Classical Music Concert Videos No. 2: Mozartean Charmer with Renee Fleming

Just like the immortal Messiah of Handel, this lovely little gem for soprano and orchestra is in grave danger of becoming known to the wider musical public solely by one movement.  And again, that one movement is an Alleluia.

That Alleluia is one of the great warhorses of the soprano repertoire, a real showstopper for a singer.  The maddening thing, for me at least, is struggling for a chance to hear the entirety of Mozart's cantata, Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, in a live performance.  Mozart wrote this delightful work in Milan in 1773, at the ripe old age of 17.  The identity of the author of the text is unknown, but it may have been Vananzio Rauzzini, the Italian castrato for whom Mozart wrote the music. 

But just try to hear the entire work in a live performance.  Three times in my life now, I've had the experience of going out of my way to attend a concert where this work was listed on the programme -- and all they did was the Alleluia!

Well, here's to make up for it.  I found this beautiful video performance of the complete four-movement cantata.  There are actually a number of such video performances available.  Although the video post lacks documentation, it's easy to see that the venue is the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. 

Neither the orchestra nor the conductor are identified in the clip, but the singer is -- the glorious American soprano Renee Fleming.

As any one of her legions of fans might predict, Fleming acquits herself splendidly.  The huge space of the Royal Albert Hall could certainly be said to be too large for authentic performance of Mozart, but the orchestra is suitably sized up while still maintaining a light and transparent sound appropriate for this music.  In a performance that is necessarily bigger than usual in scale, Fleming's voice strikes the necessary balance between agility and power.

And there's no doubting Renee Fleming's ability to sing this charmer with style.  Ravishing high notes combine with soaring lyrical phrases in the slow movement, Tu virginem corona.  Natural speech rhythms highlight the second movement recitative.  Both the opening movement and the final Alleluia show her nimbly negotiating the florid runs, and the cadential pauses in the first and third movements find her interpolating stylish but not overdone cadenzas.  In the closing bars of the work she tosses in some sparkling additional ornamentation to highlight the final repetitions of Alleluia.

If you're not familiar with this beautiful gem, this video is a great way to make its acquaintance.

Renee Fleming sings Exsultate, jubilate (Mozart)

Classical Music Concert Videos No. 1: String Orchestra Masterpiece

With this video, I'm starting a new series of reviews, devoted to actual live performances which have been captured on video and posted on the internet.  These make an acceptable substitute until live performances with audiences can resume -- and in some cases capture unique occasions that are worthy of preservation.  A link to the performance(s) under discussion will be included at the end of each review in this series.

It's hard for me to think of any other twentieth-century musical work which is at the same time so beautiful to audiences, yet so elusive to performers.  It's been recorded dozens of times, by many world-famous orchestras and conductors, and yet the number of recordings that actually hit the mark is much -- very much -- smaller.  For my money, anyway.

The Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, more often called for short the Tallis Fantasia, is one of the earliest masterpieces by the great English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Composed in 1910, this work has remained its creator's single most popular composition, and is widely regarded -- not only in the United Kingdom -- as one of the great masterpieces of all music.

Nevertheless, it remains a work which doesn't readily unlock its secrets to the average performer.  In order to make the Tallis Fantasia really come to life, the conductor and players alike have to immerse themselves in the idea that this music is a meditation on a sacred song -- because the tune on which it is built was written to be sung to a metrical version of the first verses of Psalm 2. 

It's also essential to keep in mind that this music was written for performance in a cathedral (Gloucester, to be precise) and the spacious ambience of such an ancient building is built right into the music, so to speak.  Played in a modern concert hall, and performed as just another piece of music, the Tallis Fantasia will likely hang fire -- and it has done so in many recordings by some of the world's truly distinguished conductors.

If there's one thing that today's video proves, it's that a conductor who is himself a string player has a huge head start in facing this score, because the sensitivity to the sound of massed strings is built right into his/her grasp of music.  This video also highlights the value of performing the work in a hall which, if not Gothic in style, is particularly well attuned to the sound of string instruments.

In 2014, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was preparing for a major tour of Europe, with two different programmes to alternate throughout the tour.  They presented one of these two programmes at a midsummer concert in Koerner Hall in Toronto, just before departing on for Europe.  This video recording of the Tallis Fantasia was made at that concert.

My memory of that concert was that I was simply overwhelmed by the power, the beauty, the intensity, the insight of Maestro Peter Oundjian's reading of Tallis. And I know I wasn't the only one, because this piece -- predominantly slow or moderate in tempo, and ending very quietly, drew rousing applause, three calls for the conductor, and loud cheers from the audience -- and all this at the midpoint of the entire concert. 

For once, my memory didn't deceive me.  This truly is a performance of distinction, capturing the passion, the meditation, the ebb and flow of the score in a way that only a few of the recordings I've heard have equalled or even approached.  Especially noteworthy is the almost organ-like sound from the players of the smaller second orchestra, playing with mutes.

The textures of the music brim over with rich, resonant chording, and the mostly-wood interior of the hall bathes the strings in a warm acoustic glow.

My only quibble is that one or two of the front-desk soloists, at several key moments, produce a sound that is too beefy for this particular piece.

As for the video production, both the visual and audio components are impressive indeed.  The microphones capture the rich, full sound of the orchestral strings beautifully, and the camera work includes some spectacular crane shots which give a birds-eye view of the layout of the two orchestras.

Every time I watch this video, I experience the same spine-tingling surge of emotion as the conductor drives the music onwards to its passionate climax.  Oundjian's acceleration here is a textbook example of how to get faster without rushing -- which sounds like a paradox, but it's the only way I can describe the effect he obtains.

Some musical snobs maintain that only an English conductor and orchestra can get this music "right."  I think these Toronto players could make them eat their words.

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

One of the Greats of My Lifetime: In Memoriam Ida Haendel

On June 30, at the age of 91, the violinist Ida Haendel passed away.

Born in Poland, she lived for many years in Montreal before settling in Miami.  But she was truly a citizen of the world, appearing with famous orchestras and famous conductors throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

During the time when she resided in Canada (1952-1989), she made regular appearances with all the major Canadian orchestras.  And that time period, in Toronto, is where she crossed my musical path, and left an indelible impression.

The first time I heard her playing in Massey Hall was in the Sibelius violin concerto, a work which was forever associated with her after she had first played it.  On that occasion, she received a letter from the composer which read, in part:

"I congratulate you on the great success, but most of all I congratulate myself, that my concerto has found an interpreter of your rare standard."

 

About her Toronto performance of the Sibelius, I most remember that I was captivated by the rollicking cross-rhythms of the finale, and by the energetic bite of Haendel's down-bow on the repeated sforzando notes.

Although my memory is less clear, I'm reasonably sure I also heard her playing the Brahms concerto, and possibly  the Tchaikovsky.

The concerto that remains forever associated with her, and her only, in my memory came to me from the occasion when she joined with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the first violin concerto by Shostakovich.

At that time, the composer's music was an unknown quantity to me.  Ida Haendel's interpretation of that concerto was so powerful, so immediate, so emotive, that Shostakovich instantly rocketed onto my list of favourite composers, and has remained there ever since.  The wandering solo lines of the first movement found her in meditative mood, with the energy building up to the heavy-duty up-and-down intervals at the climax.  The second movement scherzo and the finale both drew from her playing a distinct edge of savagery amidst the raucous shouts of the orchestra.

It was the dark passacaglia of the third movement that took me into another world altogether.  I've heard other soloists since then in this remarkable music, but Ida Haendel found something there that I've never heard from anyone else: a deep, universal sadness for the world's tragedy.  It may have arisen from having lived through the horrors of the twentieth century, not least the Second World War, but wherever the place from which she drew that emotion, it hit me with all the strength and power of someone who has experienced the dark night of the soul to its very depths. The long, wandering cadenza leading to the rousing finale then became a quest, a search for some way out of this bleak pit of despair.

I might not have used those words at that time, but this is how I remember that amazing concert, all these years later (that would have been in the mid-1970s).

Haendel was an artist of the broadest emotional range, perhaps one of the last of the great Romantic violinists.  She could be, by turns, cool and aristocratic, wildly energetic, deeply passionate, or withdrawn into an inner meditative self, but with her technique always at the service of the music as she felt it.  Other violinists may have played the great concertos with more fireworks, with more panache, with more flourish, but Ida Haendel inhabited the music, living every piece she performed to the full.

The world can never have too many musicians of her rare standard.