of Life'



... musical highlights of the past weekend composed in 1790, 1905, and 1999.

Photo credit: © Monika Rittershaus 2009.

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Break coming up -- during which time I will be doing some thinking about Mahler, Ives, and Stravinsky (following in MTT's footsteps).