Sunday, July 8, 2007

David Zinman’s Beethoven Cycle with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich

I was thinking about the Morton Feldman interview with Peter Gena where Feldman said that Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony should be played at least once every three years or so. I rarely have a burning desire to listen to Beethoven these days, but when I do, I usually find the experience exhilarating and not at all academic. I don’t know what accounts for this, but at least some of it comes from the exuberance with which musicians play his work. (Ralph Shapey said that Beethoven's music has an indestructible architectural structure that is impervious to bad performance. I agree.)

Anyway, when my friend and colleague William Kempster recommended a new recording of all nine Beethoven symphonies conducted by David Zinman and performed by the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, I had mixed feelings. I already own three performances of these pieces conducted by Furtwängler, Hogwood, and Gardiner. I hadn’t listened to them recently, but in my mind’s ear I remembered the feeling of peculiar excitement I experienced when I heard the Prestissimo from 9:IV under Hogwood; I thought, This must be what it must have been like to be in the audience at the premiere. I also remembered Zinman’s performances of these symphonies during his tenure at the Baltimore Symphony. The orchestra couldn’t quite handle the original tempos that Zinman insisted on using; and the whole enterprise didn’t make sense anyway, because I think he left out some of Beethoven's original repeats. And on top of all that was my usual disinclination to listen to Beethoven. Did I really need to have another cycle of Beethoven symphonies, even though Bill insisted that the performances were the best he’d ever heard?

Sometime after I scaled back my writing for American Record Guide, I decided that I had the time and the inclination to revisit some of the great Western classical works that I never had a chance to listen to because I was reviewing what seemed like the 800th recording of the Goldberg Variations. And I remembered Bill’s recommendation. The price was right: I think the set costs only $30 or so. So I bought it and began listening with no. 1, continuing in order until I finished listening to the Ninth yesterday.

I have to agree with Bill that these are amazing performances. The musicians play from the critical performing editions of the works prepared by Jonathan Del Mar and published by Bärenreiter. Zinman takes Beethoven's metronome markings for the tempos, but this time the orchestra plays beautifully; all the original repeats seem to be there. The phrasing follows eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century principles of performance practice: short, articulated phrases—no “long line”; and sometimes the musicians embellish their melodic lines just a bit, a practice some think was quite common at the time. The instruments sound modern except for the percussion: the timpani have a crisper sound that suggests the use of calfskin heads and harder mallets; the metal percussion instruments have an interesting timbre that’s hard to explain but that sounds unlike modern examples. And the Del Mar edition differs from the classic Breitkopf in a number of cases (most audibly in slurs and other expressive markings).

No, it’s not perfect. Sometimes the trills sound absurdly metronomic (introduction to Symphony no. 2); some added embellishments distract more than they delight (oboe cadenza in Symphony no. 5:I); and some of the phrasing will strike more than a few listeners as overly articulated. (I have to say I like playing Beethoven’s music with this kind of space between the phrases myself, even though I wonder if I’m wrong to do so because I know Beethoven criticized Mozart’s playing as too choppy.) Even so, for anyone who has thought that the period instrument movement was no more than an interesting side enterprise that could never seriously affect the modern orchestra, this recording will be a revelation.

Friday, July 6, 2007

The Zen of Top Chef

First of all, I should say that I've never really understood the appeal of most reality shows. When I watch TV (which I still do more than I should), I want to see interesting characters in interesting theatrical situations--ordinary people behaving badly, or childishly, or bawdily in very short-term life situations (usually way too contrived for comfort) does not appeal.

But I have enjoyed Bravo's Top Chef very much. I found myself emotionally invested in Season 1's characters. I liked Harold very much--I thought that I would rather see him win than anyone else. And I was quick to side with Dave against Stephen or Tiffani. For instance, I thought the judges should have eliminated Tiffani because the Cirque de Soleil liked Dave's food much more than they did Tiffani's. But she stayed because I think Tom Colicchio was biased in favor of Tiffani in Season 1 (just as he also seemed in favor of Cliff in Season 2). Naturally, it was much more of a dramatic finish to have Harold defeat Tiffani rather than Dave--I mean, how could anyone be happy to see Dave lose?

I soon came to feel that Bravo shamelessly manipulated my experience of these characters just so they could create these over-the-top pseudo-dramatic moments. So I tried, in Season 2, not to have any favorites--but I couldn't keep it up for long. First, I was mainly rooting for Ilan and I thought Marcel was an arrogant snot. (I also really liked Carlos and was sad to see him leave so early.) But then when Betty started taking cheap shots at Ilan whenever it suited her to do so, I began to root for Marcel. And the more everyone else hated him, the more I rooted for him. It wasn't necessarily that I thought Marcel was the best chef on the show--I don't know enough about gourmet cooking to answer that question--but rather that I thought he was picked on with a severity disproportionate to whatever unpleasant behavior he showed. After Ilan made his cruel joke about Marcel's sexual knowledge, I couldn't take any pleasure in seeing him win. And I still can't. So Season 2 ended and I felt, once more, that Bravo had successfully manipulated me.

In Season 3--so far, at least--I've managed to like everyone on the show. In the Season 1 vs. Season 2 smackdown (where we first met Season 3's contestants), I came to really enjoy Stephen and Tiffani. They seem very serious and passionate about what they're doing; they have something to say and I like the fact that they really believe in themselves. And I'm really enjoying Hung in Season 3's cast--I know we're supposed to hate him, but I think he's funny and very serious about his work. In fact, each one of the Season 3 chefs are different and very interesting, and I find myself wishing they could all stay for the whole series and have the final battle be between the two chefs who were consistently the best each week. But I guess that would be too expensive, and it would be harder for the Bravo people to manipulate the situations and interview dialogue so that we will be made to like one person or another.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Welcome

A lot of friends and colleagues blog, and I'm very impressed with their results. I doubt what I write here will be on the level of what I've seen elsewhere, but in the last couple of days it seemed to me that the blogosphere might be a good place to post some notes and random musings about things that interest me, mostly music and film. These sorts of posts don't fit very well in the other publications that I write for; for example, I've been reviewing for the American Record Guide since 1993--mostly harpsichord music and occasional newer stuff--but recently decided to scale back that work, at least for the immediate future; but even when I was writing a lot for ARG, I wasn't able to write on several composers that I'm very interested in (for instance, John Adams). And while I love films, I've published very little about film.

Don't expect lots of entries for this blog, especially during the summer of 2007--I have to make sure this exercise doesn't keep me from doing some of the other writing that I really need to be doing!