So depressing is this email I received from the Philadelphia Orchestra yesterday. In the subject line, “A music-filled summer awaits!” Then I open it, and I see a photo of the Mann Music Center with more bodies strewn about the lawn than at the railroad station converted into a makeshift hospital in “Gone with the Wind.”
Scrolling down, there are capsules promoting the season-ending concert performances of “La bohème” at the Kimmel, the free neighborhood concerts, consisting mostly of excerpts from larger works (interesting repertoire admittedly – neglected Black composers – but why not show them the respect to play the music complete?), the summer festivals in Vail, Colorado, and Saratoga, New York, and a “summer residency” at the Mann.
What exactly does the summer residency entail? “…[C]lassical favorites by Gershwin and Tchaikovsky as well as hits by indie/roots band DISPATCH and Grammy Award-winner Beck. Plus… the first Philadelphia Orchestra live-score performances of two iconic films: ‘Batman’ and Disney’s ‘Aladdin.’”
Honey, bring me the smelling salts!
I know I posted about this last year, but this email is such a sad reminder. TWO orchestral concerts at the Mann – all summer – by the Philadelphia Orchestra. And they’re pitched right down the middle. I understand they want to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, but really? Is this what the orchestra now perceives as a music-filled summer?
But what are they going to do, say they know it isn’t much, but it’s what we’ve got, so enjoy it? Whoever wrote the press release probably wasn’t even born back when the orchestra really was offering a music-filled summer.
I hate to come across as the guy sitting in the back of his Rolls eating Grey Poupon out of the glove compartment, but time was when the orchestra used to play the Mann multiple nights a week (with the weekends reserved for popular bands). It looks like my description from last year (triggered by the death of André Watts) pretty much holds: “Now you’re lucky if they appear there three times in a summer, and then it’s usually to accompany a film or play the ‘1812 Overture.’”
Nobody had cell phones back in the day, either. But come to think of it, there always were some who treated the music as background to their inane picnic conversation. I guess people always were pretty much insufferable.
But in terms of the musical offerings, we never knew how good we had it. Or maybe we did, but we never thought it would go away.
It was a dreary day last Thursday, but a great pleasure to finally meet up with sportswriter Brad Wilson for the first time at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Brad’s beat is my old stomping grounds of the Lehigh Valley and across the river in Warren and Hunterdon Counties.
I wish I could say I derived as much pleasure from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s performance of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Sadly, as someone who loves this symphony very much and who has heard it performed many times, I thought Salonen really missed the ball on this one (I promise, my only sports analogy in this write-up). At no point did I feel moved or inspired, nor did I get any sense of the conductor’s understanding of the tectonic movement or spatial relationships in the piece. I didn’t think it possible not to be cheered by the opening “sunrise” of French horns and flutes, nor do I think I have ever heard the plangent woodwinds in the third movement (if we regard it as a four-movement symphony), like forlorn waterfowl, without them tugging at my heartstrings.
There should be a sense of mounting suspense, dread even, as the ground begins to shift into the inexorable accelerando between the first two movements (which are connected). Ideally, it should carry all the thrill and terror of the sublime, but here I did not sense that it was undertaken with any great care. Rather, like most of the performance, it was simply tossed off, blithely and unconvincingly.
Even in the magnificent last movement, it was like stuff just happened. In more satisfying performances (which is to say, probably just about every other performance I’ve ever heard), everything comes together in its rough-hewn way and conductors succeed in making it sound as if every component belongs, relates, and makes some kind of coherent sense. Despite his vast experience with this composer, Salonen did not – at least for me. Maybe it was just I who was having an off-night, but I did not like it, and nothing is as depressing as having a piece of music you love and know very well not take flight.
I hasten to add, I realize the performance may not have impressed everyone the same way. At the end of the six monolithic chords that bring the symphony to a close, people around me burst into wild applause and the guy in front of me actually whooped, even as it took everything in my power to conjure a golf-clap. I didn’t want it to come across as if I don’t love the composer or don’t appreciate the orchestra’s efforts. But Salonen. Oy vey. I don’t know what people want from their Sibelius, but I expect more.
I searched for some online reviews, to make sure I wasn’t taking crazy pills, and I came across this one in which every one of the reviewer’s impressions run counter to my own. The stuff he dismisses about the concert, I enjoyed, and the stuff I disliked, he lauded to Pohjola and back. Believe me, I would have settled for “majestic stateliness.”
If there was a Philadelphia Inquirer review, I could not find it and wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, unless forwarded to me, because it would be paywalled (and in any case probably mostly worthless).
It’s unusual for Philadelphia to program the same piece two years in a row, but they did so with the Sibelius 5th. Frankly, I thought Dalia Stasevska’s performance last year was head and shoulders over what I heard Thursday night – nimble, thrilling, and intelligently judged. Even Don Liuzzi was more electrifying on the timpani. This is not a reflection on his playing on Thursday, but a musician has to work within the overall design of a conductor’s interpretation, such that it is. Salonen’s brass had some good moments with the big tune (Sibelius’ “swan theme”) in the last movement, but nothing seemed to fit together or flow organically – unusual for a conductor of his experience with this most organic of composers – or, at the very least, generate some tension and release.
Salonen is often characterized as “a modernist.” I don’t care about that. The mature Sibelius is not exactly the most sentimental composer. I would be perfectly satisfied if he had allowed the architecture of the music to simply speak for itself. But it was as if he had no idea of its magnificent layout. Rather, it was like he was flipping through a magazine (Architectural Digest?) in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The performance, to me, just felt uninvolved, and by extension uninvolving. Maybe he’s just conducted it too many times.
Steven Stucky’s “Radical Light,” which opened the program, was also just kind of there. Salonen commissioned the work, back during his days as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to be included on a program between Sibelius’ 4th and 7th Symphonies. On Thursday, it just came off as a time-killer. Sure, it paid tribute to Sibelius by aping some of his mannerisms and textures, but I couldn’t help but think how much more satisfying it would have been had the concert just opened with the 7th Symphony or “Tapiola.”
The highlight of the evening was Salonen’s own “kínēma” (all lower case) for clarinet and orchestra, which even at 30 minutes I found engaging and wonderfully played. Ricardo Morales, the orchestra’s charismatic principal clarinet, was the soloist. I confess I was pleasantly surprised, as I own a few recordings of Salonen’s own music, and while I find it agreeable enough to just go with it if I’m in the right mood, this piece was by far the most immediately ingratiating of anything of his I have ever heard.
I want to make it clear that I don’t dislike Salonen, and I wish him all the best in conducting “Daphnis and Chloe” in Philadelphia this week. Even Pierre Boulez knew how to pull off a good performance of Ravel.
Likewise, none of this is intended as a reflection on Brad, who was kind enough to secure our tickets. He and I have enjoyed a kind of radio and Facebook messaging friendship for a good number of years now. His musical knowledge is vast and his tastes are diverse (ranging from Bach to Elliot Carter), and his observations and recommendations are always valued. From his comments that night, I gather he liked the Sibelius. I don’t have the gift of diplomacy, so I was hesitant to start in, knowing that whatever I had to say would likely blossom into a rant.
And what do I know? Salonen is Finnish (like the composer) and he has decades of experience interpreting this music. Me? I’m just a grouch. Maybe I should have eaten something closer to the start of the concert. But I love Sibelius and I love this symphony, and I have a pretty good idea of when somebody gets it right. Even Simon Rattle, with his bewildering obsession with whispered pianissimos, got it when he conducted it in Philly in 1999. Salonen was like Väinämöinen, the star-crossed wizard of the Kalevala, on one of his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
And dammit, the program notes were weak too!
This amused me: Dave Hurwitz’s recollection of three terrible concerts. Hurwitz can be an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, he’s like an amusing, outspoken friend. I agree with him that live music concerts, even at their worst, can be wonderful. Also that there can be a certain satisfaction to be found in tearing the bad ones apart.
I would have had this posted days ago, but I was interrupted by a phone call, like the poet Coleridge, distracted by a knock at the door in the middle of setting down the lines for “Kubla Khan,” which had come to him in a dream; and then when he returned, he found he couldn’t pick up the thread. However, unlike Coleridge, this humble review is unlikely to be included in anthologies of English literature in 200 years, even as society inevitably continues to deteriorate.
Last week, when writing my memorial to Norman Carol – longtime concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, who died on April 28 – I recollected reading an anecdote André Previn shared in his book “No Minor Chords” (Doubleday, 1991), an amusing memoir, largely about Previn’s experiences in Hollywood, where seemingly no one in charge knew anything about music (hence the mocking title, taken from a memo handed down by producer Irving Thalberg, “No music in an MGM film is to contain a minor chord”).
Previn was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1946 while still in high school. MGM was “looking for somebody who was talented, fast, and cheap and, because I was a kid, I was all three,” he mused. He worked as a session musician, arranger, and composer, cutting his teeth supplying cues for Lassie movies. He would go on to write music for 50 films, was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won four. In 1960, he received three nominations in a single year! But Previn never took the movie biz too seriously and eventually he left it all behind to pursue a career in classical music.
He was drafted into the military during the Korean War, and beginning in 1951, while stationed with the Sixth Army Band in San Francisco, he began conducting lessons with Pierre Monteux, then music director of the San Francisco Symphony. The particular passage I was thinking of is about the time he and Carol served together at the Presidio. I’ve been wanting to look it up, so this morning I finally took the book down from the shelf, and of course there’s no index. Thankfully, it’s a lean and entertaining 148 pages, so it didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for.
Sobering to think that both these gentlemen are gone now.
Beginning on page 47:
I made friends with Norman Carol, another musician stationed at the Presidio. He was even then a most remarkable violinist. Shortly after his discharge from the army he became concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, a distinguished position he has now held for thirty-odd years. But back in 1951, neither one of us could have laid claim to the adjective “distinguished” by the wildest stretch of the imagination. Whenever it was possible, we would commandeer a piano and play sonatas for our own pleasure, and I remember quite a few evenings at officers’ clubs, trying to make some Viennese bonbons audible over the hubbub.
Norman and I were summoned to appear at the office of the reigning two-star general one day. We absolutely could not figure out why. Our small transgressions of the rules were definitely not worthy of generals, and neither of us could come up with a reason to receive a medal. So we shined our boots, pressed our wrinkled ties, and polished our belt buckles, hoping that our smart appearance might lessen whatever blow was to be aimed at us. The general was feeling chatty. “I’m told you two can play the fiddle and the piano pretty good,” he said. “Well, in two weeks’ time there’s going to be a huge meeting of heads of state here in Frisco; Truman is coming, and so are the Russians, the English, the French, and everybody else. After the meetings are over, there’s gonna be a big blowout at the Palace Hotel, and I want you to play for a half hour or so. Understood?”
We nodded rapidly. Yes, we understood. We thank the general, sir. We’ll do our best, sir, yes indeed. We saluted and backed away from the desk, treading on each other’s feet and bumping into a map case. When we got to the door, the general said rather sharply, “Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. You mustn’t play anything recognizably national. Nothing American or Russian or French or English. Understood?”
We looked at one another. Obviously this request was both loony and impossible to fulfill. My misplaced compulsion for jokes surfaced. “If the general agrees,” I said winningly, “we could play a long Swiss medley.”
Not a blink, not a smile was forthcoming. That’ll be fine. See to it,” and the general turned away from us. Silently we went outside. Once we were on the street, Norman turned on me. “You moron,” he started, “you asshole, what are we going to do now? A Swiss medley, you jerk! Name me some Swiss composers except Bloch and Frank Martin! We’ll be court-martialed!”
I calmed him down. “Nobody’ll be listening, Norman,” I said with confidence, “and if by chance anyone does listen, what makes you think they’ll recognize the music? As it turned out, I was right. The ballroom of the Palace Hotel was live with bunting and flags, the guests were representative of the world’s power, and they were not interested in the two GIs on a small corner platform, assaying Brahms, Debussy, and Prokofiev. We ate a lot of very good food, drank a glass or two of wine, and ogled the great and powerful. Our general passed, retinue in tow. This was one night when he was outranked, but he was very scary to us. He gave us the briefest of glances and smiled a smile which never reached his eyes.
Even though I continue to attend the occasional Philadelphia Orchestra concert (most recently on April 11 to hear Mahler 7 and, coming up, Sibelius 5), for me the glory days of my attendance were from the mid-‘80s to the mid-‘90s, when I was there nearly every week, often standing in line for a couple of hours on a Friday or Saturday evening, with a cup of coffee and a friend or a book, in order to score a $2.00 seat in the amphitheater at the old Academy of Music. (The price was later raised to $2.50.) Norman Carol, therefore, will always be the Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster closest to my heart.
Carol joined the orchestra, at the invitation of Eugene Ormandy, in 1966. He served as concertmaster (succeeding Anshel Brusilow) under Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. His retirement in 1994, I remember, came ahead of his scheduled performance as soloist in Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, the piece with which he had made his Philadelphia solo debut decades earlier. As I recall, he had been playing through excruciating shoulder pain and he just couldn’t do it anymore.
In the years of my attendance, I was fortunate to hear Carol step up from his position as leader of the orchestra to solo in many concertos. One of the most memorable, for me, was that of Benjamin Britten, which, at the time, I had never heard before.
Prior to his position in Philadelphia, Carol had played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky (who extended the invitation to join when Carol was 17) and Charles Munch. He was concertmaster with the orchestra, when, under Leonard Bernstein, it gave the U.S. premiere of Britten’s “Peter Grimes” at Tanglewood in 1946.
Following service in the Korean War (André Previn relates playing with Carol and Chet Baker at the Presidio in his book “No Minor Chords”), he became concertmaster of the New Orleans Symphony and then the Minneapolis Symphony, under Antal Doráti and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Decades later, Carol would give the premiere of Skrowaczewski’s Violin Concerto in Philadelphia, as Skrowaczewski guest conducted.
As a student at the Curtis Institute, Carol was groomed for a solo career. He went on to record an early recital for RCA. Later, of course, he played solo violin passages on all the Philadelphia Orchestra recordings from the time he joined the group, including Ormandy’s later recordings of “Ein Heldenleben” and “Scheherazade.”
After his retirement, he continued to perform and record with the Philadelphia Piano Quartet. He also taught orchestral repertoire at Curtis. (He was on the Curtis faculty for some 40 years.) His violin, a 1743 Guarneri “del Gesù,” formerly belonged to Albert Spalding. Spalding gave the first public performances of Barber’s Violin Concerto in Philadelphia in 1941.
Carol was old school, tuning the orchestra in evening dress, his wavy hair impeccably Brylled, seemingly unflappable in his reserve. But when he played, he played like the principal of one of the greatest orchestras in the land. I knew him neither as a man nor behind the scenes, but only from my vantage in the appreciative audience. He embodied the traditions of a fabled era. His like will not come again.
Carol, who was born in Philadelphia, died on Sunday at the age of 95. R.I.P.
Carol plays the Nielsen Violin Concerto
Big band Telemann
1958 recorded recital with Julius Levine
Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” featuring solos by Carol, violist Joseph De Pasquale, and cellist Samuel Mayes
With Robert Moran last night for Mahler 7 with The Philadelphia Orchestra, at the recently-rechristened Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Bob likes to get there early and, last night anyway, sit close, so here we are, all alone, in our “box” in the third tier, like Statler and Waldorf, overlooking the stage and waiting for the auditorium to fill. The vantage is not my preference, but it is within my price range, and – pleasant surprise – the sound did not suffer at all for it. The orchestra performed magnificently under its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, but the brass players, in particular, must have had their super-serum. Everything was so immediate, which in my experience has not always been the case in this hall. Of course, Mahler, he does write big.
The 7th has fun, outlandish touches in the orchestration, including parts for acoustic guitar, mandolin, and cowbells, for the pastoral “Nachtmusik” movements (there are two of them framing a central scherzo in a five-movement structure, which is why you will sometimes hear the work referred to as “Song of the Night”), and enormous, pendulous chimes for the rousing finale.
The crowd, which included many young people, a number of whom looked like they were bused in together as part of a sizeable group, roared its approval, and a smiling Yannick, who looked all the world like a diminutive angel on the podium, as I gazed down on his blond hair, went from section to section to genuflect before all the principals. Percussionist Don Liuzzi was clearly an audience favorite for his thrilling mastery of the timpani.
The orchestra will take its act to Carnegie Hall tonight at 8:00, but will return to Philly for two more performances, Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 2:00. You may not think that the 7th is anyone’s favorite Mahler, but if the orchestra plays with the energy and commitment it did last night, you could change your mind.
